Jiang Visit To North Is Reported to Repair Ties

BEIJING － Chinese President Jiang Zemin ended his three-day visit to Pyongyang Wednesday having recovered an amicable relationship between China and North Korea, analysts said. It had been estranged since the establishment of diplomatic relations between South Korea and China in 1992.

Though the North Korean news agency KCNA called the talks "cordial and friendly," no communique was immediately issued.

Mr. Jiang is said to have held unofficial talks Tuesday night with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. Wang Jiarui, deputy minister of the International Liaison Department of the Chinese Communist Party, said Mr. Jiang urged the resumption of dialogue between the two Koreas, but said that Mr.Kim's Seoul visit "is an issue to be decided by the North and the South."

Mr. Jiang also allegedly urged Pyongyang to more actively seek to open dialogue with Western countries. He expressed support for improved relations and ultimate normalization between North Korea and the United States, Japan and the European Union.

Mr. Wang, however, refrained from commenting on what the two heads of state had to say about the missile-defense shield pursued by the United States that both oppose and on the U.S. demands for Pyongyang to cut back its ballistic missile program and end missile tests.

As the first summit meeting between Beijing and Pyongyang in nine years, since Seoul and Beijing established diplomatic relations in August 1992, analysts said, Mr. Jiang's Pyongyang visit was orchestrated to reaffirm the friendly relations between the two communist countries and to pave the way for complete normalization of relations.

North Korea criticized China as "revisionist" at the time of its establishment of diplomatic ties with Seoul, and it frequently berated China in the past for its market reform policies.

Mr. Jiang laid a wreath before the North Korea-China friendship tower Tuesday and wrote a statement wishing eternal vitality for the friendship of the two countries. At the Mangyongdae Children's Palace, a student wrote in Chinese calligraphy, "Friendship between North Korea and China."

Mr. Kim's support for China's three major policy goals and new praise for its market reforms implied, according to experts, that obstacles no longer existed between the two countries.

The second positive outcome of the talks was diplomatic. In showcasing the countries' special friendship, Mr. Jiang encouraged the view that China is the only country capable of exercising strong influence in North Korea, raising its leverage in contacts with the Western world, including the United States.

In Tokyo, the United States, South Korea and Japan began a two-day review of North Korea policies at theTrilateral Coordination and Oversight Group meeting.

by You Sang-chul