China will send envoy to N. Korea, likely to urge nuclear talks

BEIJING >> China announced today that it would send a high-level diplomat to North Korea for the first time in two years, in a move less than a week after President Donald Trump’s visit that is likely to resume pressure on the North to curb its nuclear arms program.

The head of the Communist Party’s external affairs department, Song Tao, is scheduled to leave for Pyongyang on Friday, China’s state-run news agency, Xinhua, reported. The official announcement said that Song would inform North Korea of the results of the 19th Communist Party congress last month that reappointed President Xi Jinping to a second term.

Xinhua also reported that Song would “visit” the north, a phrasing that Chinese specialists on international relations called an oblique way of saying that Song would carry a message from Xi. They said the message would most likely urge the North to join negotiations to halt its nuclear program, and convey the contents of Xi’s discussions with Trump about North Korea.

Last week in Beijing, the talks between Xi and Trump focused heavily on North Korea. After he left Beijing, Trump tweeted that he was impressed with China’s efforts to push for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. But it was unclear whether Xi had promised to take any new steps, as denuclearization has long been China’s policy goal there.

“I believe Song Tao will take a very clear message on the Trump summit with Xi Jinping,” said Cheng Xiaohe, professor of international relations at Renmin University of China in Beijing. “He will focus on North Korea needing to talk about denuclearization.”

North Korea’s KCNA news agency today confirmed Song’s trip, a signal that after month’s of rebuffing Chinese attempts to send envoys to Pyongyang, the government of North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un, had agreed to Song’s visit.

But expectations were muted about whether the visit could move Kim to negotiate.

There was not even a guarantee that Song would see Kim in person, said Yang Xiyu, a Chinese diplomat who led the so-called six-party talks with North Korea more than a decade ago. He noted that it was most likely that the North Korean leader would only be willing to negotiate after conducting another missile test of the kind that has shaken the world this year.

“I am afraid that Kim will do something more terrible and will come to the negotiating table only after a big intercontinental ballistic missile test,” Yang said. “Then Kim will talk from a position of power.”

The last senior Chinese official to visit North Korea, Liu Yunshan, then a member of the elite Politburo Standing Committee of the Communist Party, appeared with Kim on the reviewing stand at a military parade in Pyongyang in October 2015. Liu made no headway then in curbing the North’s nuclear weapons expansion, and he retired last month. Song accompanied Liu and met the North Korean leader on that trip.

A lull in nuclear tests by North Korea since September has led to speculation, particularly in South Korea, that the North may be open to negotiations. But Chinese officials have been careful not to publicly encourage such assumptions.

Briefings to North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party after China party congresses — held every five years — are routine.

The party officials who went to Pyongyang five and 10 years ago were of more senior rank than Song, though clearly this time Song’s mission is broader than a mere tally of last month’s proceedings, Yang said.

Now that Xi is firmly in place for his second term, he will turn his hand to North Korea, Chinese experts said, in part to keep good relations with the United States.

If nothing else, Song should return with a reading of Kim’s intentions, Cheng said.

“All the news commentaries from North Korea say North Korea will not negotiate,” he said. “If that’s the real intention, then China can make decisions. To get clear unambiguous information is the most important.”