Chinese truck convoys crowd main bridge to North Korea

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The main bridge connecting North Korea has been packed bumper-to-bumper with Chinese trucks over the past week, indicating that relations between Pyongyang and Beijing are warming up and that trade is picking up swiftly, residents in China told Radio Free Asia.

The Sino-Korean Friendship Bridge spans the Yalu River border, connecting the Chinese city of Dandong with North Korea’s Sinuiju. Most, if not all, official overland trade between the two countries transits this bridge. 

A resident of Dandong  told RFA that over the past few days more than 100 trucks crossed the bridge each day.

“The frozen relationship between China and North Korea seems to be gradually thawing,” he said. “You can see that by looking at the number of vehicles traveling between North Korea and China through the Sino-Korean Friendship Bridge.”

Over the past few months, North Korea has been opportunistically cleaving to Russia, which needs all the allies it can get as Moscow’s war with Ukraine isolates it from the rest of the international community. North Korea’s relations with China have thus taken somewhat of a backseat. 

But economically, North Korea depends heavily on China.

The large daily convoys are drawing spectators who enjoy watching such a massive number of trucks cross the bridge all at once, the resident said.

“The reason why the truck movement has increased these days is because fabrics, materials, and equipment are being transported to North Korea to produce clothing,” he said. “This used to be produced in China. This is newly developed news that I learned through a Chinese businessman who has ties to North Korean officials.”

He said the trucks go out in the daytime and unload about 40 tons of cargo each. They then return at nighttime.

Flood recovery efforts

A lot of the goods being transported are needed in flood recovery efforts, another Dandong resident said. In late July and August, heavy rains caused the Yalu River to overflow its banks, damaging communities and even submerging several inhabited islands.

“Most of the items loaded on the vehicles are construction materials needed to restore areas affected by recent floods,” he said. “Additionally, there are lots of raw materials being brought in so that North Koreans can make products that were previously made by North Korean workers in China.”  

Previously North Korea would send large numbers of workers into China to earn foreign currency for the cash-strapped regime. But all North Korean workers were supposed to have returned home by 2019 according to international nuclear sanctions.

The second resident said that the same kind of work is being done, just in North Korea instead of in China.

“In the past, some Chinese companies with a legal address in Pyongyang produced clothing and electronic products in North Korea using Chinese materials and then changed them into Chinese products,” he said.

In addition to sanctions deterring dispatched workers, the mood inside North Korea is also changing, according to the second resident. The North Korean government is also cautious to send workers abroad because it exposes them to the outside world and makes them less easy to control as they learn about life outside the top-down controlled North Korean society.

The second resident said that it is difficult to export products labeled as made in North Korea due to sanctions against North Korea, so products made to order in North Korea are converted to products made in China.

“It is impossible to count the number of vehicles lined up on the Sino-Korean Friendship Bridge, but at one glance, more than 100 vehicles are transporting goods to North Korea every day,” he said. “This is the result of both North Korea and China agreeing on various exchanges from the standpoint of mutual interest.”

Translated by Claire S. Lee and Leejin J. Chung. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.