From the PRC’s Global Times:
“Like the ancient Chinese verse that goes ‘a duck knows the coming of springs beforehand,’ the so-called ‘gray’ trade on the border of China and North Korea serves as a thermometer of North Korea’s politics and economy,” Lin Jun, a merchant from Dandong, a border city of Northeast China’s Liaoning Province, told the Global Times. Lin has 12 years of experience in Sino-North Korean border trade.
Since Jang Song-thaek, allegedly the second powerful man in North Korea, was purged in December, the northeast Asian country has released mixed signals toward the outside world: On the one hand, it seems to be toughening its political stance, but on the other, it pledges continued reconciliation with South Korea and further economic development.
The sensitive border trade between the two countries has witnessed dramatic ups and downs during recent months.
“My North Korean partner came by speedboat on December 30, bringing orders from Sakchu, Bakcheon and Pyongyang, demanding all the goods ready by the next day,” said a man surnamed Deng, who works for Lin.
“However, the next day he suddenly called to cancel the deals without giving any reason. There was no such precedent, even after North Korea conducted the nuclear test [in February last year],” he said.
Luxury goods
“Two years ago, North Korean people mainly needed cooking oil, rice, garments and second-hand electric appliances,” Deng told the Global Times reporter when taking his ship to Sakchu down the Yalu River.
“Nowadays, they will also ask for Apple computers, iPads, cell phones, Japanese washing machines and brand-new fridges, though the consumers of these luxury goods are mostly officials. Even senior officials in Pyongyang are using tablet computers bought from us,” Deng said proudly.
Such gray trade between China and North Korea has been an established fact for a long period, Lü Chao, a Korea expert with the Liaoning Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times.
He noted that it was quite commonly seen at border areas that people throw a pack over from one side of the border and those on the other side would pick it up and go away on a motorcycle, hence “gray trade” is also known as “bag-throwing trade.”
Given the long border between China and North Korea and the common language people living around the border share, it is hard to eliminate such trade, Lü noted.
However, although gray trade was not fully legal, it was indeed a supplement to the North Korean economy and a market always short of goods, especially for people’s daily lives, Lü said.
“Those engaged in the border trade are definitely not ordinary people,” Cui Mingxuan, a Dandong businessman who has retired from border trade for more than a year, told the Global Times.
Read the full story here:
Gray trade
Global Times
2014-1-14
