China's foreign ministry announced on April 8 that Foreign Minister Wang Yi would visit Pyongyang from April 9-10, his first such visit since 2019. Meanwhile, North Korea's first vice foreign minister Jang Kum Chol on April 7 ridiculed the government in Seoul as "world-startling fools" for thinking inter-Korean relations would improve, stating South Korea would always be the "most hostile enemy state."

Jang's comments come after South Korean media reacted positively to comments by North Korea's director of the General Affairs Department, Kim Yo Jong, on April 7, in which she called South Korea President Lee Jae Myung's expression of regret for a recent drone incursion into North Korea "appreciated" and "wise."