North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin will be among more than two dozen foreign leaders to attend China’s massive military parade next week, the Chinese Foreign Ministry announced Thursday.
The parade, to be held in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square on September 3, is part of China’s commemorations to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II following Japan’s formal surrender.
The announcement, which places Putin and Kim at the top of Xi’s guest list, sets the stage for an extraordinary photo-op with the three autocratic leaders standing side by side atop the Gate of Heavenly Peace in Beijing, in an unequivocal show of unity.
North Korean state news agency KCNA confirmed Kim’s attendance, in what would be the North Korean leader’s first trip to China since 2019. Kim, who has only embarked on 10 foreign trips since assuming power in 2011, last left his isolated country in 2023 to meet Putin at a remote spaceport in Russia’s far east.
The parade offers the reclusive head of the world’s most heavily sanctioned regime a rare opportunity to appear alongside other world leaders who are gravitating toward an alternative world order Xi and Putin have pushed to create.
