North Korea remains as one of the most oppressive regimes in the world. In recent years, thousands of North Koreans have risked their lives fleeing to nearby countries, most choosing to cross the loosely controlled border to China. Because of the political and ethnic loyalties present in East Asia, the issue of North Korean refugees in China has created enormous tension. The Chinese government acts on its duty as a neighboring communist nation by sending back North Korean refugees, whom it deems as illegal immigrants. Fleeing from North Korea without state permission is an act of treason, punishable by imprisonment, forced labor, and in some cases the death penalty. Once repatriated, the North Korean refugees face life-threatening punishment. Because South Koreans embrace the ethnic unity of the Korean peninsula, they are appalled by this inhumane treatment of fellow Koreans.

The Human Rights Watch recently released a report titled “Denied Status, Denied Education: Children of North Korean Women in China.” The report documents how children of North Korean women in China are denied legal identity and access to education. A significant number of North Korean refugees are living in Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in east Jilin Province, in northeast China near the border with North Korea. This region is historically a site of many ethnic Koreans in China, dating back to the early 1900s. North Korean children in this area are either from North Korea or born in China between their North Korean mothers and Chinese fathers. Although the China Compulsory Education Law stipulates that all children can receive nine years of free education, this basic right has been denied to these children. In fear of revealing their identities and facing repatriation, North Koreans and their children remain hidden without household registration papers. Some parents have resorted to bribery or trickery in order to ensure their children’s access to education. One 13-year-old North Korean girl told Human Rights Watch she began attending school in 2007 by borrowing a Chinese girl’s identity papers: “I am afraid they will find out I am North Korean, and kick me out of school. Because I don’t have hukou [household registration], I started school only this year, and I am four years older than my classmates, who are all Chinese.”

When the torch for the 2008 Beijing Olympics was passing through South Korea in April 2008, many gathered to protest against the harsh treatment of North Korean refugees in China. Chinese students studying in China also gathered to defend their country’s troubled torch relay. At the protest, two North Korean defectors in South Korea poured paint thinner on their bodies in an attempt to set themselves on fire to condemn what they viewed as inhuman treatment of North Korean refugees living in China; the attempt was stopped by the police, according to eye witnesses. The Olympic torch relay incited protests in some cities around the globe because of China’s crackdown on Tibet, but the demonstration in South Korea focused mainly on the human rights for North Koreans who are hiding in China after fleeing from severe hunger and oppression. Violence ensued after Chinese students started jeering and hurling objects at the South Korea protestors who were demanding that China stop repatriating North Korean refugees. “Even as it is preparing for the Olympics, China is arresting North Korean refugees and sending them to the valley of death,” said Han Chang-kwon, a leader of North Korean defectors, in an interview with the New York Times. “Is that an Olympic spirit?”

This incident has caused anti-Chinese sentiment in South Korea and dampened the support and enthusiasm China needs for its upcoming Beijing Olympics. Human rights groups and South Koreans will continue to exert political pressure and express anger until the Chinese government grants amnesty to North Korean refugees and stop repatriating them against their will.

References

1. http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2008/04/13/china18447.htm
2. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/28/world/asia/28korea.html?scp=4&sq=seoul+chinese&st=nytKorea

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