Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
10SHENYANG21
2010-02-12 10:16:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Consulate Shenyang
Cable title:  

PRC-DPRK BORDER: AMCIT CROSSERS, TRADE PUSH,

Tags:  CASC CH ECON ELTN ETRD KN KS PGOV PHUM PINR 
pdf how-to read a cable
VZCZCXRO2158
RR RUEHCN RUEHGH
DE RUEHSH #0021/01 0431016
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
R 121016Z FEB 10
FM AMCONSUL SHENYANG
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 8978
INFO RUEHOO/CHINA POSTS COLLECTIVE
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC 0260
RHMFISS/COMUSKOREA J2 SEOUL KOR
RUEKJCS/DIA WASHDC 0205
RHHJJAA/JICPAC PEARL HARBOR HI 0095
RUCGEVC/JOINT STAFF WASHDC 0145
RHEHAAA/NSC WASHDC
RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHDC 0201
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 SHENYANG 000021 

SIPDIS

DEPARTMENT FOR CA/OCS/EAP, EAP/K, EAP/CM, INR

E.O. 12958: DECL: TEN YEARS AFTER KOREAN UNIFICATION
TAGS: CASC CH ECON ELTN ETRD KN KS PGOV PHUM PINR
PREF, PREL
SUBJECT: PRC-DPRK BORDER: AMCIT CROSSERS, TRADE PUSH,
BORDER SMUGGLING, REGIONAL GROWTH

REF: A. SHENYANG 3

B. 09 SHENYANG 219

C. 09 SHENYANG 167

Classified By: Consul General Stephen B. Wickman. Reasons 1.4(b/d).

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 SHENYANG 000021

SIPDIS

DEPARTMENT FOR CA/OCS/EAP, EAP/K, EAP/CM, INR

E.O. 12958: DECL: TEN YEARS AFTER KOREAN UNIFICATION
TAGS: CASC CH ECON ELTN ETRD KN KS PGOV PHUM PINR
PREF, PREL
SUBJECT: PRC-DPRK BORDER: AMCIT CROSSERS, TRADE PUSH,
BORDER SMUGGLING, REGIONAL GROWTH

REF: A. SHENYANG 3

B. 09 SHENYANG 219

C. 09 SHENYANG 167

Classified By: Consul General Stephen B. Wickman. Reasons 1.4(b/d).


1. (C) SUMMARY: Contacts along the PRC-DPRK border profess
ignorance of reports about a second American citizen in
North Korea. Robert Park's crossing raised a few
bureaucratic eyebrows, but there seems to be no backlash.
DPRK traders and groups seem to be interacting more publicly
with foreign business partners than in the past. Most
sections of the PRC-DPRK border show clear evidence of
continued, regular cross-border traffic. China's push to
develop this dead-end corner of Northeast China is fully
underway, in spite of DPRK and Russian recalcitrance. END
SUMMARY.


2. (U) ConGenOff visited local contacts along the PRC-DPRK
border in the Yalu River valley and the Yanbian Korean
Autonomous Prefecture February 3-11. Stops included
Liaoning Province's Dandong, as well as Ji'an, Linjiang,
Changbai Korean Autonomous County, and the Yanbian Korean
Autonomous Prefecture, all in Jilin Province.

BORDER CONTACTS UNAWARE OF SECOND AMCIT IN THE DPRK
-------------- --------------


3. (C) None of our border contacts in Dandong, Ji'an, or
Yanbian seemed to be aware of the DPRK's late January KCNA
report that a second American had voluntarily (and
illegally) crossed into North Korea. A contact in Dandong
told us on February 3 that he was only aware of a handful of
South Koreans who had illegally entered North Korea in the
last few years, but no Americans. One of our Amcit NGO
contacts in Tumen told us on February 11 that he had heard
of a "South Korean" who had crossed into North Korea but he

had heard no rumors about a second American (NOTE: Shenyang
ROK Consulate officials told ConGenOffs on January 12 that
news reports about a South Korean male illegally entering
the DPRK on January 8 were true.)

ROBERT PARK AFTERMATH: SOME SCRUTINY, FEW EFFECTS
-------------- --------------


4. (C) All of our contacts knew about the Robert Park case
(Ref A),both prior to and after his February 5 release, and
asked questions about the effect of the incident on U.S.-
DPRK relations. A Sino-Korean Catholic priest from Helong
confided that in the immediate aftermath of Park's crossing,
the Yanbian Prefectural Public Security Bureau and the
Religious Affairs Bureau had convened an emergency
"political re-education" seminar for local religious
leaders, reminding them about Chinese laws and the danger of
interacting with foreigners. The priest brushed off
Congenoff's concern about any backlash saying he had been
through much worse in the past and that he believed that
today's local Chinese authorities were merely "going through
the motions." He was unaware of any other backlash.
Another Catholic priest in Yanji told us he had not been
"invited" to the political re-education seminar, nor was he
aware of any backlash.


