Chinese Visitor Gives a Boost to North Korea

North Korea’s leader rarely greets visiting leaders at the airport. But when Chinese President Hu Jintao touched down for a three-day summit that ends today, Pyongyang pulled out all the stops.

Trailing North Korean leader Kim Jong Il on the tarmac at Pyongyang International Airport were the nation’s prime minister and defense minister and dozens of other senior Communist Party leaders. Soldiers goose-stepped, and an honor guard fired a 21-gun salute.

The visit by Pyongyang’s closest ally has provided the regime with an opportunity to glorify its role and reinforce many of the core themes its people hear from birth.

Extensive coverage on state-run television and newspapers has hammered home the message that this powerful neighbor, allied in socialism, acknowledges the importance of its relationship with North Korea and recognizes the greatness of North Korea’s leadership, past and present.

It has also underscored that Pyongyang is not internationally isolated, and that the Chinese-North Korean friendship forged in battle against the Japanese and Americans more than half a century ago will remain strong at a time when the country is under pressure from all sides.

A well-briefed Hu showed proper respect for the touchstones of North Korean political power. After a bearhug with Kim at the airport, he stopped and bowed to each of the three military services and greeted leaders of North Korea’s Workers’ Party. He also placed a wreath in honor of the country’s late founder, Kim Il Sung, who is afforded near-godlike status here.

Behind the scenes, however, Hu was expected to deliver a pointed message concerning nuclear weaponry: that China is North Korea’s biggest donor and doesn’t tend to ask for much in return, but that it now wants North Korea’s cooperation in six-nation talks aimed at dismantling Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program.

“China’s way of dealing with North Korea in public is to try and be nice and smooth,” said Chu Shulong, a professor of international relations at Beijing’s Qinghua University. “But in private, we make the context very clear.”

It would be in China’s interest to help pave the way for a nuclear-free Korean peninsula. Further progress would also help its relations with Washington, strained by China’s rising trade surplus and slow progress in freeing up its currency.

The next round of nuclear talks is expected to take place the week of Nov. 7, and is aimed at fleshing out a deal signed in September under which North Korea would dismantle its nuclear program in return for economic assistance, security guarantees and greater diplomatic recognition. The talks involve the two Koreas, China, the U.S., Japan and Russia.

“Hu Jintao knows this is a very crucial stage for the six-party talks,” Chu said. “We’ve now reached a basic agreement. Our experience with North Korea over the past decade shows that implementation is much more difficult than reaching an agreement.”

North Korea often gives contradictory signals. In a statement issued a day after signing the September deal, it added conditions, including construction of a civilian nuclear reactor opposed by Washington.

On Thursday, a North Korean diplomat said in an interview with South Korea’s Yonhap news agency that Pyongyang would not disclose any details about its nuclear program before receiving the reactor. And Saturday, North Korea said talks were in jeopardy unless Washington dropped its pressure over human rights.

But state media Saturday also quoted Kim Jong Il as saying his country would participate in the next round of talks. “North Korea is committed to the denuclearization of the [Korean] peninsula,” he was quoted as saying on Chinese television.

China is also likely to dangle more aid if North Korea cooperates. China recently gave North Korea a glass factory, named the Dae An Friendship Factory, which the two leaders visited Saturday.

This year, North Korea’s rice and corn harvests are looking up, and there appear to be more consumer Chinese goods in the hard-currency and state-run shops, although North Koreans are fond of complaining about their low quality.

China’s vibrant economy and rapidly growing exports, even to isolated North Korea, underscore the very different paths taken by the two socialist countries.

North Korea has been selective in interpreting China’s success. The Friday edition of the Rodong Sinmun, a workers’ paper, devoted a full page to China’s economy but attributed the success in part to Chinese people donating money to their government. North Korea has long urged its people on to greater heights through self-sacrifice and patriotic acts in the face of economic hardship.

China is reluctant to apply too much economic or political pressure on North Korea, however, wary that political instability might result in millions of refugees crossing their 850-mile shared border.

“I assume Hu will read them the riot act,” said a foreign diplomat in the region. “But Kim Jong Il is banking on the fact that Hu Jintao won’t push too hard.”

China also has an interest in North Korean minerals, coal and other resources. Chinese investment in North Korea’s iron ore industry has reportedly risen several-fold in the last year.

Government officials said the ceremony for Hu was the biggest for an arriving dignitary since then-South Korean President Kim Dae Jung visited Pyongyang in 2000.

Men in suits and women in traditional chima chogori national dress lined the 15-mile route from the airport, waving red, pink and purple cloth flowers distributed by their cooperatives. Flags of the two countries decorated the route and banners proclaimed strong ties as the two leaders stopped their stretch Mercedes limousine behind a phalanx of motorcycles to accept bouquets.

“Koreans are very happy to have the Chinese president come,” said Ryu Ok Hui, 41, a guide at a Korean War museum in Pyongyang, rapping a red-tipped pointer on an exhibit labeled “American Atrocities.” “This visit is very good.”

Ryu was one of the tens of thousands of North Koreans who lined the streets to greet the Chinese leader.

“A warm welcome to Korea,” one banner read. “Long live the solidarity between Korea and China.”