This picture taken on February 26, 2024 shows a mobile wagon passing by a sign reading, "Let’s proactively promote the three generations of revolutionary red flag campaigns!" in Namyang, North Korea, as seen from the city of Tumen in China's northeast Jilin province. North Korean soldiers gaze across an icy river towards China, occasionally descending from looming watchtowers to prowl border paths behind barbed wire and sharpened sticks. This remote stretch of frontier was virtually inaccessible to reporters while Beijing and Pyongyang upheld some of the world's strictest pandemic-era travel curbs. After the restrictions were unwound, an AFP team travelled to the region in late February -- peering back at the guards standing sentry at the entrance to the secretive nuclear nation. Between rusting factories and peeling housing blocks were glimpses of everyday life, as North Koreans eked out their living by hauling timber and burning crop fields. In one town, two goods trucks waited patiently on a bridge into China -- a sign of resumption in the cross-border trade crucial to Pyongyang's moribund economy. North Korea's chronic food shortages are believed to have grown more acute during the pandemic, and campaigners say authorities have strengthened border defences to prevent escapes to its vast, wealthy neighbour. Beyond the eagle-eyed guards, portraits of the ruling Kim dynasty watched over the populace, while monumental propaganda banners lauded their socialist ideology. One slogan, written in huge red and white letters on a hillside, simply blared: "Our country is the best!" (Photo by Pedro PARDO / AFP) / To go with China-NKorea-politics, REPORTAGE