Archive for the ‘China’ Category

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

North Koreans cut off and freezing to death

Sunday, January 21st, 2007

Daily Telegraph
Sergey Soukhorukov
1/21/2007

The men who finally made it into the remote highland village of Koogang were greeted by an eerie silence and a gruesome sight.

Lying among the simple wooden huts and burnt remnants of wooden furniture, they found the bodies of 46 North Korean villagers, including women and children, all of whom had frozen to death. Cut off from the outside world by one of the harshest winters in many years, the villagers had suffered a macabre fate that has exposed both the desperate poverty and callous misrule blighting the Stalinist state.

More than 300 people are thought to have perished from cold so far this winter in North Korea’s mountainous north, victims of temperatures as low as -30C and of an arrogant ruling clique.

“Nobody got out of the trap alive,” said an official at the Chinese embassy in the capital, Pyongyang, who confirmed the events of Koogang. “After heavy snowfalls, there was a severe frost. The inhabitants were doomed.”

In a country notorious for its secretiveness, the regime of President Kim Jong-il has made no mention of the deaths. As the rest of the population struggle to stay warm, 50,000 members of his ruling elite continue to live in splendid isolation in a compound in central Pyongyang – enjoying the benefits of hot water, central heating and satellite television.

Elsewhere in the city, though, the scene could have been lifted from the pages of a Charles Dickens novel. The air is thick with the smell of coal dust, as families light fires on the floors of their apartments to keep out the bitter, cold winds that blow south from Siberia.

Outside Pyongyang, the situation is yet more desperate. A six-mile drive from the city, poor farmers trudge through the snow with bundles of brushwood on their backs.

A massive process of deforestation, begun in the 1990s by Kim Jong-il’s father and predecessor, Kim il Sung, has resulted in huge swathes of forest being chopped down to clear land for farming. The disastrous policy led to large-scale soil erosion, believed by many to have been a leading cause of mass famine of the 1990s, when up to three million people starved to death.

It has made the bitter winter, when the temperature in the capital routinely falls to -13C, even more dangerous as the rural poor struggle to gather enough firewood to sustain them.

The inhabitants of Koogang, around 200 miles north-east of the capital, set fire to tables and chairs, even tearing down the wood from their own homes in a desperate attempt to keep warm.

The World Food Programme estimates that North Korea will be 900,000 tons short of the amount of food needed to feed its 23 million population this year. Aid efforts have been complicated by sanctions, imposed after Kim Jong-il’s regime carried out a nuclear test in October last year. Last week, the country held negotiations with US diplomats aimed at re-starting six-party peace talks, which also include China, South Korea, Japan and Russia.

Christopher Hill, America’s chief envoy at the talks in Berlin, signalled progress, saying that the US looked forward “to establishing a normal relationship with North Korea”.

But while there may be signs of a thaw in the country’s frosty relationship with the West, in Pyongyang there is no respite from the sub-zero temperatures.

The electricity supply is notoriously unreliable and as evening falls the city streets are plunged into darkness.

The only constant source of light is the giant illuminated copper statue of Kim il Sung on a hill top overlooking the city – cold comfort for those living through the bleak North Korean mid-winter.

Share

Posted in Agriculture, China, Civil society, Coal, Electricity, Energy, International Aid, UN World Food Program | Comments Closed

Drug Smuggling Caught on Tape

Thursday, January 18th, 2007

Daily NK
Yang Jung A
1/18/2007

On the 9th, a Japanese broadcast “tv asahi” exposed footages of drug smuggling at a boarder station between North Korea and China.

The footage caught a North Korean dealer crossing the Tumen River via a tube. On meeting a female Chinese dealer, the North Korean dealer unraveled a pink package which contained an envelope written “Opium powder” in red.

The drug seems to have been manufactured at “Ranam pharmaceutical factory.” This factory is known for its manufacture of mediocre drugs. Although opium is normally supposed to be packaged as medication, it is common that the drug falls into the hands of smugglers.

The moment the Chinese dealer gets hold of the package, she confirms the quality of the drug and hands over Chinese currency. The North Korean dealer counts the money and scurries back over to North Korea. It was agreed that additional dealings would be made via the telephone.

The transaction that was made on this day was 8~9 bags, each containing 100g of opium. 

As the international community continues to enforce its regulations against drugs and counterfeit dollars, drugs dealings have taken effect in North Korea with increasing illegal trades occurring between China and North Korea, the broadcast claimed. In addition, the number of drug addicts in North Korea is also on the rise.

The footage also captured the North Korean drug dealers sniffing the drugs as well as the dealers talking about the transaction. Of the dealers, one person was a worker managing the level of humidity at a manufacturing factory and seemingly the intermediary supplier who obtained the drugs.

It seems that the 3~4 people sitting in a circle are personally testing the quality of the drugs before purchase. Although the dealer’s child has entered the room, the buyers continue to inhale the drugs.

The woman who seems to be buying the drugs in this footage, scrupulously inhales the drug as if her body was very accustomed to it.

The woman showed signs of drug addiction murmuring “I’m so used to it (taking drugs). My hardest moment was when I was in custody. If I can’t sniff any drugs, my nose is runny and my head spins.”

