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Saturday, April 4, 2015

‘Korean economy relies too much on property’

Experts have warned against the government’s reliance on boosting the real estate market as a way to revive the nation’s sagging economy. 

Government economic policymakers seem to believe an activated real estate sector could have a spill-over effect on other sectors, according to the experts. An increase in interest rates could also deal a blow to the nation’s economy as it is expected to have a significant influence on the real estate market.

Analysts said measures the government has taken so far for the property industry appear to take some effects into account, but there are concerns that such a “recovery” in the industry is unstable.

“Should the interest rate rebound, demand from end users and investors will snap and this will immediately weaken the market’s momentum,” said Hur Yoon-kyung, researcher at the Construction and Economy Research Institute of Korea.

According to the Seoul Metropolitan Government’s real estate information system, the trade volume for apartments in Seoul was 13,075 cases in March, hitting a record high since the transaction reporting system was introduced in 2006.

This was largely boosted by the Bank of Korea‘s decision to reduce the key interest rate to the record low 1.75 percent, market observers said.

But changes in the real estate market are extremely vulnerable to external factors, such as the key interest rate hike that is expected in the United States and eventually in Seoul, they said.

“It is crucial that the Korean economy achieves a fundamental reform (involving sectors other than the real estate market),” said an analyst.

Kim Jung-sik, professor of economics at Yonsei University, agreed with the concerns.

“Right now, the market is sailing smoothly as interest rates are down and housing prices are going up,” he said.

“But if situations change ― either the interest rate hike or house prices falling ― there are possibilities that the market will face negative consequences.” 

By Bae Hyun-jung (tellme@heraldcorp.com)

LG Display begins mass-production of new LCD for mobile devices

LG Display Co. said Friday it has commenced with the mass-production of an updated high definition liquefied crystal display for mobile devices, which will be used on the next flagship handset to be rolled out by its affiliate LG Electronics Inc.

The new 5.5-inch LCD with a resolution four times higher than the existing model has upgraded brightness and power efficiency. It is also slimmer compared to previous versions, LG Display said, adding it will be applied to the G4 smartphone, LG's the latest high-end gadget.

The so-called quad high definition technology boasts a resolution of 1,440×2,560, which is four times higher than the 720×1,280 posted by previous HD technology.
  
"With the Advanced In-cell Touch technology, the touch screen will be more convenient, and can also recognize contact points even if the display is wet," the company added.
  
LG Display said the improvement in brightness provides more convenience for those using smartphones outdoors, adding its power efficiency will also make the next flagship smartphone more attractive.
  
The G4 smartphone will be introduced on April 29 in South Korea, the United States, Britain, France, Singapore and Turkey. (Yonhap)

Galaxy S6, S6 Edge to sell over 50 mln units in 2015: report

South Korea's No.1 tech firm Samsung Electronics Co. is expected to see the combined sales of its soon-to-be-released smartphones -- the Galaxy S6 and the Galaxy S6 Edge -- reach more than 50 million units this year, a report said Friday, adding they will become "the most successful Galaxy S model."
  
"The lead that Samsung makes with the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge is likely to continue across several quarters. So we project that Samsung will sell more than 50 million units of the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge combined this year," Hong Kong-based industry tracker Counterpoint said.
  
"This is more than the previous best-seller, the Galaxy S4, which sold around 45 million in its first year," the researcher added, which also painted a 55-million sales outlook for the newcomers, given Samsung manages to overcome a possible delay in producing complicated curved screens of the Galaxy S6 Edge.
  
With South Korean mobile carriers commencing preorders earlier this week, the two latest smartphones will hit the global market on April 10.
  
The new Galaxy S6 series, unveiled ahead of the Mobile World Congress in Spain last month, boasts the industry's first wireless-charging batteries and Samsung's mobile payment system set for a local debut in the second half of this year.
  
The offbeat Galaxy S6 Edge also has been grabbing the market's attention with the industry's first screen that is curved at both ends, providing users with a wider view. This was an upgrade from the Galaxy Note Edge, which bent its screen on only one side.
  
The researcher, however, said that although new smartphones are threats for other Android-powered handsets, the impact on the U.S. rival Apple Inc. will be limited.
  
