Kim Jong Un receives China's number four, Wang Huning
North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un met the senior Chinese official Wang Huning in Pyongyang. The meeting follows a visit by head of state Xi Jinping, at which closer cooperation was agreed. It underscores the recent rapprochement between Pyongyang and Beijing.
Wang Huning is a member of the Politburo Standing Committee and is regarded as one of China's most senior officials, as Al Jazeera and Reuters report. Al Jazeera places the meeting in the context of Xi Jinping's earlier visit to Kim, at which closer diplomatic, security and military cooperation was pledged. Observers read the contacts as an attempt by Beijing to secure its influence over Pyongyang while North Korea's ties with Russia grow. The sourcing rests on few, mostly terse dispatches; North Korean and Chinese state media predictably provide a pointedly harmonious account, and independent assessments are scarce.