Also, she suggested that drug addiction had spread throughout North Korea “It has spread from the top, right to the bottom.”

As the dealers need to give bribes to the border guards, a deposit is first received then the balance paid after the goods given.

Comments were also made on the distribution of the latest drugs. The latest drug, blue in color is made naturally and is much more effective than the original, so is very popular amongst the rich.

Of the people there, one man was acting as the link to the boarder patrol, whereas the remaining people examined the issue of reliable Chinese buyers.

The first footage exclusive of North Koreans communally taking drugs was exposed in Korea by the DailyNK in October 2005.

Share

Posted in China, Drug smuggling, Health care, Illicit activities, International trade | Comments Closed

Filling North Korea’s bare shelves

Wednesday, January 10th, 2007

Asia Times
1/10/2007
Ting-I Tsai

North Korea’s nuclear test has been a hot topic among analysts around the world. But inside the isolated Stalinist state, getting a hold of a pair of running shoes, a bicycle or a television set is still what most excites ordinary citizens.

And Chinese businesses continue to cash in on these material desires by selling goods manufactured at home or in North Korea at prices higher than their quality justifies, sparking much criticism.

When Pyongyang publicized its intention to initiate economic reforms in July 2002, most people had doubts about how far the policy would be taken. Four years later, the regime is still struggling to implement its reforms, but it has at least partly satisfied some of the daily demands of citizens by allowing more Chinese products to be manufactured in North Korea and more Chinese goods to be imported.

Shoes, bicycles, TV sets, beverages and clothes made in China or by Chinese companies in North Korea are helping to satisfy demand, but some disreputable Chinese companies are ruining their country’s reputation by dumping factory seconds and damaged goods on the market.

Over decades of isolation, North Koreans have been suffering not just from food shortages, but from a scarcity of basic consumer goods. In past years, Pyongyang has reportedly asked the South Korean government to donate thousands of tons of soap and clothes, as well as material for the production of 60 million pairs of shoes. In a visit to Pyongyang in November, products such as Colgate toothbrushes, toothpaste and a Japanese facial cleaner were carefully displayed in glass cases bearing price tags equivalent to US$2.60-$5.90, well beyond the financial reach of all but a few North Koreans.

After years of studying China’s experiences, Pyongyang is now gearing up to solicit foreign investment and advanced technologies to modernize its decades-old manufacturing base.

Supply and demand
“Because the supply can’t satisfy the demand, prices of most of the Chinese products simply soar in the North Korean market,” said Su Xiangzhong, chairman of a Tianjin company that founded a beverage-manufacturing joint venture, Lungjin, with a North Korean.

Trade between the two countries increased by 35.4% in 2004, followed by a 35.2% increase in 2005. By the end of October 2006, bilateral trade had reached $1.38 billion, a 4% increase over 2005.

Beijing-based Winner International Industries Ltd was one of the Chinese companies that foresaw North Korea’s consumption potential in 2000. By then, the company had co-founded a joint-venture running-shoe and clothing-manufacturing presence in North Korea. With advanced machinery from Taiwan, its shoe-manufacturing division is now capable of producing 8 million pairs of running shoes, according to an official from the company, who declined to identify himself. The clothing-manufacturing division, he said, has been a supplier to South Korean and Japanese companies. However, he added that orders from the two countries had recently decreased for unknown reasons.

Leather shoes for soldiers are of high quality, but they are not available to the average person. In Pyongyang shops catering exclusively to foreigners, a pair of leather shoes could cost as much as $326. The North Korean government is still soliciting foreign investment and purchasing shoemaking equipment via Chinese companies.

To get around in a country with underdeveloped public transportation, getting a pair of shoes is not enough. Taking advantage of that situation, Tianjin’s Digital Co started making bicycles in Pyongyang in October 2005, after the North Koreans agreed to let the Chinese take a 51% controlling share in the joint venture, virtually a monopoly, for 20 years.

It is estimated that the nation’s demand for bicycles is about 7 million, according to the Chinese media. The company now manufactures some 40 models and 60,000 bicycles annually, with the most popular model costing $26. In coming years, it plans to produce 300,000 bicycles annually and construct another three bicycle plants.

Aside from daily necessities, there are few entertainment options for North Koreans, which means there is a high demand for TV sets. Nanjing Panda, a TV maker, appeared to be the only Chinese company to foresee the emergence of the North Korean market when it invested $1.3 million there in 2002. After four years of operation, its 17-inch black-and-white and 21-inch color TV sets are reportedly the hottest items available in Pyongyang. With Panda products beginning to dominate the local market, it is becoming increasingly difficult for others to import TV sets into North Korea, according to Chinese business people.

The Panda joint venture is now digging up another potential gold mine by manufacturing personal computers (PCs) in North Korea.

In 2003, Chinese non-financial investments in North Korea amounted to just $1.12 million. That total, however, soared to $14.13 million in 2004, and reportedly reached $53.69 million in 2005. According to the Chinese media, there are now about 200 Chinese investment projects operating in North Korea. A Pyongyang-based foreign businessman described the Chinese investors as “by far the largest group by country doing business there, in all kinds of fields – plus they are from one of the few countries with the protection and representation of a big embassy”.