"The Galaxy S6 and its Edge variation will take more share from other Android competitors rather than Apple," it said. "With the large screen iPhone, Apple has successfully retained its user base."
  
Counterpoint added there will be consolidations among smaller smartphone makers down the road, apparently as the excessive competition in the market has caused several players to make little returns.
  
"Usually it's the No. 1 player that plays this role, but we are not clear if Samsung is even interested in such a strategy," Counterpoint said. "The time for consolidation has come and if Samsung does not emerge as the consolidator someone else will." (Yonhap)

[김어준의 파파이스 #43] 세월호 CCTV의 비밀



[김어준의 파파이스#43] 세월호 CCTV의 비밀   

한겨레TV 시사탐사쇼!  금요일 밤 11시

진행: 김어준, 김외현 & 김용민

1. 김용민의 파파속마음 인터뷰: "박 대통령님, 대한민국 청년의 현실을 아십니까?" 
2. 이재명 성남시장: "복지는 선택이 아니라 능력으로 합니다"
3. 정청래 최고의원: "'가난 증명서'를 위한 신청 서류 20가지!" 
4. 미친 김지영 감독: "세월호의 CCTV 화면을 통해 항적을 시뮬레이션 해보니,
                     세월호는 지그재그 항해를 한것으로 확신합니다."

* 도서협찬
 [개발새발 예술인생](이하 지음, 썰물과 밀물) 

* 참여 & 제보 트위터: @sisakfc, 페이스북: 김어준의 파파이스, 전자우편: sisakfc@gmail.com

* 광고문의 전화 02-710-0729, 메일 hanibiz@hani.co.kr 

* 연출: 이경주, 구성: 박연신, 종합편집: 문석진, 방송기술: 박성영 
  카메라: 정동화 장지남 전상진 박성영
  벙커팀: 배상명 박주성 이영상 김수기 김준엽 박정원 나호영

Friday, April 3, 2015

[Editorial] Abe may have changed his wording, but his attitude is still the same

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe
During a recent interview with the Washington Post, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said that the comfort women, sex slaves for the Japanese imperial army, had been “victimized by human trafficking.” This is the first time that Abe has used the expression “human trafficking” in regard to the issue of the comfort women. It is clear that his choice of expressions was based on a number of calculations, including the speech he will deliver before a joint session of the US Congress on Apr. 26.
The expression “human trafficking” generally refers to the act of buying and selling women or young people through various coercive means with the goal of sexual exploitation or forced labor.
Considering that, prior to this, the Abe administration had not acknowledged the coercive nature of the recruitment of the comfort women, the use of the expression “human trafficking” could be seen as some degree of progress.
But when we strip away the rhetoric, it becomes clear that the remark is a clever semantic ruse that dodges the heart of the comfort women issue.
Most importantly, Abe’s remark omits the agent of the human trafficking. The crux of the comfort women issue is for Japan to acknowledge that its army was directly involved, from their recruitment of the women to the installation, operation, and management of the comfort stations.
Even as Abe spoke of the injustice of these criminal actions, in the end he omitted the most crucial detail: who committed those criminal acts. In fact, the remark insinuates that private business operators were the only ones responsible for trafficking the comfort women and that the Japanese army was uninvolved.
Abe’s comment that his “heart aches” when he thinks about how the comfort women went “through immeasurable pain and suffering beyond description” should be understood in the same light. Rather than the apology and remorse that a perpetrator ought to show, Abe’s “heart ache” is merely an expression of personal sympathy from the perspective of a bystander.
Abe’s attempt to downplay the issue was also evident when he said, “Hitherto in history, many wars have been waged. In this context, women‘s human rights were violated.” While Abe is acknowledging the suffering of the comfort women, this comment strongly suggests that their suffering was not the result of specific acts carried out by the Japanese army but was instead a general tragedy that always happens during wartime.
Before his address to US Congress, Abe meticulously chose expressions aimed at emphasizing that the comfort women issue violated universal human values - to deflect the criticism of the international community - while at the same time adroitly sidestepping Japan’s culpability for that issue.
After the announcement that Abe would be speaking to the US Congress, South Korean diplomats were unable to hide their dismay but also promised to work hard to ensure that Japan would adopt a proper attitude about historical issues. But given Abe’s comments, these expectations appear hopeless.
Nothing has changed about Abe’s attitude toward the comfort women. If anything, it could even give American society, which lacks a deep understanding of the comfort women issue, the impression that Japan has apologized and is sufficiently contrite for the problems of the past.
It is hard not to feel that, as Abe keeps making clever moves to create sympathy in the international community about historical issues, South Korea’s diplomats stand by helplessly and continue to be blindsided by these moves.
 
Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]

For S. Korean businesses, China patent blitz is a clear and present danger

S. Korean and Chinese patent applications
In 2010, a small South Korean business had just begun selling a touch recognition smartphone glove on the Chinese online shopping mall Alibaba when it unexpectedly started receiving notices of patent infringement.
They had been sent all at once by three to four Chinese businesses and individuals who claimed to hold utility model patent rights to the glove. The business received notice that Alibaba had unilaterally cancelled their sales contract. Realizing only now that it was under attack, the company turned to a corporate legal team to wage a patent battle.
In the end, it had to shut down its glove business. There were simply too many Chinese rivals to fight, and the company opted to give up rather than go through a formal patent dispute that would leave it shouldering huge costs in time and money. The seeds of the disaster lay in its failure to apply for a utility model patent in China first. Now it was too late.
For many South Korean businesses in China, the looming patent risk is becoming a clear and present danger.
In 2011, China overtook the US to become the world‘s single biggest holder of patent applications. According to the Chinese State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO), the country had a total of around 4.4 million applications for intellectual property rights registered as of last year. The list included 920,000 patents, 870,000 utility models, 560,000 designs, and some two million brands. As of November 2014, it had cumulative totals of over five million patent applications (74% from domestic sources, 26% from international ones) and 1.5 million patents registered.
The numbers clearly signal just how big - and aggressive - China’s patent applications and registrations have become. This is in sharp contrast with South Korea, where the total number of intellectual property right applications (including patents, utility models, designs, and brands) stood at a comparatively tiny 430,000 last year. The Chinese total amounts to 3.91 million patent and utility model applications between 1948 and 2013 - a number that shoots to 7.84 million (with 3.87 million actual registrations) when designs and brands are factored in.
With all the applications and registrations in China, it has become difficult to know exactly who filed an application, or for what kind of protection. Ahead of the technology competition for source patents, the Chinese behemoth is becoming a chilling threat with the sheer weight of the patents it claims.
“In some cases, Chinese businesses and individuals who have the money will buy up patent rights from overseas,” explained Lee Jae-hwan, senior researcher at the Institute for Information and Communication Technology Promotion (IITP).
“The explosive growth of patents in China means that South Korean businesses have to nail down lots of technology patents, or else they could get caught up in a patent battle,” Lee explained.
As the glove example illustrates, the most pressing of the Chinese patent threats has to do with utility models, which cover a product’s shape and structure. The Chinese system accepts patent applications and grants registrations for utility models after the simplest of reviews. It’s a process that goes some way in explaining how the number of utility model applications reached 870,000 last year - compared to 10,000 in South Korea. South Korean businesses applied for just 254 utility model patents in China last year.
“Utility models come with a big patent infringement risk because of the similarities between protects, and there’s a huge potential for the holders of all these utility model rights in China to file suit indiscriminately against foreign businesses in China for patent infringement in order to get money from them,” explained Lee Jong-gi, secretary of the international cooperation division at the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO).
“A lot of smaller South Korean businesses that are facing utility model disputes in China are not reporting it to KIPO because they’re worried about the consequences from their Chinese accounts,” Lee added.
While dominant in terms of sheer numbers, the Chinese source patents still lag behind South Korea, the US, and Japan in the level of technology - as signaled by the fact that just 2.5% of all patent applications in China for 2013 came from overseas sources (i.e., South Korea, the US, and Japan).
But the knowledge is of little comfort to many businesses.
“Imagine not knowing which cloud the rain is going to fall from, or a war where you don’t know when the bombs will drop,” said Song Sang-yeop, director of the IP Licensing and Transaction Center. “That’s what it’s like South Korean businesses when China is holding this gigantic number of patents.”
Besides the source patents, the total number of patents held can also be a major factor in rulings on patent disputes. It’s another reason many are scared of the Chinese patent blitz.
Larger corporations typically having divisions dealing exclusively with Chinese patents. Smaller businesses, in contrast, are almost completely exposed.
“There are around 6,000 patent agents in South Korea, and less than ten of them are China experts who can speak Chinese,” said Yoo Seong-won, chief patent agent for Jeeshim IP & Company.
“Companies are now looking for patent agents who specialize in Chinese patents, but there just aren’t enough to go around,” Yoo added.
 
