Category: China

Reining in North Korea a ‘mission impossible’ for China?

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Washington has been leaning on Beijing to take a larger role in reining in the reclusive regime of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un.

Beijing’s ambassador Cui Tiankai said the United States is giving China a ”mission impossible” by insisting it exert pressure on neighboring North Korea to halt its nuclear program or face US consequences.

“There is one thing that worries me a little bit, and even more than a little bit, is that we’re very often told that China has such an influence over DPRK and we should force the DPRK to do this or that,” Cui Tiankai told a Washington think-tank. “Otherwise the United States would have to do something that would hurt China’s security interests. You see you are giving us a mission impossible.”

Tiankai, who has been China’s envoy to Washington since April 2013, said he did not “think this was very fair, I don’t think this is a constructive way of working with each other.”

Cui told an audience at the United States Institute of Peace that Beijing was very worried by the threat of nuclear arms on the Korean peninsula and the risk of another war, armed conflict or chaos. Tensions have been rising on the peninsula following a series of threats by Pyongyang in protest at ongoing Seoul-Washington military drills. North Korea has staged a series of rocket and short-range missile tests since last month, as well as its first mid-range missile launch since 2009. The two Koreas traded fire across their tense Yellow Sea border last week, with the shells landing in the sea.

“The peninsula is just at our doorstep, any chaos, any armed conflict there will certainly have cross-border effects on China,” Cui said. “But this problem cannot be solved by China alone. We need cooperation among the relevant parties.”

[South China Morning Post]

North Korea tells world to ‘wait and see’ on new nuclear test

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North Korea said on Friday that the world would have to “wait and see” when asked for details of “a new form” of nuclear test it threatened to carry out.

On March 26, North Korea fired two medium-range Rodong ballistic missiles into the sea. Its first firing in four years of mid-range missiles that can hit Japan followed a series of short-range rocket launches over the past two months.

“[North Korea] made it very clear, we will carry out a new form of nuclear test. But I recommend you to wait and see what it is,” North Korea’s Deputy U.N. Ambassador Ri Tong Il said on Friday during the normally reclusive state’s third U.N. news conference this year.

Ri accused the United States of being “hell bent on regime change” in North Korea by blaming its leaders for human rights violations. He also said Washington was blocking a bid for the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula by ignoring North Korean proposals, so it can maintain military presence in the region.

Nuclear expert Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Monterey Institute of International Studies in the United States, said North Korea’s reference to a new form of nuclear test could mean simultaneous detonation of two or more devices as part of a program of more intense testing expected over the next few years. Lewis said he thought it unlikely North Korean leader Kim Jong Un would move for the moment from underground to atmospheric testing – something he might do to demonstrate an ability to deploy nuclear armed missiles or artillery – for fear of inflaming Chinese public opinion.

“He’s only likely to do that … if he no longer cares what Beijing thinks,” Lewis said. “Still, it is useful to remember that Kim Jong Un has a number of other unpleasant provocations from which he might choose.”

[Reuters]

A revival of North Korean Christianity

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In 1988, North Korean authorities suddenly decided to build a Catholic and a Protestant church in Pyongyang. North Korean refugees say that many Pyongyangites were shocked one day when they saw a building in the neighborhood that looked remarkably like a church (from propaganda pictures), with a cross atop its spire. For decades, North Koreans had been told that such places could possibly be only dens of spies and sadistic butchers (their reaction was perhaps similar to the average D.C. resident if they found a big al-Qaeda recruiting center in their neighborhood, complete with a large neon sign).

At present, there are four officially tolerated churches in Pyongyang (two Protestant, one Catholic and one Orthodox). Opinions are divided on how authentic these activities are. In any case, these political shows in Pyongyang should not distract us from the real revival of North Korean Christianity, which quietly began in the late 1990s in the Sino-North Korean borderlands. In the late 1990s, many North Koreans fled to China trying to escape a disastrous famine in their country. In 1998-99, the number of such refugees peaked at around 200,000.

