North Korean Economy Watch

According to Reuters:

China said Thursday it had offered to help North Korea tackle cross-border crime — two months after North Korean soldiers killed three suspected Chinese smugglers, raising tensions between the allies.

Beijing, Pyongyang’s most important ally and trading partner, said it had handed over military equipment to North Korea’s National Defence Commission during a visit by China’s Deputy Public Security Minister Liu Jing on Sunday.

China said in a statement that it was willing to work with North Korea in cracking down on cross-border crime and building up its law enforcement forces.

The statement gave o details of what type of equipment China had provided or which type of crimes could be targeted.

Read the full story here:
China offers to help N.Korea crack down on crime
Reuters
8/12/2010

According to the Choson Ilbo:

There appears to have been a shift in the profile of defectors fleeing North Korea since a botched currency reform late last year. Before the reform, most of the defectors were so poor that they did not care whether they would be killed if they were caught fleeing the North.

But since the currency reform, more middle-class North Koreans have been fleeing the North, a South Korean security official speculated.

A North Korean source on Tuesday said the currency reform alienated many people from the regime, and the spread of South Korean pop culture through videos and CDs clandestinely circulated in the North has also encouraged some middle and higher-class North Koreans to flee. In recent days, many people who lost their savings due to the currency reform have reportedly decided to flee.

A South Korean government official said, “Due to tight surveillance, those who want to flee must bribe brokers or North Korean border guards with a lot of money. The fact that these people have enough money to flee means that they are of the middle or higher class or have relatives in South Korea.”

Reports say the number of upper-class North Korean defectors, like children of senior officials, has risen. Their arrival in South Korea has not been publicized here, and no statistics are available because they do not need to attend classes at Hanawon, a center for helping defectors adapt to a new life in the South, as ordinary defectors do.

Since early this year, the North has been bent on rounding up defectors, because it is apparently worried about the middle-class exodus. The North’s two public security agencies, the Ministry of Public Security and the State Security Department, issued their first-ever joint statement in February calling the defectors “scumbags.”

Read the full story here:
More Middle-Class N.Koreans Defect
Choson Ilbo
8/7/2010

UPDATE: The Daily NK offers these numbers:

This September, the number of North Korean defectors living in South Korea is likely to pass 20,000. Hanawon, the resettlement education center for defectors located just outside Seoul, recently revealed that a total of 19,300 defectors were in South Korea as of 1 July, and forecast that the tally would surpass the 20,000 mark this coming September.

It is a number which has been rising steadily ever since eight people first crossed the border in 1993, with records for 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009 showing 2018, 2544, 2809, and 2927 defectors reaching South Korean territory respectively.

ORIGINAL POST: According to the Donga Ilbo:

The [Unification] ministry said the number of North Koreans who arrived in the South in this year’s first half was 1,237, or 42.3 percent of last year’s figure of 2,927. The number for the second half is expected to decline further because the number of defectors awaiting entry into South Korea has dropped.

More than six months is normally needed for defectors to enter the South after fleeing the North. So the number of North Koreans to enter the South this year will reach an estimated 2,000, or two thirds last year’s figure.

This is a big change given that the number of defectors to South Korea had grown 10-30 percent every year. Had this pace been maintained this year, the number would have exceeded 3,000.

The number of defectors reaching South Korea was marginal through 1993, but increased to 52 in 1994. It exceeded 100 in 1999, 1,000 in 2002, and 2,000 in 2006.

The drop is largely due to the North’s stepped-up crackdown on defectors. The Stalinist country set up layered surveillance networks in border areas early this year shortly after its major security agencies — the People’s Security Ministry and the State Security Ministry — issued their first joint statement declaring war on defectors in February.

The People’s Security Ministry is in charge of maintaining public order and the State Security Ministry handles intelligence gathering. Unlike in the past, the two organizations are working closely together with military forces dispatched to border areas to prevent defections.

The North is known to have significantly strengthened its crackdown after its disastrous currency revaluation in December last year.

The punishment for defectors deported from China has also gotten tougher. In the past, North Koreans who fled their country were subject to labor if they left to earn a living but now face more than three years in prison without exception. In worst cases, public execution is their fate.

The heightened crackdown on defectors has raised the price of crossing a river to escape. The cost used to be tens of thousands of North Korean won (tens of U.S. dollars) in the past, but has soared to millions of won (hundreds of dollars). Even this amount, however, does not guarantee safe passage out of the North.

North Koreans who escaped to South Korea used to send money to the North to help their families flee, but it has gotten more difficult not only to send money, but also to contact their families in the North.

