The treaty, which was signed by President Kim Il Sung and Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai on July 11, Juche 50 (1961), demonstrated the bilateral friendship forged in the anti-imperialist joint struggle.

The Korean and Chinese people provided the tradition of friendship, closely cooperating with each other through centuries, based on revolutionary obligation.

From the early period of his revolutionary activities, the President advanced a unique line of forming an anti-Japanese united front involving the Korean and Chinese people and made much effort for its implementation.

In the period of the anti-Japanese armed struggle, he set a good example of joint action with Chinese anti-Japanese units through the battle in Dongning County Town in September 1933. In the battle the Anti-Japanese People's Guerrilla Army fully demonstrated its fighting capacity and the heroic mettle of the Korean revolutionaries.

The President successfully commanded joint operations with Chinese anti-Japanese units in Luozigou in June 1934 and in Fusong County Town in August 1936, through which he consolidated the united front.

In January 1933, he, leading a small number of members from his unit, made a long journey through the enemy line to encourage Wang Delin, commander of the National Salvation Army in northeast China, to continue the anti-Japanese struggle. At that time Wang's unit was being encircled by the Japanese army and treated coldly even by the Nanjing government.

When Comintern suggested separating anti-Japanese units in northeast China into Korean and Chinese units in the mid-1930s, he categorically rejected it out of the revolutionary obligation and sent many Korean commanding officers to Chinese units.

When China was in the thick of the civil war late in the 1940s, he rendered sincere assistance to the Chinese revolution, deepening friendship and unity with the Chinese people.

At that time, the Kuomintang army put under its control Shenyang, Siping, Changchun, Jilin and many other areas, railways and main roads in south and north Manchuria.

The Northeast Allied Democratic Army surrendered most areas of Manchuria to the enemy and retreated towards the River Amnok, the border between China and Korea.

The commander of the Liaoning Military District informed the President of the urgent situation and requested him to come to Dandong to give some recommendations.

Fierce battles were fought in the suburbs of Dandong city, exposed to strafing.

But, the President risked himself to go across the Amnok River and made strategic and tactical recommendations to bring about a radical turn in the war.

He underscored the need to build strong bases in rural areas and combine large-unit mobile operations with guerilla operations in the enemy rear in order to weaken the enemy's combat power. He also advised them to go to Mt. Paektu if they were driven into a corner, saying Korea will serve as their home front.

The commander, when meeting with the President later, said they could win the war, encouraged by his recommendations.

The President regarded it as internationalist duty of all the Korean people to assist the Chinese people in their revolutionary struggle and dispatched able commanding officers and soldiers to northeast China.

When Chen Yun, director of the Organizational Department of the Communist Party of China, visited Pyongyang as a special envoy of Chairman Mao Zedong, the President made up his mind to render sincere assistance to the Chinese people.

Since the U.S. imperialists and the Syngman Rhee regime were busy with preparations for a war against the north of Korea, able military and political cadres and war supplies were badly needed for the building of a regular army. But the President sent more than 100,000 rifles and large quantities of ammunitions, cloth for military uniforms and medicines to Chinese people to greatly contribute to their victory in the war.

During the three-year-long northeast China liberation war, the Korean and Chinese units pooled efforts to defeat the one million-strong Kuomintang army and rebel units. An estimated 700,000 of the one million were killed, injured or arrested.

Hundreds of thousands of young Korean people took part in the liberation operations in different parts of China, including the northeast area, and the Korean units led by Kang Kon, Pak Rak Gwon, Choe Kwang and other commanders played a big role in regaining occupied cities and areas of military importance and bringing about a turn in the war.

Chairman Mao Zedong and Premier Zhou Enlai said the flag of the People's Republic of China was permeated with blood shed by Korean communists and people and that the Chinese people would never forget the Korean people's sincere assistance.

The DPRK-China friendship provided by leaders of elder generations of the two countries was strengthened with the Chinese people resisting America and aiding Korea during the Korean war.

When the U.S. imperialists started the war, the Chinese party and government organized the Chinese People's Volunteers and sent them to the Korean front under the banner of resisting America and aiding Korea, safeguarding the home and defending the motherland.

Before their dispatch, Mao Zedong said the Chinese and Korean people would fight to the last against the common enemy, uniting like brothers and sharing weal and woe with each other. The volunteers, deeply aware of the meaning of his remark, fully displayed a spirit of self-sacrifice and bravery in the war.

The revolutionaries and people of the two countries consolidated their unity and friendship through anti-Japanese and anti-U.S. battles, sharing the same destiny.

General Secretary Kim Jong Il visited the command of the Chinese People's Volunteers in Hoechang County, South Phyongan Province last year and said many volunteers, including Mao Anying, a son of Mao Zedong, lost their lives in the Korean front. Though six decades has passed, the Korean army and people have always kept their heroic feats in their memory.

The conclusion of the DPRK-China Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance served as solid foundations for steadily developing the traditional friendship forged between the two countries in the protracted revolutionary struggle and socialist construction.

In line with the treaty, the parties, governments and people of the two countries have powerfully accelerated socialist construction, steadily expanding and developing friendly and cooperative ties in all fields.

They have also respected and helped each other to keep the U.S. and its allies from unleashing another war on the Korean peninsula and the rest of East Asia and safeguard the world peace.

The bilateral friendship and cooperation are developing vigorously thanks to deep concern of leader Kim Jong Il and the Chinese leadership of a new generation.

Kim Jong Il visited China seven times in the new century to carry forward the tradition of the bilateral friendship provided by the revolutionaries of the elder generations and make great exploits in the development of the bilateral ties.

His latest China visit in May proved that the DPRK-China friendship with a long history and tradition is well-tried, indestructible one which would remain unchanged through generations.