Chinese rust-belt province pushes for new road and rail links to North Korea – and beyond to the South

A rust-belt industrial northern Chinese province has come up with an ambitious plan to link one of its border cities with South Korea via rail and road through the North.

As part of its contribution to the China’s global “Belt and Road Initiative”, the province of Liaoning is proposing a rail link from the city of Dandong to the North Korean capital Pyongyang and then on to Seoul and Busan in the South.

It is also pushing for a new road between Dandong and Pyongyang through Sinuiju, North Korea’s gateway city, according to a document released on Monday.

Liaoning is also seeking central government approval “at due time” to establish a special economic zone in Dandong, which was the hub for roughly 70 per cent of a thriving cross-border trade until China’s enforcement of international sanctions crimped that flow.

The move could strengthen Dandong’s role as “a key pillar in trade cooperation with North Korea”, the document said, urging provincial officials to advance the scheme under Beijing’s trillion-dollar initiative to revive ancient trade routes.

“Guided by the important consensus by the leaders of China and North Korea, [we] should proactively seize the dynamics over the [Korean]peninsula and steadily make plans of cooperation with North Korea,” the official Liaoning Daily quoted the document as saying.