An awe-inspiring atmosphere has prevailed over the North Korean border with China since a group of 25 North Koreans successively defected to the South on March 18 after asylum at the Spanish Embassy in Beijing four days earlier. North Korean security authorities have drastically reinforced control by installing surveillance cameras along the border, while their Chinese counterparts have intensified a crackdown on escapees from the North. As a consequence, few North Koreans cross the border by wading through the Yalu and Tumen Rivers these days, according to residents in the border area. The installation of surveillance cameras, still underway to cover the entire border, started three months ago beginning with areas where the rivers are easy to wade through.
With intensive surveillance and control by the State Security Agency focused on it, the border area is deathly quiet. "Never have I seen so tight control and such a severe atmosphere of fear along the North Korea-China border. Both countries appear to attach great importance to the latest group defection of North Koreans," said an ethnic Korean-Chinese citizen who has lived in the border area for three decades. "Because the latest successful group defection to the South has not been reported in the North, North Koreans don't know why the border control has been stepped up." Never have there been so few smugglers crossing the border as now, he added.
Since the North Korean side has been completely sealed off, even North Koreans who have come to China merely to earn wages are jittery when their permitted period of stay expires. The intensive clampdown is most evident at border cities such as Hyoeryong, Onsong, Musan and Hyesan by the massed appearance of State Security Agency officials. SSA agents and border guards thoroughly question passers-by on all roads and mountain passes leading to the border. Citizens visiting the region from the inland, in particular, are said to be extremely cautious not to approach the border area lest they should be taken as would-be escapees.
Mopping-up operations are said to be underway in China. No crackdown is visible in major cities like Yanji, but tight control is observed in the suburbs. Armed policemen, deployed along roads leading to the border, stop and check suspicious passing trucks and pedestrians. All people who are unable to speak Chinese are rounded up as possible North Korean escapees. Faced with such a crackdown, most North Korean escapees in the border area have reportedly gone underground.
In view of the serious repercussions of the recent daring and successful asylum bid, ethnic Koreans in China speculate that few North Koreans will be able to cross the border for some time, and that the North Korean clampdown won't be short-lived, but continue for quite a while.
(Kang Chol-hwan, nkch@chosun.com)
