Covid-19 has not been kind to the North Korean people. Like many authoritarian actors around the globe, Kim Jong-un used the pandemic as an excuse to tighten his grip on power. Among the most draconian measures taken was the decision to put an air-tight seal on the country’s already-restricted border with China.
While the decision to close the Sino-North Korean border was intended to ward off a potentially catastrophic outbreak of Covid-19, it also ushered in instability of another kind: economic uncertainty.
