Beijing. North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un was reportedly to spend over two days traveling via China to Hanoi, capital of Vietnam, for an “official goodwill visit” to Vietnam and the upcoming meeting with US President Donald Trump, a move Chinese analysts said showed his full trust in China and intention to learn from China’s experience of reform and opening-up.
The summit is scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday. It will be the first visit a North Korean leader makes to Vietnam in 55 years after Kim’s grandfather Kim Il-Sung visited in 1964.
Kim reportedly left Pyongyang for Hanoi Saturday afternoon. He is accompanied by senior officials including Kim Yong-chol, Ri Su-yong, Kim Phyong-hae and O Su-yong, members of the political bureau and vice-chairmen of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported Sunday.
Kim Jong-un’s sister Kim Yo-jong is also among the delegation.
Kim was expected to travel about 4,500 kilometers for about 60 hours before arriving Tuesday in Dong Dang, a Vietnamese town bordering Pingxiang in South China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.
From there he was expected to travel to Hanoi by car, according to the Yonhap News Agency.
“Spending more than two days crossing China by train illustrates Kim’s full trust in China in securing his personal safety,” Zheng Jiyong, director of the Center for Korean Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai, told the Global Times on Sunday.
The plane Kim took to Singapore for the first summit with Trump in June 2018 was also provided by China.
Journey to the south
According to a prediction of Yonhap, Kim’s train is highly likely to pass through seven Chinese provinces and municipalities at different development levels, including Tianjin, Changsha and Guangzhou.
Four bullet trains were canceled that travel via Changsha in Central China’s Hunan Province for Monday, but no other cancellations were announced via China’s official railway ticket-booking site 12306.cn as of press time.
During the journey, Kim can view the plain landscape in North China and countryside in South China. His train is also expected to pass the Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge.
According to Zheng, Kim’s main purpose is to get an on-site view of China’s achievements in 40 years’ reform and opening-up, which will enhance the North Korean delegation’s confidence in promoting similar policies in North Korea.
The experience will also help the delegation come up with more specific ideas for North Korea’s economic development, as well as what to ask when negotiating with the US side, Zheng opined.
China’s role
As North Korea and the US lack mutual trust in each other, China serves as an important bridge, or a “guarantor,” to bring the two sides together at the negotiating table, Zheng said.
China has always been sincere and spared no efforts to support and promote the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, he said.
“The stable friendship with China helps increase North Korean confidence in the negotiations,” Zheng said.
Da Zhigang, director and research fellow at the Institute of Northeast Asian Studies of the Heilongjiang Provincial Academy of Social Sciences, echoed Zheng, saying “Kim also needs China’s advice on how to play great-power diplomacy.”
China could also help North Korea better engage in regional economic cooperation in Asia, which could effectively promote the prosperity and stability of the Korean Peninsula, Da said.
Since March 2018, the North Korean leader has visited China four times to meet President Xi Jinping before and after meeting Trump as well as summits with South Korean President Moon Jae-in.
To mark Kim’s latest visit to China in January, North Korea issued a commemorative stamp to stress the visit is another event to be “specially recorded in the history of friendship and unity between the two parties and the two countries,” North Korea’s KCNA reported.
(In Association with Global Times)
