DANDONG/SEOUL/SINGAPORE, March 11 (Reuters) - When Kim Jong Un arrived by armored train in Beijing for a military parade in September, the pageantry signaled a thaw in one of the world's most important relationships after several years of frosty ties.
Behind the spectacle of tanks and fighter jets, North Korea's leader brought a senior economic team to talk trade and investment. Five weeks later, Chinese Premier Li Qiang reciprocated in Pyongyang, and China's ambassador declared both countries were
"writing a new chapter."
For China, the mission is clear: reassert its traditional influence over a neighbor that has drawn closer to Russia since its 2022 invasion of Ukraine. North Korea has supplied troops and weapons to Moscow in exchange for fuel and food to shore up an economy hobbled by U.N. sanctions over its nuclear-weapons program.
A Reuters examination reveals how Beijing is deepening engagement with North Korea as U.S. President Donald Trump prepares to visit China and expresses interest in reviving talks with Kim for the first time since 2019. Satellite imagery shows China and North Korea are installing new infrastructure along the border — including roadworks and port facilities, some not previously reported — and forging closer economic links that boost Beijing's sway over any U.S. overtures to Pyongyang.
To document the shift, Reuters reviewed trade data, traveled along parts of the 1,350-kilometer border and interviewed some three dozen people, including North Korean waitresses, Chinese business owners with factories in North Korea, Western tour operators, and a Chinese government official. Most spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the topic.
The rapprochement is cautious: North Korea shut its borders in 2020 in response to COVID-19 and remains largely closed to tourism, even as passenger-train services to the country from China resume this week. And Kim's pivot to Moscow in recent years has diversified his political and economic partners amid continued sanctions pressure. Still, his intensifying cooperation with China positions North Korea for a wider reopening that some analysts said would enable Beijing to reinforce its smaller neighbor's economic dependence and signal to Trump that his top strategic rival holds the key to shaping Kim's actions.
China's exports to North Korea reached a six-year high of $2.3 billion last year, a 25% annual increase. In November, China dropped its longstanding call for North Korea's denuclearization from an official arms-control white paper. In a message to Chinese President Xi Jinping on March 9, Kim said cooperation between the two countries "will become even closer in the future as we advance the common cause of socialism," North Korean state media reported.
"Discussions across all areas - politics, economy, security, and military - have kicked off, laying ground for relations to take a leap," said Lim Eul-chul, a professor who studies North Korea at South Korea's Kyungnam University.
Asked about China's courting of North Korea, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Reuters that Russia welcomes greater cooperation in the region, which contributes to stability and security.
Beijing's foreign ministry told Reuters that China and North Korea have been "actively advancing border cooperation" to foster exchanges, without addressing Pyongyang's ties with Moscow. North Korea's mission to the U.N. and its embassy in Beijing didn't respond to questions.
BRIDGING THE DIVIDE
In the frontier city of Dandong, China has shown its readiness for a surge in cross-border traffic. In May, road markings reading "Truck Entry Lane" and "Passenger Vehicle Entry Lane" were painted onto the Chinese side of the unopened New Yalu River Bridge, which spans the border with North Korea, satellite images show. A new sports court has been installed at Dandong New Zone's dormant customs facility.
Recent construction is evident at other Chinese border stations, including roadworks and new facilities at the northernmost Quanhe port; and new pavement and buildings at Nanping and Sanhe, which Reuters is reporting for the first time. Reuters' analysis of satellite imagery provided by Planet Labs was corroborated by Center for Strategic and International Studies analysts Joseph Bermudez Jr. and Jennifer Jun.
North Korea has also been building what CSIS experts say is a customs and immigration facility, as well as warehouse and cargo-transfer buildings, on its side of the unopened bridge. After a 15-year delay, North Korea spent most of last year working on the project before construction stalled in November. Reuters couldn't determine why the work was paused.
The infrastructure work is now being matched by operational steps. China announced this week that passenger-train services between Beijing, Dandong and Pyongyang would resume Thursday for the first time in six years. Tickets are limited to travelers with a North Korean business visa, a sales-office representative in Beijing told Reuters.
While tourism to North Korea hasn't officially resumed — Pyongyang canceled an international marathon scheduled for April — the revival of the rail connection is a positive sign for the eventual return of tourists, said Rowan Beard, co-founder of travel operator Young Pioneer Tours. Chinese travelers accounted for the bulk of tourists to North Korea before the border closure.
