Ladies first: China opens to Korean refugees

Ladies first: China opens to Korean refugees
By Sunny Lee

BEIJING - There are some signs that China is easing up on its policy on North Korean refugees who have escaped from the starving Stalinist country. China reportedly issues temporary-resident permits to some North Korean refugees.
"It is my understanding that China issues identification cards to some female North Korean refugees who are married to Chinese men," a South Korean government official said, quoted by the country's Yonhap News Agency.
The official said China appears to be moving away from its punitive policy of repatriating refugees back to North Korea.
China does not officially recognize North Korean escapees as political refugees. It classifies them as illegal economic migrants and uses that as its legal rationale to send them back to North Korea, where they would most likely to face severe torture or even the death penalty.
The beneficiaries of the temporary IDs are female North Korean refugees who are married to Chinese men, who have children with those men, and who have lived in China for a prolonged period without causing any problem drawing the authorities' attention.
The South Korean official said some villages in China have set up rules stipulating the criteria for issuing such identification cards, adding: "Given the Chinese political structure, without the implicit nod or direction from Beijing, this rule wouldn't have been in place."
China has apparently been carrying out such measures since as early as 2004 in a very low-key manner. It has been less forthcoming in accommodating the demands from the international community for better humanitarian treatment of North Korean refugees for fear that doing so might anger its often irascible neighbor, with which it has a repatriation treaty.
The identification cards issued to North Korean refugees are temporary residential permits or cards that show they are Chinese citizens, said a South Korean expert on North Korean human-rights conditions. He said they are issued only in certain villages and under a limited scope. He didn't specify how many villages participate in the program or where these villages are.
But most are reportedly in China's inner and western regions, rather than the northeast near the North Korean border where the Korean refugee population is concentrated.
The economically underdeveloped rural villages in inner China suffer from a lack of women. Many men in these villages, mostly farmers, need to seek brides elsewhere. China is a gender-unbalanced country, partly attributable to its one-child policy that has pushed families to prefer a boy. The situation is even worse in rural areas where many youths leave for cities to find jobs. Experts speculate whether the introduction of the North Korean female refugees is part of China's effort to stabilize these rural villages.
The South Korean human-rights observer said it remains to be seen whether such "pilot program" will be expanded to other regions. He believes that the practice is carried out in "consultation" with the central government.
Beijing has been facing mounting international criticism from human-rights watchers for its severe policy on North Korean refugees and has seen it as a potential embarrassment as it hosts next year's Summer Olympic Games.
It is not immediately clear whether Beijing's easing up on North Korean refugees comes against such a background or whether there will be any more measures to accommodate refugees. South Korean government data show that in 2006 the number of North Korean refugees who arrived in the South was 2,019. Among them, women accounted for 1,533, or 76%.
Some observers believe that the reason there are more female North Koreans willing to flee their country is the relatively less severe punishment that women expect to receive if caught and repatriated than men. Also considered is the fact that women find it easier to get jobs in China than men, who are more likely to be under suspicion from the Chinese authorities.
Ben Sanders of the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants confirmed in a recent interview with Radio Free Asia that some local governments in China allow female North Korean refugees who are married to Chinese men to obtain an ID. He believes that China must have given some thought on how such a practice can be introduced within its own legal framework. "It's hard to say whether such a practice is completely legitimate or illegitimate. It's in between."
Last year, China sent about 1,800 refuges back to North Korea, which was a sharp reduction from about 5,000 it had repatriated in 2005.
There is no authoritative estimation about how many North Korean refugees are in China, given the caution and the secret manner in which they behave there. Sanders believes there were about 30,000 North Korean refugees in China last year. However, some non-governmental organizations estimate the number could go as high as 300,000.
Sunny Lee is a writer/journalist based in Beijing, where he has lived for five years. A native of South Korea, Lee is a graduate of Harvard University and Beijing Foreign Studies University.

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