SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is heading to Beijing by train on Tuesday to attend a military parade with his Chinese and Russian counterparts, North Korea’s state media reported. The event could potentially demonstrate three-way unity against the United States.

Kim and Russian President Vladimir Putin are among the 26 world leaders who’ll join Chinese President Xi Jinping to watch Wednesday’s massive military parade in Beijing that commemorates the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II and China’s fight against Japan’s wartime aggressions.

It’s set to be Kim’s first time attending a major multilateral event during his 14-year rule, and the first time Kim, Xi and Putin, all key challengers of the U.S., have gathered at the same venue. None of the three countries have confirmed a private trilateral leaders’ meeting.

South Korean intelligence predicts Kim could be treated on par with Putin

The North’s official Korean Central News Agency reported early Tuesday that Kim left Pyongyang for Beijing by his special train on Monday to participate in the celebrations. KCNA, citing Foreign Ministry official Kim Chon Il, said that Kim Jong Un was traveling with top officials including Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui.

In a closed-door briefing to lawmakers, South Korea’s National Intelligence Service said Kim’s train entered China early Tuesday and was expected to reach Beijing later in the afternoon. The intelligence service said Kim will likely receive special protocol and security measures on par with those given to Putin, according to Lee Seong Kweun, a lawmaker who attended the meeting.

The spy agency said Kim may stand alongside Xi and Putin on the rostrum at Tiananmen Square during Wednesday’s parade, and anticipated that he will hold bilateral meetings with the Chinese and Russian leaders and interact with other heads of state at a reception and cultural performance as he seeks to further break out of isolation and expand his diplomatic footing, Lee said.

Kim’s travel marks his first visit to China since 2019 and the fifth visit in total since he inherited power upon his father’s death in late 2011.

Putin arrived in China on Sunday to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a regional summit, as well as the Beijing parade. Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told Russia’s TASS news agency on Sunday that a meeting between Putin and Kim on the sidelines was “under consideration.”

North Korea observers are paying keen attention to Kim possibly meeting Xi bilaterally as well and holding even a trilateral meeting with Xi and Putin. The three leaders have met bilaterally previously but have yet to hold a trilateral meeting.

Kim seeks to expand his diplomatic footing

North Korea’s foreign policy priority has been Russia in recent years as it has been supplying troops and ammunition to support Russia’s war against Ukraine in exchange for economic and military assistance.

According to South Korean assessments, North Korea has sent around 15,000 troops to Russia since last fall. In its latest briefing to lawmakers, the South Korean spy agency said it believes roughly 2,000 of them have so far died in combat, Lee said. Kim has also agreed to additionally send thousands of military construction workers and deminers to Russia’s Kursk region, and the agency assesses that the first 1,000 are already in Russia, Lee said.

North Korea’s relations with China have reportedly turned sour in recent years, but experts say Kim likely hopes to restore ties as China is North Korea’s biggest trading partner and aid benefactor and he would want to brace for the end of the Russia-Ukraine war.

Since aligning with Russia, North Korea has become more vocal in international affairs beyond the Korean Peninsula, issuing diplomatic statements on conflicts in the Middle East and in the Taiwan Strait, while portraying itself as a part of a united front against Washington. Some experts say Kim’s presence at the multilateral event in Beijing is part of efforts to develop partnerships with other nations close to China and Russia.

Kim’s trip comes as President Donald Trump and new liberal South Korean President Lee Jae Myung have repeatedly expressed their hopes to restart talks with North Korea. North Korea has been shunning talks with the U.S. and South Korea and pushing to expand its nuclear and missile arsenals since Kim’s earlier round of diplomacy with Trump collapsed in 2019.

Before departing for China on Monday, Kim visited a North Korean missile research institute to review progress on developing a new engine for a “next-generation” intercontinental ballistic missile, KCNA reported. The North in recent years has tested various versions of ICBMs capable of reaching the U.S. mainland, and analysts say the next-generation ICBM likely refers to a long-range weapon with multiple nuclear warheads that can defeat U.S. missile defense systems.

The Bill Belichick honeymoon at North Carolina lasted exactly one possession.

TCU scored 41 unanswered points on the way to a 48-14 win over North Carolina in Belichick’s first game as head coach. The Tar Heels opened the game with an impressive touchdown drive and then promptly got run over by the Horned Frogs until the game was out of reach.

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TCU put the game away one play into the second half when Kevorian Barnes broke a 75-yard TD run. The Horned Frogs led 20-7 at halftime and Barnes made the lead insurmountable at that point.

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The opener showed just how far North Carolina has to go simply to be relevant this season.

Belichick has preached fundamentals since his introductory news conference in December and, well, North Carolina was not fundamentally sound. The Tar Heels had tackling issues, dropped passes and even dropped punt snaps. It was a disastrous performance for nearly every unit.

Read Nick Bromberg’s story on the game right here and see how it all played out below.

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — When the general assembly decided to build a state university here 235 years ago, they named the town for a church built by the British.

The little chapel on the hill was actually called New Hope.

