North Korean Economy Watch

Yonhap
12/16/2007

North Korea’s state-run airline is likely to be used to ferry South Korean tourists to the North’s Mount Paektu, a government official said Sunday.

The official, who declined to be identified, said Air Koryo planes may be used to carry tourists, owing to concerns about safety related to Samjiyeon Airport, about 30 kilometers southeast of the mountain.

He did not elaborate on the nature of safety concerns, but said it may be inappropriate for South Korean flag carriers like Korean Air and Asiana to use the airport.

Tours to the 2,744-meter-high mountain, held sacred by many Koreans, are the result of the summit meeting between South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il in early October.

He added that flights would probably use Seoul’s Gimpo International Airport, fly over Gangwon Province, head out into the East Sea before turning north toward Mount Paektu, on the North Korea-Chinese border.

The official said Gimpo has been selected as it can easily handle greater numbers of people than provincial air terminals, and the high level of airport security that can be maintained.

Hyundai Asan, which is responsible for organizing tours to North Korea, said direct flights linking Gimpo and Mount Paektu should begin in May, 2008.

The company currently organizes tours to Mount Geumgang on the east coast, and the historic city of Kaesong just north of the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas on the west coast.

Yonhap
12/16/2007

South and North Korea are still far apart over setting up joint fishing areas along their disputed western sea border but they have made some progress in establishing similar zones off their shared eastern sea border, a South Korean government report said Sunday.

In a statement posted on its Website, South Korea’s Unification Ministry said working officials of both Koreas made some meaningful headway on a proposal to open their shared eastern sea border to fishing boats from both sides.

“The South and the North agreed to actively cooperate to allow South Korean ships begin fishing at designated areas in the North Korean side of the East Sea within 2008,” the ministry said, outlining a six-point agreement reached at a two-day inter-Korean working meeting that ended at the North’s border city of Kaesong on Saturday.

The two Koreas have yet to agree on many specifics on the eastern sea border, including where to set up the proposed joint fishing areas, but they agreed on some details, including how South Korea should pay for its fish catch in the northern side of the border, it said.

North Korea, among other things, agreed to allow South Korean ships to pay in goods, not cash, the statement said.

The sides also agreed to hold a new round of working talks early next year to discuss Seoul’s provision of “fishing implements and gears that will constitute its fishing fees” and other related issues,” it said.

They have also agreed to begin construction on a joint fishery research and storage center in the North before the end of the year, for which a survey team of some 20 South Korean officials will travel to the North on Dec. 21-25, according to the agreement.

It’s unclear how such agreement on the eastern sea border would affect efforts by the two Koreas to ease tension along their acutely disputed western sea border, the site of two bloody naval clashes in 1999 and 2002.

During an October summit, South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il agreed to turn the disputed western maritime border into a peace zone in which fishing boats of both sides would jointly operate.

High-level military officials of both sides met at the inter-Korean border village of Panmunjom last week to discuss the western sea border but failed to reach agreement.

North Korea insisted that the proposed joint fishing areas in the West Sea must be established south of the Northern Limit Line (NLL), an interim border unilaterally set by the American-led U.N. Command right after the 1953 end of the Korean War.

South Korea turned down the North’s demand, counterproposing that any joint fishing area in the area must conjoin waters on both side of the NLL.

Yonhap
12/11/2007

(NKeconWatch: Joshua over at OFK also has a contribution to this)

A senior U.S. senator introduced a resolution setting conditions for removing North Korea from the U.S. list of terrorism-sponsoring nations, one of the key incentives offered for Pyongyang’s denuclearization.

Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kansas) submitted Resolution 399 on Monday and so far has three co-sponsors.

The resolution urges the administration not to lift the designation until it can be demonstrated that North Korea is no longer engaged in proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and no longer counterfeiting American currency.

It also demands proof that a North Korean ruling party bureau, believed to be running illicit financial activities including drug trafficking and counterfeiting, has been made inoperable.

The senator also demands that the terrorist-nation designation remain until all U.S. overseas missions have been instructed to facilitate asylum applications by North Koreans seeking protection as refugees.

North Korea was put on the list in January 1988, soon after its agents blew up a South Korean civilian aircraft. Brownback’s resolution demands North Korea’s accounting of Japanese nationals abducted by the North as well as of surviving South Korean prisoners of war.

“If the United States takes the step of removing North Korea from the terrorism list, let’s at least make clear the conditions for such a removal,” Brownback said, adding, “I question the merits of the State Department’s decision to remove North Korea from its terrorist list.”

