Category: World

North Koreans who have escaped to China need help to avoid being sent back against their will, and pressure on Beijing from South Korea alone is not enough to stop it, a former North Korean diplomat told Radio Free Asia. “It is important to send a strong message of international unity to prevent the Chinese authorities from forcibly repatriating [them],” said Thae Yong-ho, who is now a member of the South Korean parliament. “It is difficult to stop it with only the demands of the South Korean government.” The remarks come a week after Beijing secretly repatriated more than 500 North Koreans on Oct. 9, the day after the conclusion of the Asian Games in Hangzhou, China. Thae, who in 2016 defected with his family to the South while serving as Pyongyang’s deputy ambassador to the United Kingdom, is visiting Washington D.C. to inspect the South Korean Embassy in his role as a member of the national assembly representing Seoul’s wealthy Gangnam district.  He is scheduled to meet with U.S. State Department officials and members of Congress to discuss the forced repatriation issue.   A bus carrying escapees from North Korea crosses the bridge to North Korea’s Sinuiju from China’s Dandong on Aug. 29, 2023. Credit: Kim Ji Eun/RFA Thae said that Seoul had been repeatedly trying to raise the issue with Beijing. “Foreign Minister Park Jin and Unification Minister Kim Young-ho have both publicly requested that China stop repatriating North Koreans, ” said Thae. “Also, during the Hangzhou Asian Games, Prime Minister Han Duck-soo visited China and met with President Xi Jinping, demanding that North Koreans not be repatriated.”  Even with the public requests and off-the-record pleas, China continues to justify forced repatriation by claiming that North Korean escapees in China are  “illegal displaced persons” rather than refugees. More than words The distinction is not simply an issue of semantics. If escapees are not refugees, then China argues it is not bound to protect them under the U.N. Refugee Convention and as illegal immigrants, the principle of non-refoulement does not apply to them. Beijing maintains that it must repatriate North Koreans who fled the country because it is bound by two agreements it has with Pyongyang, the 1960 PRC-DPRK Escaped Criminals Reciprocal Extradition Treaty and the 1986 Mutual Cooperation Protocol for the Work of Maintaining National Security and Social Order and the Border Areas. If they are made to return to North Korea, many escapees will face a grim fate, Thae said. “Some of them will be sent to concentration camps for [at least] several months of detention and forced labor, and if they are found to have tried to escape North Korea and go to South Korea, they may be executed,” Thae said. Thae recalled his own fears of forced repatriation at the time when he decided to defect. “At the time, I was also very worried that some unexpected variable might arise in the process of defecting from North Korea,” he said. “People still detained in detention facilities in China are probably very anxious and worried that they will be forcibly repatriated to North Korea.    During his U.S. trip, Thae has plans to meet with American officials to request that they join their voices in opposition against forced repatriation of North Koreans in China. “We plan to deliver a letter to President Biden appealing to the U.S. government to speak up [on this issue],” said Thae. “We plan to deliver it to the lawmakers [Monday]. There should be a campaign nationwide and globally calling for an end to forced repatriations.     Thae attended an event hosted by human rights groups in front of the White House on Monday afternoon to raise awareness about the issue. New US Envoy On Friday, Washington swore in Julie Turner as its special envoy for North Korea Human Rights, ending a six-year vacancy for the position.  She arrived in Seoul on Monday for a three-day visit. After meeting with Foreign Minister Park, the two sides promised to work together to improve North Korean human rights. Addressing a forum of rights activists and North Korean escapees in South Korea, Turner acknowledged that the United States often brings up the issue of forced repatriations in discussions with Beijing. “So I again hope that the PRC will not [repatriate North Koreans] and we will continue to remind them of their international obligations, but I can’t say that I believe that they will not,” she said. Julie Turner, the United States’ new special envoy for North Korea Human Rights, arrived in Seoul on Monday for a three-day visit. Credit: U.S. Department of State Thae said that he was regretful that he and Turner missed each other as his trip to the U.S. coincided with her trip to Korea. “We plan to meet at an early date and discuss specific ways to help the U.S. speak out more for North Korean human rights issues in the international community and what strategies and strategies can be used to solve the North Korean human rights issue and stop forced repatriation,” he said. Translated by Eugene Whong. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.  

