
North Korean Officials Flood to China, Possible Mass Defection - notastartup
http://www.koreabang.com/2013/stories/north-korean-officials-flood-to-china-possible-mass-defection.html
======
ChuckMcM
I'm never sure how to take these stories, but they provide a good litmus test
of my emotions.

I wonder sometimes if these sorts of things are 'leaked' to see if anyone
inside the country will flinch and take action, sometimes I wonder if they are
wishful thinking on the part of people would like to see the PRK gone. It is
always unsettling though to have a nuclear power that is quite unstable near a
critical resource to the work (S. Korea). So emphasizing that instability is a
great tool for news services to ratchet of the fear views.

Lets consider three possible scenarios:

1) I its a hoax.

Ok, so far (5:30PST) the mainstream press hasn't picked it up (and they would
if they had any sort of confirmation). Who benefits? Asia Press?

2) Its disinformation.

So if the PRK "leaked" this to flush out malcontents in the PRK, how would
that work? Would people who read this self identify as potential targets and
head for the hills? (Thus calling them out as targets for the current
government)

3) Its "real"

And there are a bunch of high level military and diplomatic personnel in China
waiting to be processed through into the country. What is the PRK reaction?
Anger? Retailiation? Do they do something stupid and try to kill their missing
minions in China?

All it does it raise questions.

~~~
barrkel
I also wonder about the degree of Western propaganda at work too. Stories
about the evilness of specific regimes conveniently saturate the press before
governments want to take action.

~~~
moocowduckquack
I am not so sure you have to go about inventing stuff to target North Korea
though. Anything you invent is going to be nowhere near as batshit as the
official pronouncements of the regime itself.

------
valgaze
For anybody unaware, there is a whole network of sites like this that
translate native language stories and commentary into English (depends on the
editors, but the content varies from serious news stories like this to
silly/interesting slice-of-life stuff from reaction on internet forums).

China: [http://www.chinasmack.com](http://www.chinasmack.com) Indonesia:
[http://www.indoboom.com](http://www.indoboom.com) Russia:
[http://www.russiaslam.com](http://www.russiaslam.com) Japan:
[http://www.japancrush.com](http://www.japancrush.com) Korea:
[http://www.koreabang.com](http://www.koreabang.com)

------
tokenadult
I've checked twice in the last hour, and so far I'm not seeing any uptake of
this story by any other news organization. One of the best illustrations of
what a tyrannical country the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is is the
news vacuum most of the world encounters when trying to find out what's going
on there. The ruling party doesn't want the common people of north Korea to
know what's going on in their own country, so pervasive censorship and
government surveillance make it difficult for anyone to find out what's going
on there. I look forward to the day when the people of north Korea can make a
transition to civil liberty and democratic, constitutional government.

~~~
derefr
Wouldn't verification of this story just require talking to the North Korean
expatriates in China, though? They have no particular reason to censor their
speech.

~~~
rbobby
Except any family, including extended, left behind.

~~~
meepmorp
Any family they haven't brought along are doomed anyway.

------
henrikschroder
Oh wow, those comments were interesting to read. Why the hostility towards
North-korean spies? That spy program must have an exceptionally low success
rate given that once you're outside North Korea, you will find out what the
state of your country actually is compared to the rest of the world, and then
what motication would you have to do your job?

The only thing I can think of that would keep them in check is that their
family is being held hostage, but that would also make all of them extremely
motivated to become double agents?

~~~
Jach
Ever heard of the Amish? Some people aren't all that impressed with the state
of the wider world or have any interest in its pleasures.

Gosh, why doesn't everyone want to have the same ruling government, the same
local culture, and the same new iPhone? Bellies will be full too!

~~~
Turing_Machine
The Amish do that by choice.

Based on my limited experience of Korean culture (I have a dozen or so Korean
friends) the number of Koreans who would willingly choose to live a primitive
lifestyle is....minimal.

~~~
Jach
Do Amish children do that by choice? But you missed my point.

