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C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 SHENYANG 000123 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: TEN YEARS AFTER KOREAN UNIFICATION 
TAGS: PREL PGOV EWWT ENRG KN KS JA RS CH
SUBJECT: POOR DPRK ATTENDANCE, SOME SHIPPING NEWS, AT 
NORTHEAST ASIAN MEETS 
 
Classified By: CONSUL GENERAL STEPHEN B. WICKMAN. 
REASONS: 1.4(b)/(d). 
 
¶1. (C) SUMMARY: Pyongyang's delegation to the Northeast 
Asia Investment and Trade Expo, held last week in Jilin 
Province, appeared smaller that last year's.  North Korean 
diplomats at the expo privately praised China's grain 
harvest, with one claiming the DPRK's crop was also "good." 
In a keynote speech, PRC Vice Premier Wang Qishan was vague 
but promoted energy as a "strategic focus."  In experts' 
sessions, PRC scholars evinced disappointment with Moscow's 
energy policy, while proposals for regional cooperation in 
energy/logistics pointedly excluded the DPRK.  The expo saw 
the inking of a PRC-Russia-ROK-Japan agreement to open an 
added shipping corridor through the Sea of Japan, a plan 
already hamstrung by poor demand and cooperation.  The 
corridor was also discussed a week before at a revived 
Tumen River expo, held jointly with another regional event 
in China's Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture.  The North 
Koreans were no-shows at these events, but interest there 
in software and other collaboration with the DPRK was high. 
END SUMMARY. 
 
¶2. (U) CG and Congenoffs traveled September 1-3 to 
Changchun, capital of Jilin Province, for the fourth annual 
Northeast Asia Investment and Trade Expo--what has become 
the premier trade event in northeast China for China, 
Japan, Russia and the two Koreas.  The CG and Congenoff 
traveled to Yanji, seat of Jilin's Yanbian Korean 
Autonomous Prefecture, for two smaller regional expos 
August 26-28. 
 
THE NORTH KOREANS AT THE MAJOR NORTHEAST ASIA EXPO 
--------------------------------------------- ----- 
 
¶3. (SBU) North Korean officials proved the lone regional 
holdouts from much of the Northeast Asia Trade Expo's 
official summitry, which this year focused on Northeast 
Asian cooperation in energy and logistics.  Heading the 
North Korean delegation to the expo's September 1 "high- 
level forum" was Ministry of Trade Foreign Economic 
Cooperation Bureau chief CHOI Yon, who unlike all the other 
Northeast Asian representatives did not deliver remarks. 
No North Korean scholars attended the more substantive 
experts' workshop on regional energy/logistics 
collaboration.  A Chinese participant based at the Jilin 
Academy of Social Sciences, which hosted the session, told 
us the North Korean side declined the Chinese invitation to 
participate, citing the need to stay in Pyongyang to 
prepare for the DPRK's 60th anniversary celebration. 
 
¶4. (SBU) North Korean Consul General RI Gi-beom told Jilin 
Party Secretary WANG Min September 1 that the Northeast 
Asia Trade Expo attracts the largest North Korean 
contingent of any trade show in China.  Evidence, however, 
seemed to indicate otherwise.  Unlike any of the other 
country pavilions, the DPRK's introductory pavilion had no 
staff or promotional literature, and within the expo 
itself, fewer North Korean firms appeared to participate 
compared to last year.  A walk-through of the North Korean 
trade stalls on September 2 suggested roughly half the 
number of participants last year.  Goods on offer canted 
heavily toward minerals/mining, seafood and herbal 
medicines.  A small sampling of DPRK participants: the 
Taedonggang Trading Corporation; the Korea Sungri Joint 
Venture Company; the Korea Ferrous Metals Export-Import 
Corporation; the Kumsan Joint Venture Company; and the 
Pyongyang Thosong Pharmaceutical Export Factory.  On offer 
to passers-by at one stall was the most recent issue of 
"Foreign Trade of the (DPRK)," which featured 
advertisements for everything from stainless steel tubes 
and SUVs by the Peace Motors Corporation to mining tools 
and roofing tiles. 
 
¶5. (C) Shenyang-based North Korean diplomats repeatedly 
raised grain issues during meetings for the diplomatic 
corps hosted by Chinese officials.  Meeting with Jilin 
Party chief Wang Min, for instance, North Korean Consul 
General Ri praised the province's "beautiful" corn crop, 
which he had viewed with satisfaction along the four-hour 
drive from Shenyang.  Ri claimed the healthy harvest was 
"important" during this period of shortages and rising 
grain prices.  Another North Korean diplomat reprised the 
theme at a September 2 luncheon, when he suddenly announced 
to our Chinese hosts, unsolicited, that North Korea's grain 
 
SHENYANG 00000123  002 OF 003 
 
 
crop this year has been "good." 
 
NORTHEAST ASIA: INTEGRATION AND ITS DISCONTENTED? 
--------------------------------------------- ---- 
 
¶6. (SBU) Northeast Asian officials at the expo's keynote 
"high-level forum" (the second such event) repeatedly cited 
the need for regional cooperation and coordination on 
energy, infrastructure development and logistics, but 
proffered little in the way of implementing measures beyond 
vague generalities.  PRC Vice Premier WANG Qishan, for 
instance, said deepening cooperation with Northeast Asian 
neighbors on energy/resources would be a "strategic focus" 
for the future but stopped short of proposing practical 
steps. 
 
