The Chinese government has reportedly decided to invite North Korea's reclusive leader Kim Jong-il to its country amid efforts to persuade Pyongyang not test nuclear weapons.
"The Chinese government has decided to restore its relationship with the North, and inviting Kim Jong-il on a state visit is going to be its first step," a government official said, citing sources here and in Beijing.
The reported move by the Chinese government comes amid reports that the North may be preparing to test a nuclear bomb. Earlier reports have also said the North Korean leader may already be on a trip, or soon take one, to China as part of efforts to restore his country's estranged relationship with its closest ally.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Kim has yet to take a trip.
He said Beijing's official invitation was expected to be made when its new ambassador to Pyongyang Liu Xiaoming arrives in the North this week. Other diplomatic sources said the new Chinese ambassador was expected to arrive in Pyongyang on Wednesday.
Relations between Pyongyang and Beijing, the North's closest ally and largest donor, was nearly spoiled after Pyongyang launched seven ballistic missiles into waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan on July 5, despite repeated opposition and warnings from its Asian neighbors, including South Korea and China.
Beijing did not hide its dismay and anger at its communist neighbor, voting in favor of a U.N. Security Council resolution on July 15 that condemned the North's provocative act and prohibited all U.N. member nations, including China, from engaging in any missile-related dealings with the North.
Earlier reports said a Chinese bank, the Bank of China, has frozen all of North Korea's accounts with its Macau branches, with an apparent nod from Beijing, for suspicions of being the front for the North's illegal financial scheme to launder counterfeit foreign currencies, including U.S. dollars and Chinese yuan.
China's apparent frustration with the North partly comes because of its failure to woo its communist ally back to six-nation negotiations over the North's nuclear ambitions.
Beijing has hosted five rounds of the nuclear talks, also attended by the United States, Japan, Russia and South Korea, since the nuclear dispute erupted in late 2002. But Pyongyang has been staying away from the talks since November, citing what it claims to be a hostile U.S. policy toward it.
The North Korean leader, too, has reportedly expressed his disappointment with Beijing, saying China and Russia, also a veto-wielding member of the U.N. Security Council and North Korea's close ally, are "unreliable" at a meeting with his country's diplomats in Pyongyang in July.
Diplomatic sources here said it was not clear whether or not the North Korean leader would consider the invitation as a gesture of reconciliation and accept it.
They said the North has already been offered an "unofficial" invitation for its leader to visit China, but is currently showing a lukewarm attitude, demanding financial support, or compensation, from China.
South Korea's Unification Ministry said last week that the increase in trade between North Korea and China for the first six months of the year dropped to its lowest level in five years to 4.7 percent. This also marked the first slowdown of trade increase between the two since 2002.
The volume of Sino-North Korea trade grew 16.2 percent in the first half of 2002 from a year earlier. The increase jumped to 37 percent in 2004 and 43 percent last year, according to Kim Nam-sik, head of the ministry's information and analysis bureau.
China annually provides large sums of economic support to the North, including most of the heavy oil consumed in the communist state.
Both Pyongyang and Beijing are very secretive about the North Korean leader's trips to China, usually confirming or reporting such a trip only after the North Korean leader returns home.
Kim Jong-il's latest trip to China was made in January, but neither North Korea nor China confirmed his visit until after he had returned to the North.
Seoul, Sept. 3 (Yonhap New)
China to invite N. Korean leader amid fears of nuclear test |
