Tsim Sha Tsui waterfront, Victoria Harbour, August 9, 2013 | Image: Diego Delso via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)
On paper, North Korea and Hong Kong could not be more different from one another. The former is an impoverished totalitarian country, the latter a relatively affluent territory that boasts the world’s 40th-largest gross domestic product and second-freest economy.
Yet both are inextricably linked to China — the DPRK’s most important trade partner and an encroaching influence on Hong Kong since the 1997 handover from the U.K.
That link has helped transform Hong Kong-North Korea ties over the past two decades from essentially nonexistent to the city at one point becoming Pyongyang’s second-largest
On paper, North Korea and Hong Kong could not be more different from one another. The former is an impoverished totalitarian country, the latter a relatively affluent territory that boasts the world’s 40th-largest gross domestic product and second-freest economy.
Yet both are inextricably linked to China — the DPRK’s most important trade partner and an encroaching influence on Hong Kong since the 1997 handover from the U.K.
Oliver Jia is Social Media Editor at NK News and a Kyoto-based graduate student currently pursuing his PhD in international relations at Ritsumeikan University. His research focuses on Japan-DPRK relations and comparative foreign policy. Follow him on Twitter @OliverJia1014