China, Screening Out NK Defectors

The New York Times reported that the Chinese government dispatched the census takers to the China-North Korea border to strengthen the searches on every single house, arresting the North Korean defectors after the asylum of the Jang Gil-Su family in June.

The NYT reported that the census takers ask ``pointed questions in Chinese, demanding responses, looking for signs of incomprehension on the faces of those lurking in the shadows. If they don`t understand them, they will think you do not belong, and ask for identification.``

A church worker said, ``Group of police scatter around a designated area. They search everything. About 20 or 30 from my church alone have been arrested.``

NYT also reported that, viewing the 300,000 North Korean defectors estimated purely as ``economic migrants,`` China strengthens the searches, causing them to shift homes from night to night, fleeting to shelters in the countryside or to try risky trips to Mongolia, en route to South Korea.

A missionary of Cho Yang Church in Yanji, about 50 km west of Tumen said, ``by the incident of the Gil-Su family, all escape routes are revealed and now all channels are blocked.``

In addition, according to the NYT, ``the Chinese government has offered rewards to businessmen willing to reveal the names of North Korean defectors working for them illegally. One businessman sent a busload of North Koreans into a police station after telling them they were on the way to a boat that would take them to South Korea.``

mickey@donga.com