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Israel strikes Iran despite Trump plea as Middle East crisis threatens to escalate

Israel launched airstrikes on central and western Iran on Monday in apparent defiance of Donald Trump after he urged restraint over a reprisal attack by Tehran in an escalation that threatens to drag the Middle East back into a regional war. It was the first exchange of direct strikes between the two enemies since a ceasefire paused the US-Israel war with Iran in April. Iran’s attack came in response to earlier strikes on Beirut by Israel. Israel’s strikes on Monday came just hours after Trump had called the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to urge him not to retaliate immediately for an Iranian missile attack on Sunday night, with the US president saying: “I call all the shots. He [Netanyahu] doesn’t call the shots.” Iranian state media reported explosions in Tehran, Isfahan, Karaj and Tabriz, and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said Israel had used air-launched ballistic missiles in its attack. Iran closed the airspace around Tehran’s Imam Khomeini international airport – the country’s main airfield – after the Israeli attack. The White House did not respond to messages about the strikes and whether they were done in coordination with the US. In a sign of further destabilisation after the trading of strikes, Saudi Arabia sounded missile alert sirens in an area home to Prince Sultan airbase that hosts US forces; and the Israeli army said it was working to intercept a missile launched from Yemen. Yemen’s Houthi rebels, who joined the Middle East war in March in support of Iran, have previously launched attacks on Israel. Earlier, Tehran launched about 10 ballistic missiles at northern Israel in response to Israel bombing a target in southern Beirut. All Iran’s missiles were intercepted or struck open areas, according to Israel’s military. Netanyahu’s office announced Israel’s army had “struck a militant command centre in Beirut’s Dahiyeh district, in response to Hezbollah’s fire towards Israeli territory”. Two people were killed and 20 wounded, Lebanon’s health ministry said. Israel had warned it would hit the area if Hezbollah attacked northern Israel, and Hezbollah later confirmed it had launched missiles and drones at Israeli army barracks early Sunday. Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran’s parliament speaker and its chief negotiator in talks with Washington, accused the US of having given a “green light” for the Beirut attack, saying US and Israeli assets were now “legitimate targets”. After the Beirut bombing and Iran’s retaliation, Trump told a Fox News reporter he wanted Iran to stop firing missiles and return to the negotiating table. He said Israel’s strikes in Lebanon were not coordinated with the US and “I’m not happy about it.” A senior US official said Trump had called Netanyahu to urge him not to retaliate immediately for the Iranian missile attack. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe a private phone call, said that Trump believed he had convinced Netanyahu to wait. Trump “got Bibi to hold off for the time being,” the official said. The official would not offer any other details of the call, and there was no immediate comment from Netanyahu’s office. Speaking to the Financial Times before Israel hit Iran, Trump insisted he dictated terms to Netanyahu on how the war should be prosecuted. “He won’t have any choice,” Trump told the newspaper in a telephone interview, adding that he calls “all the shots”, not Netanyahu. The skirmishes in Lebanon have been an obstacle for Iran-US negotiations. Tehran insists Lebanon be included in a broader ceasefire deal. On Sunday, Donald Trump told NBC News he was not demanding that Lebanon be part of any peace deal with Iran, claiming again that such an agreement, which has so far proved elusive, was near. “I think they’d like to see it, but I’m not demanding,” Trump said in the interview recorded on Friday. He added: “We’re very close to a deal, or I’m going ‌to ⁠blow the hell out of them [Iran].” Brent crude jumped $3.50 to $96.59 a barrel on Monday, while stocks in Asia, a region heavily dependent on oil imports, fell sharply in early trading. Before the strike on Sunday, Israel had issued a forced evacuation order for most of the city of Tyre, one of the largest cities in southern Lebanon, which is hosting thousands of people displaced from villages in the surrounding area. Plumes of smoke were later seen rising from the city. Fighting in Lebanon started on 2 March when Hezbollah launched rockets at Israel in retaliation for the killing of Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei, triggering an Israeli invasion. Israeli strikes have killed more than 3,613 people in Lebanon, while Hezbollah has killed at least 30 Israeli soldiers in Lebanon and three Israeli civilians. Additional reporting from Lorenzo Tondo, William Christou and Associated Press

