Bridges of Ambition to North Korea: Economy of Anticipation and Materiality of Aspiration in Dandong, China

Abstract

Facing the North Korean city of Sinuiju across the Yalu River, the Chinese border city of Dandong in Liaoning Province has recently taken on large urban developmental projects as part of a plan to build the wider city as the new economic hub of East Asia. This paper examines how Dandong’s recent urban developmental projects rely on its close relationship to North Korea and on North Korea’s role as a capitalist frontier. It argues that these projects simultaneously deploy a politics of waiting and a politics of memory to inscribe its central role in East Asia’s economic future.