Chinese President’s human rights policy to be tested

“When I got arrested, they (the North Korean officers) kicked me in the face like a ball. My sister who fled North Korea was sent to a human trafficking group in China and my younger brothers died of hunger,” Cho Jin-hye, a North Korean defector, said in a hearing on North Korea’s human rights held in Washington in late October. Numerous North Korean defectors testify the pains and sufferings of North Korean defectors who were repatriated to the North.

Out of 15 North Koreans who were trying to flee to Southeast Asia, two successfully fled but the remaining 13 have been held by Chinese security officers in Kunming, Yunnan Province. Although their gender and age are not known, they could include minors and infants because more families flee from the North. The security officers are not from Yunnan Province but from Liaoning Province that governs the border region between China and North Korea. It means that they crisscrossed the continent to catch the North Korean defectors just before crossing the border.

Despite the opposition of international human rights organizations, China has been recently granted a seat in the United Nations Human Rights Council. The Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People`s Republic of Korea is also under the council. As a permanent member of the UN Security Council, China is now in charge of monitoring human rights across the globe and addressing organized human rights violation. The international society is focusing on the role of China. As North Korea is unlikely to change its position, Beijing should play its due role as a member of the UN Human Rights Council.

The North Korean defectors who were caught by Chinese security officers are the largest in numbers since the inauguration of Chinese President Xi Jinping in November last year. The Xi leadership abolished labor camps, which had been much criticized for human rights violations and the abuse of the government power, and narrowed the scope of capital punishment in the Third Plenum of the Communist Party of China`s 18th Central Committee. If China wants to prove its change, it has to free 13 North Korean defectors and let them go wherever they want.

Nine North Korean youths who fled to Laos in May this year were sent back to North Korea. Seoul should not repeat the same mistake again. Korea became the chair of the UN High Commission on Refugees early this month. It should demand China stop repatriate North Korean defectors based on the principle of non-refoulement. It needs to raise the issue to Yang Jiechi, state councilor overseeing China’s foreign policy, who is on a visit to Seoul for a high-level strategic dialogue between Korea and China.