How much do you know of North Korea? Are you under the impression their
culture is the same as the South's? Do you think the spies live a primitive
lifestyle? Do you think these athletes live a primitive lifestyle?
[http://www.funis2cool.com/wp-
content/uploads/2008/02/north_k...](http://www.funis2cool.com/wp-
content/uploads/2008/02/north_korea_stadium_show_011.jpg) How many people in
Pyongyang do you think live a primitive lifestyle? And if they suddenly
learned of the outside world (assuming they were completely ignorant
beforehand!) they would probably notice the impoverished, the starving, the
homeless, the unjustly imprisoned -- in other words, the same types of
problems, if perhaps of different local magnitudes. They might also notice a
bunch of problems they don't have. They may even just see some of their own
problems as caused by the West and reinforce their distaste.

My point is that it's ridiculous to suggest one's way of living will be
instantly recognized as superior by someone else one assumed to have an
inferior lifestyle. It's also ridiculous to imagine no one in North Korea
actually believes in the legitimacy of the government and its goals.

~~~
Turing_Machine
"Are you under the impression their culture is the same as the South's?"

Korean culture is at least 2,000 years old, and yes, it's quite homogeneous.

"They would probably notice the impoverished, the starving, the homeless, the
unjustly imprisoned"

What in the world are you talking about? Their entire country is an
impoverished prison/slave-state, and it's estimated that 2-3 million North
Korean people starved to death as recently as the 1990s.

So, yeah, I'm pretty sure they'd see the outside world as superior.

Too bad they're not given the chance to make that decision for themselves,
isn't it?

A good rule of thumb on whether people actually want to live in a country: go
to the border and check to see how many of the guns are pointed inward.

~~~
classicsnoot
Age of the named culture notwithstanding, the cultures have become divergent
in the last 40 years due to the Kim family as well as the extremist christian
nationalists. You make these broad generalizations about a group of people we
as "the world" know very little about. Many Jews in Ukraine were supportive of
the Nazi invasion due to the awful treatment received from the Russians. Iraq
was a complete wreck, and America still managed to have thousands of
adversaries. There are many examples of people acting irrationally in the face
of "the facts" of their situation. Your border comment is colorful but
misleading. You act as if the guns are cemented pointing one direction.

~~~
Turing_Machine
What "broad generalizations" would those be?

That South Korea allows people to leave if they want, while North Korea
doesn't?

That millions of North Koreans have been starved to death or otherwise
murdered by their own government?

Sorry, those are facts, your attempts to change the subject notwithstanding.

~~~
classicsnoot
Good job sighting your sources.

For you to just say, "i know a few Koreans" and "they are 2 thousand years old
and therefore predictable" are the generalizations i mentioned.

I am not arguing that NK is doing anything right. Far from it. I just happen
to have some familiarity with the subject (my uncle is an adopted Korean
refugee, i live in a place that is 30%+/\- Korean, i can read more than a web
page). It is an ugly problem, but it is the way it is now because of the US
and China. Both the North and The South have had dictators and have caused
unnecessary trouble to the other. As an American, i want to stay on the side
of human rights and personal liberty. Through that lens, both governments are
shit (...as well as US and most of Europe.)

~~~
Turing_Machine
"Good job sighting your sources."

[http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/20TH.HTM](http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/20TH.HTM)

Also:

[http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Korean_peninsula_at_n...](http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Korean_peninsula_at_night.jpg)

"Both the North and The South have had dictators and have caused unnecessary
trouble to the other"

The fact remains that South Koreans are allowed to leave the country, and
North Koreans aren't, your attempts to spin some kind of bogus moral
equivalence between "dictators" notwithstanding.

~~~
classicsnoot
So your only metric for "better" is the ability to leave? How do refugees fit
into your world view?

[Edit]Excellent links. So much reading to do. Thank you. If the argument of
which side of Korea is Better Korea, then it is obvious that it is the South.
If the argument is about which side of Korea is Best Korea, then there is no
debate.

------
sifarat
I hate democracy, but I will choose it over any other method for transfer of
power. The only credit I can give to democracy is, it ensures transfer of
power without bloodshed and in a civilized manner, rest is all crap as we know
it.

~~~
chongli
Why do you hate democracy?

~~~
sifarat
because it counts people not value them.

~~~
chongli
That's really only true of first-past-the-post voting. Other voting systems
give a far more nuanced picture of the voter's opinion.

------
AndrewKemendo
It's not on Chosun Ibo and that is the most reliable source for actual
defections and general DPRK instability warning.

[http://english.chosun.com/](http://english.chosun.com/)

~~~
yongjik
Chosun Ilbo might sometimes have some information, but they are basically
South Korea's Fox News. You can trust them to have more misinformation than
anyone else.