In March 2005, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao signed an investment-protection agreement with his North Korean counterpart, and the two nations inked five bilateral economic-cooperation agreements between 2002 and 2005.

During North Korean leader Kim Jong-il’s visit to China last January, Wen introduced new economic-cooperation guidelines.

Despite these positive moves, controversy over the role of Chinese businesses has emerged. A Pyongyang-based Western businessman suggested that quite a few disreputable companies “go there with the intention of getting rid of old or damaged goods they can’t sell in China, and rip off North Koreans, who have no way to get their money back”.

“Also, a lot of fake goods come from China,” he added.

Still, more and more Chinese business people are rushing to Pyongyang. Su Xiangzhong, chairman of a Tianjin-based company, noted that his firm is creating a new beverage brand, like China’s Wahaha, in Pyongyang. North Koreans are also very interested in cooperating with Chinese enterprises in manufacturing and mining.

Chinese-made clothes for women and children, low-end and generic-brand household products and sundries, color TVs and PCs are popular products in North Korea.

Li Jingke, a Dandong-based Chinese businessman who runs the China-DPR Korea Small Investor Association, suggested that natural-resource exploitation and manufacturing are the best industries for foreigners to invest in, adding that more investment-friendly policies would likely be introduced in April. By then, he said, Chinese business people might need to become more concerned about unprofessional conduct.

“When North Korea introduces more liberalized policies, competent companies from everywhere will enter the market, which would likely eliminate the existence of those Chinese businessmen who don’t have modern commercial ideas in mind,” Li said.

Share

Posted in Bicycles, China, International trade, Television, Trade Statistics | Comments Closed

Filling North Korea’s bare shelves

Wednesday, January 10th, 2007

Asia Times
Ting-I Tsai
1/10/2007

North Korea’s nuclear test has been a hot topic among analysts around the world. But inside the isolated Stalinist state, getting a hold of a pair of running shoes, a bicycle or a television set is still what most excites ordinary citizens.

And Chinese businesses continue to cash in on these material desires by selling goods manufactured at home or in North Korea at prices higher than their quality justifies, sparking much criticism.

When Pyongyang publicized its intention to initiate economic reforms in July 2002, most people had doubts about how far the policy would be taken. Four years later, the regime is still struggling to implement its reforms, but it has at least partly satisfied some of the daily demands of citizens by allowing more Chinese products to be manufactured in North Korea and more Chinese goods to be imported.

Shoes, bicycles, TV sets, beverages and clothes made in China or by Chinese companies in North Korea are helping to satisfy demand, but some disreputable Chinese companies are ruining their country’s reputation by dumping factory seconds and damaged goods on the market.

Over decades of isolation, North Koreans have been suffering not just from food shortages, but from a scarcity of basic consumer goods. In past years, Pyongyang has reportedly asked the South Korean government to donate thousands of tons of soap and clothes, as well as material for the production of 60 million pairs of shoes. In a visit to Pyongyang in November, products such as Colgate toothbrushes, toothpaste and a Japanese facial cleaner were carefully displayed in glass cases bearing price tags equivalent to US$2.60-$5.90, well beyond the financial reach of all but a few North Koreans.

After years of studying China’s experiences, Pyongyang is now gearing up to solicit foreign investment and advanced technologies to modernize its decades-old manufacturing base.

Supply and demand
“Because the supply can’t satisfy the demand, prices of most of the Chinese products simply soar in the North Korean market,” said Su Xiangzhong, chairman of a Tianjin company that founded a beverage-manufacturing joint venture, Lungjin, with a North Korean.

Trade between the two countries increased by 35.4% in 2004, followed by a 35.2% increase in 2005. By the end of October 2006, bilateral trade had reached $1.38 billion, a 4% increase over 2005.

Beijing-based Winner International Industries Ltd was one of the Chinese companies that foresaw North Korea’s consumption potential in 2000. By then, the company had co-founded a joint-venture running-shoe and clothing-manufacturing presence in North Korea. With advanced machinery from Taiwan, its shoe-manufacturing division is now capable of producing 8 million pairs of running shoes, according to an official from the company, who declined to identify himself. The clothing-manufacturing division, he said, has been a supplier to South Korean and Japanese companies. However, he added that orders from the two countries had recently decreased for unknown reasons.

Leather shoes for soldiers are of high quality, but they are not available to the average person. In Pyongyang shops catering exclusively to foreigners, a pair of leather shoes could cost as much as $326. The North Korean government is still soliciting foreign investment and purchasing shoemaking equipment via Chinese companies.

To get around in a country with underdeveloped public transportation, getting a pair of shoes is not enough. Taking advantage of that situation, Tianjin’s Digital Co started making bicycles in Pyongyang in October 2005, after the North Koreans agreed to let the Chinese take a 51% controlling share in the joint venture, virtually a monopoly, for 20 years.

It is estimated that the nation’s demand for bicycles is about 7 million, according to the Chinese media. The company now manufactures some 40 models and 60,000 bicycles annually, with the most popular model costing $26. In coming years, it plans to produce 300,000 bicycles annually and construct another three bicycle plants.

