According to an article in the Korea Times:
Approximately 100 small Chinese companies out of 150 that have investments in North Korea are based in Jilin and Liaoning Provinces near the northeastern border with the North.
Read the full story here:
Investments in NK limit China’s policy choices
Korea Times
Kang Hyun-kyung
8/20/2010
The image above comes from the Boston Globe and demonstrates the DPRK’s “stealth” tactics described below.
According to the Choson Ilbo:
The North Korean military has developed various kinds of camouflage materials like stealth paint and set up fake facilities and equipment to cheat state-of-the-art reconnaissance satellites and aircraft, a confidential field manual obtained exclusively by the Chosun Ilbo shows.
The manual was smuggled out of the North by a source through a Christian organization called Caleb Mission.
So far information about the North Korean military’s camouflage tactics trickled out only piecemeal through testimonies of North Korean defectors, but this is the first time a confidential military field manual with details has been revealed.
The manual, printed in 2005, quotes leader Kim Jong-il as saying, “As I’ve said several times, modern warfare is stealth warfare. We can say that victory or defeat will be determined by how we carry out stealth warfare.”
The 80-odd-page booklet gives detailed instructions on how to make and apply stealth paint that absorbs radar waves and build various kinds of fake facilities, such as command posts, foxholes, runways, fighter jet and naval bases, and cave strongholds.
The manual also describes how to conceal real facilities or equipment and to make military units look as though they are moving when they are not to deceive South Korean and U.S. reconnaissance.
A South Korean intelligence expert who reviewed the manual said, “I was surprised to find that the North Korean military has done more intensive and careful research into stealth tactics than we thought. This is a useful piece of information that will be of great help to our military stepping up preparedness against the North.”
And according to the AFP:
North Korea has developed camouflage materials such as stealth paint to hide its warships, tanks or fighter jets from foreign reconnaissance satellites and aircraft, reports said Monday.
A confidential field manual used by the communist North’s military showed the isolated regime has also built a network of foxholes and caves, the Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported.
The newspaper said the manual quoted North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il as saying: “Modern warfare is stealth warfare. We can say that victory or defeat will be determined by how we carry out stealth warfare.”
The handbook, printed in 2005, was smuggled out of the North by a source through Caleb Mission, a South Korean Christian organisation.
It gives detailed instructions on how to make and apply the stealth paint, which absorbs radar waves, Chosun Ilbo said.
The South’s defence ministry confirmed the North’s military had used the manual for years.
“We have already acquired a copy of the manual and are fully aware of the North’s tactics,” a ministry spokesman told AFP, declining to give details.
The manual describes how to conceal facilities or equipment and how to make military units look as though they are moving when they are not, to deceive South Korean and US reconnaissance.
Chosun Ilbo quoted an unnamed intelligence expert as saying he was surprised to find that the North’s military has done “more intensive and careful research into stealth tactics than we thought”.
Yonhap news agency carried a similar report.
The handbook describes concealing long-range artillery equipment by applying radar-reflective materials, it said.
The North’s military was also ordered to pave fake aircraft runways to deceive foreign prying eyes, Yonhap said.
Read the full stories here:
N.Korea’s Stealth Warfare Manual Revealed
Choson Ilbo
8/23/2010
N.Korea develops camouflage tactics
AFP
8/23
According to Strategy Page:
North Korean TV recently showed video of a new tank, called the Storm Tiger. South Korean officials call it the M2002, after the year they first became aware of it. The new North Korean tank appears to be based on the Russian T-62, an unsuccessful design that North Korea produced under license. The M2002/Storm Tiger was apparently developed in the 1990s, based on 1980s technology. It appears to be a 40 ton vehicle, a little longer than the T-62 and may have some modern electronics (beyond a laser range finder.) The North Koreans describe the vehicle as “modern”, but even if they have modern fire control (which China or Russia won’t give away and which North Korea cannot really afford to buy), they are several decades behind Western (and South Korean) tank technology. North Korea has about 4,000 tanks, most of them based on 1950s and 60s technology. About half of them are Russian T-62s (or North Korea variants of that design). Against modern tanks, the North Korea vehicles perform more as targets than adversaries.
