As night falls over the Yalu river in north-east China, throngs of people stroll along a manicured promenade, passing musical fountains, neon-illuminated seafood restaurants and elderly citizens practising tai chi.
On the opposite bank of the river, inky darkness is broken only by two faint points of light from low-wattage bulbs and the headlights of a handful of trucks, trundling over the Friendship Bridge into the brightly-lit Chinese city of Dandong.
Nowhere along the shared border between China and North Korea are the differences between the two countries thrown into such sharp relief, and it is here where China’s decades-long experiment with economic reform has begun to leak into its reclusive Stalinist ally.
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