North Koreans in border regions are doing more military drills than usual (click here for Chinese version), but so too are their counterparts on the Chinese side of the border. In Hunchun, peasant militias are getting into gear:
In Dandong, everyone is making money and trying to get the North Koreans involved.
National news publications, not just the Embassy in Pyongyang, are reporting on the meetings between North Korean officials and Dandong city leaders, facilitated by outgoing Chinese ambassador Liu Xiaoming. A number of long-studied infrastructure projects in Dandong seem poised for take off. Dandong citizens review their recent tourist explorations of North Korea here.
Even before Americans started walking across the Tumen on January 25 to join the KPA, China was reporting with photos on South Korean efforts to pressure North Korea on the human rights issue by dropping leaflets via balloons over the DMZ.
Chinese netizens are reading the Chinese version of the DailyNK, and leaving some tough comments on the stories, especially this one that deals with Tim Peters’ recent dramatic demonstrations depicting KPA-PLA joint repression of refugees at the border.
And, although it’s a bit embarassing for Kim Jong Il, Huanqiu headlines a gallery of a dozen “great secret tunnels of the world” with the North Korean tunnel under the DMZ, an ominous thing to be sure:
Adam Cathcart 