This news from the side of the window.
Rights groups have criticised China’s policy of repatriating North Koreans as economic migrants rather than affording them refugee status.
The spokeswoman also confirmed a media report that 11 North Korean refugees have been trapped in South Korean consulates in Beijing and Shenyang for almost three years because China refuses to let them leave for the South.
“They came in to seek help (from the South). For now, there is no way for them to get out of there,” she said.
Economic migrants? Talk about 설레발. They want to go to S.Korea, what other reason is could it be apart from that they want to big brother North Korea by sending them back.
Couple of times when I ask a really well-educated Chinese person I meet at a dinner abroad who will say how they watch a lot of South Korean dramas, about the Chinese position on the North and South Koreas , they smile and say things like “We are Chinese. China means middle country. It does not want to take sides.”
And looks like Park Sunyoung of 자유선진당 (自由先進黨, Liberty Forward Party, an existing conservative moderate in the Korean politics, if there was one) has started a hunger strike protest against the Chinese. Good for her!
(Disclaimer: Sorry for the repeat post, Robert has already done a substantial post eariler – I forgot to skim properly in my eagerness)
{ 36 comments… read them below or add one }
Funny reasoning on the part of the chinese. I hope they realize by conducting themselves like this they are in fact siding with North Korea.
#1 – you must be joking. They’ve always sided with North Korea and have been unashamed of it. What makes you think China cares about how other countries look at them? They don’t care.
I was commenting to that chinese guy who was commenting that china means middle country therefore they don’t take sides which is BS. The chinese only care about boosting their egos seeing that they are commies and engage in propaganda however ridiculous it is.
Actually if anything i have the impression they even like being disliked, like a bully drunk on power basking in the glory of blatantly violating common, international rules with basically no consequence.
Let’s face it: what China had to suffer so far from their, ignominious, shameless behaviour ?
Is that Cha Inpyo and Ricky Kim holding hands? aww..
If guys want to see shady dealings on the part china look up what they did with SsangYong Motors. Now they are part of an indian conglomerate, but look at what the chinese did with it. Talk about shameless and rotten dealings.
“If guys want to see shady dealings on the part china look up what they did with SsangYong Motors. Now they are part of an indian conglomerate, but look at what the chinese did with it. Talk about shameless and rotten dealings.”
Stop making vague statements and give evidence to support what you said. There are no proof of shady dealings. It is more of Korea’s militant unions and bitterness of China owning a Korea company. They can swallow their pride easier with India.
If the Chinese start letting NK refugees in, the trickle will become a flood, and pretty soon, there would be a North Korean version of the Warsaw Pact collapse, as productive people left NK. China doesn’t want a an independent and strong Korea on its border – its view of the Korean peninsula ranges from tributary state to Chinese territory lost to the dwarf pirates (Imperial Japan).
#7,
the company in question is SAIC. The promised to invest in SsangYong but instead they left it high and dry after stealing their hybrid knowhow. Investors and workers were outraged at the conduct of SAIC as SsangYong went into bankrupcy. Maybe there is a little pride involved in SsangYong being sold to SAIC but what SAIC did to SsangYong was disgraceful.
Strange I thought they left after finding that the unions idea to save the failing company was to go out and stay out on strike.
Unions may have gone on strike to save their jobs but what is striking about this case is that both unions and investors at Ssangyong agree that they get shafted by the chinese. Very rare to find unions and investors in agreeing.
At last, a proposed government policy on immigration that I like:
I’m for open immigration (with standard checks for health and safety, signing the guest book upon arrival, other minor things I could be talked into as a side discussion) so this emergency policy doesn’t go far enough but is better than the status quo.
When I am president of South Korea, I will issue certificates of South Korean citizenship to every North Korean. Of course, they must go through the standard checks (health, safety). Otherwise, let them in, add messages to the Kpop and dramas being smuggled into North Korea to let them know that they if they can make it to a third country that they’ll be welcomed into the South (or another country that will agree to accept them), but the message should also warn them that if they want to live on the public dole that they should stay where they are.
And I would still offer to buy North Koreans from North Korea and China at the market price, then give them their freedom and ignore the hand-wringing articles from media about the former NKs having trouble adjusting to their new lives.
