After lying fallow for more than a year, Monday\u2019s decision by the Laotian government to deport nine young North Koreans back to China has pushed the issue of defectors back onto the international agenda. <\/p>\n
There are currently alarm bells ringing for NGOs and the defector community in South Korea and elsewhere, because the Laotian case appears to raise serious doubts over the conventional wisdom that \u201cas long as defectors can get out of China, their safe passage to South Korea is assured.\u201d The case also implies that the North Korean authorities may be trying to stop defectors reaching South Korea from the wider Asian region. Previously, the overwhelming majority of North Korea\u2019s efforts to this end took place in the Chinese northeast.<\/p>\n
Certainly, the Laotian case appears to have had little to do with China. North Korean personnel based in the Laotian capital Vientiane apparently issued a group travel document to the group in order to have them deported to Kunming, a major city in southern China. However, the Chinese government says it received neither prior nor advance warning of the planned deportation from the Laotian authorities or anyone else.<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, it is still the case that China holds the key to resolving the defection issue; thus, it is essential to obtain Chinese governmental cooperation going forward. Now may be a very good time to try. <\/p>\n
Events prior to the China visit of North Korean \u201cspecial envoy\u201d Choi Ryong Hae last week, the December 2012 long-range rocket launch and February 2013 nuclear test in particular, are said to have changed the dynamic of China-North Korea relations, and this is leading some to see the possibility of future movement on Chinese policy toward incoming North Korean defectors.<\/p>\n
There has already been some such movement, albeit modest, thanks to domestic South Korean and international pressure on the Chinese government, although it officially holds to a policy of regarding North Korean defectors as illegal economic migration, and using this as cover under international law for deporting them back to North Korea.<\/p>\n
In 2008, the Chinese and South Korean governments concluded a joint leaders\u2019 statement on regional and international cooperation in which it was noted, \u201cBoth sides agreed to promote dialogue and cooperation in the international human rights sector.\u201d In the assessment of then-Minister of Unification Kim Seok Woo, \u201cThis is extremely rudimentary wording, but is a change that couldn\u2019t have been imagined under the previous regime.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to then-President Lee Myung Bak\u2019s office, at the time President Lee also asked former President Hu Jintao to respect the free will of defectors and not repatriate them.<\/p>\n
Some years later, in March 2012, former Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Kim Sung Hwan repeated a similar request to visiting Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Yang Jiechi. During a bilateral summit later that month, President Hu acquiesced, telling Lee that China would note South Korea\u2019s opinion and try to deal gently with the defector issue going forward.<\/p>\n
Given this history, there are calls for President Park Geun Hye to raise the issue in the same way during her summit with President Xi Jinping in Beijing during late June. There are voices being raised to say that while the two sides have to prioritize the North Korean nuclear issue, humanitarian issues must still not be sidelined completely.<\/p>\n
Do Hee Yoon of the NGO \u2018CHNK\u2019 told Daily NK today, \u201cCracks have appeared in North Korea-China relations, and even if they say that relations have been repaired it is going to be hard to recover the former \u2018blood alliance\u2019 relationship,\u201d adding, \u201cWe must use this as an opportunity to bring about change in North Korea.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe international community and our government\u2019s constant problem-raising is not going to bring about fundamental change in the Chinese government\u2019s policy on defectors, but it can lead to behind the scenes agreement on defector transfer to South Korea,\u201d Do added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After lying fallow for more than a year, Monday\u2019s decision by the Laotian government to deport nine young North Koreans back to China has pushed the issue of defectors back onto the international agenda. There are currently alarm bells ringing for NGOs and the defector community in South Korea and elsewhere, because the Laotian case […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":157,"featured_media":23544,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[644],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-analysis-and-opinion"],"yoast_head":"\n