Xi’s first overseas trips in recent years have often carried diplomatic signals.
In 2023, Xi chose Moscow as his first foreign trip after being re-elected as Chinese president.
In 2024, he began overseas travel to Europe, with stops in France, Serbia and Hungary.
In 2025, he travelled to Southeast Asia, visiting Vietnam, Malaysia and Cambodia.
If North Korea becomes his first foreign destination this year, it would stand out as a pointed choice, experts said.
Lim Tai Wei, an East Asian affairs observer and professor at Soka University in Tokyo, said any trip would carry added significance because Xi would be making it at a time when he has not been travelling abroad.
“North Korea is China’s only official ally,” Lim said, adding that such a visit would carry “symbolic importance” in Northeast Asia’s high-context political culture.
RECALIBRATING TIES
The challenge for Beijing is not simply whether North Korea is close to China, but how close it moves to Russia – and whether that leaves China with less room to shape Pyongyang’s choices, analysts said.
Russia-North Korea ties have deepened sharply since Putin and Kim signed a comprehensive strategic partnership treaty in Pyongyang in June 2024 – pledging military and other assistance if either side is attacked.
North Korea has also sent troops and weapons to support Russia’s war against Ukraine, while both sides have moved to expand transport and economic links across their shared border.
China does not necessarily view deeper Russia-North Korea ties primarily as a problem, given the strategic value of a loose counteralignment against tighter US-South Korea-Japan coordination, said NCAFP’s Hao.
But it also does not mean Beijing wants a formal bloc, he said.
“China does not want to formalise this into a rigid ‘axis’ because that would help Washington consolidate its alliances and accelerate Japan’s military normalisation and further constrain the US-China negotiation space,” Hao said.
For China, the issue is calibration, he added.
“North Korea should remain strategically useful, but not become uncontrollable or overly dependent on Moscow.”
