Reporting from Yanji, China — In the markets of Kilju, a city of 100,000 near North Korea's eastern seacoast, the ruling Korean Workers' Party has ordered the removal of Chinese-made cookies, candies and pharmaceuticals.
Even soybeans, many articles of clothing and shoes are now forbidden.
It is all part of a great leap backward taking place in the secretive autocracy. North Koreans interviewed in China in recent weeks say that the regime of Kim Jong Il has made a concerted effort to roll back reforms that had over the last decade liberalized the most strictly controlled economy in the world.
"They're telling us that we don't need markets and that socialism provides everything we need," said an unemployed factory worker in her 50s, who gave her name as Lee Myong Hee. (North Koreans outside their country often give fake names because speaking to foreigners can be considered treason under North Korean law.)
Lee sneaked across the border last month into China, hoping she could make some money for her family. Thin and nervous, her body sculpted by a diet of two bowls of porridge each day, she said the party's unbending ideology has squeezed the life out of the city's economy.
"If they don't give us food and clothing and we're not allowed to buy things, how can we survive?" Lee said, tears rolling down hollowed cheeks.
The Korean Workers' Party has banned the sale and swapping of apartments, practices that were widespread for more than a decade. The open-air markets where people do most of their buying and selling are now open only from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. The only people permitted to sell at the markets are women over the age of 50; everybody else is required to spend their days at their official jobs at government-run businesses.
So many Chinese goods are now taboo that markets stock only about 35% of the merchandise previously available, some say.
"They want to promote our own products made in North Korea, but since everything is 'made in China,' there is nothing to buy," said Kim Young Chul, a civilian working for the North Korean military who had come to China to sell wild ginseng on behalf of his employer.
The economic restrictions reflect the rising power of the hard-liners within the staunchly Communist regime and go hand in hand with the belligerent mood that led to North Korea's May 25th nuclear test. Those jostling for power in the scramble created by the failing health of 68-year-old North Korean leader Kim Jong Il are raising the banner of juche, the term coined by his father, Kim Il Sung, the country's founder, for an ideology emphasizing self-sufficiency.
