Chinese leader Xi Jinping will not make his inaugural visit as president to Pyongyang to attend ceremonies marking the 70th anniversary of North Korea's founding, the official Xinhua News Agency said Tuesday.
Instead, China's No. 3-ranked official, Li Zhanshu, will head a delegation to visit the nuclear-armed North from Saturday as a special representative of Xi, Xinhua quoted the ruling Communist Party's International Department as saying.
The North's state-run Korean Central News Agency also confirmed the visit in a short dispatch published later Tuesday.