Pyongyang puts on show of military hardware for 70th anniversary parade but doesn’t roll out long-range missiles in ‘goodwill gesture’ to US
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s right-hand man has urged North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to realise the consensus on denuclearisation he reached with US President Donald Trump in Singapore in June.
Li Zhanshu, Beijing’s third-ranking Communist Party official, issued the call in talks with Kim on Sunday while in Pyongyang for celebrations to mark the 70th anniversary of North Korea.
Li stressed the need for North Korea and the US “to thoroughly implement the consensus… to reach the common goal of denuclearisation”, state broadcaster China Central Television reported.
Kim said North Korea had already taken steps towards denuclearisation, and wanted “the US side to take reciprocal measures to solve the Korean peninsula issues diplomatically”.
“I [also] wish to learn from the Chinese experience of economic development,” Kim was quoted as saying.
China’s state-run Xinhua News Agency said Xi sent a message to Kim on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party to congratulate North Korea on its 70th anniversary ”, and to express Xi’s desire to work closely with Kim to promote a “long-term, healthy and stable development of China-North Korea relations”.
The talks came after North Korea rolled out tanks and troops – but no long-range missiles – for an anniversary military parade, a move observers said could be a goodwill gesture to the US to foster talks on nuclear weapons.
Observers said the decision to hold off on the intercontinental ballistic missiles could also earn North Korean leader Kim Jong-un a visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping and even another summit with US President Donald Trump.
But they also warned that simply keeping the ICBMs out of sight would not deflect Washington’s scrutiny of Pyongyang’s nuclear programme.
Sunday’s military parade was North Korea’s first since Kim and Trump met in Singapore in June, and bigger than one in February to mark the 70th anniversary of the Korean People’s Army, according to a South Korean military source.
But the most powerful missiles on show were short-range battlefield devices.
Atsushi Tago, professor of international relations at Tokyo’s Waseda University, said the absence of the ICBMs could signal Kim’s willingness to “denuclearise” and raise prospects for talks with the United States.