Middle East crisis live: Israel says it has struck targets in central and western Iran

The strait of Hormuz will be opened but under new conditions to be set by Iran and Oman, including a transit fee, Iran’s ambassador to Moscow has been quoted as saying. The US-Israeli war on Iran has largely cut oil flows via the strait, and although several tankers have managed to leave the Gulf recently, oil and liquefied natural gas flows are still severely constrained. “Of course, this strait will be open, but with new conditions to be determined by the Iranian and Omani authorities,” ambassador Kazem Jalali told the Russian newspaper Izvestia in an interview published on Monday, cited by Reuters. He said: We understand that Iran and Oman provide certain services related to this strait. And fees will be charged for those services.” Iran has said a permanent peace deal should allow it to charge fees for ships passing through the strait, which would vary depending upon the type of ship, its cargo and prevailing conditions. That position is vehemently opposed by Donald Trump, who US warned Oman in late May not to get involved in any effort with Iran to impose a toll. The US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, said Oman’s ambassador had told him there were no plans to impose such tolls.

Strong earthquake strikes southern Philippines with tsunami warnings issued

A magnitude 7.8 earthquake shook part of the southern Philippines early on Monday, sparking tsunami warnings on some regional coasts, collapsing buildings and killing at least three people. “Many buildings were affected, but I cannot enumerate them now because we are busy with ongoing rescues,” Master Sergeant Robert Dagon of the General Santos City police told Agence France-Presse. The Philippines office of civil defense warned people to avoid entering damaged homes or other infrastructure due to the threat of aftershocks. At least three people have been killed and four injured, police in the region said on Monday afternoon, local time. Video verified by the Guardian shows the collapse of the upper floor of a Jollibee restaurant, a popular fast food chain, as well as the outer concrete walls of a commercial complex giving way in General Santos City, near the epicentre of the quake. In Davao del Sur, part of a high school collapsed as students gathered outside, a video shared by local radio network Bombo Radyo showed. Images of a convenience store in General Santos city showed its entrance destroyed with smashed glass and overturned benches strewn across the street outside. Power outages were reported and people were urged to go to higher ground. No further information on casualties was immediately available from the office of civil defence. The epicentre was 13km (8 miles) south-west of General Santos city on the island of Mindanao and had a depth of 10km (6.2 miles), according to the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology in its initial report. It struck at 7.37am. The US Geological Survey (USGS) put the magnitude at 7.8 and the depth at 55.2km (34 miles). The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said tsunami waves up to 3 metres (10ft) were possible on some coasts of the Philippines. Waves up to 1 metre (3ft) were possible on some coasts of Indonesia and Malaysia. “We advise people to evacuate to higher grounds or go further inland,” Teresito Bacolcol, the head of the Philippine institute, warned people living in coastal areas. In a statement, Philippines president Ferdinand Marcos Jr asked people to heed the warnings, saying: “do not wait. Your life is more important than anything left behind.” Marcos Jr said evacuation centres were up and running, as government agencies continued to assess damage and clear routes needed for rescue operations. Smaller tsunami waves were possible in Taiwan, Japan, Guam, Papua New Guinea and several island nations and territories in the western Pacific. Residents felt the earthquake tremors in Indonesia’s North Sulawesi and North Maluku provinces. Indonesia lifted a tsunami warning on Monday, hours after ordering evacuations of northern areas. The agency recorded small tsunami waves in at least nine locations in Indonesia, with the highest recorded at 0.75 metres (2.4 feet) in Sangihe island. The Philippines, one of the world’s most disaster-prone countries, is often hit by earthquakes and volcanic eruptions due to its location on the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” an arc of seismic faults around the ocean. The archipelago is also lashed by about 20 typhoons and tropical storms each year. The earthquake struck just as public schools reopenedfor the year. A video taken at Mahayhay Elementaru School in Davao showed panicked pupils scrambling for safety during the morning flag ceremony. The Philippines Red Cross reported attending three high schools to care for many students traumatised by the quake. Marcos Jr ordered the suspension of school in affected areas until further notice. “The safety of our children comes first,” he said. Carmela Fonbuena contributed to this report. With Associated Press and Agence France-Presse