North Korea imported 500 T-62s in the 1970s. Then, in the 1980s, North Korea produced 1,200 lighter and modified versions of the T-62 (as the Chonmaho). There were five different models, with later ones having the ERA (Explosive Reactive Armor) and laser range finder.
Most Chonmaho tanks have since died of old age and lack of spare parts, with about 500 still available for service. This vehicle weighed 40 tons, had a four man crew, a 115mm gun (plus a 14.5mm and 7.62mm machine-guns) and added ERA. Top speed was 50 kilometers an hour and range on fuel carried was 450 kilometers. The original T-62 was an improved T-55, weighed 41.5 tons, entered service in 1961. Over 22,000 were eventually built, when production ended in 1975. There have been many improvements since. It is a simple tank, and over a thousand remain in service around the world. Russian T-62s most recently saw combat two years ago in Georgia. The T-62 can trace its design back to World War II. That’s because the T-54, which the T-62 evolved from (via the T-55), was developed in 1944. The basis for the T-54 was the T-44, an advanced model of the legendary T-34. The T-62, however, was the end of the line, in more ways than one.
According to Yonhap:
North Korea’s former Premier Pak Pong-ju appears to have returned to power with the Workers’ Party, more than three years after he was ousted due to his economic reform drive, according to a Pyongyang broadcast report on Saturday.
The North’s Korean Central Broadcasting Station introduced Pak as the “first deputy director of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea,” reporting on the 50th foundation ceremony of Pyongyang’s flagship Okryu Restaurant held Friday with a number of senior officials and workers.
There is no other known figure with the same name among the North Korean power-holding elite.
Pak, a long-time industry technocrat and pragmatist, was named premier of the North’s Cabinet in September 2003. He spearheaded the North’s so-called July 1st Economic Measure reform drive toward market economy, which aimed to give more autonomy to state firms and gradually reduce state rationing of food and daily necessities.
But his strong initiative triggered a backlash from the party and the military that resulted in his dismissal. Pak was suspended from duty in June 2006 on charges of fund apprehension and was fired in April the following year. Kim Yong-il, then land and marine transport minister, replaced him.
Pak is believed to have been demoted to a managerial post at a clothing factory outside Pyongyang.
Cho Myung-chul, a senior researcher at the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy who has defected from North Korea, viewed Pak’s reinstatement as a signal of a shifting North Korean economic policy toward pragmatism, following its failed currency reform last year.
“Pak is an emblematic figure of the July 1st Economic Measure that promoted pragmatism. His reinstatement could be connected with an economic policy shift back to pragmatism after the anti-market currency reform failed.”
In a bid to curb the burgeoning merchant class and strengthen its socialist system, North Korea implemented a surprise currency reform in November, knocking two zeros off its denominations. But the move backfired, worsening food shortages and triggering social unrest.
Apparently taking responsibility for the botched reform, Premier Kim Yong-il was replaced by Choe Yong-rim in June.
The broadcast report on Saturday did not specify which department of the Workers’ Party Pak joined, but it is likely that he was posted to the light industry department, considering the ceremony involving a restaurant and the fact that he was the department’s first deputy director in 1993.
Pak is believed to be a close confidante to Jang Song-thaek, vice chairman of the National Defense Commission and brother-in-law of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. Jang is seen as the central figure in grooming Kim’s third and youngest son, Jong-un, as the next leader.
Japan’s Mainichi Shimbun reported on Aug. 15, quoting multiple sources, that Pak and about 20 other figures close to Jang had been reinstated within the past two years. The report also said Pak has risen to the second highest spot in the party’s light industry department, which is headed by Kim Kyong-hui, Kim Jong-il’s sister and Jang’s wife.
According to the New York Times:
He is the latest among senior North Korean officials whose sudden banishment and equally unexpected reinstatement have sparked outside speculation about Mr. Kim’s intentions. Mr. Pak appeared to have fallen from Mr. Kim’s favor when he was fired from the premiership in 2007 and sent to work as a factory manager in a provincial town.
