[Joint House and Senate Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


               NORTH KOREAN REFUGEES AND THE IMMINENT 
              DANGER OF FORCED REPATRIATION FROM CHINA
=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

              CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA

                    ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                             JUNE 13, 2023

                               __________

 Printed for the use of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China
 
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              Available at www.cecc.gov or www.govinfo.gov

                               __________

                                
                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
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              CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA

                    LEGISLATIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS

House                                     Senate

CHRIS SMITH, New Jersey, Chair       JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon, Co-chair
JAMES P. McGOVERN, Massachusetts     MARCO RUBIO, Florida
BRIAN MAST, Florida                  TOM COTTON, Arkansas
JENNIFER WEXTON, Virginia            STEVE DAINES, Montana
MICHELLE STEEL, California           ANGUS KING, Maine
SUSAN WILD, Pennsylvania             TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois
ANDREA SALINAS, Oregon               DAN SULLIVAN, Alaska
ZACHARY NUNN, Iowa
RYAN ZINKE, Montana

                     EXECUTIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS

               DANIEL K. KRITENBRINK, Department of State

                  MARISA LAGO, Department of Commerce

                   THEA MEI LEE, Department of Labor

                     UZRA ZEYA, Department of State

                   ERIN BARCLAY, Department of State

                      Piero Tozzi, Staff Director

                   Matt Squeri, Deputy Staff Director

                                  (ii)


                            C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              

                               Statements

Opening Statement of Hon. Chris Smith, a U.S. Representative from 
  New Jersey; Chair, Congressional-Executive Commission on China.     1
Statement of Hon. Jeff Merkley, a U.S. Senator from Oregon; Co-
  chair, Congressional-Executive Commission on China.............     4
Statement of Hon. Zachary Nunn, a U.S. Representative from Iowa..     7
Statement of Robert R. King, former Special Envoy for North 
  Korean Human Rights Issues, U.S. Department of State...........     9
Statement of Jung-Hoon Lee, Dean, Graduate School of 
  International Studies, Yonsei University and former South 
  Korean Ambassador-at-Large for North Korean Human Rights.......    11
Statement of Ethan Hee-Seok Shin, Legal Analyst, Transitional 
  Justice Working Group..........................................    13
Statement of Hanna Song, Director of International Cooperation, 
  Database Center for North Korean Human Rights..................    16

                                APPENDIX
                          Prepared Statements

King, Robert R...................................................    38
Lee, Jung-Hoon...................................................    40
Shin, Ethan Hee-Seok.............................................    45
Song, Hanna......................................................    62

Smith, Hon. Chris................................................    70
Merkley, Hon. Jeff...............................................    71
McGovern, Hon. James P...........................................    72

                       Submissions for the Record

Submission of Joanna Hosaniak, Deputy Director General, Citizens' 
  Alliance for North Korean Human Rights.........................    74
Submission of Greg Scarlatoiu, Executive Director, U.S. Committee 
  for Human Rights in North Korea................................    76
 Submission of Suzanne Scholte, Chair, North Korea Freedom 
  Coalition......................................................    82
CECC Truth in Testimony Disclosure Form..........................    85
Witness Biographies..............................................    86

                                 (iii)

 
 NORTH KOREAN REFUGEES AND THE IMMINENT DANGER OF FORCED REPATRIATION 
                               FROM CHINA

                              ----------                              


                         TUESDAY, JUNE 13, 2023

                            Congressional-Executive
                                       Commission on China,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The hearing was held from 10:03 a.m. to 12:09 p.m., in Room 
2020, Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, DC, 
Representative Chris Smith, Chair, Congressional-Executive 
Commission on China, presiding.
    Also present: Senator Jeff Merkley, Co-chair, and 
Representatives Nunn and Wild.

 OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. CHRIS SMITH, A U.S. REPRESENTATIVE 
 FROM NEW JERSEY; CHAIR, CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON 
                             CHINA

    Chair Smith. This hearing on the desperate plight of North 
Korean refugees who face imminent danger of forced repatriation 
from China will come to order.
    Some of you may have crossed the Potomac River to attend 
this hearing today. It flows, as we all know, beside our 
nation's capital past many iconic landmarks. For those who are 
currently watching this hearing from South Korea, the Han River 
flowing through Seoul likewise holds tremendous historical, 
cultural, and economic importance.
    However, for many North Koreans who brave the treacherous 
journey across the Yalu and Tumen Rivers--natural borders 
between North Korea and China--those rivers represent only 
sorrow and terror. These rivers have been their only means to 
escape from the world's cruelest family dictatorship, 
necessitating desperate crossings by small boat, swimming 
directly, or walking across frozen waters amid the bitter 
Korean winter--all while knowing that an alert border guard 
with shoot-to-kill orders could end their lives in an instant.
    Even after successfully crossing the Yalu and Tumen Rivers, 
the plight of a North Korean refugee can rapidly take a turn 
for the worse. Startling estimates indicate that up to 80 
percent of female North Korean refugees become victims of human 
traffickers, who exploit them in the lucrative sex trade 
industry. It is believed that the illicit trade generates over 
$105 million annually for North Korean and Chinese criminal 
networks.
    I would note, parenthetically, that in one of my previous 
hearings, Suzanne Scholte--and without objection her comments 
will be made part of the record--came and she brought two 
women, a mother and a daughter. Now, their story was that the 
other sister, the woman's daughter escaped--I would put that in 
quotation marks--to China. She was sold into slavery, into sex 
trafficking. The mother and daughter then went into China 
looking for that daughter, and they were enslaved as well. All 
three of them forced into sex trafficking. But by the grace of 
God and some very, very kind-hearted and empathetic people, 
they were able to escape, and they made their way to South 
Korea, and ultimately to our hearing room to tell their amazing 
stories. That is the plight of so many of these women who make 
their way into China.
    The lucky ones try to remain hidden. According to a recent 
report by Global Rights Compliance, an international human 
rights law firm, there are approximately half a million female 
North Koreans, some as young as 12, hiding in border regions, 
for if they are discovered they face the likelihood of forced 
repatriation or, to use the technical term, refoulement, to 
North Korea.
    Today's hearing is especially timely because we have good 
reason to believe that such repatriation is imminent, as North 
Korea reopens its border following extended closure in the wake 
of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is reported that approximately 
2,000 North Korean refugees, perhaps many more, are awaiting 
imminent forced repatriation which would subject them to severe 
human rights violations upon their return to North Korea, some 
of which we will hear about in testimony from our amazing panel 
that is assembled here today.
    I shared this deep concern regarding the perilous situation 
of North Korean refugees in China directly with Antonio 
Guterres, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, when he 
visited my office on April 27th. I believe that while there are 
limits to what our government and the South Korean government 
can do to influence China's decision making--although we need 
to do everything we can possibly do to influence that--the U.N. 
is well positioned and ideally suited to use its influence, 
given how much the Chinese government seeks validation from, 
and indeed seeks to influence, the United Nations system.
    So, again, I ask with deep respect of Secretary-General 
Guterres: Please use your influence to the utmost to dissuade 
the Chinese government from forcibly repatriating these 
refugees. It is also extremely important that the United 
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, take on 
a more active role on behalf of these refugees.
    One of our highly distinguished witnesses today, who will 
be coming in via Zoom, Ambassador Jung-Hoon Lee, points out in 
his testimony--and I quote just a small part of it--``The legal 
tools are there for the UNHCR to do more for the North Korean 
defectors. The UNHCR concluded a bilateral agreement with China 
in 1995 that granted the UNHCR staff in China unimpeded access 
to refugees within China. Determining who is a refugee requires 
interviewing the prospective asylum seekers. With China 
strictly preventing UNHCR access to North Koreans near the 
border, the process towards refugee recognition has been 
completely thwarted,'' he states. ``The forcible repatriation 
of North Koreans seeking refugee status in China is a blatant 
breach of Beijing's obligations under the 1951 U.N. Convention 
Related to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol.''
    On May 30th, the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of 
Discrimination against Women issued the findings of its review 
of China, calling for unrestricted access by the UNHCR and 
relevant humanitarian organizations to victims of trafficking 
from North Korea in China. CEDAW has also recommended that 
China regularize the status of North Korean women who face 
human rights violations, such as forced marriage and human 
trafficking, and refrain from cracking down on them due to 
their undocumented status.
    Against all of this moral pressure and legal pressure as 
well, there are malign incentives--both political and 
economic--for the People's Republic of China to repatriate 
refugees to North Korea. North Korea and its dictator Kim Jong-
un view those who flee the dictatorship as traitors, which 
gives China a political incentive to placate a communist ally 
that remains a thorn in the side of the United States and all 
freedom-loving people. A written submission for this hearing, 
which I ask to be entered into the record and without 
objection, from Citizens' Alliance for North Korean Human 
Rights, a human rights NGO based in Seoul, sheds light on the 
disturbing economic incentives that China has in forcibly 
repatriating these refugees.
    According to their ongoing investigation, ``There is a high 
probability that a portion of products originating from North 
Korea but produced for Chinese companies have been made in 
prisons detaining repatriated North Korean refugees from China 
using forced labor and other human rights violations.'' This 
suggests that businesses in China are profiting from the 
exploitation of repatriated North Korean refugees, an issue 
that demands thorough investigation and accountability.
    There is, of course, a role that both the South Korean 
government and our government, and indeed Congress and this 
Commission, can play. The CECC does report on the situation of 
North Korean refugees in China in its annual report, and this 
year will likely issue a stand-alone report on the issue, while 
today's hearing is an example of how we can bring attention to 
this impending humanitarian crisis and disaster. I myself have 
chaired seven congressional hearings on North Korean human 
rights, and I have also introduced new legislation, H.R. 638, 
the China Trade Relations Act of 2023, that withdraws China's 
Permanent Normal Trade Relations, or PNTR, status unless there 
are substantial and sustained improvements in human rights, 
including how it treats refugees within its borders.
    The refugees in question are not mere statistics. Each and 
every one of these people is an individual with inherent 
rights, hopes, dreams, and aspirations. China has failed to 
confront the human traffickers who prey on vulnerable North 
Koreans. Indeed, they are complicit. If Beijing wishes to be 
recognized as a true leader in the global community, it must 
not be complicit in the plight of North Korean refugees in 
China who are under imminent danger of repatriation. Human 
rights transcend mere privilege. They are an inherent 
entitlement. We cannot turn a blind eye to China's complicit 
and flagrant violations of these rights.
    I am looking forward to our distinguished witnesses. And 
I'm very proud to introduce our co-chair of this Commission, 
Senator Merkley.