‘Disgusted’: Gillard and Albanese condemn ‘ditch the witch’ campaign against Victorian premier Jacinta Allan

Julia Gillard and Anthony Albanese have joined a chorus of politicians criticising a truck-mounted billboard featuring Victorian premier Jacinta Allan alongside the phrase “ditch the witch”. The billboards, which have been seen travelling through Melbourne for about six weeks, also ran AI-generated images of Allan wearing a black pointed hat and with warts on her chin, in between advertisements for a brothel. Albanese told reporters in Canberra on Monday the “sexist” advertising campaign was “totally unacceptable and has no place in public life”. “We want to encourage women to enter public life and it should be a contest of ideas, not personal attacks,” he said. Speaking generally, Albanese added that there was a need to “turn the temperature down”. “What I don’t want to do is to have a press conference in this courtyard after a tragedy,” Albanese said, citing an increased number of threats being made against politicians. Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email He also said some of the “personal ways” in which “mainstream media” has “characterised people in public life has just got to stop”, though he did not give specific examples. “You can have a disagreement with people’s policy position by all means. You don’t have to denigrate people in such a personal way. It has got to stop,” Albanese said. In a statement on social media, Gillard said she was “disgusted” to see the phrase used again after being subject to it herself during her tenure as prime minister. “This was a slogan used against me as prime minister fifteen years ago,” she said. “It was roundly condemned then. In the years since, my view has been that things were slowly improving for women in politics. More women are leading, sexism hasn’t gone away but it is less ferocious in the political mainstream, though social media continues to be a toxic sewer. “I am saddened to see that improvement cast aside and this tired old trope resurrected.” In 2011, then opposition leader Tony Abbott spoke at an anti-carbon tax rally with person holding a poster featuring the phrase “ditch the witch” visible behind him. Another poster labeled Gillard “Bob Brown’s bitch”, referencing the then leader of the Greens. Gillard referenced the poster in her famous “misogyny speech” in Australian parliament that went viral around the world and was later voted by Guardian Australia readers as the most unforgettable moment of Australian TV history. “I was offended when the leader of the opposition went outside in the front of parliament and stood next to a sign that said ‘Ditch the witch’,” Gillard said in the rousing speech. On Sunday, one of the AI-generated images from the billboard was published in the Herald Sun alongside a story about a possible leadership spill against Allan, prompting the premier to release a statement saying “sexism has no place in our political debate, full stop”. “A truck using sexist language has been driving around Melbourne as part of a secret and well-funded political campaign,” she said. “People are entitled to disagree with me. That’s democracy. But I care that this attacks women. And I care about who’s next.” The Age reports the trucks with billboards featuring the phrase were paid in part by Franco Puleo, the owner of the Gotham City brothel in South Melbourne. He denied the slogan was sexist. “[Allan] doesn’t answer questions. She’s not accountable to everything … It’s just how people are feeling. That’s what they’re resorting to,” he reportedly said. “That’s not a political ad. It’s basically what the Victorian public feel.” The Victorian attorney general, Sonya Kilkenny, was among several state Labor MPs who criticised the campaign on social media. “Women in public life should not have to accept abuse and misogyny as part of the job. You can disagree with a politician. You can disagree with a government. That’s democracy. Reducing a woman to a sexist slur is not,” Kilkenny wrote. The Victorian opposition leader, Jess Wilson, said the opposition had no involvement in the billboards, describing them as “inappropriate”. “That sort of language, that sort of discourse, should never be used in politics. We shouldn’t see this happening on our streets,” Wilson said. “Should we be surprised?” she said. However the One Nation leader, Pauline Hanson, told Allan via Sky News to “suck it up, sweetheart”. She said had been called a witch “long before” Allan, including by politicians. “Besides, Jacinta, I’ll tell you something: I’ve heard on the grapevine you won’t be there in a couple of weeks,” Hanson said. Puleo was approached for comment.

