North Korea’s Kim Jong-un relies on Chinese locomotives for summit transport
Young leader’s sudden flurry of international engagements has depended on his larger, more powerful neighbour
Hanoi — When North Korean leader Kim Jong-un rolled into the Vietnamese border station of Dong Dang early on Tuesday, his vaunted specialised train was pulled by a red-and-yellow locomotive emblazoned with China’s national railway logo. It was the second time Kim had arrived for a summit with US President Donald Trump in transport provided by the Chinese, underscoring just how much the young leader’s sudden flurry of international engagements has depended on his larger, more powerful neighbour. When Kim arrived in Singapore in 2018 for his first, historic summit with Trump, it was in an Air China jumbo jet bearing the Chinese flag. With the exception of two summits with South Korean President Moon Jae-in on the border between the two Koreas, every one of Kim’s unprecedented summits with China’s President Xi Jinping and now the second summit with Trump have depended on trains provided by the Chinese. “This is a full service from Xi,” said Nam Sung-wook, a former South Korean intellig...
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