Most of them established good contacts with ethnic Koreans in China. By that time, many Korean-Chinese had been converted to Christianity – which is increasingly seen worldwide as the major religion of the Korean diaspora. Thus, refugees came into contact with South Korean missionaries and/or their ethnic Korean converts, and many of them were converted. It helped that Korean churches in China were perhaps the only institutions that were ready to provide the refugees with assistance and a modicum of protection. Experienced refugees told novices that in the most desperate situation, when all else fails, they should look for a church.

Churches were also very involved with a kind of underground railway that helped North Korean refugees in China to move South. Inside South Korea, church communities are the major institution that provides otherwise generally neglected North Korean refugees with support and protection. One should not therefore be surprised that a significant number of North Korean refugees convert to Christianity soon after their arrival to the South.

Meanwhile in China, from around 2000, many missionaries began to train refugees to spread Christianity in North Korea proper. Many converts were indeed willing to take the risk and go back to their native villages and towns with Korean-language Bibles and other literature. Thus, North Korea’s catacomb church was born.

The North Korean government does not look upon such developments favorably. If a returning refugee is known to be in contact with missionaries he/she will face far more severe punishment. For the average non-religious border crosser, the punishment is likely to be a few months of imprisonment, but known religious activist is likely to spend 10 years in prison.

Nonetheless, the risks do not deter either missionaries or converts.

[NKNews.org]

On referring North Korea to the International Criminal Court

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There are an estimated 80,000 to 120,000 political prisoners in North Korea, a nation of 24 million people.

After the release of the report by the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in North Korea, many country representatives supported the call to refer North Korea to the International Criminal Court.

Hundreds of thousands of North Koreans are believed to have perished in the camps over the past half century, “gradually eliminated through deliberate starvation, forced labor, executions, torture,’’ the report said.

“The EU believes that it is imperative that there be no impunity for those responsible for human rights violations,’’ EU representative to the UN in Geneva, Mariangela Zappia, told the council. Along with Japan, the European Union is drafting a resolution on North Korea to be voted on by the council next week.

However, North Korea’s key ally China, which has a veto at the UN Security Council, reiterated on Monday that it rejects any referral of North Korean rights abuse cases to the ICC. The recent inclusion of China and Russia in the rotating membership of the Human Rights Council may even prevent the initial resolution needed to push the case to New York.

[News.com.au]

China rejects UN report on North Korean crimes

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As expected, China on Monday dismissed a UN report alleging North Korea has committed crimes against humanity, effectively confirming the fears of human rights advocates that Beijing will shield its ally from international prosecution.

Chen Chuandong, a counselor at China’s mission in Geneva, told the UN Human Rights Council that the independent commission of inquiry had made unfounded accusations and recommendations that were ”divorced from reality”.

”The inability of the commission to get support and co-operation from the country concerned makes it impossible for the commission to carry out its mandate in an impartial, objective and effective manner,” Mr Chen said.

Mr Chen said the report was based on information and interviews collected outside the country, without first-hand information. ”The question then arises: can such an inquiry be truly credible?”

China, as a member of the UN Security Council, would have the power to veto any move to refer North Korea to the Hague-based ICC. Diplomats had already warned China was likely to object to the report, which also criticized Beijing for its treatment of North Korean defectors.

But Michael Kirby, chief author of the report, said he was convinced North Korea’s leadership would eventually face the ICC for crimes documented in the commission’s archives, which hold the testimonies of hundreds of witnesses. ”I have lived long enough to see things that looked impossible come to full fruit,” he told a news conference. ”The independence of East Timor, the independence of the Baltic states and other steps following the fall of the Berlin Wall are all indications that things can happen that don’t look certain now. They won’t meet media deadlines but they will occur.”

Shin Dong Hyuk, a North Korean born in a political prison camp who escaped after his mother and brother were executed, told Reuters he had expected China to reject the report. But the ”big purpose” of establishing the inquiry was to get the report discussed at the UN Security Council, he said.

[Reuters]

A glimmer of financial hope in North Korea?

