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Shockingly, China’s sanctions enforcement on North Korea eases after the summit

Tuesday, June 19th, 2018

By Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein

In perhaps the least surprising news there ever were, reports are now coming in regular intervals that Chinese enforcement of sanctions on North Korea is becoming less and less strict following the summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un. Kim’s visit today in Beijing will likely speed up the process, but the Chinese enforcement of the sanctions regime would like have become less vigilant in due course regardless.

You’ll have to excuse the sarcastic tone of the title and content of this post, but this is precisely the sort of development that not just this blog, but a whole host of others too, have predicted all along. Trump’s idea that “maximum pressure” would survive through the summit and general process, regardless of what is decided, was always unfounded. That’s just not how these things work. Chinese enforcement of sanctions on North Korea depend much more on political circumstances in the region than on what sanctions the UNSC decides to level. China was always going to let down its guard once tensions de-escalated. Pressure could certainly get back on if things go back to the way they were earlier in the year, but to count on it as a matter of policy, as if it could be done easily or somehow automatically, is unwise or even naive.

To be sure, we shouldn’t draw any far-reaching conclusions from a small number of scattered news reports. But no one should be surprised if the number of reports continues to grow over the coming weeks, and if, one day in a not too distant future, Chinese customs figures of imports from North Korea also start to point upward.

I’ll be gathering articles on the matter in this post. First out is Radio Free Asia from a few days ago:

China is relaxing customs inspections and allowing restricted goods to flow across its border with North Korea, according to sources, despite making assurances that it will continue to enforce sanctions against the reclusive nation until it fully dismantles its nuclear arsenal.

A trader in China’s Dandong city, located in Liaoning province across the Yalu River from the city of Sinuiju in North Korea, recently told RFA’s Korean Service that inspections on trucks heading across the border to the North “have eased significantly,” and that customs officers who “used to check every single item following x-ray scans” are now searching “only around half of all vehicles.”

“In the past, when a truck driver got caught bringing restricted items on the sanctions list, the truck was impounded for a day and could only pass through the border if a fine was paid,” the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“These days, those kinds of trucks [smuggling restricted goods] are fined, but can go through customs right away.”

The trader added that as customs officers have become less rigorous about their checks, “North Korean truck drivers are beginning to regularly smuggle items that are not on their manifestos.”

A resident of Dandong, who also asked to remain unnamed, told RFA that the customs process for North Koreans who travel to his city for personal reasons is also “now much easier,” noting that Chinese customs officers used to require them to open their luggage for inspection, “but they can now pass through after a routine x-ray screening.”

“Alcohol and tobacco products are limited to one bottle of alcohol and one carton of cigarettes, but the custom officers don’t make an issue out of having two or three bottles and a couple of cartons of cigarettes,” the source said.

A businessman based in Dandong, who said he exports clothing illicitly assembled in North Korea to Japan and other countries, told RFA that crackdowns on illegal trade between China and North Korea had also been reduced in recent months, making it easier for him to earn a profit.

“I use illegal vessels to send materials into North Korea and bring out processed clothes via the Yalu River, and it has been so much easier for me to operate these days,” he said.

“It always used to take me a long time to transport the clothing, due to China’s tight security along the border area, but now it doesn’t take long at all.”

Sources in Dandong and the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Region, in northeast China’s Jilin province, said that Chinese border guards ended their tight monitoring of smuggling after Kim made a rare visit to Beijing at the end of March and met with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

At that time, North Korea stopped repatriating workers it had based in China to generate foreign currency for the Kim regime, and even dispatched some additional workers to the country, the sources said.

And ever since Chinese authorities relaxed their controls on smuggling activities, they added, North Korean organizations tasked with generating foreign currency have begun steadily trafficking sanctions-restricted items into China, including iron, non-ferrous metals, chemicals, and seafood.

Trump-Kim summit

Reports of the reduced inspections follow a historic summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un, held on Tuesday in Singapore, during which Trump “committed to provide security guarantees” to the North and Kim had reaffirmed his “firm and unwavering commitment to complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”

On Thursday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met with his Chinese counterpart State Councilor Wang Yi in Beijing and told reporters after the talks that “China has reaffirmed its commitment to honoring the U.N. Security Council resolutions” for sanctions leveled against the North for repeated ballistic missile and nuclear weapons tests.

After Tuesday’s summit, China had suggested that international sanctions on North Korea could be lifted, but Pompeo on Thursday said Washington had “made very clear that the sanctions and the economic relief that North Korea will receive will only happen after the … complete denuclearization of North Korea.”

Full article and source:
China Relaxes Customs Inspections on Border With North Korea, Despite Sanctions Assurances
Jonhoo Kim
Radio Free Asia
2018-06-15

 

Dong-a Ilbo reports that several Chinese factories near the border, employing North Korean workers, have started operations back up after being forced to a halt due to the sanctions implementation:

More than 10 Chinese factories located in the border area between North Korea and China resumed operation around Tuesday’s U.S.-North Korea summit. The number of dispatched North Korean workers that showed a downward trend this year started increasing from last month. There are concerns that China would break away from coordination for North Korea sanctions before detailed agreements about denuclearization are concluded.

According to multiple diplomatic sources, a clothing company in Dandong, Liaoning, halted operation at the end of last year when the sanctions of the global community were strengthened but started to operate again in the middle of this month. “They hired more than five North Korean workers before resuming its operation,” said one of the sources. Among more than 600 businesses in Dandong trading with North Korea, more than 100 of them stopped operation last year but a lot of them have recently resumed operation or are preparing to do so.

The number of North Korean workers in China increased by 40 to 50 last month compared to early this year, and by more than 100 this month because of more active trade between China and North Korea. The United Nations Security Council resolution 2397, which was adopted in December last year, states that North Korean workers should return home within 24 months. China actively implemented the sanctions and sent an announcement to factories to return North Korean workers until early this year, but it reportedly has not put a pressure to send them back at all recently.

