Living with the North

This was originally meant to be the first in a series of essays looking at North Korea – officially the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, or DPRK – from the perspective of an immigrant in Japan. My reporting and tone sought to be balanced on two fronts: on the one hand, I believed – and, of course I still believe – that all of us in northeast Asia are well served by looking at the North clearly and levelly; on the other hand, I knew that one must take care to be even-handed so as not to attract anyone’s ire. Relations between Japan and Korea are very complicated, and feelings run high on both sides. I thought I might have something useful to say as a newcomer looking at this long and difficult relationship; it was my intention to observe and analyse, not to provoke. I will inevitably say something that someone finds objectionable; I can only hope that readers who take exception to what I say understand that my overriding interest is to contribute to peaceful and mutually beneficial relations among all our countries. Let me call this opening paragraph my ‘limited warrantee’ – in which I promise that my essays are provided in good faith and should work as they are intended to do.

Since this essay first appeared, a great many events have overtaken the relationship between Japan and the DPRK; and my essay-writing has, in general, moved away from the directly topical to criticism, analysis, and memoir. This essay is therefore the only one I will present on North Korea. I think it still has something useful to say, so I plan to leave it where it is.

On 8 May 2002 five North Koreans – two men, two women, and a child – attempted to gain entry to the Japanese consulate in Shenyang, China. The men succeeded in rushing past the Chinese police at the gate; the women and child got past the guards and into the compound, but were dragged out moments later. About twenty minutes later, the two men were also removed from the consulate by the Chinese police. The group’s initial rush for the gate and subsequent grappling with the police were caught on camera by a television news crew positioned nearby. This footage clearly showed the Chinese police entering the Japanese consulate; it sparked a diplomatic row between Tokyo and Beijing and a scandal in Japan. It was by any measure a compelling political drama. Both theatrical and political drama work best if they can reveal what we prefer to keep hidden away, and the events in Shenyang continue to unfold in this mode.

At the heart of it all, of course, are the five North Koreans. As I write this, their fate remains undecided: they are presumably in Chinese custody, and risk being deported to the DPRK. China does not officially recognize North Koreans in China as refugees: it classes them as economic migrants, and sends them back across the border when it catches them. Reports from the DPRK suggest that they face an uncertain fate on their return. It comes as no surprise, then, to learn that most of the 200,000 to 300,000 North Korean refugees in China keep a very low profile. In recent months, however, several small groups have received help from third parties to stage runs for asylum at foreign embassies and consulates in China. The largest of these so far took place in March when 25 refugees sought asylum in the Spanish embassy in Beijing. After that incident, the Chinese tightened security in the embassy district, and stepped up their actions against DPRK refugees living in China. We can assume that more of the same will follow these latest runs for asylum in Shenyang. Refugee support groups may now have a more difficult time working in China, if the government acts against those it holds responsible for these recent high-profile bids for asylum.

The asylum runs are designed to attract international attention not only to the plight of current refugees in the border areas between China and the DPRK, but also to highlight the danger posed by the increasing desperation of the situation. There is no guarantee that even a well-planned run on an embassy or consulate will be successful. The obvious conclusion to draw is that these are desperate people if they are still willing to risk capture and return in order to escape to South Korea. This in turn invites speculation on the state of North Korea itself.

Here in Japan, coverage of the Shenyang incident first concentrated on the actions of the Chinese police in violating Japanese sovereignty to arrest the asylum seekers, and next on the policies and actions of our Foreign Ministry. This has been a scandal-packed year for the Foreign Ministry, and the images from China have not helped matters much. After the Chinese removed the asylum seekers, consular staff appeared on the scene to pick up various bits of debris and hand them back through the gates to the police. It later emerged that Foreign Ministry staff may have implicitly sanctioned the Chinese intrusion, or at least did little to discourage it. Overall, the issue is being treated as a matter of sovereignty violation rather than an issue involving refugees. This is unfortunate, as it leaves a number of important questions unasked.

The Foreign Ministry has a history of confusing behaviour with respect to refugees of all sorts, and asylum seekers abroad in particular. Also in early May, a scandal erupted over comments attributed to a consular official in the Czech Republic: that we are not interested in accepting refugees, and would be particularly ill disposed toward Roma refugees. Between 1981 and 2001 only 291 people were accepted as refugees in Japan under normal procedures; these ‘normal procedures’ usually entail making application from within Japan. The law passed to implement the UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees in Japan does not make clear provision for applications for asylum in foreign countries. Thus by design or simply as a matter of legislative inertia we were unprepared for the appearance of the five asylum seekers in Shenyang.

Beyond this, any matter involving refugees from the DPRK creates an uncomfortable feeling in government circles throughout this region. The number of people successful in escaping North Korea has so far been kept fairly small, but that could change. Japan, China, and South Korea all move carefully around the North and avoid potentially destabilizing talk of a refugee crisis. The obvious reason for this caution is the military threat posed by the current government in Pyongyang, or in the case of China by the fact that the two countries are putative allies. A deeper reason is that it is in no one’s interest to see an abrupt change of government in the North. The DPRK presents a paradox: a country with a widely disliked government that no one wants to see break down. Japan and China in particular have little choice but to swallow hard and continue to prop up Pyongyang.

The refugee question demands an intelligent response. As Francisco Sisci put it in Asia Times Online last March, the task ‘is to save millions of starving North Koreans without endangering millions of its neighbours and the welfare of all of Asia.’ The lesson of German reunification was well learned in Korea, where the South is painfully aware of how expensive it would be to reunite with the North. The general consensus seems to be that it will take another twenty to thirty years – in other words, another generation – before the South has enough money to pay for reunification. Until that time, everyone in northeast Asia will be required to lend a hand to the business of keeping the DPRK afloat, and to keeping its people more or less content to remain within its borders. It is now clear that the latter task will be the more difficult. There is another lesson to take from the German case: a recalcitrant leadership can be pushed away quickly if enough people start to move. We in Japan watch, wait, send money and rice, and hope that someone in Pyongyang was paying attention back in 1989. The five in Shenyang can only wait and hope.

2002/05/25

Postscript: 3 June 2002

After protracted negotiations, the five asylum seekers taken from the consulate in Shenyang were granted passage to South Korea via the Philippines.

Date posted: 2003-09-15