Aside from daily necessities, there are few entertainment options for North Koreans, which means there is a high demand for TV sets. Nanjing Panda, a TV maker, appeared to be the only Chinese company to foresee the emergence of the North Korean market when it invested $1.3 million there in 2002. After four years of operation, its 17-inch black-and-white and 21-inch color TV sets are reportedly the hottest items available in Pyongyang. With Panda products beginning to dominate the local market, it is becoming increasingly difficult for others to import TV sets into North Korea, according to Chinese business people.

The Panda joint venture is now digging up another potential gold mine by manufacturing personal computers (PCs) in North Korea.

In 2003, Chinese non-financial investments in North Korea amounted to just $1.12 million. That total, however, soared to $14.13 million in 2004, and reportedly reached $53.69 million in 2005. According to the Chinese media, there are now about 200 Chinese investment projects operating in North Korea. A Pyongyang-based foreign businessman described the Chinese investors as “by far the largest group by country doing business there, in all kinds of fields – plus they are from one of the few countries with the protection and representation of a big embassy”.

In March 2005, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao signed an investment-protection agreement with his North Korean counterpart, and the two nations inked five bilateral economic-cooperation agreements between 2002 and 2005.

During North Korean leader Kim Jong-il’s visit to China last January, Wen introduced new economic-cooperation guidelines.

Despite these positive moves, controversy over the role of Chinese businesses has emerged. A Pyongyang-based Western businessman suggested that quite a few disreputable companies “go there with the intention of getting rid of old or damaged goods they can’t sell in China, and rip off North Koreans, who have no way to get their money back”.

“Also, a lot of fake goods come from China,” he added.

Still, more and more Chinese business people are rushing to Pyongyang. Su Xiangzhong, chairman of a Tianjin-based company, noted that his firm is creating a new beverage brand, like China’s Wahaha, in Pyongyang. North Koreans are also very interested in cooperating with Chinese enterprises in manufacturing and mining.

Chinese-made clothes for women and children, low-end and generic-brand household products and sundries, color TVs and PCs are popular products in North Korea.

Li Jingke, a Dandong-based Chinese businessman who runs the China-DPR Korea Small Investor Association, suggested that natural-resource exploitation and manufacturing are the best industries for foreigners to invest in, adding that more investment-friendly policies would likely be introduced in April. By then, he said, Chinese business people might need to become more concerned about unprofessional conduct.

“When North Korea introduces more liberalized policies, competent companies from everywhere will enter the market, which would likely eliminate the existence of those Chinese businessmen who don’t have modern commercial ideas in mind,” Li said.

Share

Posted in 2002 Economic reforms, Black markets, China, China-DPR Korea Small Investor Association, Civil society, Computing/IT, Economic reform, Foreign direct investment, International trade, Light Industry, Manufacturing, Mining/Minerals, Price liberalization, Television, Trade Statistics | Comments Closed

Graphite mine in North open in ’07

Wednesday, December 27th, 2006

Joong Ang Daily
Jung Ha-won
12/27/2007

In early 2007 South Korea is expected to begin its first graphite shipments from a new mine in North Korea that has been co-developed by the two countries since 2003.

The mine development project in Jeongchon, which cost $10.2 million, was completed in April, but electricity shortages and diplomatic tension over North Korea’s nuclear test delayed testing operations for months.

According to Korea Resources Corp., South Korea’s state-run mineral developer that took part in the project, the new mine, located near the western part of the border with South Korea, recently began test operations, and graphite shipments will begin early next year.

“North Korea authorities recently guaranteed a stable supply of electricity,” said an official with Korea Resources.

The mine is expected to produce about 3,000 tons of graphite a year, and Korea Resources Corp. plans to bring about 1,830 tons of graphite, or 20 percent of annual production, to South Korea each year for next the 15 years. The firm is also involved in an iron ore mine development project in the North’s Deokhyun, North Pyeongan province.

North Korea is known to have more than 200 varieties of minerals worth about 2.2 quadrillion won ($2.4 trillion) still unexplored in its mountainous areas. Chinese companies have wasted no time exploring those resources, with the North Korean government thirsty for cash and outside investment. China’s state-run steelmaker, Tonghua Iron and Steel Group, last year was granted rights to develop the Musan iron ore deposit in North Korea, the largest open-air iron mine in Asia, for the next 50 years. North Korea also granted exploration rights for more than 10 mines to China’s Wookwang Group and other Chinese developers.

South Korea has been sluggish by comparison, due to political issues and a lack of infrastructure, such as roads and electricity. There remain untapped resources in the reclusive North.

“There is a wealth of magnesite buried in the Dancheon area,” said the Korea Resources Corp. official. “We will carefully review the plan to explore the area.”

Share

Posted in China, Foreign direct investment, Graphite, Iron Ore, Mining/Minerals, South Korea | Comments Closed

Chinese firms acquire managerial control of large N. Korean copper mine: sources

Sunday, December 24th, 2006

Yonhap
12/24/2006

Chinese firms have bought a controlling stake in one of the largest copper mines in North Korea, industry sources said Sunday.

