The North Korean authorities established a “Korea-China Technical Collaboration Center” immediately after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visited Beijing early last month, and they recently sent advance teams of IT personnel to major Chinese cities. This suggests a scheme to expand activities to earn foreign currency under the cover of technological cooperation.
“Immediately after the Supreme Leader visited China, the party’s specialized departments and the Reconnaissance Information General Bureau were ordered to establish the Korea-China Technical Collaboration Center,” a Daily NK source in North Korea said recently. “Researchers with experience working in China and newly selected young computer programmers were deployed to the center.”
On the surface, the center’s activities take the form of technological cooperation between North Korea and China, but in reality, North Korea is using the center to generate foreign currency. “Ostensibly, it’s technical cooperation, but the actual goal is to make foreign currency,” the source said. “The priority is to generate income in the name of technological development.”
In fact, the center’s core duty is to earn foreign currency by cooperating with Chinese companies to develop software or blockchain and cryptocurrency technology.
Teams fan out across Chinese cities
A source in China said, “North Korean advance teams were sent to Tianjin, Shanghai, Dandong and elsewhere between Oct. 17 and Oct. 19, where they have begun contacting local companies.” According to the source, the advance teams hope to conclude contracts with small- and medium-sized Chinese IT companies or projects, with down payments sent to North Korea as cryptocurrency.
With North Korea struggling to earn money by directly dispatching workers overseas due to international sanctions, the country has recently turned to sending IT personnel abroad in the name of technological cooperation, where they sign deals with local companies. The establishment of the Korea-China Technical Collaboration Center was an extension of this strategy to circumvent sanctions—in fact, it is an attempt to secure foreign currency by exporting IT personnel.
In the past, North Korea dispatched individual IT personnel, but the latest move is distinguished by being led by an agency, the Korea-China Technical Collaboration Center. Particularly noteworthy is that the ruling party’s special departments and the Reconnaissance Information General Bureau have been fully involved in establishing the center.
“Approving the collaboration center after Kim Jong Un’s visit to China appears to be a groundbreaking operation to turn technological cooperation into a ‘laboratory for evading sanctions,’” the source in China said. “In particular, the full-scale involvement of the ruling party and the Reconnaissance Information General Bureau suggests an intention to secure and systematize stable channels for earning foreign currency even amid international sanctions.”
The source in North Korea said that establishing the collaboration center “is in its beginning stage, and it seems that next year, technical specialists will be sent to China in large numbers in the name of technological cooperation.” He added that the state “sees the IT sector as a key industry for earning foreign currency in the future.”
In this manner, North Korea is growing increasingly sophisticated in its use of IT personnel to earn foreign currency. In particular, the international community will need to watch closely and exercise caution, given how technological cooperation largely falls outside the sanctions regime’s surveillance network.
Read in Korean
