AT the invitation of President Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), Kim Jong Un, chairman of the Workers’ Party of Korea and chairman of the State Affairs Commission of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), is visiting China, a spokesperson said yesterday.

Kim is on a four-day visit to China from Monday to tomorrow, said the spokesperson of the International Department of the CPC Central Committee in Beijing.

South Korea’s presidential Blue House welcomed Kim’s visit to China, as it was anticipated to contribute to building peace on the Korean Peninsula.

Kim Eui-keum, the Blue House spokesman, told a press briefing that Kim’s visit to China was anticipated to contribute to the complete denuclearization of the peninsula and the settlement of permanent peace.

The spokesman said exchanges were under way between the two Koreas, between China and the DPRK, and between the DPRK and the United States, noting that each exchange was anticipated to advance others by creating a virtuous cycle among them.

He noted that South Korea hoped the exchange between China and the DPRK would become a stepping stone for the second DPRK-U.S. summit.

The DPRK leader and U.S. President Donald Trump met in Singapore in June last year, holding the first-ever DPRK-U.S. summit. Kim and Trump expressed their hopes to meet again in the near future.

Last year, the DPRK leader paid three visits to China between March and June, before and after summits with Trump and South Korean President Moon Jae-in.

Kim has laid extra emphasis on his country’s economic development this year in addition to giving a call for peace. Reaffirming the DPRK’s commitment to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula in his New Year speech, Kim also said he was willing to promote ties with both South Korea and the United States. And he asserted that he was ready to hold a second meeting with Trump at any time.

His first foreign visit this year sends some positive signals, according to a commentary of China Daily yesterday.

It shows that the consensus reached by China and the United States to jointly work toward the settlement of the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue has come into play, and Pyongyang has fulfilled part of its role of directly negotiating with the United States and is making efforts to restore normal relations with the superpower and have the sanctions lifted. While Washington remains at the crux of the problem, Beijing has been playing an important role toward the settlement of the peninsula nuclear issue, the commentary said.

Besides, as a champion of reform and opening up for 40 years, China has a lot of experience to share with its neighbor when it comes to economic reform, the commentary said.

Also yesterday, South Korea announced it would offer about 200,000 doses of Tamiflu antiviral medication to the DPRK in humanitarian aid.

In addition to the drugs, about 50,000 early medical detection kits, which were donated by a private entity, would be delivered to the DPRK.

An unnamed South Korean unification ministry official was quoted by local media as saying that 10 government officials would visit the DPRK’s border town of Kaesong as early as this week by a land route to deliver the medication.

The aid is part of efforts to implement the Pyongyang Declaration, signed by Moon and Kim after their third summit in Pyongyang in September.

(Xinhua)