What Xi Wants in Pyongyang: The Capital Cable #135

As Xi Jinping prepares for his first trip to Pyongyang in nearly seven years, the central question is what Beijing actually wants from Kim Jong-un. The May Trump-Xi summit offered hints about China's position on denuclearization, but Beijing's real leverage over Pyongyang and Xi's patience with a partner who keeps creating problems for him remains far less clear.

In this episode of The Capital Cable, host Mark Lippert is joined by Victor Cha, Oriana Skylar Mastro, and Edgard Kagan to unpack it: how much sway Beijing holds over Kim, how China balances its desire for stability on the peninsula against Moscow's growing pull, and what the whole picture means for U.S. strategy in Asia.

Oriana Skylar Mastro is a Center Fellow and Director of the Indo-Pacific Policy Lab at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Courtesy Assistant Professor of Political Science at Stanford University where her research focuses on Chinese military and security policy, Asia-Pacific security issues, war termination, and coercive diplomacy. She is also a nonresident scholar, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She was previously an assistant professor of security studies at Georgetown University. Mastro continues to serve as a lieutenant colonel in the United States Air Force Reserve for which she currently works at the Pentagon as Deputy Chief of Reserve China Global Strategy. Her book, The Costs of Conversation: Obstacles to Peace Talks in Wartime, (Cornell University Press, 2019), won the 2020 American Political Science Association International Security Section Best Book by an Untenured Faculty Member. She holds a B.A. in East Asian Studies from Stanford University and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Politics from Princeton 

Ambassador (ret.) Edgard D. Kagan is senior adviser and Freeman Chair in China Studies at CSIS. He served as U.S. ambassador to Malaysia for Presidents Trump and Biden from December 2023 until February 2026, and previously as special assistant to the president and senior director for East Asia and Oceania at the National Security Council. A career member of the Senior Foreign Service, Kagan also served as chargé d'affaires and deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi and deputy chief of mission in Kuala Lumpur, with earlier postings across the State Department's Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs. He is a recipient of the Presidential Meritorious Award, speaks Mandarin Chinese and French, and holds a B.A. from Yale University.

This event is made possible by general support to CSIS.