There are rumors that North Korea is in the final stages of setting up a spring visit to China by successor Kim Jong Eun.
Lee Young Hwa, the president of Japanese NGO ‘Rescue the North Korean People! Urgent Action Network’, citing a source well-versed on Sino-North Korean relations, told The Daily NK on March 1st, “North Korea and China are in the final stage of discussing a visit to China by Kim Jong Eun in March.”
“North Korea is discussing with China plans for Kim Jong Eun to visit Beijing after the conclusion of the National People’s Congress on March 14th,” Lee added. “During the visit, Kim is scheduled to hold talks with President Hu Jintao and Vice President Xi Jinping, and it seems he will request large scale economic support from China.”
If visiting China in March is difficult, Lee claimed, the two sides will review the option of immediately after April 15th, Kim Il Sung’s birthday.
Rumors of a visit by Kim to China have arisen almost continuously since he was officially revealed as the successor at the Chosun Workers’ Party Delegates’ Conference on September 28th last year. For example, at the beginning of this year one South Korean report stated that he would visit China after February 16th, Kim Jong Il’s birthday, but that rumor also turned out to be false.
“China is concerned about the North Korean system being shaken by the worsening state of Kim Jong Il’s health,” Japanese newspaper Sankei Shimbun said in a weekend article in which it also reported news of the alleged visit. “In a situation where democratization protests are expanding across Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya, it appears that they believe there is the need to block the influence of democratization in North Korea and stabilize the succession system by Kim Jong Eun visiting China early and by declaring their support.”
However, Park Hyung Jung, a senior researcher at the Korea Institute for National Unification, believes that the visit, if it materializes, is unlikely to be anything to do with the Middle East, saying that it “would have been planned prior to political fluctuations in the Middle East” and adding, “As cooperation is being strengthened at the level of public security, even if Kim Jong Eun visits China, it will not be a big issue.”
Instead, Lee Tae Hwan, Director of Center for China Research at Sejong Institute, said that such a visit would mostly be because North Korea is trying to stabilize its system, explaining, “North Korea sees it that Kim Jong Eun’s visit to China will help them strengthen the succession structure.”
He went on, “Last year, were they not also aiming to bring about stabilization through Kim Jong Il’s two visits to China? A visit to China will be extensively promoted as an achievement of the successor. From that side, there is a high possibility of the event happening before April 15th, Kim Il Sung’s birthday.”
The idea of a visit was supposedly first put forward by Chinese President Hu Jintao to Chosun Workers’ Party secretary Choi Tae Bok when the latter visited China in September last year. Since then, a number of high-ranking Chinese officials have indirectly and directly acknowledged Kim Jong Eun’s hereditary succession, including Minister of Public Security Meng Jianzhu.
Meng was quoted by Chosun Central News Agency as saying that China “ardently congratulates Comrade Kim Jong Il on becoming General Secretary and Comrade Kim Jong Eun on becoming Chosun Workers’ Party Central Military Commission Vice Chairman at the Chosun Workers’ Party Delegates’ Conference, therefore gloriously solving the problem of succession to the Chosun revolution” when he was in Pyongyang shortly before Kim Jong Il’s birthday. However, the quote was not repeated in the Chinese media.
