Xi Jinping pledges unwavering Chinese support for North Korea as Kim Jong-un makes third Beijing visit of 2018

Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, has promised unwavering support for North Korea during Kim Jong-un’s visit to Beijing, a week after his historic meeting with Donald Trump.

Mr Kim is in China for a two-day visit and will likely discuss the historic summit in Singapore, when he became the first of the Kim dynasty to meet a sitting US president.

Mr Xi lauded the “positive” outcome of the meeting, state media reported, and the “concerted efforts of the relevant countries”, as he rolled out the red carpet for the third time this year for the North Korean leader.

State television quoted him as saying: "No matter the changes in the international and regional situation, China’s party and government’s resolute position on being dedicated to consolidating and developing Sino-North Korea relations will not change.

“The Chinese people’s friendship for the North Korean people will not change, and China’s support for socialist North Korea will not change.”

Following the summit, during which Mr Trump conceded that the US and South Korea would end joint Freedom Guardian military exercises, China suggested it may relax stringent economic sanctions on Pyongyang.

It had implemented the restrictions following a UN resolution passed in response to the North’s missile and nuclear tests.

China’s official Xinhua News Agency announced the North Korean leader’s visit shortly after he apparently landed on Tuesday morning, dispensing with the secrecy shrouding previous trips to China by Mr Kim and his father and predecessor, Kim Jong-il.

On the younger Kim’s first visit to China as leader, he took an armoured train as his father had. His first two trips were not announced until after he had safely returned to North Korea.

Mr Xi “is exerting a lot of influence from behind the scenes”, said Bonnie Glaser, senior adviser for Asia at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

“I expect they will talk about the path going forward and where priorities should lie,” she said. Those priorities, from China’s perspective, would be to ensure that Beijing is included in any peace treaty talks and in creating an environment on the Korean Peninsula that will make it unnecessary for US troops to remain.

In a press conference after his summit with Mr Kim, Mr Trump suggested that at some point in the future he would like to remove the roughly 30,000 American service personnel stationed in South Korea.

Mr Kim’s visit to Beijing came a year to the day after the death of Otto Warmbier, the US student who was detained in North Korea on suspicion of stealing a propaganda poster.

He was sentenced in March 2016 to 15 years in prison with hard labour after making a lengthy televised confession and appeal for mercy. He disappeared from public view after that, but then was released and arrived in Cincinnati on 13 June last year. He died six days later.

Doctors said he had suffered severe brain damage, but could not pinpoint the cause. North Korea denied torturing him.

Additional reporting by agencies