VZCZCXRO1525
PP RUEHCN RUEHGH RUEHVC
DE RUEHSH #0205/01 3020546
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
P 290546Z OCT 07
FM AMCONSUL SHENYANG
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 8233
INFO RUEHOO/CHINA POSTS COLLECTIVE
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC 0067
RHMFISS/COMUSKOREA J2 SEOUL KOR
RUEKJCS/DIA WASHDC 0049
RHHJJAA/JICPAC PEARL HARBOR HI 0016
RUCGEVC/JOINT STAFF WASHDC 0029
RHEHAAA/NSC WASHDC
RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHDC 0076
RHMFISS/SACINCUNC SEOUL KOR
RUEHGV/USMISSION GENEVA 0521

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 SHENYANG 000205 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR EAP/CM, EAP/K, PRM 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: TEN YEARS AFTER KOREAN UNIFICATION 
TAGS: PREF PREL PINR KWMN KN KS CH
SUBJECT: PRC-DPRK: NK BORDER-CROSSERS, HUMAN SMUGGLING, 
DRUG CRACKDOWN, NEW TUMEN-ONSUNG TRADE ZONE 
 
REF: A. (A) SHENYANG 196 
     ¶B. (B) SHENYANG 145 
     ¶C. (C) SHENYANG 126 
 
Classified By: CONSUL GENERAL STEPHEN B. WICKMAN. 
REASONS: 1.4(b)/(d). 
 
¶1. (C) SUMMARY: The number of North Korean border-crossers 
entering China in 2007 thus far looks to be roughly on par 
with 2005/2006 levels despite the DPRK's agricultural 
difficulties and natural disasters earlier this year, 
according to a Liaoning scholar engaged in internal, state- 
sponsored research on the issue.  Repatriation levels look 
likely to bear no major fluctuations either, says the 
scholar, whose interviews with detained border-crossers 
indicate that ill-intentioned "snakeheads" in certain cases 
have sold unsuspecting North Korean women they have 
smuggled across the border into forced marriages with 
Chinese men.  On the ground, borderland officials claim, as 
they have for most of the year, that they are encountering 
relatively few North Korean border-crossers in their 
jurisdictions.  Official media continue to publicize, 
uncharacteristically, the PRC's "increasing" efforts this 
year to crack down on the "long-term, organized" smuggling 
of illegal narcotics across the PRC-DPRK border into 
northeast China.  More positively, PRC and DPRK officials 
have finally selected the site for a new border-trade zone 
near Tumen/Onsung Gun.  END SUMMARY. 
 
MORE INTERNAL PRC BORDER-CROSSER RESEARCH 
----------------------------------------- 
¶2. (C) One of a only a few scholars in Liaoning Province 
researching North Korean border-crosser issues on behalf of 
the provincial government expects the number of North 
Koreans entering China in 2007 to be roughly on par with 
2005-2006 levels.  LU Chao (strictly protect), a Liaoning 
Academy of Social Sciences (LASS) specialist on North Korea 
and PRC-DPRK border issues, told Poloff on October 18 that 
he suspects 2007 may yet see "slightly fewer" numbers than 
in 2006, notwithstanding this year's agricultural 
difficulties and natural disasters in the DPRK. 
Repatriation levels look to bear no major fluctuations 
either, according to Lu, a longtime Post contact and former 
IV grantee who has engaged in internal ("neibu"), state- 
sponsored research on North Korean border-crossers for at 
least several years now.  (NOTE: In recent years, Lu has 
occasionally collaborated with a small coterie of 
similarly-tasked counterparts at the Jilin Academy of 
Social Sciences (JASS) to study North Korean border- 
crossers and related PRC-DPRK borderland issues, according 
to JASS researcher ZHOU Weiping (strictly protect), one of 
China's leading specialists on North Korean border-crossers 
(ref A).  Zhou told Poloff in Changchun on October 12 that 
the Jilin provincial government, via JASS, has actually 
funded some of Lu's Liaoning-based research on issues like 
PRC-DPRK intermarriage in the borderlands. END NOTE.) 
 
¶3. (C) Lu's research methodology largely mirrors that of 
JASS' Zhou Weiping, and he too has been permitted to 
interview North Korean border-crossers at both of the PRC 
borderland detention centers--one in Dandong (across the 
Yalu River from Sinuiju), the other farther north along the 
border in the Yanbian Ethnic Korean Autonomous Prefecture's 
Tumen, Jilin Province--that hold North Koreans before they 
are ultimately repatriated to the DPRK.  Lu said he has 
typically found "relatively few" border-crossers being held 
at Dandong's detention center: usually "three or four," on 
"rare" occasions "seven or eight."  By contrast, Lu said he 
has usually found Tumen's to have "a lot" more--sometimes 
"30, 40 or 50" at a time. 
 
¶4. (C) "Most," Lu noted, are female.  Some cross the border 
on their own, while others arrange to have themselves 
smuggled out of the DPRK and into China, he explained.  Lu 
said his interviews revealed that while most knew what lay 
ahead, "a portion" of the female border-crossers had been 
"tricked" by "snakeheads" (shetou) who smuggled the women 
into China, usually promising (false) employment 
opportunities.  Once across the border, the women were sold 
against their will into marriages in remote rural China 
 
SHENYANG 00000205  002 OF 003 
 
 
villages, Lu said.  Lu noted that he had encountered some 
cases in which "more educated" women managed to escape, 
typically to ethnic Korean communities where the women were 
subsequently able to find work.  Lu said his research 
suggests that some of the "snakeheads" are former North 
Korean border-crossers themselves that that have 
naturalized in South Korea but have since returned to the 
PRC-DPRK border, where they are able to make use of their 
previous knowledge/connections to smuggle others for a 
profit. 
 