Ukraine war briefing: Zelenskyy says he met Roman Abramovich in Kyiv in backchannel to Putin

Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Roman Abramovich, the Russian magnate and former owner of Chelsea football club, had met him in Kyiv where he offered to take a message to the Kremlin on peace prospects. Zelenskyy’s comments to Sky News marked his first acknowledgment that the billionaire had travelled to Ukraine’s capital and was involved to some extent in negotiations. “He came to Kyiv. He said ‘I am messaging direct to you. And I want to take a message from you and give it to [Russian president Vladimir] Putin’. But he said it has to be silent without any kind of public messages,” Zelenskyy said. “You are fighting against us on our territory,” Zelenskyy said of his message to Abramovich. “We will not leave and we will not go out from our territory, no we will not give you victory,” he said, adding he had reiterated his request to meet Putin face-to-face. Zelenskyy said the meeting was “not a secret”, adding that the Russians wanted to know what Kyiv was “ready to do”. Abramovich has been sanctioned by the UK government after ministers accused him of having “clear connections” to Putin’s regime. Abramovich has not commented on the Kyiv meeting. However, he played a role in unsuccessful negotiations to end the fighting in the first weeks of the invasion, but has been less visible since. Putin has made it clear Russia is not prepared to stop fighting in Ukraine until Kyiv abandons the Donbas region, made up of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Zelenskyy met the leaders of the UK, France and Germany in London on Sunday, and discussed the “urgent need” to ramp up production of weapons to combat Russia’s powerful hypersonic Oreshnik ballistic missiles, write Alexandra Topping and Luke Harding. “The leaders underlined the urgent need to scale up the production of interceptors and co-develop anti-ballistic missile and deep strike capabilities,” a joint statement said after the meeting. No details, financial or otherwise, on how this would be done were provided. Zelenskyy will meet King Charles on Monday. Ukraine’s shortage of air defence systems, in part because of the depletion of US stocks during the Iran war, has left civilians especially vulnerable to ballistic missiles, even as Kyiv’s defences stop most of Moscow’s drones and its forces have made advances elsewhere on the battlefield. A Russian drone struck a storage facility for spent nuclear fuel near Ukraine’s Chornobyl power plant over the weekend. While the structure was empty of containers at the time, the targeting of the sensitive site appeared to be direct messaging from Moscow amid an intensifying battle of long-range aerial strikes in which high-profile locations on both sides have been hit, writes Peter Beaumont. Russia fired waves of drones and other munitions at Ukraine on Sunday, killing at least five people. A bombardment of a public transport stop in the Zaporizhzhia region killed at least two people, while a nearby drone strike killed a 56-year-old minibus driver, authorities said. A separate attack on Dnipro in central Ukraine killed a 59-year-old man, the region’s governor, Oleksandr Ganzha, posted on Telegram. Russia’s defence ministry said on Sunday its air defences had downed 500 Ukrainian drones in the past 24 hours, Interfax news agency reported. Moldova’s President, Maia Sandu, said the war in neighbouring Ukraine showed that her country badly needed high-technology interceptor drones and new legislation was required to facilitate their manufacture. Moldova, which is seeking EU membership by 2030, has dealt with numerous incidents of Russian drones flying over its territory or debris landing in areas near the border. Sandu, a fierce critic of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, expressed particular concern over a drone last month that struck a residence in Galati, a Romanian city near the border with Moldova and Ukraine, injuring two people.

