Western tourists have returned to North Korea for the first time since the hermit kingdom closed its borders during the Covid crisis.

But for the group of around a dozen that arrived last month, there was a catch. Their destination was not the bright lights of Pyongyang, the pastel-coloured capital where highly stage-managed tours used to make a life under Kim Jong-un’s cartoon communism look almost appealing.

Instead they were sent to the mysterious eastern port of Rason, which was designated a “Special Economic Zone” over 30 years ago to experiment with capitalism – as China and the Soviet Union had then begun doing.

For Joe Smith, a Briton on this week’s trip who had been to North Korea several times before, the decision seemed a strange one. His first impressions were not positive.

Compared with Pyongyang, Rason was “desolate, poorer, more spread out with a lack of restaurants”, he said.

Beneath its shabby surface, however, the town appeared to be at the centre of a tech boom sweeping through the country.