Silent Partners: Chinese Joint Ventures in North Korea - US-Korea ...

Silent Partners: Chinese Joint Ventures in North Korea Transcript 24
involved in business” or “We’re involved in local development” or “We’re involved in border
security issues.” The nukes are esoteric issues; they’re not even a threat as far as we can tell. So
in some ways they cannont even see a connection between their ways and activities and the
broader geopolitical context that we tend to see North Korea in. Their interests are very finite
and they’re also very tangible.
This also reflects the way that China interprets the UN sanctions, 1718 and 1874. These are
targeting the nuclear and the missile programs, not normal trade. And they’re carefully worded,
and when you read them you can see the Chinese hand in the editing process and in the
negotiating process at the UN. These sanctions are not targeting regular business; they’re
targeting these special areas. So, they don’t see this as constricting their abilities at all. We have
to be realistic for us, the implications for us are that the sanctions are not going to be effective at
choking all trade and all investment to North Korea. Now what’s happened is the South Koreans
have unilaterally restricted all their investment, we also unilaterally restricted our investment, but
the Chinese clearly are not going to do that.
I think one other quick observation to make too, going back to that slide that showed how most
of these companies are small and local, they’re not big. The fact that you’ve only got two or
three of the 100 companies in China invested there says something. This is really a playground
for entrepreneurs and specifically entrepreneurs from the northeast. They have a higher tolerance
for risk, but at the same time, one of the people I interviewed. I asked him, “Where’s all the steel,
you guys are doing all this investing and mining and investing in steel companies and where are
the big companies” The guy kinda laughed and said, “Really, if you thought there was real
money to be made here I’d still be here They’d come in and buy me out, they’d push in and
dominate this market, the way they dominate every other market. Because this is still very
marginalized we have a role, we have a place.” And I thought that was telling, but it is also very
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