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North Korean workers selected to go to Russian-occupied Ukraine, will go in November

Friday, October 21st, 2022

By Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein

I don’t think we’ll fully know how solid and extensive plans are for the dispatch of North Korean workers to Russian-occupied territories in Ukraine until “boots” actually start to arrive on the ground, if even then. A recent report by Daily NK says that authorities have finished selecting workers who will go. It suggests that any contingent that may be sent will be fairly small — 800 to 1,000 — and that they will begin to arrive in November:

North Korea has completed the process of selecting workers to take part in reconstruction efforts in Russian-occupied parts of eastern Ukraine, with plans to send the workers to the region in early November.

A source in North Korea told Daily NK on Monday that the authorities carried out the selection in Pyongyang from July, and that “800 to 1,000” workers were recruited.

Daily NK reported in August that North Korea had planned to send some North Korean workers already in Russia to the Donbas, and that North Korean authorities had also selected workers in North Korea to dispatch to the region.

In fact, Daily NK’s source said the newly selected workers in North Korea would be sent in turns in small teams of 30 to 60 people.

“No firm date has been selected, but they plan to send the selected workers in early November as they select new workers,” he said.

This suggests that North Korea — having weighed when to send the workers while carefully watching the progress of the war — is preparing to send personnel in early November, and also intends to conduct a second round of selections of workers to send to the Donbas.

As for how the workers would get where they need to go, officials are discussing plans to send them by train from the northeastern city of Rason, or by flying them aboard an Air Koryo flight to Vladivostok. Also reportedly being discussed is a plan to send them to Moscow or Saint Petersburg via Beijing.

The source said China has “decided to feign ignorance” since the workers are only transiting through the country, not stepping foot in it.

“North Korea, China and Russia have agreed that sending North Korean workers to Russian-occupied areas would not constitute a violation of sanctions,” he said.

The source added that since sending the workers to Russia through Beijing would cost about the same as sending them through Vladivostok, officials are largely considering sending the workers through the Russian city.

(Source: Mun Dong Hui, “N. Korea finalizes selection of workers to join reconstruction efforts in Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine,” Daily NK, October 21st, 2022.)

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North Korea-China trade officially reopened

Monday, September 26th, 2022

By Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein

On September 26, a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry officially stated that railroad traffic between China and North Korea would restart yet again, after the brief opening and sudden cancellation five months ago. The same say, a freight train crossing the border was caught on video. Bloomberg:

Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said Monday at a regular press briefing in Beijing the cargo rail link between the China and North Korea is reopening, after service was halted in April as part of measures to control Covid.

“The two sides will continue to strengthen coordination to ensure the steady and secure transport of goods, and contribute to friendly relations between China and the DPRK,” Wang said, referring to North Korea by its formal name.

The rail connection between the city of Dandong in China and Sinuiju in North Korea is Kim’s main link to China, his country’s biggest trading partner by far. Reopening the trade route could take pressure off Kim to return to stalled nuclear disarmament talks with the U.S., where the Biden administration is dangling the prospects financial rewards in exchange for steps to wind down its atomic arsenal.

The link was closed in 2020 near the start of the pandemic when Kim shut the borders to prevent the coronavirus from entering, and was briefly reopened in January of this year. Video on social media on Monday showed a freight train that appeared to be crossing from the Chinese side into North Korea.

(Source: “China, North Korea Restore Rail Link on Kim’s Key Trade Route,” Bloomberg News, September 26th, 2022.)

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North Korean rice prices stabilize in September

Friday, September 23rd, 2022

By: Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein

Following a quite usual pattern, rice prices have stabilized in the past few weeks after climbing during July, the country’s “lean season” in food. Daily NK reports:

North Korean rice prices appear to be falling this month after climbing past KPW 6,000 a kilogram in late July.

According to Daily NK’s regular survey of North Korean market prices, a kilogram of rice in Pyongyang cost KPW 5,600 as of Sept. 18. This is about 11% less than it cost on July 26, when a kilogram of rice climbed to KPW 6,280.

In fact, the price of rice in Pyongyang has continued to fall since the July 26 survey.

In other regions such as Sinuiju, North Pyongan Province and Hyesan, Yanggang Province as well, rice prices have continued to drop, falling 8 to 12% since late July.

It appears rice prices are falling from July because double-cropped wheat, barley and potatoes have been harvested, and because the authorities provided some North Koreans with unglutinous rice, glutinous rice, wheat flour and other foodstuffs earlier this month to mark the anniversary of North Korea’s founding on Sept. 9.

However, the provisions were primarily aimed at Pyongyang residents and cadres of state agencies. Ordinary people in the provinces received nothing in particular.

