North Korea and China open the New Yalu River Bridge, 12 years after its completion

North Korea and China inaugurated on Thursday, October 15, the New Yalu (Amnok) River Bridge, which links the North Korean city of Sinuiju with the Chinese city of Dandong in Liaoning province. The two sides “jointly held an opening ceremony for this cross-border artery”, China’s Xinhua news agency reported.

A bridge that waited more than a decade

Construction of the four-lane road bridge began in October 2011 and was completed in October 2014. It then stood unused for more than ten years, because North Korea did not finish the buildings and infrastructure on its own side, South Korea’s Yonhap reported. The opening had originally been planned for 2014, but was postponed indefinitely when Pyongyang halted work on roads and customs facilities during a period of cold relations with Beijing.

It is a cable-stayed bridge with two pylons, a deck 28.5 metres wide and four traffic lanes, and ships of up to 3,000 tonnes can pass beneath it. It is about 3 kilometres long and is expected to become the main land route for trade between the two countries, according to the BBC.

The old Friendship Bridge, built during the Japanese occupation and opened in 1943, carries only trucks of up to 20 tonnes, in one direction at a time.

“First tangible implementation” of the Kim–Xi summit

The opening follows commitments by Kim Jong Un and Xi Jinping at their summit in Pyongyang in June to upgrade relations to a “strategic level”. An official of South Korea’s Unification Ministry called it “the first tangible implementation of the agreements of the June summit” and said Seoul will watch developments, “as this could be a concrete step towards deepening strategic ties”.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning spoke of an “important connecting infrastructure” that will facilitate trade and exchanges.

• Air China flights between Beijing and Pyongyang resumed in March after six years, along with passenger trains.
• Bilateral trade reached $2.7 billion last year, back to pre-pandemic levels.
• Last month North Korea and Russia opened their first road bridge.

Professor Kang Jun-young assessed that a sharp rise in trade is “unlikely” while UN sanctions remain in force, and Leif-Eric Easley of Ewha University noted that the long delay “shows how difficult a partner Pyongyang can be for Beijing”. Meanwhile Pyongyang continues weapons tests, most recently the launch of a ballistic missile from Wonsan.