STATEMENT OF HON. JEFF MERKLEY, A U.S. SENATOR FROM OREGON; CO-
       CHAIR, CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA

    Co-chair Merkley. Thank you very much, Chairman Smith. This 
Commission tries to do its part to shine a light on the plight 
of North Korean refugees in China, with this year marking the 
20th year that we have dedicated a chapter of our annual report 
to this topic. Yet, we last held a hearing on this eleven years 
ago, so this hearing is way overdue. And thank you for 
arranging it.
    In many ways, not much has changed. In fact, the 
announcement for the Commission's first public event on North 
Korean refugees, way back in 2004, included many of the same 
characterizations we'll hear about today--desperate individuals 
fleeing North Korean government prosecution and severe food 
shortages--and Chinese authorities' willful refusal to assess 
any of these individuals as refugees, stonewalling U.N. Refugee 
Agency efforts to help those in need.
    Precisely because so little has changed is why we can't 
avert our eyes. Human rights abusers play a waiting game, 
waiting for the world to grow weary, outrage to dissipate, and 
people to move on. But those who are suffering cannot move on. 
The North Korean and Chinese governments are playing the same 
cynical game, and we can't let them off the hook. As we'll hear 
about today, the Chinese government has obligations under 
Chinese law, under international law, and in accordance with 
basic humanitarian decency, to provide individualized 
determination of the refugee status of asylum seekers.
    Instead, China's approach flouts the principle that anyone 
has the right to seek asylum, treating all North Korean 
escapees as illegal immigrants. If anything, this is backwards 
and all North Koreans who escape to China should be understood 
to be at risk. The 2014 U.N. Commission of Inquiry on Human 
Rights in North Korea was clear. The forcible repatriation of 
thousands of North Koreans subjects them to crimes against 
humanity. Just being a North Korean in China means an 
individual would be in grave peril if sent back to North Korea.
    The U.N. Commission of Inquiry was equally clear about 
that. China's approach violates the international principle of 
nonrefoulement, which is supposed to guarantee that nobody will 
be repatriated to a country where they would face torture; 
cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment; and other irreparable 
harm. Irreparable harm is what awaits the vulnerable North 
Koreans that Chinese authorities plan to send back to the 
gulag.
    As much as has not changed on this topic over the last two 
decades, we're also holding this hearing because of what has 
changed. COVID-19 changed much in our world, and the landscape 
of North Korean defection is no different. Border closures and 
tougher travel restrictions on both sides of North Korea's 
border with China made defection more difficult and more 
expensive. Now, the potential easing of North Korea's border 
closures raises the specter that China will again start 
forcibly repatriating North Koreans.
    The other thing that has changed is the same thing we 
observe in so many other contexts: China's Orwellian 
surveillance state supercharges its ability to keep an eye on 
the people it seeks to control--including, sadly, North Korean 
refugees. Vulnerable people facing either repatriation or 
hiding now face a much more difficult task in remaining hidden 
or in receiving help without catching the attention of 
authorities who wish them ill. This all leaves a bleak 
situation for North Korean refugees in China, but those of us 
fighting for human rights should not shy away from the 
challenge, and instead must redouble our efforts.
    I look forward to our witnesses' counsel on what we can do. 
And just on a personal note, I traveled to South Korea and to 
the China/North Korea border where the three highways exist, a 
few years ago. In South Korea I met with refugees, some of whom 
had swum across the border, some of whom had crossed the land 
border with China, some who had come through the Demilitarized 
Zone.
    And one young woman whom I'll never forget, escaped only to 
be returned as a teenager with her father. He faced horrific 
punishment. She faced less harsh punishment, but still a very 
difficult course. He encouraged her to escape again, knowing 
what would happen to his family. But she actually did succeed. 
And I think about that father trying to get his daughter to 
freedom, knowing the torture that he would be facing. Anyway, 
we're going to hear from you all, as experts, and I'm so glad 
you've come to share your knowledge, your experiences. Thank 
you.
    Chair Smith. Thank you, Senator Merkley, very much.
    I'd now like to welcome our distinguished panel, beginning 
first with Ambassador Robert King, a long-time friend dating 
back to when he served as chief of staff to Congressman Tom 
Lantos and as Democratic staff director of the House Foreign 
Affairs Committee from 2001 to 2008. All told, he spent 25 
years on the Hill, which is a very long time. Ambassador King 
came and served with great distinction as Special Envoy for 
North Korean Human Rights Issues at the U.S. Department of 
State from 2009 to 2017, which also makes him critically 
positioned to give testimony to us today as he did previously 
in December of 2017, before a Foreign Affairs Committee hearing 
that I chaired. He did a tremendous job then and is a fount of 
knowledge and insight, and counsel and wisdom.
    Ambassador King has also been a senior advisor to the Korea 
Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. 
And it is in that capacity that both he and I served as 
panelists at a conference not so long ago cohosted by Stanford 
University, entitled ``North Korean Human Rights at a New 
Juncture.'' This is a pleasure to welcome back Ambassador King. 
Bob, thank you for being here.
    Then we'd like to introduce our next panelist, who will be 
Ambassador Jung-Hoon Lee, who is currently the dean at the 
Graduate School of International Studies at Yonsei University 
in South Korea. Like Ambassador King, Ambassador Lee is also 
critically positioned, well suited to serve as a witness, for 
he served as the inaugural ambassador-at-large on North Korean 
Human Rights for the Republic of Korea, as well as its 
ambassador for human rights overall. It was in this capacity 
that he appeared before our Commission in 2014, briefing 
Congress about the human rights abuses and crimes against 
humanity in North Korea. His academic affiliations include a 
visiting professorship at Keio University in Japan, and senior 
fellow at Harvard's Kennedy School.
    Ambassador Lee currently advises the Korean government as 
chair of the National Unification Advisory Council's 
International Affairs Committee, chair of the Ministry of 
Unification's newly created commission for North Korean human 
rights, and policy advisor to the National Security Council. He 
is a board member of the Committee for Human Rights in North 
Korea in Washington, DC, and he is, as is Ambassador King, an 
international patron of Hong Kong Watch in London, which 
advocates on another issue very close to the hearts of members 
of this Commission. Ambassador Lee received his B.A. from Tufts 
University, an M.A.L.D. from the Fletcher School of Law and 
Diplomacy, and his Ph.D. from the University of Oxford St. 
Antony's College. Again, welcome Ambassador Lee.
    We'll then hear from another distinguished witness, Dr. 
Ethan Hee-Seok Shin. Dr. Shin is a legal analyst at the Seoul-
based human rights documentation NGO Transitional Justice 
Working Group. He too testified before Congress almost a year 
ago in a hearing of the Tom Lantos Commission, again, 
evaluating the openness towards refugees signaled by the new 
Yoon administration. He offered cutting-edge policy 
recommendations at that time, and we look forward to benefiting 
again from Dr. Shin's testimony on an urgent and equally 
important issue.
    It is my understanding that Dr. Shin has been interviewing 
North Korean escapees who make their way to South Korea through 
China, in order to record enforced disappearances and other 
grave human rights violations, to make submissions to the U.N. 
human rights experts on their behalf, and set up Footprints, an 
online database of the people taken by North Korea. He is an 
advocate for ending China's policy of indiscriminate 
refoulement for the North Korean refugees without 
individualized determination, an issue raised at the U.N. 
Committee for the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, 
as I mentioned just a few moments ago. Dr. Shin holds a Ph.D. 
in international law from Yonsei University in South Korea, and 
an LL.M. from Harvard Law School. Welcome back, Dr. Shin.
    And finally, we'll hear from Hanna Song, who is here to 
share her incredible insight into the current situation for 
North Korean defectors in China, along with some new up-to-date 
satellite images. Currently, she is Director of International 
Cooperation and a researcher at the Seoul-based North Korean 
human rights NGO Database Center for North Korean Human Rights, 
or NKDB. In this capacity, Ms. Song has been given rare access 
to North Korean escapees from China. Her organization, 
officially established in 2003, has recorded over 130,000 
entries related to human rights violations in its unified human 
rights database, carried out advocacy based on the data, and 
has also provided resettlement support to North Korean 
escapees.
    NKDB has interviewed over 20,000 North Korean escapees who 
have resettled in South Korea. Through interviewing North 
Korean escapees who have recently entered South Korea since the 
pandemic, NKDB has been able to examine the current situation 
in China and how COVID-19 has changed the landscape of North 
Korean defection. Ms. Song will share today for the first time 
some of the satellite images of the Chinese detention center 
where North Korean refugees are believed to be detained. As 
NKDB's director, Ms. Song has briefed diplomats, policymakers, 
and foreign correspondents on the human rights situation in 
North Korea. She has created partnerships with international 
stakeholders, research institutions and universities, and NGOs 
overseas.
    I'd now like to recognize Commissioner Nunn.

