AP, Beijing :
Chinese President Xi Jinping offered encouragement for North Korea’s focus on economic development in a speech in Pyongyang, turning to a topic Beijing has long pressed with its communist neighbor amid wider concerns over the North’s nuclear weapons program.
In an address at a banquet Thursday night, Xi noted that the nation under leader Kim Jong Un had “initiated a new strategic line of economic development and improving people’s livelihoods, raising socialist construction in the country to a new high tide,” according to China’s official Xinhua News Agency.
Xi left North Korea early Friday afternoon, Chinese state media reported. An image posted on the mobile app of state broadcaster CCTV showed people waving at his Air China Boeing 747 on the tarmac at the airport in Pyongyang.
In Pyongyang, Xi, accompanied by Kim and their wives, also laid a wreath at a memorial to Chinese soldiers killed in the 1950-53 Korean War. China’s intervention in the conflict prevented a rout of North Korean forces by troops from the U.S. and others under United Nations command.
“We will pass down the China-North Korea friendship from generation to generation, consolidate and develop the two countries’ socialist cause, better enrich our citizens and advance regional peace, stability, development and prosperity,” Xi was quoted as saying.
The North’s long-moribund economy has shown some recent improvements, but it remains heavily dependent on aid – mainly from China – and food security is a constant concern. China has agreed to U.N. economic sanctions over the North’s nuclear and missile programs but is wary of any measures that could push its economy toward collapse, potentially unleashing instability and chaos on its border.
Xi’s speech also touched on the nuclear issue, saying all sides agreed to “stick to peace talks so as to make even greater contributions to peace, stability and prosperity in the region and the wider world,” Xinhua said.
North Korean state media said Xi and Kim held broad discussions over the political situation surrounding the Korean Peninsula and reached a shared understanding on the issues they discussed. The Korean Central News Agency report did not give any specifics on the stalled nuclear negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang over disagreements in exchanging sanctions relief for disarmament.
Chinese President Xi Jinping offered encouragement for North Korea’s focus on economic development in a speech in Pyongyang, turning to a topic Beijing has long pressed with its communist neighbor amid wider concerns over the North’s nuclear weapons program.
In an address at a banquet Thursday night, Xi noted that the nation under leader Kim Jong Un had “initiated a new strategic line of economic development and improving people’s livelihoods, raising socialist construction in the country to a new high tide,” according to China’s official Xinhua News Agency.
Xi left North Korea early Friday afternoon, Chinese state media reported. An image posted on the mobile app of state broadcaster CCTV showed people waving at his Air China Boeing 747 on the tarmac at the airport in Pyongyang.
In Pyongyang, Xi, accompanied by Kim and their wives, also laid a wreath at a memorial to Chinese soldiers killed in the 1950-53 Korean War. China’s intervention in the conflict prevented a rout of North Korean forces by troops from the U.S. and others under United Nations command.
“We will pass down the China-North Korea friendship from generation to generation, consolidate and develop the two countries’ socialist cause, better enrich our citizens and advance regional peace, stability, development and prosperity,” Xi was quoted as saying.
The North’s long-moribund economy has shown some recent improvements, but it remains heavily dependent on aid – mainly from China – and food security is a constant concern. China has agreed to U.N. economic sanctions over the North’s nuclear and missile programs but is wary of any measures that could push its economy toward collapse, potentially unleashing instability and chaos on its border.
Xi’s speech also touched on the nuclear issue, saying all sides agreed to “stick to peace talks so as to make even greater contributions to peace, stability and prosperity in the region and the wider world,” Xinhua said.
North Korean state media said Xi and Kim held broad discussions over the political situation surrounding the Korean Peninsula and reached a shared understanding on the issues they discussed. The Korean Central News Agency report did not give any specifics on the stalled nuclear negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang over disagreements in exchanging sanctions relief for disarmament.
