Kim’s not-so-secret assignation in Beijing

Kim Jong-un has met Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing, the first time he has risked leaving North Korea in over six years.

Kim Jong-un. Picture: AFP.

Kim Jong-un has almost certainly met Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing — the first time he has risked leaving North Korea since becoming “Supreme Leader” more than six years ago.

The visit — timed to follow the successful conclusion for Mr Xi of China’s annual National People’s Congress session in Beijing — has ensured that China is inserted into the heart of the process of engagement with North Korea, well before Kim meets US President Donald Trump for a historic summit due by May.

The countries are each others’ only formal allies, although ties have become frayed — with China backing UN sanctions, opposing North Korean nuclearisation, and with Mr Xi holding talks with South Korea’s leaders several times without ever meeting Kim.

There were many reports of a 21-carriage armoured train, green with a yellow stripe — the same as Kim’s father, Kim Jong-il, used for several visits to China — crossing the border and arriving in Beijing late on Monday afternoon, surrounded by security. It left yesterday afternoon.

Kim Jong-il’s visits were not confirmed until after his return to Pyongyang — to minimise the risk of a coup in his absence — and the same was expected this time.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said she did not know whether the North Korean ruler was visiting China. Chinese media were instructed not to report stories on the visit from North Korea.

Today’s Kim, widely known in China as “Jin San Pang” — “Fatty Kim III” — appears to have spent Monday night at Diaoyutai, the state guesthouse. Chinese authorities told residents whose homes face the vast estate in western Beijing to draw the curtains on windows facing Diaoyutai and banned them looking out the windows.

A mobile phone video clip showed a long motorcade of official vehicles — including cars with armed police, limousines with tinted glass windows, motorcycle outriders and an ambulance — entering the guesthouse on Monday night.

The special train crossed the Yalu River that divides the countries at the Friendship Bridge at the centre of China’s border city of Dandong — where hotels told guests they were unable to take rooms facing the railway line. A security fence was erected alongside the line and Dandong station was surrounded with banners that prevented passers-by looking in.

Road blocks were set up around Dandong station on Sunday. Hundreds of trains were delayed as the North Korean train made its way through northeast China to Beijing, an 1100km journey that takes regular trains 14 hours.

When a motorcade with police motorcycle outriders left the station where the train arrived in Beijing, the roads it took were closed, causing massive traffic jams late on the working day.

Tiananmen Square was also closed late on Monday. That night a motorcade was seen heading away from the Great Hall towards the Diaoyutai guesthouse.

Taiwanese media reported yesterday that a week ago the Chinese Foreign Ministry hosted a rare meeting with all the senior North Korean diplomats in Beijing.

An embassy official was reported to have smiled but declined to answer when asked by a journalist whether Kim was visiting Beijing.

Kim is also scheduled to meet South Korean President Moon Jae-in, following the tentative detente that led to a joint team at the Winter Olympic Games in Pyeong­Chang last month.

Scott Snyder, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in the US, said a visit by Kim to Beijing “would reflect China’s effort to get back into the game”. “Xi would not tolerate being third in line to meet Kim,” he told Reuters.

The train used by Kim Jong-il for his official visits to China.

An editorial in Global Times on Friday with apparent foresight dismissed concerns of China “being marginalised” in the peace process, saying Beijing need not be concerned about Pyongyang “turning to the US.”

Independent Beijing scholar Rong Jian said: “North Korea wants to relieve the great economic difficulties caused by sanctions, while China wants to dominate Korean peninsula affairs again.”

He predicted the result would be that at least “the minimum aim” on North Korean nuclearisation, a freeze at its current capacity, would be achieved through the current flurry of summits.

Kim, whose age is estimated at between 34 and 36, was educated in Switzerland and has travelled fairly widely internationally, including by air, but is not known to have ventured abroad at all since succeeding his father in 2011.