VZCZCXRO4453
PP RUEHCN RUEHGH RUEHVC
DE RUEHSH #0109/01 2190613
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
P 060613Z AUG 08
FM AMCONSUL SHENYANG
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 8467
INFO RUEHOO/CHINA POSTS COLLECTIVE
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC 0127
RUEKJCS/DIA WASHDC 0093
RHEHAAA/NSC WASHDC
RUEHGV/USMISSION GENEVA 0556

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 SHENYANG 000109 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR EAP/K, EAP/CM, PRM, DRL 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: TEN YEARS AFTER KOREAN UNIFICATION 
TAGS: PREL PINR PGOV PREF KN CH
SUBJECT: PRC-DPRK: BORDER-CROSSERS AND THEIR OFFSPRING; 
TRADE ISSUES; PRC GRAIN EXPORTS AND SMUGGLING 
 
REF: A. (A) SHENYANG 103 
     ¶B. (B) SHENYANG 7 
 
Classified By: CONSUL GENERAL STEPHEN B. WICKMAN. 
REASONS: 1.4(b)/(d). 
 
¶1. (C) SUMMARY: Contacts along the PRC-DPRK border report 
smaller-than-usual numbers of North Korean border-crossers 
this summer.  Civil Affairs officials in one key border 
city screen detained border-crossers for infectious 
diseases and arrange for medical care pending repatriation. 
Children born to female border-crossers and Chinese fathers 
represent a delicate challenge, but officials in the same 
city claim they can discreetly provide education and other 
assistance to those without official residence permits. 
The PRC recently prohibited most Chinese railcars from 
transporting commodities into the DPRK, a response to a 
dispute that one official says will increase costs and 
inconvenience for both sides.  PRC grain-export 
restrictions have brought DPRK-bound commercial grain 
shipments via Dandong to a standstill for months now. 
Illegal grain smuggling is prevalent near Dandong, but the 
value of smuggled goods in most cases is minor.  END 
SUMMARY. 
 
¶2. (C) Poloff traveled July 20-25 to the PRC-DPRK 
borderlands of Jilin Province.  Sites visited included 
Yanji, seat of the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture; 
Nanping, across from the DPRK's Musan; Sanhe, near 
Hoeryong; Changchun, capital of Jilin Province; Baishan, 
which administers PRC land ports leading to Hyesan and 
Chunggang; and Ji'an, across from Manp'o. 
 
NORTH KOREAN BORDER-CROSSERS: YANBIAN TO JI'AN 
--------------------------------------------- - 
 
¶3. (C) Most contacts and border residents from Yanbian 
south to Ji'an reported smaller-than-usual numbers of 
border-crossers entering their residential areas this 
summer.  In Yanbian, "very few" have come across these days 
to seek assistance in the sizeable ethnic-Korean religious 
communities of Helong and Longjing, according to Father 
ZHAO Guangze (PROTECT), an ethnic Korean priest who splits 
his time between Catholic parishes in both cities.  During 
a June 13 visit to Shenyang Father Zhao, who has assisted 
border-crossers in the past, ascribed this to tighter PRC 
and DPRK border controls and local governments frowning on 
aiding border-crossers.  Elsewhere in Yanbian, a staffer at 
the Baishan Church--a mostly ethnic Korean congregation 
that is one of Yanji's largest--told us July 21 that "one 
or two" North Koreans had come this summer in search of 
food and money.  The church's ongoing assistance to North 
Koreans has piqued the ire of the Yanbian authorities, 
leading them to withhold official certification of one 
leader as a pastor, added the staffer. 
 
¶4. (C) Outside of Yanbian in Baishan July 23-24, Foreign 
Affairs Office and Civil Affairs Bureau officials described 
a downturn in arrivals resulting from an Olympics-driven 
border tightening by both the PRC and DRPK (ref A). 
Farther south in Ji'an, a number of border residents living 
by the banks of the Yalu River--ethnic Koreans among them-- 
suggested during informal conversations with Poloff July 
24-25 that similar trends prevailed there.  Farther in 
town, Ms. LI (PROTECT) of the Ji'an Christian Church, a 
protestant Han and ethnic Korean congregation, noted that 
the church had seen relatively few border-crossers over the 
past several months.  Church staff there continue to give 
money and food to those seeking assistance, but no longer 
inquire about nationality in a bid to maintain plausible 
deniability, Li explained. 
 
OFFICIAL ON BORDER-CROSSERS, THEIR MIXED OFFSPRING 
--------------------------------------------- ----- 
 
¶5. (C) An official in Baishan, which supervises a key 
stretch of the PRC-DPRK borderlands that includes Changbai 
and Linjiang, shed some light on the local government's 
handling of apprehended border-crossers.  During a private 
discussion July 24, Civil Affairs Bureau Director CHEN 
Anliang (PROTECT) explained that his office is 
occasionally--but not always--called on to help security 
officials tend to the detainees while they are being 
"investigated" pending repatriation.  Baishan Civil 
Affairs' involvement centers on screening border-crossers 
for infectious diseases, arranging medical care and 
 
SHENYANG 00000109  002 OF 003 
 
 
supplying food, he claimed.  Chen did not offer specifics 
on repatriation procedures, noting only that the North 
Koreans are repatriated once the security investigation has 
ended. 
 
