North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has visited China for the third time this year, seeking a relaxation of sanctions in the latest flurry of diplomacy following this month’s historic summit with US President Donald Trump.
A police-escorted motorcade carried the reclusive Mr Kim along Beijing’s central artery, Chang’an Avenue, on Tuesday to kick off a visit that China’s official Xinhua news agency said would last for two days. The announcement was a departure from protocol, as Beijing usually waits until after North Korean leaders have left to acknowledge their visits.
The trip is viewed as a chance for Mr Kim to brief Chinese leaders on the Singapore summit on June 12, which was the first such meeting between sitting leaders of the US and North Korea.
The summit’s commitments for North Korea to denuclearise in return for a reduction in joint military exercises by the US and South Korea are in line with a proposal first floated a year ago as a Sino-Russian blueprint to defuse growing tensions on the Korean peninsula.
The Pentagon on Monday said it had suspended planning for “Freedom Guardian”, a large-scale war exercise with South Korea that had been scheduled for August. Pentagon spokesperson Dana White said the US had made no decision about subsequent military exercises with South Korean forces. North Korea has long considered such exercises as a provocation.
The meeting also offers Mr Kim the chance to press for resumed trade with his isolated country’s top economic partner. “North Korea surely hopes for a quick resolution in lifting sanctions,” said regional expert Jin Canrong of Renmin University in Beijing.
The Chinese foreign ministry said last week that the United Nations should consider lifting sanctions imposed to dissuade North Korea from its programme of nuclear weapons development, calling the sanctions “a means, not an end”.
In the town of Hunchun, where the Chinese, Russian and North Korean borders meet, locals were optimistic that trade would soon revive. “After the summit, everything changed. Business is much better and there are more traders from foreign countries coming here,” said Lyuba, a businesswoman who provides translators for Russian and Korean visitors. She declined to give her last name.
About two dozen trucks were lined up on the Chinese side of the border. Drivers said many more would have attempted the crossing before the sanctions were imposed.
“The most urgent thing for North Korea is to shake the current sanctions framework. Mr Kim will ask [Chinese President Xi Jinping] to relax its participation in international sanctions against Pyongyang,” said Kim Hyun-wook, professor at Korea National Diplomatic Academy. “Mr Xi is likely to accept Mr Kim’s demand, given the ongoing trade war between Beijing and Washington.”
Nicolas Bonner, a British resident of Beijing whose travel agency specialises in bringing tourists to North Korea, said he had seen a fall in purchases of luxury goods in North Korea this winter, as Chinese efforts affected both the state-owned and private economies. “This time I am sure he is looking for some kind of investment because Kim Jong Un needs that,” he said.
