US President Donald Trump once said there was "love" between him and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, but Xi Jinping is intruding into the relationship to remind them that China is an indispensable chaperone in their nuclear dance.

With his first trip to Pyongyang as president, Xi took another big step to patching up his tattered relations with Kim, whose nuclear tests prompted Beijing to join UN sanctions against its longtime ally.

Xi's two-day visit, which ended Friday, will also serve the Chinese leader in his complicated relationship with Trump, as they prepare to hold talks on their trade war at the G20 summit in Japan next week.

Months after Trump declared that he and Kim had fallen "in love", their nuclear talks faltered as their second summit in Vietnam in February ended without an agreement.

Trump has also repeatedly called Xi his "friend", but their own negotiations to end the US-China tariffs war broke down last month.

With Trump's relationship with Kim on the rocks, Xi has found an opening.

After the North Korean leader travelled to China four times in the past year, Xi has finally reciprocated, declaring in North Korea's official newspaper that the friendship between their nations was "irreplaceable".

Kim gave Xi a lavish welcome, inviting him to the "Mass Games", an epic music and dance show in a packed stadium that featured the song "I love you China" and a giant portrait of Xi.

"(Xi) wants to use his visit to Pyongyang to demonstrate to President Trump that China's role on the Korean Peninsula is indispensable," said Bonnie Glaser, senior adviser for Asia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

"And if Xi can persuade Kim to resume talks with the US, he hopes that Trump will ease up pressure on trade," Glaser told AFP.

Glaser noted that Trump himself made the link between a trade deal and China helping with North Korea.

But Trump has also seen Xi as a potentially negative influence on Kim, calling him a "world-class poker player" last year, as he noted a change of attitude by the North Korean leader after meeting the Chinese president.

- Leverage -

In talks on Thursday, Xi told Kim that he was "willing to strengthen coordination and cooperation" with North Korea and other parties, and play a "positive and constructive role" in achieving denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula, according to Chinese state media.

Ahn Chan-il, a North Korean defector and researcher in Seoul, said Xi is using North Korea as leverage in his own confrontation with the United States.

"Xi and North Korea... are saying the Beijing-Pyongyang alliance forged in blood will not be affected by Trump, regardless of any economic incentives to effect a change," he said.

China, which fought alongside the North in the Korean War, remains Pyongyang's main diplomatic and economic backer despite tensions over the nuclear issue.

Lu Chao, a North Korean expert at China's Liaoning academy of social sciences, said Beijing "will certainly play a major role in mediating the return of the DPRK and the United States to the negotiating table."

But Lu said it was wrong to think that China would use North Korea as a bargaining chip -- a notion that the Chinese foreign ministry has also rejected.

- No Midas Touch -

Shi Yinhong, professor of international relations at Renmin University in Beijing, said ties between China and North Korea have not been "fully repaired" just yet, as China still enforces UN sanctions.

"With the improvement of Sino-DPRK relations, China can restore some influence on the DPRK, but the main thing is that Kim Jong Un makes his own decisions," Shi said.

In a sign that the neighbours are not always in sync, North Korean media did not carry comments by Kim reported by Chinese state broadcaster CCTV, which quoted him as saying that he was "willing to be patient" in the talks with the US, but wanted "the parties concerned" to meet him halfway.

The state-run China Daily sought to play down Xi's influence on North Korea.

"The world may hope that the Chinese leader has the magic touch that can turn a stone to gold," the newspaper said in an editorial.

"But it is unrealistic to expect that Xi can solve all the peninsula issues with a two-day visit -- even if Beijing has always been the most reliable and considerate partner to Pyongyang."

Big picture: Xi on show in Pyongyang
Pyongyang (AFP) June 21, 2019 - Xi Jinping has loomed large over China since becoming president, with a huge personality cult growing around his leadership, but in Pyongyang he looked bigger than usual when a giant portrait was displayed at a propaganda event.

The Chinese president, who is making the first trip by a Chinese head of state to North Korea in 14 years, was treated to a special performance of the spectacular "Mass Games" by his host Kim Jong Un.

It is a show that could only be mounted by a country as single-minded as the North -- Guinness World Records lists a 2007 performance as the world's largest gymnastic display, with 100,090 participants.

Months in the preparation, the Mass Games feature tens of thousands of people in synchronised displays enacting scenes from Korean history and modern life.

Behind them, around 15,000 children turn the coloured pages of books in sequence to create an ever-changing backdrop of giant images rippling across one side of the cavernous May Day stadium -- an analogue version, on a giant scale, of a usually digital solution.

Thursday's performance -- a special version called "Invincible Socialism" -- took place with giant North Korean and Chinese flags hanging from the roof, and included scenes of the two countries' troops fighting together during the Korean War.

At one point the backdrop displayed a portrait of Xi against a Chinese flag, footage showed.

Kim and Xi's wife Peng Liyuan applauded, sitting either side of him, while Xi merely smiled.

At another point the backdrop formed a slogan in Chinese: "Long live the unbreakable friendship and unity between the two peoples of DPRK and China."

DPRK is the abbreviation of North Korea's official name.

Songs included "New China cannot exist without the communist party", "I love thee, China" and "Red flag is fluttering".

Xi has consolidated power to become China's most powerful leader since Mao Zedong, with the Communist party's propaganda machine building a cult of personality around its General Secretary.

His face or name dominate the front pages of the newspapers every day, and his agenda leads every evening news programme.

Souvenir shops sell trinkets bearing his image and government workers have been encouraged to download an app dedicated to Xi that rewards users with points for the time they spend reading his speeches, watching videos of him and taking quizzes about him.

- 'Land of the People' -

For its part, the North lionises Kim and his predecessors -- his authority derives from his status as the third generation of his family to rule.

Portraits of his grandfather Kim Il Sung -- the founder of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea -- and father Kim Jong Il are ubiquitous, found in every office, workplace, schoolroom and home in the country.

Paintings of Kim Jong Un himself are a rarity -- it was notable that one was displayed at Pyongyang airport alongside Xi's when the visitor arrived, with both images again hanging above the rostrum where the two men watched the performance.

And towards the end of the Mass Games show, the backdrop displayed a portrait of a smiling Kim against a blue background, fireworks exploding on either side of his image.

When the Mass Games began this year's run with a show titled "The Land of the People", Kim excoriated the show's creators for "their wrong spirit of creation and irresponsible work attitude", lecturing them on "correctly implementing the revolutionary policy of our Party on literature and art", the North's official KCNA news agency reported, and performances were later suspended.

The North has never specified what infuriated Kim.

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