North Korea’s Kim wishes Xi ‘great success’

Chinese President Xi Jinping claps while addressing the media as he introduces new members of the Politburo Standing Committee at Beijing’s Great Hall of the People on Wednesday, October 25, 2017. The seven-member Standing Committee, the inner circle of Chinese political power, was paraded in front of assembled media on the first day following the end of the 19th Communist Party Congress. (AP)

North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un wished Xi Jinping “great success” in a congratulatory but comparatively restrained message after the Chinese president cemented his grip on power at a landmark Communist Party Congress.

Kim’s note offered Xi “sincere congratulations” after he was formally given a second term as the head of China’s ruling party, state-run KCNA said on Thursday.

The message, sent on Wednesday, also “expressed conviction that the relations between the two parties and the two countries would develop in the interests of the peoples of the two countries,” KCNA said.

But the brief, four-sentence missive was a notable contrast to the fulsome terms in which Kim praised the Chinese leader and his country when Xi ascended to power five years ago.

Ties between the two neighbors have soured in recent years as North Korea staged a series of nuclear tests and missile launches despite opposition by Beijing – its only diplomatic ally and economic lifeline.

In 2012, Kim described the two nations as “friendly neighbors linked by the same mountain and rivers” and bilateral ties as the “common precious wealth associated with the wisdom and efforts of the leaders of the elder generations”.

Beijing has been reluctant to impose sanctions harsh enough to rattle North Korea’s political status quo over fears that its collapse could send an influx of refugees across their shared border and place the United States army at China’s doorstep.

But in a sign of irritation at its unpredictable neighbor, Beijing cut all its coal imports from North Korea earlier this year and voted in favor of broader United Nations sanctions imposed on Pyongyang in recent months.                      /kga