North Korean leader Kim Jong Un crossed the New Yalu River Bridge, open just nine days, to Dandong in Liaoning on October 24, held talks with CPPCC chairman Wang Huning and left the same day. Xinhua confirmed the visit, but Chinese reports did not mention Premier Li Qiang, and claims that it was groundwork for a meeting with President Trump remain unconfirmed.
According to South Korea's Kyunghyang Shinmun, Kim arrived in Dandong on the afternoon of October 24 over the New Yalu River Bridge, as South Korean government sources had said. Seoul's Unification Ministry said he took a train from Pyongyang to Sinuiju and then crossed the bridge in his own car. It is his first China visit in one year and one month, since he attended the Beijing Victory Day parade in September 2025.
광고 문의 · 300×250Xinhua officially confirmed the trip that evening. Earlier, traffic and hotels in Dandong had been restricted, prompting speculation about a senior North Korean visitor, and the appearance drew extra attention amid online rumors of Kim's death. North Korea's KCNA reported the same day that Kim presided over a company commanders' conference in Pyongyang on October 22 and 23; Kyunghyang found no KCNA report of the Dandong trip.
Talks with Wang Huning and the messages from each side
Combining Xinhua, CCTV and Taiwan's Central News Agency, Wang Huning, a Politburo Standing Committee member and CPPCC chairman, greeted Kim at the square of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea memorial hall. They laid a flower basket at the Chinese People's Volunteers memorial tower and toured the hall, where Kim donated historical photos bearing his handwritten inscription. In the afternoon they visited a car factory in Dandong, and Wang saw Kim off at the New Yalu River Bridge.
Wang said the visit came at the 76th anniversary of the Chinese volunteers entering the Korean War and showed the North Korean party and government value bilateral friendship. He said the reciprocal visits by Xi Jinping and Kim last September and this June had moved ties into a ‘new historical period’, and urged using the bridge opening to expand people-to-people exchange and economic and trade cooperation. CNA reported that he also conveyed Xi's greetings.
Kim asked Wang to pass his greetings to Xi and said he came to honor the Chinese volunteers who died helping North Korea and to express gratitude. Kyunghyang reported that he thanked China for long-standing support of North Korea's socialist cause and praised China's development under Xi. He also noted this year is the 65th anniversary of the friendship treaty and said he wants practical cooperation that benefits both peoples.
Li Qiang meeting in question and a same-day itinerary
Yoon Kun-young, the ruling party's secretary on South Korea's National Assembly intelligence committee, told Kyunghyang that a Kim–Li Qiang meeting was ‘being confirmed’. Some South Korean outlets reported that Li received Kim in Dandong, but the Xinhua account compiled by CNA mentions no talks with Li or Xi. A Li Qiang meeting is therefore only Seoul's account with no Chinese confirmation, and Xi was reportedly not in Dandong.
The schedule was effectively a day trip. Yoon predicted Kim would return that day, and Yonhap called it a ‘flash visit’. Taiwan's United Daily News, Liberty Times and CNA reported that Kim ended the China trip on the 25th. A Shanghai professor told Kyunghyang that Chinese media initially did not report it, suggesting an unofficial character.
The Trump-meeting groundwork theory and divided analysis
Korean experts compiled by Kyunghyang fall into two broad camps. Lim Eul-chul of Kyungnam University's Institute for Far Eastern Studies saw an event reaffirming the ‘blood alliance’ at the memorial hall, likely yielding only symbolic results if it was a day trip. Yang Moo-jin, former president of the University of North Korean Studies, said Kim may be asking China to speed up what was agreed when Xi visited Pyongyang, and could be lining up Chinese support ahead of a possible contact with Trump at next month's APEC in Shenzhen.
Hong Min of the Korea Institute for National Unification said a one-on-one with Xi in Beijing or Shenzhen would signal preparation for a US–North Korea summit, whereas attending only a ceremony would mean conditions are not yet ripe. On the Seoul government side, Yoon said the trip has two aspects: a positive signal ahead of a US summit and a China–North Korea event around the bridge opening. It was reported that Trump has mentioned possibly meeting Kim during a Shenzhen visit, but neither the White House nor Pyongyang has officially confirmed such a plan.
From a third perspective, the meeting is a variable in US–China relations as well as a bilateral matter. Beijing's foreign ministry has framed expanded exchanges with Pyongyang as normal development of bilateral ties, and Chinese reports presented this visit only as commemoration of the Korean War intervention and friendship. Seoul hopes for US–North Korea dialogue while watching the effect of closer China–North Korea ties on sanctions enforcement, and no specific official US reaction has been seen. One reading is that China is uneasy about being seen as Pyongyang's patron yet wants the North Korea card in talks with Washington; another is that North Korea is widening ties with Russia and the US to reduce dependence on China.
The substance of the trip will become clear from what follows: whether Kim makes a follow-up visit to Beijing or has contact around the Shenzhen APEC, and how quickly freight and tourism over the New Yalu River Bridge normalize. For now only friendly remarks and a principle of expanding economic cooperation have been made public, and no specific agreement has been confirmed.
