The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Kim and Xi declare their ties are strong
Countries aimed to improve positions ahead of U.S. talks.
Beijing moves off the sidelines in meeting before talks with U.S.; Trump says there’s a “good chance” Kim will do right thing.
BEIJING — With smiles and firm handshakes, North Korea and China used a surprise summit this week to show that despite recent tensions, Pyongyang still has a powerful backer and Beijing will not be sidelined in discussions about the fate of its unpredictable neighbor.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s secretive talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing — which were not confirmed until after his return home — appear aimed at improving both countries’ positions ahead of Kim’s anticipated meetings with South Korean President Moon Jae-in and U.S. President Donald Trump in the coming weeks.
A key objective for Beijing is to reassert its relevance to the talks, from which it has been excluded. China has appeared increasingly shut out as its relations with the North deteriorated and Pyongyang reached out to Seoul and Washington.
“Kim Jong Un’s visit shows that China is not marginalized, but playing a leading role. This saves China a lot of face,” said Pang Zhongying, a North Korea expert at Renmin University in Beijing.
“North Korea once again is taking advantage of China,” Pang said. “It plays the China card, showing South Korea and the U.S.: China is still my ally.”
Official reports from both countries on Wednesday depicted in effusive terms warm ties between the leaders in an effort to downplay
recent tensions over Kim’s development of nuclear weapons and long-range missiles.
In the reports, “Kim reaffirms the traditional friendship between the two countries as if nothing had ever happened, when the relationship had plummeted to unprecedented lows,” said Bonnie Glaser, an Asia expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Ties in recent months have frayed as China supported tougher U.N. sanctions on North Korea and suspended coal and iron ore imports. Pyongyang last year seemingly sought to humiliate Beijing by timing some of its missile tests for major global summits in China.
Kim made the visit to China at Xi’s invitation, China’s official Xinhua News Agency said, in his first trip to a foreign country since he took power in 2011. Xinhua said the trip ran from Sunday to Wednesday but appeared to include travel time from Pyongyang on the special armored train that Kim traveled on, which secretly arrived in Beijing
on Monday and left Tuesday afternoon.
Rumors of Kim’s presence began circulating on Monday night, with the spotting of his special train, Chinese security teams and official delegations at the border city of Dandong and various points in Beijing.
Although China sought to keep Kim’s visit secret, and described it Wednesday as “unofficial,” it accorded him full honors due to a head of state, including a formal welcoming ceremony and troop review at the Great Hall of the People in central Beijing.
Xi and his wife, Peng Liyuan, also hosted a banquet for Kim and his wife, Ri Sol Ju, and they watched an art performance together, Xinhua said.
“We speak highly of this visit,” Xi told Kim, according to Xinhua.
For China, the visit also projects to its public that Xi is firmly in charge of steering Beijing’s relations with North Korea in a way that favors China’s interests.
“Here is Xi Jinping saying, ‘Don’t worry, everything is going to be great,’ ” Glaser said.
Trump tweeted Wednesday that he had received a message from Xi saying that his meeting with Kim “went very well” and that Kim “looks forward to his meeting with me.”
“For years and through many administrations, everyone said that peace and the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula was not even a small possibility,” he tweeted. “Now there is a good chance that Kim Jong Un will do what is right for his people and for humanity. Look forward to our meeting!”
Ahead of the planned meeting, however, satellite images of North Korea’s main nuclear site indicated it has begun preliminary testing of an experimental light water reactor and possibly brought another reactor online. Both could be used to produce the fissile materials needed for nuclear bombs.
According to Jane’s Intelligence Review, the experimental reactor could become operational with “little warning later in 2018 or in 2019.”
In a separate report on 38 North, a website that specializes in North Korea news and analysis, experts said images of the other reactor suggest it was brought into operation very recently. That would mean “North Korea has resumed production of plutonium presumably for its nuclear weapons program,” it said.
Analysts say Kim would have felt a need to consult with China ahead of summits with Moon and Trump. His father, Kim Jong Il, made his first visit to China as North Korean leader in May 2000, reportedly to consult with the Chinese leadership ahead of his summit with South Korea’s then-leader, Kim Dae-jung.