¶6. (C) Queried on Baishan's handling of children born to 
PRC fathers and female North Korean border-crossers that 
have been repatriated, Chen acknowledged that this has been 
a delicate challenge.  The Baishan Civil Affairs Bureau 
does not have the authority to grant these children a 
household registration permit; the Public Security Bureau 
(PSB), he said, has the sole discretion to do so.   (Note: 
the household registration permit, or "hukou," is a 
requirement for access to critical social services, 
including education.)  Chen suggested, however, that the 
absence of a hukou has not prevented his bureau from 
extending anti-poverty assistance or arranging entry into 
orphanages for this demographic.  Asked about reports that 
the hukou-less offspring of Chinese border residents and 
North Korean mothers are unable to enroll in school, Chen 
claimed that Civil Affairs is able to find a way to finesse 
the problem in Baishan for children of school age.  The 
only details he offered were that such cases within 
Baishan's jurisdiction tend to be more prevalent in rural 
areas. 
 
PRC-DPRK TRADE PORTS: A SITREP 
------------------------------ 
 
¶7. (C) NANPING/MUSAN.  Quiet prevailed on both sides of the 
cross-border bridge during a July 22 visit to Nanping Land 
Port, across from one of Asia's largest iron-ore mines. 
The morning rush of PRC trucks returning from Musan had 
subsided by the time Poloff reached the port; none crossed 
or queued on either side during an observation between 1100 
and 1130.  On the road from Helong south to Nanping between 
1000 and 1100, however, Poloff passed approximately 40 red 
Yanbian Tianchi Company trucks headed out of Nanping, many 
brimming with iron ore.  Nanping Land Port's infrastructure 
appeared to have undergone few major upgrades since 
Poloff's last visit there in January 2008 (ref B). 
 
¶8. (C) SANHE/HOERYONG.  Farther north in Yanbian the same 
day, Poloff found little activity at Sanhe Land Port during 
an observation between 1345 and 1415.  Two Helong Tianchi 
Logistics Company crossed into the DPRK when the border re- 
opened at 1400, soon followed by a high school soccer team 
from Yanji, its bus packed with boxes of liquor and instant 
noodles.  (Before crossing, a coach explained that the 
team, which travels to the DPRK with some frequency, was 
headed to Chongjin for a ten-day visit.  The food situation 
there was deteriorating, he added without elaborating.) 
Two North Koreans loitered in the land port, waiting to 
return to the DPRK. 
 
PRC-DPRK RAIL DISPUTE, GRAIN SHIPMENTS, SMUGGLING 
--------------------------------------------- ---- 
 
¶9. (C) Effective June 20, the PRC Ministry of Railways 
prohibited, with some exceptions, most Chinese freight 
railcars from crossing into the DPRK to deliver 
commodities, according to a June 26 online report by Ji'an 
Customs.  Asked about the reported policy shift in Shenyang 
on July 18, YANG Wenjia (PROTECT), Chief of the Foreign 
Trade Administration Section of Dandong's Foreign Trade and 
Economic Cooperation Bureau, explained that the DPRK's 
longstanding inability to return trains "in a timely 
manner" led to the measure.  Yang speculated that the 
prohibition will, at least for the critical Dandong-Sinuiju 
route, remain in place for the foreseeable future.  He 
acknowledged the inconvenience, delays and increased costs 
the policy will bring both sides: most Chinese railcars 
must now stop at the border, unload and then re-load goods 
onto North Korean freight cars.  Yang grumbled that the 
North Korean side will somehow manage to pass on the costs, 
and inconvenience, to Chinese business partners. 
 
¶10. (C) On PRC grain-export restrictions, Yang noted that 
commercial grain shipments to the DPRK via Dandong have 
come to a halt for several months now, leading to a sharp 
decline in bilateral grain trade.  Contacts engaged in 
cross-border trade corroborate this.  Private PRC 
businesses have found it "impossible" to ship grain 
donations to North Korean partners for the past several 
months now, according to LIU Chensheng (PROTECT), a well- 
connected former Shenyang official who now facilitates 
 
SHENYANG 00000109  003 OF 003 
 
 
private PRC investment in North Korea, July 17.  The marked 
drop-off in PRC grain exports notwithstanding, Dandong 
trade figures for January-May 2008 published in the 
official Dandong Daily on July 2 indicate no drop-off in 
the value of overall PRC-DPRK trade.  Separate figures for 
exports to and imports from the DPRK were not given in the 
report, but the value of total two-way PRC-DPRK trade 
transiting Dandong in the first five months of the year 
reportedly rose compared to the same period last year, 
comprising 82 percent of Dandong's total trade.  Farther 
north in Yanbian, a senior prefectural government official 
in Yanji noted July 21 that grain-export restrictions have 
had minimal impact on Yanbian-DPRK trade this year because 
grain represents a minor part of the prefecture's export 
mix. 
 
¶11. (C) Recent reports by local governments from Dalian to 
Yanbian confirm that PRC grain-export restrictions have 
prompted some illegal PRC grain smuggling to the DPRK. 
Online reports have trumpeted police busts, but the value 
of seized grain has--with some exceptions--been minor.  Liu 
Chensheng, who maintains close contacts in the Dandong and 
Sinuiju trading communities, noted that small-scale grain 
smuggling "by individuals" is most prevalent in the Dandong 
area--notably in Donggang (to the south of Dandong) and 
Kuandian (to its north).  Most smugglers are motivated by 
profit, Liu said.  Local police there are not arresting 
transgressors at present; they are, however, confiscating 
goods and occasionally levying small fines, he claimed. 
SWICKMAN