China is sending its highest-level delegation to North Korea since 2019 to kick off a ‘friendship year’

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Hong Kong CNN —

China’s highest-level visit to North Korea in nearly five years is set to get underway Thursday, as Pyongyang seeks to strengthen relations with both Beijing and Moscow amid growing coordination between its neighbors and the United States.

Zhao Leji, China’s third-highest ranked official, will lead a delegation for a “goodwill visit” to the country to kickstart a “friendship year” marking 75 years of diplomatic ties, Beijing announced Tuesday.

The three-day visit, at North Korea’s invitation, shows the “great importance” China attaches to those relations, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said. North Korea’s state media agency KCNA also announced the visit.

It also affords a top Chinese official the opportunity to hear directly from North Korea’s intensely secretive and isolated government while on the ground, analysts say.

Zhao is the highest-ranking Chinese visitor to the country since a state visit from Chinese leader Xi Jinping in 2019. Zhao leads China’s rubber-stamp national legislature and is a member of its powerful seven-man Politburo Standing Committee.

The trip comes as both countries are wary of what they see as an increasingly hostile region – in particular growing security coordination between the US and its allies Japan and South Korea, which in turn seek to counter aggression from Beijing and Pyongyang.

President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida walk on the colonnade as they make their way to a meeting in the Oval Office at the White House on April 10 in Washington, DC.

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