China’s Xi, North Korea’s Kim send sympathy messages to Trump over infection

Chinese President Xi Jinping sent a message of sympathy Saturday to US President Donald Trump and US First Lady Melania Trump following their coronavirus diagnosis, state TV reported.

“My wife, Peng Liyuan, and I express our sympathies to you and your wife and wish you a fast recovery,” state TV on its website cited the message as saying.

Chinese-US relations have tumbled to their lowest point in decades amid disputes over trade, technology, security, Beijing’s tightening of control over Hong Kong and complaints about abuses in China’s Muslim northwestern region of Xinjiang.

Trump has blamed China, where the coronavirus pandemic began in December, of mishandling the outbreak and allowing it to spread, and has repeatedly referred to it as the “China virus.”

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on also sent a message of sympathy, state media reported.

“He sincerely hoped that they would recover as soon as possible. He hoped they will surely overcome it,” the Korean Central News Agency reported. “He sent warm greetings to them.”

Kim and Trump once exchanged threats of destruction and crude insults after North Korea in 2017 carried out a series of high-profile weapons tests aimed at acquiring ability to launch nuclear strikes on the US mainland. Trump had said he would rain “fire and fury” on North Korea and derided Kim as “little rocket man” on a suicide mission, while Kim responded he would “tame the mentally deranged US dotard with fire.”

But they stopped such rhetoric and instead developed a personal relationship after Kim abruptly reached out to Trump in 2018 for talks on the fate of his advancing nuclear arsenal.

They met three times in 2018-2019, starting with a summit in Singapore that made Trump the first sitting US president to meet a North Korea leader since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War. But their meetings made little headway since their second summit in Vietnam in early 2019 ended without any deal following disputes over US-led sanctions on North Korea.

Before their nuclear talks entered a stalemate, Trump said that he and Kim “fell in love.” According to journalist Bob Woodward’s recently published book “Rage,” Kim, in a letter to Trump, called the US president “your excellency” and said he believed the “deep and special friendship between us will work as a magical force.”

Some observers said Trump’s coronavirus diagnosis would quell speculation that the two leaders could have planned an “October surprise” in arranging their fourth meeting ahead of the US presidential election in November.

Despite the deadlocked talks, Kim hasn’t lifted his self-imposed moratorium on nuclear and long-range missile tests in an apparent effort to keep chances for diplomacy alive. North Korea’s economy is believed to have worsened due to the sanctions and the pandemic that forced it to close its border with China, its biggest trading partner, in January.

North Korea has said there hasn’t been a single virus outbreak on its soil, a claim widely disputed by foreign experts.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.