Sources familiar with business cooperation between North Korea and China said Hebei-based Luanhe Industrial Group and another privately owned company signed a deal that gives the firms control over Hyesan Youth Cooper Mine in Yanggang Province.

Share

Posted in China, Copper, Economic reform, Foreign direct investment, Hyesan Youth Cooper Mine, Mining/Minerals | Comments Closed

Luxuries for North’s elite keep on flowing

Monday, December 18th, 2006

Joong Ang Daily
12/19/2006

Despite United Nations sanctions aimed at preventing the North Korean government from buying luxury goods for its ruling class, government sources here said a North Korean trading company is still busy providing Kim Jong-il loyalists with their perquisites.

Tian Ming Trading Company, in the center of this former Portuguese enclave now with the same China-affiliated status as Hong Kong, says its main business line is carpets, and little more. Three office workers said there were no North Koreans at the company and that it has never traded with North Korea. The company’s president was out of town on business, they said.

But a source with close ties to the trading economy here said that Park Su-dok, a 53-year-old North Korean, is in Macao and obtained a visa as an employee of the company.

Another source said, “Tian Ming is a joint venture by North Korean and Hong Kong investors, and its main business is buying luxury goods from Hong Kong for shipment to North Korea.” He added that Tian Ming’s president, a Hong Kong resident, is buying luxury watches, gold products and expensive liquor at North Korea’s request, using a Hong Kong branch office for the purpose.

Other Macao government officials said 18 North Korean firms were registered in Macao as of late November, and 115 North Koreans carry Macao visas as employees. Twenty have become Macao citizens, they added.

Since Washington threatened to impose sanctions on Banco Delta Asia here, allegedly for helping North Korea launder cash from its alleged dubious business lines, some of those companies have shut down. Ten are still in limited operation, however, these government sources said.

Separately, a South Korean banker in Hong Kong told the Joong-Ang Ilbo that a North Korean businessman had visited him in an attempt to sell gold bars through one of the South Korean bank branches in Hong Kong.

The banker reportedly spurned the overture, although the transaction would not have violated any South Korean laws or regulations on North-South dealings. He said he simply did not want to get involved in such a deal given the international attention being paid to commercial dealings with North Korea. The banker suggested that the offer may have been a sign of the foreign currency problems North Korea is facing because of the UN sanctions and U.S. pressure on financial dealings with North Korea.

Banco Delta Asia has said that between 2003 and 2005, it had sold 9.2 tons of gold bars that it had purchased from the North, where gold production is estimated to be about 25 tons per year, mostly for export.

Wall Street Journal
12/18/2006
Gordon Fairlcough, p.A1

Close-Out Sale: North Korea’s Elite Shop While They Can

A North Korean businesswoman with heavy makeup and a bouffant hairdo studied herself in a mirror as she modeled fur-lined leather coats at a small store in [Dandong, China] this frigid northeast border city.

During a three-day excursion late last month, the woman also tried on shoes and looked at large-screen television sets before buying furniture and fresh fruit and heading home to Pyongyang, North Korea’s capital city.

The United Nations has called for a crackdown on luxury-goods shipments to North Korea as a way of pressuring the country to drop its atomic-weapons programs, which came under new fire after an October nuclear test.

If anything, the uncertainty about the flow of fancy goods appears to have whetted the appetites of some privileged North Koreans — whose impoverished country cultivates a Spartan socialist image.

In Dandong, North Koreans, many wearing lapel pins with a picture of North Korea’s founding dictator, Kim Il Sung, stroll through hotels and department stores. Signs are often written in Korean, with storekeepers advertising computers, karaoke machines and the erectile-dysfunction drugs Viagra and Cialis.

A few North Koreans have bought new cars at a Toyota dealership near the Dandong customs checkpoint, according to a salesman. One man paid about $50,000 in cash for a luxury sedan.

Gold is also gaining a following. Wang Xiaoju, a saleswoman at the jewelry counter at Xin Yi Bai Department Store, says North Korean women come in nearly every day, mostly to buy gold chains and other gold jewelry.

Women from the North also are frequent visitors to a riverfront spa, favoring milk baths and massages, according to staff there. A saleswoman at the Xin Yi Bai L’Oreal counter says North Koreans are regular customers. Among the big sellers: body sculpting cream for women who want to look thinner.

In the first 10 months of this year, Chinese exports of fur coats and fake furs to North Korea soared more than sevenfold from the year-earlier period, according to Chinese Customs figures. Exports of televisions and other consumer electronics were up 77%, while perfumes and cosmetics were up 10%.

Some North Koreans are even buying real estate in Dandong. One high-rise building, where three bedroom apartments go for nearly $100,000 each, has sweeping views of a decrepit North Korean village with crumbling cinder-block houses across the border. A North Korean buyer recently purchased one of the units with cash, according to the building’s sales agent.

“Life is quite comfortable” for senior party members, military officers and traders, who have prospered despite widespread shortages of food, fuel and medicine in North Korea, says Pak Yong Ho, a former high-ranking North Korean official who defected to South Korea two years ago.