‘Every day the policy changes’: chaos and confusion for Filipino workers over US immigration rules

Jay*, a Filipino migrant, cares for an 82-year-old US veteran in San Francisco’s Bay Area who has suffered from a stroke. They were playing a word search memory game together when Jay saw the news on Facebook about a policy memo from the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS). It suggested migrants might have to return to their home countries in order to apply for their green card, which allows its holder to live and work permanently in the US, unlike temporary visas that have expiration dates and can require renewals. Within a week, the DHS appeared to have walked back the policy, but his immigration lawyer still advised him to pause his own green card application as the environment felt more uncertain than ever. “Every day the policy is changing,” Jay says. Jay is one of thousands of Filipinos in vital care-giving roles in America whose lives have become more precarious under the Trump administration’s chaotic crackdown on immigration, forcing some into more vulnerable working conditions. It is an experience he has already lived. Together with his colleague Lei*, Jay was employed in a residential aged care home where he was made to work months without a single day off. Lei slept underneath the stairs; Jay in a storage room. Close to one in five healthcare workers in the US are immigrants, according to American Immigration Council analysis released in April, with the Philippines the most common country of birth. This includes almost 171,200 Filipino immigrant nurses – one out of every 25 nurses in the US. Those numbers do not include many more who care for US citizens in unskilled care work. Kai Marie, the chair of Migrante USA, which represents Filipino migrant workers, says their work is essential in the care and health industries. But she says confusing and contradictory announcements from the Trump administration – like those around the green card rules – not only threaten migrants’ personal feelings of security, but create an environment where some employers can take advantage of caregivers. “What employers can sometimes do – which is what Jay experienced – is use the threat of contacting immigration as a way to silence complaints … even if those complaints are very much valid, like speaking up to assert that their labour protection should be respected. “There’s uncertainty for people that are here,” Marie says,“because we’re even seeing green card holders that are being detained currently.” Migrante USA is advocating for the release of a 39-year-old Filipino green card holder Kuya Jeff from Alaska who was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) over previous non-deportable offences he had already served time for. There has been a surge in migrants being detained by ICE as a consequence of a mass deportation campaign the Trump administration embarked on after Donald Trump retook office. Marie says the Philippine government is also not actively defending the rights of their nationals within the US. She points to the Philippines’ ambassador to the US Jose Manuel Romualdez’s comments to GMA News following the green card memo which echoed the US administration’s orders without questioning them. Romualdez said in the article that Filipinos applying for a green card would have to “go home first”. Sharvari Dalal-Dheini, the director of government relations at the American Immigration Lawyers Association, says the US agency still has not provided updated public guidance about this alleged “walk back” on the green card memo. “Stakeholders continue to be confused and dubious of the government’s claims. Until we have official word, we remain concerned and extremely cautious,” Dalal-Dheini says. Marie says it will not only be migrants and their families who are affected by the uncertainty, but also the US citizens they support. Gabriela*, another Filipino migrant who has worked as a carer in the same retirement home in the San Fernando Valley in California for 15 years, says compassion is “like a trademark” of Filipinos. She has been caring for one of her patients, who is 97 years old, for nine years. She says she had no choice but to leave her parents because there was no opportunity in the Philippines to provide a livelihood for her children. Having her green card application pending, Gabriela says she feels “scared” about what would happen to her children and patients if she were made to return to the Philippines. At the root of it, Marie says, is also the failure of governments of countries from which migrants originate, like the Philippines, to provide people with the means to make a living in their home country in the first place. “There needs to be more leadership from both the US government and the Philippines government to understand the human impact, the human cost of these things.” A spokesperson for the Philippines embassy in Washington said: “[The] Philippines is recognized globally as being at the forefront of promoting and protecting the welfare and rights of Filipino nationals overseas. “While the Philippines continues to offer opportunities as a growing economy, many overseas Filipinos have carefully weighed their choices and determined that employment abroad is better suited to their personal, professional, or financial goals.” * Names have been changed to protect identities

‘What if all cockroaches came together?’ The youth movement threatening to shake up India’s politics

