When Chinese tourists visit the DPRK, their experiences there differ in key ways from those of the increasingly numerous Westerners who travel to the country.

Reasons for these differences stem from the unique historical relationship between China and North Korea and how this influences both the Korean guides’ presentation of their nation to Chinese groups, and the perspective of the Chinese tourists in return.

In the first of a two-part series on Chinese tourism to the DPRK, the NK News China borderlands reporter describes the picture of the DPRK which is painted by local guides in Rason, northeast DPRK.

While the