By Cho Kye-wan, staff reporter
 
Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]

Hyundai Motor locked in a tense battle amid the “super dollar”

Hyundai cars waiting to be shipped overseas from a port in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province. 
Hyundai Motors is struggling with profits and market share in North America after failing to take advantage of the US economic recovery and resulting “strong dollar” trend.
Instead, it is finding itself flanked in the US automobile market by Japanese and European car makers buoyed by the low yen and depreciation of the euro, along with US domestic models resurging with the post-financial crisis recovery.
The “strong dollar” phenomenon refers to South Korea‘s ostensibly more competitive exports with a strong dollar and weak won. But this situation has not been advantageous for Hyundai.
Hyundai Motor’s US market share
Perhaps ironically, it was in the wake of the 2008 crisis that Hyundai Motors began seeing a clear jump in its North American market share. As the struggling economy combined with high oil prices, US consumers started showing a clear preference for the smaller Hyundai models, which had the advantage of good gas mileage. Market share rose sharply, from 2.9% in 2007 (460,000 vehicles sold) to 3.3% in 2008 (400,000), and 4.2% in the immediate wake of the crisis in 2009 (435,000). Hyundai, which had been stuck in the lower part of the world’s top ten through the early 2000s, made a sudden leap into the top five in 2009. Market share grew further to 4.6% in 2010 (538,000 vehicles), before eventually peaking at 5.1% in 2011 (645,000). With sales for US, Japanese, and European models sinking sharply, Hyundai seemed to be the only automaker showing growth in the market.
Other factors were at play besides the exchange rate. Part of the rise in North American market share had to do with the US industry’s decline (including a looming bankruptcy threat for GM), and Toyota and Nissan taking a hit with large-scale recalls and declining research and development in the wake of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan.
“We lucked out in some sense,” admitted a Hyundai executive, speaking on condition of anonymity.
But US economic conditions in particular began improving amid large-scale quantitative easing, and the strong dollar trend began to emerge, with the low yen and euro and a federal fund rate hike predicted on the horizon. In 2012, Hyundai’s US sales reached 703,000, but market share was down to 4.9%. Sales remained stagnant in 2013 and 2014, while market share began to drop: 720,000 cars sold the first year for a 4.6% market share, 725,000 the second for 4.4%. January-February sales for 2015 have come out to 97,000 vehicles, or a 4% share.
Hyundai Motor’s operating profits
Meanwhile, Nissan and Toyota have respectively ridden the low yen to sales growth of 11% and 6% over last year. In Toyota‘s case, global sales were 10,130,000 vehicles for Apr. 2013 to Mar. 2014, thanks largely to strong performance in the US. Its operating profit ratio, which had fallen as low as 1% to 2% after the crisis, rebounded all the way back to previous levels: 6% in 2013, 8.9% in 2014. The US recovery, combined with low oil prices and depreciating currency values thanks to quantitative easing of the yen and euro, has propelled Japanese and European automakers to enjoy robust growth with low prices. Meanwhile, US automakers like GM and Ford have benefited from rapidly rising demand, particularly for more expensive SUVs and mid-sized and large pickups.
Another measure that has weakened for Hyundai since around the time the strong dollar trend emerged in 2013 is the ratio of operating profits to global sales, including domestic. For two straight years, the operating profit ratio stood in the double digits: 10.3% in 2011 and 10% in 2012. Since then, it has shown a tendential decline to 9.5% in 2013 and 8.5% last year.
Indeed, the good times Hyundai experienced in the North American market the last few year are looking more and more like an exception.
“Hyundai-Kia has reached global production and sales of eight million vehicles, but that seems like a vertex,” said the Hyundai executive. “There’s a growing sense we’ve hit a bit of a limit.”
“We’re accepting the low growth as the way things are right now, and securing profitability is starting to become a priority,” the source admitted.
One of the symbols of Hyundai‘s unrivaled growth was its “full price” strategy in the North American market: reducing incentives to intermediate dealers to increase profitability for the head offices. A change in strategy is looking increasingly inevitable now. The confidence in the North American market that allowed Hyundai to expect rising sales even with reduced incentives is a thing of the past. With Japanese and European rivals leveraging their weak currencies into an offensive rush, Hyundai now finds itself having to raise incentives again to guard its market share - even if it means lower profits.
“The full price policy appears to have reached its limits,” the executive conceded. Even with the US automobile market recovering its growth, the strong dollar is leaving Hyundai locked in a serious battle.
Next could be a “boomerang effect” from Hyundai’s on-site production strategy may be playing a part in the reversal of fortune. With production and sales rising for local US plants, Hyundai is finding itself shut out of the benefits from the strong dollar. Meanwhile, Toyota, which was never aggressive about establishing overseas plants, has reaped the rewards of a weak yen.
 
