Kim Jong Eun has banned Chinese businesspeople involved in trading with North Korea from entering the country on the grounds
they are extracting confidential information and introducing news from the
outside world, according to a Daily NK source.
“After the country lifted its mandatory
quarantine for the Ebola virus on March 2nd, Chinese traders were excited about
the prospects of entering North Korea again, but Pyongyang has not been
permitting it,” a source based in China told Daily NK on Tuesday. “Trade at the
state level is business as usual, but there is almost no trade between
individual traders.”
He added that Kim Jong Eun handed down orders in March
telling officials to refrain from allowing foreigners who do not aid the state
into the country. “It appears he made this decision
because he believes some traders are purely involved in business while others
are causing harm,” he said.
Among Chinese traders that travel in and
out of the North, some, on top of conducting their regular trade operations, receive
money for the information they bring out on trends and news within the state.
Pyongyang is keeping a watchful eye on those who might extract or
bring in unwanted information, according to the source.
“The North seems to believe that it’s
highly likely Chinese traders are working as informants or spies,” he asserted. “This is well reflected in its recent claim that a South Korean man detained in the North, Kim Guk Gi, is a South Korean spy who obtained information
from Korean-Chinese and Chinese citizens living inside the North.”
Chinese traders currently in the North are those who managed to obtain permission of entry before the Ebola quarantine kicked in; traders flocked to sign up for entry after the quarantine was lifted but Pyongyang has continued to deny access to the majority.
The decline in traders crossing over into North Korea from China through customs is so marked, in fact, the source said that “if there were once ten traders crossing in the past, now there are only three.”