“His reinstatement could signal the return of pragmatists and reformists,” said Cheong Seong-chang, a North Korea analyst in the Sejong Institute south of Seoul. “We may be able to see him push the economic reform and openness he had once championed.”
Analysts in Seoul say that few North Korean officials wield much individual influence in Mr. Kim’s government. But they say that they can infer Mr. Kim’s plans from the way he punishes and rewards officials identified with various policy approaches.
“Pak’s reinstatement indicates that North Korea is shifting back to market reforms, even if grudgingly, after its botched attempt to re-enforce state control on the economy,” said Baek Seung-joo, the head of North Korea research at the government-financed Korea Institute for Defense Analyses in Seoul.
Mr. Pak, a lifetime technocrat, was best known as the architect of “Measures to Improve Economic Management Order.” Issued on July 1, 2002, they indirectly acknowledged the failure of the North’s ration system by instructing factories, collective farms and other economic units to provide their own daily necessities and give incentives for workers.
In September 2003 Mr. Pak was made prime minister, a post in charge of carrying out economic policies.
His reforms were necessitated by the collapse of the centrally planned economy after a famine in the mid-1990s. But they also coincided with — and fueled — the spread of private markets, which quickly emerged as a key source of food and other necessities for North Koreans.
But Mr. Pak’s reform programs irked the government’s old guard, especially in the hard-line military, which had grabbed the lion’s share in trade under the old system. The markets facilitated the influx of DVDs and other smuggled goods the government considered a capitalist threat.
Around 2005, North Korea began controlling markets. Its attempt to reinforce state control on the economy peaked late last year when it replaced its banknotes with a new currency, shut down markets and ordered people to buy goods only from state-run stores. The currency reform was aimed at stifling the markets by drastically reducing traders’ personal wealth in the old currency.
The moves quickly backfired. Inflation surged as traders hoarded their goods and government stores failed to meet demand. Sporadic protests were reported. Earlier this year, Pak Nam-gi, head of finance and planning who led the failed currency reform, was executed, according to South Korean news reports. North Korean markets began coming back to life, according to recent defectors.
Pak Pong-ju, the former prime minister, returns as North Korea prepares for a party caucus early next month. Officials and analysts in Seoul say they will monitor the meeting for changes in the cabinet and party leadership that might provide clues to Mr. Kim’s plans to hand over power to his third son, Kim Jong-un, who is in his late 20s.
Mr. Pak’s reinstatement adds to the growing influence of Jang Song-taek, Mr. Kim’s brother-in-law, said Mr. Baek, the researcher.
In June, Mr. Kim presided over a session of the rubber-stamp Supreme People’s Assembly where Mr. Jang, a potential caretaker for his son, was elevated to the No. 2 post in the ruling hierarchy. In the same meeting, Mr. Pak’s successor as prime minister, Kim Yong-il, who reportedly made a rare apology in February for the botched currency reform, was fired.
Mr. Pak, as first deputy director, is believed to report directly to Kim Kyong-hee, Mr. Kim’s younger sister and Mr. Jang’s wife, who works as party director in charge of the North’s light industries, Mr. Cheong said.
Read the full stories here:
N. Korean ex-PM Pak Pong-ju appears to be back in power
Yonhap
8/21/2010
North Korea Reinstates Market-Oriented Official
New York Times
Choe Sang-hun
8/23/2010
Story 2: The Inauspicious Life of Pilots
Daily NK
Yoo Gwan Hee
8/20/2010
…In North Korea, pilots receive top class treatment alongside submariners and the missile corps. They live above the law in many ways. For instance, if a pilot murders someone in society and then returns to their unit, M.P.s cannot arrest them.
While the top choice of middle school graduates is to work in the No.5 Department of the Central Committee of the Party, that which oversees every aspect of Kim Jong Il’s life, pilot is a popular second choice. The primary condition for selection is family background.
