NGO Claims North Korea Abducted 200 Chinese Who Aided Refugees

Pyongyang’s agents over the past decade abducted about 200 Chinese citizens as part of a campaign to stop people from fleeing North Korea, a news report said Tuesday. The Chinese of ethnic Korean descent had been helping refugees who had fled across the border, Chosun Ilbo newspaper said, adding they were abducted to North Korea and jailed there. [AFP]

The English version of the Chosun Ilbo article isn’t out yet as I write this (but might be by the time you read this hours from now).

To believe that this will do serious harm to Chinese-North Korean relations, you must first accept the dubious premise that China values the freedom of its citizens more than it values having a mostly-reliable puppet and buffer state in northern Korea.

Beijing had never officially sought the repatriation of its citizens because of its “special relationship” with Pyongyang, the paper said.

Like I said.

Chosun said the kidnappings by North Korean agents or border guards occurred mostly in Chinese frontier towns beginning in the late 1990s. It said the figure was based on data that a support group for refugees, the Committee for Democratisation of North Korea, had secured from the government of Changbai prefecture in China’s northeastern province of Jilin. [….]

“The Chinese government views this kidnapping issue not from the humanitarian perspective but from the bloodily tied relationship with North Korea,” one unidentified ethnic Korean in China told Chosun.

Don’t you love it when a malapropism is layered in truths not intended?