Kim Jong Un is showing partnership with Moscow and Beijing to counter security cooperation between Washington, Seoul and Tokyo.
North Korea invited Chinese delegates and Russian performers to a paramilitary parade to demonstrate its ties with Moscow and Beijing amid rising tensions with Washington, state media reported Saturday.
Analysts say Kim’s display of his daughter is meant to tell the world he will not give up nuclear weapons and missiles, the strongest guarantee of North Korea’s future.
South Korean media have suggested that the absence of representatives of the Russian government at the celebrations in Pyongyang may be due to preparations for the summit of Kim and Putin. According to some data from the United States, the meeting may take place as early as next week.
Putin will take part in the international forum in Vladivostok. The Russian and North Korean leaders have already met in this Russian eastern city in 2019.
South Korea’s spy agency reported that North Korea and Russia might also arrange an “unexpected” route for Kim’s visit to avoid potential meeting places mentioned by the media.
North Korea has not yet confirmed the leader’s plans to visit Russia.
Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul, said the US might try to influence subsequent events.
“Whether or not a Putin-Kim summit soon follows, the United States is attempting to deter serious violations of international law by preemptively releasing intelligence.”
KCNA informed that Kim received letters from Putin and Xi Jinping, in which both rulers stated that strengthening ties with North Korea would contribute to peace and stability in the region.
State media reported that the leader also met with Liu and other Chinese delegates before the parade. At the meeting, they discussed further intensification of multifaceted coordination and cooperation between the countries.
In recent years, tensions on the Korean peninsula have reached a critical point. This is indicated by an increase in the pace of North Korea’s missile tests and joint US military exercises with South Korea and Japan.
North Korea’s leader is seeking to make the country part of a united front against the United States.
In July, Kim invited delegations led by Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chinese Communist Party Politburo member Li Hongzhong to a military parade held in Pyongyang. There he plans to display his most powerful weapons, including intercontinental ballistic missiles designed to destroy the US mainland.
The day before the parade, Kim showed Shoigu an exhibition of domestic weapons, which only fueled global concerns that North Korea was planning to supply weapons to Russia.
Military analysts say that in exchange for providing Russia with artillery shells and other ammunition, North Korea could seek energy and food aid, as well as advanced weapons technology, in the future.
Experts also fear that the potential transfer of Russian technology would increase the threat posed by Kim’s growing arsenal of nuclear weapons and missiles designed to target the United States and its Asian allies.