5. (C) Religious contacts in Yanbian said they were
initially optimistic that Robert Park was a man of the faith
who would martyr himself in North Korea. They said they
were severely disappointed that he had left North Korea
reportedly singing the praises of DPRK religious freedom.
Our Yanji priest said that Robert Park's actions
and the "extremist dialogue" in his pre-crossing media
outreach was just the latest in a long line of attempts by
South Korean, Japanese, and Western religious NGOs to
gravitate to the PRC-DPRK border with the goal of "helping"
DPRK defectors. He said that the dynamics of missionary
funding and donation solicitation drove many of these groups
to "manufacture conflict" with the Chinese authorities in
order to tug at the heartstrings of Western- and South
Korea-based donors. He cited the NGO practice of locating
safe houses and orphanages in not-so-safe and very
conspicuous sites overlooking the PRC-DPRK border, so that
journalists and foreigners could visit and "sense the

SHENYANG 00000021 002 OF 004


danger." By comparison, others in the business of moving
DPRK defectors tried to locate safe houses in remote areas
of Heilongjiang and Inner Mongolia to avoid attention.

DANDONG: DPRK TRADERS AND OFFICIALS POUNDING THE STREETS
-------------- --------------


6. (C) For all the talk about frozen trade between the DPRK
and China, the Dandong Land Port on February 4 was the
busiest that ConGenOff has seen in seven visits over the
last year (NOTE: A Dandong trader contact attributed some of
this to last-minute, pre-Lunar New Year account
settlements.) The land port's staging lot was almost full,
packed with Chinese and North Korean vehicles. There were
many new vehicles having no license plates, including 10-12
brand-new Build Your Dreams (BYD) sedans, several European
luxury vehicles, heavy machinery, and jeeps awaiting
shipment to North Korea. Many of the trucks were loaded
down with what appeared to be construction materials headed
for North Korea. At night, North Korea's Sinuiju was alit
with more light than in a previous fall visit and the
normally darkened DPRK side of the PRC-DPRK Friendship
Bridge was lit up with the same rainbow Lunar New Year
treatment as the Chinese side (NOTE: The lights were
probably in honor of Kim Jong-il's impending birthday
festivities.)


7. (C) We encountered more North Korean delegations than
ever before, on express buses, on trains, in hotels, and at
restaurants, moving around Dandong and Yanbian. Our
Dandong and Yanbian contacts tell us that they believe that
DPRK restrictions on interactions with foreigners have been
relaxed to allow North Koreans to aggressively pursue
business opportunities (Ref B). Many of these North Korean
groups are accompanied by Chinese, and some North Korean
traders seem to be associating freely with South Korean
business partners.


8. (C) On the bus down to Dandong, two North Koreans
appeared to be business partners with a South Korean and a
Sino-Korean from Yanbian - all were making separate phone
calls to their offices while coordinating entertainment
activities for the night. A solitary North Korean engaged
in some very long phone calls with his office on the other
side of the border in Sinuiju, talking about meeting with
some Chinese partners, bringing some documents from the
Sinuiju office to him in Dandong, and prices of unspecified
materials. Judging from the level of familiar speech, all
the traders seemed to know each other very well.


9. (C) At the train station many different groups of North
Koreans were seen waiting to take the train up to Shenyang.
On board, a middle-aged North Korean female trader was
reading a Sino-Korean literary journal and a Dandong
business weekly. Across the aisle was an interesting group
of three, with one Yanbian Sino-Korean who code-switched
back and forth between Sino-Korean dialect and Pyongyang
dialect on the phone with his Shenyang office, discussing
documents needing to be translated and a dinner appointment
in Shenyang. He seemed to be escorting two older North
Koreans, who judging from their speech and the topics
discussed, were mid-level government officials from a
provincial party or trade bureau. They talked about the
similarities between North Korean culture, Chinese culture,
Sino-Korean culture, the arts, North Korean movies,
classical Chinese four-character sayings, etc. Further down
the cabin, a solitary North Korean furiously studied a mid-
level Japanese textbook. At Fengcheng (about an hour out of
Dandong toward Shenyang),one South Korean male and an older
North Korean couple got on the train together. They
appeared to be business associates and were talking about
their day in Fengcheng, a famous hiking destination. It
seemed like they had known each other for awhile.


10. (C) A taxi driver claimed that North Koreans living and
working in Dandong had always been loose with their money
and that many had used their wealth to purchase some of the
new, Yalu River-side apartment high rises springing up all
over Dandong. He concluded that judging from the way North
Koreans spent money in Dandong, North Korea's real weakness
was a crisis of an unequal distribution of wealth, not

SHENYANG 00000021 003 OF 004


poverty per se.

HYESAN/CHANGBAI: SPEED SKATERS, SMUGGLERS, AND SUCCESSION
-------------- --------------


11. (C) All along the PRC-DPRK border, especially on the
more populated stretch of the border between Linjiang and
Changbai Korean Autonomous County, there were numerous
footpaths going across the surface of the frozen Yalu River.
DPRK soldiers, Korean and Chinese townspeople walked freely
along the frozen ice and footprints could be seen clearly
going all the way across.


