North Korea: towards a resumption of trade with China?

A bridge connecting China and North Korea.

Trade resumes between the two countries after a 17-month hiatus.

AFP/File

Text by: RFI Follow

2 mins

It has been more than 17 months since this happened, a freight train crossed the border between China and North Korea on Sunday January 16.

Since the start of the pandemic, the North Korean regime has double-locked the country to protect itself from the virus and trade with its main Chinese partner is almost at a standstill.

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With our correspondent in Seoul,

Nicolas Rocca

The image of a train crossing the bridge between the Chinese city of Dandong and the North Korean city of Sinuiju early Sunday morning alerted the South Korean media.

Indeed, signs of openness on the part of the "hermit kingdom" have become very rare.

Since August 2020, the few humanitarian goods and cargoes have entered the country by boat, with a quarantine for these products on arrival that can last up to three months.

The first train left this morning in the direction of North Korea with on board, among other things, sugar, oil and flour, while a second was going the opposite way.

A sign that land imports could resume permanently.

A return of communication to the outside?

According to some experts, this change in strategy could reveal an urgent food need, because a few weeks ago the state media insisted on the dangerousness of the Omicron variant and the ineffectiveness of vaccines.

But the country has been preparing to resume trade for several months, including the transformation of an airport near the Chinese border into a depot to disinfect and quarantine imports.

The proliferation

of missile tests

, four since the start of the year, including a new one this Monday morning, as well as the resumption of land trade could show Pyongyang's desire to again communicate with the outside world in 2022.

►Also read: 2021, record year for cryptocurrency theft by North Koreans, according to Chainalysis

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