Asia Times: China


	June 22, 2002	atimes.com

China

Asylum bids hurt China's neighborly ties
by Antoaneta Bezlova

BEIJING - Beijing feels jittery that a year meant to celebrate stronger relations and diplomatic cooperation between China and its neighbors South Korea and Japan is being marred by a string of North Korean asylum bids.

A growing flow of North Korean refugees seeking asylum - who force their way into diplomatic missions in China - has provoked skirmishes between Chinese police officers and diplomats and escapees, first in the Japanese consulate in China's northeastern city of Shenyang, and then in the South Korean embassy in Beijing.

Both incidents escalated into thorny bilateral disputes just months before Beijing and Seoul mark the 10th anniversary of their diplomatic relations and China and Japan celebrate 30 years of normalizing ties.

Fueling speculations about growing unease between Beijing and Tokyo after the Shenyang incident, Chinese President Jiang Zemin declined an invitation to attend the opening ceremony of the World Cup in Seoul.

Hopes had been running high that President Jiang Zemin would meet with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and the host, South Korean President Kim Dae-jung on the sidelines of the World Cup and take the opportunity to cement improving diplomatic relations with both sides.

Three-way ties reached another low point when scenes from the Shenyang incident were replayed in the South Korean embassy in Beijing with Chinese security guards dragging a North Korean refugee out of the diplomatic mission and scuffling with embassy officials.

In a letter sent to all foreign diplomatic missions and international aid associations in China, the Foreign Ministry asked to be allowed to interview all North Korean asylum seekers and demanded they be turned over to Chinese authorities and repatriated to their famine-stricken homeland.

"We believe that, according to international and Chinese laws, foreign embassies have no right to grant asylum to citizens of a third country," Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan was quoted as saying.

Despite having tolerated North Koreans fleeing hunger and repression in its northern border counties for years, Beijing is finding it increasingly hard to agree to allow a growing number of these refugees to leave China for a third country. Up to 300,000 North Koreans are thought to be living illegally in northern China.

The saga started when seven members of a North Korean family sought refuge in a United Nations office in Beijing in 2001. The largest number so far has been a group of 25 who entered the Spanish embassy in March, who were also given permission to go to the Philippines before heading for South Korea.

While initially China tried to downplay the incidents and allowed North Koreans seeking asylum through foreign missions to leave for South Korea via a third country with the least possible publicity, recent events have forced Beijing to switch its policy and harden its attitude.

China is one of the few diplomatic allies of the isolated totalitarian regime in North Korea and has an agreement with Pyongyang to return all illegal immigrants to their home country.

Recent events in international politics have also prompted Beijing to ally itself more firmly with Pyongyang, argues Wang Lingyi, a researcher with the Asia-Pacific Affairs Research Institute under the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences.

After months of internal debate, the administration of US President George W Bush appears close to beginning a dialogue with North Korea and wants the dialogue to touch on issues ranging from Pyongyang's nuclear development program to its troop deployment near the South Korea border, anti-terrorism and human rights.

This month Washington also announced it was resuming its humanitarian aid to Pyongyang and was sending 10 million tons of food through the United Nations channels.

"It is clear that under these circumstances, Washington doesn't want to see any increased tensions on the Korean Peninsula caused by a run of North Korean asylum-seekers," says Wang.

Another reason behind China's hardened attitude is a new sense of fear that the country might become inundated with illegal immigrants. While state media has kept most of the North Korean asylum bids under wraps, an article in the latest issue of Life Weekly broached the taboo, arguing that China was in danger of becoming a springboard for illegal exodus.

The article said some 85,000 illegal immigrants had been discovered and detained by China's Public Security officers by the end of 2000, but tens of thousands more were suspected of illegally residing inside the country. Among those discovered were immigrants mainly from Africa and some Middle Eastern countries such as Iraq.

Yet, however anxious not to offend its communist neighbor in the north and not to have a refugee deluge, Beijing cherishes its rare position of having good relations with both sides of the Korean peninsula. A protracted and bitter dispute with Seoul could be embarrassing for Beijing as the two sides celebrate the 10th anniversary of their diplomatic ties in August. After an initially tough response to Seoul's presentations on the embassy incident last week, Beijing has called for "calmness and restraint."

Meeting with his South Korean counterpart Choi Sung-hong on the sidelines of the first Asian Cooperation Dialogue in Cha-am, Thailand, Chinese Foreign Minster Tang Jiaxuan was quoted as saying that both China and South Korea should remain calm and work together towards a resolution.

(Inter Press Service)