Kim Jong-un’s decision to attend China’s Sept. 3 military parade commemorating the 80th anniversary of its World War II victory marks a sharp break with his family’s long-standing diplomatic reticence.
Neither his father, Kim Jong-il, nor his grandfather, after the mid-1980s, appeared at large-scale multilateral events. For the first time in 45 years, a Kim dynasty leader will stand alongside foreign heads of state—this time with Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin.
Chinese President Xi Jinping, right, and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un arrive at Rungrado 1st of May Stadium to attend a mass gymnastics performance during Xi’s state visit in June 2019, as crowds cheer./Xinhua-Yonhap
Analysts read the move as calculation rather than spectacle. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Pyongyang has relied on Moscow for critical support, sending artillery shells and even manpower in return for oil, food, and sensitive technologies. That partnership emboldened North Korea. But with ceasefire negotiations now underway, the regime appears to be hedging.
“Once Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin began exploring a settlement, Pyongyang had to prepare for what follows,” observed Cheong Seong-chang of the Sejong Institute. Yang Moo-jin of the University of North Korean Studies added: “If Russia turns back to Europe after the conflict, North Korea cannot afford to be left exposed. China will once again have to be its main backer.”
The arithmetic is unambiguous: more than 90 percent of North Korea’s trade flows through China. However useful Moscow has been, only Beijing can sustain Pyongyang’s fragile economy. With major anniversaries approaching—not least the October commemoration of the Workers’ Party’s 80th founding—Kim needs Chinese aid to project an image of resilience at home.
Beijing and Moscow, for their part, also have incentives. As Washington, Seoul, and Tokyo deepen trilateral security cooperation, China and Russia are tightening their own coordination, using institutions such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which convenes in late August and early September. Kim’s presence in Beijing signals his willingness to join the optics of a nascent anti-Western bloc. Russia’s embassy in Pyongyang was explicit, hailing the parade as proof that Moscow, Beijing, and Pyongyang are “ready to build a new international order.”
Sohn Yul, president of the East Asia Institute, noted that “as the U.S.–South Korea–Japan trilateral framework takes clearer shape, and President Lee Jae-myung moves away from the old formula of ‘security with the United States, economy with China,’ Beijing has grown uneasy.”
North Korean leader Kim Il-sung, second from right, watches a military parade from Tiananmen Gate in Beijing with Chinese President Mao Zedong, right, during celebrations marking the fifth anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China on Oct. 1, 1954. Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev and other foreign dignitaries also attended./Beijing Times archives
Kim’s turn toward multilateralism underscores a generational shift. Kim Il-sung frequently mingled with Mao Zedong, Nikita Khrushchev, and Ho Chi Minh at parades in Beijing and Moscow, even traveling to Tito’s Yugoslavia in 1980. But after a near-crash of his aircraft en route to Zimbabwe in 1986, the dynasty recoiled from such gatherings. Kim Jong-il went further, eschewing global summits entirely and traveling abroad only in secrecy.
Kim Jong-un has gradually broken that mold. He announced summit plans with Putin in advance, publicized calls with the Kremlin, and sought to present diplomacy less as covert maneuver than as routine statecraft. His appearance in Beijing will allow him to project the image of a “normal” head of state, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with two of the world’s most powerful autocrats.
Doo Jin-ho of the Korea Research Institute for National Strategy noted, “Pyongyang’s participation in forums such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization may no longer be unthinkable.”
Story by Kim Dong-ha, Park Su-hyeon
