Kim asked Xi for “major economic cooperation,” Asahi Shimbun reports

orth Korean leader Kim Jong-un and Chinese President Xi Jinping

The North Korean leader also requested help guaranteeing the regime’s security

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un asked Chinese President Xi Jinping for major economic cooperation, Japanese newspaper the Asahi Shimbun reported. The Asahi Shimbun said that an anonymous source had heard this from the International Department of the Communist Party of China, following the North Korea-China summit last month. Kim asked for China’s help with guaranteeing the regime’s security and providing relief from the military threat prior to negotiations with South Korea and the US, the paper said.

While the specifics of the economic cooperation that Kim requested are unclear, the paper said, the measures discussed could include energy assistance and a reviving a plan to establish a special economic zone on the border between North Korea and China.

“Economic cooperation with China is extremely important for North Korea, which is under strict sanctions by the international community. While China has continued to impose sanctions on the North in line with UN Security Council resolutions, Kim may also have the objective of getting the ball rolling on economic reform, which is at the center of his ‘two-track’ policy, even as he stabilizes the national economy by linking improved relations with China to the easing of sanctions,” the paper said.

But the paper noted that “it is unclear whether China will assent at the present time since progress on economic cooperation between China and North Korea could make the sanctions a dead letter.”

By Cho Ki-weon, Tokyo correspondent

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