All of this is related to strained inter-Korean relations. The powerless defectors are victims of the bilateral confrontation that began with the inauguration of the Lee Myung-bak administration in 2008.

Read the full stories here:
No. of Defectors Drops Amid Heightened Crackdown
Donga Ilbo
8/2/2010

Rekindling Hope for North Korean Youth
Daily NK
Mok Yong Jae
8/6/2010

According to Yonhap:

The Unification Ministry signed an agreement Wednesday with a leading association of lawyers here to support North Korean defectors having difficulties while adapting to the capitalist South Korean society.

Minister Hyun In-taek signed the deal with President Kim Pyung-woo of the Korean Bar Association, calling on lawyers to teach the defectors about South Korea’s legal system at resettlement centers.

The agreement also provides consultation with lawyers for free or at reduced fees if the former residents of the communist North are involved in a legal dispute or need to file a lawsuit.

More than 19,000 North Koreans have defected to the South since the three-year Korean War ended in a truce in 1953. A bulk of them have come in recent years as the North’s food crisis deepens.

A 2007 survey showed that North Korean defectors were dozens of times more susceptible to fraud due mainly to their lack of understanding of the market system here.

Read the full story here:
Gov’t joins hands with lawyers to support N. Korean defectors
Yonhap
7/21/2010

According to the Telegraph:

Previously considered to be among the regime’s most important assets, the North Korean People’s Army has always been well provisioned in order to ensure the troops remain loyal.

But a poor harvest and the disastrous revaluation of the North Korean currency in November of last year has worsened the nation’s already dire economic straits.

Defectors have claimed that they were required to survive on noodles made of ground corn and that meat or fish were a luxury, a journalist for Japan’s Asahi Shimbun reported from the Chinese  city of Shenyang.

On one stretch of the border, Chinese troops apprehended five North Korean soldiers in May alone. Prior to the sinking of the South Korean corvette Cheonan in March, allegedly by a torpedo fired from a North Korean submarine, it was rare for troops to be taken into custody on the Chinese side of the Yalu River.

The defectors have claimed that senior members of the party and the armed forces were stockpiling provisions, another indication that the regime is steeling itself for a military confrontation.

“In the past there have been cases of North Korean troops crossing the border and plundering Chinese farms for their food, which they then took back to their posts in the North,” Kim Sang-hun, a human rights activist in Seoul, told The Daily Telegraph.

However, these soldiers chose to return to the North with the supplies.

Robert Dujarric, a professor of international relations specialising in North-East Asia, said the situation in North Korea was “very bad” at present, due to the poor harvest, but a more dramatic indicator of the scale of the problem would be if military officers or members of elite military units opted to follow in the footsteps of these soldiers.

The defectors apprehended by the Chinese were reportedly returned to North Korea, where they face execution.

Read the full story here:
North Korean soldiers defect to China fuelling fears of imminent military clash
Telegraph
Julian Ryall
7/12/2010

According to Asahi:

A 63-year-old ethnic Korean woman in Osaka city has become increasingly frustrated over China’s stance that has created a diplomatic imbroglio involving human rights and prevented a long-awaited reunion with her niece.

The niece in her 20s is one of more than 10 defectors from North Korea seeking passage to Japan who remain holed up under protective custody in Japanese diplomatic offices in China, sources said.

The niece has been stuck in China for about 18 months. Another defector has been under protection at a Japanese diplomatic office in China for about two years, according to the sources.

The defectors are ethnic Koreans who used to live in Japan and moved to North Korea under a repatriation program between 1959 and 1984 as well as their kin.

The problem they face is China’s hard-line approach taken against defectors from North Korea after the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics.

China refuses to issue exit permits for the defectors unless the Japanese government promises to end its protection for such people.

The Japanese side has flatly rejected the demand.

“Why wouldn’t the Chinese government approve of their leaving China?” the aunt asked.

The Chinese government said tougher action is needed to prevent a spike in the number of defectors from North Korea.

Although China increasingly deported North Korean defectors following a surge in the mid-1990s, it had in principle allowed defectors staying at foreign diplomatic offices to depart to countries of their choosing.

However, under the current policy, the last authorized departure of a North Korean defector to Japan was in July last year involving a pregnant woman in need of surgery, according to the sources. And that case was approved as an exception.

In January, China notified foreign diplomatic missions of its view that defectors from North Korea should not be given protection.

Beijing told the Japanese side, “If defectors under protection continue to be allowed to leave, the influx of defectors will increase.”

