标签： Asia

After a seven-year gap since his last official trip to North Korea, Chinese President Xi Jinping has concluded a high-profile two-day state visit to Pyongyang, an encounter that has underscored the complex, long-standing alliance between the two neighboring socialist nations amid evolving global power shifts.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un extended an exceptionally warm welcome to Xi following his arrival on Monday, rolling out the ceremonial red carpet and staging elaborate acrobatic performances to honor the visiting head of state. While no binding, concrete policy agreements were announced publicly after the closed-door talks, both leaders emphasized the symbolic weight of the meeting, according to reports from North Korea’s state-run news outlet KCNA. Kim framed Xi’s selection of Pyongyang as his first state visit of the year as clear evidence of the “utmost importance” Beijing places on the bilateral relationship.

The visit comes at a moment of growing strategic repositioning for Beijing: as North Korea has deepened its diplomatic and military ties with Moscow in recent years, China has moved to reassert its influence over its strategically critical, often unpredictable neighbor. Analysts note the trip allows Xi to reinforce a core message for Pyongyang: that China remains North Korea’s primary political and economic benefactor, a lifeline that has sustained the country through decades of harsh international sanctions imposed over its nuclear weapons program. For Kim, hosting a major global leader like Xi just weeks after Xi held separate summits with U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin serves as a high-profile demonstration that North Korea maintains influential international partnerships despite its continued isolation over its nuclear program.

In remarks carried by China’s state news agency Xinhua during an official state banquet on Monday evening, Xi emphasized the deep geographic and historical bonds between the two nations, noting that “China and North Korea are linked by mountains and rivers and share a common destiny.” Kim echoed the sentiment, affirming that North Korea will continue to prioritize its friendship with Beijing and reaffirming Pyongyang’s unwavering support for China’s One China principle. Against a backdrop of widespread global geopolitical upheaval, Kim stressed that the visit serves as a reminder of the enduring strength of the two countries’ friendship. Xi added that the two leaders reached “important consensus” on advancing high-level diplomatic exchanges and expanding people-to-people connections to align with shifting global trends.

The 2026 visit also marks a notable milestone: this year celebrates the 65th anniversary of the China-North Korea defense pact, the only active mutual defense agreement China holds with any nation globally. Beyond diplomatic rhetoric, the trip also included symbolic gestures honoring the shared history of the two countries. On Tuesday, Xi and Kim traveled to Pyongyang’s Friendship Tower, a monument honoring Chinese soldiers who fought alongside North Korean forces during the Korean War. They also visited the country’s top leadership training academy, where the two leaders planted a fir tree to represent what both sides described as an evergreen, enduring friendship between the two nations. Throughout his stay, Xi was hosted at Pyongyang’s exclusive Kumsusan State Guest House, a purpose-built facility completed in 2019 ahead of Xi’s last visit to the capital that has since hosted other visiting global leaders including Russian President Vladimir Putin and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.

Notably absent from all official state media readouts of the talks was any public discussion of North Korea’s nuclear program and the longstanding goal of Korean Peninsula denuclearization — an omission that observers say was entirely expected. In recent years, China has significantly softened its public calls for denuclearization, rarely raising the issue in official joint statements with North Korean leadership.

Xi was accompanied by a high-powered delegation of top Chinese officials, including his closest political advisor Cai Qi, Defense Minister Dong Jun, Foreign Minister Wang Yi, and Commerce Minister Wang Wentao, signaling the high priority Beijing placed on the engagement.

Despite the lavish displays of shared friendship and solidarity, underlying strategic and ideological differences between the two countries remain visible in the official readouts of the visit. In his public remarks, Xi referenced working together to open “a brighter future for the socialist cause of both countries” — a nod to a longstanding point of friction between Beijing and Pyongyang. For decades, China has encouraged North Korea to adopt Beijing’s own model of socialist development: maintaining rigid one-party rule while opening its markets to foreign trade and investment. Sydney Seiler, Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, noted on social platform X that key details in Chinese official reports suggest Xi may hold frustration over Pyongyang’s rejection of this path. “North Korea still refuses to learn from China’s developmental experience,” Seiler wrote, pointing to the complete absence of any reference to economic reform in Kim’s public remarks during the visit.

