China Rebuffs Kim’s Bid for a U.S. Summit — SkimNews
Get the Geopolitics newsletter
Daily geopolitics — wars, elections, sanctions, the diplomatic moves that move markets. Free.
- Kim Jong Un reportedly sought an APEC meeting with Xi Jinping in Shenzhen on November 18-19 to secure Beijing’s help for another U.S.-North Korea summit after Putin’s mediation of future talks yielded few breakthroughs.
- China truncated Kim’s requested Beijing visit to a single day in Dandong, sent Wang Huning rather than the No. 2-ranking premier to receive and dine with him, and had Wang escort him across the New Yalu River Bridge; the analysis presents the protocol as a pointed rebuke.
- Trump showed little immediate appetite for another summit: the U.S. required Kim to accept Seoul’s outreach and commit to denuclearization before a high-level meeting, while priorities ahead of the November 3 midterms included South Korean manufacturing investment, naval shipyard partnerships and allied air defense in the Middle East.
- North Korea laid landmines inside the two-kilometer buffer zone of the Military Demarcation Line, deployed troops to Ukraine, displayed Hwasong-11-type hypersonic glide vehicles modeled on Chinese designs, and pursued an 8,000-ton nuclear submarine reportedly aided by Russian reactor technology.
- South Korea responded to the submarine project by partnering with the United States on 5,000-ton nuclear-powered attack submarines; Global Times called Seoul’s SSN ambitions “unrealistic” last May.
- Xi Jinping had expected North Korea to support Beijing’s “New International Order for the New Era,” and the analysis says Pyongyang’s pivot toward Moscow disappointed him; Kim’s requested dates also overlapped the Fifth Plenary Session of the CCP’s 20th Central Committee on October 26-29, just three and a half months after Xi’s June Pyongyang visit.
- Kim Jong Un laid a wreath at the Korean War memorial and toured a Dandong bus-manufacturing plant; the analysis calls the memorial stop ill-timed after the September 25 Xi-Trump agreement and reads the factory tour as a call for economic integration over military hardware.
Why it matters: China’s one-day Dandong itinerary makes economic integration, rather than military hardware, the explicit priority for Kim Jong Un. The contrast has a concrete regional consequence: North Korea’s pursuit of an 8,000-ton nuclear submarine prompted South Korea and the United States to pursue 5,000-ton attack submarines.
Ask SkimNews
