From: lessgovt@gmail.com   
      
   China Appears to Have Repatriated North Koreans Despite International Pressure   
   By Dasl Yoon, Oct. 13, 2023, WSJ   
   SEOUL—China appeared to have repatriated a large number of North Koreans   
   this week, despite international pressure given the harsh punishment the   
   returnees likely face back in the Kim Jong Un regime.   
      
   Fleeing North Korea is punishable by hard labor, imprisonment in re-education   
   camps or even execution.     
      
   Earlier this week, civic and human-rights groups, citing contacts inside   
   China, claimed roughly 500 to 600 imprisoned North Koreans were forcibly sent   
   back to their home country. On Friday, South Korea’s Unification Ministry   
   said many North Koreans    
   appeared to have been repatriated from three northeastern Chinese provinces   
   but couldn’t confirm how many.   
      
   A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, asked about the repatriation claims at a   
   Thursday briefing, said there were no North Korean defectors in China,   
   according to Reuters. He added that Beijing has always handled individuals who   
   had illegally entered    
   China according to international law and humanitarianism.    
      
   North Korea had sealed off its borders over Covid-19 fears, blocking even its   
   own citizens from returning. But the Kim regime officially reopened in August   
   after having isolated itself for more than 3½ years.    
      
   That triggered concern from the U.S., South Korea, the United Nations and   
   human-rights groups, which asked China to refrain from repatriating North   
   Koreans. Roughly 10,000 North Koreans might be hiding in China, according to   
   South Korean government    
   estimates. Some 1,500 of them are believed to be imprisoned after getting   
   caught by Chinese authorities, the U.N. says.   
      
   Ties between Beijing and Pyongyang have blossomed in recent years, with the   
   two Communist nations pledging deeper coordination and sharing their   
   dissatisfaction with the U.S. and its allies. In the past, when the two   
   countries’ relations were frayed,    
   China sometimes deported North Koreans to third countries or turned a blind   
   eye as escapees sought refuge elsewhere, according to Yang Moo-jin, a former   
   South Korean Unification Ministry official.    
      
   “Currently China has no intention of prioritizing a North Korean   
   defector’s free will over the two countries’ border control laws,” said   
   Yang, who is now the president of the University of North Korean Studies in   
   Seoul.    
      
   More than 8,000 North Koreans have been repatriated in the past, with 98% of   
   the cases sent from China, according to the Seoul-based Database Center for   
   North Korean Human Rights. In contrast, some 34,000 North Koreans have   
   relocated to South Korea in    
   recent decades.   
      
   President Biden and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol have focused on   
   pressuring North Korea on its human-rights violations, a shift from   
   predecessors who kept quieter on the issues as diplomatic talks unfolded with   
   the Kim regime. Both countries in    
   the past year or so have named North Korean human-rights envoys, positions   
   that had remained vacant since 2017. The U.S. envoy, Julie Turner, was   
   confirmed by the Senate in July, though has yet to be sworn into office.   
      
   Since taking power in 2011, Kim, the 39-year-old dictator, has cracked down   
   harder than his father or grandfather did on those seeking to flee North   
   Korea. He tightened border controls even before the pandemic and strengthened   
   punishment for illegal    
   border crossings.    
      
   The number of escapees annually who have relocated to South Korea has dwindled   
   to the dozens in recent years. Before the pandemic, the total typically hit   
   1,000 or more a year.    
      
   Beijing’s increasing use of facial-recognition technology has suppressed the   
   outflow of North Koreans, by making it extremely difficult for them to avoid   
   being identified and repatriated, said Hanna Song, director of international   
   cooperation at the    
   Database Center for North Korean Human Rights, during a U.S. congressional   
   hearing in July.   
      
   China’s foremost request to the Kim regime has been returning North Koreans   
   that Beijing considers to be criminals, ever since the two countries resumed   
   some railway trade earlier this year, South Korea’s spy agency told   
   lawmakers in August. The    
   Covid-19 border closures by both countries had meant the North Koreans   
   couldn’t be sent back as soon as they were caught, said Hwang Ji-hwan, a   
   professor of international relations at the University of Seoul.   
      
   “Even if the Yoon administration has been emphasizing North Korea’s human   
   rights violations more, it won’t change China’s stance especially when   
   Beijing’s relations with Washington and Seoul aren’t so good,” Hwang   
   said.   
      
   The North Koreans suspected to have been sent back recently include children   
   and were from several Chinese border cities, including Dandong and Tumen, said   
   Peter Jung, the director of Justice for North Korea, the group that first   
   publicized the    
   repatriations early this week.   
      
   Separately, Human Rights Watch, citing a South Korean underground missionary   
   with contacts in China and North Korea, said more than 500 North Koreans who   
   were mostly women had been forcibly returned this week. Around 120 North   
   Koreans had been    
   repatriated in August and September, according to the group.    
      
   “The forced repatriations will lead to torture and incarceration of North   
   Koreans and those who came in close contact with Christianity or foreign   
   culture and ideology are expected to be executed or sent to prison camps,”   
   said Jung, whose group is a    
   nonprofit humanitarian organization.   
      
   https://www.wsj.com/world/asia/china-appears-to-have-repatriated   
   north-koreans-despite-international-pressure-3b0e99df   
      
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