12. (C) On the most populated section of the PRC-DPRK border
in the one location where the North Korean side seems to be
more populous than the Chinese side and the river narrows to
about 30 meters, the North Korean city of Hyesan was full of
activity. About five groups of 10-30 children each were
seen playing with sleds, skis, snowballs, and wrestling on
the frozen Yalu River. There was even a lone speed skater
doing laps in a circuit on the frozen Yalu River. All along
a 3-5 mile stretch of the border between Changbai and
Hyesan, there were several North Korean cars, motorcycles,
women washing clothes, and scenes of what appeared to be
commercial activity where groups of 20-30 adults gathered to
exchange items in baskets with each other. The military in
Hyesan drove their Russian-made GAZ jeeps and Chinese jeeps
about at high speeds along with motorcycles and the
occasional sedan. Downstream in the more rural areas,
farming villages and small towns were full of people and
livestock. Cows could be seen hauling logs and ice to
villages.


13. (C) Hyesan is known to be a model city in North Korea,
so it was also interesting to see a large sign that clearly
announced the "3-generational revolution" ("3 dae
hyeokmyeong"). ConGenOff did not recall seeing this large
sign in Hyesan during a June 2009 visit.


14. (C) The Chinese side of the border was lined with
strings and ropes hanging from the stone esplanade down to
the riverbank some 10-15 meters below. The bank was
littered with crushed cardboard boxes. Cleared paths could
be seen on the frozen river between North Korea and China.
There was the occasional minivan parked at odd points along
the road with people loitering along the border.


15. (C) As soon as the sun set on February 6, around 1730,
ConGenOff went back along the river and noticed that there
were several, solitary men loitering along the esplanade and
talking on cell phones in Korean and Chinese, asking
questions such as "when are you coming?" About 1740, a man
confronted ConGenoff, asking who ConGenOff was waiting for.
ConGenOff was walking away upstream towards an emptier
stretch of the esplanade when two people suddenly sprinted
across the frozen Yalu River from North Korea to China.
They appeared to be wearing military-style fur-caps, long
overcoats, and were probably men. ConGenOff left the
esplanade at once, but looking back over the ledge saw that
the two border-crossers had taken cover in the underbrush
and were continuing to sprint along the riverbank toward the
spot ConGenOff had been only minutes before.


16. (C) Economic progress in Changbai remained frozen at
2000 levels according to separate reports from a taxi
driver, a local Changbai Sino-Korean restaurateur, and
several Sino-Korean senior citizens at a neighborhood
store. Senior citizens living in well-off houses said that
their houses had been sponsored by foreign investors trying
to create a Korean folk village tourist trap but that the
venture had floundered due to a lack of visitors, even
during the peak summer season. The senior citizens called
their efforts to farm corn along the riverside a losing
battle, since the North Koreans just crossed the river at
will and stole the crop when it was ready for harvest.


17. (C) Our restaurateur had spent the last ten years
shuttling between Tianjin and Qingdao (magnets for many of
Northeast China's Sino-Korean young professionals) before
coming back to open his small store in the wake of the
global economic slowdown. He said that Changbai made all of

SHENYANG 00000021 004 OF 004


its money from smuggling and summer tourism. He estimated
that 70-80 percent of Changbai's 80,000 residents derived
their living from supporting some element of PRC-DPRK
smuggling. He said that in the past such commercial
activity was not really considered smuggling because of the
close family ties with North Korea and Changbai's
geographical isolation from the rest of China. They had a
long history of dealing with North Korea in what was
previously known as "civilian exchanges."


18. (C) A local tourist agency told us that normally Chinese
citizens can obtain same-day travel passes to visit Hyesan
but that the land port was closed until March. Similarly,
down the road in Ji'an, a hospital director contact said
that with a simple letter of invitation from North Korean
relatives he could obtain a short-term DPRK visitor pass
and receive Chinese exit visa permission.

CHANG-JI-TU: ON COURSE AND MOVING AHEAD
--------------


19. (U) Regional transportation links in this once-remote
corner of China (Ref C) are now becoming a reality as
ConGenOff saw as he traveled from Baishan City to Yanbian
via the new Dandong-Helong border railway on February 8.
The filled-in rail link between Baihe and Helong means the
trip now takes barely two and a half hours, gliding above
valleys with sloping, modern viaducts and traversing
mountains with several long tunnels. This line links
China's communities on the eastern Tumen River valley of the
PRC-DPRK border with the communities on the western Yalu
River valley side of the PRC-DPRK border.


20. (SBU) On February 10, local officials unveiled the
renovation of the Helong-Longjing segment of railway so
people from Tonghua and Dandong will be able to go straight
to Longjing. Longjing is just a few kilometers of
dilapidated Japanese colonial-era track away from PRC-DPRK
border town Kaishantun. It appears that Chinese authorities
plan on renovating that segment in the near future to allow
for freight and passenger travel to North Korea. However,
local contacts did not believe that the DPRK's New Year's
announcement re-elevating Rason to Directly Governed-status
meant much at all for the time being.

WICKMAN