Axis of Evil

North Korean Defector Speaks Out After Rogue China Repatriates Family
By Brian Padden
North Korean defector Kim Ryon-Hui (C) speaks to reporters during a press conference by Tomas Ojea Quintana, the UN's Special Rapporteur on human rights in North Korea, in Seoul on Dec. 14, 2017.

SEOUL — North Korean defector Lee Tae-won is still plagued with guilt over his failed efforts to bring his wife and child to South Korea, which resulted in their forced repatriation and the likely prospect of execution in North Korea.
“There's nothing I can say to them except I am sorry. I am really sorry for my son and wife. I am really sorry because there's nothing I can do. There's nothing I can say,” said Lee.

Caught in China
After arriving in South Korea in 2015, the North Korean defector took on the name Lee to try to protect his family from retribution from North Korean security forces. 

His wife and four-year-old son were among a group of 10 defectors that where apprehended by China soon after they crossed the North Korean border in late October.
In November he last spoke with his wife by phone while she was in a detention center in China.
“As soon as my wife told me she was being repatriated, the call was cut. I thought the call was cut because the police took the phone. It was devastating,” he said.
This year China has increased the arrests and repatriation of North Koreans attempting to escape the poverty and repression at home. 

According to the advocacy group Human Rights Watch, 41 North Koreans were arrested in July and August alone, compared with 51 arrests documented for the entire year before.
Ji Seong-ho, center, a North Korean defector living in South Korea and president of Now Action & Unity for Human Rights, attends a rally against Laos' recent repatriation of nine North Korean defectors, in front of the Laotian Embassy in Seoul.

Analysts attribute the rise in border arrests to efforts by China to discourage a possible flood of refugees as tougher economic sanctions imposed for Pyongyang’s repeated nuclear and missile tests increases poverty and food scarcity among ordinary North Koreans.

Human rights violations
The total number of defections to South Korea in 2017 was 1,127, which is 20 percent less than the previous year, according to South Korea’s Ministry of Unification.
Phil Robertson, the Deputy Asia Director at Human Rights Watch has criticized China for violating the U.N. Refugee Convention by designating North Korean refugees as illegal “economic migrants,” and forcibly repatriating them despite the likelihood they will be subjected to inhumane treatment.
“This is condemning people to decades of forced labor, possible executions, certainly torture in every case,” said Robertson.
China has also blocked the United Nations Security Council from acting on a General Assembly recommendation to refer North Korea to the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity, based on a 2014 Commission of Inquiry report documenting a network of political prison camps and systematic human rights abuses, including murder, enslavement, torture, rape, and other sexual violence.

Failed appeal
In November Lee made a public video message appealing to both Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump to intercede and prevent the repatriation of his family, during the time the U.S. leader was visiting the region.
An unidentified North Korean defector holds a picture of nine North Korean defectors who were flown home as she cries during a rally protesting against Laos' repatriation of them, in Seoul, South Korea, June 5, 2013.

His plea went unanswered. 

Lee was later told by a friend in North Korea that his wife and child were turned over to a North Korean state security department in late November. 

But he continues to speak out to focus world attention on the dangers and atrocities faced by North Korean seeking to flee the authoritarian state.
“It is my goal to inform the international community of the pain defectors in South Korea are experiencing, and the pain North Koreans face,” said Lee.
There is also concern that North Korean human rights violations and China’s complicity are being downplayed by both the U.S. pressure strategy and South Korea’s engagement approach to curb Pyongyang’s nuclear development program. 

Focusing on human rights issues could complicate Washington’s efforts to persuade Beijing to enforce tough economic sanctions, and could also undermine Seoul’s efforts to increase cooperation and dialogue with Pyongyang.
On Tuesday, senior officials from 20 nations are meeting in Vancouver for a U.S. and Canada-led summit to discuss increasing diplomatic and financial pressure on Pyongyang to end its missile and nuclear programs. 

China will not attend the summit and has instead called for continuing the temporary reduction in regional tensions, due to North Korea’s participation in the upcoming Olympics and the U.S. postponement of joint military drills in South Korea.

The Chinese Connection

Arrested, missing China activists spark criticism of Trump

By ERIKA KINETZ

China Labor Watch investigator Hua Haifeng
SHANGHAI — The arrest and disappearance of three labor activists investigating a Chinese company that produces Ivanka Trump shoes in China prompted a call for her brand to stop working with the supplier and raised questions about whether the first family’s commercial interests would muddy U.S. leadership on human rights.
“Ivanka’s brand should immediately cease its work with this supplier, and the Trump administration should reverse its current course and confront China on its human rights abuses,” Adrienne Watson, spokeswoman for the Democratic National Committee, said in a Wednesday email. 

