The Buzz | North Korea’s Kim vows to boost China ties amid pandemic hardship

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said yesterday he’ll push to further upgrade relations with China, his main ally, as he struggles to navigate his country out of a deepening crisis linked to the pandemic.
Kim made the comments in a message to Chinese President Xi Jinping congratulating him on the 100th founding anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party, according to the official Korean Central News Agency.
“The Workers’ Party of Korea, by its firm unity with the Chinese Communist Party, would raise [North Korea]-China friendship to a new strategic point as required by the times and as desired by the peoples of the two countries,” Kim was quoted as saying.
In an apparent reference to the United States, Kim said that “hostile forces’ vicious slander and all-round pressure upon the Chinese Communist Party are no more than a last-ditch attempt and they can never check the ongoing advance of the Chinese people,” according to KCNA.