China's Premier Li Qiang to visit North Korea in highest-level visit since 2019
Chinese Premier Li Qiang attends the 80th United Nations General Assembly at UN headquarters in New York City, Sep 26, 2025. (File photo: Reuters/Jeenah Moon)
BEIJING: China's premier will pay an official visit to North Korea this week, Beijing said on Tuesday (Oct 7), announcing the highest-level visit by a Chinese leader since 2019.
Despite periods of strained ties between China and North Korea over Pyongyang's nuclear programme, the neighbours have maintained a close relationship in recent years.
Li Qiang, China's highest-ranking leader after President Xi Jinping, will lead a government delegation from Thursday to Saturday to attend events marking the 80th anniversary of the founding of North Korea's ruling party, China's foreign ministry said.
South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported last week that the North appears to be preparing for a large-scale military parade to mark the party's anniversary.
During a meeting in Beijing late last month, China's top diplomat Wang Yi called on his North Korean counterpart to strengthen the partnership.
Just weeks before, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un paid a rare visit to the capital city, where he stood alongside Xi at a parade commemorating the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II.
Xi’s last visit to North Korea was in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic.
China has long been the North Korean government's most important ally and source of support, though Kim has sought to balance that in recent years by building ties with Russia. He has sent troops to help Moscow in its war against Ukraine.
Russia is sending former president Dmitri Medvedev to this week’s anniversary celebrations, North Korea’s official KCNA news agency said Monday.
The statement from China's foreign ministry called China and North Korea “traditional friends and neighbors" and said it is “an unswerving strategic policy” of Beijing and the ruling Communist Party “to maintain, consolidate and develop” relations with North Korea.
Li is one of seven members of the Politburo, the apex of power in China. He has been representing China on more foreign trips as 72-year-old Xi curtails his travel schedule.
Vietnam's top leader, To Lam, will also visit North Korea this week for the anniversary celebrations, the country's government announced on Monday. He is general secretary of the Communist Party, the same leadership position held by Xi in China and Kim in North Korea's Workers' Party.
It will be the first visit by a Vietnamese leader to North Korea since 2007, Vietnamese state media said.
The president of Laos, Thongloun Sisoulith, will also attend, KCNA said last week. He is general secretary of the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party.
High-level contacts between China and North Korea have picked up since last year. Zhao Leji, another Politburo member, travelled to North Korea in April and met Kim in the capital, Pyongyang. Kim visited China last month, joining Russian President Vladimir Putin and others at a Chinese military parade in Beijing.
