Son of North Korea's Kim visits China as heir

TOKYO (Reuters) - The youngest son of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il secretly visited China last week and his hosts were told he had been appointed heir to the ruling family dynasty, Japan's Asahi newspaper reported on Tuesday.

The report, citing unidentified sources close to North Korea, said Kim Jong-un met Chinese President Hu Jintao and other leaders of the ruling Communist Party when he flew to Beijing around June 10.

Analysts have said North Korea's nuclear test on May 25 and other belligerent acts may be aimed at a domestic audience, with the elder Kim trying to bolster his position at home to secure the succession of his youngest son. The 67-year-old leader is believed to have suffered a stroke last year.

An aide to Jong-un told Chinese officials the younger Kim had been appointed heir and that he held an important post in the ruling Korean Workers' Party, the mass circulation Asahi said.

China's Foreign Ministry declined immediate comment on the report of the visit.

Jong-un is the Swiss-educated third son of Kim Jong-il and was born in 1983 or 1984. Earlier this month South Korean media, quoting informed sources, said Pyongyang had asked the country's main bodies and overseas missions to pledge loyalty to Jong-un.

China is the closest thing North Korea has to an ally, and in theory Beijing wields more influence over Pyongyang than any other power, but experts say the relationship is brittle and China actually has limited room for manoeuvre.

Hu apparently asked North Korea not to go ahead with another nuclear test or test-fire an intercontinental ballistic missile, the Asahi reported.

Jong-un was believed to have asked China for emergency energy and food aid, the newspaper said, underscoring the grim economic situation in the impoverished state. Jong-un also visited factories in China's export hub of Guangdong province, it added.

Beijing does not want its neighbour to build up a nuclear arsenal that could spark a regional arms race, but nor does it want to risk North Korea falling into chaos -- which could prompt a flood of refugees across their land border.

Traditionally reluctant to back sanctions, China agreed to a U.N. Security Council resolution last week that banned all weapons exports from the hermit state in response to the nuclear test, the country's second after one in 2006, but analysts say Beijing may take a soft approach to enforcing the resolution terms.

The succession has been one of the most closely guarded secrets in North Korea, and very little is known about Jong-un, whose youth could be problem in a society that attaches importance to seniority.

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North Korea has raised regional tensions in recent months by also test-firing short-range missiles and restarting a plant to produce arms grade plutonium.

The crisis will dominate talks in Washington on Tuesday between South Korea's President Lee Myung-bak and U.S. President Barack Obama.

In its latest sabre rattling, North Korea warned the United States it would launch a "pre-emptive strike to beat back the enemies' slightest provocation," the KCNA news agency quoted a senior military official as saying on Monday.

South Korean and U.S. intelligence authorities are watching for signs of another nuclear test, having spotted movement of personnel and vehicles in an area in North Hamgyong province, where the North conducted its first two nuclear tests, the South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo reported on Tuesday.

North Korea had also finished preparatory work at a missile launch pad at Tongchangri in the country's north, Chosun Ilbo quoted a South Korean government source as saying.

Pyongyang has threatened another intercontinental ballistic missile launch after the U.N. Security Council punished it for firing a long-range rocket over Japan in April.

"The launch is not imminent because no radar has been set up and no missile has been installed at the launch pad," the source told the Chosun Ilbo.

It takes North Korea several days to prepare long-range rockets for launch once they are on the pad. The rocket, known as the Taepodong-2, is designed to fly as far as U.S. territory. U.N. resolutions ban Pyongyang from ballistic missile testing.

(Additional reporting by Jon Herskovitz and Jack Kim in Seoul and Emma Graham-Harrison in Beijing, Writing by Dean Yates, Editing by Jerry Norton)