China’s Premier Li Qiang will go to North Korea this week in the highest-level visit by a Chinese leader since 2019.

Axar.az informs, citing AP, Li will lead a government delegation from Thursday to Saturday to attend events marking the 80th anniversary of the founding of North Korea’s ruling party, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said Tuesday.

China has long been the North Korean government’s most important ally and source of support, though North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has sought to balance that in recent years by building ties with Russia. He has sent troops to help Moscow in its war against Ukraine.

Russia is sending former President Dmitri Medvedev to this week’s anniversary celebrations, North Korea’s official KCNA news agency said Monday.

A statement from the Chinese Foreign Ministry called China and North Korea “traditional friends and neighbors” and said it is “an unswerving strategic policy” of the Chinese government and the ruling Communist Party “to maintain, consolidate and develop” relations with North Korea.

High-level contacts between China and North Korea have picked up since last year. Zhao Leji, another member of the Politburo Standing Committee, traveled to North Korea in April and met Kim in the capital, Pyongyang. Kim visited China last month, joining Russian President Vladimir Putin and others at a Chinese military parade in Beijing.