A typical example: in 1998, Chosun Ilbo led a witch hunt against a liberal
historian (Choi Jangjip) based on one of his history paper contained the
phrase "...thus Kim Il-Sung made the historic decision of invading South
Korea." Chosun Ilbo's rationale: only good things can be called "historic".
Choi just described Kim's invasion as a historic decision. Clearly he thinks
North Korea was right in starting the Korean War: he's a commie!

Apparently the Korean wikipedia has a whole article on the shitness of Chosun
Ilbo:
[http://ko.wikipedia.org/wiki/%EC%A1%B0%EC%84%A0%EC%9D%BC%EB%...](http://ko.wikipedia.org/wiki/%EC%A1%B0%EC%84%A0%EC%9D%BC%EB%B3%B4%EC%97%90_%EB%8C%80%ED%95%9C_%EB%B9%84%ED%8C%90)

These "conservatives" also have been saying North Korea will fall any day
since Kim Il-Sung died in 1994, so take their "instability warning" with a
grain of salt. Somehow the NK government keeps defying everybody's hope that
it would die (or change) someday.

~~~
notastartup
It's basically the 386 generation (just like Intel 386!)
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/386_Generation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/386_Generation)
in Korea, now holding the jobs as professors, teachers, politicians, lawyers
and judges that arouse a lot of suspicion from the previous generation which
were right wing unlike the 386 who are left wing. The 386 were largely
responsible for electing a left wing government from 1998 to 2003, and 2003 to
2008. That's 10 years of anti-American, pro-sunshine policy (billions of slush
funds sent to North Korea used to build their ICBM today) which has largely
turned into a gun pointed at South Korea. Because of the naive blinding trust
that South Korean left wings placed in Nouth Korea, it has resulted in an
increasingly dangerous standoff with North Korea (supposedly has mini nukes
now thanks to the 1998~2008 administration), much of South Korea
understandably has growing animosity towards left-wing supporters. I admit,
there is a blanket identification with left-wing being pro-North Korea which
is simply not true, but this is unfortunately the case with South Korea, where
herd mentality is still rampant.

The fear of North Korean support within South Korea from the left leaning
group is well founded. Recently, a member of the national assembly was found
to have been part of a group called RO (Revolutionary Organization, how
original) and evidence of coordinated sabotage on sensitive infrasturcture in
case a war breaks out with the North. RO was found to have been in contact
with North Korean agents in the United States.

It's no wonder the 'red scare' is very real in Korea. The list of spies
currently operating in South Korea is in the unknown figure but widely
suspected to be hiding in plain sights (if a national assemblyman was actively
promoting terrorism, imagine where else they could be).

Various professors and educational board in South Korea have been caught
attempting to change the history of Korean War by putting North Korea in a
favorable light.

The list goes on and on.

However, I would agree Chosun Ilbo is the most right wing out of all.

I think that there is even more chance of collapse in Korea because of the
recent purge (Jang was China's go-to-guy, practical and a moderate), Kim Jong
Un would be unbridled and trigger happy and that their revenue streams have
taken a toll. All the more reasons to build

~~~
dba7dba
And I should point out West Germany found out after the Germany reunification
that East Germany had thousands of spies working for East Germany in West
Germany.

[http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/shocking-new-
res...](http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/shocking-new-research-
stasi-had-thousands-of-spies-in-west-germany-a-799335.html)

I have NO DOUBT what so ever that there are thousands of spies in S Korea
working for N Korea, because of money/ideology/stupidity.

Come on people, the ex national assembly now being tried as a spy REFUSED to
sing the S Korean national anthem in national assembly hall, claiming S Korean
govt wasn't legit or something of that line. Of course when he was finally
exposed and under threat of prison, he sang the S Korean national anthem just
fine.

~~~
notastartup
It's pretty scary....what drives these people I wonder. Is it revenge against
Korean society? Is it the honest belief that North Korea is a better place to
live? If they believe in it so much, why don't they go over there? Why not
experience what it's like to live under the glorious leader that they revere
so much? It makes no sense!

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebellion_plot_of_UPP_against_S...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebellion_plot_of_UPP_against_South_Korea)

------
revelation
Why go to China when you want to defect to South Korea? I mean I know the
obvious answer: the border between the two can't be passed.

But what's in it for China to pass them on to the South?

Also of course, general disclaimer: this may be misinformation by SK to help a
perceived revolutionary tide.