Until the 1980s, offspring of normal workers could be selected if they had a good academic record and enough physical strength. However, any person whose family had committed a political crime was excluded. Also, if a family member had sided with South Korea or went missing during the Korean War, they would be excluded, too.
Until this period, the occupation of pilot was deemed to be a dangerous job and children of the elite did not consider it as a career. However, as the economic crisis began in the 1990s, this view changed. Many of the children of elite officials now choose to become pilots.
Currently, pilots still receive ‘special treatment’ in North Korea; however, it is not particularly special any more. Compared to Party officials, who make money in business, the feeling of deprivation which pilots feel has increased a lot.
Pilots are still bound to the state for their living, while the elite increase their wealth and authority through foreign currency earning and market business.
Until the early 1990s, “No. 4 supplies,” which are given to pilots, were free and extras were sold to their families if necessary. Also, since North Korea was worried about the pilots’ mental states, they took care of family issues and distributed supplies to their families once a month.
Even during “The March of Tribulation” in the mid-1990s, normal food distribution was given to families of pilots. However, as the atmosphere in society changed, their stress is increasing. Children of pilots are becoming a target in schools; teachers demand much of pilots’ children first.
Air Force Units receive a relatively good coal supply, however, since the absolute quantity is still lacking, they need to prepare firewood on their own, too. Until the early 1990s, if one or two packs of cigarette, soybean oil, and beer were given to workers on a farm in the surrounding area or a forest ranger, firewood might come in return. However, the times have changed.
Wives of pilots also have to enter the battle. Wives sell distributed supplies to wholesalers or sell them directly in farming villages in the surrounding area.
However, even in the situation where a lot of workers receive not even a single grain of rice from the nation, the supply for pilots is still special. However, since pilots do not have the authority to use it for business and bribery like other officials; their practical standard of living is not very different from a person who sells home appliances in the market.
The biggest stress which North Korean pilots feel is their concern for their old age. Currently in North Korean society, the treatment you receive in active duty and that of the retired are very different.
Until the 1990s, North Korea praised pilots as a “treasure of the nation” and promised them lifelong care. But after 2000, the retired were completely abandoned. The national pension is worth less than a price of one kilogram of corn.
Usually in other countries, the rising generation has more discontent toward the government compared to the mature group, but in North Korea it is the opposite and this is the reason for the phenomenon. When retired, they need to farm or do business in the market, but retirees are short of market experience and strength. Current pilots, observing the lives of their former comrades, cannot feel comfortable about it.
Now we are in an era where even a pilot receiving “top” level treatment from North Korea attempts an escape, and this is not surprising anymore.
Story 1: Pilot Privileges Fade into History
Daily NK
Yoo Gwan Hee
8/11/2009
…[S]pecial employees, such as air force pilots or submarine captains, belong to a class which is treated as the most exceptional in North Korea (notwithstanding officials or members of elite organizations). Before the start of the 21st century, pilots enjoyed considerable privileges. The North Korean state paid special attention to cultivating pilots, showering them with preferential treatment. Goods provided to pilots and their family members were entirely free and a separate compensation-based ration system applied to the whole group.
So, in the North, the closest thing to a “summer vacation” as enjoyed by the people of the free world would inevitably be the “recreation” of pilots. In North Korea, pilots and their family members were permitted vacation once a year and once every two years, respectively. Submarine captains were entitled to similar terms.
Some of the recreation centers used by pilots and their families include the “Galma Recreation Center” in Wonsan, the “Sokhu Recreation Center” in South Hamkyung Province, and the “Jooeul Recreation Center,” among others. All are located near the ocean, and are unparalleled in terms of scenery. In the case of the Galma Recreation Center, there are two buildings housing bedrooms for the visitors standing side-by-side in a shady area, while a separate dining hall and indoor gymnasium can also be found.
Usually, three to four singles and four to five married households from one unit (regiment level) could use the recreation center at any one time.
Single and family rooms are separate. In the former, there are four single beds and in the latter, two double beds. According to regulations, only two children per family are permitted; those who need to bring three or four children have to work out an arrangement with the management office.
