No senior N. Korean officials attend banquet hosted by Chinese envoy in Pyongyang

The Chinese Embassy in Pyongyang has hosted a banquet to mark the 63rd anniversary of the signing of a bilateral treaty, North Korea's state media reported Friday, amid North Korea's deepening ties with Russia. Participants in Thursday's event included China's top envoy in Pyongyang, Wang Yajun, and Kim Sung-chan, the president of Kim Il-sung University, and other officials, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said in a brief dispatch. No senior North Korean officials attended the banquet, compared with last year when Kang Yun-sok, vice chairman of North Korea's standing committee of the Supreme People's Assembly, attended an anniversary banquet hosted by the Chinese Embassy in Pyongyang. That could be seen as an indication of the North moving increasingly closer to Russia and away from China at a time when Pyongyang and Moscow have been significantly bolstering military cooperation since last month's summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and Russian President Vladimir Putin. "While C hina may definitely be uncomfortable with the recent closer ties between Russia and North Korea, opinions are still divided among experts on whether they directly influenced such attendance," said Hyun Seung-soo, a researcher at the Korea Institute for National Unification. Hyun said such attendance could signal somewhat different relations between Pyongyang and Beijing, while others say there is still strong bilateral trust between the two. China is North Korea's most important trading partner, giving Beijing significant leverage over Pyongyang. The two countries signed the treaty on July 11, 1961, under which they are obliged to provide military and other assistance to each other, a deal seen as the bedrock of their strong alliance for decades. Source: Yonhap News Agency