North Korean leader Kim Jong-un made a surprise one-day visit to China on Oct. 24, meeting senior Chinese official Wang Huning in the border city of Dandong and pledging to strengthen the countries’ long-standing relationship. The trip was Kim’s first known visit to China since September 2025 and his sixth since taking power in 2011.
Kim was accompanied by senior North Korean officials including Workers’ Party official Jo Yong-won, Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui and Kim Yo-jong. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi also attended. Wang Huning, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and a member of China’s top leadership, conveyed President Xi Jinping’s greetings to Kim.
Kim laid flowers at a memorial honoring Chinese forces that fought alongside North Korea in the 1950-53 Korean War and visited a related museum. He said North Korea would remember China’s wartime sacrifice and continue advancing the friendship between the two countries. Wang said China wanted to expand political trust, people-to-people exchanges, economic cooperation and trade after the opening of a new cross-border bridge.
Kim and Wang also toured an automobile factory in Dandong before Wang saw Kim off at the New Yalu River Bridge.
The bridge is intended to support heavier two-way traffic, including container shipments and cargo trucks, and reduce pressure on an older crossing that handles most official trade between the two countries. The visit followed a period in which North Korea deepened military and economic ties with Russia, while China remained its principal economic partner. Xi visited Pyongyang in June, when the two governments pledged broader cooperation in trade, agriculture, construction and technology.
Kim’s Dandong trip came before next month’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in China, which U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to attend. There was no reported meeting between Kim and Xi, and no confirmed indication that the visit produced discussions about regional security or renewed North Korea-U.S. Its public schedule instead centered on wartime history, senior-level greetings, industrial cooperation and the newly opened bridge, presenting the relationship with China as a central diplomatic and economic channel for Pyongyang.