Jiang gets warm welcome in North Korea

Jiang gets warm welcome in North Korea

BEIJING (Reuters): China's President Jiang Zemin began a visit to North Korea on Monday, spurring hopes of progress towards elusive reconciliation on the Korean peninsula a day after Pyongyang said it would resume talks with Seoul.

Jiang arrived in the North Korean capital for a three-day visit with a high-level delegation including Vice Premier Qian Qichen, and Zeng Qinghong, the head of the Communist Party's organization department, China's Xinhua news agency said.

He was warmly greeted by North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and crowds of workers who lined the route from the airport to the city center, Pyongyang's official Korea Central News Agency said.

Jiang's visit to China's old Communist ally, the first by a Chinese president since Beijing and Seoul set up diplomatic ties in 1992, has been hailed by many in the South as a shot in the arm for the faltering Korean reconciliation process.

Seoul's main hope is that Jiang will encourage Kim to make good on his pledge to visit his estranged southern neighbor.

However, Beijing-based diplomats and North Korea watchers say Jiang is likely to focus on bilateral issues including aid and energy for North Korea, and a moratorium on ballistic missile launches.

But analysts noted that Chinese officials and state media had not claimed credit for Pyongyang's unexpected announcement on Sunday that it would immediately resume stalled talks with Seoul.

"It clearly is a heavyweight visit," said one Western diplomat. "But it's not being presented as that. It's not Jiang marching in to repair North-South relations."

"A friendly North Korea is better for China in the short term than a rambling mess of international relations that could result from things moving too fast."

Jiang was expected to offer Kim polite encouragement to launch Chinese-style economic reforms, the benefits of which the North Korean leader witnessed on his two visits to China.

But he would not push Kim into peace talks, they said.

"On the one hand, they want to be able to say they have influence, because that helps their relationship with the United States and makes them a bigger player in the region," said Bates Gill, Director of the Center for Northeast Asia Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

"On the other hand, they don't want to exaggerate that, because then the screws get turned on them if things don't work out with the North Koreans," he said.

"If we look at it objectively, the meter probably leans in the direction of them not having as much influence as we would like -- or even that they would like."

Relations between the two Koreas thawed last year, raising high hopes for reconciliation after half a century of enmity since the 1950-53 Korean War.

But the process later ground to a halt with Kim Jong-il holding back on a promised return visit to Seoul in what analysts say is pique at a decision by Washington, which brands North Korea a "rogue state", to put U.S.-North Korean ties on hold.

Tokyo-based news agency Radiopress quoted the North Korean ruling party newspaper Rodong Shinmun as saying Jiang's visit was "important in strengthening and developing ties between the Chinese and the North Korean people and also for establishing a better environment for peace on the Korean peninsula and in Asia."

Some analysts say Kim Jong-il, recently returned from a lengthy tour of Russia, may visit Seoul once he has shored up ties with his country's old backers Moscow and Beijing.