Fora anyone that knowns much about visiting North Korea you might be aware that overland is primarily done by bridge, namely the Yalu River Bridge, but did you know there is a New Yalu River Bridge?
Said bridge is a long modern affair built over 10 years ago by the Chinese. The only problem? No one is using it.
3 bridges between North Korea and China
This means there are actually 3 bridges between the two nations, with the first “friendship bridge” being built by the Chinese. This was bombed during the Korean War at the halfway point. Why halfway? Well at this point there was only Chinese volunteers – which included Mao Anying, so an official attack on China was avoided. This can now be visited as a tourist attraction.
The second bridge, which is still there today was built by the Peoples Republic of China and the DPRK and ferries over trucks and trains. We bring a lot of people in by train. to DPR Korea. Long live the K27 and K28!
The New Yalu River Bridge
The new Yalu River Bridge began construction 2011 and was finished soon after and was supposed to replace the Sino-Korean friendship bridge, or at least be a compliment to it. Part of the building on the Chinese side involved the creation of the New Dandong City which would benefit from all off the cross border traffic.
Briefly this meant a property boom as China did their side of the bargain. Also the Koreans not so much and both the new city and the bridge now lay dormant.
The North Koreans though have not given up and continued building to almost completion by 2021 before Covid kicked into things.
Why the delay? Well it seems that North Korea wanted China, who had already spent $350 million to help them monetarily. This though was agreed by Xi Jingping and things on that side are officially finished, yet we all still sit in wait.
To read about Dandong street food click here.
Can you visit the New Yalu River Bridge?
The New Yalu River bridge is not all that far from downtown and sits on and pretty much equidistant to Hwanggumpyong Island a supposed special economic zone that has equally not happened.
Previously visiting the New Yalu River bridge was fairly well enough to get you arrested (I know tis first hand), but nowadays there is a viewing front as well as even car parks for you to pull in and rest.
Said car parks do have military there, but this is sadly just normal for China. What they also had was a pretty cool pop up cafe housed in a heat preserving tent. We dropped in and had an orange, as well a pomegranate juice whilst looking at said bridge.
And that is the tale of the New Yalu Bridge, at least for now. Hopefully this is well and truly a story we get to update!