25 June 2010
AFP is reporting that two Chinese traders, suspected of espionage, were beaten to death in North Korea.
According to South Korea’s Yonhap new agency, which quoted unnamed sources in Beijing, the two traders from the northeastern province of Jilin were allegedly killed during a trip to the North’s border city of Manpo. “We have noted the report. We are seeking to confirm it,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang told reporters without further comment.
The report said North Korea was resisting China’s demand to turn over the bodies, angering Beijing which believed Pyongyang brought espionage charges against the two in an attempt to evade responsibility over the incident.
Citizens are expendable, but good puppets are hard to find. Funny, isn’t it, how word of incidents like these is getting out nowadays?
As I predicted, North Koreans are hoarding yuan and unloading the new North Korean won as fast as they can.
The ROK government tightens screening for North Korean refugees: I suppose it’s both regrettable and understandable, given the number of spies North Korea has infiltrated into the South this way.
No Asians, Thank You: You know, I always wondered how Australian people understood each other.
I wonder if the ROKs deciding longer debriefing periods is not as much the result of the two agents caught recently (which I still have a hard time swallowing) but more of the fact that the folks coming out of DPR Korea these days are more from the North Korean nomenklatura (higher intelligence value, and thus longer debriefs required) rather than the ordinary citizenry (lesser intelligence value).
Case in point: when I was in Jilin province recently, a place I was having lunch at was raided by the authorities regarding a North Korean defector(s), in the lead a uniformed PLA officer with two stars on his shoulder boards, with some plain clothes minions around him. Since when do major-general grade officers lead raids…. unless we’re talking about a high value target?
Since two stars, depending on the layout of the epaulette, is actually either a lieutenant, lieutenant colonel, or a lieutenant general.
Probably ethnic Korean of Chinese citizenship.