In the centers, there is no designated work, but meals and sleeping times must be strictly kept. Breakfast begins at 7:30 A.M., lunch at 12:30 P.M. and dinner at 6 P.M.; naps can only be taken between 2 and 4 P.M. Bedtime is fixed at 10 P.M. Guests have to strictly adhere to these times.
Besides these restrictions, the visitors have the freedom to spend time as they want. Some people play Chinese chess (janggi) and others cards while the rest may choose to head for the beach.
The menus for the week are displayed next to the windows from which the food is served. Soup and bowls of rice are distributed per person and up to four side dishes are distributed to each table (a table consists of two groups).
Until the early 1990s, the most popular food among those served at the recreation centers was bread made in the former Soviet Union. Every morning, a Russian bread called “Khleb,” on which butter or powdered sugar could be put, was provided. The fruit which was given to each person at lunchtime was also popular with the visitors.
The period of recreation enjoyed by pilots was usually 20 days. However, some families, rather than using up all of their days, left the recreation centers in a hurry to visit parents or relatives in their hometowns. Usually, an additional 15 days of vacation was added unto the 20 recreation days, during which many people take trips to their hometowns.
Some diligent wives would continue to work even while in the centers. Surrounding the Galma Recreation Center, located on the shore of the East Sea, or the Sokhu Recreation Center are heaps of seaweed which are washed ashore with the tides. The wives, after washing the seaweed in the ocean water, dried it on the seashore.
Two or three 50-kg bags are barely sufficient for that much dried seaweed. Wives sent these to their in-laws or families with satisfaction.
However, such extravagant levels of recreation for pilots began to disappear in the mid-1990s with the March of Tribulation. Now, even when the state issues recreation permits, people tend to take off for hometowns, not to recreation centers.
Further, with the decline in the national esteem of pilots in recent years and due to the fact that the items which are provided as rations tend to be sold in the markets for additional income, the luxurious lives of the special class are becoming less impressive all the time. Recently, some pilots have even been selling their cigarette rations (one month’s worth) in the jangmadang.
Corruption also afflicts pilots to no small extent. Schools request additional money and products from the children of pilots, due to the popular image of affluence they command.
The sense of deprivation among pilots and family members, who are supposedly among the most revered people in North Korea, has been growing. Their status has indeed decreased over the years; one cannot ignore the fact that the standard of living of private merchants or foreign currency earners has now outpaced that of pilots, who are dangerously dependent on rations for their survival.
Institute for Far Eastern Studies (IFES)
NK Brief No 10-08-19-1
8/19/2010
Despite the ongoing inter-Korean tensions, and the stand-off over the Cheonan incident in particular, the first two quarters of 2010 saw an all-time record of 980 million USD-worth of inter-Korean exchange. However, with the South Korean government ceasing all inter-Korean trade outside of the Kaesong Industrial Complex in reaction to the investigation results finding North Korea responsible for the sinking of the South Korean naval corvette Cheonan, cross-border trade between the North and South has fallen and is expected to remain approximately 30 percent lower during the second half of the year.
According to South Korean customs officials, inter-Korean trade in the first half of the year was worth 983.23 million USD, with ROK imports worth 430.48 million USD and exports worth 552.75 million USD; a 122.27 million USD trade surplus. This is a 52.4 percent rise over last year’s first two quarters of trade, worth 645 million USD. In the first six months of 2009, South Korea exported 259.91 million USD (66%)-worth of product, and imported 385.1 million USD (44%) in goods. This year’s trade volume was nearly 100 million USD higher than the previous record, set in 2008, of 884.97 million USD. It was also around six times more than the 161.63 million USD recorded in 1999, when inter-Korean trade first became significant.
In 1999, North-South trade totaled 328.65 million USD. Despite rocky inter-Korean relations at the time, cross-border trade continued to grow, and with the expansion of the Kaesong Industrial Complex and other projects, first topped one billion USD in 2005, squeezing above the marker at 1.08872 billion USD. This growth continued in the latter half of the decade, hitting nearly 1.38 billion USD in 2006, 1.795 billion USD in 2007, and 1.82 billion USD in 2008. Repercussions from the North’s second nuclear test in 2009 caused trade to fall off to 1.666 billion USD in 2009.
