As trade between North Korea and China begins to reopen, demand for illegal Chinese cellular phones is skyrocketing in areas near the Yalu River border, sources there told RFA.
Mobile phones that are sold legally in North Korea cannot make international calls, creating a huge market for phones that can get a signal from Chinese cell towers on the other side of the border.
The phones were particularly popular with people who made their living by importing Chinese goods. But demand dropped precipitously when the border closed and trade stopped in January 2020 as a prevention against COVID’s spread.
Now that rail freight between the two countries has resumed, the Chinese phones are once again hot-ticket items in Sinuiju, a North Korean city that lies across the Yalu River from China’s Dandong.
“No new Chinese mobile phones have come in since the start of the pandemic,” a resident of Sinuiju told RFA’s Korean Service on Jan. 29.
“There is suddenly a large market for older mobile phones that were imported before the pandemic. Depending on the year of release and how well the phone works, prices can range from 4,000 to 10,000 yuan [U.S. $630-$1,570],” said the source, who requested anonymity for security reasons.
With fewer people trying to call China over the past two years, Chinese phones could be bought relatively cheaply up until the end of 2021, the source said.
“Even phones on sale for less than $300 on the black market did not sell,” he said. “But when news spread that trade between our two countries would soon resume, traders and smugglers were now looking to get their hands on a Chinese phone, so now the price for the cheapest used one is more than like $650,” he said.
The steep price increase was jarring for a trader who visited Sinuiju from South Pyongan, the next province to the south.
“Demand for illegal Chinese phones shot up. Things had been quiet for a long while in the Sinuiju area,” the trader said on condition of anonymity.
“The crackdown on these illegal phones has not been relaxed at all, but so many people are looking for them because freight trade has resumed,” she said. The source confirmed the approximate price range as quoted by the first source.
South Korean phones that work on the Chinese towers are also available, the business traveler from South Pyongan said, but prices are even higher, ranging from $1,700 to $3,000.
“If they find a South Korean mobile phone in a crackdown, people may be subject for severe punishment, because they are using South Korean products. Traders and smugglers, though, prefer the South Korean phones over the Chinese ones because they have various additional functions and better call quality,” she said.
“Telephone brokers are starting to resume their business. They have several Chinese mobile phones and North Korean escapees contact them from abroad to get in touch with their families still living here, and they act as go-betweens when the escapees wire money to their families,” she said.
The resumption of trade between North Korea and China can’t come faster for North Koreans who have struggled under their country’s dire economic circumstances over the past two years, the trader said.
“Once trade is normalized the lives of the people will get better. Trade in smuggled black-market goods will increase and people will be able to receive overseas wire transfers thanks to these illegal mobile phones. People are eagerly awaiting,” she said.
While the exact number of illegal phone users in North Korea is unknown, the Database Center for North Korean Human Rights, which interviewed 414 North Koreans in the South, reported that 47% of them were in constant contact with their families in the North in 2018. Of those, about 93% said they called their families on the phone.
In the same survey, 62% said they had sent money to North Korea. Based on their answers, the center estimated that refugees in the South send about 2.7 million South Korean won (U.S. $2,260) back home about twice per year.
According to South Korea’s Ministry of Unification, about 33,000 North Koreans have settled in South Korea since 1998.
Translated by Claire Lee and Leejin Jun. Written in English by Eugene Whong .