Updated Oct. 16, 2023, 06:30 a.m. ET. As Taiwan approaches its presidential elections in January, the spotlight falls on candidates leaning towards establishing agreements with China and those favoring the continuation of the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) leadership.  But amid rising concerns over stagnant wages and affordable housing, no opposition figure currently poses a significant challenge to the DPP’s Lai Ching-te, the incumbent vice president. Polls suggest that if the DPP secures a victory, it might not solely be due to their policies but rather because of the divided opposition. Opposition leaders, former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je of the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) and Hou Yu-ih of the Kuomintang (KMT), have been reportedly under pressure to potentially unify their bid for the presidency. Last Saturday, efforts towards this collaboration were visible when the campaign managers of both leaders met in Taipei, exploring the formation of a “blue-white alliance,” reflecting the party colors of KMT (blue) and TPP (white). While Hou’s team proposed an open primary to determine the leading presidential candidate between the two parties, Ko’s side suggested determining based on opinion poll averages.  The KMT wants – for the first time – to deploy an open primary system for electing the leadership in the January election, with candidates receiving direct votes at polling stations across the island, which would play to the KMT’s long-standing political presence in Taiwan since 1949. This presence began when the party, also recognized as the Nationalists, relocated to Taiwan following their defeat by the Chinese Communist Party. If a vote of some kind were to happen, which most observers consider unlikely, the outcome would determine the order of a joint ticket: whether it’s Hou-Ko or Ko-Hou, indicating the roles of president and vice president, respectively. Taipei mayoral candidate Ko Wen-je celebrates winning the local elections at the campaign headquarters in Taipei November 29, 2014. Credit: Reuters   However, Ko has dismissed the open primary proposal from KMT. “Ko thinks the KMT offer was just an attempt to show off their local organizational strength. It wasn’t a serious offer,” says Taiwan-based Californian lawyer Michael Fahey. Separately, Taiwan watcher and pollster Courtney Donovan Smith noted the challenges faced by the relatively new TPP. “Ko and the four-year-old TPP are struggling to establish themselves as a distinct party, and no doubt Ko is mindful of the experience of a similar party,” said Smith. “The People’s First Party, which accepted the vice-presidential slot on a unity ticket in the 2004 election but failed to effectively differentiate themselves from the KMT and have slid into irrelevance since.” There are other formidable obstacles to a joint ticket. Both Hou, a former police officer and current mayor of New Taipei City, and Ke, a trained doctor popular for his straightforwardness, are not keen on taking a secondary role to the other. “A ‘Ko-Hou’ ticket is impossible, and the chances of a ‘Hou-Ko’ ticket, I believe, are less than 10% likely,” Liao Da-chi, a professor at National Sun Yat-sen University’s Institute of Political Science, told Radio Free Asia. “The KMT, with its 14 mayors and 38 legislators, cannot possibly play second fiddle. Moreover, Hou Yu-ih has only been re-elected as the mayor of New Taipei City for less than a year. It would be a significant risk to give that up for a vice-presidential position. What would be the point?” Local issues count The recent Taiwan News “weighted poll of polls” shows Ko is ahead of Hou by about 5%. Lai from the DPP has an average support of 32%-35%, with Ko at 18%-20% and Hou at 15%-18%. Terry Gou, billionaire and Foxconn founder, polls at around 10%, but he suggests having additional “hidden supporters.” Observers believe Gou may seek a pivotal role after the election, especially as local issues gain prominence in Taiwanese politics. Foxconn founder Terry Gou and his running mate Tammy Lai speak to the press in front of his signature campaign office in New Taipei City, Taiwan, September 20, 2023. Credit: Reuters   Many Taiwan elections in the past have turned on the China issue, said Roy Ngerng, a Taiwanese labor and wages activist who described the January elections as “different.” “While the two major parties still draw voters based on using China as the key campaign agenda, there has emerged a group where other issues take center stage and these seem to be around livelihood issues like Taiwan’s high housing prices and stagnant wages,” said Ngerng. There are significant numbers of younger voters, argues Ngerng, who “are eager for Taiwan’s elections to be normalized around local livelihood concerns … due to their distrust of KMT which is not seen as committed to Taiwan’s statehood, and due to the belief that the DPP has broken its promise of improving the livelihoods of Taiwanese over the last two terms.” Ngerng added: “These voters are gravitating to the … TPP, in the hope that Ko Wen-je might refocus, addressing the stagnant economic situation in Taiwan.” While this does not mean that Ko is likely to win the presidential election – particularly given the unlikelihood of being able to join forces with the KMT – it does signal that the DPP, if they do win, will not do so on a strong wave of support. Ngerng said he thinks there’s “disappointment arising from the fact that Tsai [Ing-wen] was elected on her promise to the youths of improving livelihoods but has failed to do so … and Ko has been adept at positioning his campaign to reflect their concerns.” “Eventually, the DPP cannot be using democracy and human rights as a rallying cry, without meaningfully enhancing the labor rights and livelihoods of Taiwan’s workers,” said Ngern. Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang. Updated to clarify the process of the open primary and to correct the names of Hou Yu-ih and Roy Ngerng.

