Beijing: China's Premier Li Qiang met with North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui on Monday and expressed Beijing's intent to advance exchanges and interactions at all levels, China's foreign ministry said. The meeting took place on the third day of Choe's four-day trip to China since Saturday, which included talks with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi the previous day. During the meeting, Premier Li told Choe that China is ready to continue to deepen coordination with North Korea and to better safeguard common interests.
According to Yonhap News Agency, China's Xinhua News Agency reported that, during the talks, Choe reaffirmed her country's "firm position" to solidify ties with China, while also expressing "complete support" for Chinese President Xi Jinping's key global initiatives and issues concerning China's core interests, including those related to Taiwan, the Uyghurs, Tibet, and Hong Kong. Choe said her country "expects to strengthen high-level exchanges" with China, enhance diplomatic communications between the two countries, promote working-level cooperation, and deepen multilateral collaboration.
The previous day, Choe held talks with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and reached a "complete" consensus in their discussions on international and regional issues, the North's state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Monday. The KCNA did not provide details about their discussions on such issues, but the foreign ministers may have discussed common ground ahead of potential South Korea-China or U.S.-China summits expected on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, set for Oct. 31-Nov. 1 in South Korea.
Choe's visit to China is her second in less than a month, following her trip with state leader Kim Jong-un to attend China's high-profile military parade in Beijing on Sept. 3. At that time, Kim and Chinese President Xi Jinping held their first talks in more than six years, signaling that bilateral ties, strained by Pyongyang's military alignment with Russia, are back on track. Choe said the military parade "clearly demonstrated China's historic achievements, international status, and comprehensive national power," during the talks with Wang.
Her country will "proactively work toward the deepening and development" of bilateral friendship in line with the Kim-Xi talks, Choe said, also reiterating Kim's pledge, expressed during the talks, that North Korea-China ties will never waver regardless of changes in international situations. Wang described the Kim-Xi summit as providing "direction and a blueprint for elevating bilateral ties to a higher level." Building on the common ground shared by the state leaders, China and North Korea need to strengthen "strategic communications," exchanges, and cooperation to jointly safeguard regional peace and stability, the Chinese foreign minister also noted, reaffirming China's "unwavering" stance to advance ties with Pyongyang.
Wang also said Choe's visit to China would provide an opportunity to advance bilateral ties and promote shared interests between the countries. The latest Choe-Wang talks mark Choe's first one-on-one meeting with a Chinese foreign minister since she became foreign minister in June 2022, as well as her first independent visit to China in that role. The meeting came amid speculation about whether Xi will reciprocally attend North Korea's military parade marking the 80th founding anniversary on Oct. 10 of the Workers' Party of Korea.