Choe Ryong-hae Pak Pong-ju



By Jun Ji-hye

North Korea is expected to focus on restoring ties with China in an effort to overcome the economic sanctions imposed on it by the international community, according to a North Korea expert, Thursday.

Relations between the two nations have been increasingly strained since the North's fourth nuclear test and a long-range rocket launch earlier this year.

Cheong Seong-chang, a senior researcher at the Sejong Institute, said that the North's decision to promote the ruling Workers' Party secretary Choe Ryong-hae and Premier of the Cabinet Pak Pong-ju to become standing members of the party's politburo is aimed at recovering ties with Beijing.

The decision was made during the four-day seventh party congress that was wrapped up on Monday.

"It is highly likely that Choe, who had visited China and Russia as an envoy of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, will be tasked with the mission of improving Pyongyang-Beijing relations," Cheong said during a forum hosted by the Sejong Institute.

"Pak's promotion was also meaningful in that the North gave the reform-minded figure power, which has been rare in that regime."

Cheong added that Choe and Pak's promotions to core positions in the party will also resolve a matter of the "level" of negotiators when high-level talks take place between North Korea and China.

China has been the major supplier of fuel and food for North Korea.

But China has cooperated with the United States in producing the harsher sanctions against the North at the United Nations Security Council in early March to punish the North for its fourth nuclear test on Jan. 6 and for the long-range rocket launch on Feb. 7.

Vowing to sincerely enforce these sanctions, in April Beijing unveiled 25 items banned in trade with Pyongyang that included imports of gold, coal and rare earth metals from the North, and exports of jet fuel and other oil products to the North.

The mining sector is a key part of Pyongyang's economy that is largely used to fund its military.

According to the Global Times, a newspaper with close ties to the Chinese Communist Party, China's representatives were not invited to the North's party congress. Observers say the rare absence apparently reflects the increasingly strained ties between Pyongyang and Beijing.