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Experts: China Could Be ‘New Road’ Touted by North Korea

China may be a “new road” for North Korea if diplomacy with the United States fails, experts say.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with a senior North Korean official Wednesday in Pyongyang during a three-day visit that began Monday, according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

Wang told Ri Su Yong, vice chairman of North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party, that China’s prosperity cannot be impeded by any country, apparently referring to the U.S., with which Beijing has been involved in an

FILE – Chinese President Xi Jinping and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un walk during Xi’s visit in Pyongyang, North Korea, in this picture released by North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), June 21, 2019.

Reconciliation

Kim and Xi held their first summit in March 2018, ahead of U.S. President Donald Trump’s landmark Singapore summit in June 2018, and have stepped up diplomacy in an apparent move to repair their relationship. Kim and Xi have met five times since the first summit.

Relations between the two historical East Asian allies soured when Kim took power in 2011 and began testing nuclear weapons and long-range missiles. In response to North Korea’s weapons tests in 2016 and 2017, Xi supported U.S.-led sanctions against the country.

Wang’s visit to Pyongyang came as North Korea’s first Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui said on Saturday that

FILE – People watch a TV screen showing North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s New Year’s speech, at Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Jan. 3, 2018. North and South Korea agreed Friday to revive their formal dialogue.

Kim said during his 2019 New Year’s Day speech that he was willing to

FILE – South Korean protesters shout slogans during a rally demanding withdrawal of the U.S. troops from Korea Peninsula near the U.S. embassy in Seoul, South Korea, July 31, 2019.

In August, Trump said South Korea “agreed to pay substantially more money to the U.S. in order to defend itself from North Korea.” He often said South Korea should pay more to keep about 28,500 U.S. troops in South Korea, an idea that South Korea rejects.

Differences over cost-sharing for keeping the U.S. military in South Korea have apparently been exacerbated by Seoul’s decision in August to end an intelligence-sharing pact through which it agreed to share sensitive military information with Tokyo.

Seoul’s decision generated U.S. criticism because the withdrawal could complicate U.S. security cooperation with both South Korea and Japan to guard against a North Korean threat.

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