Chinese tourists marveled when North Korea's mass gymnastics extravaganza that began earlier this week featured a newly inserted chapter praising the ideological allies' ties that have continued for generations, Pyongyang's official media reported Wednesday.
Beginning on Monday, the Arirang Festival featured tens of thousands of gymnasts performing synchronized acrobatics, dances and flip-card mosaic animation during its 80-minute run -- the largest gymnastics show in the world.
The Korean Central Television station said the show drew a group of Chinese tourists on its opening day, mesmerizing them and prompting them to look back on the ties between the two countries.
"'Chapter 5 Friendship Arirang' displayed in an artistic frame the Chinese-North Korean friendship ties developing generation after generation after being formed between (North Korea founder) Kim Il-sung and the old generation of Chinese revolutionaries," the station quoted one Chinese tourist as saying.
Chinese forces intervened to save North Korea from being defeated by U.S.-led U.N. forces during the 1950-53 Korean War, which ended in a truce that has never been replaced by a peace treaty.
Kim Jong-il took over the North Korean regime when his father, Il-sung, died in 1994. Observers say the 68-year-old leader is now working to
engineer another hereditary power transfer by secretly boosting the position of his third son, Jong-un.
The relationship between Beijing and Pyongyang has been the buffer for North Korea this year as the United States and South Korea step up their
diplomatic pressure on Pyongyang to admit to attacking a South Korean warship in March and killing 46 sailors.
North Korea has also increasingly turned to China to make up for economic losses it incurred as its ties with South Korea have deteriorated over the past two years. In March, North Korean leader Kim Jong-il held a summit with Chinese President Hu Jintao in his rare trip to the neighboring ally and agreed to expand ties.
Named after the famous Korean folk song, Arirang has been held almost annually since 2002. Last year, the festival drew about 1.4 million people from home and abroad, according to the North.
The show is also a subject of intense criticism from abroad because it is believed to mobilize a large number of young children without providing sufficient nutrition for them. Critics also say the show is a symbol of the totalitarianism that the North exerts over its people.