40 Lashes with a Wet Strand of Naengmyon

It’s fair to notice that China is taking a modest beating in the Korean press today, a day after it announced the return of seven North Korean refugees to the loving arms of the rehabilitative labor directorate. Here’s the Chosun Ilbo version, and here’s the Korea Herald version. Both suggest that the seven who were repatriated were among the hunger strikers at the Tumen Camp, which brings us back to China’s statement on the subject yesterday:

We learned that North Korea does not punish defectors even when they are returned home nowadays if they are not political dissidents. We sent back those defectors because they wanted to do to meet their families. Also, we do not want this incident to cause problems in intra-Korean relations. (emphasis mine)

In other words, these people are as good as dead, unless the Dear Leader doesn’t count people who (1) defect, (2) protest their repatriation, (3) go on hunger strike, and (4) draw embarassing press coverage as a result to be “political dissidents.” And how shamelessly cynical are the Chinese to claim that these refugees, of all people, volunteered to go back?

The Chinese obviously pulled our their abaci, slid the little beads back and forth, and calculated that they could get away with this without much more than a modest amount of negative press. Odds are, they’re right. Of course, since the press reports suggested that around 100 refugees had joined the hunger strike, there is obviously more to the story, and this is probably China’s way of testing the waters. This suggests that if the South Korean people showed some real concern about this, they might be able to save about 93 lives.

That will never happen. In fact, the story gets a mere 2 1/2 on the OhMyNews Scale. Some NGOs did attempt to deliver a protest to the Chinese Embassy (which means what, exactly?), but judging by the story and picture, the candlewax futures market should be steady as she goes.