Economic exchanges between China and North Korea are picking up, with cross-border train service set to resume and bilateral trade between January and June jumping roughly 30% on the year.

China’s exports to North Korea in the first half of 2025 grew 33% on the year to $1.05 billion, while imports rose 20% to $210 million, Chinese government data released Friday shows.

Though Beijing had distanced itself from Pyongyang for a time, with the U.S. and South Korea currently showing more inclination toward dialogue with the North, China is now likely keen to use trade to maintain its influence.

“Exports of interior building supplies were brisk,” a Chinese trade official said. Data for January through May shows exports doubling or more for wallpaper and plastic furniture.

North Korea has been building large amounts of housing as part of reconstruction efforts in areas hit by last summer’s flooding, with interior work getting fully underway early this year. The country also completed a beach resort last month that can accommodate 20,000 people. China may have allowed construction supplies to be shipped across the border at North Korea’s request, boosting trade.

In addition to trade, tourism and other interpersonal exchanges are expanding as well.

South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency reported Wednesday that Pyongyang’s National Tourism Administration posted on its website a passenger rail schedule for service between Pyongyang and Beijing. Service between the capitals had been suspended since the COVID-19 pandemic.

Trade between China and North Korea had dropped off dramatically between 2020 and 2022 amid the pandemic. After China ended its zero-COVID policy in January 2023, freight traffic by truck resumed by that fall.

But last year, overall bilateral trade was down on the year in 11 out of 12 months. “Chinese authorities tightened monitoring in late 2023, and products that had been in a gray area became off-limits,” another trade official said.

The shift reflects growing distrust by Beijing toward Pyongyang.

China had leveraged economic support to maintain influence over North Korea, discouraging it from nuclear weapons testing that could destabilize the Korean Peninsula.

Starting in 2023, the North stepped up military cooperation with Russia after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, and accelerated its nuclear development. China distanced itself, aiming to avoid ending up in the crosshairs of Western sanctions.

Now, however, trade between China and North Korea has been up on the year for six straight months.

“As the U.S. and South Korea grow more receptive to dialogue with North Korea, China wants to avoid falling behind,” said a source involved in diplomacy between Beijing and Pyongyang.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in June that President Donald Trump “remains receptive to correspondence” with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. During Trump’s first term, he met with Kim three times between 2018 and 2019.

In his inauguration speech last month, South Korean President Lee Jae-myung said he hopes to “reopen communication with North Korea and build peace on the Korean Peninsula through dialogue and cooperation.” This marks a departure from the hardline stance of predecessor Yoon Suk Yeol.

China is accepting more North Korean workers sent abroad to earn foreign currency.

Around 2,000 have been sent to Jilin province since the start of this year, according to a Chinese source involved in hiring North Korean workers. Another source said that about 400 went to Dandong, a major hub for the movement of goods and people between the two countries, in early May. Both groups are apparently employed in garment factories and elsewhere.

The United Nations Security Council in 2017 passed a resolution barring countries from allowing in North Korean nationals for work, and urged member countries including China to comply with the sanctions. The newly accepted workers are said to be in China for “technology exchange,” according to a source in Chinese manufacturing.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian told reporters Thursday that China has abided by Security Council resolutions on North Korea and consistently fulfilled its international obligations.