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Kristin Huang

Chinese food exports to North Korea – both staples and snacks – have increased massively over the past year, hinting at the isolated regime’s growing reliance on its only ally.
Chinese customs data showed a surge in exports of nearly 30 items, with corn increasing 32-fold from 400 tonnes to nearly 12,724 tonnes, bananas from just over 63.4 tonnes to 1,156 tonnes and wheat powder from less than 0.6 tonnes to 7.6 tonnes.
Spirit exports also more than quadrupled, rising from 2.1 million litres to 9.5 million in the second quarter compared with the previous year.
Other items like beer, confectionery, chocolate, bread and biscuits also increased.
The customs figures for rice exports were incomplete, but those available showed a sharp year-on-year increase from 3.5 million tonnes in the second quarter of 2016 to over 11 million tonnes in the second quarter of this year.
We’ll take hit from North Korea sanctions for peace, says China
Although the international community recently agreed to punish North Korea over its nuclear programme, food exports were excluded from the UN sanctions in the hope of ensuring a minimum living standard for the country’s citizens.
However, China banned North Korean seafood imports on Monday – cutting off a revenue stream that generated US$190 million for Pyongyang in 2016.
Food shortage fears as North Korea endures worst drought in 15 years: UN
The increase in exports coincides with a food production shortage in the hermit state due to natural disasters like floods.
North Korea’s food production – including staples such as cereals, soybeans and potatoes – in 2016 was estimated at 5.4 million tonnes, a fall of 9 per cent from 5.9 million tonnes in 2014, according to the Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organisation.
North Korea has had an ongoing food crisis since a serious famine back in the 1990s. Two in five citizens are undernourished and more than 70 per cent of the population relies on food aid, according to United Nations.
A UN report in March said, an estimated 18 million people across North Korea continue to suffer from food insecurity and malnutrition, as well as a lack of basic services.
China’s backing for North Korea sanctions is unlikely to turn the tide against Kim Jong-un’s regime
Experts said the increased Chinese food exports might be a sign that North Korea’s economy is slowly developing, but it still needed to rely on its neighbour for food as the international community has adopted a hard stance against Pyongyang.

“The surge can be a result from a bigger market demand from North Korea, since its economy is gradually reviving and the black market is booming, ” said Cai Jian, a Sino-North Korean expert from Fudan University in Shanghai.
“It also showed the increasing dependence of Pyongyang on Beijing, since it cannot import anything freely from other countries,” Cai added.
But Justin Hastings, an international relations scholar at the University of Sydney who has researched Chinese-North Korean trade, said the increased food trade between North Korea and China did not necessarily mean that people’s lives had improved.
“The different types of food are going to the military and the elites in Pyongyang ... but people in the hinterlands are still going hungry. A wide variety of food being imported is thus not a sign that there is no food crisis,” he said.


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North Korea

Sharp rise in Chinese food exports to North Korea as starving nation leans heavily on its only ally

Farm workers in North Korea, which has been beset by years of food shortage. Photo: Reuters

EDITORS NOTE: PICTURES TAKEN ON A GOVERNMENT CONTROLLED TOUR FOR REUTERS ALERTNET A North Korean boy works in a field of a collective farm in the area damaged by summer floods and typhoons in South Hwanghae province September 30, 2011. Isolated North Korea has appealed for food aid following the disasters and years of mismanagement. In South Hwanghae province, which traditionally produces about a third of the country's total cereal supply, officials say a savage winter wiped out 65 percent of the barley, wheat and potato crops. Then summer floods and storms destroyed 80 percent of the maize harvest, according to the province's governing People's Committee, and may have an impact on the October rice harvest. Only 30 percent of a U.N. food aid target for North Korea has been met so far. The United States and South Korea, the North's two biggest donors before sanctions, have said they won't resume aid until they are satisfied the military-led communist regime will not divert the aid for i

We’ll take hit from North Korea sanctions for peace, says China

China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi pictured during the Asean forum in Manila. Photo: Associated Press

U.S. State Secretary Rex Tillerson, left, passes by the table of Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi at the start of the 7th East Asia Summit Foreign Ministers' Meeting and its dialogue partners as part of the 50th ASEAN Ministerial Meetings in Manila, Philippines August 7, 2017. REUTERS/Aaron Favila/Pool TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

Food shortage fears as North Korea endures worst drought in 15 years: UN

North Korean children are at risk of going hungry as the country faces the worst drought since 2001. Photo: AFP

SIN98:KOREA-NORTH:WONSAN,NORTH KOREA,17AUG97 - An old North Korean woman shows the 450 grams of corn, provided by the Red Cross, that she will use to feed three people, in Wonsan, North Korea on August 8. Without donations from the Red Cross she would recieve only one third of this amount. Two years of flooding, and a worsening drought this summer have caused widespread food shortages in North Korea. jdp/POOL/Photo by Red Cross-Red Crescent REUTERS

This undated picture released from North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on May 28, 2017 shows North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un (C) inspecting the test of a new anti-aircraft guided weapon system organized by the Academy of National Defence Science at an undisclosed location. North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un has overseen a test of a new anti-aircraft weapon system, state media said on May 28, amid mounting tensions in the region following a series of missile tests by Pyongyang. / AFP PHOTO / KCNA VIA KNS / STR / - South Korea OUT / REPUBLIC OF KOREA OUT ---EDITORS NOTE--- RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE - MANDATORY CREDIT "AFP PHOTO/KCNA VIA KNS" - NO MARKETING NO ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS - DISTRIBUTED AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS THIS PICTURE WAS MADE AVAILABLE BY A THIRD PARTY. AFP CAN NOT INDEPENDENTLY VERIFY THE AUTHENTICITY, LOCATION, DATE AND CONTENT OF THIS IMAGE. THIS PHOTO IS DISTRIBUTED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED BY AFP. /

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