China analyst Masaru Soma reports behind the scenes of China’s leaders.
By looking into the power balance, we can see where international politics is headed.
Here, we focus in on one place: the central headquarters for the Chinese government, Zhongnanhai.

In June, the Chairman of China, Xi Jinping, met with North Korean Envoy Ri Su-yong in Beijing. Curiously, the meeting only lasted 20 minutes, and minus translation time, in actuality it really would have been around 10 minutes. Allegedly, in the meeting each party only proposed his own opinions, and any form of discussion had broken down.

In the meeting, Xi Jinping expressed his discomfort at North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s nuclear expansion and economic development, claiming that China will not change its current stance.

He maintained that if North Korea does not stop its nuclear expansion, the China-North Korea friendship cannot return to its prior position, and talks to normalize the relationship would be difficult.

According to Beijing diplomatic sources, the meeting between Xi and Ri had not been planned. The unexpected meeting took place, however, as Ri repeatedly requested to meet the Chinese President and bring Kim Jong-un’s message, as the message was directly entrusted verbally to Ri .

A Chinese official said they accepted the meeting as Ri was practically begging, and they therefore thought the message must be of utmost importance.
It was reported that Ri had to meet Xi to maintain his honor, but after the meeting Xi expressed his regret to the media at not having confirmed the subject matter of the message beforehand. This clearly shows that the rocky relationship between China and North Korea will remain unstable.

The Military Is Robbing Food From Private Homes

Why then did North Korea send Ri to China? If North Korea had no intention of changing their plans, there would have been no need for Kim Jong-un to send his right-hand man to China. Inside sources revealed that this visit was prompted by serious food shortages in North Korea.

On May 31st, the day Ri arrived in China, he met with the head of the International Liaison Department of China (IDL) and requested support in the form of one million tons in food supplies. Perhaps thinking that this wouldn’t be enough, Ri requested the same to the former head of IDL, Wang Jiarui, at a dinner party. Ri’s desperation would have shown China how serious the North Korean food shortage must be.

Allegedly, even Kim Jong-un’s favorite Korean People’s Army is experiencing food shortages, and soldiers are trespassing into private homes to rob for food. To sum up, since the Kim Jong-un administration took power in North Korea, the country has become so poverty stricken that they cannot even feed the army that pledged allegiance to the Kim family; the general public, it would follow, would be even poorer.

China Overlooks North Korean Defectors

There was a curious case in April where thirteen North Korean restaurant staff members defected to South Korea via China. It has been speculated that it was one male manager and twelve female waitresses who had, for a while, worked at a restaurant in Xi’an, China. They legally left Shanghai via the airport and defected to South Korea stopping at various South East Asian countries en route.

These defectors had secret police agents from the State Security Department of North Korea watching them, but the curious thing was that the agents took the initiative to help the restaurant workers defect.

In addition, China knew that the defectors were leaving Shanghai airport legally to defect, but chose to overlook their escape.

It is evident that the Kim administration is beginning to crumble from the inside, and China now appears to be giving up on them.

According to inside sources, China’s leaders have a plan: to bring out Kim Jong-un’s brother Kim Jong-nam, who is currently being protected inside China, to lead North Korea if Jong-un were ever to be eliminated by a North Korean army coup d’état. China will then support the new Kim Jong-nam administration.

If this is true, we can easily say that Xi Jinping’s team has completely given up on Kim Jong-un.

Main points in this article:

• North Korea is experiencing serious food shortages
• China is overlooking North Korean defectors
• China wants to establish a Kim Jong-nam administration if the current administration fails.