                STATEMENT OF HON. ZACHARY NUNN, 
                A U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FROM IOWA

    Representative Nunn. Chairman Smith, thank you very much 
for holding this very important hearing today. To the panel 
that is with us, we are privileged to both learn from you and 
hopefully take away some of the key insights on where the 
United States can be a leader with allies in Asia to be doing 
the right thing. As we look at the grave human rights 
violations being committed by North Korea, we see a China that 
is complicit.
    In my military service, I've been privileged to serve on 
the DMZ in South Korea with our allies in the area and witness 
the defectors who come across to the South seeking a better 
life not only for themselves, but for the country that they 
know and have loved so well, that of all of the Korean people. 
They are constantly stymied by the fact that a totalitarian 
regime in Pyongyang is suppressing not only their right to free 
speech but their very existence in the world.
    Today we're going to be examining the brutal circumstances 
of North Koreans who have tried to leave their home, the lack 
of cooperation by Xi to provide them any safe haven, and the 
asylum seekers who stand at the border in detention 
facilities--not those who have tried to flee to South Korea, 
but those who have gone north to China only to be rebuffed and 
returned to a heinous situation. The people of North Korea, 
let's make no mistake about it, are being murdered, starved, 
and worked to death every year under Kim Jong-un.
    With limited references to be able to cite because of the 
dark kingdom's suppression of any information leaving North 
Korea, we know this: The number of people killed in North Korea 
every year is estimated at between 300,000 and 800,000. That's 
the equivalent of my congressional district back in Iowa being 
wiped out in one year. It is believed that there are roughly 15 
to 25 mass forced labor camps throughout the country as well, 
where individuals are forced to toil for the interest of one 
individual who puts himself before an entire nation.
    And on the other hand, we have China, the United States' 
main trading partner in Asia and one of the largest benefactors 
of international financing institutions, and a force in its own 
right under the global influence of the Belt and Road 
Initiative. But the reality has never been clearer: China and 
North Korea are criminals of human rights, cut from the same 
cloth. Recent reports show that there are currently 2,000 North 
Korean asylum seekers being held in detention centers near the 
China-North Korea border. These individuals have endured 
unimaginable horrors to both themselves and, importantly, to 
their families.
    They have escaped one of the most oppressive nations on 
Earth, only to be thrown straight back into that meat grinder 
by the Chinese government. According to the United States 
Department of State, the North Korean refugees repatriated from 
China face forced labor, forced abortions, torture, and even 
execution. These crimes against humanity have only increased 
under the severity of Kim Jong-un's rule. China's refusal to 
acknowledge not only the sins of North Korea, but to be 
complicit in returning these individuals, makes them equally 
culpable.
    For the past two decades, this committee has examined 
China's blatant ignorance when it comes to international 
commitments to refugees and has noted that China denies 
humanitarian organizations the ability to help those who are 
most in need, and falsified critical data relating to the scope 
and severity of North Korea's refugee crisis, intentionally 
misinforming the rest of the world. China's continued 
repatriation of North Korean refugees signals to the rest of 
the world that the Chinese Communist government has never been, 
nor will it ever be, a safe harbor for freedom and liberty for 
those seeking a better life, whether those fleeing North Korea 
or those within its own borders.
    Here in the United States, we must not forget the liberty 
and freedom we enjoy every day, particularly when in stark 
relief to what's going on in Asia. On this Commission, our men 
and women in uniform, all those working to spread democracy 
around the world, are behind those struggling in places like 
North Korea, and even those in China. So, Mr. Chair, I call on 
this bipartisan Commission, with the administration, to 
continue holding the CCP accountable for its inaction, and Kim 
Jong-un specifically for his role as a grave human rights 
violator, and for the hope of all those wishing to live a freer 
and more prosperous life.
    Further, I would specifically ask the premier of China and 
Beijing to condemn Kim Jong-un's regime. It is well past time 
that we hold these individuals accountable, that they cooperate 
with asylum seekers and grant hope to those trapped in a land 
of darkness. Additionally, I call on our international 
institutions to decrease their tolerance for inclusion of 
nations that continually violate human rights and to close 
loopholes that allow countries like China to exploit 
international financial institutions to fund the autocracies 
occurring across the globe, without holding themselves 
accountable to the same standards.
    And, with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back my time but 
thank our speakers today for their frontline evidence being 
entered into testimony today. You are the front line and the 
safeguard of what we're doing going forward. Thank you, Mr. 
Chair.
    Chair Smith. Commissioner Nunn, thank you very much for 
your comments, and the background you bring to this Commission 
is extraordinary.
    I would say to our witnesses, as I go to Ambassador King, 
that normally there's a five-minute rule. But you know, what 
you have to impart is so important, if you go up to 10 that 
would be fine. The important thing is that you really have your 
say. We need to hear it, then we will go to questions. So, 
Ambassador King, the floor is yours.

  STATEMENT OF ROBERT R. KING, FORMER SPECIAL ENVOY FOR NORTH 
      KOREAN HUMAN RIGHTS ISSUES, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE

    Ambassador King. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Co-
chairman. The Commission has played a very important role in 
terms of calling attention to the human rights violations of 
China, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to talk about these 
particular issues that we're dealing with with the North 
Koreans.
    The flow of Koreans back and forth between northeastern 
China and the Korean Peninsula is something that has been going 
on for centuries. There are something like 25 million North 
Koreans, 50 million South Koreans. But there are also 2 million 
Koreans living just across the border in China. So there's a 
lot of economic and family relationships that continue to play 
a role in terms of moving back and forth. The issues of North 
Koreans going through China and to China has been something 
that over time has changed.
    During the Cultural Revolution when conditions were 
difficult in China, there were Chinese who were coming to North 
Korea, which with Soviet assistance was doing very well 
economically. In the 1990s, when North Korea was facing fairly 
serious problems with the collapse of communist support 
elsewhere, there were significant numbers of North Koreans who 
went to China and were able to find jobs there, as they were 
being employed.
    One of the things that I found very interesting was when I 
was in China on the North Korean-Chinese border, Sinuiju and 
Dandong, there were a large number of North Korean citizens who 
were employed in China who were returning to North Korea. We 
happened to walk into the train station and saunter around to 
see what was going on. The numbers were significant. These were 
young women who were working as seamstresses. They were living 
and working in China, but they were North Koreans. And this 
kind of activity back and forth has been something that's been 
going on for some time.
    There are differences among North Koreans who are going to 
China. There are North Koreans who find jobs in China through 
the North Korean government--source of employment, a source of 
funding for the North Korean government. And they're able to do 
it. The North Korean government, of course, takes a healthy 
rake-off for providing the workers. There is a second group of 
North Koreans who work in China. These are North Koreans who go 
on their own, who illegally cross the border, who work 
illegally in China, but there are opportunities. There are lots 
of Korean speakers in the areas they go to, and they're able to 
find opportunity, find jobs, and support themselves and their 
families.
    And there's a third group of North Koreans who go into 
China. And those are North Koreans without the approval of 
their government who are seeking to flee North Korea because of 
the human rights abuse and other violations. And there are 
significant numbers of North Koreans who go to China to get out 
of North Korea because it's fundamentally the only way to get 
out of North Korea. Other options are not really viable. The 
safest route is going through China.
    There are some interesting changes that have taken place 
recently. The COVID pandemic has created great difficulty for 
North Koreans who are attempting to leave North Korea. One of 
the things the North Korean government has done; it's done very 
little to deal with the problem of COVID, rejected offers of 
vaccine; but they have very strict requirements limiting public 
contact, limiting movement of people, and so forth. The net 
effect has been that the North Koreans who try to leave the 
country are being stopped by border patrols who are trying to 
prevent North Koreans returning, because they might be infected 
with COVID.
    COVID has created real difficulties in terms of these 
numbers. There are large numbers of North Koreans over the last 
couple of decades who have left North Korea and been able to 
find homes elsewhere, primarily in South Korea, some in the 
United States, some in Europe. Over the last two decades, there 
are somewhere in the neighborhood of 34,000 North Koreans who 
have left North Korea, primarily through China, and been able 
to get out and go to South Korea.
    The numbers have varied over time. The highest one-year 
total of escapees was 2,700 in 2011. From 2012 to 2016, there 
were 1,500 a year that were getting out. From 2017 to 2019, 
1,100 a year were successfully getting out. When the first 
COVID case was diagnosed in China in November 2019, the North 
Koreans shut the border. The number of individuals who were 
able to leave North Korea and find their way to South Korea 
during 2020 was 229. In 2022, that number was 67. So from a 
high of over 2,700, we're down now to 34 who have escaped so 
far this year.
    In addition to the numbers who've gone to South Korea, 
there are a few who've come to the United States, somewhere 
around 200 over the last couple of decades. There are about 600 
who found places in England, the United Kingdom. There are a 
few others that have found opportunities elsewhere. But the 
numbers are down. The North Korean government has created 
problems because it is so afraid of the spread of COVID that 
they have stopped North Koreans from being returned. The 
Chinese have arrested North Koreans. The North Koreans will not 
accept them. And this has created problems, difficulties for 
the North Koreans who are trying to deal with these problems.
    The difficulty with North Koreans not being able to return 
to North Korea means people who want to return, who have 
families there and want to return, are not able to be there. 
They're held by the Chinese. The Chinese hold them in camps, 
where they are basically prisoners, so they can repatriate them 
to North Korea. There are offers from South Korea and other 
countries to take North Korean refugees. Those are denied. The 
Chinese will not release these individuals. They're going to 
return them to North Korea.
    I met with Chinese government officials when I was special 
envoy on several occasions to raise concern about their 
treatment of North Koreans who are captured in China to see if 
there's some way of pressing the Chinese to take a more humane 
approach to these issues. I was singularly unsuccessful. I met 
with North Korean officials at the United Nations in New York, 
at the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva. I visited China on 
a number of occasions, met with senior officials in the foreign 
ministry, with senior officials in the Party's international 
department. All of them said: These are North Koreans. The 
North Korean people want them back. We will return them.
    We need to continue the effort to press the Chinese because 
these people are being denied their free choice of where they 
want to go. And they're being held in inhumane conditions in 
China. If they are returned to North Korea, the North Koreans 
will send them to prison. Some of them will not survive 
imprisonment there. We need to continue the effort to press the 
North Koreans to allow these people not to be held. And we need 
to press the Chinese to release the North Koreans they are 
holding and who are not being returned to North Korea, because 
the North Koreans are not willing to hold them.
    We need to continue to call attention to the problem 
because one of the ways of getting the Chinese to pay attention 
to the issue is to create bad publicity for China, and hope 
that it eventually moves them to do the right thing. I look 
forward to questions and look forward to continuing the 
discussion on this serious problem. Thank you.
    Chair Smith. Ambassador King, thank you so very much.
    I'd now like to yield such time as he may consume to 
Ambassador Lee, who is joining us up on the board there.
    Ambassador Lee.

