January 8^th 2016

Video at link

KBS News

Chinese environmental authorities have begun an inquiry into radiation pollution on the border between North Korea and China after North Korea’s nuclear test. Also, it KBS News has checked and confirmed through withdrawals [from the bank] that North Korea’s Joseon Gwangseon Bank is continuing to operate, despite the

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Dandong abuts two rivers on the border with North Korea, more than 420km away from the [North Korean] nuclear testing site, Punggyeri in North Hamgyeong Province, [Chiense] investigative environmental personnel have mobilised inspection equipment to measure [radiation] and check that everything is alright in response to public pressure. The Chinese environmental agency is taking the affecting influence [of the tests] very seriously but is only releasing very little information to the public.* A Chinese environment agency investigator said, in response to being asked what they were doing: “we are measuring.” [The Chinese investigator is questioned and replies in Chinese in the video.]

Through revealing [“재재로”, literally “talkative” or “garrulous”] withdrawals it was discovered that North Korea’s Joseon Gwangseon Bank was again operative. The building security guard, when asked if the building housed the bank, said [again in Chinese] “the North Korean bank is room number 8 on the thirteenth floor.” When asked if anyone was present he said “maybe there’s someone up there, I’ve seen one or two people”. Thus also through the security guard the continued operations of the Joseon Gwangseon Bank were determined. One of the bank’s managers responded to a crowd of reporters with verbal abuse: “Stop all of those silly remarks which [you] have been making.” [While the actual content of this “verbal abuse” is mild, it was delivered via the casual speech style, which is extremely rude to use in professional situations or with anyone but close friends.]

[Working] amidst this very same menacing atmosphere is a North Korean trader. [He believes] that the nuclear tests are natural and fair. “What influence [did the test have on the Chinese environment]? Whether we trade or don’t trade [with China] our nation needs to be self-sufficient and self-reliant. And what?”

Meanwhile at the North Korean border posts Hwanggeumpyeon island on the Yalu river on the barbed-wire boundary between the two countries, no changes have been detected.

*The phrase used in the original is “말을 아꼈습니다” – “being thrifty with words”

Analysis: How much more will China take? Appetite for continued support of North Korea within Chinese power circles must be rapidly approaching rock-bottom. With a plummeting stock market the last thing Beijing needs is pointless belligerence from its misfit neighbour. Perhaps this latest round of testing is in response to some internal instability in the North Korean administration. Regardless, expect to see the usual strong denunciations and equally typical lack of any concrete action from South Korea, Japan, the US and the UN.