“It is important that the United States sends a loud and clear message to the North Korean regime that we will remain vigilant,” he said.

Delisting North Korea is one of the key benefits the U.S. offered in return for Pyongyang’s disablement of its core nuclear facilities and full disclosure of its atomic programs, the steps toward full dismantlement agreed on by six nations — South and North Korea, the U.S., China, Russia and Japan.
  
Getting off the list would free North Korea from a number of restrictions prohibiting meaningful economic and political assistance and exchange from the U.S. and the international community.

In Seoul, a Foreign Ministry official expressed concerns the resolution, if passed, could undermine progress in the nuclear disarmament talks, but said it did not pose any immediate threats to the six-nation deal on the denuclearization of the North.

“Delisting North Korea does not depend on the resolution, but whether the North fully discloses its nuclear programs,” the official, who is deeply involved with the nuclear talks, said, asking not to be identified. “Obviously, nothing has been changed so far. The U.S. administration can still delist the North if and whenever it chooses to.”

Korea Times
Andrei Lankov
12/9/2007

By 1963, the inhabitants of the huge Soviet Embassy compound in downtown Pyongyang felt themselves under siege. All their communications with Koreans were supervised, and most North Koreans who had expressed some sympathy with Moscow had disappeared without a trace. Soviet aid nearly stopped, and most Soviet advisors left the North. On quite a few occasions, the official media of North Korea and Soviet Russia exchanged broadsides of sharply worded critical statements.

In short, in 1963-65 few people doubted that North Korea, together with Albania and, to a lesser extent, North Vietnam, chose to side with Beijing in its quarrel with Moscow. There were good reasons for this: Moscow was too liberal in its domestic policies, too disdainful of Kim Il-sung’s personality cult, too ready to compromise with the arch-villain of U.S. imperialism. And it was prone to an arrogant attitude in its dealings with the small East Asian country, too.

But then things changed, dramatically and irreversibly. The anti-Soviet pro-Maoist block, clearly in the making in the early 1960s, felt apart in 1966-67. The reason was the Cultural Revolution, the ten years of madness, which engulfed China. Some people believe that there was a system in this madness. Perhaps. But I personally find this system extremely difficult to discover.

It was not the only “cultural revolution,” of course. The Vietnam War demonstrated that China, despite its bellicose rhetoric, was unable to provide enough aid. The Russians provided Hanoi with missiles and tanks while the Chinese largely limited themselves to shipping the “little red books” full of Mao’s quotations.

But it was the “cultural revolution” that played the major role in the alienation between Korea and China. Kim Il-sung was perplexed by the new developments in his sponsor country. Everything looked like madness, and in September 1966 the Cuban Ambassador noticed that North Korean top officials began to make jokes about China and Mao the Great Helmsman himself (they suggested that a bit of Korean ginseng would help the Chinese leader who was obviously becoming senile).

Around the same time, in late 1966, the internal propaganda of North Korea began to criticize “dogmatism” and “superpower chauvinism,” clearly associated with China. For years, the major culprit in the internal propaganda was the “modern revisionism” (read: the Soviet Union). In December 1966, at a secret meeting with the Soviet leader Brezhnev, Kim Il-sung described the “cultural revolution” as a “massive idiocy.” Well, he was probably correct, even if his own policies were not exactly an embodiment of wise statesmanship.

At that stage, China still could play down the differences and probably keep North Korea on its side. But it seems that Beijing was not in control of the situation, or was not able to make reasonable decisions, so in early 1967 the Chinese press began to attack Kim Il-sung. Throughout 1967, the Red Guards newspapers frequently called Kim Il-sung a “revisionist,” the worst term of abuse in their (quite limited) vocabulary. He was accused of “blocking the revolutionary will of masses” and not starting a cultural revolution in his realm.

In early 1967, the Red Guards’ media reported an alleged attempted coup in Pyongyang. As far as we know, the story was a complete fake, but it prompted the North Korean press to react. In January 1967, Nodong Sinmun rebuffed the statements.

The propaganda war escalated. It was meaningless from the Chinese point of view: in its feud with the USSR China needed as many allies as possible. But it seems that the considerations of real politick were rejected by the zealots who required a complete adherence to the then current Chinese political line. Kim Il-sung and his entourage were not famous for their readiness to follow foreigners’ advice, so the situation went from bad to worse.

