China provided COVID-19 vaccine to North Korea's Kim Jong Un and his family: US analyst

The Chinese government provided COVID-19 vaccination to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and his entire family with an experimental dose "within the last two to three weeks", a US analyst said on December 2 and cited two sources in the Japanese intelligence. In an article for online outlet 19FortyFive, a North Korea expert at the Center for the National Interest think tank in Washington, Harry Kazianis said that the Kims along with other major North Korean officials have already been immunised to the highly-infectious disease caused by SARS-CoV-2 that originated in Chian exactly a year ago.

Even though Kazianis wrote that it was unclear which Chinese company had supplied its drug candidate to the North Korean leader and his family or if it was safe, he further mentioned that at least three companies in the Asian country were developing vaccines against COVID-19 and cited US medical scientist for the information. These companies include Sinovac Biotech Ltd, CanSinoBio and Sinophram Group.

“Kim Jong Un and multiple other high-ranking officials within the Kim family and leadership network have been vaccinated for coronavirus within the last two to three weeks thanks to a vaccine candidate supplied by the Chinese government,” Kazianis wrote in the article.

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North Korea reduces trade with China

However, the report of Kims being vaccinated by the Chinese government’s help came just when Pyongyang appears to have initiated COVID-19 pandemic prevention plan by restricting borders as the nation has scaled back trade with its largest trading partner, China. North Korea appears to make more stringent rules to prevent a pandemic and has nearly suspended all trade with China along with allegedly executing the officials for not being able to handle the imported goods appropriately. 

According to the data published by China’s customs administration, Beijing only exported $253,000 worth of goods to Pyongyang in October which is a significant drop of 99 per cent from September to last month. As per CNN report, China’s imports in North Korea in the month of October is less in terms of dollar value than what China exported to Liechtenstein and Monaco during the same month.

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