Xi urges Beijing, Pyongyang to keep strategic resolve, deepen cooperation

President Xi Jinping called on China and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea on Friday to maintain strategic resolve and strengthen strategic confidence amid a turbulent international landscape, and to ensure bilateral relations continue to advance in a direction that supports their respective socialist causes and modernization drives.

Xi, who is also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, made the remarks when meeting in Beijing with Pak Thae-song, premier of the Cabinet of the DPRK.

Pak is also a member of the Presidium of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea and vice-president of the State Affairs Commission of the DPRK. He is in China for a three-day official visit, which started on Friday.

This year marks the 65th anniversary of the signing of the China-DPRK Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance. Xi said the treaty has laid an important political and legal foundation for consolidating the friendship forged in blood between the two peoples.

Xi noted that during his state visit to the DPRK last month, he and Kim Jong-un, the DPRK's top leader, agreed to take the joint commemoration of the treaty's anniversary as an opportunity to remain true to the founding aspirations of the older generations of leaders of the two parties and countries. Both sides should guide their peoples in carrying forward the traditional friendship and ensure that bilateral ties keep showing vitality in the new historical period, he added.

Xi stressed that the two nations should accelerate efforts to implement the consensus he reached with Kim and keep relations between the two parties and countries advancing with the times.

He called for steady progress in practical cooperation and continued efforts to consolidate the popular foundation. The two sides should make good use of their shared revolutionary memories and resources, help young people in both countries remember the historic contributions of the Chinese People's Volunteers, and pass down the great China-DPRK friendship from generation to generation, he said.

Xi also called for stronger strategic coordination and firm efforts to safeguard the two countries' respective sovereignty, security and development interests, in order to create a favorable external environment for both countries to follow socialist paths suited to their national conditions.

Pak told Xi that Kim has called for developing DPRK-China relations into the strongest strategic relationship. The activities marking the treaty's 65th anniversary demonstrate again that DPRK-China friendship has withstood changes in the international landscape and is highly strategic in nature, Pak said.

The DPRK will resolutely implement the important consensus reached by the top leaders of the two parties and countries, firmly support China in safeguarding its core interests on the Taiwan question and other issues, and make every effort to take DPRK-China solidarity and friendship, as well as the socialist causes of both countries, to a new and higher level, he added.