~~~
dba7dba
Yes, that's why China is helping N Korean agents hunt down and return the
would be refugees.

Nah, I doubt even S Korean govt would welcome a reunified korea. The cost and
turmoil will be enormous...

~~~
igravious
Horseshit. A reunified Korea would be a global economic powerhouse within a
generation, anybody with eyes in their skull can see that. And the
humanitarian benefits to the entire population of the North would be immense,
turmoil and cost be damned.

~~~
EliRivers
_A reunified Korea would be a global economic powerhouse within a generation,
anybody with eyes in their skull can see that._

Alternatively, combining a modern, hi-tech, highly educated nation of 50
million with a nation of 25 million badly-educated, borderline-starving
people, many of whom would never be able to adjust, would cripple the South
Korean economy for two generations.

South Korea is an economic powerhouse now. Introducing an extra 50% population
of which the vast majority are skilled only in subsistence-level farming with
tools other nations abandoned a century ago will not be economically helpful.
Maybe if South Korea was at the stage of development in which vast numbers of
unskilled labourers underpinned the economy, it would be, but they aren't.

~~~
moocowduckquack
_would cripple the South Korean economy for two generations._

Firstly, that is a nonsensical figure. On what basis do you make a prediction
that Korea would take two generations to recover from unification? It has been
split up for only slightly longer than that and if you look to history, entire
empires have come and gone in the timespan of two generations. Also, it just
sounds like more of the same that was said by people about the reunification
of Germany.

~~~
EliRivers
Very obviously a nonsense figure, would you say? Really, really obviously a
nonsense figure with no evidence, wouldn't you say? Really, REALLY obviously?
Funny coincidence too, presenting the timescale in terms of generations, just
like in the parent post? I wonder if perhaps that's deliberate...

I deliberately echoed the post I was responding to, but increased it, to
illustrate that the original statement was devoid of evidence; in essence, the
point was to emphatically and obviously have no evidence of timescale in order
to highlight the absurdity of the original post's timescale. You did get the
point, though, so I suppose it worked.

~~~
moocowduckquack
I got the point that your argument was nonsensical, I wasn't aware you were
doing it for effect.

------
Houshalter
The titles in the sidebar:

>Korean Government Turns Its Back on Abandoned Babies

>Korean Woman Kills Stepdaughter By Force Feeding Her Salt

>Man Forces Three Runaway Middle School Girls into Prostitution

Wtf humans? Not that it compares to the atrocities in North Korea.

------
moocowduckquack
I think the image in the article may have been photoshopped though.

------
ballard
Regardless, gotta love how Dennis Rodman looks the other way and doesn't give
a shit about people.

------
notastartup
Here's the original Korean article translated to English

[http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ko&tl=en&prev...](http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ko&tl=en&prev=_dd&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.segye.com%2Fcontent%2Fhtml%2F2013%2F12%2F18%2F20131218006587.html)

Often South Korean newspapers are the first to get news about North Korea as
South Korean intelligence groups have good source of HUMINT gathered from
North Korean defectors and officials willing to give up state secrets in
exchange for safety and money.

There were notable cases of high ranking North Korean officials defecting to
the South, for example Mr. Hwang ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hwang_Jang-
yop](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hwang_Jang-yop)) and even Kim Jong-Il's
relatives like Mr. Yi ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yi_Han-
yong](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yi_Han-yong)) who was gunned down in an
elevator while living in South Korea by North Korean agents.

------
ck2
Apparently the execution was over who controls profits from their shellfish
exports.

You'd think they would maybe feed their people with the profits.

If they get that nuclear bomb in portable form, there is going to be hell with
that child at the helm.

~~~
67726e
> Oh and he was educated in the USA, another one we raised.

Can you supply a source for that claim? I've only read into the the Kim family
a bit, but my impression was that most of the family members were educated in
other socialist countries or somewhere neutral/friendly like Switzerland.

~~~
ck2
I edited that one out, I was very mistaken. Thinking of someone else.

~~~
bananacurve
So is Switzerland a bad place for educating him or only when it's America?

~~~
pyre
Presumably the "we" is out of place if it's not your country.