The call out to the youth of India was simple: “Get ready to swarm the streets of Delhi with peaceful and loving dissent.” They came in their thousands. The weekend marked the first public protest of the Cockroach Janta party (CJP), a movement that began as an online joke, but which has swiftly grown into one of the most unexpected challenges to the indomitable power of the country’s rightwing Narendra Modi government – driven by millions of discontented and disillusioned young people. “The youth of this country will no longer fear, they will fight,” said CJP’s founder, Abhijeet Dipke, who had flown in that morning from the US to lead the lively protest. “For the government, we may be mere insects, but we are alive and capable of fighting for our rights.” Among the gen Zs and millennials who gathered amid a heavy police presence, many expressed hope that a youth-led mobilisation, similar to movements that brought down governments in the neighbouring countries of Nepal and Sri Lanka, could be gathering pace in India. “The young people here have suffered enough too,” said Kriti, 21, a university student from Delhi. The momentum behind the CJP has taken many by surprise, none more so than Dipke, who just a few weeks ago was living a quiet life in the US as an Indian graduate of Boston University. It was only on a whim, enraged by the comments of the chief justice of India who had compared India’s unemployed youth to “parasites” and “cockroaches” during a supreme court hearing, that Dipke had jokingly put out a call on social media: “What if all cockroaches came together?” The overwhelming response made him realise he had touched a nerve. He built a website and social media accounts for a satirical Cockroach Janta party – a poke at Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janta party (BJP) – complete with a biting manifesto taking aim at the government, and a tagline: “A political party for the people the system forgot to count.” Within two weeks, the CJP’s Instagram page had more than 22 million followers, far overtaking the BJP. Not long after, the Modi government, notoriously intolerant of dissent, had attempted to block its account on X on national security grounds. Though initially cloaked in satire, for many of India’s gen Zs and millennials, the CJP has given voice to their growing frustrations over an education system in crisis, and a job market that has been systematically failing them. According to one recent study, almost 40% of India’s graduates below 25 are unemployed. Questions still remain about whether the cockroach movement can transition from an online phenomenon to a genuine political mobilisation. To some, the turnout of thousands was heartening, while others viewed it as a disappointment when compared to the tens of millions voicing support online. But out on the streets of Delhi over the weekend few viewed the CJP as an AI internet meme any longer. “We are the future of this country and they have the audacity to call us cockroaches,” said Mehima Fatima, 26, a student at Delhi University. “It is so sad to see what has happened to education in this country. I hope this is the beginning of the resistance.” The rise of the CJP comes amid growing criticism of India’s “toxic” exam industry and its toll on the country’s youth. More is now spent in India on private tuition than the government’s entire higher education budget, with parents often getting into crippling debt to ensure their children get coveted places to study medicine and engineering or secure lucrative government jobs. The pressure on students to succeed has been linked to a growing number of suicides. Writing in his newspaper column this week, the analyst Pratap Bhanu Mehta said that “these examinations are not merely instruments of evaluation. They are instruments of social control, and extraordinarily effective ones at that … The message of the system is no longer to ask why or how, but simply to do and die.” Much of the “cockroach” movement has been mobilised around mounting student distress over exam chaos, after this year’s medical entrance exam – where more than 2 million students compete for just 130,000 places – was once again leaked to the highest bidder, forcing it to be scrapped and for students to face retaking the gruelling tests. A core demand of Saturday’s protest was the resignation of the education minister, Dharmendra Pradhan, whom many hold responsible for the successive scandals. The leaks were widely seen as symptomatic of a “corrupt and broken” education system under the Modi government. “We are here to demand accountability,” said Ratna Singh, 30, who clutched a rose and a copy of the constitution, which protesters had been instructed to bring to the demonstration to show they came in peace. “People are slaving away for exams that get leaked, and at the end there are no jobs for us anyway. There is a need for a revamp of the entire education system.” Nonetheless, many of those who took to the streets to proudly declare themselves as “cockroaches” also acknowledged that the movement was a David and Goliath battle. Under Modi, the BJP has consolidated unprecedented amounts of power across government, media and the judiciary, and the state has routinely gone after political opponents and critics. Speaking to the crowds on Saturday, Dipke said he would be willing to sacrifice his freedom for the movement: “We have turned the joke into a revolution”.

