First train to Pyongyang in six years leaves Beijing as neighbours revive link

BEIJING - The first passenger train service between the Chinese and North Korean capitals left Beijing Railway Station on March 12, ending a six-year gap, as China moves to shore up cross-border infrastructure and rebuild ties with its neighbour.

Train K27 will arrive in the North Korean capital at 6.07pm local time (5.07pm Singapore time) on March 13, after a journey of 24 hours and 41 minutes skirting north of the Bohai Sea with a stopover in the border city of Dandong, China’s railway authority said.

China is North Korea’s largest trading partner and a vital source of diplomatic, economic and political support for the isolated nuclear state.

The two are “friendly neighbours”, and a cross-border passenger train service facilitates people-to-people exchanges, a Foreign Ministry spokesperson told reporters on March 12.

Train journeys between the East Asian neighbours were halted in 2020 under strict border closures to prevent the coronavirus from spreading.

State news agency Xinhua said the first train left Dandong, a Chinese city bordering North Korea, bound for Pyongyang on the morning of March 12.

It quoted an unidentified China Railways executive as saying that the train service would “serve as both a vital window for cross-border travellers and a dynamic link strengthening the friendship between these two nations”.

China Railway said in a separate statement that regular train services would also resume between Beijing and the North Korean capital on the evening of March 12.

The resumption of the train link symbolised a return to a stronger bilateral relationship, said Professor Lim Tai Wei, an East Asia expert at Japan’s Soka University.

It signalled greater access to “the largest trading nation on earth” for North Korea, Prof Lim told AFP, while it was also important for China’s “periphery diplomacy”.

Beijing has been a crucial lifeline for North Korea’s moribund economy.

China has fully reopened its borders since the pandemic, but North Korea has proceeded more slowly.

North Korea is largely closed to foreign tourism, with few exceptions, largely for Russian tour groups under restricted arrangements, according to travel agencies organising trips to the country.

Direct flights and train services between North Korea and Russia resumed in 2025.

While the resumption suggests a “re-normalisation” of contact between China and North Korea, it does not necessarily mean increased support from Beijing, said Associate Professor Chong Ja Ian from the National University of Singapore.

“A lot of the previous limit on contact seems to be due to Pyongyang’s apprehensions about broader contact, which have diminished,” Prof Chong told AFP.

Change trains

The K27 train that departed Beijing on March 12 made a few stops, including at the port city of Tianjin, and then headed north-east to Dandong.

Wagons holding passengers bound for Pyongyang were then attached to another train there, taking them across the border to the nearby North Korean city of Sinuiju, said Mr Rowan Beard from Young Pioneer Tours, a company specialising in North Korea travel.

Mr Beard said those wagons, as well as North Korean domestic carriages,would then be attached to a new train that headed to Pyongyang, where China Railway said it would arrive on the evening of March 13.

Trains will run in both directions between Beijing and Pyongyang every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday, China Railway said.

The Dandong-Pyongyang service would operate daily, it said.

Travel agents for an official ticketing booth in Beijing told AFP on March 10 that anyone with a valid visa can now buy train tickets to the North. That includes Chinese people working and studying in North Korea, as well as North Koreans working, studying and visiting family abroad.

Entry and exit procedures would be completed at the Dandong border crossing and at Sinuiju in North Korea, China Railway said.

Tickets are currently available for offline purchase in several Chinese cities, it added. AFP