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On Aug. 16

In order to fulfill the new sanctions placed on North Korea by UN Security Council Resolution 2371, China banned seafood imports from North Korea starting on Aug. 15. There has been a great deal of resistance to the ban, including protests from merchants. The seafood supply in Beijing and other inland areas has sharply decreased.

Seafood wholesaler Feng Yalong said in an Aug. 18 interview with the South China Morning Post that when the supply was available, he would sell 1,500kg of North Korean shellfish a day in Beijing and Hebei province, but that the supply of shellfish coming over the border had all but dried up. “Today there was only 250kg,” he said.

Shellfish from North Korea cost about 20 yuan (about 3,400 won) more per kilogram than Chinese shellfish, but since about two years ago, more Chinese consumers have been requesting them, claiming that they are bigger and fresher. “It’s because there’s no pollution there [in North Korea] and you don’t even have to clean the seafood before you eat it,” Feng said. “All we can do is sell Chinese shellfish instead,” he continued. Last year, North Korea exported USD 190 million (217 billion won) worth of seafood to China.

Merchants in Hunchun, Jilin province, where marine products from the waters off North Korea’s east coast usually enter China, have been hit especially hard. On Aug. 16, some merchants held protests near the Quanhe Customs office, which are in charge of seafood imports from North Korea. Customs officers began refusing customs clearance for seafood on Aug. 15, even halting vehicles loaded with marine products on a bridge that crosses over the Tumen River, leading to the protests. “The premise is to put sanctions on North Korea, not to cause losses for Chinese citizens,” the merchants said.

Events unfolded as follows, according to a post on China’s SNS platform WeChat: At about 4pm on Aug. 14, the merchants heard that imports would be banned starting the following day, and they hurriedly began transport. At 5:30pm, customs officials on the North Korean side of the border finished work. On Aug. 15, work resumed as usual on the North Korean side and the vehicles were cleared through customs, but the imports were halted on the Chinese side. The huge loads of frozen seafood in the halted vehicles began to melt under the scorching summer sun, and, by Aug. 16, the area surrounding the Quanhe Customs office began to reek of rotting seafood.

Hunchun merchants are worried about their halted cargo clearing customs, but they are also upset about the cold storage and processing facilities they have built in North Korea. “Even just in squid alone, there must be thousands of tons. Hunchun’s Chinese merchants have already paid out for all of this, and it’s just sitting in cold storage in North Korea,” one merchant said.

By Kim Oi-hyun, Beijing correspondent

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]