As China and North Korea cut the ribbon on New Yalu River Bridge this week, officials described the new border crossing in momentous terms. Chinese Premier Li Qiang said the 3km (1.9-mile) bridge, which links China’s Dandong and North Korea’s Sinuiju, would “vigorously promote” trade and “strengthen emotional bonds”. North Korean Premier Pak Thae-song expressed his belief that the crossing would “accelerate the advance for the prosperity of the two countries” and “add fresh vigour” to their economic cooperation.
Analysts on China-North Korea ties are much more circumspect. While the bridge is a concrete symbol of China and North Korea’s efforts to revitalise relations that have waned from their Cold War-era peak, the prospects for trade are hindered by obstacles ranging from international sanctions to a North Korean leadership that prioritises security above all else, experts say. China, whose troops fought alongside Pyongyang in the 1950-53 Korean War, has long been North Korea’s most crucial economic benefactor.
China accounts for as much as 95 percent of official trade with the secretive country, which is among the world’s most diplomatically and economically isolated states. Before the four-lane New Yalu River Bridge officially opened on Thursday, road and rail freight between Dandong and Sinuiju, the main route for China-North Korea trade, travelled exclusively via the ageing Sino-Korean Friendship Bridge. Opened in 1943, the bridge, which has a single-lane road and a rail track, can only carry vehicles weighing a maximum of 20 tonnes.
Jae-woo Joo, a professor of Chinese foreign policy at Kyung Hee University in Seoul, said the new bridge could “tremendously” boost trade between the sides, including the transfer of components banned under sanctions against Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programmes. After coming under strain from North Korea’s nuclear weapons tests in the mid-2000s, Beijing-Pyongyang ties have warmed under Chinese President Xi Jinping and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. At Xi and Kim’s most recent meeting in June, their seventh summit since 2018, the leaders pledged to enhance cooperation in areas spanning trade, defence, agriculture, law, science and technology.
Analysts have, in part, cast Beijing’s deepening engagement with Pyongyang as a response to the latter’s growing ties with Moscow, which have included the deployment of thousands of North Korean troops to the front lines of Russia’s war in Ukraine. Last month, North Korean and Russian officials opened the first road bridge linking their countries across the Tumen River. North Korea and China’s two-way trade grew 25 percent in 2025 to reach $2.74bn, according to figures from China’s General Administration of Customs.
Bilateral trade has continued to grow in 2026, jumping nearly 20 percent to reach $1.5bn in the first half of the year, putting it on track to reach its highest volumes since the COVID-19 pandemic. But while growing, trade remains relatively minuscule in the context of global commerce. With China’s overall trade hitting $6.36 trillion in 2025, North Korea’s contribution to the total was a little more than 0.04 percent.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
