Chinese President Xi Jinping has paid an inspection visit to one of the country's military units tasked with guarding border areas with North Korea, according to state media on Monday, amid strained bilateral ties over the North's nuclear program.
  

Xi visited the 16th Group Army of the Shenyang Military Area Command on Saturday and reaffirmed his anti-corruption drive in the military, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported on its website.
  

Headquartered in Changchun, the capital city of China's northeastern Jilin province, the 430,000-strong Shenyang Military Area Command is in charge of defending the border with North Korea.
  

Before visiting the military unit last week, Xi made his first visit to the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture of China, where ethnic Koreans account for about 30 percent of the population in the Yanbian prefecture.
  

Although the report made no mention of North Korea, the visit by Xi to the military unit came after a series of killings that were blamed on North Korean army deserters in border areas.
 
 
Late last year, a North Korean army deserter killed four Chinese citizens during a robbery in the border town of Helong, prompting Beijing to lodge a rare diplomatic protest with Pyongyang.
  

China has beefed up its border patrols since then. (Yonhap)