Pyongyang’s relationship with Beijing is “invincible” because the countries both endured Japanese rule, North Korea said Saturday, the day after the Chinese President’s highly symbolic visit ended.
The commentary, in official North Korean newspaper Rodong Sinmun, comes shortly before the G20 summit in Japan where US President Donald Trump will meet with China’s Xi Jinping.
With Beijing and Washington at loggerheads over trade, China is keen to remind Trump of its influence with nuclear-armed Pyongyang, while increasingly looking to Japan -- a key US ally in the region -- to serve as a hedge against growing American protectionism.
Relations between Tokyo, Beijing, and both Koreas are still heavily affected by Japan’s expansionism in the first half of the 20th century, with Pyongyang’s state media criticising Japan on a near-daily basis.
Saturday’s Rodong Sinmun dedicated five pages to the second day of Xi’s visit to Pyongyang, and carried a separate editorial stating how the “sacred period of the anti-Japanese struggle has become the foundation of the DPRK-China friendship”.
“DPRK-China relationship is an invincible friendship that firmly combines military camaraderie and trust,” it stated, using the abbreviation of North Korea’s official name.
Xi, in a rare opinion piece penned for the newspaper earlier this week, also said citizens of the countries jointly opposed a “foreign invasion” and supported each other in the pursuit of socialism.
Like North Korea, Beijing’s Communist authorities also regularly denounce Tokyo over historical issues.