hankyoreh

A senior North Korean diplomat has asked China to withdraw its decision to ban the operation of a hotel run by a pro-Pyongyang businessperson from Japan on its soil, a hotel official said Sunday.

Earlier this year, China ordered a dozen hotels operating on its side of Mount Paekdu on the border with North Korea to stop business and leave by the year's end, sparking criticism the moves were aimed at bolstering its historical claims to the mountain.

Ri Ki-bom, consul general at the North's consulate in Shenyang in northeastern China, visited the Changbaishan Hotel on Dec. 15 and met Zhou Bo, deputy head of the Jilin Changbaishan Protection, Development, and Management Committee, the hotel official said, requesting anonymity.

Changbaishan is the Chinese name for Mount Paekdu, while Jilin is a province to which the mountain belongs.

"As far as we know, Ri stressed our hotel is built under a foreign corporate capital inducement law so China is obliged to guarantee the continuous operation of the hotel," the official said.

The committee confirmed the meeting in a report posted on its Internet site.

"Today's meeting was conducted for about one hour in an amicable manner. Ri praised the contribution by the committee for the protection of Changbaishan and said the establishment of the committee had a significant meaning for the development of the Changbaishan area," it said.

China said in its notice that its decision against the hotels is part of its preparations to list the mountain as a UNESCO Natural World Heritage. China has also announced plans to host the 2018 Winter Olympics on its side of the mountain.

Among the hotels ordered to leave are four hotels which were built and have been run by South Korean businesspeople.

Many South Korean experts said China's moves are designed to strengthen its historical claims over the mountain and other areas near the border with the North.

Ties between South Korea and China soured earlier this year, when a state-run Chinese academic institute claimed almost all of Korea's ancient kingdoms, which straddled the northeastern Chinese region of Manchuria and the northern part of the peninsula, as China's vassal governments.

Mount Paekdu, whose 2,750-meter peak is the highest on the Korean Peninsula, is a major tourist attraction for both Koreans and Chinese. Its territory is shared by China and North Korea.

Shenyang, Dec. 24 (Yonhap News)