North Korea: China a chief ally to dictator Kim Jong-un, sends a medical team to check on his health; reports of last week said that 36-year-old was critically ill.

The delegation is led by a senior member of the Communist Party of China’s (CPC) international liaison department and left Beijing for Pyongyang on Thursday, reported by Reuters on Saturday.

The medical visit is set to trigger further speculations about the health of North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un, who is said to be a heavy smoker with a history of cardiovascular problems in the family. However, ally of the leader China is yet to confirm the visit.

Beijing is isolated and under complete lockdown, is also a secretive Pyongyang’s chief ally and economic benefactor. President Xi Jinping has already met the dictator several times in the last couple of years including during his first state visit to North Korea in 2019 after a decade.

The speculations revolving around Kim’s health spread like a wildfire on the internet; according to earlier reports when the dictator was “conspicuously absent” from birthday celebrations on April 15th of his grandfather, state founder Kim II Sung.

U.S Media outlets had reported earlier that the leader had gone under a cardiovascular procedure, and CNN citing a U.S official with direct knowledge of the matter as saying that Washington was in fact “monitoring intelligence” that Kim may be in grave danger after the surgery.

On Tuesday, the Chinese foreign ministry reported that they were aware of reports concerning the health of North Korea’s leader but denied the source of the reports, and did not comment in regard to the situation further after the speculations went trending on Twitter.

The state-run Korean Central News Agency reported that Kim on Wednesday had sent a message to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the reports stay confidential.

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