It is no secret that North Korea suffers chronic shortages of fuel, to the point that nighttime satellite photographs of the Korean Peninsula show a glittering south and a darkened north, beginning exactly at the 38th parallel that divides them.
Now the scarcity, made worse by an apparent drop in oil imports from China, has claimed a new set of victims: motorbike riders.
In the past week, two Seoul-based Web sites that carry reports from sources within North Korea said the authorities there had cracked down on private motorbike use to save fuel for military and government functionaries.
The new restrictions come just as motorbikes are emerging as the next stage in the evolution of vehicular transport in North Korea, much as they did in other parts of Asia decades ago — another reflection of North Korea’s stunted economy. Motorbike ownership is widely considered a status symbol in North Korea, where most people still travel on foot. Many motorbike owners supplement their income by using them as taxis.
Free North Korea Radio, a Web site run by North Korean defectors, quoted a Pyongyang resident who said: “Some people hire state security officials and military police to ride with them on their motorcycle to do their business. In the end, the crackdown is only fattening the pockets of those who enforce it.”
Daily NK, another Web site specializing in North Korean news, said the restrictions had banned private motorbike use except in the morning commute and at night, and that violators risked confiscation of their vehicles.
The restrictions could not be independently verified, but if confirmed, they appear to be another consequence of the North Korean government’s chilled friendship with China, its closest economic benefactor and ally.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is said to be exasperated with 31-year-old North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un, because he has repeatedly defied China’s warnings to curtail North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
According to reports in the South Korea press earlier this year quoting official Chinese customs data, China did not export any crude oil to North Korea for at least the first three months of this year. However, diplomats have cautioned against reading too much into those statistics, because China sometimes keeps oil exports to North Korea out of its official trade data.
Still, competition for North Korea’s limited supply of fuel for private use is known to have intensified in recent years.
Even before the new restrictions, riders faced hazards peculiar to North Korea’s authoritarian system — long-distance travel permit requirements, decrepit roads, an unpredictable black market for gasoline and petty corruption among the police.
Lee Mi-yeon, a woman who defected from the North, said recently on Channel A in Seoul that the North Korean police often stopped people on motorbikes just to extort their gasoline.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in