In Ponbu Kindergarten, a training ground for children who go on to perform in Pyongyang’s Mass Games, almost everything is “made in China.”

Air conditioning units feature the logo of Gree, an electrical appliances firm based in Zhuhai, adjacent to Macau. Labels show that a classroom’s red plastic chairs were manufactured by Yimei Plastics Cement Company in Taizhou, a coastal city in prosperous Zhejiang province.

Even the faucets and light fixtures in the toilets of this model school in Sinuiju come from China, a sign of just how reliant this border town – and the rest of North Korea –