When Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping met in May, the discrepancy between the two governments’ accounts of their North Korea discussion drew considerable attention. While the White House said the two leaders had “confirmed their shared goal to denuclearize North Korea,” Beijing’s readout omitted denuclearization altogether, with subsequent Foreign Ministry press briefings neither confirming nor denying the US fact sheet. Four months later, the notable feature of the two sides’ accounts of the Trump-Xi summit was not their divergence but how much more closely they aligned on this issue. This time, both sides omitted denuclearization, the US side noting only that the two leaders “discussed … North Korea.” China’s September summit readout said the two leaders “exchanged views on … the Korean Peninsula,” essentially repeating its formulation from May. Also notable was that both Washington and Beijing reported agreement on Iran’s nuclear program but no comparable agreement on North Korea’s nuclear program.

The White House’s apparent retreat from its May language comes amid President Trump’s renewed interest in meeting Kim Jong Un this year. Beijing, meanwhile, has increasingly faced pressure from Pyongyang on the issue despite publicly avoiding denuclearization terminology since summer 2023. For different reasons, Washington and Beijing thus seem to share an interest in not publicly highlighting a topic that Pyongyang has reminded both parties it regards as anathema.

North Korea’s Pre-Summit Signaling

Ahead of the September Trump-Xi summit, North Korea issued a series of nuclear- or defense-themed statements and carried out several related activities. This included statements from the Defense Ministry and Kim Yo Jong warning what might prompt North Korea to invoke “relevant provisions” of the nuclear law; statements from Kim and Choe Son Hui pushing back on denuclearization; weapons tests; and an unusually high-profile nod to the Missile Administration and the Second Economic Commission, which oversees North Korea’s planning, production, distribution, and foreign sales of military products. Collectively, these statements and activities reinforced Pyongyang’s rejection of denuclearization while underscoring its continued emphasis on military power. Although they had different immediate triggers and intended audiences, at least some also appeared to target China as Xi prepared to head to Washington, presumably to warn Beijing against associating itself with Washington’s denuclearization agenda.

Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui’s unusually forceful September 24 statement on North Korea’s “everlasting” nuclear status, issued on the eve of the Trump-Xi summit, appeared aimed at least in part at Beijing. Her pronouncement went beyond Pyongyang’s customary assertion that its nuclear status is permanent, declaring it “inevitable to reorganize and fix the geopolitical structure centered on the DPRK with nukes.” The exact meaning of this passage is unclear, but its reference to geopolitics may fit what appears to be an increasing tendency in North Korean messaging to frame its national security not only in terms of threats to North Korea itself but also in terms of the broader regional security environment. Kim Yo Jong’s September 18 press statement, for example, said that if North Korea deemed the “security environment in the region” to have been “seriously violated,” it could invoke the nuclear law.

This resembles North Korea’s heightened nuclear-themed messaging in the lead-up to high-level North Korea-China diplomacy over the past year. What is notable this time is the extension of that pattern to China’s diplomacy with the United States.

Conclusion

Whether North Korea’s pre-summit signaling influenced either government’s public messaging is impossible to know. However, the September readouts avoided the very issue Pyongyang had repeatedly pushed back against: denuclearization. Beijing maintained its practice of avoiding the term, while Washington dropped the denuclearization language it had used in May. This may have reflected sensitivity to Pyongyang’s position or an interest in preserving diplomatic space, but it may also simply have resulted from North Korea’s relatively low priority on a crowded US-China agenda.

Pyongyang is unlikely to have missed the shift in the US summit readout, but it would be mistaken to interpret the omission of denuclearization as a shift in US policy or recognition of North Korea’s nuclear status. Just days before the summit, the United States joined South Korea and Japan in reaffirming their commitment to North Korea’s “complete denuclearization.”

Nor does the shift come close to meeting the preconditions Kim has laid out for returning to talks. At February’s Party Congress, North Korea raised its already high bar for engagement by demanding US recognition of its nuclear status and withdrawal of its “hostile policy.” What would constitute withdrawal of the latter remains unclear, given Pyongyang’s expansive characterization of US “hostile policy.”