News Analysis |
North Korea’s Supreme Leader, Kim Jong-Un paid surprise visit to Beijing on March 27, 2018. This undisclosed meeting may have important motives. Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman, Hua Chunying in a briefing in Beijing said she had no information about any visit by Kim or about the train which is reported to have carried him into the country. Any relevant information would be released in “due course.”
The timing of the visit probably presents that China may want to know what Kim seeking in the upcoming trilateral meeting among the North Korea, South Korea and the US in May, 2018. Moreover, the visit can be seen through two main aspects. First is that bilateral relations of North Korea and Beijing may strengthen in future. Their ties have been recently strained as China backed US sanctions crimping the country’s energy imports and sources of foreign cash.
The prospects of complete denuclearization of Korean Peninsula seem relatively less and Trump might offer any nuclear deal to North Korea on his conditions but Beijing appears willing to condemn its neighbor’s nuclear developments.
Secondly, China and North Korea had fought together against South Korean and against UN forces during the Korean War (1950-1953). China may take an advantage of their relationship in order to formulate some policies to sidestep any sort of misadventure in the result of the recent US trade sanctions on China. China may put some concerns in front of North Korea and tell Kim to play the role of a mediator in order to lessen the volatility of trade war between US and China. As China is North Korea’s biggest trade partner.
Earlier China opposed North Korea’s nuclear weapons; it also doesn’t want to see Kim’s regime collapse or war break out on the Korean Peninsula. Any instability could lead to a refugee crisis or potentially U.S. troops on its border.
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China would continue its trade relations with North Korea. As far as their defense relations are concerned, the two countries have a 1961 mutual defense pact that is thought to have been reinterpreted in recent years by Beijing to only applicable in the probable circumstance of North Korea being under attack by foreign forces.
Associate Fellow of Chatham House and a former U.K. diplomat to Pyongyang, James Edward Hoare, also said in an interview. “If it’s true it’s probably to ask advice on how they should handle a meeting with the Americans.”
The timing of the visit probably presents that China may want to know what Kim seeking in the upcoming trilateral meeting among the North Korea, South Korea and the US in May, 2018. Moreover, the visit can be seen through two main aspects.
The meeting between Kim Jong Un and Moon Jae-in – the third meeting between North Korea and South Korea’s leaders in history – is scheduled to take place in late April, 2018 at the Peace House on the southern part of Panmunjom.
Read more: Trump’s sabre-rattling: Is a nuclear war between US and North Korea…
This summit will be followed by a meeting between Kim Jong-Un and U.S. President Donald Trump, by May, 2018. According to South Korean President, Moon Jae-in said Speaking on Wednesday said the meetings would seek to “completely resolve the issue of denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula and establishing peace.”
The prospects of complete denuclearization of Korean Peninsula seem relatively less and Trump might offer any nuclear deal to North Korea on his conditions but Beijing appears willing to condemn its neighbor’s nuclear developments.