Taking advantage of a wide-open border, traders are shipping everything from rice and oranges to porn flicks and South Korean soap operas into North Korea from China. This trade - and the human traffic back and forth - is transforming economic life in the North, changing mindsets and eroding support for the Dear Leader and his Spartan "Juche" philosophy. So what does this mean for the "sanctions vs regime change" debate?

Donald Macintyre is a 2006-2007 Pantech fellow at Shorenstein APARC, Stanford University. He is writing a book on how life in North Korea is changing at the grassroots level and what these changes mean for the international community's approach to Pyongyang. Macintyre was Time magazine's Seoul bureau chief from 2001-2006, covering politics, economics and culture in North and South Korea. He has traveled to North Korea six times and made numerous trips to China's border with the North to interview defectors, refugees and traders. He has also worked as a journalist in Tokyo and Rome and served as a senior advisor to the International Crisis Group's Northeast Asia office on North Korean issues.