China watching, waiting for progress at Hanoi Summit

Lu Chao, a North Korea expert at the Liaoning Academy of Social Sciences, said there was nothing strange about Kim’s travel arrangements.

“This is just one of his choices of transportation,” Lu said. “And perhaps since he is traveling all the way from the north to south of China, across all of China, it might give him an opportunity along the way to see different parts of the country.”

He said that while there was speculation that Kim might stop in Beijing on his way to Hanoi, there was no need for that as Kim and China’s President Xi Jinping met in early January and had in-depth talks about the Hanoi summit.

“Perhaps after the meetings in Hanoi, on his way back through China, Kim will deliver a short report to China’s leader,” Lu said.

Lips and teeth again

Lu added that such close communication was a long-established tradition between the two countries. The relationship between China and North Korea has often been described as being as close as lips and teeth, but for the first five years while Xi Jinping was in office, some felt the relationship had had its teeth knocked out.

China joined other nations in sanctioning Pyongyang in response to its repeated missile and nuclear tests and it wasn’t until March of last year that Xi Jinping met with Kim for the first time. Since then, they have met on multiple occasions for extended periods of time, noted Alexander Neill, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Singapore.

“China as North Korea’s only ostensible ally, China wants to be seen as the key stakeholder in this whole initiative, Neill said.

Now, Beijing is choreographing the relationship as something that is more than just tentative, he said.

“I think Xi Jinping, quite fairly, wants to be seen not only as an arbitrator, but perhaps someone who has been proactive in initiating this sort of a dialogue,” he said.