‘Dead Border’ is Price of China Support for North Korea Regime

‘Dead Border’ Is Price of China Support for North Korea Regime

By Bloomberg News

June 15 (Bloomberg) -- Business is slow at sportswear maker Li Ning Co.’s store in Tumen, China, says Wang Qian, who sells World Cup-themed athletic shoes emblazoned with German and Italian flags.

Across the Tumen River is North Korea, whose closed economy discourages growth in northeastern China, the country’s industrial heartland as recently as two decades ago. Tumen’s annual per-capita gross domestic product, at 16,000 yuan ($2,342), is two-thirds of the national average. Young adults, including ethnic Koreans, are leaving for better opportunities, especially in South Korea.

“Most of the people here are over 40, and they’re not the type who buy a lot of sportswear,” said Wang, 22.

More than 70 million Chinese who live in provinces on the 1,415-kilometer (880-mile) North Korean border are paying a price for their government’s 60-year alliance with the totalitarian regime in Pyongyang.

Trade with South Korea, China’s fourth-biggest commerce partner, is routed toward coastal cities, and projects including a development

zone on the Tumen River delta -- where China, North Korea and Russia meet -- may languish unless Kim Jong Il allows some economic freedom, according to Jin Qiangyi at Yanbian University about 50 kilometers from Tumen.

“The border is a dead border,” Jin, an ethnic Korean and director of the Institute of Northeast Asian Studies, said in a telephone interview. While China is encouraging North Korea to open up, it “is refusing. It is very difficult.”

Communist Regime

One reason is China’s economic and political support for North Korea’s communist regime, which began when China came to North Korea’s aid in the 1950-1953 Korean war. China accounted for 79 percent of the North’s 2009 international trade, according to the Seoul-based Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency. China provides almost 90 percent of energy imports and 45 percent of the country’s food, according to a July 2009 report by the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations.

Two-way commerce between China and North Korea, at $720 million from January through April, was still about 1 percent of the $63 billion total between China and South Korea, according to Chinese trade data. That gap is evident in Tumen, a city of 136,000 across the river from the North Korean town of Namyang.

A group of about 20 peasants could be seen in Namyang through binoculars on June 4, tending a rocky field on the slope of a deforested mountain. A lone cow grazed in the marsh near the river, which flows to the Sea of Japan about 90 kilometers away.

Border Shootings

Two men ran across the 69-year-old two-lane bridge into China, glancing quickly back at the North Korean side. Hours earlier, three Chinese citizens had been shot dead by North Korean guards near a similar crossing hundreds of miles to the southwest.

The guards have been “more tense” in recent weeks, said a 41-year-old Tumen woman hawking North

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Korean money and pins. They have held up transit of Chinese traders as tensions between the two Koreas rose following the March 26 sinking of a South Korean warship, said the woman, who gave only her surname, Li, because she said she feared being punished for divulging information to a foreign reporter.

North Korea said May 26 it would sever all ties with the South following a report by a South Korean-led international panel concluding a North Korean torpedo sank the ship, killing 46 sailors.

Near-Empty Streets

Tumen’s streets were largely devoid of traffic, and a rock band from the provincial capital of Changchun played to only a scattering of onlookers steps from the Li Ning store.

Shopkeepers had a ready explanation: emigration to South Korea by the region’s ethnic Korean population. More than 92 percent, or 1.78 million, live in Jilin, Heilongjiang and Liaoning provinces, with the heaviest concentration in the prefecture encompassing Tumen.

South Korean statistics back up their claim. There were 363,087 ethnic Koreans from China living legally in South Korea last year, compared with 310,485 in 2007, according to the Ministry of Justice.

Salaries in South Korea are one attraction. A 45-year-old taxi driver surnamed Zhang said his wife obtained a forged marriage certificate showing she was married to a South Korean. She works in a factory there, making air conditioners and earning the equivalent of 10,000 yuan a month, five times his wages. She saves 80,000 yuan a year and plans to return to China soon, he said. Zhang didn’t want to use his full name because of his wife’s illegal means of obtaining a visa.

Better Business

“There’s nothing to do around here,” said Sun Xiaoyu, a Tumen shopkeeper selling South Korean-made snacks and drinks. “Business would be much better if we bordered South Korea.”

North Korea’s 2008 GDP was about 2 percent of South Korea’s $930.9 billion total, according to the most recent data from South Korea’s central bank.

China has targeted the region for accelerated development in a program called “Revitalize the Old Northeastern Industrial Base.” One goal is encouraging technology companies to open manufacturing facilities, replacing jobs lost a decade ago when state-owned plants were closed in China’s transition to a more market-driven economy.

China also should encourage peaceful Korean reunification to help spur growth, Jin said, although the increasing tension makes that a distant prospect right now.

“We must just wait,” he said.

--Michael Forsythe. With assistance from Bomi Lim in Seoul, Stephen Engle in Beijing and Inyoung Hwang in New York. Editors: Melinda Grenier, Ken Fireman

To contact the reporter on this story: Michael Forsythe in Beijing at [email protected]

Last Updated: June 14, 2010 16:04 EDT

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‘Dead Border’ is Price of China Support for North Korea Regime