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10月27日付、「NY Times」より。
北朝鮮との国境にある中国の小さな町の住民達は、わずか30マイル離れた地点でなされた北朝鮮の「核実験」について、気付いている人は誰もいなかった。それから３週間たち、最近、国連が北朝鮮に対して制裁をおこなった事についても誰も知らなかった。
中国は北朝鮮から石炭と電気を輸入しているとの事。
写真は中国ー北朝鮮の国境で、二人の男が北朝鮮に物資を運び込んでいるのを黙って見ている中国のガード。
ーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーー
やはり北朝鮮の「核実験」騒ぎは、ドラマの一場面であった。
Sanctions Don’t Dent N. Korea-China Trade
The New York Times
By JIM YARDLEY
Published: October 27, 2006
SANHE, China, Oct. 25 — At the isolated border crossing in this small Chinese town, no one noticed when North Korea conducted its nuclear test in an underground mine about 90 miles away. Nearly three weeks later, no one seems to have noticed the recent United Nations sanctions against North Korea, either.
At Sanhe, truckers still cross with little problem into North Korea.
Truckers carrying goods into North Korea across the sludge-colored Tumen River say inspections are unchanged on the Chinese side. Customs agents rarely open boxes here or at two other border crossings in this mountainous region, truckers and private transport companies say.
Nor are any fences visible, like the barrier under construction near China’s busiest border crossing at the city of Dandong. There were early reports that inspectors in Dandong were at least opening trucks for a look, but so far statistics and anecdotal reports in the Chinese news media indicate that, essentially, everything remains the same.
What is visible here, though, is the growing and, in some ways, surprisingly complicated trade relationship between China and North Korea. China remains North Korea’s most important aid donor and oil supplier, but, conversely, China is now importing growing amounts of coal and electricity from North Korea. Chinese entrepreneurs, meanwhile, are starting to buy shares in North Korean mining operations and, in one case, trying to gain access to the Sea of Japan by leasing a North Korean port as a potential shipping hub.
The upswing in Chinese economic activity — which is already raising questions about whether the intent is more strategic than commercial — is one of the reasons that China has sent mixed signals about how aggressive it will be in inspecting border trade to meet the United Nations sanctions. For now, at least, some truckers in this region say the only change in border inspections has come on the North Korean side, where customs agents are checking loads more carefully for items deemed contraband by Kim Jong-il’s government.
“We used to sit with North Koreans that we know and have a chat,” said Jiang Zhuchun, a trucker waiting to cross into North Korea on Tuesday afternoon. “But after the nuclear test, we are only allowed to sit alone in our trucks.”
The United States has praised China for approving the sanctions against North Korea, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice used her visit to Beijing last week to emphasize the common desire to restart diplomatic talks on North Korea’s nuclear program. China’s leaders are said to be deeply angered over the nuclear test and have signaled they may take a harder line against their longtime ally. Last week, some banks in Dandong froze certain accounts and financial transactions with North Korea.
But the question of inspections along the 866-mile border between China and North Korea is a different matter. The sanctions authorized countries to inspect cargo entering and leaving North Korea and barred the sale or transfer of material that can be used to make nuclear weapons. Yet the sanctions are still less than two weeks old, and some details have still not been worked out. For example, the sanctions ban luxury goods without defining them.
The United States wants tightened border inspections by China as a tool for squeezing the North Korean economy and ensuring that North Korea cannot buy or sell nuclear materials. China is worried that destabilizing North Korea could begin an exodus of refugees and has resisted changing inspections. This week, with rumors swirling about a possible border crackdown, the Foreign Ministry spokesman, Liu Jianchao, said China intended to comply fully with the sanctions, but also said inspections along the border would remain “normal.”
The Yanbian Korean Autonomous Region, the name of the sprawling district that includes the Sanhe border checkpoint, is not the primary trade route between China and North Korea; Dandong, with its more direct route to Pyongyang, the North’s capital, is by far the busiest. But the Yanbian area is wedged into a geopolitical hotspot where China, North Korea and Russia all come together.
In interviews and visits to three crossings from Yanbian into North Korea, truckers, transportation company agents, investors and others confirmed without exception that trade is continuing across the border much as it always has. Customs agents examine bills of lading but usually open shipments only when they are tipped in advance to someone trying to smuggle goods like beer or liquor without paying customs duties, several people said.
“No matter who you talk to, they will tell you there is not much difference,” said Jin Lanzhu, whose trading company is one of the largest in the region.
On Wednesday morning inside the Chinese customs yard in the border city of Tumen, small groups of North Koreans, each wearing their mandatory pins with images of either North Korean leader Kim Jong-il or his father, Kim Il-sung, waited to cross the bridge. They had nylon sacks stuffed with shoes and clothes, television sets, a refrigerator. Some carried bags of rice.
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