China seems to have allowed North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's surprise visit as Beijing is seeking to achieve equilibrium of power in the Asia-Pacific region, experts said Monday.
Kim, 68, was believed to be heading home early Monday after holding a secretive summit with Chinese President Hu Jintao in the city of Changchun last week. His trip to China, which began on Thursday, has been shrouded in secrecy. There has so far been no official confirmation of the trip itself from either China or North Korea.
It is Kim's second to China in about three months, an unusual move by the reclusive leader who rarely travels abroad. Kim's last visit to Pyongyang's last-remaining ally in May included talks with Hu.
Simon Shen, professor of international relations at the Hong Kong Institute of Education, said the Sino-North Korea summit appears to have been designed to flaunt their bilateral relations in response to a show of
military force by South Korea and the United States.
"The visit would have symbolic importance for Beijing after the U.S. military parade in the Yellow Sea," Shen said in an interview with Yonhap
News Agency. "Beijing would like to exhibit its special relations with North Korea as part of the macro balance of power."
South Korea and the U.S. plan to conduct anti-submarine warfare drills in the Yellow Sea in early September, the latest in a series of military manoeuvres the allies have held or plan to hold to send a message of deterrence to Pyongyang following the March 26 sinking of a South Korean warship. A Seoul-led multinational team of investigators concluded in May that North Korea torpedoed the ship, leaving 46 sailors dead.
While assessing that Kim's visit will not bring direct changes to the regional security issues, Shen said North Korea will continue to be a part of the long-term balance of power among various players in Northeast Asia.
"It shows that North Korea is still a trump card of China despite their relation's ups and downs, and when hawks of China need to show off their muscle the North Korea regime could become useful," he said.
Willy Lam, who teaches China studies at Japan's Akita International University and at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said Beijing's nod for Kim's visit is aimed at exerting influence over nuclear-armed North Korea.
"Hu needs to engage Kim because Beijing wants some degree of control over the pace of Pyongyang's development of nuclear weapons," Lam told Yonhap. "Beijing knows that it's possible for Kim or his successors to use these weapons to blackmail China."
"The Chinese leadership actually was cool toward the visit since Kim had already gone to Beijing in May. That's why they didn't want Kim to come to Beijing."
The Hu leadership realizes China's refusal to condemn North Korea over the Cheonan incident has been detrimental to China's international image,
Lam said, adding that Beijing at this stage doesn't want to be seen as being too close to Kim.
Beijing has claimed that the South Korea-U.S. drills would aggravate tensions on the Korean Peninsula and threaten China's security, but Seoul
and Washington say the drills are defence-oriented and aimed at North Korea.