Xi Jinping set to meet Kim Jong-un in North Korea, as China seeks to revitalise relationship

Xi Jinping visits North Korea on Monday for a two-day trip, his first in nearly seven years, as China’s president looks to revitalise ties with his junior ally. Xi is expected to meet North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, in Pyongyang. North Korea is China’s only formal treaty ally but in recent years their relationship has been strained by a virtual freeze in trade during the Covid-19 pandemic and Pyongyang’s increasingly close relationship with Russia. Xi’s trip comes ahead of the 65th anniversary of the signing of the friendship and mutual assistance treaty between China and North Korea, a pact that is still China’s only defence agreement with another country. Chinese and North Korean troops fought alongside each other against South Korea in the Korean war in the early 1950s. But North Korea and Russia have a much more recent history of military cooperation. North Korea has sent more than 10,000 soldiers to fight for Russia in the Ukraine war, and in 2024 Moscow and Pyongyang signed a mutual defence pact. “Within North Korean propaganda, there are really over the top paeans to the closeness with Russia forged in fighting a war together. Whereas with China it’s kind of nostalgic,” said John Delury, a senior fellow for the Asia Society. “They don’t want to let North Korea’s closeness with Russia outpace the ties with China too much.” Xi, Kim and Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, stood side by side at a massive military parade in Beijing in September last year. That event projected a show of strength from the would-be leaders of a new, autocrat-led world order. But behind the scenes the men navigate a delicate balancing act to preserve each of their self-interests. More so than Russia and North Korea, China also wants to maintain a strategic relationship, at least when it comes to trade, with the US. Xi’s visit to Pyongyang comes less than one month after the US president, Donald Trump, visited Beijing for a highly anticipated summit that was framed by China as re-stabilising the fraught US-China relationship. Although the Trump-Xi summit was low on tangible deliverables, the US president later said that that he discussed North Korea with Xi. There has been some speculation that Trump could have asked Xi to pass on a message to Kim. Trump has repeatedly said he would like to meet the North Korean leader again. In recent years Beijing and Washington have departed from their previously united front of opposing North Korea’s nuclear build-up. When Xi and Kim met in Beijing last year, their official readouts omitted any mention of denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula for the first time, and although the White House said Trump and Xi “confirmed their shared goal to denuclearise North Korea” after their meeting in May, Beijing did not confirm this statement. On Sunday, Kim Yo-jong, Kim’s sister who wields considerable power within the regime, called claims that Xi and Trump discussed denuclearisation “false”. Last week North Korea unveiled a new nuclear material production factory and Kim called for an “exponential” expansion of the country’s atomic arsenal. A bigger priority for Xi than nuclear talks will be defending China’s own security interests in north-east Asia, most likely the threat he sees from Japan. Xi is understood to have become unusually animated when discussing the issue of what China sees as Japan’s increasing militarism with Trump, and with the UK prime minister Keir Starmer, who visited Beijing in January. Japan rejects the claim that a more proactive defence policy amounts to the “new militarism” described by China. Delury said any cooperation between Beijing and Pyongyang on Japan was likely to be rhetorical rather than practical. The visit is also notable for being a trip abroad for Xi. In recent months he has hosted a flurry of world leaders and now travels internationally less frequently than before the pandemic. That he is willing to travel to North Korea reflects both the proximity of China’s ally – just a short flight or even a train journey from Beijing – and the importance of the bilateral relationship. William Yang, a senior analyst the Crisis Group, said: “In light of North Korea’s recent waves of missile tests, including the announcement of successfully testing AI-guided missiles, Xi likely sees the need to show up in Pyongyang in person to prevent tension on the Korean Peninsula from escalating.” Xi’s goal is to “not let North Korea spin off too far out of the Chinese orbit, which is always something that Beijing would worry about”, Delury said.