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C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 SHENYANG 000021 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR CA/OCS/EAP, EAP/K, EAP/CM, INR 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: TEN YEARS AFTER KOREAN UNIFICATION 
TAGS: CASC CH ECON ELTN ETRD KN KS PGOV PHUM PINR
PREF, PREL 
SUBJECT: PRC-DPRK BORDER: AMCIT CROSSERS, TRADE PUSH, 
BORDER SMUGGLING, REGIONAL GROWTH 
 
REF: A. SHENYANG 3 
     ¶B. 09 SHENYANG 219 
     ¶C. 09 SHENYANG 167 
 
Classified By: Consul General Stephen B. Wickman.  Reasons 1.4(b/d). 
 
¶1. (C) SUMMARY: Contacts along the PRC-DPRK border profess 
ignorance of reports about a second American citizen in 
North Korea.  Robert Park's crossing raised a few 
bureaucratic eyebrows, but there seems to be no backlash. 
DPRK traders and groups seem to be interacting more publicly 
with foreign business partners than in the past.  Most 
sections of the PRC-DPRK border show clear evidence of 
continued, regular cross-border traffic.  China's push to 
develop this dead-end corner of Northeast China is fully 
underway, in spite of DPRK and Russian recalcitrance.  END 
SUMMARY. 
 
¶2. (U) ConGenOff visited local contacts along the PRC-DPRK 
border in the Yalu River valley and the Yanbian Korean 
Autonomous Prefecture February 3-11.  Stops included 
Liaoning Province's Dandong, as well as Ji'an, Linjiang, 
Changbai Korean Autonomous County, and the Yanbian Korean 
Autonomous Prefecture, all in Jilin Province. 
 
BORDER CONTACTS UNAWARE OF SECOND AMCIT IN THE DPRK 
--------------------------------------------- ------ 
 
¶3. (C) None of our border contacts in Dandong, Ji'an, or 
Yanbian seemed to be aware of the DPRK's late January KCNA 
report that a second American had voluntarily (and 
illegally) crossed into North Korea.  A contact in Dandong 
told us on February 3 that he was only aware of a handful of 
South Koreans who had illegally entered North Korea in the 
last few years, but no Americans.  One of our Amcit NGO 
contacts in Tumen told us on February 11 that he had heard 
of a "South Korean" who had crossed into North Korea but he 
had heard no rumors about a second American (NOTE: Shenyang 
ROK Consulate officials told ConGenOffs on January 12 that 
news reports about a South Korean male illegally entering 
the DPRK on January 8 were true.) 
 
ROBERT PARK AFTERMATH: SOME SCRUTINY, FEW EFFECTS 
--------------------------------------------- ---- 
 
¶4. (C) All of our contacts knew about the Robert Park case 
(Ref A), both prior to and after his February 5 release, and 
asked questions about the effect of the incident on U.S.- 
DPRK relations.  A Sino-Korean Catholic priest from Helong 
confided that in the immediate aftermath of Park's crossing, 
the Yanbian Prefectural Public Security Bureau and the 
Religious Affairs Bureau had convened an emergency 
"political re-education" seminar for local religious 
leaders, reminding them about Chinese laws and the danger of 
interacting with foreigners.  The priest brushed off 
Congenoff's concern about any backlash saying he had been 
through much worse in the past and that he believed that 
today's local Chinese authorities were merely "going through 
the motions."  He was unaware of any other backlash. 
Another Catholic priest in Yanji told us he had not been 
"invited" to the political re-education seminar, nor was he 
aware of any backlash. 
 
¶5. (C) Religious contacts in Yanbian said they were 
initially optimistic that Robert Park was a man of the faith 
who would martyr himself in North Korea.  They said they 
were severely disappointed that he had left North Korea 
reportedly singing the praises of DPRK religious freedom. 
Our Yanji priest said that Robert Park's actions 
and the "extremist dialogue" in his pre-crossing media 
outreach was just the latest in a long line of attempts by 
South Korean, Japanese, and Western religious NGOs to 
gravitate to the PRC-DPRK border with the goal of "helping" 
DPRK defectors.  He said that the dynamics of missionary 
funding and donation solicitation drove many of these groups 
to "manufacture conflict" with the Chinese authorities in 
order to tug at the heartstrings of Western- and South 
Korea-based donors.  He cited the NGO practice of locating 
safe houses and orphanages in not-so-safe and very 
conspicuous sites overlooking the PRC-DPRK border, so that 
journalists and foreigners could visit and "sense the 
 
SHENYANG 00000021  002 OF 004 
 
 
danger."  By comparison, others in the business of moving 
DPRK defectors tried to locate safe houses in remote areas 
of Heilongjiang and Inner Mongolia to avoid attention. 
 
