China’s Xi Jinping to visit North Korea next week

Chinese President Xi Jinping will visit North Korea next week, state media said Friday, his first trip abroad this year after hosting a series of leaders as Beijing asserts itself as a global diplomatic superpower.State broadcaster CCTV said Xi would visit from June 8 to 9 at the invitation of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, his first trip to Pyongyang in seven years.Beijing is a vital source of political and economic support to North Korea, which is one of the most diplomatically isolated cou