Open Sources: China Holding S. Korean Spies?

The Chosun Ilbo, citing an unnamed diplomatic source, says that China is holding two South Korean National Intelligence Service officers:

According to a diplomatic source familiar with China, two senior NIS agents were arrested in August last year while operating in Shenyang, Liaoning Province after hiring local operatives to gather intelligence on North Korea. In accordance with diplomatic protocol, the government demanded their deportation, but China demurred and put them on trial. [….]

A source familiar with North Korea said the NIS clashed with Chinese security in June 2009 while aiding the defection to South Korea by Sul Jung-shik, the first secretary of the Youth League in North Korea’s Ryanggang Province. [Chosun Ilbo]

“Totally untrue,” says the NIS, officially, but unofficially, the story describes some pretty rough play between the South Korean spies and their Chinese adversaries.

This being Chinese territory, not even I would deny the ChiComs the right to police their own soil, at least until some more legitimate system of government supplants them. The problem is that China is also allowing North Korean spies to use Chinese territory to subvert the South Korean government and political system. There’s a fresh report by the North Korea Strategic Information Service, a new service whose reputation I can’t assess yet, that North Korea is now readying its plots to influence the 2013 presidential election. No doubt, it will seize on the misrepresentation of some isolated incident (the 2002 accident) or scientific fallacy (mad cow and beef). I don’t know whether the North Korean agents responsible for executing this plan will operate from Chinese soil, although that would be consistent with past practice. The Chinese can’t deny they know about all of the Reconnaissance Bureau activity on their soil with all they work they do rounding up defectors, along with the occasional American journalist or activist.

A spy operates on foreign soil at his own risk. I get that. But when China facilitates the subversion of the South Korean government, it’s fair game for the South Koreans to do the same against the North, and to treat China like the enemy it makes of itself.

The L.A. Times reports on the extravagances of the North Korean elite amidst warnings of a possible famine, following a similar report in the Daily NK, which I noted yesterday. While I don’t think any open-source statistics can possibly capture the true scale of North Korea’s illicit economy, I think the most telling statistic is that North Korea’s known purchases of prohibited luxury goods last year were $10 million. By contrast, the EU just donated $14.5 million in food aid to North Korea.

That’s nice, but since it’s questionable that the aid will get to those who really need it, it would do more good for North Korea if EU member states — particularly Germany and Switzerland — took seriously their obligations under UNSCR 1874 to stop selling Kim Jong Il all those fancy cars and watches. It’s a telling bit of hypocrisy for a continent that ostensibly places such a high value on the U.N. as a global law-giver.

Even a New York Times correspondent thinks we may be taking North Korea’s threats for granted.

Sunny Lee looks at the latest trends in plastic surgery in North Korea.