BEIJING -- For more than six years, the leader of North Korea remained cloistered inside his country. Then Kim Jong Un emerged. His arrival in Beijing on Tuesday marked his sixth foreign visit in less than 10 months.

His travels started in China in March 2018, followed one month later with a step over the border to the southern side of the demilitarized zone that divides the two Koreas, where he met South Korean counterpart Moon Jae-in.

Four of Kim's trips have been to China, signaling its importance to North Korea.

The most sensational was his June 2018 summit in Singapore with President Donald Trump. As talks with the United States stall over ending North Korea's nuclear weapons program, a question hangs: Will he and Trump meet again?