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North Korean Envoy Visits Beijing Amid Concerns About U.S.-Chinese Relations
North Korean Envoy Visits Beijing Amid Concerns About U.S.-Chinese Relations
(34 minutes later)
SEOUL, South Korea — The North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, sent his first special envoy to China on Wednesday amid signs that Mr. Kim’s government was trying to mend strained ties with Beijing and seeking breaches in the tightening ring of economic and diplomatic pressure over its nuclear weapons development.
BEIJING — A senior North Korean military official’s visit here Wednesday appears to have been organized on short notice, and was probably prompted by North Korea’s concerns about a planned meeting between President Xi Jinping of China and President Obama, analysts said.
The envoy, Vice Marshal Choe Ryong-hae, who serves as director of the general political bureau of the North Korean People’s Army, met in Beijing with Wang Jiarui, the head of the international department of the Chinese Communist Party, said Xinhua, China’s state-run news agency, in a report that gave no details of the talks.
Vice Marshal Choe Ryong-hae, a member of the inner circle of the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, arrived in Beijing two days after the United States and China announced that Mr. Obama and Mr. Xi would meet in California early next month.
His trip is North Korea’s first serious dabbling in diplomacy after months of bellicose pronouncements, including threats to launch nuclear strikes at the United States and its allies. It also comes as Japanese officials set off fears of a policy discord with allies by signaling a willingness to open a greater dialogue, including possible summit talks, with North Korea.
Vice Marshal Choe, 63, who is the political overseer of the North Korean military, met with Wang Jiarui, the head of the international department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. The vice marshal, sent by Mr. Kim as a special envoy, received only modest coverage in the Chinese state news media.
Marshal Choe, 63, is the first senior North Korean official to visit China since August and the first to go there in the capacity of special envoy. He is most likely the highest-profile envoy Mr. Kim could have chosen to visit China, having risen to the top military leadership under Mr. Kim, who has tried to consolidate his power at home while intensifying a standoff with Washington and its allies over his country’s nuclear and missile programs.
The Chinese government has shown irritation with Mr. Kim, who is regarded as a far less reliable ally than his father, Kim Jong-il, particularly after he defied Beijing to order a nuclear test in February and the launching of a three-stage rocket in December.
“The fact that Kim Jong-un sent a special envoy means that he has something quite urgent to discuss with China, and the fact that his special envoy was his top military officer suggests that China wants to talk about the North’s nuclear and missile programs,” said Cheong Seong-chang, a senior analyst at the Sejong Institute in South Korea.
Since then, North Korea has repeatedly requested invitations for a high-level visit to Beijing but has been rebuffed, Chinese experts on North Korea said Wednesday. That Mr. Xi and Mr. Obama are to hold talks June 7-8, in which North Korea is certain to be a topic, must have increased the demands from officials in Pyongyang, the North’s capital, for an audience in Beijing, the experts said.
Marshal Choe’s trip provides Beijing with an opportunity to assess North Korea’s intentions ahead of President Xi Jinping’s planned summit talks with President Obama in California in early June and with President Park Geun-hye of South Korea in Beijing in late June. Washington and South Korea have been pressing China to become more assertive in using its economic influence to help rein in North Korea’s nuclear weapons ambitions.
“The North’s provocations backfired and have pushed China and the U.S. closer together, resulting in more frequent high-level exchanges between the two countries,” Zhang Liangui, an analyst at the Communist Party School, was quoted as saying in The Global Times newspaper. “So it is trying a new way to sabotage Sino-U.S. ties.”
Commenting on Marshal Choe’s visit at a daily news briefing on Wednesday, Hong Lei, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, affirmed Beijing’s commitment to “maintaining the peace and stability of the Korean Peninsula” and to reconvening six-nation talks aimed at “denuclearization of the peninsula” through “dialogue and consultation.” Those talks were last held in 2008.
In sending Vice Marshal Choe, Kim Jong-un was hoping to get “China’s understanding and support” but was unlikely to achieve it, said Cai Jian, deputy director of the Center for Korean Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai.
But “it’s wise not to have big expectations” about Marshal Choe’s talks with Chinese officials, said Choi Myeong-hae, who studies Chinese-North Korean relations at the Samsung Economic Research Institute in Seoul.
“Following the nuclear test, North Korea repeatedly asked to send a special envoy to China to explain, but the Chinese government always turned it down,” Mr. Cai said.
Mr. Choi said the new leadership in Beijing had recently shown signs of impatience with North Korea and made some “stylistic changes” in managing relations with North Korea, which raised hopes that Beijing was now more willing to work with Washington in squeezing the North over its nuclear weapons programs. But, he added, China has retained its “fundamental” strategic view of North Korea as an important buffer against the influence of the United States, Japan and South Korea.
It was not clear whether Vice Marshal Choe would meet with President Xi, but Mr. Cai said he believed that the chances “are not very great.”
For its part, North Korea recently declared that it would never give up its nuclear weapons. And Mr. Kim’s choice of a top military officer as his envoy highlighted his biggest bargaining chip in dealing with China: his regime’s potential for trying military adventurism and raising tensions in the region again.
At the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s daily briefing, spokesman Hong Lei repeated the standard line that China seeks “peace and stability” on the Korean Peninsula and a return to talks aimed at denuclearizing the peninsula.
While naming the officials who saw Marshal Choe off on his trip to Beijing, North Korea’s state-run media revealed Wednesday that Hyon Yong-chol, who had been in charge of the field operations of the North Korean military as chief of its general staff, has been replaced by Gen. Kim Kyok-sik. General Kim was dismissed as minister of the People’s Armed Services earlier this month, and his unexpected return to a more powerful position is bound to rattle nerves in the region.
