[Then it was time to see Xi again. They had lunch at the state-run Beijing Hotel, a place where Xi’s predecessor Mao Zedong once entertained Kim’s grandfather. Kim Il Sung, the founding leader of North Korea, loved the Chinese food at the hotel so much that he sent a stream of chefs to study there, according to the book “Legend of Beijing Hotel.”]
By Anna Fifield
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Chinese
paramilitary police on motorcycles escort a motorcade thought to be carrying
North
Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Beijing on Jan. 9, 2019. (Andy Wong/AP)
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BEIJING
— It was billed as a
four-day trip, but North Korean leader Kim Jong Un spent barely 27 hours in
Beijing.
Kim attended a banquet with Chinese President
Xi Jinping in the Great Hall of the People, a plush ceremonial building on one
side of Tiananmen Square, on Tuesday night — his 35th birthday. During the
dinner, Kim and Xi, together with their wives, enjoyed a “grand variety show”
to mark 70th anniversary of their countries’ diplomatic relations, according to
South Korean media reports.
On Wednesday morning, Kim visited a
traditional Chinese pharmaceutical company inside the Yizhuang Science and
Technology Park in the southeast suburbs of Beijing.
The 300-year-old Tong Ren Tang Chinese
Medicine Co. is one of China’s most famous pharmaceutical companies, producing
medicines using bee products including honey, pollen and wax.
It stood in stark contrast to the more
high-tech sites — China’s Silicon Valley, a science lab and a transit control
center — that Kim toured last year.
Then it was time to see Xi again. They had
lunch at the state-run Beijing Hotel, a place where Xi’s predecessor Mao Zedong
once entertained Kim’s grandfather. Kim Il Sung, the founding leader of North
Korea, loved the Chinese food at the hotel so much that he sent a stream of
chefs to study there, according to the book “Legend of Beijing Hotel.”
His private train pulled out of Beijing shortly
after 2 p.m.
It turned out that North Korea’s announcement
of a four-day visit included travel time. The train between the Beijing and
Pyongyang takes more than 20 hours.
The Chinese government, other than confirming
the visit was happening, has not released any information about the meetings.
But Kim’s itinerary could be pieced together through motorcades and security
cordons and traffic jams.
The North Korean leader’s relatively light
schedule might be a reflection of the fact that these visits have become
somewhat common. The two didn’t meet once during the first five years they were
both in power. Now Kim has crossed the border into China four times in the past
10 months.
But more likely, it is a reflection of a
delicate diplomatic balancing act for the young leader as he prepares for his
second summit with President Trump.
Kim and Trump are expected to announce the
details soon, amid complaints from both sides that the other is not living up
to the agreement they reached in Singapore in June. The United States is
unhappy about the lack of progress toward denuclearization, while the North
Korean regime wants immediate relief from crippling sanctions imposed in 2017.
Add to that seven decades of enmity between
North Korea and the United States, and five years of disdain between Kim and
Xi. Plus, there’s the trade war between China and the United States.
Some analysts say that Kim is now trying to
pit Trump and Xi against each other. But others say there are limits.
“Kim still wants the sanctions lifted. He may
want to encourage Xi to get on the phone and lean on Trump,” said Bonnie
Glaser, a China expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
But trying to play them off each other will leave Kim the loser, she said.
“The Chinese have always looked at North
Korea through the lens of their competition with the United States, so they
want to make sure their interests are protected,” she said.
China
has repeatedly said the visit was about strengthening cooperation and
exchanges.
“There is no doubt that Chairman Kim Jong Un
will have an in-depth exchange of views with the Chinese leadership on
deepening relations between the two parties and two states as well as on
international and regional issues of mutual interest,” Foreign Ministry
spokesman Lu Kang said as the visit began.
Some analysts say that North Korea and China
could be strengthening their relationship to try to put pressure on the United
States for their own reasons: North Korea to get early sanctions relief, and
China to help resolve the trade war. But others point out that the mistrust
between Xi and Kim runs deep.
Kim has appeared to resent North Korea’s
reliance on its much bigger neighbor, and spent his first years trying to
lessen his regime’s economic dependence on China. About 90 percent of North
Korean trade goes to or through China, and China is the only country with both
the interest and the money to prop up the North Korean economy.
For the first five years that Kim and Xi held
office concurrently, Kim did not make the traditional socialist pilgrimage to
Beijing, apparently trying to keep the Chinese leadership at arm’s length. This
came despite Xi’s predecessor Hu Jintao backing Kim’s succession. Xi seemed to
sour on his much younger counterpart after Kim’s early brazen actions.
Kim had his uncle, a man responsible for North
Korea’s economic relations with China, executed at the end of 2013. Then he
launched increasingly advanced missiles, including on days when Xi was holding
high-profile international forums. Now the two are trying to pretend that those
five years didn’t happen, said Adam Cathcart, an expert on Chinese-North Korean
relations at the University of Leeds.
“The dissonance between that experience and
Xi Jinping having to make believe that Kim Jong Un is a prodigal son, who will
henceforth and forever operate without harming China’s national interest or
Xi’s political survival, is of course apparent,” he said.
North Korea remains wary about being too
dependent on China, while China wants stability, Glaser said.
Both sides have their reasons for engaging
now, but that doesn’t mean either will forget their recent history. Case in
point: Xi had said he would make the return visit to Pyongyang, hinting that it
would be by the end of last year.
“What do the North Koreans have to do before
they get a Xi Jinping visit?” Glaser asked.
Lyric Li and Yuan Wang contributed reporting.
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