On May 24, the South Korean government announced that all inter-Korean trade outside of the Kaesong Industrial Complex would be halted due to North Korea’s sinking of the Cheonan. If this trade ban continues, cross-border trade during the second half of the year is expected to be down 30 percent. The inter-Korean project in Kaesong makes up 70 percent of inter-Korean trade, so that other individual projects add up to only about one third. It is the suspension of these projects that is lowering North-South exchanges by 30 percent.
Actually, there was a decline in trade during the first six months of the year. In June, exports totaled 56.88 million USD, while imports were worth 66.18 million USD (total: 123.06 USD). This is 21 percent (33.31 million USD) less than in May. Exports were down 4 percent and imports dropped by 32 percent. Compared to trade prior to the ROK government’s measures, the trade of electric and electronic goods, transportation, and other capital goods actually raised from 19.31 million USD to 21.21 million USD, while mined goods and other consumables dropped from 76.81 million USD to 36.86 million USD.
According to the Choson Ilbo:
North Korea’s markets appear to be coming to life again after a botched currency reform late last year laid waste to them. Footage obtained by the Chosun Ilbo’s Northeast Asia Research Institute from a North Korean source on Wednesday shows the Chaeha market in the border town of Sinuiju early this month bustling with trade. “The sprawling Chaeha market was set up in 2003 and is located in a wealthy neighborhood along the trade route with China,” the source said.
Images taken in March of a market in Onsong released by the Chosun Ilbo in April showed most of the stalls empty, but the market in Sinuiju is now overflowing with sundries, clothes, hardware, fruits and food.
Lack of State Control
The market is bustling with traders and customers. North Korean security agents used to patrol the markets before the currency reform, but none are to be seen in the video. The only semblance of state control is an official wearing an armband that reads “administrator” walking quietly past the vendors.
According to sources in North Korea, markets in the country were practically deserted until May, but the situation began to change in June. Now business is booming. Sources say the authorities have virtually stopped trying to control the markets after former premier Kim Yong-il apologized for the failed currency reform and Park Nam-gi, the former director of the North Korean Workers Party’s Planning and Finance Department, was executed.
North Koreans apparently protested vehemently when the government failed to provide food following the currency debacle and demanded they be allowed to buy and sell goods in the markets. These days, the traders apparently hurl abuse at any security agents attempting to crack down. A South Korean intelligence source said, “It looks like North Korean authorities have given up their fight against the markets again.”
Clandestine S.Korean Products
Chinese products stacked on the shelves range from plastic basins, porcelain dishes and thermos bottles to cosmetics, electric fans, rice cookers and even motorcycle helmets.
But the scene is quite different behind the stalls. The source who provided the footage said, “Vendors openly sell Chinese products, but they sell South Korean goods under the table.” “Cuckoo rice cookers, Samsung Anycall mobile phones and LG TV sets are very popular,” the source said. “South Korean clothes are brought in with their labels removed, but wealthier people prefer South Korean clothes over Chinese ones.”
The source said a large market which sells only South Korean products has also formed in the Chinese city of Dandong just across the Apnok (or Yalu) River.
The situation is apparently the same in other North Korean markets. One North Korean defector who used to sell goods at an open-air market in North Hamgyong Province, said, “We display Chinese cosmetics but tell customers we also have South Korean ones. When a customer wants South Korean cosmetics, we take them out from under the table and sell them in the backroom.”
The traders sell South Korean products because they fetch a handsome profit. “Chinese products usually have a set price tag and consumers try to haggle, but South Korean products go for a premium and there’s no haggling over prices, because they are considered top-notch products,” the source said.
South Korean DVDs and music CDs are also in high demand. North Korean movies and CDs, are on display, but the latest South Korean soap operas and American action movies are freely available under the table, according to the defector.