The North Korean envoy was probably looking for an invitation for Mr. Kim to visit China, the experts said. But given the young leader’s erratic behavior — including firing six short range projectiles into the waters off North Korea’s east coast since Saturday — the Chinese may choose not to reward him.
South Korean officials believed that the hard-line General Kim, 74, commanded units responsible for attacks on South Korea in 2010 that killed 50 South Koreans.
China voted for sanctions at the United Nations after the nuclear test in February, and this month the state-run Bank of China went along with a request from the United States to suspend all transactions with North Korea’s Foreign Trade Bank, a financier of the country’s nuclear program.
Although Kim Jong-un met with a Chinese Politburo member, Li Jianguo, who traveled to the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, in November bearing a letter from Mr. Xi, he has never visited Beijing while serving as North Korean leader.
Adding extra pressure on Pyongyang was the visit to Washington this month by the South Korean president, Park Geun-hye, who pledged to remain firm against North Korea’s provocations.
One of the biggest challenges he faces is how to manage his country’s traditional ties with China. China is North Korea’s last remaining ideological ally and virtually controls its economic lifeline, providing nearly all of its fuel and most of its trade amid tightening international sanctions.
President Park, who speaks Chinese and spoke warmly of President Xi in Washington, is expected to visit China next month.
But the bilateral ties, once billed as being as close as “lips and teeth,” have recently shown enough signs of friction to unnerve the North Korean leader, analysts said. Chinese scholars and bloggers now openly express increasing impatience with North Korea over its nuclear weapons ambitions and threats to the region.
Vice Marshal Choe is the most senior North Korean official to visit China since Mr. Kim came to power in December 2011.
Earlier this month, the state-controlled Bank of China said it had ceased dealing with the North Korean Foreign Trade Bank, a move that appeared to be supported by the Chinese government to show impatience with the North. Since then, other Chinese banks have taken similar steps, dealing a blow to the operation of the North Korean bank, which is a main channel of international financial transactions for the North.
The vice marshal is an important figure in the firmament around the new leader, in part because he is close to the new leader’s aunt, Kim Kyong-hui, and his uncle, Jang Song-taek, said Evans J. R. Revere, a former specialist on North Korea at the State Department.
Washington and its allies have kicked off a flurry of diplomacy aimed at pressing the North to give up its nuclear programs, with President Park of South Korea meeting with Mr. Obama in Washington on May 7 and Glyn T. Davies, Mr. Obama’s top envoy on North Korea, traveling to Seoul, Beijing and Tokyo last week.
Vice Marshal Choe also holds three senior positions: a member of the National Defense Commission, member of the Politburo Presidium of the Korean Workers’ Party and vice chairman of the Central Military Commission of the party.
In recent days, North Korea has begun pushing back, suggesting that it will not bend to pressure. It has rattled the region by firing six short-range projectiles into waters off its east coast since Saturday.
The Chinese have been unnerved by a series of changes at the top of the North Korean military as Mr. Kim tries to consolidate his power.
Last week, North Korea also allowed a sudden, rare visit by a political aide to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan. And on Wednesday, Japan’s chief cabinet spokesman, Yoshihide Suga, said high-level talks with the North were possible if they would help resolve longstanding questions on the abduction of Japanese citizens decades ago. Their fate remains a hot political issue in Japan.
“I do think the Chinese are uncomfortable with all the musical chairs of defense personnel under Kim Jong-un and their lack of knowledge about them,” said Victor D. Cha, who ran North Korea policy at the National Security Council during the presidency of George W. Bush.
Mr. Abe indicated earlier this week that he might consider a summit meeting with Mr. Kim if such a breakthrough could be made. The trip to North Korea by his aide, Isao Iijima, drew attention because he was a central figure in helping arrange a summit visit to Pyongyang in 2002 by the Japanese prime minister at the time, Junichiro Koizumi.
Mr. Kim made yet another military change on the eve of Vice Marshal Choe’s departure.
While China welcomed Mr. Iijima’s trip as a possible to step toward easing tensions on the Korean Peninsula, South Korea called the trip “unhelpful” to its efforts to build a unified front among the United States, Japan and South Korea in pressing North Korea. South Korean officials have long suspected North Korea of trying to create divisions among regional powers by playing them off against each other.
Hyon Yong-chol, who was in charge of the military’s field operations as chief of its general staff, was replaced by Gen. Kim Kyok-sik, North Korea’s state-run news media reported Wednesday. General Kim was dismissed as minister of the People’s Armed Forces this month, and his unexpected return to a more powerful position is bound to rattle nerves in the region.
Marshal Choe, the North Korean special envoy, has been the most visible among a new lineup of officers Mr. Kim has been elevating to put his own stamp on the North’s powerful military since he took over following the death of his father, Kim Jong-il, in late 2011. As the political officer of the Korean People’s Army, Marshal Choe is in charge of ensuring top military officers’ loyalty to Mr. Kim and ferreting out any whose allegiance is questioned.
South Korean officials suggested that General Kim, 74, a hard-liner, commanded units responsible for attacks in 2010 that killed 50 South Koreans.
Marshal Choe’s parents were well-known Korean guerrillas who had fought together with the Chinese against Japanese colonialists in the early 20th century. That joint struggle against “imperialism” forms a basis for mutual ties between North Korea and China.
Jane
Perlez reported from Beijing, and Choe Sang-hun from Seoul, South Korea. Bree Feng contributed reporting from Beijing.
Chris Buckley contributed reporting from Hong Kong.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: May 22, 2013
Correction: May 22, 2013
An earlier version of this article misidentified the location of President Obama’s planned meeting with President Xi Jinping of China. It will be held in California, not Washington.
An earlier version of this article misidentified the location of President Obama’s planned meeting with President Xi Jinping of China. It will be held in California, not Washington.
