North Korea and China open new bridge after 12-year delay

9 miles) from the Chinese border city of Dandong to Sinuiju in North Korea A long-delayed road bridge linking China and North Korea has opened, Chinese state media report, as trade ties improve between the neighbours.

Chinese President Xi Jinping's first state of this year, in June, was to Pyongyang, where he met North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

A sharp and sudden increase in trade across the border is "unlikely" as the UN sanctions on North Korea remain in effect, Kang Jun-young, a professor of Chinese studies at the Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, tells the BBC.