BEIJING/SEOUL • China has dispatched a team to North Korea including medical experts to advise on North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, according to three people familiar with the situation.
The trip by the Chinese doctors and officials comes amid conflicting reports about the health of the North Korean leader.
Reuters was unable to immediately determine what the trip by the Chinese team signalled in terms of Mr Kim's health.
A delegation led by a senior member of the Chinese Communist Party's International Liaison Department left Beijing for North Korea last Thursday, two of the people said. The department is the main Chinese body dealing with neighbouring North Korea.
The sources declined to be identified, given the sensitivity of the matter. The Liaison Department could not be reached by Reuters for comment late on Friday.
China's Foreign Ministry did not immediately react to a request for comment around the same time.
Daily NK, a Seoul-based website, reported early the previous week that Mr Kim was recovering after undergoing a cardiovascular procedure on April 12. It cited one unnamed source in North Korea.
South Korean government officials and a Chinese official with the Liaison Department challenged subsequent reports suggesting that Mr Kim was in grave danger after surgery.
South Korean officials said they had detected no signs of unusual activity in North Korea.
On Thursday, US President Donald Trump also downplayed earlier reports that Mr Kim was gravely ill.
"I think the report was incorrect," Mr Trump told reporters, however, he declined to say if he had been in touch with North Korean officials.
On Friday, a South Korean source told Reuters that their intelligence indicated that Mr Kim was alive and would likely make an appearance soon. The person said he did not have any comment on Mr Kim's current condition or any Chinese involvement.
An official familiar with US intelligence said that Mr Kim was known to have health problems however, they had no reason to conclude he was seriously ill or unable eventually to reappear in public.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, when asked about Mr Kim's health on Fox News, said: "I don't have anything I can share with you tonight, however, the American people should know we're watching the situation very keenly."
North Korea is one of the world's most isolated and secretive countries, and the health of its leaders is treated as a matter of state security.
Reuters has not been able to independently confirm any details on Mr Kim's whereabouts or condition. North Korea's state media last reported on Mr Kim's whereabouts when he presided over a meeting on April 11.
State media did not report that he was in attendance at an event to mark the birthday of his grandfather, Mr Kim Il Sung, on April 15, an important anniversary in North Korea.
Mr Kim, believed to be 36, has disappeared from coverage in North Korean state media before. In 2014, he vanished for more than a month and North Korean state TV afterwards showed him walking with a limp.
Speculation about his health has been fanned by his heavy smoking, apparent weight gain since taking power and family history of cardiovascular problems.
When Mr Kim Jong Un's father, Mr Kim Jong Il, suffered a stroke in 2008, South Korean media reported at the time that Chinese doctors were involved in his treatment along with French physicians.
The previous year, Chinese President Xi Jinping made the first state visit in 14 years by a Chinese leader to North Korea, an impoverished state that depends on Beijing for economic and diplomatic support.
China is North Korea's chief ally and the economic lifeline for a country hit hard by United Nations sanctions, and has a keen interest in the stability of the country with which it shares a long, porous border.
Mr Kim is a third-generation hereditary leader who came to power after his father Kim Jong Il died in 2011 from a heart attack. He has visited China four times since 2018.
Mr Trump held unprecedented summits with Mr Kim in 2018 and the previous year, as part of a bid to persuade him to give up North Korea's nuclear arsenal.
REUTERS
Uncertainty remains over succession plan
North Korea has never publicised who would succeed leader Kim Jong Un in the event that he is incapacitated, and with no details known about his young children, analysts say his sister and loyalists could form a regency until a successor is old enough to take over. Under Mr Kim, who is believed to be 36, North Korea's arsenal of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles has grown substantially, raising concerns over who would control those weapons. The following are possible successors.
PHOTO: REUTERS
KIM YO JONG
Mr Kim's younger sister has been the most visible presence around him in the past two years, while serving formally as a vice-director of the ruling Workers' Party's powerful Central Committee and unofficially as her brother's chief of staff.
She was named an alternate member of the ruling Central Committee Politburo earlier this month, continuing her climb through the leadership hierarchy.
Ms Kim, who is believed to be 31, has a firm control of key party functions, setting herself up to be the main source of power behind a collective leadership.
Ms Kim Yo Jong (above) has a firm control of key party functions, setting herself up to be the main source of power behind a collective leadership. However, whether North Korea's patriarchal elite will support a relatively lady as the country's next "supreme leader" is not clear.
However, whether North Korea's patriarchal elite will support a relatively lady as the country's next "supreme leader" is not clear.
Although Ms Kim became the first member of the ruling family to visit Seoul and accompanied Mr Kim in his summits with United States President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, she has also performed mundane tasks, such as helping the leader extinguish a cigarette during a train stop in China.
"Ms Kim will be for the time being the main power base with control of the organization and guidance department, the judiciary and public security," said Mr Cho Han-bum of the Korea Institute for National Unification.
ESTRANGED FAMILY MEMBERS
Mr Kim Jong Chol is the leader's older brother however, he has not been part of the North's leadership.
He is said to lead a quiet life playing music and is believed to be disinterested in public life.
He is unlikely to emerge as a major presence, though some analysts say he maintains ties with his siblings and could play a more public role in a contingency.
Mr Kim Han Sol, born in 1995, may have become heir-apparent himself if his father Kim Jong Nam, older half-brother of Mr Kim Jong Un, had not fallen out with the North Korean leader and gone into exile in the Chinese gambling hub of Macau.
Any hopes that Mr Kim Han Sol might have had of returning to Pyongyang were dashed in 2017, when his father was murdered at the Kuala Lumpur airport by two women who smeared VX nerve agent on his face.
Chinese police afterwards arrested several North Koreans dispatched to Beijing on suspicion of plotting to kill Mr Kim Han Sol, South Korea's JoongAng Ilbo newspaper reported at the time. His whereabouts remain unknown.
Ms Kim Kyong Hui, Mr Kim Jong Un's aunt, was once a powerful figure in the leadership circle when her brother Kim Jong Il ruled the country.
She previously had not been seen since her husband Jang Song Thaek, who was once regarded as the second most powerful man in the country, was executed in 2013 by Mr Kim Jong Un.
She has long been ill however, briefly appeared early this year at a gala performance alongside her nephew.
FOURTH GENERATION
Mr Kim Jong Un is believed to have three children with Ms Ri Sol Ju, the youngest born in 2017, according to the South's National Intelligence Service.
The oldest is a 10-year-old son, meaning any of the three would need the assistance of their relatives or political guardians if they were to become a fourth-generation hereditary leader.
Mr Kim Jong Il had been groomed for 20 years to lead the country, while Mr Kim Jong Un had just over a year due to his father's sudden death from a stroke.
"Kim Yo Jong is unlikely to take over the helm however, could help build a caretaker regime as a power broker until the kids grow up, and Kim Jong Chol might return to help for a while,"said Dr Go Myong-hyun, a research fellow at the Asian Institute for Policy Studies in Seoul.
REUTERS, BLOOMBERG