By Cho Kye-wan, staff reporter
 
Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]

Sewol families desperately seeking withdrawal of investigative law’s decree

Mothers of victims of the Sewol sinking have their heads shaved in Gwanghwamun Square in central Seoul calling on the government to scrap the special Sewol Law’s enforcement decree and to raise the sunken ferry, Apr. 2. The mothers also mentioned that they are not seeking financial compensation from the government. (by Lee Jong-geun, staff photographer)
On Apr. 2, the special committee that is investigating the sinking of the Sewol ferry adopted a resolution calling for the withdrawal of the enforcement decree for the special Sewol Law. The South Korean government recently announced that it would be submitting the bill for the enforcement decree to the National Assembly.
Since the resolution comes four days before the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries is supposed to introduce the enforcement decree on Apr. 6, the move is calculated to put pressure on the government.
In the event that the enforcement decree is passed, the committee is reportedly considering the option of carrying out its investigation with special public servants hired from the private sector and without the public servants assigned by the government.
On Mar. 2, 52 survivors of the Sewol accident and family members of the victims shaved their heads and called for the enforcement decree to be scrapped.
The full committee convened in an emergency session on Thursday at 9 am. A motion was brought before the committee to adopt a resolution calling for the withdrawal of the enforcement decree that the Ministry is planning to submit to the National Assembly, and the motion passed with 10 of the 14 committee members in attendance in favor and four opposed.
Sewol Investigative Committee Chair Lee Seok-tae (left) and committee members hold a moment of silence for victims of the Sewol sinking before their emergency meeting at the offices of the Public Procurement Service in Seoul’s Seocho district, Apr. 2. (Newsis)
In the resolution, the special committee listed several reasons why the Ministry ought to withdraw the enforcement decree: because it would narrow the scope of the committee’s work, which would contradict the intent of the special Sewol Law and the reason it was legislated; because it would interfere with the investigation; and because there are concerns that it could compromise the special committee’s autonomy.
With Lee Seok-tae, chair of the special committee, informing President Park Geun-hye and the government that the committee could take a “grave decision,” the committee is planning to focus on pushing for the withdrawal of the enforcement decree during the time that remains.
“While there is not much time before the bill is introduced, we believe that the government will respect the wishes of the special committee,” said Kwon Yeong-bin, a standing member of the committee.
During the process of adopting the resolution, there was sharp disagreement between the committee members nominated by the New Politics Alliance for Democracy (NPAD) and those nominated by the ruling Saenuri Party (NFP).
“If the bill is withdrawn now, when are they going to introduce the bill to organize the investigation? The government bill reduces the staff from 120 to 90 people, but since the reduction mostly eliminates paper pushers, it may actually be a change for the better,” said Hwang Jeon-won, a committee member who was nominated by the Saenuri Party.
“90 people is by no means a small staff. Since it’s urgent that we get on with the work, let’s start with 90 and we can add more workers when the work demands it,” said Cho Dae-hwan, vice chair of the special committee.
“The state and the government are not omnipotent; they can‘t do everything. We have to work with a limited budget and a limited staff. Some people are complaining that the committee doesn’t have the powers to carry out an official investigation or to charge people with crimes, but for a temporary body we have a substantial authority. We should also be considering the viewpoint of the general public, who are one step behind,” said Seok Dong-hyeon, a committee member who voted against the resolution.
Another committee member opposed to the resolution was Kim Seon-hye, who was nominated by the chief justice of the Supreme Court. “I believe that the government will revise the enforcement decree as much as it can,” Kim said.
But Park Jong-un with the opposition party said, “We can’t trust the good will of the government. The special committee began its term on Jan. 1, but the fact is that we still haven’t even gotten off the ground,” Park said.
“If we carry out the investigation and present our findings according to the government plan, will the public really trust them?” said Jang Wan-ik, who voted in support of the resolution.
Family members of the Sewol victims who attended the meeting of the committee fiercely protested the committee members who voted against the resolution, warning them that their “names will go down in history.”
Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries Spokesperson Kim Yang-soo said that the committee‘s request for the withdrawal of the bill was “embarrassing.”
“During the period before the bill is introduced, we will solicit opinions and revise what needs to be revised,” Kim said in a noncommittal response.
 