North Korea’s Communist Party has long had overseas agents in Macau, Switzerland and elsewhere dedicated to maintaining supplies of luxuries for top military and government personnel, according to former North Korean officials. Their jobs, in the wake of the U.N. sanctions, could get much harder.

The U.N. so far has let individual countries decide which high-end products to block. Washington has barred U.S. companies from selling everything from iPods to Harley-Davidson motorcycles. But that move was largely symbolic, as there is very little direct trade between the U.S. and North Korea.

Japan, which has for decades been a source of luxuries for the North Korean ruling class, has banned exports of 24 fancy products from caviar and gems to watches and art.

But the key to whether the sanctions will work is in the hands of China, North Korea’s largest trading partner.

A steel-girder bridge here spans the Yalu River, connecting Dandong to the city of Sinuiju in North Korea. That has helped Dandong, whose name means “Red East,” become a popular shopping destination for North Koreans with money. It is unclear how much that will change because of the sanctions.

So far, China hasn’t disclosed what specific kinds of high-end exports — TVs or luxury automobiles, for instance — it will block. A Chinese foreign-ministry spokeswoman, Jiang Yu, has said the list “should not be allowed to impact normal trade transactions” between the socialist neighbors.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, whose own taste for expensive French cognac and other imported luxuries is well known, uses money and goods liberally in an effort to buy the loyalty of the elite, according to U.S. and South Korean officials. Some of these officials say that depriving the ruling class of its creature comforts could alienate them from Mr. Kim, long known as “Dear Leader.”

But many North Korea watchers and North Korean defectors doubt that the elite would revolt against Mr. Kim’s government, because their fates are so closely tied to his now. “Under this regime, the privileged have had a very good life,” says Kim Dok Hong, the second-highest North Korean official to defect. “If the regime collapses, the people they’ve mistreated will be looking for revenge.”

At the peak of the famine that killed more than a million North Koreans in the mid-1990s, Mr. Pak, the former government official, says his parents weren’t short of food. Their home had three refrigerators regularly replenished with imported provisions by the Communist Party. Mr. Pak uses a pseudonym to protect family members still in the North from government retribution.

“The elites have had more freedom to do their own business” since economic overhauls in 2002, says Yang Chang Seok, a senior official at South Korea’s Unification Ministry, which oversees relations with the North. “People have earned a lot of money from trading.”

These days in Pyongyang, members of the ruling class are ferried around in imported cars and live in well-appointed — and well-guarded — apartment complexes. Their children race around city parks on in-line skates and play American computer games.

Says Mr. Pak: “If you can afford to pay, there’s nothing you can’t get.”

Share

Posted in 2002 Economic reforms, Automobiles, China, Hong Kong, International trade, Political economy, Real estate, Tian Ming Trading Company, Trade Statistics, Transportation | Comments Closed

Ticket out of DPRK $1,500

Monday, December 18th, 2006

Wall Street Journal Opinion Journal
Melanie Kirkpatrick
12/18/2006

This being The Wall Street Journal, we went straight to the bottom line. How much, we asked our visitor at a recent editorial board meeting, does it cost to free one North Korean refugee hiding in China?

The Rev. Phillip Buck pauses a moment before replying, apparently making the yuan-to-dollar conversions on the abacus in his mind. “If I do it myself,” he says, “the cost is $800 per person. If I hire a broker to do it, it’s $1,500.”

Pastor Buck is a rescuer. It’s a job title that applies to a courageous few–mostly Americans and South Koreans and predominantly Christians–who operate the underground railroad that ferries North Korean refugees out of China to South Korea, and now, thanks to 2004 legislation, to the U.S. Mr. Buck, an American from Seattle, says he has rescued more than 100 refugees and helped support another 1,000 who are still on the run. For this “crime”–China’s policy is to hunt down and repatriate North Koreans–he spent 15 months in a Chinese prison. He was released in August.

The plight of the tens of thousands of North Korean refugees in China is a humanitarian crisis that has received scant world attention. It won’t be on the agenda of the six-party talks, which are scheduled to restart today in Beijing. But the experience of Pastor Buck and other rescuers is worth noting as negotiators sit down with Kim Jong Il’s emissaries. North Korea won’t change, they believe, so long as Kim remains in power. Follow that logic, and regime change is the proper goal.

The refugees, Pastor Buck argues, are the key to regime change in North Korea and, by inference, the key to halting the North’s nuclear and missile programs. Help one man or woman escape, he says, and that person will get word to his family back home about the freedom that awaits them on the outside. Others will follow, and the regime will implode. This is what happened in 1989, when Hungary refused to turn back East Germans fleeing to the West, thereby hastening the collapse of the Berlin Wall.

Pastor Buck was born in North Korea in 1941 and fled with his brothers to the South during the Korean War. He emigrated to the U.S. in the ’80s, becoming a citizen in 1992. When famine hit North Korea in the late ’90s, and millions died, he raised relief funds in Korean churches in the U.S. “I helped send 150 tons of flour and rice to the North,” he says, “and 70 tons of fertilizer . . . This was a time when government rations had stopped and people were living off grass.”

