Facing DPRK, China's largest border city builds new growth on old strengths

 In a workshop near the Yalu River, Teng Xulin bends over a grinding machine, carefully shaping a watchmaking hob less than one-third the size of a coin. With a module of just 0.036 millimeters, the tiny tool is designed to machine miniature gears for mechanical watches. Its teeth are so fine that they are best seen through a loupe.

For years, Peacock Watch in Dandong, northeast China's Liaoning Province, relied on hobs imported from Switzerland. Teng said each one used to cost between 9,000 and 10,000 yuan (about 1,327 to 1,474 U.S. dollars). The company now makes the tools in-house for about 3,000 yuan each, achieving comparable precision and service life.

"Now that we can make this kind of hob ourselves, we have more control when developing higher-quality movements," Teng said.

The small tool offers a glimpse into the development of Dandong, China's largest border city, which faces the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) across the Yalu River. The city is now seeking to build on three strengths it has cultivated over the years: decades of expertise in precision manufacturing, cross-border trade, and a thriving berry-growing sector.

For more than six decades, Peacock Watch has grown alongside Dandong's manufacturing industry. Over the years, the company gradually moved beyond assembling watches to making its own movements and key components. Today, it produces about 1 million movements a year.

The city's precision-manufacturing base now extends beyond watches. By 2025, Dandong was home to 27 instrumentation companies, with combined output of 3.78 billion yuan, according to Liu Shimao, deputy general manager of Dandong Lingang Industrial Group.

Industrial X-ray instruments made in the city account for about 80 percent of China's domestic market, while nuclear-detection equipment accounts for about 90 percent, Liu said. Local companies also make analytical and testing equipment, metrical instruments and power-distribution monitoring products.

That precision-manufacturing sector is only one part of Dandong's evolving economic story. As China's largest border city facing the DPRK, it continues to leverage its unique location while opening up new channels for trade.

Passenger train service between Dandong and Pyongyang resumed in March after a six-year suspension. At the Guomenwan trade zone, representatives of DPRK trading companies now come to discuss business almost every weekend, according to Zhang Xu, who manages the zone. Trade in imported goods through the zone reached 168 million yuan in 2025.

Dandong is broadening its trade links beyond traditional border commerce. A cross-border e-commerce pilot zone was established in April 2025, and later that year, a local digital trade company reached a cooperation agreement with a cross-border e-commerce platform under Republic of Korea (ROK)'s Shinsegae Group.

At Dandong Port, foreign-trade container volume surged more than 90 percent year on year in the first half of 2026. The port uses international routes to the ROK and domestic feeder services to tap cargo from Liaoning and neighboring Jilin Province. Products shipped from Dandong now reach more than 160 countries and regions.

Dandong's economic strengths also extend into agriculture, where residents have turned berries into a thriving industry. The city now produces 288,000 tonnes of strawberry a year, while blueberry plantations yield more than 12,000 tonnes annually.

Strawberry growers in Dandong can earn about 30,000 yuan per mu, or roughly 0.067 hectare, in profit.

In Dexiang Village in Donggang, a county-level city under Dandong, Zhang Xiaolin returned home to start a business after the local government launched a program in 2020 encouraging university graduates from Dandong to work or start businesses in villages. He chose to focus on improving strawberry varieties.

"The new varieties are firmer and sweeter," Zhang said. His improved varieties can generate more than 10,000 yuan in additional income per mu compared with conventional varieties.

Building on the growth of its berry industry, Dandong has expanded e-commerce and accelerated delivery services, including dedicated air freight, allowing fresh berries to reach consumers across China within 48 hours. On March 1, a local regulation on the strawberry industry, the first of its kind in China, took effect, setting standards for brand protection, seedling production and cultivation.

A border trade zone, a 0.036-millimeter cutting tool, and a box of strawberries may seem to have little in common. Yet in Dandong, they tell the same story: a city long defined by its border is learning to make more of what it already has, turning location, manufacturing know-how and agricultural strengths into new sources of growth. ■