A source in Beijing has revealed that the main aim of North Korean Prime Minister Choi Young Rim’s current visit to China is to revise a bilateral agreement between the two countries on the development of Hwanggeumpyeong.
However, the Chinese side is reportedly unhappy with the request.
Choi, who is now on the third day of his five-day trip, has already held face-to-face talks with both President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao. Publicly, the main topics have been strengthening the Sino-North Korean bilateral friendship and economic cooperation.
In his meeting with Wen, Choi stated, “We want to strengthen our cooperation with China in trade and infrastructure sectors,” adding, “We are welcoming investment from Chinese enterprises, and promise to offer them convenience.”
To which Wen responded, “China is finding methods of development which fit North Korea’s own circumstances; we back them, and will continue to support them as far as possible.”
However, internally the two sides are reportedly in the midst of a disagreement about North Korean requests to revise the Hwanggeumpyeong agreement.
According to a diplomatic source in the Chinese capital, “As per a request from the North Korean side, it was expected that the contents of the agreement on 50-year leases for Hwanggeumpyeong development as agreed upon between North Korea and China would be revisited, but the Chinese side is expressing opposition to that.”
“The originally agreed upon contents are ‘leasing Hwanggeumpyeong to China and China independently managing the development’, but North Korea is asking to amend it to reflect China and Chosun developing it together. The Chinese government is very uncomfortable with this, and has communicated that to the North Korean side,” the source added.
The Chinese government has already made it clear that they conceptualize the development of Hwanggeumpyeong as happening according to economic logic through regional provincial governments and individual enterprises, and when Prime Minister Choi visited China with a group of economic experts last November, he told the Chinese side that the autonomy of companies investing in Hwanggeumpyeong would be the top priority, which helped to secure the agreement.
However, now the situation has been thrown back into doubt by Choi’s latest visit.
“It is not that there is not a chance of the two sides reaching a new agreement,” the source commented. “But the more this happens, the more it will inevitably have the effect of causing investment to fall.”