Full article and source:
More than 10 Chinese factories in border area with N. Korea resume operation
Jin-woo Shin
Dong-a Ilbo
2018-06-19

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Does the Trump-Kim summit and declaration mean anything for the North Korean economy?

Tuesday, June 12th, 2018

By Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein

The short answer is: no. One of the most notable absences from the US security perspective was that of CVID – complete, verifiable, irreversible dismantlement of North Korea’s nuclear weapons. From a North Korean perspective, diplomatic hardliners may be asking: what about sanctions relief? Neither the statement at the end, nor Trump’s press conference, gave any word on sanctions relief. The US has said that such relief will only come when CVID is completed, but to get North Korea to go along, it will likely need to make at least partial concessions along the way.

Sanctions relief may well come sooner than that in practice. No one should be under the illusion that Chinese sanctions enforcement, which has been the real key over the past ten months or so, is about adhering to international norms and UN resolutions. China evaluates whether such enforcement is beneficial to its own interests, and up until the late summer or early fall of last year, the consistent answer was “no”. With Trump’s increased pressure, that changed, as trade statistics have shown, with Chinese imports from North Korea plunging. Now that tensions have eased, China’s assessment may well ease too. We’ve already seen signs that goods as well as North Korean guest workers are once again crossing the border. Surely, China will see the Singapore summit’s very occurrence as a sign that it might be far less risky to let up more on sanctions enforcement. It will be crucial over the coming weeks and months to monitor trade flows, reported as well as unreported ones, over the Sino-Korean border.

For anyone curious about Kim Jong-un’s potential as a reformer in the economic realm, the following story by the Daily NK should be of interest:

The North Korean authorities held a video conference with high-ranking Party cadres ahead of the summit with the U.S. instructing them not to use the terms “reform and opening up.” This appears to be a precautionary measure implemented in response to the heightened expectations of North Korean residents for “greater freedoms” arising from the inter-Korean and U.S.-NK talks.

“In order to prevent ideological wavering that may occur among party executives and residents, the authorities organized a meeting on June 4 with organs directly under the authority of the Central Party Secretariat (Chairperson of the Provincial Party Committee, Chairperson of the Provincial People’s Committee, Director of the Provincial Public Security Bureau, etc.), a source in Ryanggang Province told Daily NK on June 10.

“This meeting was conducted via online video conference, hosted by the first vice director of the Organization and Guidance Department of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea. The participants were provincial heads and secretaries across major organs, including Party and People’s Committees and the Ministry of State Security; however, the Ministry of People’s Security was not called upon to participate.”

According to the source, at the meeting, the first vice director said that the talks with the U.S. were planned out of necessity.

“He said that we shouldn’t mention reform and opening up from now on and that North Korea will never follow that path,” he explained.

“He told us to just follow our General’s (Kim Jong Un) orders and that the demolition of the Punggye-ri site does not mean we are giving up our nuclear weapons, but that it is the final step in the completion of our General’s nuclear strategy. He said that we shut down the Punggye-ri site because we have to get rid of unnecessary things.”

A source in South Pyongan Province informed Daily NK on June 10, “In a recent high-level executive meeting, there was mention that there will be absolutely no reform or opening up. We have decided not to use these terms.’”

Meanwhile, according to a separate source in Ryanggang Province, the participants of the meeting took part using computers in their own private offices. “In North Korea, there is an intranet called ‘Cheongbong Maeari (Blue Peak Echo)’, whose use by ordinary residents can be grounds for arrest, but can be used freely by party-level agency executives inside the agencies,” the source explained.

In North Korea, where internet use is restricted, it is also known that a nationwide intranet operated by the government called ‘Kwangmyong’ is commonly used. However, it is presumed that there is a separate intranet used only by party executives and government officials.

“After the announcement on the Central Committee’s video conference was made, a Provincial Party plenary meeting was held the next day. The chairperson of the Provincial Party Committee also gathered key officials in the province and urgently passed on the message of the meeting and told them to stay focused and speak and act according to our General’s plans, especially in times like this,” the additional Ryanggang Province-based source said.

“The Chairperson emphasized that regardless of how the talks go, things are going well according to our General’s plans and we should stand together more closely by our General. This video conference seems to be intended to provide assurance that North Korea will not be pushed around by the United States and to prevent unrest and confusion among party executives.”

Article source:
North Korea convenes meeting ahead of talks with U.S. to prohibit use of the terms ‘reform and opening’
Daily NK
2018-06-12

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South Korean companies gearing up to rush north

Sunday, June 10th, 2018

By Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein

These days, it seems that scarcely no South Korean company isn’t looking north. Hopes are high that with a diplomatic opening – if this time is different, which we really don’t know – North Korea will be open for business. And aside from some Chinese companies and entities, no other have the know-how and language skills to make investments in North Korea profitable. Indeed, those that have happened have largely been in the realm of “adventure capital”, that is, high risks with the potential of high rewards. It seems that relatively few have reached the latter.

Many South Korean businesses will likely ask that the government underwrite potential investments, given the vast political risk. Moon’s government doesn’t seem completely adverse to this, despite the questions it raises about moral hazard and market fairness.

Looking at the types of investments that companies are talking about, it is hardly a given that they will – if they happen – have a positive, broad impact on the North Korean system and society. See below for the sorts of investments being talked about:

SM Group said it has set up a task force to check the country’s mineral resources, particularly in iron ore. The group said its ownership of South Korea’s sole operational iron ore mine effectively gives it an edge over others in terms of processing know-how and facilities it has on hand.

North Korea’s iron ore deposits are estimated at 50 billion tons worth some 213 trillion won (US$197.7 billion).

Besides resources, companies such as Keangnam Enterprises Co. and Dong Ah Construction Industrial have said they are moving to secure a foothold in the North’s building business once all sanctions are lifted.