Why appeal to someone who doesn’t respect your rights to respect your rights? Well, that’s what is happening with the NKs trapped in China. According to the Chosun-ilbo, some have already been sent back to North Korea. That’s despite the world begging, pleading, making appeals to China (and NK indirectly I guess).
Definitely something worth protesting about, but figuring out what would actually work with the Chinese (paying them off, making a deal in some other way). If you were talking to a KFC farmer, and wanted him to stop killing chickens, would you appeal to reason or try to buy the chickens before they were killed? I know people would prefer that China do the right thing for the sake of doing the right thing, and they may eventually free some of the refugees to appease critics, but until the world deals with the Chinese on their terms they will continue being Chinese (and the NK butchers will continue being NK butchers, although I know some people were optimistic that the new dictator might be different).
#13 nayaCasey, I like your reasoning, but you realize that that sort of thinking was what was at the botton of the the (much maligned on this site) Sunshine Policy of the previous administrations (which I still think would have worked better if it had not been for the instant phase transition which happened with the US and South Korean political stance)
I honestly doubt this would work: too common-sensical for NK. If they applied this kind of logic, the regime would have evolved a long time ago toward maybe a brutish yet pragmatist type of environment à la PRC.
If anything i suspect an offer like that would be used to feed their propaganda machine about the evil puppets of the imperialists engaging in human trafficking
I am really really sorry and scared for the people who were sent back (if they were). I heard that they might be made a real example out of.
Also I read that people that defected during the mourning of Kim JungIl – there was an order to destroy the 3 generations of the defectors family.
I wish there was something we could do.
Japan Gives Written Pledge to China Over N.Korean Defectors
I’m sorry but isn’t this going a bit too far?
What the Chinese don’t seem to admit is that there is (virtually) very little way out apart from *through* China for the North Koreans to get out. Most don’t want to stay. They want to move, like the Chinese themselves who come out to the rest of the world.
When I was growing up, the olden folks would say, “That sounds too much like right.”
Let ‘em talk! The NayaCasey administration would hire a speechwriter to supply them with talking points. In the meantime, if I was paying above the market rate for North Koreans, the human traffickers in China and North Korea would get to work and the bureaucrats and soldiers would start having eyesight like Sargent Shultz in Hogan’s Heroes.
Yuna #14, I wasn’t paying attention then so can’t comment about those previous arguments.
1) I do remember saying that South Korea showed North Korea the sunshine, and North Korea responded by showing South Korea the moon.
2) I support lifting sanctions on North Korea, at least for non-military stuff. That is complicated by the country of North Korea being a military.
3) I agree with Stephen Linton about this: too many of the dealings between South Korea and the U.S. with North Korea are government to government, so that the U.S. and South Korea end up using the same (stupid, my word not his) “fight fire with fire” tactics. Based on what I saw back when I was in America, too much of the South Korean sunshine policy was government-to-government contact, government guarantees for the companies doing business in North Korea. I’m for lifting the sanctions, allowing businesses to deal with North Korea (but they lose their shirts and their property if North Korea nationalizes their stuff), clearly, loudly and often making it clear that North Koreans will be welcomed to South Korea, keep sending books, movies, other propaganda there, and allowing civic groups to do their work (even if they are pinkos and leftists), among other things.
It is a true tragedy. North Korea itself is a tragedy for most of the people so unfortunate to be there. Those returned surely will be annihilated.
Well North Korea obviously needs money and wants money but there’s something that doesn’t convince me about this approach: if they accepted to trade refuges for cash, it would make them look WEAK, i suspect an unforgivable sin in such place.
So far NK got all the money they need (at least to feed the military apparatus) through sheer extortion, this would make ‘em look like they can be bought off. If they accepted a trade like that i wouldn’t be surprised if an avalanche of defectors would ensue.
Still it is worth a try, at the very minimum it would gather lots of attention from international media
This is not the kind of message that you want to give to the Chinese.
Korea will bring up the NK defector issue to the UN, but won’t name China.
http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2012/02/24/2012022400807.html
It would have been better if they didn’t even bring this up at all at the UN, if this is the response you’re going to give to the Chinese who will undoubtedly think nobody can touch them.
#21
cm. This is the *Lee government* responsible for this.
Are you not mad that the Korean right are not standing up to China?
Exactly that has been happening — it just does not make the newspapers. Because of the general corruption in China, so far it has been relatively easy to get out defectors from the Chinese prison. In fact, a significant fraction of the 20,000+ defectors who are now in South Korea got there that way.
