Why Beijing is so Reluctant to Cut off Trade with North Korea

At first glance, the city of Dandong seems a peaceful, bustling symbol of Chinese prosperity. Brightly dressed townspeople stroll along the tree-lined promenade near the Yalu River, teenagers mixing with office workers and young families, many of them fresh from nearby malls, shopping bags at their sides. As the light fades, neon signs illuminate the city's numerous hotels and karaoke bars. Smaller lights also begin to blink on in the rows of brand-new apartment buildings that line the riverbank for miles. Behind one of the buildings, a fountain of noise and color erupts as firecrackers and exploding rockets mark a wedding banquet.

	• A Nuclear Nightmare Comes True With North Korea claiming a successful nuclear weapons test, its neighbors and the U.S. must figure out how to respond • When Outlaws Get The Bomb Kim Jong Il's crude blast punctuates a scary reality: the law of the jungle now governs the race for nuclear arms • Sanctions Don't Bite on the North Korea Border On Scene: It's business as usual on the Chinese border town of Dandong, which continues to trade briskly with 'those stupid bastards' across the Yalu Viewpoints • Let's Make a Deal... We can't invade. Sanctions won't work. The only option left is to talk • Staring At North Korea The survival of Kim Jong Il's regime depends on cross-border trade. Here's why China is so reluctant to cut it off • North Korea Raises the Stakes Analysis: More tough talk, another provocation. What's behind Pyongyang's threat to test a nuclear weapon? • Postapocalypse Now Pop culture's latest visions of mass destruction feel eerily intimate • Rice's North Korea Sanctions Mission Is No Slam-Dunk Analysis: Sure, China has agreed to block any trade with its neighbor's weapons programs. But its priorities are to engage Pyongyang and restart nuclear diplomacy — not necessarily the same as those of the U.S. Photo Essays • The Most Militarized Border Tension between the two Koreas escalates after the North tests a nuclear weapon. Here's a look at life in the Korean DMZ • Exposing North Korea Daily life in a country caught between the whims of a tyrannical regime and the call of the modern world Web Guide • Dr. Strangelove Visits North Korea A selection of some of the most interesting items on North Korean president Kim Jong Il and his testing of a nuclear weapon

Look a little closer, however, and it becomes evident why Dandong (pop. 2.4 million) is anything but a normal Chinese city--and why it's a crucial front in the world's struggle to contain a nuclear North Korea. A few hundred yards across the river lie the dilapidated low-rise buildings of the North Korean city of Sinuiju, many of which seem deserted, their window frames empty of glass, their doors agape. A few peasants dressed in blue jackets and trousers can be seen laboring in the fields in front of the town, but otherwise an eerie stillness pervades. As evening advances, only a few feeble lights come on in Sinuiju, and the town's forlorn structures are soon swallowed up by the darkness. Only the incongruous shape of a long-unused Ferris wheel is visible in the dying light.

The proximity of such desolation goes to the heart of China's quandary about how to deal with North Korea and its leader, Kim Jong Il. Dandong is the main crossing point on China's 880-mile border with North Korea, making it the most active hub for the $1.6 billion in annual trade between the two countries. That trade is critical to the survival of Kim's regime: some 90% of Pyongyang's daily oil supply and just under half its food imports come from China. Although the U.S. believes that tightening the financial squeeze on Pyongyang is necessary to persuade Kim to abandon his newly tested nuclear arsenal, Beijing fears that a cutoff in aid would bring about the collapse of the North's economy, touch off civil unrest and lead to an influx of millions of poor, hungry refugees on its borders. In response to Kim's test on Oct. 9, the U.N. Security Council demanded that North Korea eliminate all its nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, as well as ballistic missiles. The U.N. also authorized inspection of cargo to and from North Korea.

Making those sanctions meaningful depends on China. China said last week that the country's four main banks will cease handling transactions from North Korea. It also says it had increased inspections of goods passing from China to North Korea by land, although there will be no inspections of seaborne cargo. Chinese newspapers reported last week that authorities had closed all border crossings with North Korea except for the most heavily trafficked one, at Dandong.