I am glad to see that market life in Sinuiju is bustling, but I do not believe this demonstrates how market activity has recovered in places like Onsong. Sinuiju handles the bulk of the China/DPRK trade and wholesalers from across the country go there to do business. I would like to see some current footage of market activity in Onsong and other “remote” places (i.e not Phyongsong, Hamhung, Chongjin, or Sinuiju) to have a better idea of how conditions have bounced back.
I believe this is the location of the Chaeha Market, but I am only guessing. If you have a better idea, please let me know.
Read the full story here:
Footage Shows N.Korean Markets Bustling Again
Choson Ilbo
8/19/2010
According to the Korea Herald:
North Korea watchers in the West estimate the North’s outstanding debts to be around $12 billion, two thirds of which is owed to former communist states.
In 2008, a ruling Grand National Party lawmaker had suggested allowing North Korea to pay back its loans from South Korea with mineral resources or development rights.
Rep. Kwon Young-se said during a parliamentary audit two years ago that North Korea’s debts amount to $18 billion, nearly as much as the country’s economic output in the year 2007.
About five percent of it, or $920 million, was borrowed from South Korea.
“Loans for North Korea’s economic development from socialist countries in the 1950s and 60s, and Western nations in the 1970s have accumulated with overdue interest on outstanding debts,” Kwon said.
“North Korea’s per capita debt is around 930,000 won, slightly less than the country’s annual per capita income of 1.07 million won.”
Last year, a top South Korean government official said Seoul could pay for tours to North Korea with commodities instead of cash.
He said the issue of paying cash to North Korea had to be reconsidered based on the U.N. Security Council Resolution 1874, which slapped tightened sanctions on the reclusive state as punishment for its nuclear and missile programs.
The crossborder tours have been suspended for the past two years after a South Korean tourist was shot to death in the North’s mountain resort.
Read the full sotry here:
North Korea cornered with snowballing debts
Korea Herald
Kim So-hyun
8/17/2010
According to Reuters:
A northeast Chinese border city that is a key portal with isolated neighbour North Korea has launched a pilot scheme to settle export deals in China’s yuan currency, the city’s official newspaper said on Thursday.
North Korea’s struggling economy has come under greater strain after a chaotic attempt to re-denominate its currency last year hurt private traders and alarmed Chinese merchants.
The yuan’s trial use appears intended to boost Chinese exporters’ confidence in doing more above-the-table deals with the North, often a perilous gamble even in smoother times.
Many Chinese traders doing business with the North already use the yuan, dollar, euro in cash or even barter to settle export of food, clothes, appliances and other cheap goods in often informal or convoluted transactions. Smuggling and illicit deals are common along the border, marked by the Yalu River, a few dozen metres (feet) wide in many parts.
The Dandong Daily reported that approved exporters in Dandong will be able officially to carry out business in yuan.
The Chinese government announced in June that all of its trading partners would be able to invoice and settle imports and exports in yuan, but so far such transactions have been primarily confined to trade between China and Hong Kong.
“This means that state-designated export businesses in Dandong that engage in external trade can use the renminbi to settle transactions,” said the Chinese-language Dandong Daily (www.ddrb.cn) of the scheme, which began on Wednesday.
The renminbi is another name for the yuan.
“This will reduce exchange rate risks and the costs of doing business, and smooth out enjoying export tax rebate policies, as well as improving capital utilisation,” said the report.
The scheme will also cover approved small-scale exports passing through customs posts at Dandong, it said.
The new scheme will allow exporters to enjoy rebates and other benefits for trade, but will also depend on North Korean importers being allowed to deal legally in yuan.
Dandong lies on the Yalu, and at night its neon-lit riverfront faces the darkness of the electricity-starved North.
…
North Korea’s dependence on Chinese goods and aid has deepened as Pyongyang’s ties with South Korea have frayed.
According to Chinese customs data, in the first six months of 2010, China’s trade with North Korea was worth $1.3 billion (835.6 million pounds), a rise of 15.2 percent on the same time last year.
China’s exports to the North grew by a quarter, but its imports fell by 4.8 percent, the customs data show. As much as 70-80 percent of that trade passed through Dandong, according to earlier Chinese news reports, citing local customs officials.
