China sends medical team to North Korea amid speculation over Kim Jong-un’s health

China has sent a medical team to check on the North Korean leader as rumours swirl over surgery.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has not been seen in public for the country’s founding anniversary of its armed forces.

Speculation continues to swirl over North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s health, amid reports China had dispatched a team of doctors and officials to the country to check on him.

The 36-year-old leader has remained out of public sight as North Korea’s tightly controlled media focused their coverage on the founding anniversary of its armed forces.

They have carried no report of Kim’s public activity since April 11, sparking speculation that Kim might be critically ill following heart surgery.

Pyongyang’s propaganda outlets instead hyped the 88th anniversary of the birth of the Korean People’s Revolutionary Army (KPRA) that falls on April 25. The official Korean Central News Agency detailed the history of the KPRA that dates back to the anti-Japanese people’s guerrilla army formed by Kim Il-sung, late grandfather of the current leader. Korea was under Japan’s brutal colonial rule at that time.

A view of fields and buildings in North Korean countryside outside Kaesong, seen across the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) from the South Korean island of Ganghwa. The United States will keep seeking North Korea's denuclearisation no matter who is in charge in Pyongyang, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said, amid speculation about leader Kim Jong-un's health.

In an editorial, the Rodong Sinmun, the organ of the North’s ruling party, stressed Kim Jong-un’s call for bolstering the military power and urged the further strengthening of the entire army’s support for his leadership. Meanwhile, Reuters said a Chinese medical team had been sent to North Korea “to advise on” Kim. It quoted three unnamed people familiar with the situation.

The delegation, led by a senior member of the Chinese Communist Party’s International Liaison Department, left Beijing for North Korea on Thursday, it added.

The US says it is monitoring the situation.

AAP