Category: China & Korea

I make no secret of my contempt for the Chinese dictatorship, because the Chinese dictatorship holds humanity in contempt. It cuts down the hopes of its people with machine guns and crushes them under tanks. It considers itself entitled to intrude into and oppress their aspirations anywhere on earth. It murders innocent refugees, then it forces their innocent and vulnerable children to live in terror: According to the foster father, who preferred to remain anonymous, “It is illegal [so] we...

Not content with enslaving its women, torturing its refugees, and vacuuming out North Korea’s natural resources, China is now turning North Korea into its industrial waste dumping ground (ht): North Korean organizations in charge of raising foreign currency are bringing in and burying industrial waste from China for money, a report released yesterday said. The report also said North Korean scientists who complained that their country is turning into China’s industrial waste site have been purged in North Korea. Daily...

In an attempt to regain some measure of economic independence, defector “Kim Su Jong” (an alias) claims that North Korea is trying to curtail the degree of Chinese direct investment in, and exploitation of its mines. Foreign analysts see the barriers to North Korea getting those mines working on its own as insurmountable. Related posts here, here, and here.

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...

And it’s dangerous for Chinese to ask hard questions that hit close to home. But why would Chinese find the nostalgia of visiting North Korea sufficiently rewarding to pay money for that dubious privilege? Maybe because human beings have a natural obsession with the things they fear the most, and because for many Chinese, the fear persists: I have spoken with many of these Chinese travelers and have always been struck by how seldom their accounts dwell on the stark...