PRC-DPRK: NK BORDER-CROSSERS, HUMAN SMUGGLING,

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 SHENYANG 000205

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

DEPARTMENT FOR EAP/CM, EAP/K, PRM

E.O. 12958: DECL: TEN YEARS AFTER KOREAN UNIFICATION
TAGS: PREF PREL PINR KWMN KN KS CH
SUBJECT: PRC-DPRK: NK BORDER-CROSSERS, HUMAN SMUGGLING,
DRUG CRACKDOWN, NEW TUMEN-ONSUNG TRADE ZONE

REF: A. (A) SHENYANG 196

B. (B) SHENYANG 145

C. (C) SHENYANG 126

Classified By: CONSUL GENERAL STEPHEN B. WICKMAN.
REASONS: 1.4(b)/(d).


1. (C) SUMMARY: The number of North Korean border-crossers
entering China in 2007 thus far looks to be roughly on par
with 2005/2006 levels despite the DPRK's agricultural
difficulties and natural disasters earlier this year,
according to a Liaoning scholar engaged in internal, state-
sponsored research on the issue. Repatriation levels look
likely to bear no major fluctuations either, says the
scholar, whose interviews with detained border-crossers
indicate that ill-intentioned "snakeheads" in certain cases
have sold unsuspecting North Korean women they have
smuggled across the border into forced marriages with
Chinese men. On the ground, borderland officials claim, as
they have for most of the year, that they are encountering
relatively few North Korean border-crossers in their
jurisdictions. Official media continue to publicize,
uncharacteristically, the PRC's "increasing" efforts this
year to crack down on the "long-term, organized" smuggling
of illegal narcotics across the PRC-DPRK border into
northeast China. More positively, PRC and DPRK officials
have finally selected the site for a new border-trade zone
near Tumen/Onsung Gun. END SUMMARY.

MORE INTERNAL PRC BORDER-CROSSER RESEARCH
--------------

2. (C) One of a only a few scholars in Liaoning Province
researching North Korean border-crosser issues on behalf of
the provincial government expects the number of North
Koreans entering China in 2007 to be roughly on par with
2005-2006 levels. LU Chao (strictly protect),a Liaoning
Academy of Social Sciences (LASS) specialist on North Korea
and PRC-DPRK border issues, told Poloff on October 18 that
he suspects 2007 may yet see "slightly fewer" numbers than
in 2006, notwithstanding this year's agricultural
difficulties and natural disasters in the DPRK.
Repatriation levels look to bear no major fluctuations
either, according to Lu, a longtime Post contact and former
IV grantee who has engaged in internal ("neibu"),state-
sponsored research on North Korean border-crossers for at
least several years now. (NOTE: In recent years, Lu has
occasionally collaborated with a small coterie of
similarly-tasked counterparts at the Jilin Academy of
Social Sciences (JASS) to study North Korean border-
crossers and related PRC-DPRK borderland issues, according
to JASS researcher ZHOU Weiping (strictly protect),one of
China's leading specialists on North Korean border-crossers
(ref A). Zhou told Poloff in Changchun on October 12 that
the Jilin provincial government, via JASS, has actually
funded some of Lu's Liaoning-based research on issues like
PRC-DPRK intermarriage in the borderlands. END NOTE.)


3. (C) Lu's research methodology largely mirrors that of
JASS' Zhou Weiping, and he too has been permitted to
interview North Korean border-crossers at both of the PRC
borderland detention centers--one in Dandong (across the
Yalu River from Sinuiju),the other farther north along the
border in the Yanbian Ethnic Korean Autonomous Prefecture's
Tumen, Jilin Province--that hold North Koreans before they
are ultimately repatriated to the DPRK. Lu said he has
typically found "relatively few" border-crossers being held
at Dandong's detention center: usually "three or four," on
"rare" occasions "seven or eight." By contrast, Lu said he
has usually found Tumen's to have "a lot" more--sometimes
"30, 40 or 50" at a time.


4. (C) "Most," Lu noted, are female. Some cross the border
on their own, while others arrange to have themselves
smuggled out of the DPRK and into China, he explained. Lu
said his interviews revealed that while most knew what lay
ahead, "a portion" of the female border-crossers had been
"tricked" by "snakeheads" (shetou) who smuggled the women
into China, usually promising (false) employment
opportunities. Once across the border, the women were sold
against their will into marriages in remote rural China

SHENYANG 00000205 002 OF 003


villages, Lu said. Lu noted that he had encountered some
cases in which "more educated" women managed to escape,
typically to ethnic Korean communities where the women were
subsequently able to find work. Lu said his research
suggests that some of the "snakeheads" are former North
Korean border-crossers themselves that that have
naturalized in South Korea but have since returned to the
PRC-DPRK border, where they are able to make use of their
previous knowledge/connections to smuggle others for a
profit.