DANDONG: DPRK TRADERS AND OFFICIALS POUNDING THE STREETS 
--------------------------------------------- ----------- 
 
¶6. (C) For all the talk about frozen trade between the DPRK 
and China, the Dandong Land Port on February 4 was the 
busiest that ConGenOff has seen in seven visits over the 
last year (NOTE: A Dandong trader contact attributed some of 
this to last-minute, pre-Lunar New Year account 
settlements.)  The land port's staging lot was almost full, 
packed with Chinese and North Korean vehicles.  There were 
many new vehicles having no license plates, including 10-12 
brand-new Build Your Dreams (BYD) sedans, several European 
luxury vehicles, heavy machinery, and jeeps awaiting 
shipment to North Korea.  Many of the trucks were loaded 
down with what appeared to be construction materials headed 
for North Korea.  At night, North Korea's Sinuiju was alit 
with more light than in a previous fall visit and the 
normally darkened DPRK side of the PRC-DPRK Friendship 
Bridge was lit up with the same rainbow Lunar New Year 
treatment as the Chinese side (NOTE: The lights were 
probably in honor of Kim Jong-il's impending birthday 
festivities.) 
 
¶7. (C) We encountered more North Korean delegations than 
ever before, on express buses, on trains, in hotels, and at 
restaurants, moving around Dandong and Yanbian.  Our 
Dandong and Yanbian contacts tell us that they believe that 
DPRK restrictions on interactions with foreigners have been 
relaxed to allow North Koreans to aggressively pursue 
business opportunities (Ref B).  Many of these North Korean 
groups are accompanied by Chinese, and some North Korean 
traders seem to be associating freely with South Korean 
business partners. 
 
¶8. (C) On the bus down to Dandong, two North Koreans 
appeared to be business partners with a South Korean and a 
Sino-Korean from Yanbian - all were making separate phone 
calls to their offices while coordinating entertainment 
activities for the night.  A solitary North Korean engaged 
in some very long phone calls with his office on the other 
side of the border in Sinuiju, talking about meeting with 
some Chinese partners, bringing some documents from the 
Sinuiju office to him in Dandong, and prices of unspecified 
materials.  Judging from the level of familiar speech, all 
the traders seemed to know each other very well. 
 
¶9.  (C) At the train station many different groups of North 
Koreans were seen waiting to take the train up to Shenyang. 
On board, a middle-aged North Korean female trader was 
reading a Sino-Korean literary journal and a Dandong 
business weekly.  Across the aisle was an interesting group 
of three, with one Yanbian Sino-Korean who code-switched 
back and forth between Sino-Korean dialect and Pyongyang 
dialect on the phone with his Shenyang office, discussing 
documents needing to be translated and a dinner appointment 
in Shenyang.  He seemed to be escorting two older North 
Koreans, who judging from their speech and the topics 
discussed, were mid-level government officials from a 
provincial party or trade bureau.  They talked about the 
similarities between North Korean culture, Chinese culture, 
Sino-Korean culture, the arts, North Korean movies, 
classical Chinese four-character sayings, etc.  Further down 
the cabin, a solitary North Korean furiously studied a mid- 
level Japanese textbook.  At Fengcheng (about an hour out of 
Dandong toward Shenyang), one South Korean male and an older 
North Korean couple got on the train together.  They 
appeared to be business associates and were talking about 
their day in Fengcheng, a famous hiking destination.  It 
seemed like they had known each other for awhile. 
 
¶10. (C) A taxi driver claimed that North Koreans living and 
working in Dandong had always been loose with their money 
and that many had used their wealth to purchase some of the 
new, Yalu River-side apartment high rises springing up all 
over Dandong.  He concluded that judging from the way North 
Koreans spent money in Dandong, North Korea's real weakness 
was a crisis of an unequal distribution of wealth, not 
 
SHENYANG 00000021  003 OF 004 
 
 
poverty per se. 
 
HYESAN/CHANGBAI: SPEED SKATERS, SMUGGLERS, AND SUCCESSION 
--------------------------------------------- ------------ 
 
¶11. (C) All along the PRC-DPRK border, especially on the 
more populated stretch of the border between Linjiang and 
Changbai Korean Autonomous County, there were numerous 
footpaths going across the surface of the frozen Yalu River. 
DPRK soldiers, Korean and Chinese townspeople walked freely 
along the frozen ice and footprints could be seen clearly 
going all the way across. 
 
¶12. (C) On the most populated section of the PRC-DPRK border 
in the one location where the North Korean side seems to be 
more populous than the Chinese side and the river narrows to 
about 30 meters, the North Korean city of Hyesan was full of 
activity.  About five groups of 10-30 children each were 
seen playing with sleds, skis, snowballs, and wrestling on 
the frozen Yalu River.  There was even a lone speed skater 
doing laps in a circuit on the frozen Yalu River.  All along 
a 3-5 mile stretch of the border between Changbai and 
Hyesan, there were several North Korean cars, motorcycles, 
women washing clothes, and scenes of what appeared to be 
commercial activity where groups of 20-30 adults gathered to 
exchange items in baskets with each other.  The military in 
Hyesan drove their Russian-made GAZ jeeps and Chinese jeeps 
about at high speeds along with motorcycles and the 
occasional sedan.  Downstream in the more rural areas, 
farming villages and small towns were full of people and 
livestock.  Cows could be seen hauling logs and ice to 
villages. 
 
