Chinese foreign vice minister visits North Korea

Chinese Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Sun Weidong visited North Korea, according to the Korean Central News Agency on Friday. A relationship between North Korea and China had been somewhat distant compared to a relationship between the North and Russia, which got quickly close across all areas, including the military, after a summit meeting in September last year. Now, there is a new development between North Korea and China with high-level exchanges.

“A delegation of the Foreign Affairs of China led by Vice Minister Sun Weidong passed through Sinuiju and arrived in Pyongyang on Thursday,” the Korean Central News Agency said on Friday. The news agency added that a member of North Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and a Chinese diplomatic minister in North Korea welcomed Vice Minister Sun and the Chinese delegation on a bridge near the border. The vice minister’s visit to the North is a return visit to North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Park Myung Ho’s visit to China in December last year. Park’s visit to China was the first high-level meeting between the two countries since August 2019.

A vice foreign minister meeting between the two nations is expected to see discussions on North Korea’s change of approach to South Korea, which currently defines inter-Korean relations as hostile rather than of the same root. Vice Minister Park may share the policy decisions from a plenary meeting of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea held at the end of last month, including a change of approach to the South, with Vice Minister Sun and listen to the Chinese side’s opinions.

Given that Vice Minister Park also had a meeting with Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi during his visit to Beijing last year, Vice Minister Sun might make courtesy visits to North Korea’s highest-ranking officials, including leader Kim Jong Un, during his time in North Korea.


Kyu-Jin Shin newjin@donga.com