Word: sinuiju
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...Sincerity alone won't be enough to get the new zone off the ground. Sinuiju is short of everything an economic hub needs to operate, including decent roads, commercial transport and proper water facilities. Yang intends to woo international banks to finance infrastructure projects. Similar funding has been sought in the past without much success. In the mid-1990s, Pyongyang tried to lure capital to North Korea's Rajin-Sonbong free trade zone, which also has its own legal code, but little has been developed. In a black box of a state where assessing political risk is like reading chicken...
...rare tour of Sinuiju highlights how badly the place needs China's example. In the spartan North Korean city, few cars motor on the wide streets, and the decaying department store has a meager selection of basic packaged food and dull clothing. At night, schoolchildren gather in the main square to read under the floodlights pointed at a statue of Kim Il Sung, the country's founder. It's the brightest spot in a city plagued by chronic electrical power shortages. Meanwhile, across the Yalu River in the Chinese city of Dandong, new, white buildings rise above the riverbank, traffic...
...poverty and privation. Small hamlets of white-washed cottages nestle between rice paddies and corn fields, where teams of farmers still work with hoes and sickles. Hardly a tractor can be found, though truckloads of soldiers ramble down the narrow roads. At the Grand People's Study House in Sinuiju, students stare at computers equipped with Microsoft Internet Explorer, but with no connection to the Web, they listlessly surf the library's own site. At one dimly lit lecture hall, students learn English by repeating phrases their teacher recites in praise of the Communist leadership. "All the people would unite...
...Then again, Sinuiju's chief executive has credibility issues of his own. Yang, who says he has small agriculture-related holdings in North Korea, was told by government officials during a January business trip to Pyongyang that Kim had hand-picked him to run the SAR. On the mainland, Yang's fortune is rooted in an orchid seedling business he built into Euro-Asia Agricultural (Holdings) Co., which is listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. A hardy perennial himself, Yang was orphaned at five, graduated from China's naval academy and, after winning a scholarship to study...
...Yang has his mind on more grandiose matters?the biggest development project of his career, and what may prove to be an epochal experiment in social engineering. Yang says his goal in Sinuiju is "to merge the economy of North Korea into the world economy. That's the only way to eliminate hatred and bring peace to Northeast Asia." He compares North Korea to a miner climbing to the surface after a long day in the tunnels and finding the sun painful to his eyes. "North Korea has been closed for 50 years," he says. "You have to give them...