Dong Ah said its past experience as a builder for the defunct Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization that moved to build a light water reactor for Pyongyang could help it win future orders, especially in power infrastructure work areas.

Keangnam said that its participation in Seoul’s Official Development Assistance program for emerging economies will make it easier for it to engage in similar projects in the North if conditions permit.

SM Line Corp said it wants to ship North Korean resources using the country’s cheap labor and explore the opening of new shipping routes and related shore infrastructure.

“Work in the North will be a win-win development for all sides, and this is the reason why the company is looking into the matter,” a source at the shipping line said.

Besides medium-size companies, the large conglomerate Lotte said it has set up a team that can expand business ties not only with North Korea but also Russia and China.

Meanwhile, there has been growing interest by local companies who want to set up operations at Kaesong Industrial Complex in North Korea, which has been shuttered following the North’s nuclear and long-range missile provocations.

Dong-a Publishing said it wanted to take advantage of the low labor costs to set up business in Kaesong.

The company said due to the labor intensive work in the publishing field it makes sense to move its plant to the North.

Related to such moves, a business group representing South Korean firms that had operated factories in Kaesong said recently that upwards of 20 companies a day have called to make inquiries about opening new factories in the special economic zone.

Article source:
S. Korean mid-tier companies interested in biz opportunities in N. Korea
Yonhap News
2018-06-10

Much of what’s being talked about, in other words, is extraction of natural resources. Sure, this would be done with North Korean labor, but even though the domestic economy could get an upswing through these sorts of operations, North Korea wouldn’t necessarily reap the full potential benefits of its mineral assets, which could be sold for much higher prices if they were locally refined and processed. This is likely something that the North Korean leadership is very well-aware of, and Kim Jong-un talked about it in speeches in the 1990s. But given the need for hard currency, they may not see that they have much of a choice in the matter.

Other companies want to get in on the cheap labor. That’s all fine and good for the companies and the potential prospective North Korean employees, but factories of this sort can be set up pretty easily without sourcing raw materials locally, and with few connections with overall North Korean society.

In other words, if these investments come to see the light of day (again, a big “if”), it’s not a given that it’ll be in any way transformative for the North Korean economy. We have seen much of this before, and we know from Kaesong that the state is indeed both capable and willing to contain economic development to specific areas, keeping it separated and in check from broader North Korean society.

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Posted in China, Economic reform, Foreign direct investment, International trade, Kaesong Industrial Complex (KIC), Political economy, South Korea | Comments Closed

China’s economic openings to North Korea after summit(s)

Saturday, June 9th, 2018

Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein

A recent Reuters report looks at some of the ways, including tourism and the restaurant business, through which economic contacts between North Korea and China have increased after the spring of summits:

North Korean officials have toured China to discuss economic development. Speculators are snapping up property along their common border. And South Korea is studying ways to boost engagement with its isolated neighbor to the north.

Across the region, there are signs that U.S. President Donald Trump’s campaign of “maximum pressure” on Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons is weakening ahead of his summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore on Tuesday.

Trump, along with leaders like South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in, have credited the pressure campaign with bringing Kim to the negotiating table through a combination of international sanctions, political isolation, and threats of military action.

However, unless there is a major provocation or resumption of nuclear testing or missile launches by North Korea, strategists and academics say it is unlikely that maximum pressure will ever fully return.

“Trump’s campaign is over,” said Kim Hyun-wook, a professor at the Korea National Diplomatic Academy. “The diplomatic openings with North Korea have already been taking a toll on the maximum pressure campaign.”

Trump has himself said he doesn’t want to use the term “maximum pressure” any more because of improving relations with North Korea.

Joseph Yun, the United States’ former top negotiator with North Korea, told a Senate hearing on Tuesday: “Practically it is not possible to continue maximum pressure when you’re talking with your adversary. I don’t think you can have serious engagement as well as maximum pressure.”

Preparations are already underway in China, South Korea and Russia, which share land borders with North Korea, for better ties with the isolated nation.

[…]

Along China’s border with North Korea, speculators are buying land and traders are stockpiling cheap North Korean coal amid hopes that restrictions will soon be lifted.

“It’ll be good if North Korea opens up,” said a hat seller in the border city of Dandong, who only gave her name as Yang. “The people there are so poor, it’s like China in the 1980s.”

She said the number of North Koreans shopping in the city had dropped in recent months after the sanctions were tightened. But now, she said, property prices in Dandong were being driven up by speculators betting that trade would revive.

Other local people in Dandong said North Korean workers were returning, prompting the opening of some restaurants and hotels.

The owner of one Korean restaurant was training staff on presenting a new menu in preparation for more visitors from other parts of China, including people intending to visit North Korea.

The Liuji Restaurant, which was shut after its owner was investigated in 2016 for dealings with North Korea, reopened in March after Kim’s visit to China, his first trip out of the country since taking office.

It was not clear what happened to the investigations or who the new owner was.

The restaurant’s North Korean staff explained the closing as “renovations.”

On June 5, state carrier Air China announced it would resume regular flights between Beijing and Pyongyang, which officials had indefinitely suspended in November, citing poor demand.

Although the first Air China flight had only around 20 passengers, tour operators said busloads of Chinese tourists were in Pyongyang, their numbers surging in recent weeks because of the lowered tensions.

“I went to the train station (in Pyongyang) and it was the busiest I’ve ever seen it,” said the founder of the Dandong-based INDPRK tour company, who goes by the name Griffin Che. “I’d guess about 100 Chinese tourists arrived by train today. In the past I would see a maximum of 30-40 tourists.”

Che said the prospect of new economic opportunities in North Korea has him interested in branching out beyond tourism into investment and coal trading.

U.S. lawmakers have raised concerns that traders in China are already skirting sanctions, but Beijing-based diplomats say that there is no evidence that China is abandoning its U.N. Security Council commitments.
[…]

Some of that political isolation has been reduced, however, by Kim Jong Un’s meetings with leaders of China and South Korea, and this week’s summit with Trump.

