Kim Jong one to join Putin and other leaders of the Chinese military parade

North Korea, Kim Jong Un, will attend a military parade in Beijing next week alongside Russia Vladimir Putin, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in what will be a historic visit.

This occurs a few days after US President Donald Trump said he wanted to meet Kim who rarely made foreign visits, and while the White House tries to negotiate an agreement to end the war in Ukraine.

The parade of China’s victory day on September 3 will mark the 80th anniversary of the official surrender of Japan during the Second World War and the end of the conflict.

The event now signals a key diplomatic victory for the Chinese leader Xi Jinping who put pressure for a new world order led by Beijing.

Putin and Kim will be among the other 26 heads of state who should attend the parade. This is the first time that a North Korean leader has witnessed a Chinese military parade since 1959.

China is likely to display its latest weapons, including hundreds of planes, tanks and anti-line systems. It will be the first time that the new strength structure of its soldiers will be fully presented in a parade.

The very choreographed event will see tens of thousands of soldiers will take place in training on the historic place of Tiananmen, with troops of 45 of the so-called levels of the military and China warfarers.

The 70 -minute parade, which will be studied by XI, should be closely monitored by Western analysts and powers.

At a press conference given by the Chinese Foreign Ministry on Thursday, Beijing – one of the closest allies of Pyongyang – congratulated his neighbor for their “traditional friendship” of several decades and said that the two countries will continue to collaborate in “regional peace and stability”.

Kim’s attendance is an upgrading of the last victory day parade in China in 2015, when Pyongyang sent one of his senior officials, Choe Ryong-Hae.

This year’s event when Kim will be held alongside Putin and Xi will be important beyond the photo shoot.

The surprise meeting will occur even when Donald Trump is trying to conclude an agreement with Moscow to end the war in Ukraine. This allows Xi to report its influence – although limited – on Putin and Kim.

It is also only weeks before a possible visit to Trump in Asia, which the White House has hinted but not confirmed. However, he said that the American president was open to meeting XI to finalize a tariff agreement, among others.

The meeting next week with Putin and Kim allows Xi to get into any summit with Trump with more confidence, having been fully informed by the two leaders.

It has been six years since Kim visited Beijing – he attended an event to mark the 70th anniversary of diplomatic links between the two countries in 2019.

He also visited Beijing three times in 2018, a particularly busy year for international trips given his reluctance to travel abroad.

Most Western leaders are not supposed to attend the parade, due to their opposition to the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, which led to the sanctions against the Putin regime.

Beijing, however, did not criticize Putin’s war and was accused by the United States and its allies of helping it – which it denies. Kim, on the other hand, provided both weapons and troops to the Russian invasion.

There is now the question of whether the new president of South Korea, Lee Jae Myung, will attend the parade, thus offering the first opportunity to the leaders of North Korea and South Korea since relations collapsed in 2019.

Lee was invited, but did not accept the invitation. The South Korea’s presidential office has not yet commented on this. So far, the government has only confirmed that the president of the Parliament would participate.

Lee, who was elected in June, said on several occasions that he would like to speak to Kim Jong Un and establish peaceful relations with the North. On Monday, when Lee met President Trump in the oval office, he asked Trump to act as a peacemaker in the Korean peninsula. Lee also said that he wanted to strengthen links with Beijing.

But North Korea has repeatedly criticized Lee, rejecting all its attempts to engage. Yesterday, his state news agency, Kcna, labeled Lee “a confrontation maniac”.

Although participation in the parade approaches Lee de Kim, it is a risky decision. If Kim is unaware or publicly rejects the South Korean leader, it would be a major embarrassment.

Lee’s perspective appearing next to the presidents of Russia, Belarus and Iran is also something that South Korea might want to avoid.

The list of leaders participating in the parade also reflects the rise of China and its changing relationship with the world.

The president of Indonesia and Malaysian Prime Minister will be there, which is additional proof of the concerted efforts of Beijing to accelerate links with neighboring Southeast Asia. Others like Singapore send lower level representatives.

Myanmar military leader, Min Aung Hliang, an international pariah which depends a lot on Chinese trade and aid, will also be present.

There will be fewer officials of the European Union, with a single head of the EU present – Prime Minister Slovak Robert Fico – while Bulgaria and Hungary will send representatives.

On the other hand, Czech President Milos Zeman attended the 2015 parade, while Poland, France, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom sent parliamentary speakers or government envoys to the parade.

Additional reports by Ian Tang of BBC surveillance