By Seo Young-ji, Oh Seung-hoon and Kim Kyu-won, staff reporters
 
Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]

Thursday, April 2, 2015

North Korea’s growing economy — and America’s misconceptions about it

 March 13  
 — The textile factories producing “made in China” goods from compounds just across the Yalu River from North Korea offer a glimpse into a hidden world that is helping North Korea’s economy to thrive.
Operated by North Koreans, the factories produce clothes and other goods that are exported under foreign-company labels, making it impossible to tell that they have been made with North Korean hands and have contributed to North Korean profits.
The thriving operations belie the perception in Washington that U.S. and international sanctions are working to strangle North Korea’s ability to make money. While an overwhelming majority of North Koreans live in poverty, the country’s output has been steadily increasing, and an estimate by South Korea’s Hyundai Research Institute forecasts that the North’s economy will grow this year by a whopping 7 percent.
A lot of that growth comes through Dandong, a hive of North Korean and Chinese managers and traders, with middlemen helping them all cover their tracks. One local Chinese businessman estimates that one-quarter of this city’s population of 800,000 is involved in doing business with North Korea in some way.
In one factory on a recent day, dozens of North Korean women sat under fluorescent strip lights sewing seams and pressing pockets on pants, some of which were destined for the United States.
“They are here to make money for the country,” a North Korean factory manager said of the workers.
This scene is repeated in dozens, perhaps hundreds, of labor compounds all along the border, which in effect is little more than a line on the map. The extensive range of commercial activity suggests that it would be wrong to think that China’s leadership is now so annoyed with Kim Jong Un, who took control of North Korea at the end of 2011 after the death of his father, that it is tightening the economic screws on the young leader next door.
This is a very sensitive part of China — during a week of reporting along the North Korean border, Washington Post reporters were monitored by police — and doing business with North Korea is a very sensitive subject. The textile-factory manager would allow himself to be identified only as Mr. Kim; he and other North Korean businessmen who agreed to speak about their operations otherwise did so on the condition of anonymity for fear of jeopardizing their livelihoods.
North Korea’s economy is still a basket case, barely more than one-fiftieth the size of South Korea’s. But in talking about the changes underway, the businessmen described a North Korean economy that is increasingly run according to market principles, where people want to be in business, not the bureaucracy, and where money talks.
Mr. Kim, the textile manager, said he has no qualms about making pants to be worn by men going to work in “imperialist aggressor” countries such as the United States, South Korea or Japan — the three most hated enemies of his country.
He was only interested, he said, in maximizing profits for Pyongyang, wherever they come from.
“It doesn’t matter whether they’re an enemy country or not,” Kim said.
Fundamentals of capitalism
In the clothing factory, the women work 13 hours a day, 28 or 29 days a month, and are paid $300 each a month — one-third of which they keep. The rest goes back to the government in Pyongyang.
“Even though I want to pay them more, I have to send a certain amount home to my country, so this is all I can give them,” Kim said in his office at the factory. On his desk, an open laptop revealed that visitors had interrupted his game of solitaire.
The women work on the third floor, wearing their coats inside to guard against the cold, and live on the second floor in shared, dormitory-style rooms decorated with a banner declaring, “Let’s realize the revolutionary ideas of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il” alongside portraits of the two former leaders, grandfather and father, respectively, of Kim Jong Un. Signs on the doors read, “Call each other comrade.”
North Korea is thought to have at least 50,000 workers outside the country earning money for the regime, and 13,000 of them work in Dandong.
This neon explosion of a city contrasts starkly with the North Korean city of Sinuiju, on the opposite bank of the river, where there is only a smattering of light at night.
