Four months after re-opening, China-North Korea rail traffic shuts again

By Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein

Only four short months after traffic started up again following a two-year shutdown, Chinese authorities announced late last week that railway traffic between Dandong and Sinuiju was to be halted again from May 1st, this past Sunday. According to Chinese authorities, this was done at the request of the North Korean government. The reason is the recent rise in Covid-19 cases in Dandong which has prompted a strict quarantine regime in the city, as in many Chinese localities. This move comes a few weeks after border guards in North Korea were apparently ordered to wear gas masks following the rise of cases in China.

As long as North Korea continues to hold zero Covid cases rather than mass vaccinations as the main policy goal, and China’s strict quarantine policies continue, this is like how trade between the two countries will continue for some time, with intermittent stops every now and then when cases rise in China. It still remains to be seen how long the pause in trade will last.

It is, of course, troubling for the North Korean economy. Goods such as fertilizer, pesticides and other farming inputs are badly needed imports. Radio Free Asia reports that traders have been purchasing these goods, in addition to food, as “national emergency goods”, most likely a priority category created by the North Korean government:

Days before the closure, traders made preparations for the last shipments, the source said.

“The freight station is now filled with fertilizer, pesticide and food purchased by North Korean trading companies as national emergency goods. The last trains will be shipped to a quarantine facility in Uiju either tomorrow or the day after,” he said.

RFA reported last year that North Korea had completed a new rail line between Sinuiju and a quarantine facility in Uiju, in anticipation of trade reopening prior to the end of the pandemic. The new facility allows entire trainloads of cargo to be sterilized prior to distribution to Pyongyang and the rest of the country.

A second source familiar with Sino-North Korean trade in Dandong confirmed that rail freight would stop at the beginning of May.

“North Korea urgently needs farming materials and fertilizer, so the two sides have both agreed to bring the supplies to Sinuiju by the end of this month,” he said. “People expect that the freight train between Dandong and Sinuiju will resume only after COVID-19 disappears and the city lockdown is lifted throughout China.”

(Source: Hyemin Son, “Zero-COVID policy in Chinese border city stops freight to North Korea,” Radio Free Asia, May 2nd, 2022.)

The resumption of train traffic earlier this year was not the end of the border quarantine but, rather, the beginning of a new phase with intermittent shutdowns for the time being. As of now, this may help clear some of the backlog of imports in quarantine in North Korea. But as long as these dynamics continue, they will disrupt trade between the two countries and inflict serious damage on the North Korean economy.

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