North Korea Finally Finds a Minority to Persecute: Chinese

North Korean authorities have apparently stepped up regulations and monitoring of Chinese residents there since Beijing backed UN sanctions against the North in June. Sources in China and North Korea say North Korean intelligence officials are increasingly treating Chinese residents who recently visited their home country as spies.

Sources say this has prompted many Chinese residents to avoid visiting China. The number of Chinese residents passing through customs in Rajin has dropped to one-third of the number seen last year after rumors spread that a Chinese resident in Pyongyang who had recently been back to China was hauled off by intelligence agents and charged with espionage. [Chosun Ilbo]

I doubt that the Chinese government will allow itself to become unduly concerned about this about a small Chinese population — no more than 10,000 — being oppressed by a state China prefers to prop up. After all, a rumored reason for Wen Jiabao’s recent visit was to deliver a large consignment of aid to counteract U.S. sanctions and the very U.N. Security Council sanctions that China itself signed. If China is willing to oppress so many Chinese itself, why should it care that its puppet state is acting a little rebellious by doing the same? Surely North Korea’s treatment of the Chinese can’t be any worse than China’s treatment of North Korean women.