At the end of May, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov landed the first meeting between a Russian official and Kim as head of state, and extended an invitation for the North Korean leader to visit Russia.

Russia has long been skeptical of the sanctions regime, and South Korea’s Moon has proposed a three-way study on potential joint projects, including railways, gas and power linking Siberia to the Korean peninsula.

“Even if the summit fails and U.S.-North Korea tensions resurface, Russia is unlikely to support new rounds of sanctions on North Korea,” said Artyom Lukin, a professor at Far Eastern Federal University in Vladivostok.

“If previously adopted U.N. sanctions continue to be in effect, Russia will abide by them, but it will probably find some legal ways and loopholes to make their enforcement as mild as possible.”

Kim has met Chinese President Xi Jinping two times in recent months and analysts say Beijing’s willingness to maintain last year’s level of pressure on North Korea is waning.

[…]

Two North Korean restaurants in Jakarta have shut down.

In Vietnam, two North Korean restaurants in Ho Chi Minh City closed in October last year, but there is still one in Hanoi, owned by a Vietnamese businessman who also runs a shipping company.

The country’s once-close ties with North Korea have been strained over North Korea’s alleged use of a Vietnamese citizen in the assassination of Kim Jong Un’s half brother, Kim Jong Nam, in Kuala Lumpur in February last year.

In March, Vietnam filed a report to the United Nations in which the country said it has “always fully implemented” sanctions on North Korea.

In response to U.S. pressure, Thailand said annual trade with North Korea fell by 94 percent, although some North Korean businesses have continued to operate in the country, including two restaurants in Bangkok.

At the Pyongyang Haemaji Restaurant, North Korean waitress Pak Il Sim said tables were routinely full of customers, most of them Japanese.

When asked if the restaurant had come under pressure from Thai authorities to close, she said: “No, business as normal”.

Full article and source:
Door already ajar: Trump may struggle to isolate North Korea again
Brenda Goh and Josh Smith
Reuters
2018-06-09

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South Korea asks for immunity for officials stationed in Kaesong

Tuesday, June 5th, 2018

Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein

While the world gears up for the summit (yes, The Summit), things are moving along on the peninsula as well. Moon promised in the election campaign that he would not only re-open Kaesong, but work to enlarge the zone as well. Last week, South Korea asked that North Korea grant diplomatic immunity for the officials it plans to station in the liaison office the two countries are in the process of establishing in the city:

The two Koreas agreed last week to open a liaison office in the city “at an early date” at high-level talks to discuss steps for implementing promises made by their leaders in the historic April and May summits.

South Korea plans to station its officials there in order to keep communication channels open around the clock as part of efforts to support cross-border exchanges, which are likely to increase.

According to the sources close to the matter, South Korea’s government recently proposed the North grant immunity from arrest and detention for its officials to be stationed in the office, just as the Vienna Convention grants such privilege to diplomats.

In addition, it also proposed that the North guarantee safety of passage and communications for its officials, while exempting them from checks on their bags and pouches, the sources said.

Kaesong is the western border city in the North where the two Koreas operated a joint industrial complex since 2004. It was hailed as a successful example of economic cooperation between the two Koreas as it married South Korea’s capital with the North’s cheap and skillful labor.

South Korea, however, closed its operations there in early 2016 and brought its officials and workers back in protest at the North’s continued missile and nuclear provocations.

Though there was an agreement regarding the safety of South Korean personnel at the time, there was no clear legal ground for the South Korean government to ask for the return of its people in case of their arrest or detention, experts said.

Article source:
S. Korea asks N. Korea to grant immunity to officials at liaison office to open in North
Yonhap News
2018-06-05

It wouldn’t be surprising if moves to open Kaesong come relatively soon, pending the overall diplomatic situation and sanctions regime. Kim Jong-un’s predilection for SEZs is well known and natural, they bring opportunities for making hard currency for the state while keeping systemic changes and capitalist incursion (in the North Korean lingo) contained within a specific geographic area. Some hope that they will eventually bring systemic changes to the broader North Korean society as well, but with Kaesong, we’ve seen no evidence that that is the case.

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Recap: South Korea’s economic plans for North Korea

Monday, May 28th, 2018

Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein

In this post, I’ll be collecting news and information on Moon Jae-in’s plans and ideas for economic development in North Korea. I’ve had to take a little break from blogging for the past couple of weeks due to travel, so the articles here won’t necessarily be recent or up-to-date, especially since up-to-date regarding the Korean peninsula these days seems to extend only to the last five minutes or so.

For the contents of the Panmunjom Declaration that have to do with the North Korean economy, feel free to check out this post, where I make the case (which still holds, I would argue) for why infrastructure is the most plainly obvious as of now for economic cooperation with North Korea in the wake of the latest warming of ties.

Infrastructure was an important component of the famed USB-stick that Moon handed to Kim at the first inter-Korean summit this year. Hankyoreh:

South President Moon Jae-in ordered a joint inter-Korean research effort to examine future economic cooperation ahead of the anticipated lifting of international sanctions against North Korea following an upcoming North Korea-US summit, which will follow up the inter-Korean summit that was held on Apr. 27.

Speaking on Apr. 30 at the first Blue House senior secretaries’ and aides’ meeting since the inter-Korean summit, President Moon said he “look[ed] forward to us being able to carry out a joint inter-Korean research effort for implementation of the Oct. 4 Summit Declaration [of 2007] and inter-Korean economic cooperation,” a key Blue House official reported.“He was saying we need joint research to examine what kinds of economic cooperation the South and North can engage in ahead of [sanctions against North Korea] being lifted,” the official explained.

During their summit, President Moon also personally gave North Korean leader Kim Jong-un a pamphlet on his “new economic vision” and a USB device containing a presentation video, the Blue House reported.

