China has appointed a new special envoy for the North Korean issue, Assistant Foreign Minister Kong Xuanyou, its foreign ministry said on Monday, after his predecessor, Wu Dawei, reached retirement age.
Kong, 58, is an ethnic Korean from the northeastern Chinese province of Heilongjiang, who has overall responsibility for Asian affairs at the foreign ministry, according to his resume.
He has held senior positions at the Chinese embassy in Japan and from 2011 to 2014 he was China's ambassador to Vietnam, two countries with which China has often troubled relations.
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said that Kong had taken over from Wu, but that there was no connection between the appointment and the current situation on the Korean peninsula, where tensions have been rising in recent days.
