North Korean Prime Minister Pak Thae Song met his Chinese counterpart Li Qiang in Beijing this Saturday with the aim of strengthening cooperation between the two countries on the occasion of the 65th anniversary of the Friendship Treaty that links them. The meeting takes place one day after contacts between Chinese President Xi Jinping and North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong Un.
During the meeting, the two delegations discussed the possibility of expanding exchanges in various fields, in line with what was already agreed by Xi and Kim in a recent exchange of letters between the two leaders, according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
Pak highlighted that relations between China and North Korea "have reached a new level," while Li stressed that Beijing maintains "an unwavering policy" to defend and consolidate its ties with Pyongyang, which he described as a "neighbor sharing the same destiny."
The meeting between the two leaders comes after the exchange of letters for the anniversary between Kim and Xi, in which both emphasized the need to deepen bilateral cooperation in an international context marked by the evolution of the security situation, the growing rivalry between China and the United States, and the strengthening of coordination between South Korea, the United States, and Japan.
This new diplomatic gesture also comes after contacts held during last month's summit in Pyongyang, at a time when China is seeking to give new impetus to its relationship with North Korea, while the latter has been simultaneously intensifying its military, diplomatic, and economic cooperation with Russia.