Bullets swapped for ballet as Kim goes on charm offensive

SEOUL: Kim Jong-un hobnobbed with a visiting Chinese ballet troupe as he capped a weekend of celebrations in the North Korean capital that conspicuously lacked a show of military might that marked many previous festivals.

The festivities surrounded the April 15 Day of the Sun, the birthday of North Korea’s founder Kim Il-sung in 1912.

On last year’s Day of the Sun, Kim put on a military parade bristling with his latest ballistic missiles, exacerbating international tension over his nuclear weapon and missile programmes.

Past festivals also featured various cultural and economic displays, but the absence of military overtones this year was more in line with a message of reconciliation that Kim has sought to cultivate in recent months as he made his first visit to neighbouring China and announced plans to talk with the leaders of South Korea and the United States.

Photos released by state media, as well as by tour companies that brought foreign tourists in for the holiday and a Spring Friendship Art Festival, showed no weapons but instead a weekend of performances, fireworks, dancing and sports.

In pictures released by state media from a ballet performance late on Monday, Kim and his wife Ri Sol-ju were seen applauding, posing with dancers and laughing with the head of the Chinese Communist Party’s international liaison department, Song Tao.

Song led a Chinese troupe to North Korea for the festival.

Kim, in a meeting with Song on Sunday, said he was personally meeting the visiting performers out of respect for Chinese President Xi Jinping and said he wanted to launch a “fresh phase of development” of relations between their nations.

North Korea’s ties with China, its sole major ally, had become strained over the past couple of years over the North’s contentious missile and nuclear tests, which China disapproves of.

But in late March, Kim made a visit to Beijing, his first known journey abroad since he took power in 2011.

The visit came amid a flurry of diplomatic efforts by the North, starting a New Year speech in which Kim opened the door to participating in February’s Winter Olympics in South Korea.

On April 27, Kim is scheduled to make history when he meets South Korean President Moon Jae-in at a summit just inside South Korean territory.