Star Metro - China-North Korea bridge opens, 12 years late

Nuclear-armed North Korea is largely cut off from the world, and China -- and lately also Russia -- provides vital economic, diplomatic and political backing, though relations have not always been smooth.

Hundreds of locals in the Chinese border town of Dandong -- who have been waiting for over a decade for this moment -- gathered to watch the four-lane, 3,026-metre (9,927-foot) New Yalu River Bridge open.

As the first lorries crossed over from North Korea, the crowds lining the waterfront and streets snapped selfies and waved Chinese flags.

"Now that it's finally open, everyone is really happy. We've been waiting 12 years," a Dandong resident, who came to watch the opening with her daughter and grandson, told AFP.

When the bridge was completed in 2014, some residents bought apartments in the then-newly built district, hoping to see their investment grow with the influx of trade.

But hope turned to despair and impatience as delays dragged on due to a lack of connecting roads and customs facilities on the North Korean side. And then the border closed during the Covid pandemic.

"So many new buildings were built, but nobody comes to live in them," the mother said.

"When they bought the apartments, the exterior was brand new. Now, after waiting all these years, the exterior has already become old," her daughter added.

The road bridge over the Yalu River lies downstream from the ageing, single-lane Sino-Friendship Bridge.

"Previously the (Sino-Friendship) bridge had to alternate between traffic moving in each direction, creating only limited windows for crossings," Rowan Beard of Young Pioneer Tours agency, which specialises in travel to North Korea, told AFP.

Lim Eul-chul, a North Korea expert at Kyungnam University, said "the new crossing will make such shipments much easier and more efficient", and called it a "groundbreaking development" that will triple or quadruple cargo traffic.

- Kim's smokes -

Many in Dandong have built their business and livelihoods around its proximity to North Korea, and hope the new bridge will breathe life into their town.

At a souvenir shop nearby the Sino-Friendship Bridge, tourists browsed model tanks, fake missiles and stacks of North Korean cigarettes rumoured to be Kim Jong Un's brand of choice.

One souvenir store manager told AFP that she hoped tourism would resume between the two countries, which dried up after North Korea sealed its borders during the pandemic.

"Later on, if they open up things like tourism, if North Korea completely opens up, there'll be more business and big opportunities in the future," she said.

North Korea has not yet resumed issuing tourism visas to Chinese citizens, who once made up the bulk of its overseas visitors.

- Cruise missiles -

The opening of the new bridge comes a little more than a month after North Korea and Russia opened their first road bridge, with Pyongyang lauding it as a sign of closer ties.

Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Pyongyang has become a key Kremlin ally, sending troops to support Moscow's war effort in return for economic benefits and military technology.

A day prior to the Yalu bridge opening, North Korea also test-fired two types of cruise missile from a submarine, according to the official Korean Central News Agency.

The two Koreas -- technically still at war 73 years after a truce -- have engaged in a tit-for-tat series of missile tests this month, with both sides test-firing hypersonic weapons.

Yu Shuyan, a Dandong resident who visited North Korea before the border was sealed, said the bridge could provide benefits both ways.

"The living standard in North Korea is quite tough," she told AFP. "I hope it can rise to the level we have here."

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K.Morrison--SMC