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Category: China & Korea

January 7, 2007

Chinese Police Raid LiNK Refuge, Arrest Three U.S. Activists and Six Refugees

Update 1: I’m going to bump this post up a few times. Meanwhile, I second Kyochan’s advice: Digg the story. I didn’t have an account, but it only took a few seconds to sign up. And I see that Reporters Without Borders is e-mailing half the world over … Saddam Hussein’s execution! Well, here, here! Let’s exhume the old bus-bombing rapist. Scroll down to see my response, and RSF’s reply to that. They claim not to have an opinion on...
Categories Activism/China/China & Korea/Human Rights/Refugees
January 5, 2007

Yet Again, S. Korea Betrays One of Its Own

Updates:   A great post with a picture that nearly had  me in tears at GI Korea, and another picture here.  First, there was Han Man-Taek, a South Korean POW from the Korean War who escaped from North Korea after 50 years in captivity.   He had been held  by North Korea for all this time,  in violation of the 1953 Armistice.  Han nearly made it to freedom, when Chinese police caught Han and sent him back to almost certain death...
Categories Abductions/China/China & Korea
December 21, 2006

Slavery, Then and Now

Apparently,  North Korean restaurants are popular in China, for everyone except the young women who are forced to work in them.  Fortunately, China is a good enough neighbor to help North Korea hunt the absconders down.     Remind you of anything?     This is about as clear a case of human trafficking as you’ll ever see.  In a just world, China would get sanctions for this.  In the world in which we really live, the James Bakers and...
Categories China/China & Korea/Human Rights/Human Trafficking
December 20, 2006

Bangkok Post: Thai Military Gov’t Orders ‘Offensive’ Against N. Korean Refugees

Thanks to a reader for forwarding this.  Chiang Rai _ Immigration authorities in the North are going on the offensive to try to stem the influx of North Korean migrants by tipping off China where the migrants are hiding before they enter Thailand illegally. Pol Col Jessada Yaisoon, the immigration checkpoint chief for Mae Sai district, said immigration officers would use more pro-active measures which necessitate approaching China, the ”upstream country” of the problem. The government has been alarmed by...
Categories China/China & Korea/Human Rights/Refugees/Southeast Asia
December 19, 2006

If I Were a Member of the North Korean Elite, I, Too Would Be Buying Up Gold and Chinese Real Estate

One of the least recognized moral responsibilities assumed by authoritarian states is the responsibility for misspent words and wealth they choose to get into the business of controlling.  For example, when the South Korean government  dabbles in the control of objectionable speech, whether for political or nationalistic reasons, it assumes responsibility for the decision to license, by omission,  (and sometimes,  even to subsidize) other objectionable or  controversial speech. To a much greater extent, North Korea, which aspires to a higher...
Categories "United" Nations/China & Korea/Famine & Food Aid/Human Rights
December 18, 2006

Phillip Buck Featured in WSJ

Underground railroad worker Phillip Buck,  recently released from a Chinese prison,  has told Melanie Kirkpatrick  about his activities, his  arrest, and even his new identity: Pastor Buck is nothing if not determined. In 2002, while in a Southeast Asian country with a group of refugees he had guided there, his apartment in Yanji city, in northeast China, was raided. Nineteen refugees were captured and a copy of his passport was confiscated. With his identity now compromised, Mr. Buck returned to...
Categories China & Korea/Human Rights/Refugees/Uncategorized
December 14, 2006

Chinese Diplomats on the Town, Behaving Like … American Infantry!

