first visit to North Korea<\/a> in seven \u200byears, where he and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un \u2060agreed to expand cooperation across politics, economy and culture.<\/p>\n\n\n\nSigned on July \u200b11, 1961, the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance remains China’s \u200bonly active mutual defence pact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ties between Beijing and Pyongyang have warmed markedly since late 2025, with the two sides stepping up diplomatic engagement and resuming passenger train \u200bservices and direct flights between their capitals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pak, 70, became North Korea’s premier \u200bin December 2024, rising to the head of cabinet after a long career in \u200cthe \u2060ruling Workers’ Party, initially specializing in propaganda and party disciplinary functions, then working in various posts on industrial, science and education policies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A longstanding member of Kim’s inner circle, Pak has worked closely with the North \u200bKorean leader since the \u200bearly years \u2060of his rule after Kim took power in 2011, and likely before that when he was being groomed \u200bas successor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pak was briefly sidelined in the early 2020s \u200bfor reasons \u2060not officially explained, when North Korea imposed some of the world’s strictest COVID-19 lockdown measures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pak is known to have travelled abroad only on a \u2060few occasions, \u200bmostly in 2018 and 2019, to China \u200band Russia. In October 2019, he visited Moscow as head of the Supreme People’s Assembly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Reuters: BEIJING\/SEOUL, July 10 – China’s President Xi Jinping met with North Korea’s Premier Pak Thae Song in Beijing on Friday, \u200bChinese state broadcaster CCTV reported. Pak arrived in Beijing earlier on \u200cFriday for a three-day visit and will attend an event marking the 65th anniversary of the neighbours’ friendship treaty, Beijing said. The visit comes a month after \u200bXi travelled to Pyongyang for his first visit to North Korea in seven \u200byears, where he and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un \u2060agreed to expand cooperation across politics, economy and culture. Signed on July \u200b11, 1961, the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":59332,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-59331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-in-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=59331"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59331\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59333,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59331\/revisions\/59333"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/59332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=59331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=59331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=59331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}