NKorea businesses face China deadline
From restaurants with singing waitresses, to secluded traders in back alleys, North Korean businesses in Beijing face a precarious start to the New Year with a looming, sanctions-linked
North Korea’s trade, China is a major outpost for what little
But Beijing—fed up with Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile tests— has given North Korean businesses and non- profit organizations accordance with United Nations sanctions, the commerce ministry
In visits to a dozen North Korean companies in the Chinese capital, AFP found that many owners and staff were unsure
Near the North’s massive embassy complex in Beijing, where a red propaganda banner proclaims “Long live dear supreme leader Kim Jong-Un,” four trading com
Each door is emblazoned with a silver placard and the name of the occupant: Ever Victorious Trading, Korea Sungjon Trading, Korea SEK Company and Korean
Ever Victorious is registered to a man named Chen Shire, though the middle-aged man who opened its door declined to give his name North’s diplomats commonly abuse their diplomatic status to
“We buy essentials that are available here,” the man said, declining to elaborate on what his
electric rice cookers were stacked
- omy,” he said, though when asked about US President Donald Trump, he admitted the expanding sanc
“Because of that bastard (Trump) our country is having
“But no matter how much Trump bullies us, we have our own
He could not say if the trading company would shut down come
An elderly woman pushes a bicycle past a North Korean restaurant in Beijing on December 20 ,2017. North Korean businesses based in Beijing await in limbo as everything from restaurants with singing waitresses to firms burrowed in a back alley face a January deadline to shutter.
A commerce ministry official told AFP that all North Korean
“If they are still operating after
The UN resolution does not said they were eyeing a January 12 deadline for joint ventures and cooperative entities to shut down, in line with the 120-day timetable
‘I listen to the motherland’s orders’
Restaurants with singing and dancing North Koreans were once popular among Beijing’s nouveau riche and wealthy North Koreans
Some opened as joint ventures, with the North Koreans overseeing the entertainment and food while the Chinese side
That was the arrangement made to establish the Begonia chain of
Chinese woman Li Li invested her North Korean partner took 40 percent for running the place and bringing clientele, chefs, waitresses
But the North Koreans reneged after claiming that she never but she only recouped a fraction
Some of the Begonia restaurants remain in operation but waitresses said the manager was not in and did not know when
They also did not know what would happen in January, as did waitresses at the joint venture Yuliuguan restaurant, which markets its “beautiful North Korean ladies
“This doesn’t concern me,” waitress Xu Yingning said in stilted Chinese when asked about the fate of the restaurant, which features a stage and shelves with hollowed
listen to the motherland’s
‘Always be prepared’
In recent years, Beijing Wanjing Science and Technology jumped -
Business records show the North Korean- owned company devel - tant for the company said she did not know what it did, and declined
When AFP visited its listed ad - said Beijing Wanjing left about six
“They kept to themselves,” the young North Korean men he saw
“They lived and worked in the
Several other North Korean companies that AFP visited had
One restaurant became an elementary school; a sanction-breaking front company turned into an Import Export Company’s address
Only the Korea Traditional Art Center selling North Korean artwork was adamant it would
Inside, a prominent painting featured a Korean woman bundled up against a snowstorm, with a