In New Sign of Recovery, Kim Meets China Official
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Date: 1/23/2009 9:42:45 AM
Sender: Korean
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In New Sign of Recovery, Kim Meets China Official
Kim Jong-il, the North Korean leader, center, with Wang Jiarui, a Chinese official, to his right in Pyongyang on Friday.
SEOUL — Kim Jong-il, the North Korean leader, met a senior Chinese Communist party official in Pyongyang on Friday, Chinese and North Korean media reported. It was Mr. Kim’s first public meeting with a foreign visitor since August, when he is believed to have suffered a stroke.
Analysts in Seoul saw the meeting as a North Korean attempt to demonstrate to the outside world that Mr. Kim was in control of his government, well enough to make key decisions about its nuclear weapons program and deal with the new American administration.
Xinhua, China’s state-run news agency, first reported Mr. Kim’s meeting with the official, Wang Jiarui, who is chief of the Chinese Communist Party’s International Department. The account did not mention Mr. Kim’s health. Xinhua said Mr. Wang had arrived in Pyongyang on Wednesday for talks on strengthening economic and trade links.
North Korean news media later reported that Mr. Kim held a lunch for Mr. Wang’s delegation, adding that Mr. Wang gave Mr. Kim a personal letter from President Hu Jintao. North Korean media also released photos of the event.
“North Korea must have timed the meeting in part to demonstrate once and for all that Kim remains in charge,” said Kim Yong-hyun, a North Korea expert at Dongguk University in Seoul. “As the new U.S. president Barack Obama is said to support dialogue with North Korea, Kim needed to signal to Washington that he is well enough to accept an envoy.”
Analysts in Seoul had speculated that when Mr. Kim recovered sufficiently, he would invite a dignitary from China, North Korea’s closest ideological ally, to demonstrate to the outside world that he was still in charge.
Another sign that Mr. Kim’s health was improving came recently when North Korea announced that it would hold a long-delayed election of its rubber-stamp Parliament, the Supreme People’s Assembly, on March 8. An election had been expected last August to choose a new assembly. The legislature’s first task would be to re-elect Mr. Kim to another five-year term as chairman of the National Defense Commission, the North’s most powerful agency.
With no clear successor for Mr. Kim, the news that intelligence officials in Seoul and Washington believed he had a stroke triggered fear of a potential leadership vacuum in the isolated country, which has been the focus of international efforts to halt its nuclear weapons program. Intelligence officials in Seoul have said that Mr. Kim, 66, underwent brain surgery following the stroke.
North Korea has vehemently denied the reports of Mr. Kim’s illness. In recent months, its state-run media have published a series of reports describing his visits to military units, factories and farms, releasing photographs but no video footage of his activities, fueling doubts about his recovery.
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