Besides demanding a Japanese oath not to offer protection to the defectors, the Chinese side warned that providing protection outside the premises of diplomatic offices would violate Chinese laws.

But Tokyo refuses to abandon its humanitarian stand based on its own laws.

Under the immigration control law, Tokyo has taken into protective custody former Korean residents of Japan who moved to North Korea as well as their relatives within the third degree of kinship.

In addition, a Japanese law that came into force in 2006 concerning human rights violations in North Korea obliges Tokyo to protect and help defectors from the isolated country.

If such defectors faced barriers in entering a Japanese diplomatic office, Japanese diplomats met them outside to offer protection after confirming their identities in advance.

Japan has eight diplomatic offices in China, including the embassy in Beijing and a consulate general in Shenyang.

So far, nearly 200 defectors have been taken into protective custody and transferred to Japan. But it now does not take in defectors because of China’s new stance.

The aunt in Osaka city also defected from North Korea and returned to Japan after receiving protection in a Southeast Asian country in 2001.

According to groups assisting defectors from North Korea, defectors in recent years have increasingly fled China to Laos and then entered Thailand mainly to avoid being trapped at diplomatic offices in China.

More than 50 percent of 2,952 defectors transferred to South Korea in 2009 came via Thailand.

The aunt was born and raised in Japan, but moved to North Korea in the 1960s under the repatriation program at the insistence of her mother. The aunt’s parents, a younger brother and a younger sister also went.

She married in North Korea and had three children.

But after severe food shortages hit North Korea, the aunt crossed the border alone to seek help from her husband’s relatives in China’s northeastern region.

She was later joined by her second son, and the two made it to Japan.

Her husband and her oldest son defected later, but the aunt’s daughter, her younger sister and her younger brother remain in North Korea.

Her niece fled North Korea after leaving her infant son in the care of her mother.

With the extended family now split, the niece remains stuck in the middle in China.

The aunt said she saw her niece only a handful of times in the past.

“But I am determined to take good care of her like a parent,” the aunt said.

Read the full story here:

Download the report here.

According to the Daily NK:

The U.S. Department of State released its 10th “Trafficking in Persons Report (TIP)” yesterday, once again classifying North Korea as “Tier 3,” meaning it is a country whose government does not “fully comply with the minimum standards” and is “not making significant efforts to do so.” The North joins Cuba, Kuwait, Sudan, Zimbabwe and another eight countries in Tier 3, the lowest on the list.

North Korea has been in Tier 3 since 2003, when it first appeared on the TIP.

The TIP recommends that Pyongyang move to “improve the poor economic, social, political, and human rights conditions in North Korea that render North Koreans highly vulnerable to trafficking; recognize human trafficking as a problem in North Korea; cease the systematic punishment of trafficking victims in forced labor camps and others.”

However, the report defines North Korea as a place which has made “little, if any, efforts to combat trafficking in persons through law enforcement efforts over the last year, and continued to severely restrict the movement of its citizens internally and across its borders.” It also adds, “The North Korean government continues to deny the existence of trafficking as a problem. Little information is available on North Korea’s internal legal system.”

The report explains that the most common form of trafficking involves North Korean women and girls who are forced into marriage or prostitution in China. Another form is the forced labor which is a key part of the North Korean system of political repression. As an example, the report mentions “labor mobilization campaign such as the ‘150-Day Battle’ and ‘100-Day Battle’ in 2009.”

North Korea’s notorious prison camps also come up in the report, which says, “An estimated 150,000 to 200,000 persons are held in detention camps in remote areas of the country; many of these prisoners were not duly convicted of a criminal offense. In prison camps, all prisoners, including children, are subject to forced labor, including logging, mining, and farming for long hours under harsh conditions.”

Meanwhile, the TIP also designates China as a country on the State Department’s “Tier 2 Watch List”, just one level above North Korea, and recommends that it “cease the practice of forcibly repatriating North Korean trafficking victims,” pointing out that repatriated North Koreans face harsh punishment upon their return.

Read the full sotry here:
North Koreans Vulnerable to Human Trafficking
Daily NK
Choi Yong Sang
6/15/2010

According to Yonhap:

More than half of North Korean teenage defectors viewed South Korean movies and dramas when they were in the communist country, a survey said Monday.

According to the survey conducted last month by Yoon Sun-hee, a professor for Hanyang University, 79 of 140 students, or 56 percent, in Hangyeore Middle and High School said they watched South Korean films and TV programs in North Korea.