According to the source, in some regions such as Yanggang Province, rice of relatively poor quality is currently circulating in markets. Considering the poor state of the musty, moldy rice, it appears some low-quality rice in military storage found its way into markets after it was given to soldiers.

North Korean authorities recently ordered officials dispatched overseas to obtain grains such as unglutinoius rice, corn and soybeans. However, the authorities have yet to provide the imported grains to ordinary people.

According to another source in the country, some military units have gone directly to Nampo, where the imported grain is being stored, to load up on unglutinous rice.

(Source and full article: Seulkee Jang, “N. Korean rice prices fall after climbing past KPW 6,000 per kilogram in late July,” Daily NK, 23 September, 2022.)

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North Korea denies weapons sales to Russia

Thursday, September 22nd, 2022

By Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein

As per New York Times earlier this fall, US intelligence believes North Korea has sold weapons to Russia in aid of its attempt to invade Ukraine. North Korean authorities, for what it’s worth, have publicly denied this. Judging from the evidence reported so far, it doesn’t yet seem fully confirmed that any such weapons trade has in fact taken place. There’s little reason to doubt it’s been discussed — Russia is probably weighing all conceivable options for arms purchases and North Korea isn’t usually a picky seller. AP:

In a state media report Thursday, an unnamed North Korean defense official told the U.S. to stop making “reckless remarks” and to “keep its mouth shut.” Biden administration officials earlier this month confirmed a declassified U.S. intelligence assessment that Russia was in the process of purchasing arms from North Korea, including millions of artillery shells and rockets, as Moscow attempts to ease severe supply shortages in Ukraine worsened by U.S.-led export controls and sanctions.

The North Korean statement came weeks after Moscow described the U.S. intelligence finding as “fake.”

North Korean arms exports to Russia would violate United Nations resolutions banning the country from importing or exporting weapons.

(Source: Kim Tong-Hyung, “North Korea denies sending arms to Russia amid Ukraine war,” AP News September 22nd, 2022.)

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Is the North Korean economy in crisis territory?

Thursday, September 8th, 2022

By: Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein

Is the North Korean economy in a crisis following years of tough sanctions and the Covid-19 border closure? In a new report, the Bank of Korea’s answer is yes. They point to factors such as vast price increases on several basic goods to show that shortages have led to a price inflation virtually across the board for crucial consumer products:

The price of sugar in North Korea has multiplied by a factor of 8.3 between 2017 and late June of this year, from 5,201 won to 43,000 won per kilogram. During the same time period, the price of flour grew 3.7 times in the country as well, from 5,029 won to 18,700 won per kilogram.

Sugar and flour are two of the main food products North Korea imports from other countries. The extent to which their prices jumped in North Korea exceeds what might be observed in South Korea today due to high inflation. What could have happened in North Korea in the past five years to occasion such a surge in prices?

On Monday, the Bank of Korea published a report titled “North Korea’s Economy in the Past Five Years and Its Future Outlook,” which pointed to how the country’s economic environment changed during the time period. In a nutshell, the report argued that North Korea’s economy has entered yet another period of crisis after the 2000s, when its economy grew, following the 1990s, when the country experienced an economic crisis and a famine, also known as the Arduous March. North Korea’s gross domestic product (GDP) fell by 2.4% on average every year from 2017 to 2021 and is estimated to have dropped by a total of 11.4% during this time period.

What prompted the crisis in North Korea were economic sanctions against the country as well as border closures due to COVID-19.

(Source: Park Jong-O, “Why the price of sugar went up 726% in N. Korea over the last 5 years”, Hankyoreh, September 6th, 2022.)

Broadly speaking, given the data available, it is difficult to draw any other conclusion. At the same time, it is crucial to keep a few things in mind. First, much of the economy is adapted to a situation with very little foreign trade, because even in a normal year, North Korea’s external trade is exceptionally small compared with most countries in the world.
Second, there’s like to be considerable regional variation in the economic situation. Transportation inside North Korea has improved considerably over the last 10-15 years but getting goods from, say Hyesan in the northeast to Pyongyang, or a southern city like Sariwon, is still difficult, complicated and time consuming. So we are not necessarily talking about one, unified market with similar conditions across the country, but rather about a very fractured system.

