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Adam J Hantman  05/15/2007 09:32:52 AM  From  DB/Inbox:  Adam J Hantman

Cable 
Text:                                                                      
                                                                           
      
C O N F I D E N T I A L        SHENYANG 00079

SIPDIS
CXSNY:
    ACTION: POL
    INFO:   RSO/RF ECON RF

DISSEMINATION: POL /1
CHARGE: PROG

APPROVED: CG:SBWICKMAN
DRAFTED: POL:AJHANTMAN
CLEARED: BJPOL: EDKAGAN

VZCZCSHI445
PP RUEHC RUEHOO RUEHBJ RUEHUL RHHJJAA RUEAIIA
RUEFDIA RHEHAAA RUEKJCS
DE RUEHSH #0079/01 1201029
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
P 301029Z APR 07
FM AMCONSUL SHENYANG
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 8045
INFO RUEHOO/CHINA POSTS COLLECTIVE
RUEHBJ/AMEMBASSY BEIJING 7791
RUEHUL/AMEMBASSY SEOUL 1724
RHHJJAA/JICPAC HONOLULU HI
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC 0022
RUEFDIA/DIA WASHINGTON DC
RHEHAAA/NSC WASHDC
RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHDC 0045

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 SHENYANG 000079 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPRNET DISTRIBUTION 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR PRM, INR, EAP/CM, EAP/K 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: TEN YEARS AFTER KOREAN UNIFICATION 
TAGS: PREF PREL PINR PGOV KN KS CH
SUBJECT: NORTH KOREA ROUNDUP: PROPAGANDA, REMITTANCES, 
PUST, DIPLOMATS AND SNOW DAYS 
 
REF: 06 SHENYANG 01190 
 
Classified By: CONSUL GENERAL STEPHEN B. WICKMAN. REASONS 1.4 (B)/(D). 
 
¶1. (C) SUMMARY: This is a roundup of North Korea-related 
information collected by Post in recent weeks.  Contacts 
report that nuclear propaganda has recently started 
disappearing in North Korea's major cities, including 
Pyongyang.  Pyongyang's private university, PUST, appears 
to be back on track as its founders await the final 
blessing--in the form of licenses for computers and lab 
equipment--from the U.S. Department of Commerce.  Elaborate 
networks of brokers on both sides of the PRC-DPRK border 
permit North Koreans illegally in China to remit their 
earnings to North Korea with relative ease.  A Chinese 
academic says that North Korea's new Consul General in 
Shenyang has an exceptionally strong "political background" 
compared to his predecessors.  The North Korean military in 
Rajin conscripted and bused civilians to outlying areas to 
clear snow during March's massive snowstorm, which 
paralyzed a large section of the country.  END SUMMARY. 
 
NUKE PROPAGANDA ON THE OUTS? 
---------------------------- 
 
¶2. (C) Two sources who travel to North Korea on a routine 
basis have recently mentioned that nuclear propaganda has 
disappeared in places they frequent, including in at least 
two major cities.  Dr. James Kim, head of the Yanbian 
University of Science and Technology (YUST), on April 4 
told Poloff and visiting SENK staffer John Kachtik that 
during his most recent trip to Pyongyang in late March, the 
propaganda trumpeting the North's October 2006 nuclear test 
previously posted throughout the city had abruptly 
disappeared.  A Yanbian-based western NGO worker who 
travels to the DPRK twice per month reported to Poloff on 
April 9 that the same held true in Rajin, where he carries 
out humanitarian work every month. 
 
PYONGYANG'S PRIVATE UNIVERSITY BACK ON TRACK? 
--------------------------------------------- 
 
¶3. (C) Plagued by long delays over the past several years 
and compounded by the DPRK's 2006 missile/nuclear tests 
(see ref A), Pyongyang University of Science and Technology 
(PUST)--North Korea's first private university--may finally 
open in September 2007, according to the institution's 
China-based coordinator.  According to PUST's project 
manager, David Kim, construction of all buildings should be 
completed in July.  But the wild card, according to Kim, 
remains the U.S. Department of Commerce, to whom the PUST 
project team--based at YUST in Yanji--is now applying for 
the appropriate export licenses for classroom computers and 
certain equipment (e.g., for science laboratories). 
 
UNDERGROUND BANKING: REMITTANCE NETWORKS 
---------------------------------------- 
 
¶4. (C) Fairly elaborate networks of cross-border financial 
brokers are permitting North Korean border-crossers in 
northeast China to remit their earnings to North Korea with 
some ease.  A Shenyang-based Chinese scholar recently 
described to Poloff how a female North Korean acquaintance 
illegally living and working in Shenyang remits earnings to 
her mother back home in North Korea.  Every few weeks, 
after accumulating enough money to send home, the 
individual--through a local Shenyang broker--deposits money 
to be sent into a post office account registered in Yanji, 
capital of the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture.  Once 
the money has been deposited, the Shenyang-based broker 
then phones his Yanji-based partner (who owns the mailbox), 
who in turn contacts a partner in North Korea, who 
subsequently delivers the funds to the Shenyang-based North 
Korean's mother. (NOTE: No money actually crosses the 
border for the specific transaction. The Yanji and DPRK-based 
partners maintain a trust-based accounting system 
(i.e., informal correspondant accounts). END 
NOTE.)  The entire transaction process takes 
approximately one hour and is conducted entirely in RMB in 
both countries.  The brokers take a certain percentage of 
the total value of the transfer, though the amount is 
unclear. 
 
NORTH KOREAN DIPLOMATS IN SHENYANG 
---------------------------------- 
¶5. (C) The DPRK's new-ish Consul General in Shenyang, LI 
Jifan (rendered in pinyin--probably Ri Gipan in Korean), is 
something of an anomaly, according to a Shenyang-based 
Chinese scholar chummy with a number of North Korean 
diplomats stationed in Shenyang.  Unlike his many 
predecessors, Li--a former Director of the DPRK Foreign 
Ministry's China shop--is not only a career diplomat but 
also a proficient Chinese speaker.  Li's "political 
background" is also apparently unusually strong, according 
to the scholar; some North Korean diplomats have confided 
to him that they have on occasion heard Li issuing orders 
to visiting officials in more senior positions than he. 
 
NORTH KOREAN SNOW DAYS 
---------------------- 
 
¶6. (C) A massive snowstorm in early March 2007 walloped 
northeast China but paralyzed a large section of North 
Korea.  According to a Yanbian-based western NGO worker in 
Rajin at the time of the storm, the snow virtually 
incapacitated the city.  Residents and government workers 
in Rajin had neither plows nor many shovels, he said.  Our 
contact witnessed citizens flood into the streets, using 
wooden planks as shovels.  Employing picks, axes and 
hammers, residents sat in the streets chipping away at the 
ice on the ground.  The local military, he said, compelled 
soldiers and ordinary citizens to shovel the snow.  Once 
Rajin was sufficiently cleared, military personnel 
conscripted certain Rajin residents to continue elsewhere; 
the unlucky ones were bused to neighboring localities with 
the soldiers to continue their snow-clearing duties, slowly 
making their way north toward the border.  Such was the 
snow-driven slowdown that it eventually took our contact-- 
several days later than he had expected--nearly eight hours 
to return home to Yanbian from Rajin--nearly double what it 
normally takes by car. 
WICKMAN