North Korea reportedly strictly bans its people from viewing South Korean broadcasts and films.

Hangyeore, located in Anseong, 77 kilometers south of Seoul, is a school for North Korean defectors founded in 2006.

Among the respondents, 57 students said they saw South Korean movies on DVD and 43 claimed to have watched videotaped dramas, while 15 watched broadcasts on TV, the survey showed.

It did not say how the students had obtained the South Korean DVDs and videos, or gained access to the broadcasts.

Forty students said they could see the South Korean programs whenever they wanted and five watched them everyday, when asked how often they had seen the banned films.

The survey also showed that 21 teenagers said they had watched the programs once a month, six said once a year, while seven students experienced the South Korean material only once during their lifetimes in North Korea.

According to the survey, most of them said South Korean films and dramas were “interesting,” although they had to view them secretly in the reclusive country.

“It’s hard to make generalizations but the results are surprising,” said Prof. Yoon. “The result itself indicates that North Korea is more open than we expected.”

“The study shows that North Korean teenagers tend to protest against the regime and also enjoy their lives,” she added.

Some 125 respondents were living near the North Korea-China border, while 15 others were living closer inland, including Pyongyang.

Read the full story below:
More than half of young N.K. defectors watched S. Korean TV programs: poll
Yonhap
6/14/2010

According to Yonhap:

The first accredited high school opened Tuesday for North Korean students who have settled in South Korea.

Yeomyung, established in central Seoul in 2004, used to provide schooling for older aged students whose families had defected from the North. Graduates had to pass state qualification exams in order to receive high school diplomas since it was not a formally accredited institution.

The number of North Korean students was 1,478 at the end of last year, according to government data, with 77 percent of them are enrolled in regular schools. Yeomyung currently has 32 students enrolled in its high school course.

“We will provide full support to see that North Korean adolescents who receive education at alternative schools or private facilities become sound citizens,” Education Minister Ahn Byong-man said at the opening ceremony.

Read the full sotry here:
Alternative school for N. Korean students opens in Seoul
Yonhap
4/20/2010

That is the claim in this Wall Street Journal article:

North Koreans willing to tamper with their government radios or buy a $3 radio smuggled in from China have a wide range of choices. Over a dozen radio stations from the United States, South Korea and Japan currently broadcast to North Korea. Voice of America (VOA), one of the most popular stations, has been broadcasting to the North since 1942, while the equally popular Radio Free Asia (RFA) began its Korean service soon after its establishment by Congress in 1997. VOA focuses on news of the U.S. and the world, while RFA concentrates on North Korea and life for the nearly 20,000 defectors in the South.

North Korean defectors themselves have also created three stations in recent years, led by Free North Korea Radio (FNK Radio). These stations employ stringers in North Korea who communicate by cell phone or smuggle out interviews through China. As a result, information is flowing in and out of the North more rapidly than ever. For example, when authorities undertook major economic reforms in 2002, it was months before the rest of the world knew. In contrast, when the regime launched a disastrous currency reform in November, FNK Radio filed a report within hours.

It’s impossible to count how many North Koreans listen to these stations, but there is anecdotal evidence the numbers are significant. For starters, on dozens of occasions, authorities in Pyongyang have used their own media to attack foreign broadcasters. The North reserves the insult “reptile” exclusively for foreign broadcasters. Last month, the regime likened defector broadcasters to “human trash.” Ironically, this diatribe also contained the first official mention that the botched currency revaluation had taken place. Foreign broadcasters not only struck a nerve, but also forced the regime to discuss developments it would prefer to ignore. If the broadcasts were not being listened to, the regime would ignore them instead of lavishing free publicity.

Meanwhile, broadcasters to North Korea frequently receive heartbreaking messages of thanks from North Koreans in China. One listener on RFA’s Web site described RFA as “our one ray of hope.” Over the past several years, South Korean researchers have quietly interviewed thousands of North Korean defectors, refugees, and visitors to China about their listening habits. One unpublished survey conducted last summer of North Koreans in China found that over 20% had regularly listened to the banned broadcasts, and almost all of them had shared the information with family members and friends. Several earlier studies confirm these findings.

I am not sure which “unpublished study” makes this claim so I can’t evaluate the findings. 

A Haggard and Noland survey of North Korean refugees claimed that a majority had listened to foreign broadcasts.

I do not believe these numbers reflect the listening habbits of North Koreans still in North Korea.

Read the full story here:
North Korea’s Radio Waves of Resistance
Wall Street Journal
Peter Beck
4/14/2010