According to a source in China on Monday, Chinese quarantine authorities have confirmed that around 80,000 North Korean workers reside in Dandong, Liaoning Province. This figure was confirmed by the source through quarantine agency officials and quarantine-related volunteers in the city.
On Nov. 1, quarantine authorities in Dandong ordered a full lockdown of the entire city starting at 5 AM. All residents were banned from leaving their homes, except for employees of essential production facilities and emergency workers.
Dandong quarantine officials also carried out PCR tests on all residents in the city. In this process, officials inspected the passports of the North Korean workers, confirming that some 80,000 reside in the city.
Chinese quarantine officials and volunteer workers were surprised at the high figure, saying they “had no idea that so many North Koreans were in the city.”
Prior to this, Dandong went on a three-month lockdown due to a COVID-19 outbreak from Apr. 25. All city residents underwent PCR tests during this lockdown as well, including North Korean workers, trade officials and diplomats.
Chinese quarantine officials may have confirmed how many North Koreans were residing in Dandong during the previous round of PCR tests as well, but if they did, they kept tight-lipped about it.
Prior to the closure of North Korea’s borders in January 2020, North Korean workers could reside in China with only temporary border entry permits, returning once a month to Sinuiju to have the permit stamped and renewed.
North Korean workers have continued to enter China to illegally work, falsely reporting to the Chinese authorities that they are in the country to visit relatives. Chinese police and immigration authorities have largely turned a blind eye to the practice, knowing full well what is going on.
If 80,000 workers reside in Dandong, at least 100,000 reside in all of China, including in the cities of Hunchun and Yanji, Jilin Province.
In 2019, the United Nations estimated that about 100,000 North Korean workers were earning foreign currency overseas.
In a telephone conversation with Daily NK, Oh Gyeong-Seob, a research fellow at the Korea Institute for National Unification (KINU), said when he conducted research into the number of North Korean laborers working overseas in 2017, the number of North Korean workers in China was already growing.
“There are a fairly large number of North Koreans working in China after reporting [to the Chinese authorities] that they are there for reasons other than work,” he said. “Because no precise survey has been done on this, the calculation that 80,000 North Korean workers reside in Dandong is fully plausible.”
Chinese authorities have never revealed exactly how many North Korean workers reside in their country.
According to the Panel of Experts report released by the UN Security Council Sanctions Committee on North Korea in April, the Panel of Experts sent a letter to the Chinese side requesting additional information on North Korean workers. However, the Chinese side responded by simply telling the committee that it was “strictly implementing all articles pertaining to migrant North Korean workers, and that all the work permits [of North Korean workers in China] expired prior to the UN Security Council’s adoption of the resolution [banning the import of North Korean labor].” It revealed no additional data about North Korean workers.
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