Third, the word “crisis” in the context of the North Korean economy comes with very serious connotations since the famine of the 1990s. But we are decidedly not talking about a situation with mass starvation, and the Bank of Korea acknowledges this. Because of the expansion of the market system, the economy can respond very differently to shortages today than it could in the 1990s and early 2000s. Consumers can and likely have switched to less desired goods that can be procured and produced domestically. Both flour and sugar can, after all, to some extent be substituted for less desired but more easily available goods. We’ve also seen an increase in the price over corn over rice, which exemplifies this well: when the more desired good (rice) becomes more expensive, a greater number of people switch over to corn. This does suggest economic conditions have worsened, but not necessarily that they are disastrous.

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North Korea seeking rice donations abroad

Wednesday, September 7th, 2022

By: Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein

I’m not convinced the main point of this news report is that North Korean state representatives have reached out specifically to Indian representatives. Rather, this suggests a much wider campaign, with North Korean diplomats and other functionaries posted abroad ordered to scout around for possible donations from abroad. Voice of America:

VOA’s Korean Service has learned that Pyongyang has turned to India for rice, its staple food, which it usually imports from China.

Manpreet Singh, executive president of the Indian Chamber of International Business, an organization that helps small to midsize Indian companies expand globally, told the Korean Service in an August 30 email that North Korean Embassy officials visited the organization in New Delhi.

“We have been approached by the Embassy to look at possibilities for donations of rice” as “floods destroyed most of the crop,” said Singh.

North Korea’s U.N. Mission in New York City did not respond to VOA Korean Service’s questions about its food situation and whether it is seeking outside aid. North Korea has dismissed South Korea’s offer of economic aid in exchange for its denuclearization, a deal outlined in South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol’s “audacious initiative,” introduced August 15.

(Source and full article: Jiha Ham, “North Korea Turns to India for Rice Amid Food Shortages,” Voice of America, September 7th, 2022.)

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Chinese region near North Korean border suffers from lockdowns

Thursday, September 1st, 2022

By Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein 

New York Times recently ran an interesting dispatch from Shenyang in northeastern China, about an hour’s high-speed train ride from North Korea. This report highlights something important: while trade with North Korea is negligible for China as compared to the country’s total trade volume, North Korea as a trading partner does matter for the Chinese border regions specifically:

….And in a region often referred to as China’s Rust Belt, the local economy had already been shaky for years.

Possibly the main problem, though, is that Ms. Wen’s primary customer base has virtually evaporated.

“With North Korea closed because of the virus, they can’t come or go at all,” she said from behind the counter of her store in Shenyang’s Koreatown, where signs advertising steep discounts on imported South Korean styles had done little to draw in shoppers. “Before, we’d have maybe dozens of North Korean customers every day. Now you don’t even get 10.”

China’s continuing strict coronavirus controls have battered local economies across the country. But Shenyang has endured a double blow. Just 150 miles from the North Korean border, it is suffering not only from the restrictions in China, but also from those imposed by the even more isolated country next door.

(Source and full article: Vivian Wang, “Lockdowns in China, and North Korea, Bring Double Blow to Bridge City,” New York Times, August 30th, 2022.)

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Putin’s letter to Kim Jong-un

Monday, August 15th, 2022

By Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein

In another data point on Russia and North Korea growing increasingly close, President Vladimir Putin sent a congratulatory letter to Kim on the occasion of North Korea’s Liberation Day (August 15th) from Japanese rule. There are clear limits on how far increased economic exchange can go at the moment between the two countries, but interest from both seems genuine and high. From KCNA:

Respected Comrade Kim Jong Un Receives Congratulatory Message from President of Russian Federation

Pyongyang, August 15 (KCNA) — Kim Jong Un, president of the State Affairs of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, received a message of greeting from Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, president of the Russian Federation, on August 15.

In the message, Putin extended sincere felicitation to the respected Comrade Kim Jong Un on the occasion of the day of liberation, a national holiday.

The message noted that the two countries have deeply kept the memories of servicepersons of the Red Army and patriots of Korea who fought shoulder to shoulder for the liberation of Korea.

The glorious traditions of friendship and cooperation gained in the grim days serve as a durable foundation for developing the good neighborly relations between the Russian Federation and the DPRK today, it stressed.

It said that we would continue to expand the comprehensive and constructive bilateral relations with common efforts, adding that this would entirely conform with the interests of the peoples of the two countries and contribute to strengthening the security and stability of the Korean peninsula and the whole of the Northeastern Asian region.

It wished Kim Jong Un good health and success and all citizens of the DPRK happiness and prosperity.

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North Korea-China railway freight could start again soon, for two reasons

Monday, August 8th, 2022

By Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein

Railway freight between Dandong in China and Sinuiju in North Korea, a crucial channel for the flow of goods between the two countries, started back up in January after a two-year border closure, and was shut down again in April due to the Covid-19 situation in both China and North Korea. Now, Radio Free Asia reports that railway freight could start again today or tomorrow (August 8th or 9th), citing North Korean sources:

Rail freight shipments between the northern Chinese city Dandong and North Korea’s Sinuiju will resume next week, providing a vital lifeline of goods to the pariah state, North Korean sources said.