Hundreds of Uyghur inmates at Keriye Prison in the far-western Chinese region of Xinjiang are forced to work 12-14 hours a day in vast fields of red dates called jujubes, a prison employee and a guard told Radio Free Asia. Under the watch of armed guards, the prisoners must walk to the fields while overseers wearing red vests and holding police dogs monitor them, the two people said. Armed soldiers surrounded the work area, some on horseback, to prevent any from escaping. “I witnessed prisoners being forcibly taken out to work during the day and returned to their cells at night,” said the prison employee – a Uyghur himself – who has worked at the prison for nine years, including one as a “team leader” of a group of inmates, although he was not allowed to mingle or talk much with them. Many inmates also work in factories located inside and outside the prison walls producing cement, shoes, gloves and tea, a prison guard told RFA Uyghur. Those serving sentences of more than 10 years work in factories inside the prison yard, while those serving less than 10 years work outside the prison, the guard said. The goal seems to be two-fold: To harness the prisoners’ free labor for the benefit of Han Chinese businessmen who rent the 1,650 acres of farmland that is owned by the prison, and to reform the inmates through labor, the two sources said, insisting they not be identified for fear of retaliation. “They want to make the prisoners undergo ideological transformation through labor in these big fields,” said the prison employee. The farm itself is called Lao Gai Nong Chang in Chinese, which means “Re-education through Labor Farm.” The work was arduous and painful, he said. Before the fields were converted to jujubes, they produced cotton, and he recalls seeing some inmates picking cotton worked until their hands bled. Arbitrarily sentenced The offenses committed by the Uyghur inmates in Keriye Prison – located about 25 kilometers (16 miles) from Siyek township in Hotan prefecture and which houses about 10,000 inmates – remain unclear.  Most Uyghurs detained in Xinjiang in recent years have never been formally charged with any crime or tried by the government.  More than 30 Uyghur teachers from Hotan Normal Technical High School jailed on charges of “national separatism” and “religious extremism” are serving their sentences in Keriye Prison, RFA previously learned.  Keriye Prison has tracts of farmland around it. Credit: Google Earth photo; RFA annotation Though China formally abolished its “reform through labor” system in 1994, this account shows that it has remained in practice in some areas. Starting in 2017 and 2018, Chinese authorities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region detained an estimated 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in “re-education” camps, where they were subjected to forced labor in factories producing textiles, wigs, tomatoes and solar panels for export. The forced work and other abuses, including torture and sexual assaults, are part of a wider genocide that China is committing against the Uyghur people, the United States and other governments have declared. Beijing denies the abuses, saying the camps were vocational training centers meant to prevent terrorism and religious extremism while teaching job skills. Chinese rent the land Many Han Chinese from Henan province and Xian, capital of Shaanxi province in northwestern China, rent the prison land under three-to-four-year contracts, the team leader said. For example, a Chinese businessman from Henan province leased about 200 acres on which he grew cotton for five or six years before switching to jujubes, he said. Under an agreement between prison administration and the factory owners, the Chinese owners pay the prison for using the forced labor, he said. “Some factories have 200 to 300, or even 500 workers,” said the guard. “In the factory where I work, we have around 1,670 workers.” In 2022, the United States enacted the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which gave American authorities greater powers to block the import of goods linked to forced labor in China. Under the act, goods produced in Xinjiang are legally assumed to have involved Uyghur forced labor unless a business can prove otherwise to customs officials.  However, hundreds of major U.S. companies may be unwittingly producing goods using gold that was mined using the forced labor of Uyghurs in China’s far-west Xinjiang region, according to a report released Wednesday by the Center for Advanced Defense Studies. Translated by RFA Uyghur. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.