North Korea's Kim in China ahead of massive military parade
BEIJING
Thousands of troops will march in a huge military parade in Beijing on Wednesday to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the defeat of Japan and the end of World War II.
Thousands of troops will march in a huge military parade in Beijing on Wednesday to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the defeat of Japan and the end of World War II.
'Axis of autocracies'
The leaders of North Korea, Russia and Iran will join China's President Xi Jinping at the event, a grouping labelled the "axis of autocracies" by some Western commentators.
It is North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's first visit to China since 2019, and the first time he will appear in public with Xi and Russia's Vladimir Putin together.
All eyes will be on the seating arrangements of Xi, Putin and Kim and how they interact with each other in a photo opportunity likely to be highly choreographed.
The attendee list "underscores China's role as the world's leading authoritarian power", the Asia Society's Neil Thomas wrote on X.
Most Western leaders will stay away, but Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico and Serbia's President Aleksandar Vucic will attend.
Both are close to Putin and broke ranks with the European Union to visit Russia for its Victory Day parade in May.
"China is looking to signal its closeness to its global south partners and countries that are non-Western and, in some cases, anti-Western," historian Rana Mitter told AFP.
"But I don't think there is likely to be any statement of support directly for Russia's war in Ukraine."
The North Korean leader's special train passed into China early Tuesday, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported, citing the North's state-run radio service, KCBC.
Photos released by the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on Tuesday showed Kim smoking a cigarette outside his racing green train with foreign minister Choe Son Hui and close aide Jo Yong Won.
Another pictured Kim grinning inside his lavish, wood-lined train carriage in front of a North Korean flag and national emblem.
Both images were taken on Monday, according to KCNA.
Kim's appearance in China "formalises the China-Russia-North Korea trilateral (relationship) to the public", Soo Kim, a geopolitical risk consultant and former CIA analyst, told AFP.
Kim enjoyed a brief bout of high-profile international diplomacy from around 2018, meeting US President Donald Trump and then South Korean president Moon Jae-in multiple times.
But he withdrew from the global scene after the collapse of a summit with Trump in Hanoi, Vietnam, in 2019.
Kim stayed in North Korea throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, but met Putin in Russia's far east in 2023.
Flags, flowers and fanfare
Security around Beijing has tightened in recent days and weeks, with road closures, military personnel stationed on bridges and street corners, and miles upon miles of white barriers lining the capital's wide boulevards.
Art installations with flowers, doves and an emblem showing the Great Wall of China with "1945-2025" have cropped up around the city, and on Tuesday morning Chinese flags flew in residential neighbourhoods.
Officials have been tight-lipped over the list of hardware to be displayed at the parade, but military enthusiasts have already spotted significant new systems, including what is rumoured to be a gigantic laser weapon.
Wednesday's event caps a bumper week of diplomacy for President Xi, who on Sunday and Monday hosted a slew of Eurasian leaders for a summit in the northern port city of Tianjin aimed at putting China front and centre of regional relations.
The club of 10 countries -- named the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) -- touts itself as a non-Western style of collaboration in the region and seeks to be an alternative to traditional alliances.
During the summit, Xi slammed "bullying behaviour" from certain countries -- a veiled reference to the United States -- while Putin defended Russia's Ukraine offensive, blaming the West for triggering the conflict.
Many of the guests from the Tianjin gathering, including Putin, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko and several other leaders will join Xi and Kim for the parade in Beijing.
