Two days before Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to North Korea, Wang Yajun, the Chinese ambassador to North Korea, emphasized the strategic significance of Sino-North Korean relations and worked to foster a friendly atmosphere.

As Xi Jinping visits Pyongyang, he faces an emboldened North Korean dictator, whose alliance with Russia has reduced his dependence on China.

In the seven years since Xi’s last trip, Pyongyang has sent troops and weapons to Russia for the Ukraine war, sought to further expand its nuclear weapons program, and officially abandoned the prospec...