Chinese leader Xi Jinping and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un have sat down for formal talks in Beijing, a day after the pair and Russia’s Vladimir Putin put on an unprecedented show of unity against the West at a massive military parade.

Xi and Kim began their meeting at the Great Hall of the People on Thursday, Chinese state media reported, in their first formal sit-down in six years. The two leaders last met in Pyongyang in 2019, during Xi’s first state visit to North Korea.

Xi, Putin and Kim took center stage at China’s military parade marking 80 years of the end of World War II on Wednesday.

The trio – who had never appeared together in public before – formed the defiant face of an emerging bloc of illiberal leaders determined to push back against Western rules and tilt the global balanc

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