North Korea has been building concrete machine-gun pillboxes along the border with China since December as the Chinese staged massive military drills in the area.

North Korea Reform Radio quoted a North Korean source as saying each platoon of the border guard units stationed at strategic points along the Apnok and Duman Rivers has been ordered to build three concrete machine-gun emplacements. Officers of each brigade and battalion are looking for rebar and cement outside their camps.

The regime is claiming that the aim is to prevent South Korean troops in China from attacking, according to the radio station.

It claims that all South Korean businessmen and workers in the Chinese cities of Dandong and Yanji are camouflaged South Korean soldiers.

Officers are fully aware that the pillboxes are meant as defenses against the Chinese, the station added, but they also realize that they could be pulverized by large artillery in seconds if a war actually broke out.

