Historic Xi-Kim meeting is key to regional peace

Kim Jong-un's visit to Beijing this week, at the invitation of President Xi Jinping, shows that China and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea are maintaining close communication at what is "a special time", and it was thus of great significance.

With the DPRK leader due to have summits with the leaders of the Republic of Korea and the United States in the next two months, it is only natural that Xi and Kim should want to compare notes. Suggestions that Beijing had been sidelined by Pyongyang's approaches to Seoul and Washington were always unfounded given the two countries' long-standing friendship, which was forged in the crucible of war.

"There was no question that my first foreign visit would be to the Chinese capital," Kim was quoted as saying by the DPRK's official news agency KCNA.