The materials reportedly contained details on power plant construction and other economic cooperation measures that could be implemented once inter-Korean relations gain momentum and sanctions against North Korea are lifted.During the Apr. 30 meeting, President Moon described the Panmunjeom Declaration as “a peace declaration proclaiming to the world that there will be no more threat of war or nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula.”

Article source:
South Korean President Moon Jae-in orders joint research effort for inter-Korean economic cooperation
Seong Yeon-cheol
Hankyoreh
2018-05-01

New York Times noted the somewhat ironic fact that Kim received Moon’s plan on a USB-stick, an item whose use by its own citizens the North Korean regime has long cracked down on:

For years, Kim Jong-un, North Korea’s leader, has been cracking down on USB flash drives that activists smuggle into his isolated country to poison his people’s minds with outside influences, like South Korean K-pop music.

But last month, when he met with the South’s president, Moon Jae-in, Mr. Moon handed him a USB drive that contained quite a different message.

In charts and video clips, Mr. Moon’s memory stick laid out a “new economic map for the Korean Peninsula,” including new railways and power plants for the impoverished North, should Mr. Kim abandon his nuclear weapons, according to South Korean officials.

Mr. Moon based his sales pitch on the belief that Mr. Kim wants to become the North Korean equivalent of Deng Xiaoping, who oversaw the economic liberalization of China. In this view, Mr. Kim may be willing to transform his pariah state by trading in his nuclear arsenal for diplomatic and economic incentives he needs to achieve prosperity.

[…]

“Kim Jong-un’s desire to develop his country’s economy is as strong as, and even stronger than, his desire for nuclear weapons,” said Lee Jong-seok, a former unification minister of South Korea. “But he knows he cannot achieve the kind of rapid economic growth in China that he envisions for his country while keeping his nuclear weapons — because of the sanctions.”

[…]

Vilified as he was, however, Mr. Kim has also shown signs of being a reformer, granting farms and factories more autonomy, allowing more markets to open, and setting off a building boom in his showcase capital, Pyongyang. He exhorts his country to follow “international development trends” and “global standards” and even admits failing to deliver on his promise that his long-suffering people would “no longer have to tighten their belts.”

“My desires were burning all the time, but I spent the past year feeling anxious and remorseful for the lack of my ability,” Mr. Kim said in a nationally broadcast speech last year, a startling admission for a member of the family that has ruled North Korea with the help of a personality cult since its founding in 1948.

After meeting him, Mr. Moon called Mr. Kim “open-minded and practical.”

Nowhere is Mr. Kim’s dilemma better seen than in his policy of “byungjin,” or parallel advance, which seeks a nuclear arsenal and economic development simultaneously. Under that policy, Mr. Kim has rapidly developed his country’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs, arguing that a nuclear deterrent would make his country feel secure enough to focus on rebuilding the economy. But the world has responded by imposing crippling sanctions.

[…]

If Mr. Kim pursues the route of economic reform, energy and transportation are the two areas where he most needs outside help. In his meeting with Mr. Moon, Mr. Kim admitted to the “embarrassing” condition of his roads and railways, South Korean officials said.

Trains running on electricity remain North Korea’s main means of transport, carrying 90 percent of its cargo and 60 percent of its passenger traffic, according to Ahn Byung-min, a senior analyst at the South’s government-funded Korea Transport Institute. But its rail systems are so decrepit that its fastest train, which runs to the Chinese border from Pyongyang, travels at 28 miles an hour. Other trains run at less than half that speed, Mr. Ahn said.

Lacking cash for oil imports, North Korea produces all its electricity from hydroelectric dams and coal-burning power plants. But the country’s power industry is trapped in a vicious cycle, energy experts say. Chronic electricity shortages make it difficult to produce coal and transport it to power plants. People in search of firewood for heat and cooking have denuded their hills, causing floods and droughts and making silt pile up at dams. That cuts down hydroelectric generation.

North Korea’s electricity generation amounts to only 4.4 percent of South Korea’s, according to Park Eun-jeong, an analyst at the South’s Korea Development Bank. The country prioritizes supplying electricity to lighting statues of Mr. Kim’s father and grandfather, who had ruled before him, while passengers wait for hours in trains unable to move because of power shortages, according to defectors from the country.

“Electricity is the Achilles’ heel for North Korea,” said Lee Jong-heon, an energy analyst in Seoul.

Mr. Moon’s proposal to modernize the North’s roads and railways and link them to the South’s is not meant to help just North Korea.

South Korean policymakers say that the two Koreas must first integrate their economies to make an eventual reunification less chaotic. They also envision building trans-Korean railways to find faster and cheaper routes to export South Korean goods to China, Russia and Europe, and bring Russian oil and gas into the South through pipelines for its power-hungry economy.

Full article and source:
South Korea Hands Kim Jong-un a Path to Prosperity on a USB Drive
Choe Sang-hun
New York Times
2018-05-10

Moon’s plan consists of three “economic belts”, as South China Morning Post notes, with infrastructure links that carry great potential gains for China and Russia as well:

President Moon Jae-in gave the North’s leader Kim Jong-un a USB drive containing a “New Economic Map of the Korean Peninsula” at the fortified border village of Panmunjom on April 27.

The initiative included three economic belts – one connecting the west coast of the peninsula to China, making the region a centre of logistics; one connecting the east coast to Russia for energy cooperation and one on the current border to promote tourism.

Whilst sources at the South Korean presidential office did not give further details about the information contained in the drive, they confirmed that the plan was in line with Moon’s “Berlin speech” last year when he outlined his basic approach to the north on a visit to the German capital.

During last year’s presidential election campaign, Moon pledged to merge the two Koreas’ economies in a single market to lay the foundations for unification.

Park Byeong-seug, a South Korean lawmaker from Moon’s ruling Democratic Party of Korea, said the proposal was in line with Moon’s campaign promises.