But there are signs of large-scale construction on the North Korean side: a half-completed apartment tower with a crane on the top and other new buildings underway. Although the traffic crossing the bridge between the two cities is far from jammed, it is constant. A steady flow of vans and container trucks, and the occasional black sedan with tinted windows, crossed in both directions over the course of a week.
Passenger and freight trains ran regularly, carrying cargo such as steel bars for construction and unrefined gold dirt.
Consumer goods go in the other direction. The most popular items to sell in North Korea these days are TV sets hooked up to solar panels — preferably with USB ports for watching smuggled dramas.
Here, North Koreans are coming to grips with the fundamentals of capitalism, even if they still won’t use the term.
Over dinner one night at a Chinese restaurant, another North Korean factory manager happily chatted about his corporate role models. Chief among them: the titans of South Korean conglomerates such as Samsung and Hyundai who propelled that country’s rapid economic transformation.
What had he learned from those tycoons in the South?
“Perseverance, the need to diversify,” said the businessman, who manages a factory that produces goods related to the construction industry and was sporting a Tissot watch. “We’re living in a world where new things keep appearing. Who would have thought Nokia would have collapsed? Their mistake was sticking with the same product.”
He has absorbed some of these lessons from the outside world, describing steps he has taken to increase productivity at his factory — mainly by creating better working conditions so his employees want to work more — and boost his profits.
This is emblematic of the tentative economic experimentation taking place since Kim Jong Un became leader.
Reports from inside North Korea suggest that even state-run companies are increasingly operated according to market principles, with managers empowered to hire and fire workers — previously unimaginable in the communist nation — and conduct businesses the way they see best.
Obstacles, opportunities
There are frustrations here. The biggest one — literally — has to be the four-lane, $350 million New Yalu River Bridge, a huge steel structure that traverses the river from a glitzy urban development, Dandong New District.
The whole development project is now on ice, partly because of the demise of Jang Song Thaek, the businessman and uncle of Kim Jong Un who was executed at the end of 2013, partly because of his “decadent capitalist lifestyle.” Since then, Jang’s colleagues have been recalled to Pyongyang or have disappeared — sometimes with millions of dollars in Chinese money, according to businessmen here.
Beijing is clearly none too happy about this, and smaller Chinese operators also have complaints about dealing with North Korea.
One Korean Chinese businessman named Ri who exports raw materials from North Korea said there are lots of “fraudsters” there.
“Sometimes the North Korean takes the money, but then you can’t find the person,” he said. “As the middleman, I have to take responsibility for that. There are some people here who’ve committed suicide because they’ve lost everything.”
A well-to-do Chinese couple who run an exporting business in Dandong — she was carrying a Chanel bag, he had an Armani sweater — could barely conceal their distaste for the state across the river. They used to export kitchen goods to North Korea but have stopped, saying it was too hard to make money there.
Asked if they had seen signs that North Korea is opening up its economy, the woman said, “Oh, you’re so naive!”
“I haven’t seen any signs of that,” her husband chimed in. “We built this whole new bridge, but North Korea hasn’t built anything.”
But while the political chill between North Korea and China might have had an impact on state-level economic cooperation, and those who played in the big leagues with Jang might have been scared away, there are still plenty of small businessmen looking for — and finding — ways to make money.
“These guys are out there to make a buck — they’re not the World Food Program — and as long as these opportunities exist, private, profit-seeking, market-conforming trade and investment will continue,” said Marcus Noland, an expert on the North Korean economy at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington.
Take Zhang, a Korean Chinese merchant who runs one of the 30 or so Chinese businesses in Dandong that ship fabric to North Korea to be turned into clothes there for European companies. Zhang said that he employs a few dozen people on the Chinese side of the border but that his workforce in North Korea fluctuates between 3,000 and 10,000 people, depending on how many orders he has.