     STATEMENT OF JUNG-HOON LEE, DEAN, GRADUATE SCHOOL OF 
  INTERNATIONAL STUDIES, YONSEI UNIVERSITY, AND FORMER SOUTH 
    KOREAN AMBASSADOR-AT-LARGE FOR NORTH KOREAN HUMAN RIGHTS

    Ambassador Lee. Good morning. Good morning and greetings 
from Korea. I thank Chairman Chris Smith--it's great to see you 
again--and Co-chair Jeff Merkley, Representative Zachary Nunn, 
ranking members of Congress and the executive branch for giving 
me this opportunity to address you today. I'm greatly honored 
to provide a statement to this Commission on the situation of 
North Korean refugees in China. The last time I attended a 
congressional hearing was, as you mentioned, in June 2014, when 
I was invited by you, Chairman Smith, to the House Subcommittee 
on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and 
International Organizations of the Foreign Affairs Committee.
    At that time, I emphasized that genocide on top of crimes 
against humanity was being perpetrated in North Korea. Well, 
nine years have passed. But sadly, no progress has been made. 
Deprivation of fundamental human rights continues as people 
languish under the near eight-decade-long tyranny of the Kim 
dynasty. In a normal state, national security is pursued to 
ensure human security. Yet, in North Korea national security 
ensures only regime security. The state takes no responsibility 
to protect its own people. It is no wonder North Koreans resort 
to taking refuge across the border. They do so because there's 
no hope in a country ruled by political prisons, torture, 
hunger, and public execution, completely devoid of the 
fundamental right to an adequate standard of living, not to 
mention life.
    So why no progress? I will point to five factors. Number 
one, despite the outstanding findings and recommendations made 
by the Commission of Inquiry in 2014, the U.N. has failed to 
follow up, especially on accountability measures. Number two, 
South Korea's Moon Jae-in government pursued for five years a 
delusional peace policy that totally disregarded human rights 
issues. Such a policy had an impact even on the U.S. as well. 
The Peace on the Korean Peninsula Act, H.R. 3446, is a case in 
point. It calls for peace but completely ignores human rights. 
Number three, the media's fixation on Kim Jong-un's nuclear 
ploy, as well as his public persona, which has had the effect 
of downplaying human rights. Number four, the previous Trump 
administration's ill-conceived attempt to woo Kim Jong-un, 
which helped to skirt human rights issues. And finally, and 
this was mentioned by Ambassador Bob King, COVID-19, and the 
complete closure of North Korea's border, also contributed to 
the lack of progress because the country was completely shut 
down.
    The plight of the North Korean refugees in China stands out 
as one of the most troubling challenges to the UNHCR. We 
wouldn't have this conversation if Beijing adhered to its 
obligations under the 1951 U.N. Refugee Convention and its 1967 
protocol, not to mention its 1995 special agreement with the 
UNHCR. I'll refer the Commission to my written text for 
details. What I'd like to do here is make two suggestions for 
consideration.
    My first suggestion is to apply pressure on the UNHCR's 
Beijing office to do justice to its mandate. Pursuant to its 
1995 agreement with China, the UNHCR should have unimpeded 
access to North Korean asylum seekers in China. But as we all 
know, North Koreans in China are off limits to the UNHCR. The 
refugee agency should assert its right to binding arbitration. 
This really should be done now, since several thousand North 
Korean detainees are in danger of imminent repatriation.
    My second suggestion to the China Commission is to 
benchmark the international campaign that was launched against 
South Africa's apartheid system in the 1970s and the '80s. What 
did the U.N. General Assembly do to South Africa? In 1974, the 
Credentials Committee of the General Assembly denied South 
Africa its credentials and suspended all its activities in the 
United Nations. I say it's time to reexamine the U.N. 
credentials of North Korea too. If South Africa was bad enough 
to be suspended from all U.N. activities for 20 years, 
shouldn't the U.N. General Assembly be doing the same to North 
Korea until the nonproliferation and human rights goals are 
met?
    I would think yes. But what has the U.N. done instead? It 
recently elected North Korea to the executive board of the WHO, 
and in June last year the U.N. permitted North Korea to assume 
presidency of the disarmament conference. This is absolutely 
laughable. If we don't take real action today, I assure you I 
could be invited back to a congressional hearing in 2033, and 
we will be echoing the same old rhetoric. That's 10 more years 
of human suffering in North Korea.
    I'd like to conclude by commending the China Commission 
again for holding today's hearing. Your attention represents a 
beacon of hope for those North Koreans in China desperately 
yearning for freedom. And I thank you so much for that. Thank 
you.
    Chair Smith. Ambassador Lee, thank you so very much for 
your statement and your recommendations.
    I'd like now to yield to Dr. Shin.

