Economics

The Dandong Chess Board: Trade, Anti-Corruption, and Russian Visitors

By | May 26, 2024

What are the ambitions of Chinese Communist Party cadre in Dandong in opening up further to North Korea and Russia? And a local anti-corruption update.

China’s Ground Game in Dandong and North Korea

By | January 27, 2024

As Sino-North Korean bilateral relations intensify, Adam Cathcart looks at China’s ground game in Pyongyang and Dandong, with a focus on business.

Chinese Intellectuals, the CIA, and Defector Memoirs in the 1960s

By | January 18, 2024

Newly declassified documents shed light on a CIA operation to extract high-level intellectuals as defectors from the People’s Republic of China. We also look at defector accounts of meetings with Mao Zedong.

Bridges, Anti-Corruption, and Minerals: Sino-North Korean Borderland News

By | May 25, 2023

Chinese Communist Party cadre in the border region with North Korea have got a lot on their plates: discipline and development. Plus a look at trade in Dandong.

Coffee, Copper and Trade Winds: The Promise of Panama-South Korea Economic Relations

By | July 18, 2022

Bound by a free-trade agreement and some pretty unique value-adds, Panama and South Korea’s bilateral relationship has a promising future.