Surprised over North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong-Un's move to abruptly withdraw all women pop band following reported reluctance of top Chinese leaders' to attend their performances, China today resorted to damage control vowing to step up all round ties with its close ally.
"China attaches great importance to its cultural relations with DPRK (North Korea). We would like to work with DPRKfor all round cooperation including in the cultural area," Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hong Lei told reporters, playing down the abrupt pull out of the band.
He refused to comment on why Kim withdrew the band which arrived here last week with a lot of fan fare.
He merely cited a state-run Xinhua news agency report which stated that performance was cancelled because of "communication issues at the working level".
"China is ready to continue to work with it (DPRK) to promote bilateral exchanges and cooperation in culture and all other areas," the Xinhua report said, without elaborating.
The abrupt pullout of the band by North Korea from China suggests that the ties were deteriorating, the observers said.
The Moranbong Band, an all-women group whose members are hand-picked by Kim and North Korea's State Merited Chorus, left Beijing on Saturday just hours before they were due to take the stage at the National Centre for the Performing Arts.
The cancellation came two days after Kim said the nation had turned into "a powerful nuclear weapons state ready to detonate an A-bomb and H-bomb".
The concerts had been seen as a sign of better relations between North Korea and its neighbour. The bilateral ties had been strained by Pyongyang's nuclear test in 2013.
South Korea's Yonhap news agency quoted an unnamed Chinese official as saying that Pyongyang had initially sought President Xi Jinping or Premier Li Keqiang's attendance.
China agreed to send a Politburo member to attend the show, but then opted for lower-ranking officials.
Jilin University international relations professor Sun Xingjie said if the concerts had gone ahead, it would have been hailed as a sign of warming relations but the cancellation suggested ties were on the slide again.
"Performances by North Korean groups are never just cultural activities. Senior leaders of at least Politburo Standing Committee level need to be in attendance. It demonstrates mutual political trust by leaders of the two countries," Sun told Hong Kong based South China Morning Post.
"The Xinhua statement showed Beijing tried to downplay the event as a regular cultural exchange, and thus it would have sent a low-ranking official to minimise its significance. Clearly it is not a perspective shared by North Korea," he said.
Cui Zhiying, from Shanghai's Tongji University, said North Korea's nuclear ambitions ran counter to Beijing's push for a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula.
Sun said that if a state leader watched the show it would be interpreted as Beijing tolerating, if not endorsing, North Korea's nuclear weapons programme, contradicting its official stand.
