The intensity of patrols along the China-North Korea border has decreased over the past month, leading to a rise in smuggling operations bringing in a wide variety of goods, including minerals, medicinal herbs and even livestock.
Speaking on condition of anonymity due to security concerns, a reporting partner in North Korea told Daily NK last Friday that smuggling activities in the area along the Yalu River have spiked since the beginning of March.
North Korean and Chinese smugglers typically conduct smuggling operations at night with boats, but they sometimes conduct operations during the day in places with little human presence, he said.
North Korean smugglers are selling a great deal of mined minerals such as coal, aluminum and copper, as well as medicinal herbs, the reporting partner said.
According to him, they are also smuggling livestock into China, including goats, sheep, rabbits and chickens. In China, demand is high for North Korean livestock because they cost one-third of Chinese market prices.
“A goat goes for RMB 500 a head, but you can get RMB 1,500 for it when you resell it on the Chinese market. A sheep goes for RMB 800 a head, and a rabbit for RMB 30, but they go for RMB 2,000 and RMB 80, respectively, when you resell them,” the reporting partner said. As of Apr. 2, RMB 1 is equal to USD 0.15.
In fact, Chinese businesspeople are lining up to smuggle with North Korea since they can make decent profits given the fact that prices in North Korea are so much lower than in China, he added.
Meanwhile, Chinese smugglers are providing North Korea with various items, including food such as beer, cookies, ham and smoked duck.
LAX PATROLS ALONG BORDER
The recent spike in smuggling operations along the China-North Korea border is likely due to the decreasing intensity of patrols on both sides of the border.
Border restrictions remain in place, of course. For example, people wanting to enter the border region in North Korea are required to obtain buffer zone entry passes. Unlike the past, when people faced being shot at by military units guarding the border, few incidents of this nature are occurring, even if someone is caught smuggling.
In February 2020, just after the closure of the border, North Korean authorities sent a notice to China’s border patrol asking for cooperation in stopping Chinese people from engaging in activities in the area along the border with North Korea. In the notice, North Korea even revealed it planned to allow its border patrol to fire on Chinese nationals if such activities persisted.
In May 2020, a Chinese man in his 50s was shot dead by North Korean border guards while he was engaged in smuggling along the Yalu River in China’s Changbai County.
Recently, however, there are more and more border guards taking bribes in return for turning a blind eye to smuggling operations, the reporting partner said.
“Smuggling isn’t stopping because border guards are often directly involved in it,” he said. “As recently as last year, if Chinese police caught someone illegally trading with North Korea, they would slap them with a huge fine. These types of crackdowns have not been as frequent recently.”
North Korea still has border restrictions in place, but the decrease in the intensity of crackdowns on smuggling along the border suggests that such activities will increase going forward.
Translated by David Black. Edited by Robert Lauler.
Daily NK works with a network of reporting partners who live inside North Korea. Their identities remain anonymous due to security concerns. More information about Daily NK’s reporting partner network and information gathering activities can be found on our FAQ page here.
Please direct any comments or questions about this article to dailynkenglish@uni-media.net.
