nKorea and China: Diplomatic Adjustments

China and North Korea in new diplomatic dance. Together, both can gain with new U.S. administration, JoongAng Dailey, Jan 3, 2009

North Korea and China are showing growing signs of cementing stronger political ties this year in what many experts here said is an effort to secure a better position in the upcoming diplomatic dialogue with Barack Obama’s new U.S. administration.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and Chinese president Hu Jintao sent celebratory New Year’s messages to each other and declared 2009 as the “year of friendship” to mark the 60th anniversary of the two countries’ diplomatic relations, according to the two countries’ state-run media.

Though Pyongyang has long celebrated the anniversary of the 1961 China-North Korea Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance and China’s military support to the North in 1950 during the Korean War, the 1949 opening of diplomatic ties between the two countries has been largely ignored. But yesterday’s announcement was no sudden surprise, given the two countries have made moves to forge a closer alliance since last year.

Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping, China’s second most powerful official, made an unusual visit to Pyongyang last year, while Kim pledged Pyongyang would “never to breach trust with China,” when another high-profile Beijing official, Wang Jiarui, head of the International Department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, visited the North last February.

“China has long been prioritizing relations with the South while alienating the North,” said Lee. “But now such a tactic is about to change as Beijing seems to be poised to handle the two Koreas equally.”