Ivanka Trump must decide, she added, “whether she can ignore the Chinese government’s apparent attempt to silence an investigation into those worker abuses.”
Amnesty International called Wednesday for the release of China Labor Watch investigator Hua Haifeng, as well as his two colleagues, who are feared to have been detained.
The men were working with an American nonprofit group to publish a report next month alleging low pay, excessive overtime and misuse of student labor, according to China Labor Watch executive director Li Qiang, who lost contact with the investigators over the weekend. 

The investigators also witnessed verbal abuse, with one manager insulting staff about poorly made shoes and making a crude reference in Chinese to female genitalia, according to Mr. Li.
China Labor Watch has been exposing poor working conditions at suppliers to some of the world’s best-known companies for nearly two decades, but Mr. Li said his work has never before attracted this level of scrutiny from China’s state security apparatus.
The arrest and disappearances come amid a crackdown on perceived threats to the stability of China’s ruling Communist Party, particularly from sources with foreign ties such as China Labor Watch. Faced with rising labor unrest and a slowing economy, Beijing has taken a stern approach to activism in southern China’s manufacturing belt and to human rights advocates generally, sparking a wave of critical reports about disappearances, public confessions, forced repatriation and torture in custody.
China Labor Watch’s investigation also had an unusual target: a brand owned by the daughter of the president of the United States.
Ivanka Trump’s lifestyle brand imports most of its merchandise from China, trade data show. 

She and her father both have extensive trademark portfolios in China, though neither has managed to build up a large retail or real estate presence here. 

The sister of Jared Kushner, a Trump adviser and husband of Ivanka, traveled to China this past month to court investment from Chinese families for a real estate project in New Jersey.
“The eagerness of members of the family to do business in China while airbrushing very troubling human rights and labor rights records of the country is troubling,” said Nicholas Bequelin, East Asia director for Amnesty International. 

He said it is only a matter of time before it is known “to what extent business is trumping any kind of consideration of the diplomatic capital of the U.S. in promoting human rights, labor rights and democracy.”
White House spokeswoman Hope Hicks referred questions to Trump’s brand. 

The Ivanka Trump brand declined to comment.
Abigail Klem, who took over day-to-day management when the first daughter became a White House presidential adviser, has said the brand requires licensees and their manufacturers to “comply with all applicable laws and to maintain acceptable working conditions.”
China tightened control over foreign NGOs starting this year by requiring them to register with state security. 

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a regular news briefing Wednesday that she was not aware of the arrest and disappearances. 

She said China welcomed international NGOs to carry out research, but added, “we also hope that NGOs can also observe Chinese laws and regulations and don’t engage in any illegal actions or behavior.”
Mr. Hua was accused of illegal surveillance, according to his wife, Ms. Deng Guilian, who said the police called her Tuesday afternoon. 

Ms. Deng said the caller told her she didn’t need to know the details, only that she would not be able to see, speak with or receive money from her husband, the family’s breadwinner. 

The crime carries a penalty of up to two years’ imprisonment.
Mr. Li said China Labor Watch asked police about Mr. Hua and the two other investigators, Li Zhao and Su Heng, on Monday but received no reply.
The Associated Press was unable to reach the other investigators’ families. 

China’s Ministry of Public Security and police could not be reached for comment Tuesday, which was a national holiday in China. 

Calls went unanswered Wednesday morning.
The men were investigating Huajian Group factories in the southern Chinese cities of Ganzhou and Dongguan. 

Ms. Su had been working undercover at the Ganzhou factory since April, Mr. Li said.
In January, Liu Shiyuan, then spokesman for the Huajian Group, told the AP that the company makes 10,000 to 20,000 pairs of shoes a year for Ms. Trump’s brand — a fraction of the 20 million pairs the company produces a year. 

A current spokeswoman for the company, Long Shan, did not reply to questions Tuesday or Wednesday morning.
Mr. Li said investigators had seen Ivanka Trump-brand merchandise, as well as production orders for Ivanka Trump, Marc Fisher, Nine West and Easy Spirit.
“We were unaware of the allegations and will look into them immediately,” a spokeswoman for Marc Fisher, which manufactures Ivanka Trump, Easy Spirit and its own branded shoes, said in an email Tuesday. 

Nine West did not respond to requests for comment.