“The concept of the three belts was one of President Moon’s pledges during the election last year,” Park said.

“The new economic map includes railway links between the two Koreas and China’s northeast stretching all the way to Europe.”

One part of the plan would involve the construction of a rail link starting in Mokpo on the southwest tip of the peninsula, passing through Seoul and Pyongyang and the North’s Special Administrative Region of Sinuiju, before reaching Beijing.

Beijing is likely to welcome Seoul’s proposal as it accords with the core Chinese national interest of enhancing sustainable economic development and boosting the country’s northeastern rust belt.

Cheng Xiaohe, a deputy director at the centre for international strategic studies at Renmin University said Beijing may try to incorporate the plan into its Belt and Road Initiative.

“The northeast has been China’s weakest link and seen poor economic development for years. A rail link could make a real difference to the region,” Cheng said.

Improving the area’s logistics would also benefit China as its access to the open seas in that part of the world is physically blocked by the Korean peninsula and Russia’s far east.

North Korea’s economy is also closely tied to the northeast of China and opening up the reclusive state’s markets could provide new opportunities for the Chinese provinces on its border.

Lu Chao, a research fellow at Liaoning Academy of Social Sciences, said: “The plan would have a huge impact on China’s northeastern region as it would transform the region as a centre of logistics in East Asia, which could function as a driving force for the rapid economic growth of the region.”

“The northeast is the region with the greatest economic potential in China. A railway connection would bring a myriad of investments from overseas and would help the economy take off.”

[…]

South Korea would have to allow its allies and the UN to mediate any easing of sanctions before it could establish any economic cooperation with the North.

Moon Chung-in, a special foreign affairs and national security adviser in Seoul, said last month that Seoul’s economic incentives would compensate Pyongyang for freezing its missile programme, disclosing its nuclear capacity and allowing international inspections within its borders.

Full article and source:
Seoul offers Kim Jong-un grand bargain to link North and South Korean economies with China
Lee Jeong-ho
South China Morning Post
2018-05-07

Not surprisingly, Hyundai Asan is hoping to get in on whatever action may come. CNN:

Hyundai Group said Tuesday [May 8th] that it’s setting up a task force to prepare for the potential restarting of economic projects in North Korea.

The announcement comes shortly after a historic summit between South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong Un at which they committed themselves to rebuilding ties after years of tensions.

Hyundai Group, which split from the Hyundai Motor Group in 2000, was involved in various business projects in North Korea in the past, including a mountain resort and the Kaesong industrial complex, where North Korean workers made goods for South Korean companies.

“Hyundai needs to be ready when/if the two Koreas agree on terms and inter-Korean economic cooperation resumes,” a company spokesman said.

Hyundai will be closely monitoring the planned summit between Kim and US President Donald Trump that’s expected to take place in the coming weeks, as well as any potential changes to the heavy sanctions in place on North Korea’s economy, the spokesman said.

The Kaesong complex, a symbol of cooperation between the two Koreas, was closed as relations deteriorated in 2016. More than 120 South Korean companies had a presence there, employing tens of thousands of North Koreans and providing a steady stream of foreign currency to the regime in Pyongyang.

Hyundai also previously operated a tourist resort at North Korea’s Mount Kumgang, near the border with South Korea. It was shut down in 2008 after a South Korean tourist was killed by a North Korean soldier.

The company’s ties to North Korea go back to Hyundai’s late founder, Chung Ju-young, who was born there.

Last week, South Korean Deputy Prime Minister Kim Dong-yeon said the country’s government was “considering various scenarios” for economic cooperation between the two Koreas.

“The government is preparing response plans to different scenarios in terms of how and how fast to pursue [economic cooperation] and how to procure the resources for it,” he said.

South Korea’s government has allocated about $900 million to fund economic projects that involve both countries this year, according to the minister.

Full article and source:
Hyundai Group is getting ready to do business in North Korea again
Daniel Shane
CNN
2018-05-08

To be sure, preparations and planning are well underway in Seoul. Reuters:

South Korea’s finance minister said on Wednesday [May 2nd] the government was discussing how to finance possible economic projects with North Korea, although any projects with Pyongyang must first be approved by the international community.

“We’re internally carrying out preparations, in terms of what to prepare, and how to cooperate with the international community, and how to finance (possible inter-Korea projects),” Kim Dong-yeon told reporters in Sejong.

“But we need support from the international community and need to watch the (upcoming) summit between the United States and North Korea,” Kim said, without elaborating on specifics of any government financing.

Kim’s comments come after South Korean President Moon Jae-in and his North Korean counterpart Kim Jong Un agreed last Friday on a common goal of a “nuclear free” peninsula, and to “adopt practical steps towards the connection and modernization of the railways and roads”.

Many speculate that the two Koreas will start joint infrastructure projects as soon as international sanctions on North Korea are lifted. Currently, North Korea is under sanctions imposed by the U.N. Security Council to stop its nuclear weapons and missiles programs.

Kim also said there was a rise in the number of Chinese tourists in March although the services sector has not yet recovered from a drop in such visitors due to tensions between the two countries.

“The number of Chinese tourists is noticeably increasing since March, although it hasn’t recovered to the pre-Thaad level,” Kim said.

Tourist numbers plunged last year after South Korea angered China by deploying a U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) system that features radar which Beijing believes could be used to penetrate its territory.

Full article and source:
South Korea considers financing of possible inter-Korea projects: finance minister
Reuters
2018-05-02

To be continued and updated…

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Goods, and people, crossing the China-North Korea border

Wednesday, April 25th, 2018

By Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein

Over the past couple of weeks, there’s been several news stories that suggest and increased stream of goods – and people – across the North Korean border to China. First, there were the reports that some 400 North Korean workers, who were earlier expelled due to China’s sanctions implementation, came back to China. It shouldn’t be all that shocking if Chinese sanctions enforcement eased somewhat after Kim Jong-un’s visit to Beijing a few weeks ago. Judging from historical patterns, Chinese sanctions enforcement on North Korea may well have relaxed as international tensions around North Korea’s nuclear program are somewhat eased as well.