Bernd Schaefer penned a wonderful monograph based on the now de-classified East German archives, and noted some rather extreme episodes in the late 1960s. In the summer of 1968 the Chinese installed loudspeakers on the border and used them to blast North Korea with Chinese propaganda, largely with tales about the unparalleled wisdom of Mao. The Koreans retaliated in kind, by installing their own loudspeakers and bombarding their opponents with stories of Kim Il-sung’s greatness and superhuman wisdom.

The Chinese accused Kim Il-sung himself of enjoying a luxurious life, very different from the lifestyle of his subjects. This was correct, even if the same thing could be said about Mao. However, these personal accusations made Kim even less willing to accommodate the Chinese.

On one occasion, a group of Chinese soldiers crossed the border, obviously in hope of provoking a clash, but the North Koreans did not react and Chinese soon withdrew. There were also reports that bodies of ethnic Korean officials who were slaughtered in China by the Red Guards were put on a train and sent to the North. Personally, I am somewhat skeptical, but this story was indeed reported in the contemporary diplomatic messages cited by Bernd Schaefer and thus might be true.

Relations reached their nadir in late 1968. However, Kim Il-sung understood that his best policy would be a balancing act between the two Communist great powers, and he was ready to find a path to rapprochement. Fortunately for him, China was gradually coming to some semblance of normality, so from around 1970 it was once again possible to resume the balancing act policy. But that is another story.

Yonhap
12/8/2007

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has given warm encouragement to local workers developing Mount Paektu, the highest point on the peninsula that will be opened to South Korean tourists next year, the North’s broadcaster said Saturday.

South and North Korea agreed to open a direct flight route between Seoul and the North’s Mount Paektu during their second summit in October. The inter-Korean tour, set to start in May, is organized by South Korea’s Hyundai Group.

Kim “expressed his gratitude to officials and workers who have wholeheartedly supported the development of the Mount Paektu area,” the Korean Central Broadcasting Station, monitored in Seoul, said, naming technicians, researchers and factory workers involved in the project.

Hyun Jeong-eun, chairwoman of the Hyundai Group, agreed with North Korea during her visit to Pyongyang in early November to start in May sightseeing tours of the North’s 2,744-meter mountain, located on its border with China. A group of South Korean government officials and researchers have conducted an on-site inspection.

Mount Paektu will be the third inter-Korean tourism project organized by Hyundai Asan, a unit of the Hyundai Group in charge of North Korea business. North Korea opened its border city of Kaesong to South Korean tourists early this week, following the launch of a tourism program to the North’s east coast mountain of Geumgang nine years ago.

The Mount Paektu and Kaesong tour projects are part of agreements South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il reached during their summit that sought to boost economic cooperation and reduce tension.

Click on the image to see a larger picture. Google Earth Coordinates:   38.374935°, 127.103343°

As many readers know, I have been mapping out North Korea on Google Earth for some time.  I have found numerous propaganda slogans displayed on hills and mountainsides throughout the country, but this recent discovery is by far the best example.  I would like to see this carving from the ground, so if anyone has pictures, please send them to me.

Institute for Far Eatern Studies
NK Brief No. 07-12-5-2
12/7/2007

Kim Yang-gon, head of the DPRK Workers’ Party Unification Front department, led a North Korean delegation to the South, and after two nights and three days, returned to the North on December 1. The last time a North Korean head of the KWP’s Unification Front department visited the South was seven years ago, when, in September 2000, Kim Yong-soon visited Cheju Island. Government authorities are saying that Kim’s trip to the South was publicized in order to facilitate the smooth implementation of the 2007 inter-Korean Summit Declaration

On the day Kim’s delegation arrived, the group visited the Songdo Free Trade Zone, where he and his delegation were moved by a presentation by officials explaining the value of an Inchon-Kaesong-Haeju ‘West Sea Belt’. On the second day, the group visited Daewoo shipyards in Koje, the Busan Customs House, and other facilities.

The trip was reminiscent of when DPRK Cabinet Prime Minister Kim Young-il led a group of more than thirty North Korean entrepreneurs to Vietnam last October, spending four nights and five days walking around tourist areas, an export-processing zone, port facilities, and other industrial areas.

The Unification Front department is but one department within the Workers’ Party responsible for policies toward the South and other countries. Unlike the foreign liaison department, Office 35, and the strategy office, the Unification Front operates openly, but distribution of propaganda leaflets, management of pro-North groups, enticement of overseas Koreans, and other activities are also underway.

The trip South by Kim’s delegation happened just before ROK presidential elections, and highlights the fact that there is barely a month left before North Korea must have its nuclear program frozen and fully disclosed. Kim’s trip to the ROK was promoted and publicized from the beginning, but little information was given to the press, other than coverage of tours of economic facilities.