 STATEMENT OF ETHAN HEE-SEOK SHIN, LEGAL ANALYST, TRANSITIONAL 
                     JUSTICE WORKING GROUP

    Mr. Shin. Congressman Smith, Senator Merkley, and esteemed 
members of the Congressional-Executive Committee on China, 
thank you for inviting me to speak at today's hearing. Eleven 
years ago, as the members have mentioned, this Commission held 
a hearing on China's repatriation of North Korean refugees. It 
is with a very heavy heart that I note the continuation of 
China's unconscionable policy toward North Korean refugees 
today.
    Last month, the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of 
Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) expressed its concern that 
China ``is a country of destination for trafficking in women 
and girls from North Korea for purposes of sexual exploitation, 
forced marriage, and concubinage'' and that ``North Korean 
women and girls, defectors, are categorically classified as 
`illegal migrants' and some are forcibly returned.'' CEDAW 
recommended that China protect North Korean victims of 
trafficking, to give the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, 
UNHCR, full and unimpeded access, and to allow their children 
to leave China with their mothers.
    Beijing's longstanding policy of repatriation of North 
Korean refugees has resulted in their suffering of crimes 
against humanity in North Korea, as documented by the U.N. 
Commission of Inquiry in 2014. It is difficult to obtain 
accurate information about North Korean escapees in China 
because of Pyongyang and Beijing's deliberate policy of 
information blackout. While it is not impossible to pierce this 
fog of totalitarianism, various measures, accelerated and 
justified during the COVID pandemic, are making it ever more 
difficult to contact or assist North Korean refugees.
    North Korea diverted scarce resources not only for WMD 
development, but also for building a security wall along the 
Chinese border, which is not unlike the Berlin Wall, to 
permanently imprison its own population. One might call it a 
Juche wall. On the Chinese side, the proliferation of CCTVs, 
coupled with AI-based facial recognition and surveillance of 
WeChat devices, first tested in Xinjiang and then expanded to 
China proper, has made North Korean refugees' internal movement 
difficult. The cost of moving within China has skyrocketed as a 
result, and even alternative escape routes to Mongolia have 
resulted in many arrests in Inner Mongolia (Southern Mongolia).
    Since the early 2000s, Beijing's official position has been 
to handle North Koreans in accordance with its domestic law, 
international law, and humanitarian principles. However, 
China's policy fails to meet any of these three purported 
criteria. Article 32 of the PRC constitution provides that the 
PRC may grant asylum to foreigners who request it on political 
grounds. Moreover, Article 46 of the Exit and Entry 
Administration Law, which was enacted in 2012, states that 
foreigners applying for refugee status may, during the 
screening process, stay in China on the strength of temporary 
identity certificates issued by public security organs.
    However, China has failed to institute a screening process 
for North Korean asylum seekers and to provide them with 
temporary identity certificates. China has similarly failed to 
extend national legal protection to ethnic refugees from 
Myanmar. If China cannot respect its own national law, one 
might ask how it can expect to be respected by the rest of the 
international community. China ratified the Refugee Convention 
in 1982, as you know, in response to the influx of Han Chinese 
and other ethnic minorities or refugees from Vietnam and Laos, 
and it has even allowed UNHCR to access asylum seekers from 
Pakistan, Iraq, Somalia, and Eritrea.
    For the North Korean asylum seekers, however, China 
categorically rejects the individualized determination of their 
status, and denies UNHCR access. China also continues forcible 
repatriation of North Korean escapees, who should be protected 
by the principle of non-refoulement, not only under the Refugee 
Convention and its Protocol, but also under the Torture 
Convention, as was highlighted for the first time by the U.N. 
Human Rights Council's North Korean Human Rights Resolution 
this April.
    China has even repatriated South Korean POWs who had 
escaped from North Korea, as in the case of Mr. Han Man-taek in 
2005, contrary to China's legal obligations under the Geneva 
Convention. Beijing cites treaties with Pyongyang to justify 
its policy of deportations, but they cannot overrule human 
rights norms enshrined in the Universal Declaration and human 
rights treaties.
    While Beijing uses the term ``humanitarian principles'' as 
meaningless diplomatic rhetoric, some Chinese people actually 
display humanitarian consideration for North Korean refugees. 
One North Korean escapee recounted that public security agents 
who apprehended her released her because they determined that 
their job was bringing criminals to justice, not arresting and 
deporting innocent women whose only crime was fleeing North 
Korea.
    It is well known that pregnant North Korean women sent back 
to North Korea, and their babies, face abortion or infanticide 
to avoid ``corruption'' of Korean racial purity by Chinese 
blood. I cannot think of any country other than North Korea 
that carries out mass abortions or infanticides on such a 
racist ground. Nor can I think of any country other than China 
that would enable such mass abortions or infanticides against 
``its own blood.''
    China has even ignored UNHCR's proposal in 2004 to create a 
special humanitarian status for North Koreans. In recent years, 
certain localities in China have issued ``resident permits'' to 
North Korean women married to Chinese men. But they are 
primarily a means of control, to enable a systematic monitoring 
of North Korean women with limited freedom of movement locally. 
In short, the existence of North Korean women is tolerated only 
insofar as they serve as wives to sometimes abusive Chinese 
husbands and as mothers to their children, deprived of 
individual freedom or agency.
    Given the dire human rights and humanitarian crisis that 
will unfold in the event of the resumption of forced 
repatriation, the international community must act now to 
pierce the fog of totalitarianism and hold Beijing accountable 
to its domestic law, international law, and humanitarian 
principles. The international community must call upon Beijing 
to release information concerning: 1. the number of North 
Korean detainees that are awaiting deportation to North Korea; 
2. the number of North Koreans who have been issued ``residence 
permits''; 3. the known number of children born between North 
Korean women and Chinese husbands; and 4. the procedure for 
applying for refugee status by North Koreans, if one exists.
    China also needs to end the return of North Korean 
refugees, implement the process for individualized 
determination of status for North Korean asylum seekers, 
provide them with temporary documentation, and permit North 
Korean refugees and their children to resettle in third 
countries, such as South Korea. Concerned governments must make 
recommendations to China during its Universal Periodic Review 
at the Human Rights Council, which is scheduled for next 
January. The international community should also ensure that 
Chinese nationals responsible for North Korea's crimes against 
humanity are documented by the U.N. accountability mechanism 
for North Korea.
    Another option to consider is to expand the High 
Commissioner for Human Rights Office in Seoul, which currently 
only has a mandate over North Korea, into a regional office for 
Northeast Asia, including China, similar to the OHCHR regional 
office for Southeast Asia in Bangkok. The UNHCR also needs to 
speak up for North Korean refugees in China, as it had done up 
to 2013--instead of praising China's Belt and Road Initiatives 
as ``definitely'' helpful with global refugee work.
    Given his extensive experience handling the issue during 
his previous stint as the high commissioner for refugees, U.N. 
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres should lead diplomatic 
efforts with interested states to engage President Xi Jinping 
on this issue. In the summit statement in April, South Korea 
and the United States pledged to strengthen cooperation to 
promote human rights in the DPRK, as well as to resolve the 
issues of abductions, detainees, and unrepatriated prisoners of 
war, and condemn the DPRK's blatant violation of human rights 
and the dignity of its own people in its decision to distribute 
its scarce resources to WMD development.
    In the same vein, the two governments should issue 
bilateral and multilateral statements expressing concern about 
North Korean refugees, including at the U.N. General Assembly 
and Security Council. In addition to Magnitsky sanctions, given 
that North Korean refugees repatriated to North Korea provide 
slave labor that serves Chinese businesses in northeastern 
China, Congress can also consider strengthening existing 
sanctions legislation to require Chinese exporters from this 
area to provide proof that North Korean labor was not involved 
in their supply chains.
    I would like to conclude by conveying a message to the 
Commission from Ms. Kim Jeong-ah, a courageous North Korean 
woman escapee who had to leave behind one daughter in North 
Korea and another in China when fleeing to South Korea. She 
told me to share with you the pain of continuing her human 
rights advocacy despite being diagnosed with liver cirrhosis 
after 14 years of forced separation with her daughter in China 
because of a Chinese man she was forced to marry through human 
trafficking. She says she will continue to struggle because the 
heart-wrenching pain of North Korean women escapees like her is 
not an event from 14 years in the past, but an ongoing ordeal. 
So long as China persists with its policy of repatriation, this 
will continue.
    Thank you and I look forward to your questions.
    Chair Smith. Thank you so very much. We will now turn to 
Ms. Hanna Song.

STATEMENT OF HANNA SONG, DIRECTOR OF INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION, 
         DATABASE CENTER FOR NORTH KOREAN HUMAN RIGHTS

