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he “goodwill observation group” comprising high-ranking North Korean officials poses for a photo with Chinese President Xi Jinping (center of front row) at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on May 16. (Yonhap News)

Pak Tae-song, head of a “goodwill observation group” of high-ranking North Korean officials who visited China, met Chinese President Xi Jinping on May 16 and told Xi that the group had come “to learn about China’s experience with building an economy and reform and opening,” China’s state-run China Central Television (CCTV) reported. The group included all the chairs of the Workers’ Party of Korea (KWP) municipal and provincial committees.

Park, who is a vice chairman of the KWP Central Committee, told Xi that the visit’s objectives were to put into practice the important shared attitudes of the two countries’ leaders, to learn about China’s experience with building an economy and reform and opening, to play an active role in achieving the new strategic line of focusing capabilities on economic development, and to make a new contribution to amity between North Korea and China, according to the CCTV report.

“We support North Korea developing its economy and improving the public livelihood, and we also support Chairman Kim Jong-un leading the Party and the people on a course of development that is appropriate to their country’s circumstances,” Xi told the observation group in response.

On May 17, the KWP’s official newspaper the Rodong Sinmun and the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported that the observation group had met Xi in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on May 16 and that Pak had “mentioned that the Party and the people are focusing their capabilities on building the economy to promote the new strategic line unveiled in the 3rd Plenary Session of the 7th KWP Central Committee.”

This confirms that a discussion of the economy accounted for a substantial portion of the observation group’s meeting with Xi.

Xi was accompanied at the meeting by Wang Huning, first secretary of the Communist Party of China’s (CPC) Secretariat; Deng Xuexiang, director of the CPC’s General Office; Song Tao, head of the CPC’s International Liaison Department; and Ji Jae-ryong, North Korea’s ambassador to China. Wang had also been present during Xi’s summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

After arriving in Beijing on May 14, the observation group paid a visit to the text and information center at the Chinese Academy of Science at Zhongguancun, which is known as China’s “Silicon Valley.” On May 15, the group stopped by the Institute of Cereal Science at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, the home of China’s cutting-edge agricultural technology, as well as an exhibition hall featuring that technology. On May 16, the group toured the Beijing Infrastructure Investment Company and then paid a visit to Xi.

The observation group was made up of the KWP committee chairs for all of North Korea’s cities and provinces – including one direct-controlled city, two special cities and nine provinces – presumably because these chairs are the ones who will lead projects for special economic and development zones in their respective jurisdictions.

These committee chairs visited various economic sites in China with the apparent goal of reviewing and framing follow-up measures for implementing the new strategic line adopted in the 3rd Plenary Session of the 7th KWP Central Committee on Apr. 20, namely “focusing capabilities on building a socialist economy.” Xi’s decision to meet the group personally can be taken as a gesture of consideration and respect to Kim Jong-un for having sent the group to China.

“This is a political act aimed at achieving equidistant diplomacy between the US and China leading up to the negotiations with the US,” said Yang Mun-su, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies who is an expert on the North Korean economy.

“All the municipal and provincial party committee chairs appear to have attended as a kind of ‘insurance’ [for economic cooperation with China] since there are special economic and development zones all around North Korea,” said Koo Kab-woo, a professor at the same university as Yang.

By Noh Ji-won, staff reporter, and Kim Oi-hyun, Beijing correspondent

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