China’s Xi stays at exclusive Pyongyang guest house near shrines to former supreme leaders

Chinese President Xi Jinping has returned to Pyongyang’s Kumsusan State Guest House, the highly secluded counterpart to Beijing’s Diaoyutai State Guest House.
Xi began a two-day state visit to North Korea on Monday. He was welcomed at the airport by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, before attending a welcoming ceremony at Pyongyang’s Kim Il-sung Square and then heading on to the guest house.
The guest house, completed in 2019, was first publicly used during Xi’s visit to North Korea that year.
Before its construction, North Korea primarily hosted foreign dignitaries at the Paekhwawon guest house, built in 1983.
Then Chinese presidents Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao both stayed at Paekhwawon during their visits to Pyongyang, as did former US president Jimmy Carter.
Near the Kumsusan guest house lies the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun – North Korea’s most sacred political site.
Originally known as the Kumsusan Assembly Hall, the building once served as the working and living quarters of Kim Il-sung, North Korea’s founder and grandfather of Kim Jong-un.
After his death in 1994, Kim Il-sung’s embalmed body was placed in a glass sarcophagus inside the hall, which was renamed the Kumsusan Memorial Palace.
Following the death in 2011 of supreme leader Kim Jong-il, son of Kim Il-sung and father to the present leader, his body was also placed in the palace, which was renamed once again, becoming the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun.
“Kumsusan” is a poetic name that means a beautiful, precious mountain in Korean. The Kumsusan palace is mentioned in the preamble to the North Korean constitution, which describes it as a great monument to the “immortality” of the deceased leaders and as a symbol of the Korean nation’s dignity.
During Xi’s 2019 visit, he and his wife, Peng Liyuan, stood in the palace’s central square alongside North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and his wife, Ri Sol-ju, where they received tributes from North Korean party and military officials and Pyongyang citizens.
That marked the first time a foreign leader had received such honours at the palace’s square, according to the Chinese foreign ministry.
The ministry said the ceremony “fully reflected the host’s warmth and respect”.
The Kumsusan State Guest House has only welcomed a handful of leaders, due both to the country’s isolation on the world stage and sealed borders during the Covid-19 pandemic.
On April 9, China’s top diplomat Wang Yi held talks with North Korea’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Choe Son-hui at the palace, according to the Chinese foreign ministry.
Russian President Vladimir Putin also met Kim Jong-un at the guest house in June 2024.
In March this year, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko made his first visit to North Korea.
He visited the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun to pay tribute to Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il, but where he stayed during his trip was not disclosed.
Xi’s visit to North Korea is his first trip abroad this year, coming less than a month after he met US President Donald Trump and Putin separately in Beijing.
China remains North Korea’s most important economic and political partner, as Pyongyang continues to face sweeping international sanctions over its nuclear weapons programme.