Stage 4 Watch: Are North Korean Diplomats Going Native?
An order from Pyongyang directing North Korean diplomats in overseas posts to send their children back home has been met with defiance, sources in Beijing said yesterday. Pyongyang has extended the deadline for sending the children home until the end of this month in the face of the diplomats’ reluctance to obey. On March 6, the JoongAng Ilbo reported that the communist Workers’ Party of North Korea had issued the order in February, but no explanation was provided. Under the order, children over the age of five were to go back to the North by the end of March. [Joongang Ilbo]
Thanks to a reader for sending, and I see that Richardson has a fine post up on the subject with a plausible alternative explanation. Recall that North Korean consular facilities abroad often don’t receive direct funding from Pyongyang; they’re expected to be self-financing. As a result, many take advantage of the rules against searching diplomatic pouches and turn to smuggling. Maybe they just can’t afford the tickets yet.
A businessman in Beijing who has extensive contacts with North Korea said yesterday that the deadline has been extended because diplomats are demanding more time to complete paperwork for the forced homecomings. In fact, they appear to be trying to resist. “Some are trying their best to make their kids an exception by using personal ties, and others are trying to delay the return as much as possible,” the businessman said.
The key word here is “defiance.” I’m obviously guessing based on limited information here, but I think that it’s “acceptable,” even in North Korean society, to obsequiously try to bribe your way out of complying with the rules, but not acceptable to openly challenge or refuse to obey an order, especially one that’s drawn the attention of foreigners. Foot-dragging and bribes would not indicate a breakdown in control so much as a gradual fraying of it. Open defiance by those at the ruling class’s core would be another matter entirely, especially for the sake of keeping their kids out of North Korea. I think this one is worth keeping an eye on.
[photo: NK Embassy in Hanoi, Reuters]
See also: The Captain’s Quarters links a New York Sun story on more North Korean counterfeit money in the U.N.’s possession — this time, right at U.N. Headquarters in New York City (remember this?). This highlights the one discernable advantage of having a bunch of worthless, ineffective, double-parking deadbeats on our soil: it gives the Justice Department a degree of personal jurisdiction over them. It looks like the Feds are investigating the question of when U.N. officials first knew what they had in their possession.