Why did Kim Jong-un meet Xi Jinping twice in 6 weeks?

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un arrived in Dalian, Liaoning province, northeastern China, on May 7 to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Dalian, located near the North Korean border and less than an hour's flight from Pyongyang, is where the late North Korean leader Kim Jong-il met with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang in 2010.

Mr. Kim visited Beijing in late March, marking his first foreign visit since taking power in 2011. Mr. Xi was scheduled to visit Pyongyang after the US-North Korea summit, but according to that schedule, Mr. Xi would not meet Mr. Kim again until late June or July.

It is unprecedented in modern times for a leader like Mr. Kim to visit China repeatedly, commented Chinese analyst Cheng Xiaohe, according toNYTimes. China is North Korea's main trading partner, but relations cooled after Kim Jong-un took power as Beijing backed international sanctions against the country's weapons program. Now China appears to be keen to show that the relationship has been repaired.

Shi Yinhong, an international relations professor at Renmin University in Beijing, said choosing Dalian as the meeting location would help Kim avoid being seen as too subservient to China — something many might expect if he continued to visit Beijing., which is much farther from Pyongyang than Dalian.

Analysts speculate that Mr. Kim asked Mr. Xi to lift sanctions that Beijing has implemented since last year at the urging of the United States, measures that have depleted North Korea’s foreign exchange reserves.

Mr Kim met with South Korean President Moon Jae-in in late April, who was willing to help North Korea with economic aid. The meeting gave the North Korean leader new leverage with Mr Xi. Mr Kim could say that if China did not help North Korea’s economy, South Korea would.

Shi said Kim Jong-un likely wants more support from China to bolster his position ahead of his meeting with Trump, while Xi does not want to sit out talks between North Korea, South Korea, the United States and Japan.

"Trump has no reason to like this event that brings China and North Korea closer together," Shi Yinhong said. "But I think his main concern for Pyongyang is not Sino-North Korea relations, his biggest goal is the complete denuclearization of North Korea."

"This second meeting proves that North Korea wants China to play a bigger role in the denuclearization process," Cheng assessed. "Kim Jong-un will feel more confident going into the meeting with Trump because his stance has been supported by China."

Victory Cha, former director for Asian affairs on the National Security Council under President George W. Bush, agreed that China can sit on the sidelines of bilateral talks between the two Koreas and between Washington and Pyongyang but it must be a party to detailed negotiations on denuclearization.

However, some analysts say the warm image the two leaders portrayed in Dalian should not be exaggerated, arguing that Kim remains independent of China. "North Korea has never been a 'vassal state' and even less so now that the US has agreed to work with Kim," Shi said.