High on Comradeship: China Publicizes the DPRK Drugs Issue
Image: China Daily
Every now and then, stories emerge that discuss the problem of North Korean drug production and international distribution. Many of these tales crop up in South Korean media, sometimes elsewhere, but rarely do any of them contain enough detail to be useful, and they also regularly fudge dates and times, seemingly in order to put the proverbial old wine in new bottles.
As such, most of us will have glossed over a March 12 report on North Korean drugs carried by China’s Global Times. Thankfully, Nick Miller didn’t. Here he gives the lowdown on that story, with no fudging of dates, just a broad range of sources, some from the South Korean media (so buyer beware!).
Rather than the drugs themselves, which Nick points out are not a new phenomenon, the key point here is this: coming as it did in the midst of a North Korea-China anus horribilis (or six months, at least), Pyongyang won’t have failed to note that China has again taken to talking about drugs in public.- Christopher Green, Co-editor.
High on Comradeship: China Publicizes the DPRK Drugs Issue
by Nick Miller
Drugged by Comrades: Jilin in the Firing Line | A lengthy March 12 article in China’s Global Times, “Drugged By Comrades” highlights the ever-present problem of North Korean drugs in China, and particularly at its epicenter, Jilin Province. In 2012, the Chinese government busted 2,400 suspected drug dealers in the area, it explains, and in 2011 more than 262 kilograms (over 577 pounds) of illicit drugs were taken in a Jilin province-wide campaign known as “Strong Wind”.
Nevertheless, Chinese border towns continue to struggle with the inflow of North Korean drugs, whose dealers employ the Tumen River to spread their illicit substances to Hunchun, Longjing, and Helong. Lu Chao, a North Korea expert at the Liaoning Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times that the problem of North Korean drug trafficking into China is a long-standing problem, but did also reconfirm that, while the issue is never openly discussed, measures are being taken to combat it.
Doped to the Eyeballs: Opium Poppies | Former North Korean spy and internal police force officer Ma Young-ae‘s job focused on tracking down drug smugglers and stopping small time drug dealers, something she did in order to free up space for North Korean government-supported producers and dealers to dominate the market. At the time, the government was producing opium on a commercial scale but hid its fields from the general population, she said. In the 1980s, opium was apparently the drug of choice for the North Korean government.
Of course, the government’s own involvement runs deep, and even the country’s diplomats have their own history of involvement in the drug smuggling industry. In 2004 the Turkish authorities arrested two North Korean diplomats there for trafficking 700,000 fenethylline, a synthetic drug, and utilizing their diplomatic number plates to transport the drugs around. Utilizing North Korean diplomats for drug trafficking was nothing new even then, it seems, and it sure isn’t now; in 2013, South Korea’s Chosun Ilbo threw out an unverified report that North Korea had sent illegal drugs to its embassies in Eastern Europe in December 2012 to harvest the profits by April 2013. A North Korean defector supposedly claimed that the government had ordered each diplomat to raise $300,000 to prove their loyalty to the state by April 15th, the birthday of Kim Il-sung.
China’s Constraints: Media as Alternative to Action | The most recent Chinese report is not the first from that country, either. In 2011, Chinese officials announced that they had seized $60 million dollars worth of illegal drugs from North Korea. This was the first time the Chinese government had acknowledged the problem publicly, and it looked a lot like a way to show frustration with the North Korean government and its role in drug trafficking. A diplomatic source told Donga Ilbo that North Korean drug trafficking and its production had incensed the Chinese government.
However, one of the key problems for China is the fact that its policy of aid and assistance to North Korea takes precedence over combating illegal drug production. While Chinese elites are likely keenly aware of the growing problem, their unwillingness to clamp down hard on North Korea for fear of risking its collapse is what keeps it from meeting with more success in its battle to end the drugs scourge. Poignantly, Dr. Zhang highlights that the problem would likely only grow worse if North Korea took a punt on real economic reform, as trade between the two countries would increase and the volume of illegal drugs that North Korea produced would rise with it.
Rather, Dr. Zhang suggested that China ought to work with and provide technical assistance to the North Korea government to stop drug production. However, this suggestion is unlikely to work, either, as production is so intrinsically linked to North Korean elites. He also suggested that the Chinese government might focus on creating effective countermeasures and joint task forces with Russia, South Korea, Japan, and the US to help combat drug trafficking and strengthen counter-narcotics law enforcement within border provinces.
