China’s rapid industrial expansion into its northeastern provinces near its border with North Korea is drawing fears from South Korea that the cash-rich giant is rolling out its economic muscles to increase its clout over the impoverished neighbor.
China has three provinces in its northeastern provinces, namely Jilin, Heilongjiang and Liaoning. Some worry that North Korea can de facto transform into the “fourth northeastern province” of China if the current trend of China’s economic expansion in the region continues, according to the local JoongAng Ilbo newspaper Saturday.
In 2004, China announced an economic development project for the region with a plan that roughly include three vertical and five horizontal directional expansion mapping lines that cover the entire region, the report said.
In 2009, China announced another project that was meant to develop the economies specifically in the area along the North Korean border lines, it said.
A Chinese city, Hunchun, for example, together with its neighboring cities that include Yanji, and Longjing, will play a key role. The city already has a 10-year development plan that covers commerce, trade, tourism and shopping in a space eight times larger than that of the Gaeseong industrial complex, a South Korean-invested industrial compound within the North Korean territory, it said.
“Already, civilian companies have invested 10 billion yuan for this economic project,” a city official told the newspaper.
The city’s economic affairs office has a sign that the multi-year massive project near North Korea received the top Chinese leaders’ blessings, with pictures of Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao displayed there, taken when they visited the city.
Experts say one of China’s key interests is securing a sea port from which China can export its products abroad. The three northeastern provinces are landlocked by Russia. China is believed to be keen to use a North Korean sea port in Rajin, a gateway to the Pacific.
In October 2009, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao signed a co-development project with Kim Jong-il that allows China to use the sea port as well as various economic development projects, including building roads and railways that link Rajin to China’s northeastern region.
China’s expansion will deepen North Korea’s economic dependence on China. A large number of North Korean laborers near border cities will be involved in the project too. China also plans to build a new 50,000-kw hydro power plant in the Tumen River, it said.
China’s economic engagement with North Korea worries South Korea, particularly at a time when the current President Lee Myung-bak, a hardliner, is not engaging North Korea.
Many in South Korea have doubts over whether China supports the inter-Korean unification or it wants to transform North Korea into its economic vassal state as part of its regional strategy to counter the American hegemony.