North Korea sends 10,000 workers to China in a month

North Korea has sharply ramped up the number of new workers it is sending to China this summer, with roughly 10,000 laborers crossing the border in a single month as ties between Pyongyang and Beijing continue to recover, according to a Daily NK source, and more than 50,000 workers are already under contract to follow them. A Daily NK source told the outlet on Monday that around 10,000 newly dispatched workers crossed from North Korea into China in the roughly month-long period since mid-June. The workers travel by bus from Sinuiju, North Pyongan province, across the Sino-Korean Friendship Bridge into Dandong, Liaoning province, with a daily average of 500 to 600 people entering the country and as many as 10 buses, each carrying 50 passengers, crossing together in a single convoy.

“On days when North Korean workers come through, some 10 buses cross the bridge almost all at once, each one carrying 50 people,” the source said. “Hundreds of people enter in a short span of time, so the line of buses passes by in an instant.” One change from past practice, according to the source, is that Chinese local governments are now directly involved in managing personnel and paperwork for these worker groups.

In previous years, dispatch relied mainly on contracts negotiated directly between North Korean trading companies and Chinese firms, but now those companies must report worker numbers and entry plans to the relevant local government in advance and receive approval before anyone crosses. “No matter how many people are entering, they have to file in advance with the local government and get entry approval,” the source said. “Even for a small group, it isn’t enough for a company and a North Korean trading firm to work things out between themselves.

It has to go through the relevant government’s approval process.” That shift suggests the current wave of entries is proceeding under the active management, and at least tacit approval, of Chinese local governments rather than at the