North Korean Tiger Bone Wine in China and Chinese Tiger Bone Wine in America
Illicit trade of products made with endangered tigers
In the summer of 2019 I went traveling around China’s North Korean border region. I went in hopes of meeting some North Koreans and better understanding their country. I succeeded at the former, but not the latter.
I found North Korean restaurants in Shenyang, Dandong, Yanbian and Hunchun. This was all before the deadline at the end of the year, at which point all North Korean foreign workers were supposed to be sent home. I had no idea when I would have the chance to meet North Koreans again, as they were being kicked out of foreign countries and I was planning to leave China that year.
The limited conversations I had with the North Korean waitresses at these restaurants didn’t do anything to dispel my mental picture of them as patriots — at least on the surface — who were always watching one another. Besides always having one waitress clearly in earshot of another, I also noticed one hiding behind a curtain and observing me chat with a waitress at one restaurant. When I spotted her, she disappeared behind the curtain. It was surreal.
But something else caught my attention at one of the first restaurants I visited. They had tiger bone wine on the menu. The sale of North Korean tiger bone wine in China is illegal. Once I had noticed it the first time, I kept my eyes open, and I saw it again and again.
I found it in North Korean restaurants in Shenyang, Yanbian and Dandong. In Dandong, it was even available in some convenience stores and at shops aimed at tourists selling other Korean items like traditional Korean clothes.
The tiger bone wine was so easy to find that I began to wonder if it was actually legal. But I found a Chinese news story of a seizure of the illegal product, confirming that it was in fact illegal.
Though China is a member of CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora), North Korea is not. As such, North Korea sees no reason not to farm or hunt tigers and use them for wine; some of which is manufactured by the Pyongyang Medical University no less.
To be clear, as I understand it, China also manufactures tiger bone wine, but it is only supposed to be for domestic use and with special authorization. CITES forbids international trade.
With a little research online, I found there are still people offering North Korean tiger bone wine. Last year, I even found it on Taobao, but it seems Taobao has taken down such posts. China’s other retail giant, Jing Dong, appears to be behind though. There is a seller based in Hong Kong with product reviews as recent as August 2020. There were other Chinese sites I found selling the product too.
While sanctions continue to cripple North Korea’s ability to trade legitimately, and with North Korea not eager for talks at the moment, they are sure to continue to do what they need to do to stay afloat, regardless of what others think of them. It’s up to authorities in China to crack down on this trade.
And it’s not only China where tiger bone wine is found easily. A quick web search revealed there are at least a handful of American retailers selling Beijing Tong Ren Tang tiger bone wine.
It is estimated that there are less than 4000 tigers remaining in the wild. According to a story in the LA Times, an NGO called the China Wildlife Conservation Association (CWCA) is actually used as a means to give out permits for the legal sale of endangered animals rather than conserving them.
One former official who worked in wildlife protection said he was offered nearly daily bribes to turn a blind eye to wildlife trafficking and he compared the criminals to drug and arms traffickers.
Three of the vice chairs of the CWCA are executives for traditional Chinese medicine companies that use animal parts in their ingredients including tiger bone and pangolin scales. What could go wrong?
If you want to learn more about wildlife trafficking, you may want to check out Poached: Inside the Dark World of Wildlife Trafficking by Rachel Love Nuwer.
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