North Koreans are particularly good at painstaking, manual work such as lace-making and hand-stitched beadwork. He pulls out his smartphone and shows a photo of a blond woman wearing an intricately embroidered pink and white dress, a product of North Korean labor.
Zhang, who speaks Korean and Chinese, does not even need his passport to enter North Korea. He has a permit that allows him to travel back and forth freely. He talked about how he’s developed good relations with his business partners there.
“Over the past few years, I’ve built trust with the North Koreans,” he said. “Every year around the birthdays of the leaders, I go there in person and take fruit and flower baskets. I pay my respects to the leaders, and I’m sure my clients report this back to the authorities.”
Moving money
For North Koreans who make money on the Chinese side of the border, one question is how to get it back to Pyongyang.
Since the start of the Korean War in 1950, when it included North Korea in the Trading With the Enemy Act, the United States has sought to restrict North Korea’s ability to bank and trade.
This has tightened markedly over the past decade, with the United States imposing rounds of sanctions designed to curtail North Korea’s ability to procure materials for its nuclear weapons program by shutting the country out of the international financial system. The latest measures were imposed in January as punishment for the hacking of Sony Pictures Entertainment.
The restrictions hurt at first. But North Korea has wised up. It uses small banks in China or Russia to transfer money — several banks in Dandong said it was possible to wire money to Pyongyang, for a hefty commission — or simply reverts to old-fashioned suitcases full of cash, which are much harder to stop with sanctions.
There is a sense in Dandong that sanctions are an issue for Washington and Beijing but that they don’t apply here on the border.
“I’m just a local businessman,” Zhang said, adding that sanctions “apply to big, international companies, not to private individuals like us,” clearly considering his business with North Korea domestic. “Anyway, we find ways to get around them.”
Ri, the Korean Chinese trader, said that his business partners always want cash.
“So they come out or I go into North Korea to settle the bills,” he said in his office in Dandong, running wooden beads through his fingers. “They like to be paid in U.S. dollars, euros, Japanese yen.” (North Koreans returning to Pyongyang apparently like to carry American dollars, for the cachet.)
Everyone interviewed said that it is entirely possible to send cash to North Korea — people usually just carry it in bags over the bridge — and that while there might technically be limits on how much a person can carry, in practice there are no checks, or at least no checks that cannot be overcome by greasing a few palms.
But the regime doesn’t always want cash. The North Korean businessmen who talked to The Post said they buy goods according to orders from Pyongyang and ship those back instead. Recently, they have been asked to send back solar panels and generators to help deal with North Korea’s chronic electricity shortage.
‘Like lips and teeth’
Relations between China and North Korea are complicated, but one thing is clear: Politics and economics are not entirely intertwined.
“There is a lot of jumping to conclusions in Washington and discussion about China showing a strong hand to North Korea,” said John Park, a North Korea sanctions expert at MIT. “I don’t see the evidence for that.”
Although trade appears to have dipped recently, that is the result of sharp declines in prices of commodities such as coal and iron ore — two of North Korea’s biggest exports to China — rather than some kind of punishment for Kim’s lack of deference to Xi Jinping, the Chinese president.
The young North Korean leader has not made the traditional pilgrimage to visit the state’s patron.
But pragmatic China, Park said, does not want North Korea becoming unstable and risk unsettling this precarious northeastern part of China.
“As you must have watched lots of historic soap operas in South Korea, you will know that China and North Korea are like lips and teeth,” said the North Korean factory manager over dinner, repeating an old saying about the neighbors. “Economically, nothing has changed.”
Yoonjung Seo and Hallie Gu contributed to this report.
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Anna Fifield is The Post’s bureau chief in Tokyo, focusing on Japan and the Koreas. She previously reported for the Financial Times from Washington DC, Seoul, Sydney, London and from across the Middle East.