North Korea recently lured two Korean-Chinese civilians in
China back to North Korea and forcibly transferred them to Pyongyang, Daily NK
has learned. It is alleged that Korean-Chinese families remaining in North
Korea are being used to entice specific targets, who are suspected of Christian
proselytizing, back across the Sino-North Korean border so that they can be
detained.
A source from the border city of Sinuiju in North Pyongan
Province reported the news to Daily NK on March 2nd, explaining, “Recently, two
Korean-Chinese were captured and taken
off to Pyongyang. The word among traders is that evidence emerged that the two had
been introducing [North Koreans] to churches.”
“The authorities already stated that anyone who comes into
contact with a church will be treated as a counter-revolutionary. Accordingly, they
figured they shouldn’t leave alone the people who introduce them to the
churches,” the source went on. “It’s neither here nor there that they are in
China; if Korean-Chinese can be lured to Sinuiju or somewhere else [in North
Korea] then they can be seized, so this will probably happen again.”
The case looks like an extension of recent policy in other
areas of border security. Some North Koreans in China on legal family visit
permits have been repatriated and investigated on suspicion of making contact
with South Koreans or Christian churches. This kind of allergic reaction to
Christianity indicates how destabilizing the circulation of external
information inside North Korea is for the regime, and this explains why the
authorities are so keen to limit it.
According to the Sinuiju source, the regime uses hwagyo [Chinese-Korean] families still
in North Korea to help lure back their arrest targets with talk of urgent
matters to attend to back home. In general, the regime does not arrest people
inside China, as this brings the threat of a diplomatic rift with the Beijing
government upon which Pyongyang is economically reliant.
However, this is not the only tool in the armory of the
security forces. There are even signs of attempts to get traders with hwagyo acquaintances to bring them back
to North Korea with trade as a decoy.
Although Daily NK could not confirm the specific case of the
two men, news from secondary sources inside China appears to corroborate it.
One source explained, “Some hwagyo who
had not been in China for very long did suddenly disappear. I heard that they
had been caught and taken back to Chosun.”
“As a result, other hwagyo
here have been avoiding South Koreans, and avoiding contact with them, too,” the source in China added.
“We’ve received word that additional Ministry of State
Security personnel have been deployed [to China] to help with the surveillance
of people on family visit permits and hwagyo,”
he went on. “They’re lingering in restaurants and the like; apparently, the aim
is to watch out for hwagyo meeting
Southerners to pass on information.”