    Ms. Song. Mr. Chair, Mr. Co-chair, esteemed members of the 
Commission, thank you for holding this session today regarding 
the urgent and critical situation faced by North Korean 
refugees in China. Today on behalf of those who cannot be here 
physically today, I hope to shed light and be a voice for the 
thousands of silenced North Koreans who have sought refuge in 
China, only to face unimaginable hardship and persecution.
    I want to begin by sharing the story of Ms. Kim, who my 
organization met just a few weeks ago, who entered South Korea 
in early 2023. She was trafficked into China at the young age 
of 18, after simply wandering into a train station in Chongjin, 
North Korea, looking for her mother who had gone missing. After 
entering a forced marriage to a man decades older than her, for 
over ten years she lived in constant hiding, evading 
authorities and struggling for survival. Tragically, an 
accident exposed her lack of identification, leading to her 
capture by the Chinese public security bureau, and subsequent 
repatriation to North Korea.
    In North Korea, she endured unspeakable torture and 
punishment, was labeled a traitor to the state and sentenced to 
five years in prison. Upon her release in 2019 in North Korea, 
she bravely crossed the border again, this time determined to 
reach South Korea. However, her plans were thwarted by the 
onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving her trapped in China 
for four long years, under increasing surveillance and constant 
fear of recapture, knowing very well what would happen if she 
were to return to North Korea a second time. In 2023, she 
finally found a broker who warned her of impending 
repatriations. Desperate to avoid her previous fate, she took a 
leap of faith, paying a steep price to secure her passage to 
South Korea.
    Ms. Kim's journey embodies the resilience and courage of 
those who strive for freedom against all odds. However, sadly, 
her new beginning in South Korea is not the reality for the 
thousands of North Koreans who are currently detained in 
detention facilities in China. Time is of the essence, and we 
must act swiftly. In China, we believe there are over 10,000 
North Koreans who are residing secretly without legal status or 
protection. They are refugees by the clear definition of the 
1951 Refugee Convention. Their stories are filled with 
unimaginable suffering, and their quest for freedom is both 
courageous and urgent.
    However, the fate that awaits them upon forced repatriation 
to North Korea is beyond comprehension. As was described by my 
fellow witnesses, arbitrary detention, torture, forced labor, 
and even execution are the grim realities that these North 
Koreans face. And the fear they carry is not unfounded. It is 
supported by documented evidence and countless testimonies of 
those who have escaped the clutches of the oppressive North 
Korean regime.
    Shockingly, the Chinese government still determines and 
labels these as illegal economic migrants, and forcibly 
repatriates them under a bilateral border protocol signed with 
North Korea. Our database at NKDB has recorded over 8,125 cases 
of forced repatriation, and over 32,000 cases of other human 
rights violations, such as torture, sexual violence, and 
executions associated with those who have been forcibly 
repatriated.
    And unfortunately, the plight of the North Korean refugees 
is further exacerbated by the threat posed by China's 
surveillance technology. China's increased use of advanced 
surveillance tools, such as facial recognition and biometric 
systems, has become a repressive weapon targeting the most 
vulnerable, an issue that this very Commission has raised in 
the past. And we cannot forget that this includes North Korean 
refugees as well.
    These technologies enable monitoring and trafficking of 
individuals in China, leaving no room for anonymity and 
invisibility, making it increasingly difficult for escapees to 
avoid repatriation. The living conditions of North Korean 
escapees in China during the implementation of China's zero-
COVID policy have been dire. As Ambassador Robert King 
mentioned, before the COVID-19 pandemic, there were around 
1,000 to 2,000 North Korean escapees who would reach South 
Korea every year. However, the combination of China's 
surveillance technology and North Korea's extreme border 
measures, including shoot-on-sight orders and their expanded 
fences, has caused a drastic decline. As was already mentioned, 
only 67 individuals successfully reached South Korea last year. 
Video cameras and facial recognition software have played a 
significant role in suppressing these numbers, making escape an 
almost insurmountable challenge for North Koreans.
    NKDB has recently spoken to many who have revealed a 
distressing reality. Broker fees have skyrocketed. In the past, 
in the early 2000s to 2010s, broker fees were about US$1,500 
Just before the COVID-19 pandemic, $15,000 per person to bring 
a person to freedom. Now, as of early 2023, close to $40,000 
needs to be paid to brokers to allow safe passage. However, 
over the past three years, broker fees have not only 
skyrocketed, but many brokers are scared to put themselves at 
risk.
    We have heard of people offering $75,000 to a broker and 
who were rejected because the broker himself faced security 
concerns. Even brokers face significant obstacles in supporting 
defections from North Korea through China, as China has 
embraced electronic payment systems tied to identification, 
making cash transactions nearly impossible. Meanwhile, the 
proliferation of facial recognition technology, QR codes, and 
China's many surveillance efforts has severely restricted the 
movement of North Koreans.
    The decline in defections is not due to a diminished desire 
among North Koreans to escape this repressive regime. Rather, 
it reflects the mounting difficulties imposed by China's 
pervasive surveillance measures. Regrettably, this situation 
has allowed China to achieve its objective of effectively 
curbing successful defections, further cementing its control. 
As COVID-19 restrictions ease, we have witnessed North Koreans 
in China attempting to defect to South Korea once again, 
seeking that freedom. Tragically, these attempts over the past 
few months have resulted in increased arrests.
    NKDB, over the past few months, has received many accounts 
from North Korean escapees in South Korea, who have shared the 
distressing experiences of their family members who have been 
apprehended and detained in China while attempting to flee 
again. Chinese authorities who had been previously hesitant to 
actively arrest these individuals due to the repatriation 
challenges have now intensified their efforts once again to 
forcibly repatriate them to North Korea.
    The closure of the Chinese/North Korean border due to the 
COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a sharp increase in the 
number of North Korean refugees who have been detained awaiting 
repatriation. If the border were to reopen and forced 
repatriation resumed, a dire humanitarian crisis would unfold. 
Reports from survivors detail horrifying experiences of 
torture, beatings, electric shocks, and sexual violence. These 
acts are designed to instill fear and further subjugate these 
individuals.
    However, without access to firsthand accounts from 
detainees or inside sources, it becomes increasingly 
challenging to see the complete scope of these circumstances 
within which North Korean refugees are being held. To gain 
insight into the situation, NKDB, my organization, has been 
closely monitoring the six established repatriation routes for 
any notable changes, particularly during this COVID-19 
pandemic.
    There are six known detention facilities that are run by 
the Public Security Border Defense Corps on the Chinese side of 
the border in the cities of Dandong, Tonghua, Changbai, 
Longjing, Tumen, and Helong, where North Koreans are detained 
before repatriation. Examination of satellite imagery provided 
by NK Pro, based in South Korea, based on information provided 
by NKDB, reveals significant developments at the facility, 
particularly in Helong, which we can see behind me today. 
Helong is known for repatriating North Korean refugees to Musan 
in North Hamgyong province.
    What we can see here in these two images is one from 2019, 
before the pandemic, and the second one reveals construction 
after the COVID-19 pandemic. We can see new fencing and 
additional facilities surrounding a watchtower overlooking the 
border. Furthermore, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 
the summer of 2021, new buildings were erected within the 
premises of the detention centers, as well as the renovation of 
the existing new building, which we can see by the change in 
the roof's tiles in the images behind me.
    These observations raise compelling questions. Why did they 
need to build and expand these detention facilities in the 
first place? And who was mobilized to construct these 
facilities? The inability to directly answer essential 
questions about the detention facilities in China is deeply 
troubling. In the past, NKDB and other organizations have had 
access to North Korean escapees who have shared their harrowing 
experiences and bravely shed light on the human rights 
violations, as well as the facilities in China. However, the 
current lack of access hampers our ability to fully comprehend 
the conditions within these facilities.
    This knowledge gap poses significant concerns. It allows 
for impunity, an increase in human rights violations, and a 
lack of accountability. When we cannot fully investigate and 
understand the operations and practices within these detention 
facilities, perpetrators of human rights violations are 
emboldened. The absence of external scrutiny enables violations 
to occur without consequences, perpetuating a climate of 
unchecked mistreatment, and further eroding the rights and 
dignity of individuals.
    The lack of transparency and accountability undermines the 
principles of justice and human rights. Just across from the 
facility that we can see in these images lies Musan County, a 
border town housing one of North Korea's largest iron mines. 
When North Korea reopens its border with China, Beijing is 
expected to repatriate these North Korean escapees back to 
North Korea, where they will be forced to endure forced labor.
    The eyes of the world at this moment are fixed on the 
highly anticipated opening of the North Korean/Chinese border. 
This not only impacts trade and economic exchanges, but also 
presents a unique opportunity to prevent North Koreans from, 
once again, being isolated from the rest of the world. North 
Korea, as we know, is the most isolated country in the world. 
And COVID-19 did more damage to the North Korean people than 
any sanctions could ever do.
    However, amidst this anticipation, we must not overlook the 
fate of those currently detained at the border who anxiously 
await repatriation. These individuals have risked everything to 
escape an oppressive regime. They have found themselves in a 
precarious situation. The fear of being forcibly returned to 
North Korea, where they face severe punishment and persecution, 
weighs heavily on their hearts, as they've been detained for 
close to three years.
    I want to echo the recommendations that my fellow witnesses 
have mentioned ahead of me. It is imperative that the United 
States Government and the international community take every 
possible measure to prevent the forced repatriation of North 
Korean refugees and provide them with the necessary protection. 
Robust diplomatic efforts are imperative to urge China to 
refrain from forcibly repatriating these vulnerable 
individuals. And we strongly recommend facilitating the safe 
passage of North Korean refugees to South Korea, to the U.S., 
and other third countries.
    There have been instances in the past where North Korean 
refugees have been brought directly from China on commercial 
airlines through clandestine efforts by the South Korean 
government. This can be done again. We call upon China to grant 
the Red Cross access to detention facilities, as well as the 
UNHCR, who must be empowered to exercise their mandate. The 
lives of these individuals hang in the balance. They have 
endured unimaginable suffering and live in constant fear. As a 
global community, we bear the responsibility to protect and 
support those who have risked everything in their pursuit of 
freedom.
    I thank the Commission again for bringing light to the 
issue. And I believe that we can create a future where no North 
Korean refugee is left behind. Thank you, again.
    Chair Smith. Ms. Song, thank you so very much for your 
testimony. Thank you for bringing that satellite imagery, which 
shows a buildup, not a builddown, towards more incarceration 
and abuse. So thank you for that, and all of your comments 
today.
    I have a number of questions. I'll start off with a few, 
then yield to my colleagues. And then if we can, we'll have a 
second round to go into some further issues. You know, one 
thing that troubles me deeply, and from your testimony I know 
it troubles all of you, is this lack of action. Why the 
inaction? Is the United States doing enough? Is South Korea 
doing enough? And maybe, above all, is the United Nations doing 
