Kim Jong-un, Putin to attend China’s 80th Victory Day celebration

BEIJING — North Korean leader Kim Jong-un will visit China next month to attend events on Sept. 3 marking the 80th anniversary of China’s Victory Day, the two countries announced simultaneously on August 28.

At the first press briefing held at the press center in Beijing for the 80th anniversary commemoration, Hong Lei, director-general of the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s department of protocol, announced the names of 26 heads of state set to attend the celebrations, listing Russian President Vladimir Putin first and Kim Jong-un second.

“China and North Korea are friendly neighbors connected by mountains and rivers,” Hong said, welcoming Kim’s attendance.

“This year marks both the 80th anniversary of China’s victory in the war against Japan and fascism, and the 80th anniversary of Korea’s liberation,” Hong continued. “In those difficult wartime years, the peoples of China and North Korea supported each other, resisted Japanese aggression together and made important contributions to the victory of the global antifascist struggle and the cause of human justice.”

“Safeguarding, consolidating and developing the traditional friendship between China and North Korea is a firm position of the Chinese party and government,” Hong continued. “China seeks to deepen exchanges and cooperation with North Korea, move forward together on the path of socialist construction, promote peace and stability in the region and defend international fairness and justice, opening a new chapter in traditional bilateral ties.”

Kim’s visit will be his first to China in six and a half years, since January 2019. After coming to power, he visited Beijing in March 2018, Dalian in Liaoning Province in May, and Beijing again in June the same year. Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Pyongyang in June 2019. Top-level exchanges had been suspended for six years due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Besides Kim and Putin, other leaders attending the Sept. 3 Victory Day events include the king of Cambodia, the presidents of Vietnam, Laos, Indonesia, Mongolia, the Maldives, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Belarus, Azerbaijan, Iran, Congo, Zimbabwe, Serbia and Cuba as well as the prime ministers of Malaysia, Pakistan and Nepal, Armenia and Slovakia and Myanmar’s acting president, among others — 26 leaders in total.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will not take part in the military parade, but is set to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Tianjin.

South Korean National Assembly Speaker Woo Won-shik was the first to be named among parliamentary leaders and deputy prime ministers from six countries attending the commemoration.

Hong listed the six in order: “Woo, speaker of South Korea’s National Assembly; Fernanda Lay, speaker of East Timor’s parliament; Jorge Rodriguez, president of Venezuela’s National Assembly; Heng Swee Keat, Singapore’s deputy prime minister; Mahmoud Mohieldin Wazir, Egypt’s presidential envoy and deputy prime minister; and Kornelia Ninova, Bulgaria’s Socialist Party chair and deputy prime minister.”

Hong also announced that more than 50 representatives of friends and descendants from 14 countries, including Russia, the United States, Britain, France and Canada, had been invited to the event.

BY SHIN KYUNG-JIN [lim.jeongwon@joongang.co.kr]