A city that thrives on border trade

Geographic proximity makes Dandong a telescope through which observers can glimpse a mysterious neighbor, report Dong Fangyu in Dandong and Peng Yining in Beijing

Editor's note: This is the first in a series of special reports in which our reporters will travel the length of China's 18,000-km-long coastline to detail the lives of the people

Whose existence is dominated, and often facilitated, by the waters that stretch from Bohai Bay in the north to the Zengmu shoal in the south.