enough, because it does have the responsibility? As you pointed 
out, Ambassador Lee, in your comments, the U.N. has failed to 
follow up.
    Their 2014 U.N. Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in 
the Democratic Republic of Korea identified the state's 
systematic and widespread crimes against humanity, including 
forced labor, forced abortion, infanticide, public execution, a 
massive gulag system, and overseas abductions. And you pointed 
out that the predicament of the North Korean escapees in China 
was also highlighted in that report, accusing China of aiding 
and abetting crimes against humanity. OK, it's all there. Good 
statement. We had hearings about it. We asked that it be 
implemented. And, as Ambassador Lee pointed out, the U.N. has 
failed to follow up.
    Why this lack of concern? And, as a matter of fact, we seem 
to be going in the wrong direction at the U.N. As you pointed 
out, Ambassador Lee, when the North Korean government gets a 
slot on the WHO, on the executive committee, and serve as 
president last year of the Disarmament Conference--I mean, that 
is, like, the theater of the absurd to be doing that. You don't 
stand up to human rights abuse by enabling the abuser. You just 
don't do it. It doesn't work. It never has worked. And I think 
your comment about apartheid--and I was here in 1980, and '81, 
'82, and when we did sanctions against apartheid. And it was 
right that we did sanctions. And the U.N. was all-in on that. 
So I think your point, Ambassador Lee, about the U.N. 
credentials, is a very significant recommendation. And 
hopefully we can follow up on it.
    But your point about the Beijing office of UNHCR not doing 
enough--it does start at the top. And I would hope that in 
Geneva and New York there would be a pivot--really this is an 
opportunity. This is all imminent. It's going to happen any day 
now, any week now. And this crisis could be averted if the 
U.N., I think, could be very robust. So why aren't we doing 
enough?
    Let me just state parenthetically too, that in the past 
there was criticism leveled by Andrew Natsios, you remember, in 
2014. He used to be the head of USAID and also ran a human 
rights organization dedicated to North Korea. And he made the 
point, Why did we separate human rights from the nuclear talks? 
You know, when they failed and burned out, yes, Ambassador King 
did yeoman's work. But he's one man. There should be a whole-
of-government approach so that every time we talk to the North 
Koreans, human rights is there at the table as well, so that 
hopefully we get some amelioration of these abuses.
    Without objection, all of your full statements--I know Dr. 
Shin, you had 16 pages--single-spaced. All of you spent a great 
deal of time putting together very, very good and excellent 
testimony--will be made a part of the record. You point out, 
the legal tools are there for the UNHCR to do more for the 
North Korean defectors. Why aren't they doing it? And why 
aren't we doing more?
    Ambassador King.
    Ambassador King. We can always do more. And we should be 
doing more. One of the problems the United Nations encounters 
is that there are a lot of countries who have similar problems. 
One of the reasons why it was much easier to make progress on 
South Africa, is there were a number of African countries who 
had recently become members of the United Nations who were 
concerned about what was happening in South Africa. 
Unfortunately, we don't have that same numerical advantage in 
terms of dealing with North Korea.
    One of the things that I think we need to be careful of is 
that this isn't going to be a quick thing. It's going to take 
time. We have made progress. We've created--there's a special 
rapporteur that the United Nations established, who reports to 
the U.N. Human Rights Council, reports to the General Assembly 
once a year, to both bodies. Issues are raised. The North 
Koreans are called on the carpet.
    We're not moving troops to North Korea to solve the 
problem, but we are putting pressure on North Korea, and the 
thing that we need to keep in mind is that we've got to keep 
the pressure consistent. We've got to keep it up. We've got to 
continue. It isn't going to happen overnight but we make 
progress eventually.
    The North Koreans, who have been reluctant to allow any 
U.N. officials to come to North Korea, actually allowed the 
Special Rapporteur on persons with disabilities to come to 
North Korea to see what they've done and the North Koreans, in 
the disability area, have made progress.
    They haven't made the progress that they ought to make on 
human rights. But we can't give up. We've got to keep pushing, 
and I think the important thing here is that we've got to 
continue, keep it up, continue to press and continue to do, and 
eventually I'm hopeful that we'll be able to find some 
progress.
    Chair Smith. Ambassador Lee.
    Ambassador Lee. Yes. I mean, it's such an important 
question that you raise, Chairman Smith. The problem with North 
Korea is that the world is not doing enough because the world 
does not know enough about what is going on in that country.
    When it comes to, for example, famine in Africa or a 
refugee crisis in the Middle East, we have vivid visual 
pictures like documentaries, photos. Journalists are allowed to 
go in so we have pictures of little babies with their bellies 
bloated from hunger, dying in the arms of their mother.
    So we have these pictures, but we don't have any of that 
when it comes to North Korea because North Korea is the most 
closed-off, cocooned society in the world, period. So it's 
very, very important that we continue to make progress and we 
continue to make efforts to get as much information as possible 
into that country and out of that country. And I'm really 
hoping that we'll have drones sophisticated enough, not just 
for military uses--you know, Hanna showed the satellite images, 
but I hope that eventually we'll have much clearer images of 
what is going on in these political prison camps.
    That's one of the reasons--I mean, to answer your question 
as to why we aren't doing enough--it's probably because, in 
general, a lot of people just don't know what's going on. I 
mean, what is the image of a North Korean human rights 
violation that comes to your head? It's very difficult to 
capture an image.
    So I think we have to make every effort to come up with 
something that the world can rally around, to have an iconic 
picture of what North Korean human rights is all about.
    And also we have to name and shame. How many times have 
there been cases of--I mean, it's not just North Korean 
defectors in danger of being repatriated imminently once the 
borders open. It's been happening over three decades--and where 
was the UNHCR every time this has happened?
    So we have to ``call them out''--I mean, certainly China, 
but the UNHCR as well. We also have to put faces to the names--
I think the NKDB does an excellent job--the organization that 
Hanna Song is involved with--of keeping track of all the North 
Korean defectors who found sanctuary in South Korea. But we 
have to put a human picture, a name to every individual who 
suffers and keep monitoring.
    I know that the China Commission is about monitoring, so we 
have to keep monitoring each and every individual and keep 
track of what is happening to these people even when they get 
repatriated back to North Korea.
    So there's a gargantuan task ahead, but we have to make 
these efforts so that their stories will be heard better in the 
world.
    Chair Smith. Thank you, Ambassador.
    Dr. Shin.
    Mr. Shin. Thank you.
    I agree with everything that Ambassador Lee and Ambassador 
King just said. I just want to add that I believe we lost this 
very critical momentum which was built up after the 2014 COI 
report under the previous administrations in both countries 
where these kinds of talks or diplomatic negotiations with 
Pyongyang basically excluded the human rights theme. It 
resulted in not only this loss of momentum but was also this 
big setback for the North Korean human rights movement.
    For example, in South Korea's case we had a couple of North 
Korean defectors who came by sea who were sent back to North 
Korea in November of 2019. I believe that the current 
governments in both countries are more committed to the North 
Korean human rights issues but it will take some time to regain 
this kind of momentum not only at the national level but also, 
for example, at the U.N. Security Council where the public 
discussion of North Korean human rights issues has stopped 
since 2017.
    And I also want to add that there are other countries, for 
example, Mongolia, Vietnam, and Laos, where the few North 
Korean escapees that have somehow made it from China--those 
countries are not necessarily friendly toward the refugees and, 
again, that's another area where the international community, 
perhaps, can redouble diplomatic efforts to make it a more safe 
place for those North Korean refugees.
    Thank you.
    Chair Smith. Ms. Song.
    Ms. Song. Thank you for your question, Chairman.
    I want to echo what Ambassador Lee said--the world doesn't 
do enough because it doesn't know enough. Governments, 
including the U.S., including Canada, the EU, they spend 
millions of dollars tracking naval ships to see if North Korea 
is evading sanctions. How much are they spending on monitoring 
human rights violations?
    Many North Korean institutions are designated by the U.S. 
Government, the EU, and by the U.K. to be perpetrators of human 
rights violations. But are we doing enough in terms of 
monitoring North Korea's violations of human rights as we are 
for weapons development sanctions? I think that is where we can 
start. That is something we can begin to do even today.
    And, secondly, in terms of why the UNHCR is not doing more, 
I think many think that just because of China and North Korea's 
unique diplomatic ties it's easy to not expect China to do 
more.
    However, what we can see--Russia is an interesting example. 
Russia--as we all know at the moment--as we are all following, 
is responsible for some of the most serious war crimes and 
human rights violations this very modern day.
    However, Russia allows UNHCR to have access to North Korean 
refugees who are in the country. There are many overseas 
laborers in Russia who have been dispatched by the North Korean 
government to make a profit for their own regime and many 
choose to escape. Many will leave their logging sites, their 
construction sites, and seek refuge and they seek refuge via 
the UNHCR.
    As we mentioned earlier, about 67 escapees came to South 
Korea last year. The majority of these people were overseas 
laborers. The majority of them did not come directly from North 
Korea or from China but from Russia, the Middle East, and 
African states where they have been working as forced laborers 
and had access to U.N. agencies.
    The U.N. is doing more in other countries. We cannot let 
them just use the excuse that China is a difficult country to 
work with. Russia is a difficult country to work with, yet they 
are doing more there. So that is an example that we can take 
and I hope this Commission can push forward on that as well.
    Chair Smith. Thank you.
    Co-chair Merkley.
    Co-chair Merkley. Thank you, and I wanted to start by 
recognizing that our testimony has established that over 
several decades we've had the same basic conditions, and, 
Ambassador King, you noted your efforts as a special envoy and 
how difficult it was to make progress.
    In 2017, Senator Markey and I went to South Korea. We met 
with refugees, and asked the question, Why is China so 
resistant to facilitating the passage of refugees who come from 
North Korea on to South Korea or to other nations in the 
region?
    The answer we received was this. China is absolutely 
committed to maintaining North Korea as a buffer against the 
West and they fear that if they have a humane refugee policy or 
refugee policy that follows international law, that basically 
North Korea will collapse because the whole elite world in 
North Korea wants to get out of North Korea, wants their 
children to get out of North Korea.
    Is this the right explanation as to why China has been so 
resistant to honoring the Geneva Convention, honoring its own 
law? And if, in fact, that is an accurate assessment, how does 
that affect our strategy in terms of gaining ground on the 
issues we're talking about today?
    Ambassador King.
    Ambassador King. Thank you very much for your question, for 
your comments, and for your interest and concern on this issue.
    I think the Chinese definitely want to have a buffer. 
They're much more comfortable having North Korea immediately on 
their border than having a democratic open society like South 
Korea.
    But I think there are other things as well. I think the 
Chinese are concerned about their own internal situation. That, 
again, is a regime that is very repressive. North Korea is 
worse, and it's hard to find one worse than China but North 
Korea is, and simply allowing the kinds of things that we seek 
in terms of allowing North Koreans to leave, to freely go, to 
be able to make decisions on their own fate is something they 
don't want to allow in their own country.
    So yes, they want a buffer, but also they are concerned 