Since KJU got to power, however, this bribery method has not been working. There is a reason why this issue rising to the surface now — it is because the civic groups in South Korea all of a sudden found themselves shut out from quietly smuggling in NK defectors.
One thing that South Korean government plans to do, apparently, is to issue temporary travel certificate to any North Korean in China. That way, if a North Korean is arrested by the Chinese police, the North Korean can at least make a colorable claim that s/he is actually a South Korean, which would give the Chinese police the cover to take the bribe and let the North Koreans go. I wanted to write a post about it, but somehow MH is having a technical difficulty.
Other related news:
- Candle light protest against forced repatriation being held.
- South Korean National Assembly’s Committee of Foreign Affairs and Trade passed a bipartisan resolution urging China to stop the forced repatriation.
- Here is an online petition to the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights, created by NK defector organizations in Korea. Please take your time to sign it. http://www.change.org/petitions/save-north-korean-refugees-savemyfriend
Zhang Fei,
Korea is an independent state that had tributary relations. It was not directly part of china but was in its sphere of influence. Nobody wants an eastern european style collapse but to use that to try to forcibly return people who have become political refugees because NK defines anybody who crosses the border as traitors is absurd.
#23
And look at this! They suspect that there was a sister-and-brother pair of spies bought off by the Chinese police to dob them in. It’s just terrible, the method the Chinese use
http://www.yonhapnews.co.kr/politics/2012/02/24/0503000000AKR20120224084300014.HTML
Apparently it’s very common to do this, that China plants the spies with permission or threats to send them back to North Korea in a defector’s group and wait for them to lead to the destination before taking the whole lot of them in.
#24 Thanks for that link
You may be right. There don’t seem to be any good solutions in dealing with North Korea and China. So, when there is a stand-off, with each side believing it is right, how does one side try to convince the other? The U.S., South Korea, the various letter-writers and petition signers, are politely knocking on the doors and windows, trying to show their letters, petitions, photos, begging, pleading, reasoning, and applying gentle diplomatic pressure. The Chinese and NK open the door long enough to say “national sovereignty” before shutting it again and getting back to sharpening their knives.
I’m hopeful but not optimistic about the efforts to help these particular North Koreans captured by the Chinese police, it may be too late to help them, it may be that the crackdown during the morning period for the dead dictator is a time that nothing will work with NK. But for the next time, there must be different approaches to dealing with the Chinese and North Koreans. My suggestion is strategies that buy off the bastards that can be bought off by appealing to the self-interest of North Koreans and Chinese in dealing with North Koreans trying to escape to freedom.
It might be that during this mourning period that nothing will work with NK, so activism could backfire and cause an even more intense crackdown. The chickens (or dogs?) have been lined up to be slaughtered, there is nothing that anyone can say to stop it this time around. The Chinese may find a way to let a few go free so they won’t appear to be complete barbarians.
I am for open immigration (with some standard checks for health & safety) so that policy doesn’t go far enough for me, as I wrote in post #12. A short-term fix in an emergency may be better than no fix at all.
Sadly, it is an example of politicians not doing the right thing until there is enough pressure put on them. But “temporary” travel certificates? If they are a good idea then why not make them permanent?
You should chat with some NK defector groups — I think you would find it enlightening. The defector groups are anticipating this, and they are gearing up for the long run. The defector groups already know the individual identities of the 28 defectors imprisoned in China, and where they are from. If they are sent back to North Korea, the defector groups are equipped to trace and document their whereabouts and how they are treated. China may still continue to be an asshole, but not before its face gets pelted with eggs.
You misunderstand. Temporary travel certificate is what you get if you are in a foreign country and you lost your passport. It is “temporary” in a sense that you only keep it as long as you re-make your passport. It is not meant to be a temporary measure.
OT, apparently now my blog is banned in China, most likely because of the recent posts about North Korean defectors in China. I consider it a badge of honor.
1) Hook a brotha up! I have met some ex-NKs and attended some events but certainly haven’t been a part of strategic discussions with insiders. I’d be willing to participate in a hunger-strike, protest or other feel-good activities that might not actually change things but could help strengthen the cause. One reason I don’t condemn some activities even though they don’t yield immediate results is that action can still strengthen a cause, the resolve of participants to be more organized, fight harder, and be more strategic the next time around.