Daily NK
Sohn Kwang Joo
12/6/2007

It was in Yanji where I met the 25-year-old defector, Kim Soo Mee. She was born and raised in the mountains that separated her village from larger towns in Hamkyung Province.

Because of her mother’s ferver for educating her children, Kim Soo Mee was able to attend the First Senior Middle School, a specialized school for gifted students, following her timely graduation from primary school.

When she was 12 years old, the national famine greatly affected her town. People scattered about the streets looking for food, and dead bodies could be seen everywhere. Many students stopped going to school and instead spent their days searching for food. However, Soo Mee’s mother urged her to continue with her studies. With her mother’s encouragement, Soo Mee gained acceptance into a prestigious university in North Korea.

She received good grades at the university and had high hopes of working in a well-established company in Pyongyang. However, due to her family background, she was forced to remain and work in the small rural town.

The living conditions in North Korea’s capitol are surprisingly different compared to the local cities.

Kim Soo Mee explained about the corruption surrounding university admissions in North Korea. “Only children who grow up in rich families can be admitted to the universities in Pyongyang, as huge sums of money are needed to bribe institution administrators. For example, if a student wants to attend Kim Il Sung University, often times a family will pay upwards of 1,000 dollars just to afford the child a chance of getting accepted. Pyongyang Medical College and Kim Hyong Jik College of Education usually require approximately 500 dollars in bribes.”

I was curious to ask, “Can a student bribe their way into a school even if he or she does not have good grades?”

She explained that such students are instructed to leave certain indicating marks on their test paper at the college entrance examination as a way for evaluators to discern whether the student offered a bribe or not. The evaluators rank the students by the amount in bribes their families have paid, and then rank them according to their family background.

Her college life was unbearable because she had no financial power or a strong family background to support her.

385 days out of her college years were spent practicing for the 40 seconds of the military parade it would take to pass by Kim Jong Il’s podium. The average student spends almost two and a half years preparing for national events such as military parades and agricultural support activities that take place in the Spring and Fall. These hardships led Soo Mee and many of her fellow students to dream of going abroad.

The most popular jobs after graduation include diplomatic posts and working in foreign currency-making companies. She went on to explain that it is now undesirable to work as a discharged soldier or a member of the Party.

As for the common perception of Kim Jong Il among North Korean youths, she maintained that “through propaganda, the people are made to believe that the General (Kim Jong Il) ‘s meals consist of only a few rice balls and salted radish. However, I was shocked to find out that preparation of the General’s meals costs 1,000 dollars.” This information was told to her by a researcher from Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il’s Longevity Institute.

Most of the intellectual students have an unfavorable opinion about Kim Jong Il, but the general public does not see the truth behind his lies.

“In the movie, ‘Geumjin River’ (2004), there is a line that states, ‘We are poor because the heavens took away our Supreme Leader (Kim Il Sung) in wrath because the people did not respectfully take care of him.’ The authorities are currently insisting that our country is now poor because of imperialistic pressures and economic sanctions imposed on us by America.”

I asked, “What do the Pyongyang citizens think about the future of North Korea?”

“Most think that we should open and reform our state, but they can never mention the words ‘open’ and ‘reform’ in public,” she replied. “The authorities often proclaim that we can attain wealth by properly following the Military-First Policy and by establishing a strong economic society. But the problem is they do not tell us how to do so. The only people not doing business in the jangmadang are cadres of the Party, generals of the Army and National Security or Safety Agents; they maintain favorable living conditions by collecting bribes from the citizens.”

International Crisis Group
Asia Briefing N°71
4 December 2007

North Korea’s relations with Russia have been marked by unrealistic expectations and frequent disappointments but common interests have prevented a rupture. The neighbours’ history as dissatisfied allies goes back to the founding of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) with Soviet support and the Red Army’s installation of Kim Il-sung as leader. However, the Soviets were soon written out of the North’s official ideology. The Sino-Soviet split established a pattern of Kim playing Russian and Chinese leaders off against each other to extract concessions, including the nuclear equipment and technology at the heart of the current crisis. Since Vladimir Putin visited Pyongyang in 2000, diplomatic initiatives have come undone and grandiose economic projects have faltered. Russia is arguably the least effective participant in the six-party nuclear talks.

