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China abets the murder of nine North Korean refugees

South Korean legislators on Friday condemned China’s repatriation of fugitives from North Korea after Beijing reportedly sent nine back despite pleas from Seoul.

A resolution passed by the committee on foreign affairs and unification urges China to follow international rules in handling North Koreans who flee their impoverished homeland, and seeks outside help to halt the returns. [AFP]

Seoul says it might (gasp) raise this with the U.N. Human Rights Council — without mentioning China by name. But despite all the recent hyperventilations about alleged U.S. unilateralism, no nation has does so much to make the U.N. ineffective, or done it so deliberately, as China. When I see activists gathering the support of lawyers, judges, and governments to draft and serve indictments against Bashar Asad for crimes against humanity, I envy their creativity and their ability to attract media interest. Good luck getting that idea past the likes of Glyn Davies and Wendy Sherman. It isn’t that any of this would have real legal effect, of course. The idea is that if the public reaction is sufficiently intense to harm Chinese diplomatic and economic interests, China will hesitate to do this again. And it’s almost a sure thing that Hu Jintao has murdered as many North Koreans through his decisions as Bashar Asad has murdered Syrians through his. The problem is that the outrage of most South Koreans has a selective blind spot when it comes to North Koreans.

Let me ask a hypothetical question: if the United States, with malice aforethought, abetted the murder of nine Korean civilians, how long do you suppose it would take for the streets to fill with angry mobs with candles and red headbands? Is there any question that that would be the principal issue in the next South Korean election? If that happened, I wouldn’t even rule out the possibility that our embassy would be ransacked. I don’t think race explains this double standard, because Koreans would have the same reaction if Japan did this. There probably isn’t just one explanation, but one of them is the inner conviction of the mobs that they have nothing to fear from America or Japan. In spite of this, I suppose protesting at the U.S. Embassy can make you feel very brave. But an angry protest against China? Why, that would take actual courage.

Finally, can anyone find any reports on this controversy by the Associated Press? For that matter, I can’t find an example of a Reuters story about this issue, either. Both of those services have prominently covered a meeting between Glyn Davies and the North Korean Foreign Minister, despite almost universally low expectations for that meeting. I wonder if this could have anything to do with the “relationships” the AP and Reuters have with the Korea Central News Agency, North Korea’s official “news” service. The AFP, the New York Times, the BBC, and the L.A. Times have all covered this story, which has caused the President of South Korea make a personal appeal to the Chinese government. None of them have relationships with KCNA. Reuters and the AP could refute my suspicions, of course, by covering this story. It will be telling if they don’t.

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10 Responses

  1. Facebook has issued a temporary ban on my message capability, but anyone else can simply look up AP Beijing bureau reporter “Christopher Bodeen” and send the following simple compliment:

    “Nice article today about refugees and China’s border with Myanmar! How about an article about refugees and China’s border with North Korea? Thanks, Chris!!”

  2. Explaining the hypothetical question: the mobs you have in mind always have at their core student activists who have been indoctrinated by their Marxist liberal arts and social sciences professors. In the Marxist weltanschauung or religion, if you will, America and Japan, with their non-Marxist-Leninist governments and culture, have been on the wrong side of Korean history. By contrast, China, under the rule of the fellow whose portrait still disgraces Tiananmen Square, was fully Marxist-Leninist and intervened decisively in the Korean War to save the communist regime in Pyongyang. The current Beijing authorities still guarantee the Kim family regime against the triumph of everything the Marxist professors fear and despise: a world with free markets and where many Koreans acknowledge Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.

  4. Any reporter stationed in Pyongyang should ask to interview repatriated detectors and report on the results of their requests.

    [I’m sure they have ways to arrange that! – Joshua]

  5. Greg,
    it depends on how strong china is in dictating the situation when it comes to dealing with Korean reunification. Apparently they seem to fear irredentism which I think it’s a joke. I seriously doubt any Korean is interested in acquiring chinese territory unless they over do it with their fear.

  6. Reuters and the Associated Press are run by leftists. They also do not want to be kicked out of China and will temper any reports out of that country the same way they did in Baghdad when Saddam Hussein ran the place and the same way they still do out of Cuba.