China's Xi pushes economic reform at North Korea summit

Chinese President Xi Jinping offered encouragement for North Korea's focus on economic development in a speech in Pyongyang, turning to a topic Beijing has long pressed with its Communist neighbour amid wider concerns over the North's nuclear weapons program.

In an address at a banquet Thursday night, Xi noted that the nation under leader Kim Jong Un had "initiated a new strategic line of economic development and improving people's livelihoods, raising socialist construction in the country to a new high tide," according to China's official
Xi and Kim waved to cheering crowds during the performance, dubbed "Invincible Socialism," according to KCNA. Performing groups sang Chinese favorites and put on what KCNA termed "the peculiar display of Chinese folk dances."