Chinese Capitalism

Aborted Tourism Reopening Reflects Geopolitical Priorities in Pyongyang

By | October 15, 2025

Russian tourists first in line amid limited acceptance of foreign visitors, as Chinese tour groups fail to return to DPRK border destinations Sinuiju, Manpo, and Samjiyon

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.

The Red Genetics of Yanbian: New Research on Party Policy and Chosunjok Identity

By | July 08, 2022

How pivotal was Deng Xiaoping’s legacy for ethnic Koreans in China? Adam Cathcart reads some recent scholarship and Chinese materials to find out.