2) I suppose this has been discussed at some point or has already been answered on your blog–call them “refugees, “defectors,” “ex-North Koreans”?
1) Thanks for the explanation–I guess people can understand that I don’t always keep track of government immigration and travel policies, especially measures that have nothing to do with my own visa status.
2) So what’s the next step from government? Offer immediate citizenship to North Korean citizens on the run (health and safety check, re-education camp)?
Congrats! Banned. What’s your schedule?
Friday, China
Saturday, South Korea
Someday, when I operate under my real name . . . that day is not too far away.
I’m not sure if there is a standard lexicon. I have been using “defectors,” which is a translation for 탈북자. I like it because it has a political connotation to it.
If that happens, that would be the day that China embargoes South Korea. If South Korea offered immediate citizenship to North Koreans in China, North Korean border patrols will be the first ones to defect. North Korean regime could collapse in a week.
The travel certificate is not a panacea. It certainly does not allow North Koreans to freely travel out of China, because China stops and interrogates foreigners who carry a passport/document that does not show a proof of legal entry. It is literally no more than a cover that makes it easier for the Chinese police and border control to take bribes and look the other way. Doing even that much means toeing pretty damn close to the line for South Korean government.
Upon entry, South Korea does offer defectors health & security check, plus re-education at Hanawon and some level of living assistance, as you probably would know.
Indeed. Congrats!
I’m not political, don’t have a legal background and only pay attention to politics in a self-defense mode–so I’m not sure what makes sense in these political conversations. “Defector” sounds like something is wrong with them, a term like defected or traitor that would be used by the country condemning them. You have had conversations with NK aid groups–what’s the term they would use if they could choose rather than following current terms chosen by others?
1) Ah, so rather than just turning a blind eye, to use a phrase from Jay Kang, then Sergeant Schultz would also haul ass out of North Korea?
2) I guess your explanation is one of my suspicions about this push–that most people involved want to do something at the edges, but not something that would make real change and truly change the status quo.
3) In that case, I suppose that begging, pleading, writing letters and signing petitions makes sense in the context of wanting token changes that deal with this particular crisis.
Their preferred term is 새터민, although it is not as if they mind 탈북자. Not sure how to translate 새터민 exactly, however.
Don’t understand what you mean by this.
The big players (i.e. governments of China, South Korea, North Korea) certainly do not, when “real change” could involve millions of refugees, trade embargo from your biggest trading partner, artillery shells raining down on your biggest city such that at least 100,000 people will die according to a simulation, or a regime collapse and a bullet in your head. Knowing this, the small players (i.e. journalists, think tanks, NGOs) go for what they can achieve, and try to save just one more life. That, to me, is far more worthy and noble than blowing hot air on an Internet comment board.
Thanks for that.
I guess it is one of those abstract philosophical questions, but it seems strange that someone should be labeled a defector just for wanting to leave a nation. I do understand defector in the context of someone making an active choice to join a group, cause or nation, then later retracting. But a “defector” from a nation or state just because (1) you happened to be born (2) the nation or state wants to keep you. In this case, it sounds like defector is a term mainly to be used by a socialist or communist state that prevents its citizens from leaving.
1) Right…so that’s why the responses are so small, measured–and likely to yield small results. I’m not casting stones when I say that, by the way.
2) To review…the letter writing and emotional appeals aren’t moving the Chinese. The sunshine policy has been deemed a failure. Getting tough isn’t feasible. Buying them off supposedly will backfire or be ineffective. Even buying North Koreans will feed the NK propaganda machine.
Guess I’ll go back to talking about Jeremy Lin, then take a nap…
1) Ain’t it great! We can say almost anything we want and not really worry that we’ll be put under house arrest, although our blogs might get banned.
2) As a reminder, I said a day or two ago that I believe I have the right to go anywhere I want–but when I drive through Klan country that I drive the speed limit, stop and look both ways at every intersection, keep the radio volume down. Not trying to be a hero when I say that the policies that get proposed and implemented tinker at the edges.
Robert,
Could you possibly post this link to the online petition permanently on the first page of this blog? (until the NK refugees are saved?)
I would like as many people as possible to sign the petition, and I don’t think this is happening fast enough.
Thank you.
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