BORDER OFFICIALS ON FLOWS, DPRK BORDER TIGHTENING 
--------------------------------------------- ---- 
¶5. (C) PRC border officials continue to claim, as they have 
for most of the year, that they are encountering relatively 
few North Korean border-crossers in their jurisdictions. 
CUI Zhenglong (protect), the Director of Tumen's Foreign 
Affairs Office (FAO), told Poloff in Yanji on October 10 
that Tumen had seen "just a few" border-crossers detained 
over the past few months.  Officials in southwestern 
Yanbian echoed Cui's remarks later in the month.  HAN 
Xianji (protect), Mayor of the key Yanbian border locality 
of Helong, told Poloff on October 23 that the DPRK's 
stricter border enforcement this year lay behind the 
relatively low numbers his jurisdiction had seen of late. 
 
¶6. (C) Contacts were skeptical of media reports about PRC 
plans to tighten its border with the DPRK in advance 
of/during the 2008 Olympics.  Tumen FAO Director Cui--a 
frank contact who worked for nearly twenty years as a 
border guard and still maintains close ties, both formal 
and informal, with the local People's Armed Police (PAP) 
border corps--said he had not, to date, heard of any such 
plans, though he did not necessarily exclude the 
possibility.  He added that the North Korean side (not the 
Chinese side) was taking additional measures to further 
tighten its side of the border during the PRC's 17th Party 
Congress, lest any sort of border incident cause a well- 
publicized embarrassment to the DPRK.  LASS' Lu Chao echoed 
Cui's comments, noting also that he has been tasked by the 
Liaoning government to study Olympic security measures for 
the province, which will host some soccer events in 
Shenyang. 
 
CRACKDOWN ON NORTH KOREAN NARCOTICS CONTINUES 
--------------------------------------------- 
¶7. (SBU) The putative tightening of the North Korean side 
of the PRC-DPRK border seems to have done little to staunch 
appreciably the flow of illegal narcotics from the DPRK 
into northeast China, which a range of contacts describe as 
an ongoing source of heartburn in heavier-hit Jilin and 
Liaoning provinces.  Official media continue to take the 
unusual step of openly publicizing the PRC's "increasing" 
efforts this year to crack down on what they describe as 
the "long-term, organized" smuggling of drugs--particularly 
methamphetamines--across the PRC-DPRK border into northeast 
China. 
 
¶8. (U) In Jilin, state media reported last month that the 
province's border guard corps had made at least 16 major 
busts of transnational drug smugglers in 2007, netting 80 
suspects and 12.5 kilograms of seizures, primarily in 
Yanbian and the Baishan area, both bordering the DPRK. 
Liaoning authorities earlier this month publicized a late- 
August 2007 seizure of a half-kilogram of methamphetamines 
smuggled in from a "certain country outside China's 
borders": smugglers cleared customs in Dandong and arranged 
for the transport of the narcotics all the way to Shenyang 
before being arrested by police.  At least one official PRC 
press report has explicitly linked several busts this year 
with the arrest of a group of ROK, DPRK and Chinese 
nationals allegedly involved in smuggling North Koreans 
through third countries into the ROK. 
 
PROGRESS ON NEW PRC-DPRK TRADE SITE? 
------------------------------------ 
¶9. (C) After major North Korean delays, about which PRC 
officials in Tumen have long groused (e.g., refs B and C), 
Pyongyang last month finally approved plans for a barter- 
trade zone near Tumen/Onsung County, to be built using 
 
SHENYANG 00000205  003 OF 003 
 
 
Chinese funds.  Tumen Vice Mayor YAN Zhihong (strictly 
protect) and Tumen FAO Director Cui told Poloff on October 
10 that both sides this month finally identified the site 
for what will be known as the Tumen-Onsung County Commodity 
Exchange Market ("Wuzi Jiaoliu Shichang").  The site, 
upstream from Tumen's railroad port to Namyang, DPRK, was 
selected because it is far enough removed from residential 
areas but still close enough to be convenient for traders. 
If opened, it will be the first such market operating along 
the PRC-DPRK border, according to Cui, who was about to 
return once again to the DPRK to continue negotiating the 
details of what still remains but a "general framework" for 
the market's activities. 
 
¶10. (C) Farther away from the border, trade officials in 
Jilin's  provincial capital of Changchun sounded less 
upbeat when queried about the zone.  On October 12, GUO 
Qinghong (protect), Director of the Jilin government's Port 
Office, and ZHENG Wei, Vice Director of the Jilin Bureau of 
Commerce's Foreign Trade Division, acknowledged the ongoing 
negotiations, but they pointed to Jilin's border-trade zone 
with Russia as a venture likely to be more lucrative by 
comparison.  Formal Jilin-DPRK trade reached only USD 220 
million last year--below Jilin's target--and is expected to 
grow to USD 250-260 million in 2007, according to CHENG Ke 
(protect), a deputy head of Jilin Province's Bureau of 
Commerce.  But Cheng and his colleagues seemed skeptical 
that the value of goods exchanged at the planned 
Tumen/Onsung site, if ever operational, would amount to any 
significant fraction of overall formal Jilin-DPRK trade. 
WICKMAN