Read the full story here:
China city launches yuan trade scheme with North Korea
Retuers
8/19/2010
According to the Korea Times:
Approximately 20,000 North Korean defectors are living in South Korea nowadays. Frankly, this number is not particularly large: in comparison some 689,000 East Germans defected to East Germany between 1961-1989, and the number of defectors/refugees from other Communist countries was also counted in the hundreds of thousands.
North Korean refugees are very dissimilar from the refugees from Eastern Europe who crossed over to the western borders in large numbers during the Cold War.
Until the mid-1990s escape from North Korea was almost impossible, but things changed when North Koreans began to move to China which became the major stopover for nearly all refugees. Now the community of illegal North Korean refugees in China is estimated to be around 30,000-40,000. These people are usually members of the underprivileged social groups who once lived in areas of North Korea which are close to the border with China.
People of the borderland areas began to cross over to China in large numbers in the mid-1990s (an illegal crossing is not difficult since the border rivers are not broad, and also freeze in winter). In the first stage those people were fleeing starvation, but from around 2000, most of them have been attracted by jobs available in China. For most people these jobs would not appear lucrative: in that part of China a construction worker can earn a wage of $80-$90 a month (free accommodation provided), while a humble waitress is usually paid some $50 a month. However, the average salary in North Korea is now about $2-$3 a month, so this income is extremely attractive to poor North Korean farmers.
Of course, crossing to China and working there illegally is not risk-free. Chinese employers might be cheating, refugees are hunted by the Chinese police and if found extradited back to North Korea.
Nonetheless nowadays the punishment of extradited refugees tends be lenient ― by the cannibalistic standards of the North Korean regime, that is. If an extradited refugee can handle a few days of intense beatings and moderate torture without confessing that he or she did something politically dangerous in China ― like contacting Christian missionaries, South Koreans or foreigners ― chances are that the refugee will get away with just a few months of imprisonment.
This situation determines the composition of the refugee community in China. The typical North Korean refugee in China is a middle-aged woman (women outnumber men roughly three to one since it is easier for them to leave the village and reach the border). She has spent all her life working at a farm in a remote North Korean village. At best she might be a primary school teacher or a low level clerk in the local administration. Of course there are elite refugees, but those constitute a small minority.
Most of these people would like to move to South Korea if they are given the opportunity. Such a move is impossible for the vast majority. Contrary to the official rhetoric, South Korean government agencies in China are not excessively eager to help the run-of-the-mill defector (those few who have intelligence or political value might be a different matter).
Nowadays defection is, above all, business, controlled by defection specialists known as “brokers’. If they are paid a fee which currently fluctuates around $2000-$3000 per head but in some special cases might go higher, they can move a person from borderland areas to a third country where they would go to a South Korean consulate or embassy (usually, in Thailand or Mongolia). In third countries (but not in China) South Korean diplomats issue defectors with provisional travel documents and a ticket to Seoul.
The money which is necessary to pay for the broker’s service comes from different channels. In most cases, the sum is provided by a family member who has already reached Seoul. Acquiring this money independently is well beyond the means of the average North Korean refugee in China.
Upon arrival defectors go through a few weeks of debriefing by the South Korean intelligence agencies (admittedly, most of them don’t have much of interest to tell the South Korean authorities). This is followed by three months of readjustment training at Hanawon, a special reeducation facility for refugees. There the new arrivals are briefly lectured on the wonders of liberal democracy as well as provided with somewhat more useful knowledge about foodstuffs available in South Korean shops and the way to pay for a subway ticket in Seoul. Then they are provided with a modest accommodation (heavily subsidized by the government) and some stipend for the initial expenses (the sum varies, but the rough average is around $10,000 per person).
From that moment on, the North Korean refugee starts his or her life in the South. And, as one can easily predict, this life is usually quite difficult. Seoul is a tough place for a former North Korean housewife.
Read the full story here:
Lives of N. Korean defectors
Korea Times
Andrei Lankov
8/15/2010
