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North Korean leader Kim Jong Un dispatched a high-profile official and close confidant to China today as Beijing faces pressure to rein in its belligerent neighbour.
Choe Ryong Hae, a top Workers' Party official and a vice marshal tasked with supervising the North Korean military, departed on a chartered Air Koryo flight with a political and military delegation. Chinese Ambassador Liu Hongcai was among the dignitaries on the tarmac for his departure.
Choe, dressed in his military uniform, arrived later in Beijing and left the airport in a motorcade. He was meeting with Wang Jiarui, head of the Communist Party's international affairs office and long a point man for China on contacts with North
Korea, according to China's official Xinhua News Agency.
The trip is the highest-profile visit by a North Korean official to China this year, and it takes place as the new leadership in China shows frustration with North Korea and a greater willingness to work with Washington to harry Pyongyang over its nuclear weapons programs.
China is Pyongyang's economic and diplomatic lifeline, providing nearly all of its fuel and most of its trade, and foreign analysts said the trip could be an attempt to win more aid and repair ties.
There are signs of strains in relations between Beijing and Pyongyang over North Korea's nuclear efforts, which included an underground nuclear test in February. That test, the country's third, was followed by UN sanctions and a protracted period of high tensions as North Korea threatened nuclear strikes on Washington and Seoul.
The Chinese ambassador's sendoff to the North Korean delegation made up of top party and military officials was cordial.
He chatted with Choe briefly, commenting on the weather as they shook hands before the vice marshal boarded his plane.
The rhetoric from Pyongyang has fallen off in recent weeks, and there have been tentative signs of diplomacy in the region as envoys from the US, Japan, South Korea, China and Russia have consulted on how to engage with the North Koreans.
Separately, the Japanese government said today that it was looking into re-opening official talks with North Korea to resolve questions over the abductions of Japanese citizens decades ago. The announcement by Chief Cabinet spokesman
Yoshihide Suga raised worries among allies who fear Tokyo's focus on that issue might weaken diplomatic efforts on Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program.