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Though the site has been knocked down and built over in the subsequent centuries, the spirit of that name has been the fundamental underpinning of North Carolina football. Without a new hope emerging every few years, promising to wake up this perpetually sleeping giant, they’d have razed this program to the ground too.

As history has shown, neither the Church of England nor the football field has been a great place for faith in the North Carolina Piedmont.

But on Monday night, the latest iteration of New Hope could be found stalking around the 50-yard line at Kenan Stadium in a gray hoodie with the sleeves cut down.

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Since he took the job last December, having been thoroughly rejected by the NFL despite his six Super Bowl Rings, the football world has been wondering what 73-year-old Bill Belichick would look like coaching a college team. It subsequently became a nine-month journey of interest in his personal life, a book tour, a series of awkward interviews and a branding initiative led by his 24-year-old girlfriend.

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What we didn’t hear much about was the football team he had to coach.

Maybe now we know why.

North Carolina’s 48-14 drubbing Monday night at the hands of TCU was evidence that $10 million for the most accomplished coach in the history of the sport may not go as far as it used to.

In the NFL, we can debate where Belichick ranks among names like Vince Lombardi, Bill Walsh and Chuck Noll. As a college coach, Belichick’s debut was more in the realm of his former Patriots assistant Charlie Weis, who once described his recruiting pitch at Kansas thusly: “Have you looked at that pile of crap out there?”

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Belichick, of course, is too buttoned up to provide such a juicy sound bite. But his assessment of the proceedings Monday was direct and in character.

“They just outplayed us, they outcoached us and they were better than we were. That’s all there is to it,” Belichick said, speaking in front of a backdrop of balloons that seemed far too festive for the occasion. “They did a lot more things right than we did. Give them credit for being the better team.”

While it would be imprudent to declare the Belichick experiment a failure already, you get this kind of honeymoon only once.

As kickoff approached Monday, idyllic Chapel Hill looked like something it has never been: A real college football town with packed tailgates and bars, Tar Heel celebrities like Michael Jordan and Mia Hamm jetting in to be part of the atmosphere and ESPN treating the game like a national event.

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Instead, it quickly turned into a social media pile-on.

After scoring easily on their first scripted drive to take a 7-0 lead, the Tar Heels played like they have the potential to end up one of the worst teams in FBS.

There’s no further analysis needed for what happened on the field. North Carolina did nothing well, wasn’t physically competitive along the line of scrimmage and was outgained 542-222. By the fourth quarter, Kenan Stadium had emptied out to such an extent that the fans who were given bracelets to be part of a light show looked more like they were participating in a brownout.

“We have to be tougher as a team,” defensive back Kaleb Cost said. “It’s definitely disappointing, but it’s back to the drawing board. We’ll go hard every day this week and make sure it never happens again. Obviously we’re angry as a team but we’re going to use that.”

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If any enthusiasm remains for the Belichick era after this dud, it will largely be contained to two groups: Those who already paid to sell out UNC’s season ticket allotment this year and the line of college coaches like TCU’s Sonny Dykes who will be able to tell their grandkids about the time they put a licking on the GOAT.

And let’s be real: In North Carolina’s current form, Belichick is going to take a whole lot of losses.

When media members arrived at their seats in the Kenan Stadium press box, they found cards that normally have some type of depth chart as a little cheat sheet to follow the game. Instead, North Carolina’s had blank spaces underneath every position.

It seemed like a pure Belichick play: Say as little as possible, treat every personnel decision like a nuclear-grade secret. Instead, after seeing his team play, this seemed less like a rebuild and more like a reveal. Just like the card said, North Carolina’s roster has a whole lot of nothing.

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“Too many three-and-outs, too many long plays on defense and two turnovers for touchdowns,” Belichick said. “You can’t overcome that.”

Whatever reason Belichick had for wanting this job — money, ego, putting his two sons on the coaching staff, trying to prove to NFL team owners they made a mistake thinking he was over the hill — his tenure at North Carolina immediately takes on a very different tone.

Singing the fight song and regaling the media with stories about growing up around the Naval Academy doesn’t prove that you belong on a college campus. You know what does? Getting good players to wear your uniform.

Belichick and his general manager, Michael Lombardi, obviously failed on that account. As much as North Carolina underachieved in the past several seasons under Mack Brown, he never in his entire career recruited a team as lacking in talent and skill as this one.

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That does not mean this is doomed to be an expensive disaster North Carolina will regret for the next decade. But it’s undeniably true that coaches with far fewer credentials than Belichick have taken over worse rosters and found a way to be a lot more competitive out of the gate.

“We just keep working and keep grinding away,” Belichick said. “We’re better than what we were tonight, but we have to go out and prove it. Nobody’s going to do it for us.”

In many ways, it’s the story of North Carolina football itself. The program is always supposed to be better than what it’s been, but nobody’s been able to prove it.

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Even the great Belichick.

At least not yet.

But this entire place exists because of a church named New Hope. That’s part of the fabric of this place, and obviously this football program.

All these years later, though, nobody’s found physical evidence of the church’s remains. New Hope is just a symbol, but one that has endured over hundreds of years and many awful North Carolina football regimes. If Monday was any indication, Belichick may be the coach that finally tests the limits of hope in Chapel Hill.