China, North Korea Pump Up Ties During Kim's Visit

Kim Jong-Il and Hu Jintao cozied up during their secretive five-day meeting in China, with Hu using economic development aid for the impoverished North to prod Pyongyang into a return to six-party talks on nuclear disarmament. As the LA Times reports, Kim's trip clearly snubbed Jimmy Carter, seeming to indicate that North Korea has given up on relations with the US to focus on China.

The two countries certainly reveled in their shared communist past: "Through this visit, the North Korean side had yet another in-depth experience of the preciousness, of the friendship created by older generations of revolutionaries of both countries," Kim said in a statement released today by Beijing.