North Korea sacrifices its relations with China for the pandemic (Analysis)

(CNN) – Kim Jong Un appears to have put North Korea’s pandemic prevention plan to the test, further strengthening the country’s nearly impassable borders, cutting off almost all trade with China and even executing a customs official for bankruptcy. manage imported products correctly.

Beijing exported goods worth just $ 253,000 to Pyongyang in October, a 99% decline from September to October, according to data released by the Chinese customs administration. In context, that figure is lower in terms of dollar value than that which China exported to Liechtenstein and Monaco in October.

China, North Korea’s largest trading partner

China is North Korea’s largest trading partner and, in fact, the economic lifeblood of the Kim regime – the country basically doesn’t care about anything significant anywhere else. Before major UN sanctions were put in place as punishment for North Korea’s nuclear weapons program in 2016 and 2017, Beijing accounted for more than 90% of Pyongyang’s foreign trade.

The new customs data, if accurate, shows Kim appears willing to curtail – or even cut – trade with China to prevent the virus from entering North Korea, even if it means putting food and fuel supplies at risk. . from the country. The move is even more extreme considering mainland China only reports a handful of cases each day.

North Korea has not publicly acknowledged the decline in trade or the reason behind it, but the pandemic is the most likely explanation. Kim reportedly had two people executed for COVID-19-related crimes, including a customs official who did not follow virus prevention rules when importing goods from China, a South Korean lawmaker said after being informed by the agency. spying in the country.

CNN was unable to independently confirm the news of the execution, nor have North Korean officials confirmed it publicly. But if that’s true, it’s another sign of how seriously Kim is taking the covid-19 pandemic.

More stringent measures

North Korean state media reported on Sunday that authorities have enacted new, tougher anti-epidemic measures across the country, including increasing the number of guard posts at border crossings and tightening regulations on entering coastal areas at sea. . Authorities have even been ordered to “incinerate garbage transported by sea”.

Pyongyang’s decision to cut imports from China hurt trade in the opposite direction. October customs data from Beijing showed that Chinese imports from North Korea fell 74% year-on-year. This has forced Chinese industries, such as hair and wig manufacturers, to look elsewhere for cheap labor.

Chinese hair factories often outsource labor-intensive North Korea, shipping raw materials and paying North Korean companies to have their workers run out of products. But since the border between North Korea and China was closed in January to prevent the spread of Covid-19, the flow of trade has dried up and prices have skyrocketed.

Because North Korea cannot afford an epidemic

North Korea was one of the first countries in the world to close its borders when news of Covid-19 broke out in Wuhan, China. Almost all travel to the country stopped shortly thereafter, and this summer the city of Kaesong was blocked after it was reported that a defector may have carried the virus. North Korean state media regularly publish articles reminding its people of the importance of its emergency epidemic campaign.

Experts believe Pyongyang’s vigilant response comes because the Kim regime recognizes how much trouble it would have in containing a pandemic that has engulfed some of the world’s best health systems.

North Korea’s deteriorating health infrastructure is unlikely to be up to the task of caring for large numbers of patients with a virus that the global medical community does not yet fully understand. North Korea already has problems treating other infectious diseases, such as tuberculosis.

Defectors who have fled the country and auxiliary workers who have volunteered there say North Korea’s hospitals and medical facilities are often in disrepair and lack adequate equipment and medicines. People who fled during the famine of the 1990s shared stories of amputations performed without anesthesia or of doctors selling medicines to buy food to survive.

No case of covid?

Pyongyang has not publicly recognized a single case of Covid-19 within its borders, but many doubt that an infectious disease that has killed more than 1.4 million people worldwide and infected 62.6 million will not reach it. North Korea.

Evans Revere, former US undersecretary of state for East Asia and the Pacific, believes that the latest measures taken by the Kim regime “suggest that an already dire situation, the pandemic, has worsened.”

Revere said the situation in North Korea is considered particularly dire due to a combination of factors the pandemic is exacerbating: adverse weather conditions, possible crop shortages, the impact of international sanctions, and trade cuts with China. These are the main challenges Kim will face as her country prepares for a major meeting of the ruling Workers’ Party in January, where a new five-year plan is expected to be announced.

“The fact that we get so many reports suggesting that there have been mass blockades and repressions and possible executions tells me that something important is happening. And it doesn’t bode well, not just for the North Korean economy, but for the ability of many people to get by on a day-to-day basis in the country, ”Revere said.

Silence on the American elections

“This is a rather dire situation for the North Korean leader and this could also explain the relative calm we have seen in North Korea since the US presidential election. They may very well look inward right now and try to figure out how to hold on for the next few months.

North Korea has yet to comment on President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the US election. Biden is likely to approach negotiations with Pyongyang very differently from President Donald Trump, who has established a personal relationship with Kim in hopes that it will lead to a diplomatic breakthrough.

Yoonjung Seo, Gawon Bae and Rebecca Wright of CNN contributed to this report.