“Starting around Aug. 8 or 9, the international freight train between Sinuiju and Dandong will resume its operation,” an official from a trading organization in North Pyongan province told RFA on Thursday.

“There has been an order from the Central Committee for all trading companies to prepare import and export materials to load,” he said, referring to the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of North Korea.

North Korean authorities proposed the resumption of service to the Chinese government because the country faces economic difficulties due to a serious shortage of supplies, he said.

North Korea is dependent on trade and aid from China, its main ally and trading partner. Restrictions on the flow of goods from the country during COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns devastated North Korea’s already chronically unstable economy.

Freight train service between Sinuiju and Dandong, the hub of North Korea-China trade, was halted in August 2020 because of the pandemic. It resumed on Jan. 16, but was closed by the Chinese again on April 25 after outbreaks in both countries.

Maritime trade with North Korea was also halted at that time but was partially resumed in mid-July after repeated requests from authorities in North Korea.

Trading company representatives, including ones from firms in the North Korean capital Pyongyang, are stationed in Sinuiju, which sits across the international border of the Yalu River from Dandong, the source in North Pyongan said.

“They have been ordering goods from their Chinese counterparts to import construction materials and basic food. They are trying to secure foreign currency to pay for the imports,” he said.

A North Korean source in Dandong, with knowledge of the situation, also told RFA on Thursday that the Dandong-Sinuiju freight train service was about to resume.

“Since yesterday, a Dandong-based logistics company has been recruiting truck drivers to transport goods to the Dandong freight station and manpower to load goods on the freight train in preparation for the resumption of Dandong-Sinuiju freight train operations,” he said.

The logistics company must collect basic food such as sugar and flour, iron products, and construction materials ordered from North Korea from all over China and transport them to Dandong freight station, said the source, who declined to be named so as to speak freely.

Additionally, Dandong quarantine authorities will directly manage the freight station and the trains that return to China after transporting goods to North Korea, he said.

Chinese workers who load and unload goods on freight trains in Dandong must have received COVID-19 vaccinations, the source added. Workers will be tested daily for the virus and can continue on the job if their results are negative.

The freight train will operate 15 to 17 cars at a time and will go directly to the Uiju quarantine facility, formerly the Uiju Airfield, near North Korea’s northern border with China, the source said.

(Source: Hyemin Son, “Rail freight service between China and North Korea to resume in days,” Radio Free Asia, August 5th, 2022.)

This may just be one individual news report, but the overall context also seems to speak for this in many ways. North Korea recently announced the end of its first Covid-19 wave. It might not be a coincidence that this report comes at the same time. Indeed, declaring the Covid wave over was more or less a prerequisite for re-opening rail freight traffic. It may be that signals from the Chinese government that they were willing to re-open the railway link factored into the North Korean authorities’ decision to declare the first wave over.

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North Korea and Syria discuss economic cooperation

Thursday, August 4th, 2022

By: Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein 

If this development actually goes somewhere (a similar meeting was held in 2014 without any significant results) it’d provide a terrific data point on the increasingly emerging global, sanctions-evading sphere of authoritarian states. Here’s what the Syrian state news agency wrote on a meeting between Syria’s Minister of Industry and North Korea’s chargé d’affaires in the country:

Minister Sabbagh underscored the importance of working to strengthen joint cooperation between Syria and the DPRK to upgrade bilateral relations in the industrial field to be up to the level of the political relations in order to achieve the common benefit of the two friendly countries and peoples.

The Minister stressed the need to activate the memos of understanding and industrial agreements concluded between the ministry and the Korean side, which were suspended due to the outbreak of the Coronavirus pandemic.

In turn, Chargé d’affaires, Kim Hey Ryong, stressed standing in the face of the imperialist sanctions imposed on both friendly countries and the need to confront them with their own resources to advance in the face of the imposed economic blockade.

Ryong expressed his country’s interest in the projects proposed by the Syrian Ministry of Industry for investment, particularly in the field of pharmaceutical industries, alternative energies and the aluminum industry.

During the meeting, it was agreed to form a joint technical committee to set the initial principles for the fields of joint industrial cooperation, follow-up and activate the memo of understanding signed between the two sides.

(Source: Manar Salameh/ Ruaa al-Jazaeri, “Syria, DPRK discuss ways to enhance industrial cooperation,” Sana, 3/8/2022.)

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