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A North Korean defector who now lives in South Korea has this to say about life in Hyesan, a North Korean city near the border with China: “Women are wearing clothes from Japan or South Korea that show off their figure if they have some money, and cosmetics from South Korea, too.” Since her 2012 defection, Ms Park remains in touch with family in Hyesan thanks to a mobile phone illicitly brought from China. “Seven out of 10 homes have color TV, and people can afford to make meat broth once a month . . . The quality of life has improved a lot.”

Though Kim Jong-Un has stressed a desire to strengthen the economy and “improve the people’s standard of living”, Hyesan’s growing middle class is more a reflection of the North Korean government’s surrender of control over much of the real economy than a result of improved policies. It is also a window into North Korea’s struggle to foster economic development while keeping a totalitarian political system alive.

After the starvation of up to 1m people in the famine demonstrated the state’s inability to feed its people, it was forced to turn a blind eye to the informal markets that sprang up. For residents of cities such as Hyesan, near the border with China, the opportunity to engage in illicit trade with Chinese merchants has been especially lucrative.

The capital has always offered higher living standards than the rest of North Korea, serving as a home for about 3m of those considered most dependable and loyal to the regime. Visitors to Pyongyang over the past two years also speak of growing prosperity. There are more cars on the formerly traffic-free streets – including BMWs, despite a UN ban on luxury goods imports. Children in the city’s parks use skates, department stores are increasingly well-stocked, and a growing number of once drab shops bear hoardings with eye-catching logos.

Chinese trade with North Korea hit a record $6.6bn last year, according to the Seoul-based Korea International Trade Association – the vast majority of Pyongyang’s trade and up ninefold since 2001. Says Andray Abrahamian, executive director of Choson Exchange, which provides business training to young North Koreans. “Increasingly, over the last decade, people see business as the way to get ahead rather than the traditional way, which would be getting ahead in the party or the military.”

The majority of North Koreans though still endure grinding poverty that contrasts sharply with the lifestyles of the smugglers of Hyesan, let alone the Pyongyang elite. A study last October by the World Food Programme estimated only 16 per cent of households had “acceptable food consumption”. In the northern province of Ryanggang, 40 per cent of children under five were stunted.

[Simon Mundy writing in Financial Times]

New South Korean film portrayal of Christian suffering in North Korea

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Christians in North Korea face beatings, torture, arbitrary shooting and execution. It is difficult, though, to comprehend the true nature of the terror of the victims, the extent of the persecution, and the bravery of their struggle.

A new film, “The Apostle: He Was Anointed by God,” presents a fictionalized account based on stories culled by South Korean director Kim Jin-moo.

The plot revolves around Chul-ho who wants to lead villagers across the river to China and from there to South Korea. He, his family and friends, face varying degrees of terrorism by North Korean soldiers, some of them glad to accept bribes, others promising to get tough against dissidents in their midst.

The film introduces, on a highly personal level, the types of conflicts among all these people that we can only imagine – the aging father who just wants to pay off the authorities whenever expedient, the pregnant woman who hides away but also gets killed, the Christian who praises Kim Jong-il in a sermon in one of those phony authorized churches in Pyongyang, the young soldier who himself is a Christian and attends underground services while in uniform.

One of the more interesting studies in “The Apostle” is that of the North Korean squad leader who warns Christians of the troubles they face under a new, ambitious officer and then obeys the officer when expedient, as when villagers are shot and killed as they try to flee across the snow into China. The differences among North Koreans are essential to the credibility of the film since they portray characters who suffer not only from ideological fanaticism but also from opportunism and the need to survive under a brutal regime that will kill anyone who shows any sign of insubordination.

For those who worry about the fate of unknown tens of thousands of secret Christians in North Korea, this is a powerful film with a believable story. Chul-ho dies as a martyr to his faith. Peter Jung, founder of Justice for North Korea, presenting the film, complete with English subtitles, said his organization will show it on March 17 in Geneva during debate at the UN Council for Human rights on the report on human rights in North Korea by a commission authorized by the council.

A book by Jung and activist Kim Hi-tae, “The Persecuted Catacomb Christians of North Korea,” is quoted in the report. Copies of the book, in both English and Korean, were handed out after the screening of the film. It provides an astonishing glimpse into the history of Christianity in Korea, the suffering that Christians have endured historically and the brutality that exists today in North Korea.

