This flow of exchanges had reached 700,000 in 1996, according to South Korean Foreign Minister Yoo Chong Ha. Such exchanges have clearly provided new sources of capital and investment to the Korean-Chinese citizens of Yanbian. In addition to benefits from increased investment from South Korea and increased work opportunities within South Korea, Seoul has become a new cultural resource for Korean-Chinese residents in Yanbian. While South Korea's growing economic influence has had a positive influence on economic development in China's northeastern provinces, North Korea's food crisis has created the prospect of instability along the border, leading to an increase in flows of refugees and putting stress on the local Korean-Chinese community to provide food to help starving relatives in the North. These two developments have significant implications for management of China's official relations on the Korean Peninsula.
Regional officials are on the front lines in managing concrete aspects of policy toward North Korea.
The immediacy of problems stemming from North Korean instability may provoke differences in reactions between local officials, who are interested primarily in attracting investment from anyone who is willing to provide capital, and policy planners in Beijing, who may be primarily concerned with management of geopolitical and international relations concerns. The two concrete policy responses required from local Chinese officials are management of the North Korean food issue and the prospect of increased flows of North Korean refugees into China. Conversations with Chinese scholars suggest that it is proper to assume that China's contribution in recent years has averaged at least one million tons of grain per year. Recent customs figures show that at least 60,000 tons of grain per month have come across the Sino-North Korean border, and there are reports that unrecorded transactions regularly occur after the customs offices close each day. Although there are risks of double counting, analysts of China's statistics collection process suggest that undercounting may also be a distinct possibility.