The relationship between Putin’s Russia and Kim Jong-il’s North Korea has disappointed both sides. Putin has mostly been unable to assert himself as a prominent player in North East Asia, and North Korea has received neither the unalloyed political support nor the economic backing it seeks. Russia has more influence in the region than it did in the 1990s but not enough to change the equation on the Korean peninsula. Opportunities for economic cooperation have been limited, mostly by Pyongyang’s refusal to open its economy but also by Russia’s fixation on overly ambitious schemes that at best may take decades to realise. China’s more nimble investors have moved in much faster than Russia’s state-owned behemoths.

Moscow has been conservative in its political dealings with Pyongyang, playing a minor but thus far positive role at the six-party talks consistent with its concerns about proliferation and the risks of DPRK collapse. It regards the denuclearisation of the peninsula as in its interests, has relatively few commercial opportunities in the North and considers its relations with the other nations in the exercise more important in every way than its ties to Pyongyang.

While Russia has shown interest in building energy and transport links through the North, little progress has been made. Rebuilding railways on the peninsula will cost enormous sums, and overcoming the many obstacles will require years of negotiation. Investments have been hindered by the North’s unreliability and history of default on loans. Russia may eventually have to forgive billions of dollars of debt the North cannot repay. Energy is a major mutual interest but pipelines across the North are unlikely to be built soon; Japan and China are expected to be the main markets for Russian energy, while South Korea is reluctant to become dependent on the North for its supply. 

Pyongyang wants Russia to balance China’s growing influence but appears to recognise that Moscow will never provide the level of support it once did. The North has been keen to discuss economic cooperation but has lacked the political will to reform its economy sufficiently for foreign investment, even from a country as inured to corruption and government interference as Russia. It is equally interested in technical and scientific aid. Russian technology, equipment, and “know-how” have featured prominently in the history of both Koreas, and Pyongyang still seeks to resolve its economic problems by scientific and technical solutions. But there is unlikely to be much growth in bilateral cooperation unless the nuclear crisis is resolved peacefully, and the North opens its economy. 

This briefing completes Crisis Group’s series on the relationships between North Korea and those of its neighbours – China, South Korea, Japan and Russia – involved in the six-party nuclear talks. It examines Russia’s aims and ambitions in the region, as well as the responses from North Korea and is based on both interviews in Russia, Central Asia and South Korea and analysis of Russian and North Korean statements.

Asia Times
Ting-I Tsai
12/5/2007

The likelihood that North Korea’s nuclear disarmament will be completed just a year after Pyongyang announced that it had tested a nuclear bomb has been widely welcomed around the world, with the exception, perhaps, of China.

There are increasing concerns among Chinese academics that Pyongyang’s actions are hurting Chinese interests. Last October’s nuclear test not only unmasked the contradictions of a relationship frequently described as being “as close as lips and teeth”. It may have led to a further downturn in bilateral ties.

As the host nation of the Six Party Talks and once North Korea’s closest ally, China has reacted to the prospects for disarmament in a decidedly cool manner, with its North Korea experts debating how Pyongyang will harm China’s interests.

“There is no doubt that Pyongyang will create conflicts between China and the United States once it improves its relationship with Washington,” said Zhang Liangui, professor of international strategic research at the Central Party School in Beijing. He predicted that it was only a matter of time before Pyongyang took revenge on Beijing for China’s vote to impose sanctions on North Korea at the United Nations last October.

Zhang Yushan, researcher at the Jilin Academy of Social Sciences, however, doubts that North Korea could develop a close relationship with the US in the upcoming months.

After a year of dialog, North Korea agreed in October to shut its main nuclear reactor and provide detailed descriptions of all its nuclear programs by the end of the year. Furthermore, it has pledged not to transfer nuclear materials, technology or knowledge to other countries. Pyongyang fulfilled one of those promises in July by shutting down the reactor in Yongbyon. It has yet to make any substantial moves toward providing a description of its nuclear programs.

Chinese academics who question whether North Korea’s pledges to completely abandon its nuclear program are sincere also worry about Washington’s lack of determination to shape a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula after having received Pyongyang’s assurance that it would not transfer nuclear materials, technology or knowledge to other countries.

“China has always seen North Korea’s nuclear weapon issue as the Americans’ problem and has never adopted any strategic plan for itself in the Six Party Talks, which have led to where we are now,” said Jin Linbo, a research professor at the Beijing-based China Institute of International Studies. Jin argued that Beijing might have gained nothing but a security threat from its neighbor by hosting the talks.

What has particularly frustrated Beijing has been North Korea’s selfish neglect of China’s interests. The Central Party School’s Zhang noted that the latest developments have led some Chinese academics who originally had sympathies for North Korea to change their attitudes.