¶7. (SBU) Most notable at the more substantive follow-up 
workshop for Northeast Asian experts was what was 
explicitly left unsaid.  Numerous Chinese scholars evinced, 
with varying degrees of obliqueness, frustration with the 
state of Russian cooperation on energy.  This stood in 
contrast with the Russian representative's sunny view of 
healthy PRC-Russia strategic energy cooperation, which he 
argued would only deepen in the Medvedev era.  Notable too 
in comments by Chinese, South Korean and Japanese scholars 
was considerable dismay with the DPRK's unhelpful role in 
regional collaboration.  Most of their ambitious proposals 
for regional energy cooperation--ranging from a shared 
Northeast Asian energy reserve to collective bargaining 
with oil-producing nations and a common regional energy 
market--pointedly excluded the DPRK. 
 
 
NEW PRC-RUSSIA-ROK-JAPAN SHIPPING CORRIDOR: IMPLICATIONS 
--------------------------------------------- ----------- 
 
¶8. (SBU) Beyond the USD 15 billion in trade/investment 
contracts signed during the event, one of the few 
substantive cooperative deliverables was the inking of a 
quadripartite PRC-Russia-ROK-Japan agreement on a transport 
corridor through the Sea of Japan.  The new cargo and 
passenger route will link the PRC's Hunchun by rail/bus 
with Russia's far eastern port of Zarubino, just slightly 
southwest of Vladivostok; outbound freight will then enjoy 
direct sea connections to the ROK's Sokcho and Japan's 
Niigata.  Initial press reports hailed the route, to be 
opened in March 2009 and operated by way of an ROK-majority 
quadripartite joint venture, as a landmark agreement that 
will slash transport times and costs. 
 
¶9. (SBU) Northeast China's landlocked Jilin and 
Heilongjiang provinces would appear, a priori, to be 
beneficiaries of this venture: the new route theoretically 
spares them the burden of first shipping Japan/ROK-bound 
goods by land to the sea ports of Dalian or Dandong for 
outbound shipping.  Jilin and Heilongjiang, after all, 
lack--and remain in strategic pursuit of--an outlet to the 
Sea of Japan, a point emphasized repeatedly by Chinese 
officials at the expo from Jilin Party Secretary Wang Min 
down.  But the agreement, for which a framework was signed 
two years ago, may be less than meets the eye.  For all 
practical purposes, the new route appears merely to extend 
to Japan the extant Dongchun Shipping Line, the 
cargo/passenger ferry that since 2000 has sporadically 
linked Hunchun and Zarubino with Sokcho, in northeastern 
South Korea. 
 
¶10. (C) Difficulties appear likely to confront the shipping 
corridor.  An official in Jilin's Yanbian--home to Hunchun- 
-pointed out the most serious challenge: generating 
sufficient demand.  To date, the Dongchun line to Sokcho 
has encountered a shortage of cargo--and thus profit, 
explained the official by phone September 5.  (A paucity of 
cargo has also required underweight Dongchun vessels to 
cling close to coastlines in order avoid ocean turbulence, 
which in turn has led to "trouble" from North and South 
Korean naval forces, he added.)  Insufficient demand for 
the Dongchun route is likely to mean the same for the new 
extended route to Niigata, speculated the official, who 
dubbed the agreement a "vanity project" ("mianzi 
gongcheng").  Shipping fees remain another potential area 
of concern.  The Dongchun line temporarily suspended 
operations earlier this year after Russia--citing growing 
costs--demanded a massive increase in fees, according to 
online reports by the Yanbian and Hunchun governments. 
 
SHENYANG 00000123  003 OF 003 
 
 
PRC-ROK-Russia negotiations eventually settled the issue, 
but a new agreement will need to be re-explored when it 
expires at the end of the year. 
 
REGIONAL EXPOS IN YANBIAN 
------------------------- 
 
¶11. (SBU) A Dongchun Shipping representative also made a 
presentation at the Fourth Tumen River International Trade 
and Investment Expo, which has been dormant since 2004. 
The expo, held in Yanji, was revived this year and held 
jointly with the Second Annual Yanji International Trade 
and Investment Expo.  One notable attendee was Sung L. Kim 
of the Federation of Korean Associations 
(www.koreanfedus.org), who led a large group of Korean- 
American business representatives scouting somewhat 
skeptically for opportunities.  Also notable was Dr. Chan- 
Mo Park, a member of the yet-to-be opened Pyongyang 
University of Science and Technology's Committee of 
Founding Members.  Park is a frequent traveler to Yanbian 
and has worked for years to foster cooperation with North 
Korean software engineers.  He is also a Special Advisor 
for Science and Technology to South Korean President Lee 
Myung-bak, a former President of the Pohang University of 
Science and Technology (POSTECH) and an American citizen. 
 
¶12. (C) The North Koreans, however, were no-shows at both 
Yanbian expo events.  Yanbian Vice Governor XIMEN Shuji 
told the CG that all the invited local North Korean 
officials and business representatives wanted to attend but 
that Pyongyang's central authorities would not give them 
permission.  He claimed they were only allowed to attend 
the far larger Changchun event.  Regardless, regional 
presentations about the development of the Tumen River area 
were decidedly lackluster and, as usual at such fora in 
China, there was almost no discussion allowed in the formal 
sessions. 
SWICKMAN