Report: NKorea begins erecting fence (to keep people from fleeing to China)

AP on Yahoo ^ | 8/26/07 | AP

[NormsRevenge]

SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea has started building a fence along parts of its border with China in an apparent move to prevent people from fleeing the impoverished communist country, a news report said Sunday

The North has put posts on a six-mile stretch along a narrow tributary of the Yalu River, which marks the border between North Korea and China. It has also built a road to guard the area, Yonhap news agency reported. The North has yet to string barbed wire fencing between the posts, the report said.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry had no immediate comment on the report.

Less than a year ago, China built a massive barbed wire and concrete fence along its side of the same river.

North Korea and China share an 880-mile border.

Most of China's trade and aid to the North, on which North Korea heavily relies on, moves across the border. Up to 90 percent of the North's oil supplies also come across the border from China.

China had left their border lightly guarded but it has became a security concern for Beijing in the past decade as tens of thousands of North Korean refugees began trickling across into northeast China.

Many of the refugees take a long and risky land journey through China to Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and other Southeast Asian countries on their way to eventual asylum in South Korea.

More than 10,000 North Koreans have defected to the South, with most arriving in recent years.

The 1950-53 Korean War ended in a cease-fire rather than a peace treaty, leaving the two technically still at war.

[TigerLikesRooster]

It would drain a lot of resources to build fence along the entire border. I wonder if they can push it that far.