“Some of them have started to argue that North Korea is outrageous,” Zhang said.

Scoot Snyder, senior associate at the Washington based Asia Foundation, noted that North Korea’s traditional strategy is to play larger parties against each other; having found their country over-reliant on China for critical inputs, North Korean leaders would certainly like to stimulate a competition between China and the United States and South Korea to see who can most effectively win influence in Pyongyang. He pointed out in particular that DPRK negotiator Kim Kye-gwan’s public criticism of the United States for relying too much on China to carry out its Korea policy, US negotiator Christopher Hill’s sudden visit to Pyongyang without passing through Beijing, and the “three- or four-party” phrase in the inter-Korean summit declaration had all caused speculation and concern in Beijing.

In a study titled, “How North Korea threatens China’s interests“, conducted by Gregory Moore, assistant professor of political science at the St. Petersburg, Florida-based Eckerd College, the start of the decline in PRC–DPRK amity coincided quite closely with the rise of Kim Jong-Il in the late 1980s and the early 1990s. It was sealed with the passing of Kim Il-Sung in 1994, and contact between Beijing and Pyongyang broke down almost completely between 1994 and 1999.

Kim Jung-il, Moore suggested in his study, revealed his willingness to affront China in 1990-91 by conducting a dialog with China’s rival Taiwan and making a deal in which Pyongyang would have been paid to accept Taiwan’s nuclear waste. He played the same “Taipei card” again in 1996 when Beijing offered one-tenth of the grain that Pyongyang had asked for. In 1997, North Korea again opened discussions with Taiwan on direct flights between the island’s capital of Taipei and Pyongyang after another quarrel with China. At the time, Chinese agricultural experts publicly encouraged Pyongyang to adopt Chinese-style reforms, which led Pyongyang to call Deng Xiaoping a traitor to socialism. That jibe prompted Beijing to mull cutting off food aid to North Korea.

Other factors have also caused the relationship to sour. North Korea’s admission to US diplomat James Kelly in October 2002 that it was indeed pursuing a uranium enrichment program, its plan to establish the free trade zone and gambling city of Sinuiju, its counterfeiting of US$100 bills and Chinese currency, and China’s cutting off of an oil pipeline and deploying troops to the border in 2003 have all caused friction. In addition, rumors have surfaced that Pyongyang’s Chinese-built Taen Friendship Glass Factory resulted from Kim Jung-il’s flirtation with the “Taipei card”.

According to a Pyongyang-based foreign diplomat, bilateral relations “are mainly close in commercial and economic matters, especially with neighboring Liaoning province” in China. Bilateral trade in the first three quarters of 2007 reached US$1.44 billion, representing 16.6 growth year-on-year. The Chinese are reportedly operating three major coal mining sites in North Korea, although related government agencies in Pyongyang have denied this.

It remains to be seen how Pyongyang will handle its relationship with China. But both governments have made efforts to demonstrate their friendship.

On November 26, Liu Xiaoming, China’s ambassador to the DPRK, delivered a speech to students at Kim Il-sung University in Pyongyang, sharing the success of the Chinese Communist Party’s 17th congress, the significant accomplishments of its 29-year-long period of liberalization and reform, and China’s appreciation of its historical friendship with North Korea. The speech, which the embassy described as “a new page in the bilateral friendship”, came shortly after the visit of Liu Yunshan, member of the Secretariat of the Communist Party of China’s Central Committee and head of the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee, to Pyongyang on October 29. In July, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Yang Jiechi made North Korea the first nation he visited after taking office.

In return, Pyongyang authorities issued a series of stamps featuring the 2008 Beijing Olympics in mid-November, and Kim Jung-il paid a visit to China’s embassy on the occasion of the Chinese lantern-festival holiday Yuan Xiao Jie.

In the eyes of South Korea, which has aggressively sought to improve its ties with the North, ties between China and North Korea remain unquestionably close.

Haksoon Paik, senior fellow at the Seoul-based Sejong Institute, argued that the US-PRC relationship is the key factor shaping East Asian international politics, and North Korea has simply “tried to just find some breathing space in between”.

Having dealt with North Koreans for more than a half-century, Chinese academics are now preparing for North Korea’s eventual tilt away from Beijing because of the landscape change in East Asian politics.

“For the upcoming decade, the relationships among the six-party-talk members will put the US, Japan and North Korea on one side, and China, South Korea and Russia on the other,” predicted a Chinese expert on North Korea, who spoke under the condition of anonymity.