North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has met Wang Huning, one of China’s most senior political figures, in a public display of ties between Pyongyang and Beijing.
Wang, a member of China’s Communist Party Politburo Standing Committee and the country’s fourth-highest-ranked official, arrived in Pyongyang on Wednesday leading a Chinese delegation. North Korean state media said the talks focused on carrying out agreements reached when Chinese President Xi Jinping visited North Korea in June.
That trip was Xi’s first visit to North Korea in seven years. During the summit, the two sides adopted what North Korean state media described as a “far-reaching blueprint” for strengthening relations, including closer diplomatic, law enforcement and military cooperation.
In the latest meeting, Kim said it was the neighbours’ “steadfast policy … to more vigorously develop the traditional friendly and cooperative relations,” according to North Korean state media.
Wang offered Beijing’s own reassurance, saying China’s “firm support for the cause of Korean socialism led by Comrade General Secretary Kim Jong Un will never be changed.”
The visit comes as North Korea has drawn closer to Russia. Pyongyang has signed a strategic defence agreement with Moscow and deployed thousands of North Korean troops to fight in Russia’s war in Ukraine. China, meanwhile, remains North Korea’s largest economic partner.
During the trip, the Chinese delegation visited a memorial for Chinese soldiers killed in the Korean War, a Workers’ Party cadre training school and the mausoleum holding the bodies of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il.
Earlier, Wang also met Jo Yong Won, a senior official in North Korea’s Workers’ Party, and pledged “the will of the Chinese party and the government” to carry out what Xi and Kim agreed last month.
