Why North Korean leader Kim Jong-un toured a Chinese bus factory in Dandong

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s tour of a commercial vehicle factory during a surprise visit to the Chinese border city of Dandong on Saturday points to Pyongyang’s drive to modernise its buses and expand industrial ties with Beijing.

In a symbolic move, Kim crossed into China via the newly opened New Yalu River Bridge on Saturday and also returned to North Korea via the bridge later in the day.

It was Kim’s first trip to China since he attended a military parade in Beijing last September. His visit took place on the eve of the 76th anniversary marking the entry of Chinese troops into the Korean war in 1950, when they passed through Dandong and crossed the Yalu River into North Korea.

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North Korean leader Kim Jong-un pays unexpected visit to Chinese border city of Dandong

While Kim’s main focus on Saturday was commemorating the wartime alliance between Pyongyang and Beijing, his afternoon visit to an automotive plant has also drawn attention.

Kim toured Dandong Huanghai Automobile, which was founded in 1951 to carry out repairs for the logistics unit of the Chinese People’s Volunteer Army during the Korean war.

The factory now specialises in buses, special-purpose and new-energy vehicles. In May, the company delivered a fleet of bespoke compressed natural gas buses to Colombia.

The visit appears to align closely with Kim’s push to electrify and upgrade North Korea’s bus system.

An 18-minute video released by state-run Korean Central Television on Sunday shows Kim inspecting assembly lines, opening the doors of several vehicles and taking a look inside, and boarding one of the buses.

China – along with other United Nations member states – is prohibited from supplying, selling or transferring industrial machinery, transport vehicles, iron, steel and other metals to North Korea under a UN Security Council resolution passed in 2017. The resolution strengthened sanctions against Pyongyang after it conducted an intercontinental ballistic missile test.

The 42-year-old North Korean leader brought an entourage of top officials with him to Dandong. They included Jo Yong-won, secretary of the Central Committee of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea, and Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui. His powerful younger sister Kim Yo-jong, who is director of the WPK Central Committee, was also on the tour.

Others included party secretaries Ri Il-hwan and Kim Song-nam, who also heads the WPK’s International Department, and Kim Tok-hun, the first vice-premier of the cabinet who oversees economic and industrial initiatives.

Beijing sent its own delegation of top officials to meet the North Korean visitors, led by Wang Huning, the fourth-ranking member of the Chinese Communist Party’s Politburo Standing Committee and chairman of its political advisory body.

Wang was joined by Foreign Minister Wang Yi, the party’s International Department chief Liu Haixing, as well as Ma Zhaoxu, the foreign executive vice-minister, Liaoning provincial party chief Xu Kunlin, Dandong party secretary Jiang Bing, and China’s ambassador to North Korea Wang Yajun.

The visit came just weeks before China is due to host the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Shenzhen from November 18 to 19. US President Donald Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin are both expected to attend and have voiced interest in holding trilateral talks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

Trump has also said he wants to meet Kim again. The pair met three times during Trump’s first term but failed to achieve any breakthrough.

The South China Morning Post reported last month that Beijing is willing to help broker a fourth Trump-Kim encounter as it seeks a more active role in Korean peninsula diplomacy.