Heard in the Forbidden City:  “Those uppity vassals won’t get away with  indignities like this  when we build our governor’s mansion on top of Kwanghwamun!” Police pulled over a car with the diplomatic license plate of the Chinese Embassy near the main gate of Ewha Women’s University around 9:50 p.m. on Tuesday. The driver and three passengers declined to take the test or confirm their identities and kept doors and windows locked. Police guided the car into a corner, where...
Categories China & Korea/UCMJ & SOFA/WTF?
December 2, 2006

Must-Read: On the Underground Railroad

The Times of London spent months trying to interview one of the conductors of the underground railroad.  This remarkable report tells us what North Koreans suffer to escape from hell on earth: He muffles his face and hides in the back of a car. Every Chinese checkpoint is a challenge. North Korean agents are out to kill him. Chinese-Korean gangsters hate him for rescuing women doomed to sexual slavery. Nam made his own escape after his wife and younger son...
Categories China/China & Korea/Human Rights/Refugees
November 29, 2006

Welcome Home

Life Funds for North Korean Refugees reports that Choi Young-Hun, who has been in a Chinese prison for the last four years for helping North Korea refugees, has been released: Choi was met at Incheon Airport this evening by close family members.  And although he appears extremely weak following his imprisonment, he took the time to express his thanks to all those around the world who have supported him with their prayers, letters and other contributions.
Categories Activism/China & Korea/Human Rights/Refugees
November 17, 2006

Proliferation Security Watch

The AP has a very detailed story on the search of a North Korean ship in the Indian Ocean, along with a nice summary of other searches in the recent past.  In this case, it sounds like all they found was cement. In other searches, Hong Kong authorities detained two North Korean cargo ships in October for safety violations apparently unrelated to the U.N. sanctions. Myanmar permitted a North Korean cargo ship in distress to anchor at a port in...
Categories "United" Nations/Appeasement/China & Korea/Japan & Korea/U.S. & Korea/Uncategorized/WMD
October 31, 2006

N. Korea Agrees to Return to Six-Party Talks

[Update:   According to this Korean language link, the South Koreans were the last of the six parties to know that the talks would begin again.  You’d think that after getting seven billion dollars from South Korean taxpayers, they’d have enough left over to afford a phone call.  I guess they spent it somewhere else.] News coming off the wires claims that the North Koreans have agreed to return to six-party talks. Chinese, U.S. and North Korean envoys to the...
Categories China & Korea/Counterfeiting/Diplomacy/Money Laundering/Six-Party Talks
October 27, 2006

China-N. Korea Trade: Business as Usual

I didn’t get terribly excited about initial reports that China wouldn’t enforce 1718 in good faith, because I don’t frankly care much what they say, but rather, what they do.  Sounds like we have our answer, courtesy of the N.Y. Times: Truckers carrying goods into North Korea across the sludge-colored Tumen River say inspections are unchanged on the Chinese side. Customs agents rarely open boxes here or at two other border crossings in this mountainous region, truckers and private transport...
Categories "United" Nations/China & Korea/NK Economics
October 25, 2006

Three More N. Korean Refugees Headed to U.S. from China

We’re about to see another test of that oddly arousing “lips and teeth” analogy. Two boys in their early teens without family and a man about 18 or 19 years old were taken without incident into the consulate in Shenyang with a member of Liberty in North Korea, according to a spokesman for the grass-roots group who asked not to be identified for security reasons. The group, also known as LiNK, operates orphanages in China that provide for North Koreans...
Categories China & Korea/Refugees/Uncategorized
October 24, 2006

‘Lips and Teeth’ No More?

You may recall the recent interview I did with Chuck Downs, in which Mr. Downs spoke of China’s  efforts to  court members of the North Korean military.  Downs suggested that this was a key concern to Kim Jong Il, and may have motivated him to test his officers’ loyalty.  According to this report, the North Koreans have just managed to roll up China’s spy network inside North Korea. CHINA’S People’s Liberation Army is pushing the Government to get tough with...
Categories China & Korea
October 24, 2006

More Grim News on N. Korea’s Food Situation

New reports are  predicting that things are looking bleak for North Korea’s food situation this winter. Millions of North Koreans are at risk of starvation this winter as humanitarian aid levels drop amid an international furore over the country’s nuclear bomb test. Aid agencies say much of the population is already surviving on basic rations and fear any further drop in food supplies could lead to a repeat of the 1990s famine that killed as many as two million people....
Categories "United" Nations/China/China & Korea/Famine & Food Aid