When Reuters traveled to Dandong in January, peddlers on the riverfront promenade were selling lapel pins emblazoned with Kim's portrait, while touts offered boat trips to visitors. A steady stream of Chinese trucks carried goods such as cloth, soybean oil, tires, and frozen duck meat across the old Sino-Korean Friendship Bridge toward North Korean guards.
At the Songtaoyuan restaurant on a freezing evening, five North Korean waitresses moved between tables, serving cold noodles. One told Reuters she was among a group of more than 10 workers who arrived from North Korea in December.
China's foreign and commerce ministries didn't address questions about the North Korean workers and Beijing's enforcement of U.N. sanctions, which prohibit member states from issuing new work permits to North Koreans. Songtaoyuan didn't respond to a request for comment.
WIGS, FAKE BEARDS -- AND TUNGSTEN
The pickup in activity shows China is preparing to expand trade, said Bermudez. "North Korea has a lot of raw material and also lots of people who could be put to work at a very, very low wage rate," he said.
While U.N. sanctions restrict traditional North Korean exports like coal, Beijing has pivoted to importing labor-intensive materials that help prop up the Kim dynasty. Hair products - wigs, eyelashes, and false beards - now account for nearly half of China's imports from North Korea, rising 327-fold over the last decade.
China is also the main buyer of strategic metals from North Korea. Shipments of molybdenum ores and tungsten ores - essential for rockets and missile components - reached records of $17.2 million and $31.5 million, respectively, in 2025, customs data show. These official imports allow China to bolster its stockpile at low prices while ensuring North Korean minerals don't reach the global market to undermine Chinese export controls, said Cory Combs, a critical-minerals analyst at Trivium China.
Political momentum is gaining, too. North Korea in October explicitly endorsed Beijing's position on Taiwan, shortly before China's arms white paper dropped calls for "denuclearization" of the Korean Peninsula.
At a party congress in February, Kim vowed to expand his nuclear arsenal and said prospects for better relations with the United States rested entirely on Washington's attitude.
Trump, who plans to visit China in late March and early April, has said he would love to meet the North Korean leader again. Kim has said the U.S. must first drop its demands for Pyongyang to relinquish its nuclear weapons. A State Department spokesperson said the U.S. remains committed to the complete denuclearization of North Korea.
'THE SECOND SHANGHAI'
Despite increased engagement between Beijing and Pyongyang, a transformation remains elusive in Dandong, where hopes of renewed trade with North Korea have fueled boom-and-bust cycles for years.
No traffic crosses the New Yalu River Bridge, completed by China in 2014. On the Chinese side, residents curious about any signs of progress use binoculars to peer over the crossing, which ends abruptly in a field. North Korea's new entry port, conceived in 2010, sits abandoned, with no workers in sight.
"We once joked that Dandong New Zone would be the second Shanghai," said Fu, a waiter at a cafe by the unused bridge. "If the other side really opened up, it would be."
Instead, empty storefronts line the streets. Property prices have slumped to around 3,000 yuan (about $435) per square meter, down from 10,000 yuan during Trump's first term, according to residents and a Reuters review of property records and local media reports.
Four traders in China said logistics with North Korea remain restrictive.
"Before the pandemic, our trucks could freely enter North Korea's interior to deliver or pick up goods," said an owner of an eyelash manufacturer with a factory in North Korea. "Now, they can only receive and drop off goods at the North Korean customs."
North Korea's caution about reopening stems partly from frustration that China hasn't done more to relax compliance with U.N. sanctions, said Lim, of Kyungnam University.
Some Dandong residents said North Korea's port-of-entry needs to be completed for the promised "new chapter" to materialize.
Qi, a Chinese government official who monitors border trade, told Reuters any improvement will be gradual, but he remains hopeful.
"The worst time has passed," said Qi. "It can only get better and better."
(Reporting by Mei Mei Chu in Dandong, China, Ju-min Park in Beijing and Seoul and Claire Fu in Singapore. Additional reporting by Beijing Newsroom, Michael Martina in Washington and Guy Faulconbridge in Moscow. Editing by Antoni Slodkowski and David Crawshaw.)