But on visits to the North, he soon realized that the government was stealing the food intended for starving citizens. “I changed my mind” about the efficacy of aid, he says, and in 1998 he joined the effort to help people escape. “If you see someone who is drowning in the river, wouldn’t you reach out and help that person?” he asks. “That’s what was in my heart.”

Pastor Buck is nothing if not determined. In 2002, while in a Southeast Asian country with a group of refugees he had guided there, his apartment in Yanji city, in northeast China, was raided. Nineteen refugees were captured and a copy of his passport was confiscated. With his identity now compromised, Mr. Buck returned to the U.S. and underwent legal proceedings to change his name. John Yoon, the name he was born with, was dead; Phillip Buck was born.

The new Pastor Buck returned to China, where, on May 25, 2005, he was arrested and eventually convicted of the crime of helping illegal immigrants. Thanks to the intervention of the U.S. government, he was deported before he could be sentenced.

Another American, Steve Kim, was not so lucky. Mr. Kim, a furniture importer from Huntington, N.Y., has been in prison in China since September 2003, sentenced to five years for smuggling aliens. Mr. Kim, who, like Mr. Buck, is of Korean ancestry and is a Christian, became aware of the plight of the refugees during business trips to China. He funded two safe houses and paid for refugees’ passage on the underground railroad. Beijing refuses to grant him parole, saying foreigners are not eligible. His wife and three children will pass their fourth Christmas without him.

Mr. Buck, meanwhile, will celebrate Christmas at home in Seattle, along with four refugees, now settled in South Korea, whom he has invited to spend the holiday with him and his family. These refugees–two men and two women–have harrowing personal tales of starvation, death and repression in the North and desperate lives on the run in China.

One young man, who asks that his name not be used for fear of retribution on family members still at home, spent time in the North Korean gulag, after being captured in China and repatriated. He was tortured, he says–rolling up his trousers at a recent press conference in Washington, D.C. to display the scars on his legs.

One morning at roll call, he recounts, one of his cellmates, a man who had been badly beaten during the night, was too sick to get out of bed. The guards ordered the prisoners to carry the injured man into the woods and bury him. “I keep thinking, maybe he would still be alive if we hadn’t buried him,” the escapee says. The name of the dead man was Kim Young Jin. The name of the prison is Chong Jin. Says the man who escaped: “I am very glad to be here, and tell the people in America how life in North Korea really is.”

Pastor Buck spent last Christmas in jail. “My cellmates were criminals,” he says, “12 in all, murderers and rapists.” His diary entry for Dec. 24, 2005, notes that he distributed the chocolates his children had sent him as Christmas gifts to his cellmates. And this year? “I am so excited that I can celebrate this Christmas with lots of joy,” his diary entry for last Thursday reads.

His final words are for the refugees. “I pray, let the Christmas spirit be with those North Korean refugees still in China. Let them be safe too.”

Share

Posted in China, Emigration | Comments Closed

UNDP Tumen River Program

Saturday, December 9th, 2006

Official Web Page:

Northeast Asia can be considered the last major economic frontier on the Asian continent.  The region has enormous economic potential, but this potential can only be realised through dynamic cooperation and sharing of resources.

Recognising Northeast Asia’s considerable potential and geopolitical significance, UNDP in 1991 agreed to support the initiative of the countries in the region to establish an institutional mechanism for regional dialogue and further cooperation.   For the past twelve years, the Tumen River Area Development Programme has facilitated economic cooperation among the five member countries: China, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), Mongolia, the Republic of Korea (ROK), and the Russian Federation.  The member countries are equally represented in the Consultative Commission for the Development of the Tumen River Economic Development Area and Northeast Asia, which meets annually at Vice Ministerial level.

The main objectives of the Tumen Programme are to:

  • attain greater growth and sustainable development for the peoples and countries in Northeast Asia, and the Tumen Region in particular;
  • identify common interests and opportunities for cooperation and sustainable development;
  • increase mutual benefit and mutual understanding;
  • strengthen economic, environmental and technical cooperation; and
    work to ensure that the Tumen Region is attractive for international investment, trade and business.

The first phase of the Tumen Programme involved extensive planning and background studies.  An interim phase focused on investment promotion and development initiatives designed to build momentum for the region as a growth triangle.  The second phase built on the institutional framework for regional cooperation created by the multilateral agreements concluded in 1995.  The third – and current – phase continues to address factors fundamental to regional economic cooperation and is designed to ensure the sustainability of this regional cooperation framework.

Why the Focus on the Tumen Region?
The Tumen Region has great potential as a major entrepot for international trade because of the strategic location of the Tumen transport corridor, the strong complementarities of the Tumen River Area, vast natural and human resources, and the area’s accessibility to the resources and markets of Northeast Asia.

Northeast China and Mongolia are landlocked and therefore have a strong interest in access to ports in DPRK and the Russian Far East.  Overseas shippers also have a stake in the Tumen transport corridor, for it offers a much shorter route to affluent and new markets, and facilitates transit trade to a number of destinations.