South Korea’s MBC seem to make the same assessment in a recent dispatch from the Sino-Korean border. On April 24th, they reported that North Korean-owned restaurants in Dandong have opened again after being closed for several months, since China began enforcing UN security council-mandated sanctions against North Korea. Shops selling North Korean goods in China have had their shelves restocked, and judging by ticket sales, the number of Chinese tourists visiting North Korea has increased.

It’s hard to tell precisely what all this means. Surely, this could all be a sign of Chinese concessions to North Korea following Kim’s meeting with Xi. More likely, the relaxation is also a concession to Chinese companies: China’s implementation of sanctions has not only hit against North Korea, but against Chinese business interests in the border regions as well. It appears that the main beneficiaries of whatever relaxation has happened are businesses near the border, such as a number of Chinese factories, and North Korean-run restaurants (usually run as joint ventures with Chinese partners). Information is, as usual, very spotty and one should be careful not to draw too many general conclusions from anecdotal evidence.

In any case, as I write for NK Pro, the signs of relaxation we’ve seen so far don’t merit any change in the assessment that North Korea is experiencing significant pressure from the sanctions. Key exports that dropped in 2017 due to China’s sanctions implementations have, as far as we can tell from publicly available information, not gone up. This may very well change in the future, and the anecdotal signs of relaxation along the border may be indicative of a broader change. But for now, the evidence doesn’t seem to be there.

 

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Chemical factory in North Korea closed due to sanctions

Thursday, April 19th, 2018

Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein

Says Radio Free Asia:

A North Korean chemical plant which had been shuttered for 20 years and renovated for reoperation in 2016 appears to have been shut down again due to international sanctions imposed on the regime of leader Kim Jong Un, sources inside the country and in neighboring China said.

The Chongsu chemical plant located in the workers’ district of Sakchu county in North Hamgyong province sits opposite the city of Dandong in northeastern China’s Liaoning province across the Yalu River separating North Korea and China.

North Hamgyong province is not opposite Dandong, and RFA is likely mixing North Hamgyong up with North Pyongan province. I’m grateful to a reader and good friend for pointing this out!

The chemical factory It underwent a major renovation in October 2016 and until recently was known to produce batteries for military use, sources said.

“The Chongsu chemical plant had been reactivated for less than a year, and it’s been eight months since any smoke has come out of it,” a resident of Dandong’s Kuandian county told RFA’s Korean Service. “If there is no smoke coming out of its smokestack, then it’s evident that the plant has stopped operating.”

“International sanctions on North Korea may have had a big impact on the deactivation of the chemical plant,” said the source who declined to be named. “There is strong possibility that the chemical plant was not able to obtain necessary materials because of China’s sanctions.”

The United Nations, with backing from North Korea’s longtime ally China, unanimously approved sanctions against North Korea in December as punishment for its development and launch of a ballistic missile that Pyongyang said is capable of striking the U.S. mainland.

The sanctions place caps on the import of crude oil, and refined oil products, such as diesel and kerosene that are crucial to North Korea’s economy. They also impose a ban on the export of a range of products, including food, machinery, electrical equipment, wood, earth, and stones, to other countries.

In early January, China’s Ministry of Commerce began imposing limits on exports of crude oil, refined oil products, steel, and other metals to North Korea, in line with U.N. sanctions.

China suspended North Korea coal imports in 2017 after the U.N. adopted a previous sanctions resolution to punish the country for its nuclear weapons program by tightening restrictions on coal exports.

“Because of China’s sanctions, chemicals, including sulfuric acid, are not allowed to be sent to North Korea,” the source said. “So how can the plant produce batteries without an essential material?”

Authorities let the Chongsu chemical plant fall into neglect in 1996 during the Great Famine during which up to 3 million North Koreans starved to death due to a variety of factors, including the state’s economic mismanagement, an end to aid and trade concessions from the former Soviet Union after it collapsed, and a series of floods and droughts.

“When they initiated the major renovation of the chemical plant, they probably did not expect there would be sanctions against them or any power shortages,” he said.

A North Korean resident of North Hamgyong pointed out that that the chemical factory could not sustain operations after a nearby hydropower plant stopped generating electricity last year when the Supung Dam, its water source, dried up during a drought.

“In order to operate factories in North Korea, raw materials and electricity must be guaranteed,” said the source who declined to be named.

Fertilizer production

The chemical plant was built in 1943 and produced calcium cyanamide, a chemical fertilizer commercially known as nitrolime, and phosphate fertilizers when Korea was under Japanese colonial rule (1910-1945).

In 1966, when North Korea founder and former leader Kim Il Sung was in power, the facility was expanded to produce other chemical fertilizers.

The London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies issued a dossier in 2004 listing five major North Korean civilian chemical production facilities that sat on the border with China, including the Chongsu chemical complex.

A report issued five years later by International Crisis Group listed a chemical plant in Chongsu as one of four chemical weapons sites on the border with China, though specific names of the facilities were not given.

Though North Korea has long denied having a chemical weapons program that produces nerve, blister, blood, and choking agents, the U.S. Defense Department believes the rogue nation likely possesses production capability and a chemical weapons stockpile that could be used with artillery and ballistic missiles, according to an Associated Press report in March.

In February, the U.S. determined that North Korean used the chemical warfare agent VX to assassinate Kim Jong Nam, the half-brother of Kim Jong Un, at the Kuala Lumpur international airport in Malaysia in February 2017.

In response, the U.S. imposed sanctions on North Korea under the Chemical and Biological Weapons Control and Warfare Elimination Act in addition to existing U.S. comprehensive sanctions targeting unlawful North Korean activities.

