Exclusive | The fishy side of China’s ban on North Korean imports

Tonnes of North Korean seafood are being smuggled into China every night despite the imposition of new UN sanctions a fortnight ago and a resulting Chinese crackdown on the trade, sources on the border have told the South China Morning Post.

“We’ve been experiencing an unprecedented, extremely harsh time since the marine police started to bar us from importing seafood from the North Korean side as a result of the sanctions on seafood trading,” said the boss of one trading firm based in Dandong, Liaoning, which is separated from North Korea by the Yalu River. The boss, surnamed Li, said his company had been importing marine products caught by North Korean fishermen for years and could not afford to stop.

Beijing backed new, more severe UN sanctions imposed on North Korea on August 15 which banned North Korean exports of seafood, iron and iron ore in retaliation for Pyongyang’s repeated nuclear weapon and intercontinental ballistic missile tests.

Li, a tanned fisherman-turned-trader in his 50s, told the Post that Chinese marine police patrols in the waters traversed by the small Chinese cargo ships on four-hour voyages to and from a North Korean trade zone had stopped 90 per cent of local imports of North Korean seafood.