Beijing, September 3: Chinese President Xi Jinping will host Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Beijing this week, a rare trilateral meeting that analysts say underscores deepening ties among states challenging the Western-led global order.
The summit comes after Moscow and Pyongyang signed a mutual defence pact in June 2024 and follows Beijing’s own alliance with North Korea, fuelling speculation of a new axis that could reshape the military balance in the Asia-Pacific region.
“We must continue to take a clear stand against hegemonism and power politics and practice true multilateralism,” Xi said on Monday, in remarks widely seen as aimed at the United States.
The gathering, scheduled ahead of a massive Sept. 3 military parade to mark the end of World War Two, follows a Tianjin summit where Xi and Putin pitched their vision for a new global security and economic order to more than 20 non-Western leaders.
The trilateral talks come as U.S. President Donald Trump, who has positioned himself as a peacemaker, seeks to revive negotiations with Kim and points to a Ukraine peace summit he hosted with Putin in Alaska earlier this year. Trump has also floated his candidacy for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Analysts say the Beijing meeting highlights the risks of a deeper military partnership. “Trilateral military exercises between Russia, China and North Korea seem nearly inevitable,” Youngjun Kim of the U.S.-based National Bureau of Asian Research said in March.
North Korea has already deployed more than 15,000 troops to fight alongside Russia in Ukraine, with about 600 casualties reported in the Kursk region, according to South Korea’s intelligence agency. Further deployments are expected. Kim, who hosted Putin in Pyongyang last year in the first such summit in 24 years, has sought to ease his international isolation by reducing dependence on Beijing.
Putin has continued to push for what he calls a “fair balance in the security sphere,” a demand for curbing NATO’s role in Europe. His visit to Beijing, alongside Kim, may provide clues about Russia’s broader strategy. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian is also expected to attend Wednesday’s parade, which Western analysts have dubbed a show of defiance by an emerging “Axis of Upheaval.”
