Despite China's regular efforts to show North Korean leaders the fruits of China's economic changes, Pyongyang has resisted taking similar steps and persists with a "military-first" policy.




BEIJING — A special envoy dispatched to China by North Korean dictator Kim Jung Un spent a second day in Beijing on Thursday continuing what appeared to be fence-mending efforts with the Chinese government, Pyongyang's only significant ally.
Choe Ryong Hae, the North Korean military's top political officer, met Thursday with Liu Yunshan, a member of the Chinese ruling party's top body, but little progress was immediately apparent in shifting North Korea's hard-line policies.
During several months of defying the world with its nuclear weapons program, frequent missile tests and bellicose threats, North Korea also managed to rile Beijing. In February, the Chinese government agreed to impose stiffer United Nations sanctions and has since taken further measures to punish, although not completely isolate, its long-time ally.
Choe, a senior figure in the ruling Worker's Party, is the most senior North Korean to visit China in many months. He met Wednesday with Wang Jiarui, the head of the Chinese leadership's international affairs office.
Kim Jung Un has not visited China since he succeeded his father Kim Jong Il, becoming the third generation of the Kim family to rule the poor but heavily militarized country.
China's evening news broadcast said Liu stressed Chinese hopes for a stable, denuclearized Korean peninsula and an early restart of the long-stalled Six Party Talks — brokered by Beijing — on the North's nuclear program. However, few observers expect Kim to give up the nuclear weapons program that has been ongoing for years and heralded inside North Korea as fundamental state policy.
North Korea's official Central News Agency reported that Choe spent some of Thursday touring an industrial park in the south of Beijing. Despite China's regular efforts to show North Korean leaders the fruits of China's economic changes, Pyongyang has resisted taking similar steps and persists with a "military-first" policy.
Shi Yinhong, an international relations expert at People's University of China in Beijing, says China "has already substantially changed its position toward North Korea," following months of "humiliation" at North Korea's hands as Pyongyang has ignored Beijing's efforts to calm tensions on the Korean peninsula.
In recent weeks, "North Korea's behavior quietly changed a little, and became a little less provocative, so maybe they learn a little lesson," said Shi. "If they show less aggressive behavior, Chinese policy could be readjusted and could be milder toward North Korea."
But Shi doubted Chinese president Xi Jingping, who will meet South Korea's President in China in June, would agree to receive Kim in the near future.
"He won't return to the old appeasement attitude. We still have to force them to change their behavior much more," he said.
Many Chinese Internet users used online forums and micro-blogging platforms to express frustration with North Korea, which has long relied on Chinese food, energy and aid. And China's state-run media has given Choe's visit low-key coverage.
The Global Times, a highly popular tabloid which often takes a nationalistic line, said in an editorial Thursday that China should "stand firm" over North Korea's recent provocations such as nuclear tests.
"North Korea has gone rather too far this year and it has not shown due respect toward China," it said.