Although Beijing’s official stance is to return such refugees to their homeland, where prison or worse would await them, recent refugee successes have sparked hope for North Koreans. Last June seven members of the Kil Su family stormed the Beijing office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Beijing–eager not to sully its bid to host the 2008 Olympics–let them go to South Korea via a third country. This past March, 25 North Koreans gained entry to the Spanish Embassy in Beijing. Since then smaller groups have sought refuge in German and American diplomatic offices. Almost all of these refugees have been granted free passage to South Korea.
The events of last week put China in an even bigger fix. Tokyo lodged an immediate protest, demanding the asylum seekers “be returned to us quickly.” After all, they had all made it inside–and thus onto Japanese soil–before Chinese guards yanked them back. Tokyo’s Foreign Ministry fielded scores of angry phone calls demanding that the Japanese government help the five leave China. But Beijing contends that a Japanese consulate official agreed to let police drag the asylum-seekers out of the compound–a claim hotly denied by Tokyo.
Beijing now faces a tough choice: honor its friendship with Pyongyang and face condemnation from its neighbors; or bow to pressure and damage its relations with Pyongyang–and evoke a flood of asylum seekers. And if it does go easy on the refugees, China might soon find itself becoming a well-worn passage to Seoul.
