China Rebuffs Kim Jong Un With One-Day Dandong Visit — SkimNews
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- Kim Jong Un sought an APEC meeting with Xi Jinping in Shenzhen, slated for Nov. 18-19, to secure Chinese mediation for another U.S.-North Korea summit after Vladimir Putin’s mediation produced few breakthroughs.
- China declined Kim’s requested summit in Beijing and limited his trip to a single day in Dandong; the proposed dates overlapped the Chinese Communist Party’s Oct. 26-29 plenum and came three and a half months after Xi’s June visit to Pyongyang.
- Donald Trump showed little immediate appetite for another summit, maintaining that Kim first had to accept Seoul’s outreach and commit to denuclearization, with the Nov. 3 U.S. midterms approaching.
- North Korea laid landmines inside the two-kilometer Military Demarcation Line buffer, deployed troops to Ukraine and displayed Hwasong-11-type hypersonic missile and glide-vehicle models, deepening Beijing’s exasperation.
- Wang Huning, the Chinese Communist Party’s fourth-ranking official and Xi’s chief ideologue, greeted, conferred with and dined with Kim before escorting him to the New Yalu River Bridge, rather than Premier Li Chang handling the reception.
- Kim Jong Un laid a wreath at the Memorial Tower of the Chinese People’s Volunteers of the Korean War, which the source says directly conflicted with the fragile U.S.-China tactical truce after Xi and Trump’s Sept. 25 Washington meeting.
- Dandong bus manufacturing plant hosted Kim, which the source presents as a calculated call for economic integration under North Korea’s “20 x 10 Regional Development Policy,” rather than military hardware.
Why it matters: Keeping Kim to one day in Dandong instead of a Shenzhen meeting on Nov. 18-19 denied Pyongyang the high-level channel it sought to revive U.S.-North Korea talks. With Trump said to require denuclearization and engagement with Seoul first, Kim also left without the Chinese mediation he requested.
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