North Korea Finally Finds a Minority to Persecute: Chinese
North Korean authorities have apparently stepped up regulations and monitoring of Chinese residents there since Beijing backed UN sanctions against the North in June. Sources in China and North Korea say North Korean intelligence officials are increasingly treating Chinese residents who recently visited their home country as spies.
Sources say this has prompted many Chinese residents to avoid visiting China. The number of Chinese residents passing through customs in Rajin has dropped to one-third of the number seen last year after rumors spread that a Chinese resident in Pyongyang who had recently been back to China was hauled off by intelligence agents and charged with espionage. [Chosun Ilbo]
I doubt that the Chinese government will allow itself to become unduly concerned about this about a small Chinese population — no more than 10,000 — being oppressed by a state China prefers to prop up. After all, a rumored reason for Wen Jiabao’s recent visit was to deliver a large consignment of aid to counteract U.S. sanctions and the very U.N. Security Council sanctions that China itself signed. If China is willing to oppress so many Chinese itself, why should it care that its puppet state is acting a little rebellious by doing the same? Surely North Korea’s treatment of the Chinese can’t be any worse than China’s treatment of North Korean women.
I don’t think the Chinese government cares much about Chinese overseas residents themselves, but it does care about power and respect. If the North Koreans actually have detained a Chinese national, then either he really did violate the law or he has no friends in the local Chinese community and more importantly among the Chinese diplomatic corps.
And if he was gathering intelligence, he obviously wasn’t passing it along to the Chinese government. Perhaps he was aiding South Korea or some other country?
China doesn’t care about its citizens…
China court sentences 6 to death in Xinjiang riots
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j794twyjYyjeOIdsKWwzCUhsgvUAD9B9I9C00
Notice how all those convicted and given death sentences were Uighurs. They probably carried out most of the violence, but it was Han thugs spreading rumors and killing Uighurs in Shenzhen that started the troubles. Beijing will put down Han for selling drugs and taking millions in bribes, but never for participating in ethnic violence. That charge is reserved for minorities.
@sonagi: actually a Han Chinese was given death sentence as well for sparking the original clash in Guangdong. I wouldn’t dispute your overall characterization of Han nationalistic bent by the CCP, but wanted to note Beijing’s equal-opportunity “kill the chickens to frighten the monkeys” kind of Legalism.
As for Joshua’s original post, it’s a good bit of intell but I wouldn’t call it completely new. I have spent some time at the National Archives going through a few thousand musty pages of NK surveillance reports of ethnic Chinese in North Pyong’an province; these folks have always been at the mercy of the Workers’ Party and it’s hard to conceive of a time when they have not been suspected of subversion. And of course they have no voice in the central corridors in Pyongyang; at least the Uighurs have the fiction of an “autonomous region” and a place in the Chinese constitution, for whatever that is worth.
Finally, it’s hard to say what is driving the drop in Chinese numbers of tourists and visitors into the DPRK. It could be rumors about one dude in Rajin, but it might also be the accumulated reports of NK nuclear tests, Chinese apprehension toward NK missile programs, and the general idea that NK is dangerous. Even South Korean visits to Paektu-san were off this year by more than 50% (according to Chinese Huanqiu Shibao) on account of NK nuclear tests.
But in spite of my bellyaching and caveats I am appreciative of the link and the recent posts on the site.
BTW, did you know that mainland Chinese reporters are now quoting Good Friends reports? That’s a bit insulting to the NKs!
Has the ethnic Chinese community existed in North Pyongan Province for centuries or are they relatively recent transplants from somewhere in China?
Not surprised actually to see Huanqiu sourcing from Good Friends. The private internet news websites definitely have more leeway in reporting. Sina once republished a foreign Chinese-language news story that casually mentioned North Korea’s puppet government.