For the second straight month, destination and origin statistics of China's imports and exports for September issued by the Trade Ministry on Monday gave no separate figures for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. This is the first time this has happened since the two countries established diplomatic relations 60 years ago.

Trade between the two usually involves coal, crude oil, oil products and cereals. Analysts and officials from the two governments usually rely on trade data to show the good relations between the two neighbours. Political leaders could thus use these data to avoid discussing cooling diplomatic relations.

North Korea relies essentially on China and South Korea. With an economy mismanaged by Kim Il-sung and his son Kim Jong-il, the country survives by hanging on a thin line thrown by China and South Korea that includes food aid and energy supplies. Political and humanitarian considerations are the main reasons for assistance by Pyongyang’s neighbours.

With the election of Lee Myung-bak to the presidency of South Korea, Seoul took on a hard-line position. Aid shipments to the North have virtually stopped.

The South Korean government wants the Stalinist regime in the North to carry out real reform if it wants a preferential economic treatment.

Beijing has partly adopted the same stance. Upset by North Korea’s nuclear tests in October 2006, it cut oil shipments to its neighbours. However, it is unclear whether the stoppage was a calculated move or due to more prosaic problems.

Cooler Sino-North Korean relations lasted through 2007 and most of 2008. During this same period, Pyongyang threatened the world with its nuclear tests.

At the start of this year, North Korea’s economy came close to collapse, a situation made worse by draught and flooding.

During Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao’s recent visit to Pyongyang, Kim Jong-il embraced the Chinese leader and tried to patch differences. The dictator also announced that his country would return to the ‘six-nation talks’, which his government had declared dead just six months ago. He also said that his country was open to inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency.

In making this shift, the regime is showing that it wants to re-open the door to China to get economic aid.

Last year, trade between the mainland and North Korea reached US$ 2.79 billion, up 41.3 per cent on 2007. But in the first nine months of this year, bilateral trade slipped to US$ 1.85 billion.

China especially cut crude oil shipments to the North, whilst increasing rice supplies.