CHINA is inviting tens of thousands of North Korean guest workers into the country in a deal that will provide a cash infusion to prop up the teetering Stalinist regime.

The deal, which has not been publicly announced by Beijing or Pyongyang, would allow about 40,000 seamstresses, technicians, mechanics, construction workers and miners to work in China on industrial training visas. Most of the workers' earnings will go directly to the regime.

The first North Korean workers under China's new program arrived a few months ago in Tumen, a sleepy town hugging the North Korean border. Credit:Reuters

''The North Koreans can't export weapons any more because of [international] sanctions, so they are using their people to raise cash,'' said Sohn Kyang-ju, a former South Korean intelligence official who heads the Seoul-based Daily NK Unification Strategy Institute.

While migrants from North Korea, Vietnam, Burma and the Philippines have worked illegally in China for years, it is unprecedented for Beijing to issue visas for unskilled and semi-skilled workers, several labour experts in China said.