In a move that escalates bilateral commercial and diplomatic tensions between Washington and Beijing, the U.S. Department of Defense has added a slate of major Chinese firms to a congressional-mandated roster of companies linked to the Chinese military, counting among the new entries e-commerce and technology giant Alibaba Group and leading electric vehicle manufacturer BYD. The list, formally established under Section 1260H of the U.S. defense authorization statute, currently carries more than 80 entries of Chinese-owned commercial entities that operate within the United States. The official purpose of the inventory is to alert U.S. institutions to perceived national security risks tied to doing business with the listed firms. Crucially, the designation does not trigger an immediate ban on commercial activity between American entities and the added companies, a framing that signals the incremental escalation of pressure on Sino-U.S. economic ties. Alongside Alibaba and BYD, other high-profile new additions to the list include Chinese search engine operator Baidu, EV startup Nio, and state-owned commercial aircraft manufacturer Comac. Longstanding entries that remain on the roster from previous rounds of additions include other major Chinese technology players: telecommunications giant Huawei, internet conglomerate Tencent, drone manufacturer DJI, and leading global EV battery producer CATL. Officials at the Chinese Embassy in Washington D.C. pushed back sharply against the new designation in a statement provided to the BBC, labeling the entire list as a discriminatory tool that unfairly targets legitimate Chinese businesses. The embassy emphasized that all Chinese firms operating in the United States have consistently abided by American federal and local laws throughout their operations, adding that the unilateral blacklisting lacks any legitimate factual or legal foundation. Spokespeople for multiple companies named on the updated roster have issued public refutations of the Pentagon’s claims. A representative for Alibaba flatly rejected the government’s characterization, stating that the company has never operated as a military-linked entity, nor is it part of any Chinese state-run military-civil fusion initiative. “There is no basis whatsoever for our inclusion on this list,” the spokesperson said, adding that the company “will pursue all available legal avenues to counter baseless misrepresentations of our business and operations.” The BBC has reached out for official comment from other newly added companies including BYD and Baidu, and as of the latest reporting, no additional on-the-record responses have been released. This latest update to the Section 1260H list comes amid a broader ongoing shift in U.S. policy toward Chinese technology and industrial firms, with Washington increasingly framing commercial ties with large Chinese companies through a national security lens. Analysts note that while the designation does not carry immediate punitive measures, it can create chilling effects for investment, partnership, and market access for the listed firms, complicating their global expansion and access to U.S. capital markets.

When the United States completed construction of Logistical Support Area (LSA) Jenkins on Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea coast near Yanbu back in 2022, few anticipated how quickly this relatively remote outpost would become the blueprint for America’s entire regional military strategy. Today, multiple current and former U.S. officials, military analysts, and intelligence leaders confirm that stepped-up activity at LSA Jenkins is a direct response to a stark new reality: Iran’s advanced missile and drone arsenal has rendered large, fixed U.S. military bases close to Iranian shores dangerously vulnerable.

For decades, large, permanently manned forward bases have anchored U.S. military dominance across the Persian Gulf. But the outbreak of the U.S.-Israeli campaign against Iran has upended that long-standing model. As Iranian projectile attacks repeatedly targeted U.S. installations within range of its coast, activity at the more distant LSA Jenkins surged, insiders tell Middle East Eye. The base’s entire purpose, explains Abbas Dahouk, former U.S. defense and army attaché to Saudi Arabia, is to underpin Washington’s Iran strategy by providing critical strategic depth far beyond the reach of Iran’s immediate strike capabilities.

Tehran has made the full withdrawal of U.S. military forces from all regional bases a core demand for any long-term ceasefire agreement. While Washington has shown no indication it will meet that demand outright, the proven accuracy and effectiveness of Iranian missiles and drones—reportedly aided by Chinese and Russian satellite intelligence—has sparked urgent internal debate over the future of large U.S. bases across the Gulf. Remarkably, multiple sources confirm that U.S. leadership is already leaning toward drawing down forces from the very installations Tehran is demanding it abandon.

David Petraeus, former CIA director and former head of all U.S. military forces in the Middle East, acknowledged this shifting calculus in May comments to Bloomberg. “The truth is that we are not as inclined to occupy these bases now that we have seen what the Iranians can throw at them,” Petraeus said, noting the threat landscape is far more challenging than when he led U.S. Central Command. He added that the current CentCom commander has already broken with long-standing practice of locating command leadership in the same time zone as deployed forces, instead running military operations remotely from Tampa, Florida.

