Kim's Beijing visit sends positive signals

Kim Jong-un, the top leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, who is on a four-day visit to China from Monday, has laid extra emphasis on the 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 the Republic of Korea and the United States. And he asserted that he was ready to hold a second meeting with US President Donald Trump at any time.

Apart from extending the goodwill message in his New Year speech, his first foreign visit this year, too, sends some positive signals, and shows that the consensus reached by China and the United States at the April 2017 meeting between their two top leaders to jointly work toward the settlement of the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue has come into play.

As for Pyongyang, it has fulfilled part of its purposes of directly negotiating with the US, and making efforts to restore normal relations with the superpower and have the sanctions lifted.