China gives N. Korea economic lessons

Xi, Kim to boost ‘strategic, tactical’ ties

BEIJING, June 21, (Agencies): Chinese President Xi Jinping has coached his North Korean counterpart Kim Jong Un on high-stakes diplomacy. Now he seems poised to give the young autocrat another lesson: how to reform a statecontrolled economy while keeping an iron grip on power.

Beijing has long pushed for Pyongyang to adopt similar measures to those that fuelled China’s dizzying ascent from a communist backwater to one of the world’s largest trading powers.

But while the highly secretive, nuclear-armed North has been quietly carrying out economic reforms for some time, officially it still promotes the merits of its system and denounces the evils of capitalism.

In recent months, as relations between China and North Korea have experienced a renaissance, Kim has transformed from a recalcitrant and standoffish troublemaker to Xi’s eager pupil.

The shift followed a decision by Beijing to back UN sanctions banning imports of coal, iron ore and seafood from its unruly neighbour, after years of hushed diplomacy failed to convince the North to stop its nuclear and missile tests. It didn’t take long for Kim to change his tune: he made his first visit as leader to his country’s sole major ally in March, quickly followed by two more trips, during which he toured Chinese tech and science hubs.

Kim, who is in his mid-30s, seemed eager to learn: Chinese state media has been filled with images of the attentive leader taking copious notes during his meetings with Xi.

“We are happy to see that the DPRK (North Korea) made a major decision to shift the focus to economic construction,” Xi told Kim in their most recent meeting Tuesday, according to state news agency Xinhua.

“China is ready to share its experience” with Pyongyang, Xi said the next day.

Economicp

China’s “reform and opening” under Deng Xiaoping in the 1980s started an economic boom that has made it the world’s second-largest economy and a crucial driver of global growth.

Despite pressure from Beijing to follow its example, in public Kim had appeared resistant, in 2016 decrying “the filthy wind of bourgeois liberty and ‘reform’ and ‘openness’ blowing in our neighbourhood”.

But in practice he has brought in limited changes, from allowing private traders to operate in informal markets to giving state-owned enterprises some freedoms to operate, and turning a blind eye to private company operations.

Having completed the development of his atomic arsenal, Kim announced in April that his priority was now “socialist economic construction”.

A delegation from his ruling Workers’ Party of Korea visited Beijing in May to learn about economic reforms.

At a historic summit with US President Donald Trump in Singapore last week, Kim expressed his commitment to the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula — and Washington is offering him sanctions relief if he gives up his weapons.

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North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Chinese President Xi Jinping discussed measures to bolster “strategic and tactical” cooperation between the two countries in a second meeting on Wednesday, the North’s state media said on Thursday.

The meeting between Kim and Xi came on the North Korean leader’s second and last day of his latest visit to Beijing where he briefed the Chinese president on his summit with US President Donald Trump last week.

They exchanged “serious views” on the present and “new” situation, Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.

On Tuesday, Kim and Xi were reported by North Korean media to have reached an understanding on the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula after discussing the outcome of the USNorth Korea summit.