In early October 2022, North Korea’s Ministry of State Security ordered its agents in Shenyang to “quickly recall and make an example out of China-based workers harboring subversive ideology.”
The ministry also issued a secret order for each agent to “find one or two workers who took advantage of the global COVID-19 pandemic to foster distrust in the motherland, and to submit evidence [of their wrongdoing],” adding that the investigation should specifically target management level officials.
As a result, North Koreans working as trade officials in China became anxious about possibly being summoned back to Pyongyang for an ideological review.
At the same time, security agents deployed in China were particularly receptive to the new secret orders issued by their superiors and eagerly investigated the ideological trends of the trade workers.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the North Korean authorities generally recalled trade workers to return to Pyongyang to undergo ideological reviews once or twice a year. However, the outbreak of COVID-19 created a three to four year period during which North Korean authorities could not recall any officials.
As a result, it appears the authorities decided to carry out the long-postponed ideological reviews of trade officials all at once and charged security agents in the region with the task.
SUMMONED BACK TO PYONGYANG
In late October 2022, a Shenyang-based trade representative in his 50s surnamed Cho was summoned to Pyongyang in the first round of recalls.
During his ideological review in Pyongyang, Cho passionately asserted that “everything reported about my public and private matters in Shenyang during COVID is incorrect. The security agents are vicious, and I simply ended up getting entangled in their malice.”
Cho divulged that after he brushed off the security agents’ demands for money, the agents retaliated and began antagonizing him. As a result, Cho’s life abroad became incredibly difficult, and the security agents’ behavior gave him the desire to escape.
During the ideological review, Cho appealed to his interrogators, saying: “I was commended for my good work when I met all my quotas and gave into demands from security agents for money. But when I couldn’t get the [bribe] money together, [the security agents] claimed that the other laborers listened to me more [than them] and accused me of being a factionalist.”
However, the Ministry of State Security disregarded Cho’s account and labeled him as someone who “often complains about contributing party funds” and “a turncoat who would betray the fatherland if given the chance.” He was branded ideologically problematic, and he and his family were exiled to a remote area of North Korea.
Having observed what happened to Cho, an official with North Korea’s trade ministry expressed his deep disillusionment with how the government had acted: “If you make enough money, they’ll praise you and promote you, only to later turn around and call you a reactionary and arrest you. That’s how they treat trade officials – they fatten and raise them for slaughter.”
Trade officials in China who later heard the news of what had happened to Cho after his return to North Korea also expressed their disappointment. In describing the deplorable situation to a close Chinese friend, one trade official said: “I’m embarrassed to share the title of ‘North Korean’ with the group of thugs over at the Ministry of State Security. They take people who have pledged their loyalty to the party and state and have worked tirelessly to pay party funds. As soon as they start to gain any status, the [security officials] latch on to some made-up charge and devour them.”
In fact, at the same time in Shenyang, rumors had circulated that “when the security officers were out drinking, [someone overheard] them snickering about how they had dealt with that pain in the neck who had been acting so uppity.”
After the incident involving Cho, distrust deepened between North Korean officials residing in China. Chinese people who worked alongside them expressed their astonishment at the way North Korea’s system of control compels people to spy on each other and fight tooth and nail to survive.
Translated by Rose Adams. Edited by Robert Lauler.
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