Tag China

Escape from North Korea: The Untold Story of Asia’s Underground Railroad

[Book Review] I’m glad someone finally went to the trouble of researching and writing a book on the network, for obvious reasons quite secretive, which works to get North Korean defectors through China and into safety in South Korea or elsewhere.


You might ask why North Korean refugees aren’t safe once they reach China, given that China is obliged to protect the refugees by virtue of agreeing to international treaties including the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (which includes The Universal Declaration of Human Rights). Unfortunately, at least in this case, China’s government pays about as much heed to international treaties as America’s Tea Party. Instead of upholding its treaty obligations, it actively tracks, arrests, and returns the refugees to the North, where they and their families face sentencing to one of the North’s infamous gulags. Those caught helping North Korean refugees in China face, at best, expulsion from the country, at worst, years in a Chinese prison.

Given these conditions, Kirkpatrick’s choice of subtitles, “The untold story of Asia’s underground railroad,” becomes more apt. Though the book’s comparisons to the slave-era American underground railroad are occasionally jarring, suddenly transporting the reader from modern Asia to 1800s America, they serve to highlight the similar dangers faced by everyone involved.

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North Korea suddenly hikes taxes for businesses in Kaesong, threatens to make hike retroactive for up to 8 years

UPDATE (21 OCT): The Times had an article today on rising tensions between North Korea and China due to similar issues – North Korea’s mistreatment of outside firms doing business within the country. Hardly a surprise, and gets to the point people constantly make about getting China to “do something about North Korea.” In the end, the North doesn’t listen to the Chinese much either, and for the Chinese to bring them to heel would require Beijing to utilize the type of extreme measures (e.g. halt in oil shipments) they’ve rarely proven willing to employ.

I get it that the South’s government wants to reduce the eventual, astronomical costs of reunifying with the North by amortizing those costs over the longest period possible, but as a business owner, why on earth would you risk investing in the North?

Yesterday’s JoongAng Daily, a South Korean English language paper, carried a story on the North suddenly upping tax rates on South Korean businesses in Kaesong, the joint North-South industrial zone located just over the border inside North Korea. The North told the SK businesses and the South’s government it was unilaterally changing 117 out of the 120 clauses in the zone’s regulations on 2 Aug. – a move that violates the agreement governing the zone, which stipulates a bilateral agreement is required before any changes can be made. Anyone surprised by this sudden, unilateral change by the North, please begin holding your breath.

Not only did the North change the rules, it reserved the right to decide the tax rate on a product-by-product basis, as well as charge up to eight years of back taxes on the new rate (the zone opened in 2004). So the taxes are not just going up now and into the future, businesses may suddenly owe the new rate on all of their previous years’ taxes as well. Fun.

So, having started and helped run two businesses in the South, I know my answer if the South’s government ever comes calling, urging me to invest in the North – NO. While I can understand the South’s government, that the more businesses, jobs, infrastructure, etc. that is created now, the less they’ll have to create in the eventual post-reunification future, the North’s investment climate just isn’t good enough.

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Want to make millions from North Korea? Become a luxury goods exporter in China during the next succession

An interesting story has been making the rounds of South Korean media the past couple of days (in English, in Korean) about a sudden, large jump in luxury goods imported into North Korea.

Using trade stats from Chinese customs (the North’s main trading partner), a parliamentary committee in the South found North Korean imports of vehicles (Northern elites tend to prefer German iron, especially Mercedes); TVs, computers, and other electronics; liquor; and luxury watches (gifting expensive watches on important occasions is a cultural trait the North actually shares with the South) went from roughly 300,000,000 U.S. dollars in 2008 and $322,530,000 in 2009, to $446,170,000 in 2010 and then $584,820,000 in 2011.

The large jumps in 2010 and 2011 (and presumably this year as well) overlap with the sudden appointment and rushed power transition from Kim Jong-il to his son, Kim Jong-eun. In essence, the North’s 0.001% has been throwing around a few hundred million dollars worth of hard-to-obtain luxury items to keep Pyongyang’s 1% satisfied, or at least mildly mollified, during the latest dynastic succession. An effort that, to date, appears to be working, plus furnishing a nice bump to Northeast Asian sales of Hennessy, Rolex, and the rest of the dictator chic product line.

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Tried Reading ‘Current History’?

I’m not sure how many people actually read Current History (a dozen?), which, while still quite wonky, is normally more readable and less arduous than Foreign Affairs, though their website offers next to nothing for non-subscribers.

I bring up the magazine here because the September issue is on East Asia and includes worthwhile articles on South Korea, China, and the rest of the region. As a bonus, there’s also an article on North Korea by curmudgeonly old Bruce Cumings – anyone wishing to relive the 60s/70s is urged to pop in a good 8-track, spark up their grooviest bong, and read the Cumings piece. You won’t learn much about North Korea (apparently, they bow less than the South Koreans), but you will get a jarring blast of old-school leftism.

Check it out if you have a chance, though again, the Current History website is nearly useless.

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