SEOUL/BEIJING: North Korea and China both walked away claiming major wins from Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit this week to the isolated state, which helped elevate North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's global stature and pulled Pyongyang more tightly into China's orbit.
The two countries each lavished the other with praise and spoke of deeper cooperation during the two-day trip, which saw Kim greet Xi with a 21-gun salute as well as a performance of Chinese and North Korean songs and avoided discussion of thornier issues such as denuclearisation and the United States.