A leading ruling party member in Korea says China expects North Korea's Workers' Party and military will rule after supreme leader Kim Jong-il dies.

Chung Mong-joon in a recent posting on his Web site described his talks with senior Chinese Communist Party officials.

On Kim's successor, one Chinese official said both the North's Workers' Party and military will take charge.

Chung said Beijing apparently believes that Pyongyang will eventually assume collective leadership.

Another Chinese official said China opened up to the world because it denied its past, but North Korea cannot do so because the only way to open its doors is to build two or three more areas like the Gaeseong Industrial Complex.