By Hong Soon-do, Beijing correspondent, AsiaToday - China is recently taking active moves with its Asian neighbors, showing a completely different attitude unlike the past. It seems the country has changed its diplomatic strategy as it is especially seeking to mend fences with the countries who were at odds with.

Liu Yunshan, a member of the Communist Party's Politburo Standing Committee, meets Kim Jong-un, first secretary of the DPPK's ruling Workers' Party, in Pyongyang on October 9, raising hopes of thaw in bilateral ties./ Source from Xinhua News Agency

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According to Chinese state media outlets including Xinhua News Agency on Sunday, such efforts particularly goes for North Korea, whose relationship with China has weakened these years. China expressed its strong willingness to improve relations with North Korea by sending a delegation headed by Liu Yunshan, a member of the Communist Party's Politburo Standing Committee, to Pyongyang to mark the 70th anniversary of the founding of North Korea's ruling Workers' Party on October 10. It surely did considering the fact that it was the first time in years that China sent a senior Communist Party leader to North Korea. It was reasonable enough that Liu had an amicable talk with Kim Jong-un and attended a military parade, where he gave a big round of applause.

It's in this same vein that China's top diplomat Yang Jiechi is scheduled to visit Japan this week to lay the groundwork for pending issues. Considering that bilateral relations have been deeply worsened for the past three years due to disputes over territory and wartime history, the dispatch of Yang to Japan wasn't really an easy decision for China.

The same goes with Xi Jinping's upcoming three-day visit to Vietnam on October 9-11. China and Vietnam have been at each other's throats historically. This is the first time that China's top leader is visiting Vietnam since 2006, when Hu Jintao made a state visit. Xi Jinping has reportedly made the decision by himself, judging that there's nothing good to maintain a tenuous relationship with Vietnam due to the long-running territorial dispute. It seems Xi Jinping plans to suggest economic cooperation during a summit talk with Vietnamese Communist Party chief Nguyen Phu Trong.