North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s Oct. 24 visit to Dandong combined a memorial tribute to Chinese wartime allies with a factory tour and a crossing of a recently opened bridge, putting practical ties with China alongside commemoration.
The MFA said Kim told Wang Huning that honoring fallen Chinese People’s Volunteers was the reason for his visit. The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported that Kim placed a flower basket at the memorial and connected the ceremony to 76 years since the volunteers joined the Korean War.
Wang, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and a member of the Communist Party of China’s Politburo Standing Committee, accompanied Kim, the MFA said. Wang also conveyed greetings from President Xi Jinping. The ministry’s account describes Kim meeting Wang; it does not report a meeting between Kim and Xi.
KCNA identified Kim’s afternoon stop as the Dandong City Bus Factory, while the MFA called it a car factory. KCNA said Kim crossed back over the New Yalu River Bridge, which links Dandong with Sinuiju. Xinhua reported that the bridge opened to traffic on Oct. 15.
Wang described the newly opened bridge as an opportunity to expand people-to-people exchanges and trade, according to the MFA. Kim said cooperation between the two countries had room to grow. China’s readout presented stronger exchanges and trade as beneficial to people in both countries, but the official accounts reviewed announced no trade agreement, procurement plan or specific project arising from the visit.
Wang Son-taek, an adjunct professor at Sogang University, wrote in The Korea Herald on Oct. 29 that debate about a possible U.S.-North Korea summit and strains between Beijing and Pyongyang had drawn attention away from the trip’s economic implications. That is the columnist’s analysis; the official accounts did not say the visit was arranged to coordinate a summit.
EconoTimes previously reported on the bridge’s trade role during Kim’s departure from Dandong. The APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting is scheduled for Nov. 18-19 in Shenzhen, though the official visit accounts did not connect the trip to that gathering.
