A Trump-Kim Deal Could Send China’s Trade With North Korea Soaring

A luxury apartment complex in Dandong, China, near the border with North Korea, last month. A big screen played footage on a loop of a meeting between President Xi Jinping of China and North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un.CreditYan Cong for The New York Times

In the Chinese border town of Hunchun, garment factories gladly employ squads of North Koreans, who are valued as skilled and dutiful workers. Live crab from the North wriggle in huge tanks in the fish market. Informal bankers promise to deliver the equivalent of thousands of dollars in Chinese currency to North Koreans across the border in a matter of hours.

Up and down the 900-mile border, in fact, Chinese businesspeople export and import things like Chinese-made street lighting and exotic North Korean-grown mushrooms.

By all indications, China has at least officially enforced the international sanctions that have been imposed on the North to curtail its nuclear weapons program. But on the border, the signs of North Korea’s economic dependence on China are evident in a shadow economy of cash couriers, short-term workers and gray-market trading that has persisted despite the sanctions.

And with President Trump’s summit meeting with the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, back on track, excitement is growing about the opportunities that could open up should the sanctions be eased.

NYTimes