In 2011, North Korean and Chinese authorities agreed to undertake the
joint construction of a Special Economic Zone (SEZ) at Hwanggeumpyeong in Sindo
County, North Pyongan Province. Chinese slogans visible at the site today declare
that the two countries ought to promote economic prosperity together, based upon a
shared history of friendly relations.
 Slogans at the entrance to Hwanggeumpyeong. | Image: Daily NK |
However, quite unlike this emphatic sloganeering, after three years Hwanggeumpyeong
is home to little more than a handful of excavators and a unit of the Chosun
People’s Army. When Daily NK’s special investigation team inquired after the
officials who would once have been leading this bilateral development project,
it was met with waves and shouts of, “There’s nothing to do.”
 Soldier-builders tilling the soil behind barbed wire. | Image: Daily NK |
Covering 110,000km2 in the mouth of the Yalu River to the southwest of Sinuiju, Hwanggeumpyeong
has long been an area of fertile agricultural land. It is roughly four times the size
of Yeouido, the island in the Han River that houses the South Korean National
Assembly, and, thanks to the sedimentation of the river, is just a barbed wire fence away from Chinese territory.
With China’s own rapid development in mind, the location was first designated as a prospective SEZ back in 2002, alongside
Wihwa Island, to the northeast of Sinuiju, and Sinuiju City itself. However,
these plans came to nought, and it was only in 2011, with then-National
Defense Commission deputy Jang Song Taek and former Chinese Minister of
Commerce Chen Deming at the helm, that the dusty old plan began to take physical
form.
 Entrance to the frontier between China and North Korea. Firmly shut. | Image: Daily NK |
Even then it did not go smoothly, with domestic North Korean political
circumstances and the cost of construction both presumed to be playing a role. In an
attempt to break through the impasse, Jang Song Taek made what would turn out to be his
last official visit to China, in August 2012. There, an agreement was reached
on the formation of a joint management committee for the SEZ project, and, briefly
reinvigorated, China threw down a significant chunk of state investment to get initial construction underway.
Now, of course, it has once again become impossible to predict the future, as Jang Song Taek has himself been permanently removed from the
political fray.
“We [traders] were quite optimistic when they said that the Hwanggeumpyeong SEZ was
being created, as we thought it meant free passage in and out, and the ability
to trade freely, too,” one
Dandong-based trader revealed in conversation with Daily NK. “But with the
execution of Jang Song Taek, the man in charge of the SEZ, nobody seems to be
anticipating anything anymore.”
 The one seemingly successful element: the New Amrok River Bridge. | Image: Daily NK |
Meanwhile, somewhere between the wilderness of Hwanggeumpyeong and downtown
Dandong there lies a far more impressive bilateral work-in-progress: the four-lane,
3026m New Amrok [Yalu] River Bridge. This, at least, is on the cusp of completion, and should see its first vehicular transport this September. All aided, perhaps, by the fact
that China has borne the full cost of the construction, and is very much in charge.
* This article was made
possible by support from the Korea Press Foundation.
