China, North Korea Vow to Push Back Against US ‘Hegemonism’

Beijing and Pyongyang are signalling they’re closer than ever, and that Washington is the target of their common frustration.

China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi met North Korean counterpart Choe Son Hui in Beijing on Sunday, only weeks after Kim Jong Un travelled to China for events marking Japan’s WWII surrender. The optics: two neighbours with a shared history and a shared opponent.

“China is willing to strengthen coordination and collaboration with North Korea on international and regional affairs, oppose all forms of hegemonism, and protect their shared interests and international fairness and justice,” Wang told Choe, according to the Chinese foreign ministry.

Choe returned the compliment, praising Beijing’s “community with a shared future for mankind” and the Global Governance Initiative as “important contributions to the promotion of a multipolar world”. North Korea “strongly supports these initiatives,” she said, pledging to “work closely with China … to jointly resist unilateralism and power politics and promote the establishment of a more equitable and just world order.”

Kim Jong Un, she added, believes the “bonds of friendship” between Pyongyang and Beijing “cannot be altered,” and should be developed “in line with the demands of the times,” according to North Korea’s state-run KCNA.

The language was thinly veiled, but the target obvious. Beijing is locked in a broad rivalry with Washington — spanning tariffs, AI, and security in the Pacific — while Pyongyang’s standoff with the US over nuclear weapons and missile tests stretches back decades.

Earlier this month Xi Jinping, Kim and Russia’s Vladimir Putin appeared together at a military parade marking 80 years since the end of WWII, a show of solidarity against what they see as a US-dominated order.