China's foreign minister to visit North Korea to bolster loosened ties

BEIJING, April 8 (Reuters) - China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi will visit North Korea this week, his ministry said on Wednesday, signalling efforts by the East Asian neighbours to revitalise ties that chilled after the COVID‑19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Wang's last publicly known visit to North Korea as China's foreign minister was in late 2019, following reciprocal visits by the two countries' top leaders earlier that year.

"China is willing to strengthen strategic communication with North Korea and enhance exchanges and cooperation," a Chinese ministry spokesperson, Mao Ning, said during a regular press conference.

She called Wang's upcoming visit—scheduled over April 9 to 10—"an important move to advance bilateral ties."

Beijing has worked to draw Pyongyang back into its orbit, after the COVID‑19 pandemic froze exchanges and as North Korean leader Kim Jong Un shored up relations with Moscow, sending troops and weapons in support of Russia's war efforts in Ukraine.

Passenger train service between Beijing and Pyongyang resumed in March after being suspended for six years since the onset of ​the pandemic in 2020.

China's flag carrier Air China has also restarted flights between the two capitals. However, the reopened links have not benefited Chinese tourists so far, with bookings available only for some business travellers and exchange students.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un travelled to Beijing in September on board an armoured train to join Russian President Vladimir Putin and other leaders for a massive military parade in the Chinese capital, where Kim met with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

That meeting was followed by a visit to Pyongyang in October by China's No.2 official, Premier Li Qiang.

"Preserving, consolidating, and developing China-DPRK relations has always been an unwavering strategic policy of the party and government of China," Mao said on Wednesday.

US SUMMIT

Wang's Pyongyang visit also comes ahead of an expected summit between Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump next month. Coordination between North Korea and China could take place before the China-U.S. summit, South Korea's Yonhap news agency said on Wednesday.

Trump has repeatedly expressed interest in resuming direct talks with the North Korean leader in his second term, but no meeting has materialised.

North Korea analysts have been watching the possibility of a fourth meeting between Trump and Kim after they met three times during Trump's first term, most recently in 2019.

In February, Kim said there is "no reason" North Korea and the United States cannot "get along well" if Washington recognises North Korea as a nuclear-armed state and abandons its "hostile" policy against Pyongyang.

Subsequent state media messages have refrained from overtly criticising Trump.