North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, seen here in an undated photograph released to the media on May 8, 2011, during a visit to the Pyongyang Textile Mill in Pyongyang. Source: KCNA/AFP/Getty Images

May 23 (Bloomberg) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Il was invited to China to learn about the country’s economic restructuring and use that knowledge to revive his own nation’s shrinking economy, Premier Wen Jiabao said.

Wen made the comments during a meeting with South Korea’s President Lee Myung Bak in Tokyo, where the two leaders held a summit with Japan’s Prime Minister Naoto Kan, Lee’s office said in a statement on its website. Kim arrived in Yangzhou in the eastern Chinese province of Jiangsu yesterday on the third day of his trip, Seoul-based Yonhap News reported.

Kim’s third trip to his main ally and benefactor in the past year may be aimed at extracting more aid and trade to shore up an economy beset by international sanctions aimed at halting the regime’s nuclear-weapons program, crop failures and livestock disease. China’s gross domestic product jumped 14-fold in the three decades since it began experiments with market-oriented reforms, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

Kim’s visit will accelerate China’s investment in North Korea, which it desperately needs, said Cho Bong Hyun, a research fellow at the Seoul-based IBK Economic Research Institute. China will keep pushing North Korea on the nuclear issue even as it pursues economic cooperation as it wouldn’t want to be blamed for making global disarmament efforts ineffective.

North Korea’s trade with China jumped 30 percent last year even after the United Nations stepped up sanctions following its second nuclear test in May 2009, according to China’s commerce ministry.

Food Survey

The trip by the 69-year-old Kim comes as a U.S. delegation arrives in North Korea tomorrow to survey the country’s food shortages. Kim last visited China in August, a month before his youngest son, Kim Jong Un, was appointed to a second-highest military post within the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea. The August trip was the elder Kim’s second to China in 2010.

China is also host of the six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. The forum, also involving Japan, South Korea, Russia and the U.S. last convened in December 2008.

The U.S. and South Korea should respect and support China’s efforts to defuse regional tensions by communicating with North Korea, which suffers from isolation and poverty thanks to international sanctions, China’s state-run Global Times said May 21 in an editorial. It is fortunate that there still remains an effective communication channel between China and North Korea, it said.

First Visit

Ambassador Robert King, the U.S. special envoy for North Korean human rights, will be in North Korea until May 28 to assess food needs, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said in Washington on May 20. King will also raise human-rights concerns with North Korean officials, Toner said.

Jon Brause, a U.S. international aid official, and King will examine the work of the UN World Food Program, which launched an emergency aid effort last month for an estimated 3.5 million North Koreans. North Korea has relied on outside handouts since the mid-1990s, when an estimated 2 million people died from famine.

North Korea has agreed to give the team the access required, Toner said. The last U.S. food assistance program to North Korea was abruptly suspended in March 2009, he said.

Former President Jimmy Carter last month accused the U.S. and South Korea of a “human rights violation” for refusing aid to North Korea. Carter visited North Korea in April to try to revive stalled nuclear talks.

North Korea’s economy shrank 0.9 percent in 2009 when the United Nations stepped up sanctions that curbed trade and international aid, according to the Bank of Korea in Seoul.

South Korea has shunned dialogue with the North, demanding that the government in Pyongyang apologize for torpedoing a South Korean warship in March 2010 and shelling an island in November. North Korea denies any role in the sinking of the warship and claimed it fired artillery to protect its territory.

To contact the reporter on this story: Bomi Lim in Seoul at blim30@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Peter Hirschberg in Hong Kong at phirschberg@bloomberg.net