Xi: China ready to develop cooperation with North Korea under ‘new situation’

China’s President Xi Jinping has underlined the significance of Beijing’s cooperation with Pyongyang in a message to North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un, the North’s state KCNA news agency reported.

Xi further emphasized that China is ready to “develop the China-DPRK relations of friendship and cooperation” under a “new situation,” KCNA said on Saturday, referring to North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).

The official news agency, however, did not elaborate on the distinctions of the “new situation.”

The Chinese president made the statement in response to Kim’s congratulatory message for the Beijing Winter Olympics Games and a verbal message of congratulation soon after the successful closing of the games, the report added.

In his verbal message earlier in the week, the North Korean leader pledged to further boost cooperation with China and together “frustrate” threats and hostile policies from the US and its allies.

The message was delivered to Xi to mark Sunday’s closing ceremony of the Beijing Winter Olympics, the country’s ruling party-run Rodong Sinmun said on Tuesday. North Korean athletes, however, did not take part in the Games.

The two sides “are strengthening strategic cooperation and unity to destroy the undisguised hostile policy and military threat of the United States and its followers and defend and advance the common cause of socialism,” Kim wrote to Xi.

He further praised Xi’s leadership and said China had “left an indelible trace in the history of the Olympics with its indefatigable efforts” despite “unprecedentedly severe health crisis and the hostile forces’ maneuvers”.

“[Kim] expressed his will to further consolidate DPRK-China relations into indestructible relations and actively contribute to the building of a peaceful and developing world together with General Secretary Xi Jinping,” the Rodong Sinmun also added in a summary of the message.

This comes as military cooperation with North Korea is prohibited by UN sanctions that were approved by China.

The UN Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 2270, passed in 2016, bars Pyongyang from giving or receiving “technical training, advice, services or assistance related to the provision, manufacture, maintenance or use” of missiles, nuclear weapons and even light weapons.

But the two countries have seen visits of military delegations in recent years as the UN resolutions do not prevent the two sides from discussing military strategy.

In 2018, Kim made his first known international trip as the North Korean leader to meet President Xi in Beijing. Xi reciprocated later with a visit to Pyongyang, the first by a Chinese leader in 14 years.

Beijing has remained Pyongyang’s only major ally since the two sides signed the Mutual Aid and Cooperation Friendship Treaty in 1961.