This new reality was underscored in recent weeks when a fragile ceasefire between Washington and Tehran collapsed, triggering fresh hostilities. After the U.S. launched new strikes, Iran retaliated with ballistic missile attacks targeting U.S. bases in Kuwait. While U.S. Central Command claimed it intercepted all incoming missiles, commercial satellite imagery from Soar Atlas revealed a destroyed shelter at Kuwait’s Ali al-Salem Air Base, plus extensive damage to a terminal at Kuwait International Airport—a casualty Tehran blamed on a malfunctioning U.S. Patriot interceptor.

The attack laid bare the unsustainable position of large U.S. bases in Kuwait, which currently hosts more U.S. troops—roughly 14,000—than any other Middle Eastern country, including the major installations of Camp Arifjan and Ali al-Salem Air Base. Both bases have come under repeated intense Iranian attack. “The war has exposed the vulnerability of all fixed bases,” notes Mark Cancian, senior military analyst at the Center for International and Strategic Studies. “The US is reevaluating its posture in the Middle East, and there’s likely to be changes. I wouldn’t be surprised if these bases were reduced in scope.”

Multiple U.S. officials and analysts, speaking on condition of anonymity to Middle East Eye, say the future of U.S. military presence in the region will increasingly mirror the LSA Jenkins model: smaller, more dispersed installations located farther from Iran, making them far harder targets for Iranian strikes. This shift aligns with a gradual transition Washington began 20 years ago, when it moved away from the dense fixed-base model established in Kuwait after the 1991 Gulf War toward a framework built on negotiated access rather than permanent occupation.

Today, the U.S. maintains a spectrum of basing arrangements across Gulf states. Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar host full-time permanent U.S. troop deployments, while Oman has no permanent U.S. bases, instead holding a standing agreement that grants pre-negotiated access to ports and airspace. Notably, Oman has experienced far fewer attacks than its Gulf neighbors since the outbreak of hostilities with Iran. Currently, around 2,700 U.S. troops are deployed to Saudi Arabia—half the number stationed there two decades ago, reflecting the ongoing shift toward a more flexible posture.

“It sounds like semantics, but the type of agreement does make a difference for the US and host country. The Gulf states are very sensitive to the language they use on how US troops are hosted. And it leaves the US presence more nimble,” a U.S. defense consultant who advises the Pentagon told Middle East Eye on condition of anonymity. “This war will force a light footprint approach like Oman that prioritises access.”

Kuwait’s unique geography, positioned at the northern tip of the Gulf, leaves it uniquely exposed to missile and drone attacks from Iran and allied Iraqi militias—a vulnerability that has forced the U.S. to already evacuate many personnel from its large Kuwaiti bases. Compounding this challenge is the growing strain on U.S. air defense stockpiles: in the opening weeks of the war, Gulf states were denied requests for additional interceptor missiles, and a May Washington Post report revealed the U.S. has only 200 Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) interceptors remaining in its global stockpile.

“Defending all of these bases would stretch US interceptors,” Dahouk explained. “The US had to make a choice between hardening the bases and risking lives or evacuating. We evacuated.”

Former U.S. ambassador to Kuwait Douglas Silliman noted that retaining a large permanent U.S. presence in Kuwait would require major new investments to harden existing facilities, many of which were built decades ago to lower defensive standards. “Many US military facilities in Kuwait are not as hardened as some other US facilities in the region. If the US and Kuwait would like to keep a significant US presence after the Iran war – and I think it’s likely that both sides will want to – they will have to invest in hardening those facilities,” he said.

This shift toward more distant, flexible positions is already underway. Middle East Eye first reported that after Iran heavily damaged the large Prince Sultan Air Base southeast of Riyadh earlier this year, the U.S. secured access to Saudi Arabia’s Taif Air Base, located farther from Iranian strike ranges.

Iran’s effective control of the Strait of Hormuz has also created new sustainment challenges for the U.S. Navy, which has been effectively locked out of the key waterway. Today, the U.S. Fifth Fleet is based in Bahrain’s Persian Gulf waters, U.S. Central Command is headquartered in Qatar, Al Dhafra Air Base operates in the UAE, and Jebel Ali Port remains the most frequent stop for U.S. naval vessels in the region—all now within easy reach of Iranian capabilities.

Ironically, the shift to Red Sea access was foreshadowed more than a decade ago. Dahouk recalls that in 2015, then-Saudi Defense Minister and current Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman offered the U.S. port access to Jizan on Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea coast, an offer that received serious internal consideration at the time. “An additional port call option without having to transit through the Persian Gulf would reduce reliance on Jebel Ali Port,” Dahouk notes—a solution that looks far more necessary today than it did a decade ago.