BEIJING(National times)- China\u2019s Premier Li Qiang will go to North Korea this week in the highest-level visit by a Chinese leader since 2019. Li will lead a government delegation from Thursday to Saturday to attend events marking the 80th anniversary of the founding of North Korea\u2019s ruling party, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said Tuesday. China has long been the North Korean government\u2019s most important ally and source of support, though North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has sought to balance that in recent years by building ties with Russia. He has sent troops to help Moscow in its war against Ukraine. Russia is sending former President Dmitri Medvedev to this week\u2019s anniversary celebrations, North Korea\u2019s official KCNA news agency said Monday. A statement from the Chinese Foreign Ministry called China and North Korea \u201ctraditional friends and neighbors\u201d and said it is \u201can unswerving strategic policy\u201d of the Chinese government and the ruling Communist Party \u201cto maintain, consolidate and develop\u201d relations with North Korea. Li is one of seven members of the Standing Committee of the Communist Party\u2019s Politburo, the apex of power in China. As premier, he is generally considered the No. 2 leader after President Xi Jinping. Li has been representing China on more foreign trips as the 72-year-old Xi curtails his travel schedule. Vietnam\u2019s top leader, To Lam, will also visit North Korea this week for the anniversary celebrations, the country\u2019s government announced Monday. He is general secretary of the Communist Party, the same leadership position held by Xi in China and Kim in North Korea\u2019s Workers\u2019 Party. It will be the first visit by a Vietnamese leader to North Korea since 2007, Vietnam\u2019s state media said. The president of Laos, Thongloun Sisoulith, will also attend, KCNA said last week. He is general secretary of the Lao People\u2019s Revolutionary Party. High-level contacts between China and North Korea have picked up since last year. Zhao Leji, another member of the Politburo Standing Committee, traveled to North Korea in April and met Kim in the capital, Pyongyang. Kim visited China last month, joining Russian President Vladimir Putin and others at a Chinese military parade in Beijing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BEIJING(National times)- China\u2019s Premier Li Qiang will go to North Korea this week in the highest-level visit by a Chinese leader since 2019. Li will lead a government delegation from Thursday to Saturday to attend events marking the 80th anniversary of the founding of North Korea\u2019s ruling party, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said Tuesday. China […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":113488,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-113487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","entry"],"yoast_head":"\n