¶13. (C) Hyesan is known to be a model city in North Korea, 
so it was also interesting to see a large sign that clearly 
announced the "3-generational revolution" ("3 dae 
hyeokmyeong").  ConGenOff did not recall seeing this large 
sign in Hyesan during a June 2009 visit. 
 
¶14. (C) The Chinese side of the border was lined with 
strings and ropes hanging from the stone esplanade down to 
the riverbank some 10-15 meters below.  The bank was 
littered with crushed cardboard boxes.  Cleared paths could 
be seen on the frozen river between North Korea and China. 
There was the occasional minivan parked at odd points along 
the road with people loitering along the border. 
 
¶15. (C) As soon as the sun set on February 6, around 1730, 
ConGenOff went back along the river and noticed that there 
were several, solitary men loitering along the esplanade and 
talking on cell phones in Korean and Chinese, asking 
questions such as "when are you coming?"  About 1740, a man 
confronted ConGenoff, asking who ConGenOff was waiting for. 
ConGenOff was walking away upstream towards an emptier 
stretch of the esplanade when two people suddenly sprinted 
across the frozen Yalu River from North Korea to China. 
They appeared to be wearing military-style fur-caps, long 
overcoats, and were probably men.  ConGenOff left the 
esplanade at once, but looking back over the ledge saw that 
the two border-crossers had taken cover in the underbrush 
and were continuing to sprint along the riverbank toward the 
spot ConGenOff had been only minutes before. 
 
¶16. (C) Economic progress in Changbai remained frozen at 
2000 levels according to separate reports from a taxi 
driver, a local Changbai Sino-Korean restaurateur, and 
several Sino-Korean senior citizens at a neighborhood 
store.  Senior citizens living in well-off houses said that 
their houses had been sponsored by foreign investors trying 
to create a Korean folk village tourist trap but that the 
venture had floundered due to a lack of visitors, even 
during the peak summer season.  The senior citizens called 
their efforts to farm corn along the riverside a losing 
battle, since the North Koreans just crossed the river at 
will and stole the crop when it was ready for harvest. 
 
¶17. (C) Our restaurateur had spent the last ten years 
shuttling between Tianjin and Qingdao (magnets for many of 
Northeast China's Sino-Korean young professionals) before 
coming back to open his small store in the wake of the 
global economic slowdown.  He said that Changbai made all of 
 
SHENYANG 00000021  004 OF 004 
 
 
its money from smuggling and summer tourism.  He estimated 
that 70-80 percent of Changbai's 80,000 residents derived 
their living from supporting some element of PRC-DPRK 
smuggling.  He said that in the past such commercial 
activity was not really considered smuggling because of the 
close family ties with North Korea and Changbai's 
geographical isolation from the rest of China.  They had a 
long history of dealing with North Korea in what was 
previously known as "civilian exchanges." 
 
¶18. (C) A local tourist agency told us that normally Chinese 
citizens can obtain same-day travel passes to visit Hyesan 
but that the land port was closed until March.  Similarly, 
down the road in Ji'an, a hospital director contact said 
that with a simple letter of invitation from North Korean 
relatives he could obtain a short-term DPRK visitor pass 
and receive Chinese exit visa permission. 
 
CHANG-JI-TU: ON COURSE AND MOVING AHEAD 
--------------------------------------- 
 
¶19. (U) Regional transportation links in this once-remote 
corner of China (Ref C) are now becoming a reality as 
ConGenOff saw as he traveled from Baishan City to Yanbian 
via the new Dandong-Helong border railway on February 8. 
The filled-in rail link between Baihe and Helong means the 
trip now takes barely two and a half hours, gliding above 
valleys with sloping, modern viaducts and traversing 
mountains with several long tunnels.  This line links 
China's communities on the eastern Tumen River valley of the 
PRC-DPRK border with the communities on the western Yalu 
River valley side of the PRC-DPRK border. 
 
¶20. (SBU) On February 10, local officials unveiled the 
renovation of the Helong-Longjing segment of railway so 
people from Tonghua and Dandong will be able to go straight 
to Longjing.  Longjing is just a few kilometers of 
dilapidated Japanese colonial-era track away from PRC-DPRK 
border town Kaishantun.  It appears that Chinese authorities 
plan on renovating that segment in the near future to allow 
for freight and passenger travel to North Korea.  However, 
local contacts did not believe that the DPRK's New Year's 
announcement re-elevating Rason to Directly Governed-status 
meant much at all for the time being. 
 
WICKMAN