October 31, 2011
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yeah, thanks for your help [sarcasm]
Boo and double-boo to China. Thanks for undermining our sanctions and sponsoring the systematic torturing and murdering of your neighbors. I guess it's OK as long as it lines your coffers, right?
China expanding Nokor border port
October 31, 2011, 1:46amBEIJING (Reuters) – China will invest 45 billion yuan ($7.1 billion) over the next five years to expand Dandong port, a key trade link to isolated North Korea, state news agency Xinhua reported.
Dandong, which lies on the North Korean border, will be able to handle more than 100 million tonnes of freight annually once the expansion is complete, compared with 60 million tonnes at present, the report said, citing a government statement.
The Dadong expansion project will ''cement its role as a transport hub in Northeast Asia that connects the Korean Peninsula with Eurasia,'' Xinhua said.
Impoverished and squeezed by international sanctions for conducting a series of nuclear and missile tests from 2006, North Korea has reached out to Moscow and Beijing for help to fill the gap left by the drying up of South Korean and the US economic assistance.
Over the past 16 months, leader Kim Jong-il, who in the past rarely travelled abroad, has visited China four times and in August made his first trip to Russia in nearly a decade.
Kim's visits were mainly aimed at winning economic support, and have raised speculation he may finally be opening one of the world's most closed economies.
China has sought to draw North Korea closer with incentives, and bilateral trade hit $3.1 billion in the first seven months of 2011, an 87 percent increase from the same period last year, according to Chinese customs statistics.
