Kim visits China again
BEIJING: China’s President Xi Jinping and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un held talks over two days in the northeastern Chinese coastal city of Dalian, state media reported on Tuesday.
This was the second summit between the two leaders in about 40 days, with Kim having travelled to Beijing for a secret meeting in March ahead of a summit between the leaders of North and South Korea.
The meeting on May 7 and 8 was unannounced as well, with confirmation coming only when China’s state media announced it and published a photo of Xi and Kim taking a stroll on a beach.
The meeting was held days after Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in met for a historic summit in Panmunjom in April and ahead of the much anticipated meeting between Kim and US President Donald Trump, expected in the coming weeks.
Kim’s visit to Beijing in March was his first international trip after he assumed power, sending out a signal that China remained a crucial player in the Korean peninsula. The second meeting cements that notion further.
Though it wasn’t described as such, the reports in the state media suggested the meeting between Kim and Xi was apparently “informal” in nature.
This is only the third time that Xi has travelled outside Beijing to meet a leader. The only two one-on-one meetings with a leader outside the national capital were with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Xian and Wuhan.
The official Xinhua news agency quoted Xi as having said: “After the first meeting between me and Comrade Chairman, both CHINA-DPRK relations and the Korean Peninsula situation have made positive progress. I feel happy about it.”
Kim was quoted as saying that bilateral ties and the situation on the Korean Peninsula had undergone meaningful progress since March. “These are the positive outcomes of the historic meeting between me and Comrade General Secretary,” he said.