BORDER OFFICIALS ON FLOWS, DPRK BORDER TIGHTENING
-------------- --------------

5. (C) PRC border officials continue to claim, as they have
for most of the year, that they are encountering relatively
few North Korean border-crossers in their jurisdictions.
CUI Zhenglong (protect),the Director of Tumen's Foreign
Affairs Office (FAO),told Poloff in Yanji on October 10
that Tumen had seen "just a few" border-crossers detained
over the past few months. Officials in southwestern
Yanbian echoed Cui's remarks later in the month. HAN
Xianji (protect),Mayor of the key Yanbian border locality
of Helong, told Poloff on October 23 that the DPRK's
stricter border enforcement this year lay behind the
relatively low numbers his jurisdiction had seen of late.


6. (C) Contacts were skeptical of media reports about PRC
plans to tighten its border with the DPRK in advance
of/during the 2008 Olympics. Tumen FAO Director Cui--a
frank contact who worked for nearly twenty years as a
border guard and still maintains close ties, both formal
and informal, with the local People's Armed Police (PAP)
border corps--said he had not, to date, heard of any such
plans, though he did not necessarily exclude the
possibility. He added that the North Korean side (not the
Chinese side) was taking additional measures to further
tighten its side of the border during the PRC's 17th Party
Congress, lest any sort of border incident cause a well-
publicized embarrassment to the DPRK. LASS' Lu Chao echoed
Cui's comments, noting also that he has been tasked by the
Liaoning government to study Olympic security measures for
the province, which will host some soccer events in
Shenyang.

CRACKDOWN ON NORTH KOREAN NARCOTICS CONTINUES
--------------

7. (SBU) The putative tightening of the North Korean side
of the PRC-DPRK border seems to have done little to staunch
appreciably the flow of illegal narcotics from the DPRK
into northeast China, which a range of contacts describe as
an ongoing source of heartburn in heavier-hit Jilin and
Liaoning provinces. Official media continue to take the
unusual step of openly publicizing the PRC's "increasing"
efforts this year to crack down on what they describe as
the "long-term, organized" smuggling of drugs--particularly
methamphetamines--across the PRC-DPRK border into northeast
China.


8. (U) In Jilin, state media reported last month that the
province's border guard corps had made at least 16 major
busts of transnational drug smugglers in 2007, netting 80
suspects and 12.5 kilograms of seizures, primarily in
Yanbian and the Baishan area, both bordering the DPRK.
Liaoning authorities earlier this month publicized a late-
August 2007 seizure of a half-kilogram of methamphetamines
smuggled in from a "certain country outside China's
borders": smugglers cleared customs in Dandong and arranged
for the transport of the narcotics all the way to Shenyang
before being arrested by police. At least one official PRC
press report has explicitly linked several busts this year
with the arrest of a group of ROK, DPRK and Chinese
nationals allegedly involved in smuggling North Koreans
through third countries into the ROK.

PROGRESS ON NEW PRC-DPRK TRADE SITE?
--------------

9. (C) After major North Korean delays, about which PRC
officials in Tumen have long groused (e.g., refs B and C),
Pyongyang last month finally approved plans for a barter-
trade zone near Tumen/Onsung County, to be built using

SHENYANG 00000205 003 OF 003


Chinese funds. Tumen Vice Mayor YAN Zhihong (strictly
protect) and Tumen FAO Director Cui told Poloff on October
10 that both sides this month finally identified the site
for what will be known as the Tumen-Onsung County Commodity
Exchange Market ("Wuzi Jiaoliu Shichang"). The site,
upstream from Tumen's railroad port to Namyang, DPRK, was
selected because it is far enough removed from residential
areas but still close enough to be convenient for traders.
If opened, it will be the first such market operating along
the PRC-DPRK border, according to Cui, who was about to
return once again to the DPRK to continue negotiating the
details of what still remains but a "general framework" for
the market's activities.


10. (C) Farther away from the border, trade officials in
Jilin's provincial capital of Changchun sounded less
upbeat when queried about the zone. On October 12, GUO
Qinghong (protect),Director of the Jilin government's Port
Office, and ZHENG Wei, Vice Director of the Jilin Bureau of
Commerce's Foreign Trade Division, acknowledged the ongoing
negotiations, but they pointed to Jilin's border-trade zone
with Russia as a venture likely to be more lucrative by
comparison. Formal Jilin-DPRK trade reached only USD 220
million last year--below Jilin's target--and is expected to
grow to USD 250-260 million in 2007, according to CHENG Ke
(protect),a deputy head of Jilin Province's Bureau of
Commerce. But Cheng and his colleagues seemed skeptical
that the value of goods exchanged at the planned
Tumen/Onsung site, if ever operational, would amount to any
significant fraction of overall formal Jilin-DPRK trade.
WICKMAN