Full article here:
Sanctions Force North Korea to Shutter Chemical Factory
Joonho Kim
Radio Free Asia

2018-04-19

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Russian sanctions enforcement grounds business with North Korea to a halt

Thursday, April 19th, 2018

Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein

NPR reports, from Vladivostok, of frustrated Russian businesspeople and halted dealings with North Korea, in the face of sanctions pressure:

In his second-floor office in a shabby building a few steps away from the Hotel Gavan, Vladimir Baranov was fuming over the new restrictions.

In May, his company, InvestStroyTrest, started a ferry service between Vladivostok and the North Korean port of Rajin, a 12-hour ride along the coast.

“Of course I don’t have any cargo volumes with these sanctions, which ban even wheelchairs,” said Baranov. “I’m not working right now because there’s no cargo.”

His company’s ferry, a North Korean vessel named the Man Gyong Bong, is now stuck in Rajin after Vladivostok port officials refused to let it dock under suspicion it was carrying sanctioned goods — a claim that Baranov is disputing in court.

Baranov is still hoping he’ll find passengers among Russian and Chinese tourists, though he can soon forget about the region’s thousands of North Korean migrant workers that Moscow says will have to leave.

Most of these laborers work on construction sites and farms in the Russian Far East, though some are employed at the North Korean restaurants that dot Vladivostok. At the Koryo restaurant next to city hall, young North Korean women in traditional costumes belt out sentimental Korean tunes over the karaoke system.

“They’re great workers who’ll work day and night,” said Valentin Pak, a Russian entrepreneur and politician whose own ancestors emigrated from Korea five generations ago. “They will be sorely missed.”

Pak said it will be hard to replace the North Koreans and is skeptical of statements by regional officials that they can be replaced with workers from India or Central Asia.

Ever since Russia began settling its remote Pacific territories in the mid-19th century, labor shortages have been a serious problem — and workers from neighboring Korea were a logical choice to help fill the gap. During Soviet times and into the 1990s, North Koreans toiled under brutal conditions in Siberian logging camps run by the North Korean government under an agreement between Moscow and Pyongyang.

Today the government in Pyongyang still profits from its citizens going to Russia for work, which is the whole idea behind the restrictions on North Korean workers.

“For North Korea, it’s a business, because all the laborers who work here pay their government to be here,” said Irina Tyan, a businesswoman who co-owns a farm with the North Korean consulate in Vladivostok. Like Pak, she is a member of Russia’s ethnic Korean community, which is well-integrated into Russian society.

Tyan’s North Korean partners invested $2 million into a 10,000-acre farm that grows soy, corn, wheat and oats. Until last year, the business employed 10 Russians and about 20 North Koreans.

The North Korean workers earned 20,000 rubles ($320) per month plus room, board and clothing, Tyan said, though she didn’t pay them directly but via their North Korean government supervisor.

She disagrees with reports thatNorth Koreans work in slave-like conditions in Russia. They just don’t make the same demands as Russian workers — such as an eight-hour workday with lunch and smoking breaks — and are under the strict guidance of their North Korean minders, Tyan said.

“They’re afraid, that’s clear,” she said. “But they’ll still do anything to get here because they can go where they want, go shopping, buy whatever they want or need. They won’t say it out loud, but it’s clear that they want to continue living and working here.”

After her quota of 30 North Korean workers was canceled because of the sanctions, Tyan’s last eight North Koreans are due to go home this month. If the sanctions aren’t lifted by next year’s planting season, she said she would have to sell the business.

“Of course, nobody knows what will happen next,” Tyan said. “Maybe they’ll lift the sanctions tomorrow, maybe in a year, maybe never.”

One Russian businessman who remains optimistic is Ivan Tonkikh, who runs RasonConTrans, a cargo terminal in Rajin, North Korea, jointly owned by Russian Railways and the North Korean state.

Although the venture is exempt from the latest U.N. sanctions, Tonkikh is having trouble finding partners who would be willing to export coal via Rajin. While business is at a standstill, he said that he wants to convince the U.N. to allow the delivery of humanitarian shipments to his port.

Tonkikh downplays the economic levers Moscow has over Pyongyang, though he adds that the cargo terminal is an investment in a brighter future.

“Rajin is only the beginning. It’s the first segment of a restored trans-Korean railway,” said Tonkikh. “We call Rajin the ‘short track to consensus’ on the Korean Peninsula.”

Article source:
Sanctions Targeting North Korea Ripple Into Russia
Lucian Kim
NPR
2018-04-19

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Use of Yuan in the North Korean economy

Monday, April 16th, 2018

According to the Asahi Shimbun:

The Chinese yuan apparently has growing currency in North Korea and is commonly used in daily transactions such as paying taxi fares and restaurant bills.

…

The situation is a far cry from the 1990s, when only 4.9 percent of defectors said foreign currencies, including the U.S. dollar, were commonly used in daily transactions.

Lee’s study targeted around 1,000 defectors. The results, released Feb. 28, found that 44.3 percent of defectors between 2011 and 2015 said foreign currencies were often used for transactions. However, 52.5 percent of defectors after 2013 said the yuan is chiefly used nowadays.

The survey highlighted the fact that China’s currency is increasingly in circulation in North Korea, which helps explain why the reclusive country’s commodity prices and exchange rates have remained relatively stable.

The Pyongyang regime’s decision to revalue its won currency in November 2009 eroded public trust in the monetary system by 2013 as it wiped out the savings of many North Koreans, sparking incidents of unrest and a thriving black market.

North Korea’s official exchange rate is pegged at 108 won to the dollar. But on the black market, $1 (107 yen) fetches about 8,000 won.

Since 2013, the U.S. dollar has continuously traded at around 8,000 won. There are suspicions that Pyongyong has reduced the volume of won in circulation amid the influx of foreign currencies in daily transactions.

Read the full story here:
China’s yuan now firmly part of North Korea’s daily economy
Yoshihiro Makino
Asahi Shimbun
2018-4-13

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