[Forbes]

China reiterates it will not allow war or instability on Korean Peninsula

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China will not allow war or instability on the Korean Peninsula, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Saturday. “The Korean Peninsula is right on China’s doorstep. We have a red line, that is, we will not allow war or instability on the Korean Peninsula,” Wang said at a press conference.

“I believe this is also fully in the interest of the South and North of the peninsula and in the common interest of the whole region,” Wang added.

The minister also called for an early resumption of the six-party talks. “If I may use some metaphors, I believe, we need to climb a slope, remove a stumbling block and follow the right way.” Describing the nuclear issue as the “crux of the matter,” Wang said, “First, we need climb the slope of denuclearization. Only with denuclearization can the Korean Peninsula have genuine and lasting peace.”

Secondly, the parties need to work hard to remove the stumbling block of mutual mistrust, said Wang. There is serious lack of mutual trust between the parties, especially the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the United States, he added.

Third, the parties must follow the right way forward, which is dialogue, said Wang, pointing to the six-party talks as “the only dialogue mechanism acceptable to all the parties. … As the host country, we hope there can be an early resumption of the six-party talks. Some dialogue is better than none, and better early than later.”

[Xinhua]

A visible Choe Ryong belies reports of another North Korean purge

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A senior North Korean official, believed to be the No. 2 in the country after leader Kim Jong Un, has reappeared in official television footage, belying reports he had fallen victim to a fresh purge in the isolated nation.

Choe Ryong Hae is the influential head of the political wing of North Korea’s military and appears to have risen to become the second most powerful person in the country after the execution of Jang Song Thaek, Kim’s uncle, last year.

Speculation in recent weeks that Choe had also been purged triggered a wave of speculation that Kim was intent on shaking up North Korea’s elite and that competing factions around the 31-year old leader were a destabilising force in the North.

Choe’s father was a partisan who fought alongside the young Kim’s grandfather Kim Il Sung, the founder of North Korea.

In addition to the public title as the chief political operative for the North’s 1.2-million-strong army, Choe holds a seat in the powerful standing committee of the ruling Workers’ Party politburo shared only by Kim himself and two figurehead old guard members.

Choe is also one of the two vice chairmen of the ruling Workers’ Party central military commission, a post that encompasses two of the most powerful institutions, the party and the military. He was made a vice marshal of the military this year.

In June, Choe was Kim’s special envoy to meet President Xi Jinping of China, North Korea’s only major ally. The meeting followed displeasure expressed by Beijing after North Korea launched a missile last year and conducted a third nuclear test.

[IBTimes] 

Testimony of a North Korean prison camp survivor

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One witness at the public hearings of the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in North Korea said that young male inmates in North Korean prison camps became so desperate for food they would eat live worms or snakes caught in the field to feel something in their stomachs.

“Because we saw so many people die, we became so used to it,” one prison camp survivor told the commission. “I’m sorry to say that we became so used to it that we didn’t feel anything. In North Korea, sometimes people on the verge of dying would ask for something to eat. Or when somebody died we would strip them naked and we would wear the clothes. Those alive have to go on, those dead, I’m sorry, but they’re dead.”

Jee Heon A told the commission of her time in a North Korean prison. She was sent there after being repatriated from China. She befriended a young girl, named Kim Young Hee and became like a sister to her. While they were forced to work in the fields, they looked for a type of grass to eat, as their prison rations were not enough.

“We finished our work and we were about to pick up this grass or the plant that we knew we could eat,” Jee told the commission. “And then the guards saw us, and he came running and he stepped on our hands and then he brought us to this place and he told us to kneel.”

They were forced to eat the grass along with the root and the soil as punishment. Kim became increasingly sick with diarrhea after eating the soil.

“There was nothing I could do,” Jee said. “I could not give [Kim Young Hee] any medicine. And when she died, she couldn’t even close her eyes. She died with her eyes open. I cried my heart out.”

She wrapped Kim’s body in a plastic bag and the other prisoners buried her and about 20 other bodies from the prison on a hill.

[CNN]