The local governments in the Tumen Region have been steadfast supporters of the Tumen Programme since its inception.  It appears that central governments in Northeast Asia are now re-emphasising the value of the Tumen Region, particularly its strategic transport corridor.  Northeast Asian governments are rapidly improving the Tumen Region’s infrastructure network and transport services.  They are also working to create legal and institutional mechanisms conducive to cross-border trade and transport.  The Tumen Programme is actively facilitating the creation of an enabling environment through “soft” infrastructure and human capacity building.

Why is Regional Cooperation so Important?
Regional cooperation is a vital part of the development process and a building block for effective participation in world trade and capital markets.  For the Tumen Region, which partly consists of small and remote areas of large countries, economic cooperation is an effective way to avoid marginalisation.  Cross-border cooperation also helps resolve environmental issues and facilitates the adoption of international environmental standards.  Most importantly, enhanced economic cooperation in Northeast Asia helps improve political relations and stability, in turn vital elements for investment and economic growth.

It is worth recalling how remote and closed the Tumen Region was just a dozen years ago, to appreciate the full significance of its role as a frontier for economic cooperation in Northeast Asia.  Much has been achieved during the Tumen Programme’s existence, particularly in terms of opening borders and increasing interaction in a region that was, until recently, tense and largely closed.  A new trade and transport corridor has been created, which will – in time – evolve into an economic corridor with a significant impact on poverty reduction and improved living standards in the region.

The Future of the Tumen Programme
The prevailing political and economic climate in the region has altered dramatically since the start of the Tumen Programme in 1991.  The Soviet Union has dissolved, China and ROK have established diplomatic relations and a major trading partnership, and there has been a degree of rapprochement between DPRK and ROK.  The transition to stronger economic systems in the countries that relied on the Soviet Comecon trading system has reinforced the logic of economic cooperation in the Tumen Region.  The increased participation of DPRK, Mongolia and the Russian Far East, combined with the rapid expansion of the Chinese economy, will help the Northeast Asian economy grow.

Dynamic cooperation has found increasing expression in Northeast Asia, and relations in the region continue to improve, helped by stronger economic links.  Despite major improvements in the geopolitical circumstances of the region, however, much remains to be done.  The Tumen Programme is the only initiative that brings the member countries together on a sub-regional basis, and its existing institutional structure and multilateral agreements should be utilised to maximum effect to help Northeast Asia achieve peace and prosperity.

 

Share

Posted in China, Mongolia, Rason Economic and Trade Zone (Rajin-Sonbong), Russia, UNDP | 1 Comment »

After Test, Life in Pyongyang Goes On

Thursday, December 7th, 2006

Donga
12/7/2006

As the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) adopted a resolution against North Korea, some of the projects pursued in partnership with Pyongyang needed to be postponed. So I explained the background to a North Korean director-level official in charge of relevant work, but he knew nothing about the UNSC sanctions.”

He suggested that the U.S.` financial sanctions against the North were already having an impact on the upper class. “I recently met a businessman selling medical devices to North Korea, who told me that the sales of blood pressure testers widely used by the North Korean upper class recently dropped dramatically. I believe this is because foreign currency inflows into North Korea are on the decline due to the financial sanctions against it,” he explained.

He also mentioned subtle changes taking place in relations between North Korea and China that have become growingly complex these days.

“The North is recently beefing up security measures against Chinese merchants operating in Pyongyang. The development project of the Musan iron mine in North Hamgyong Province of North Korea, which China has pushed for enthusiastically as part of its endeavor to secure natural resources, is put off for now. It is reported that after the North Korean nuclear test, the Chinese authorities ordered a postponement of the project for the time being.” As China needs raw material in the long term, however, he projected, “Though there currently are some conflict factors between China and North Korea, China will have to support the North as it does not want the country to collapse.”

With regard to what North Korean society as a whole is like after the nuclear test, he stated, “There are absolutely no signs of political changes. The North Korean regime`s control over the society is rock-solid, not being swayed at all.” He also indicated, however, “More recently, the North Korean authorities are strengthening their control over foreigners there.”

As to why the North Korean regime forces humanitarian international groups leave the country and tries not to receive food aid from outside, he cited two reasons: First, as international groups have operated in the North for a long period of time, North Korean residents started to show “real goodwill” to them. This leads to social uncertainties there. Second, as a country emphasizing “self-reliance,” North Korea finds it hurting its ego to receive foreign aid every year.

He worried that a food shortage is expected when the season of spring poverty unfolds in earnest in April. He stressed, “Given this year`s harvest was not good, if foreign aid decreases, North Korea is highly likely to face the worst-ever food shortage, arbeit not a famine, since the mid-1990s (dubbed the “Painful March under Trials”). Help from the international community is desperately needed.”

Regarding his life as a diplomat in Pyongyang, he said that even though he needed to get permission from the North Korean authorities to go to provincial areas, he could move freely within downtown Pyongyang. As the structure of everyone monitoring each other has been internalized in North Korea, he added, when one tries to shoot an “inappropriate” scene from the perspective of North Korea, someone appears out of nowhere to stop him.

He plans to return to Pyongyang sooner or later.

Share

Posted in Agriculture, China, International Aid | 1 Comment »

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »