Is the North Korean Army Disintegrating?

A Chinese newspaper reports that the PLA found itself on the short end of a gun battle on the N. Korean-Chinese border.

Five armed North Koreans in October crossed into China where they engaged Chinese troops in a gunbattle that left one soldier dead, the country’s Changsha Wanbao daily reported Tuesday. The paper is published in the conscript’s home province of Hunan.

The daily said the armed men crossed the border with China at around 1 a.m. on Oct. 16 and went to the resort town of Guangping in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Region in the east of China’s Jilin Province, where they trespassed on a compound of vacation homes. A staff member there immediately reported five burglars to a military unit. Five soldiers from the nearby Guangping guard post moved in and were met by shots from the first floor of a villa there. Li Liang, who was at the front of the group, was shot in the chest. While the other soldiers were tending to Li, the North Koreans escaped.

It take it we can presume these North Koreans aren’t exactly getting by on their military rations alone.