about the possibility of the example that that might show.
    Co-chair Merkley. So it makes it even harder, another 
example.
    So this brings me, Ambassador Lee, to your commentary about 
the power of the UNHCR and the value or the potential with 
binding arbitration. I had not heard before today's testimony 
about this UNHCR power. `How powerful is this? Do we have a 
strategy in which we could really drive the UNHCR, given the 
difficulty of persuading China to otherwise honor the Geneva 
Convention?
    Ambassador Lee, are you still with us?
    Ambassador Lee. Yes. Thank you. Thank you for your 
question.
    I'm not so sure if we can consider what's available to the 
UNHCR as a powerful tool. What I was saying is, in the case 
that the UNHCR is prevented from doing its job in China, it can 
resort to this binding arbitration, which means that if there's 
a conflict of interest between the Chinese government and the 
UNHCR in the work that the UNHCR is doing in China, within 45 
days it can call for arbitration, and an arbitrator agreed upon 
by both sides will come in and try to resolve the issue.
    But as far as I know--I don't think I'm wrong--that's never 
been the case and, you know, why is then UNHCR not being much 
more proactive or much more progressive in dealing with this 
issue? It's probably because the refugee agency is--you know, 
is concerned that if it really tried to take on the North 
Korean refugee issue that China might just kick them out and 
that is not completely out of the question, knowing what China 
does to any organizations or businesses that do things counter 
to the national interests of China.
    Now, that might not work out but, you know, I'm just very 
disappointed that it's not actually using all the contractual 
legal tools on hand to deal with China simply because China 
doesn't want it to do so.
    Can I just raise the point that you've made about the North 
Korean refugees and China being afraid of a mass exodus and 
that this could create instability even in China.
    There is a case in 2017--I don't know if you're aware of 
this--but The Guardian reported in 2017 that China was secretly 
making plans to have a network of refugee camps along the 880-
mile border with North Korea, you know, in case there were some 
sort of--that there might be a collapse.
    Later on, of course, the Chinese foreign ministry denied 
this. But, you know, there was a leak by internal documentation 
and at that time it was a state-run telecom giant called China 
Mobile that revealed the plan, which was carried by the 
Guardian.
    So China has been thinking about this for many years. So, 
it's not completely out of the question to hope that China 
might come along in setting up some sort of, even temporary 
settlement sanctuaries for the refugees from North Korea.
    Co-chair Merkley. Thank you, Ambassador.
    And you mentioned some other ideas about encouraging China 
to set up a corridor for refugees to Mongolia, Vietnam, Burma, 
Laos, or possibly granting amnesty to illegal aliens and then 
the refugee camps. It is really frustrating that we haven't 
found an effective way to push China.
    And Dr. Shin--and I think I'll stop with this question--in 
terms of the Chinese government's own law to set up a screening 
process for those who assert their desire for asylum--that's 
required, as I understand it, by Chinese law. It's required by 
the refugee convention--as you think about the different tools 
we have and how little effect we've had so far--and I'll extend 
this question to both you and Ms. Song--what is the most 
effective way we can apply pressure?
    Mr. Shin. Thank you for the question, Senator.
    It's obviously not easy to persuade the Chinese government 
on this issue because they view this from a very geopolitical 
point of view--that if they have this kind of change of policy 
it could lead to not only the collapse of the North Korean 
state but also their own regime as well.
    But I think China at least is more amenable to this kind of 
international discourse and pressure than North Korea is, which 
is why we should utilize all available U.N. and other 
diplomatic mechanisms.
    And I will say that, with respect to implementing the 
refugee processing procedure, I think it's important to 
basically tell China also that their take on this issue is 
somewhat driven by paranoia as well--that there is historical 
precedent back in 1989, when the collapse of East Germany 
basically happened--when Hungary, which was ruled by a 
communist but reformist government at the time, opened its 
borders with Austria and allowed hundreds of thousands of East 
Germans to exit to West Germany through this corridor.
    And that's the kind of fear I understand that China has, 
which might have made more sense in the 1990s. But at present I 
think that many U.N. officials, too, consider that that kind of 
scenario is very unlikely even if China reconsiders and changes 
its policy with respect to North Korean refugees.
    So both putting on this kind of diplomatic pressure and at 
the same time trying to persuade the Beijing government to view 
this issue from a somewhat different--more realistic 
perspective, too, hopefully could lead to a more humane policy 
from Beijing.
    And I think it's important also that we have a consistent 
message on this topic, that we don't--especially now that the 
Chinese and North Korean government may at any moment end the 
border restrictions--that this issue will not be something that 
we will just forget but something that the international 
community will continue to observe and monitor.
    Thank you.
    Co-chair Merkley. Thank you, Dr. Shin.
    Ms. Song.
    Ms. Song. Thank you, Senator.
    To echo what Ethan said in terms of diplomatic pressure, I 
would just like to add another layer of what we can do from the 
bottom up, not just governments but what China can do right now 
and what we have been able to see happening in recent news.
    As we had heard from the statements before, many of the 
women who go to China are trafficked to men from northeastern 
provinces in China who have had difficulty in marrying anybody 
else in China, which is why they will traffic and bring women 
over from North Korea.
    As a result there are many families where the mother or the 
wife is from North Korea and their husbands, when they know 
that their wives are in danger of being repatriated, will 
pressure their local government, local municipalities, local 
governments, to recognize this marital status and to recognize 
the children who are born to the North Korean mother and 
Chinese father.
    Now, this does not mean these women are recognized as 
asylum seekers or recognized as refugees, but it's a start. 
They have limited--very limited, but they do have some type of 
identification, some type of rights to stay at least within 
China and that's where we can at least protect those who are in 
China at this very moment.
    This doesn't, of course, address the issue of those who are 
detained at the border at this very moment. But what we can 
begin with is looking at ways in which we can engage with and 
persuade the Chinese government to provide protection measures 
to the many women who are in China because they are married to 
their own Chinese citizens and are mothers to their own Chinese 
youth as well.
    Co-chair Merkley. So Ms. Song, I had heard a lot about 
women who tried to escape North Korea being married off to 
farmers. I hadn't heard about trafficking that involved some 
other form of pulling women out of North Korea for the purpose 
of marrying them.
    Am I understanding from your description that that also 
takes place?
    Ms. Song. Often the farmers--not all men in these rural 
areas will be looking for a spouse--but often they know that 
their chances increase if it is somebody from North Korea 
because the prices are lower as well and so they will ask the 
broker to find them a wife and then the broker will often bring 
somebody from North Korea.
    Co-chair Merkley. Thank you.
    Chair Smith. Commissioner Wild.
    Representative Wild. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, 
Senator Merkley, for convening this important hearing.
    The testimony has made it clear that this is a tragic and 
enormous problem, which doesn't in any way suggest that the 
U.S. and international organizations shouldn't be tackling it, 
but it certainly is a very difficult one to tackle and I 
appreciate the very succinct and specific recommendations that 
we've heard today.
    Let me just start with you, Ms. Song. I'm curious about the 
fact that nearly three-quarters of the escapees from North 
Korea are women. Why--and, by the way, I had to step out 
briefly. I'm sorry if I missed the reason for that. But could 
you just enlighten me?
    Ms. Song. Representative Wild, there are two factors that 
we can consider as to why the majority of the escapees are 
women.
    Firstly, it's an internal factor in North Korea wherein 
women have relatively more freedom of movement compared to the 
men. Despite the fact that the men are not compensated for 
their work, they are still expected to report to their 
factories, their workplace, every day.
    On the other hand, women are given the work status of being 
a housewife and they use that to their advantage by being able 
to travel to different provinces and that is how North Korea, 
in fact, has been able to survive despite the Great Famine in 
the late 1990s and early 2000s. It was the women who went to 
the markets. It was the women who went to China, smuggled 
goods, and were able to keep the economy alive.
    At the same time, it's also the women who are vulnerable to 
being trafficked to China because of the pull factor from 
China, as I mentioned to Senator Merkley before.
    Representative Wild. Well, and I was going to get to that. 
I was just curious about why so many more women than men. Do 
these women generally travel in groups, or individually, when 
they are attempting to escape?
    Ms. Song. Mostly individually, because if they are caught 
as a group it is very clear that they are trying to escape the 
country. And if there is more evidence that they are trying to 
escape their country, then they are labeled a political 
criminal.
    But if they are traveling as an individual they--before 
COVID, of course, they could bribe the state officials, 
convince them by saying, Oh, I was just going to China to do 
some trade. I was going to come back, and in that case it would 
be seen as an economic crime, which is seen to be less severe 
than political crime.
    Representative Wild. And so the subject that you brought up 
of women being brokered, I guess, to marry farmers and other 
men in China, is that sometimes presented as an alternative to 
incarceration for them if they are caught as escapees?
    Ms. Song. There are a few cases in which the North Korean 
officials sell these women to Chinese men. It's often that they 
are middlemen from the Korean-Chinese ethnic group who are 
brokering them.
    Representative Wild. I really meant on the Chinese end of 
things, is that something that's offered--offered is a bad 
word--as an alternative to being imprisoned or is that strictly 
something that happens on the black-market level?
    Ms. Song. I think they are separate issues.
    Representative Wild. Okay.
    Ms. Song. But there are cases in which, if a North Korean 
woman is married to a Chinese man, he can use his network in 
China to be able to prevent his wife from being incarcerated 
and sent back to North Korea.
    Representative Wild. Okay. Thank you very much.
    And so to the group at large and particularly Mr. Shin, 
maybe you could lead on this--are there recommendations for the 
international community to formulate a gender-based approach to 
this huge problem?
    Mr. Shin. Thank you, Congresswoman.
    That's, I think, definitely a relevant point and I just 
wanted to add to what Hanna said earlier that it's a sad fact 
of life for most North Koreans that the only way that they can 
escape from the country is through this kind of trafficking 
unless you're a very rich person in North Korea, and that also 
kind of accounts for why there are so many more women refugees 
than men refugees--very different from other refugee 
situations.
    Representative Wild. And I'm sorry for interrupting. But if 
you happen to be a very wealthy person who wants to leave North 
Korea, do you still have to escape or are there semi-legal 
methods of doing so?
    Mr. Shin. You can win permits from the North Korean 
government through official channels but it's more likely that 
they will be using this under--well, black-market channels 
because the North Korean government keeps a very close tab on 
its citizens if they want to leave the country. They don't 
usually allow it for the typical reasons that we would consider 
legitimate.
    Representative Wild. Thank you. Okay. Sorry for 
interrupting. Is there something you would recommend that could 
be gender based? And I'll ask the others if anybody has 
anything to offer on that after Mr. Shin.
    Mr. Shin. Sure. Just following up on the recommendation 
from CEDAW that these women should be recognized by the Chinese 
government in many cases as victims of trafficking and that 
they should be accorded protection under the Palermo Protocol, 
the treaty concerning human trafficking.
    NGOs are somewhat cautious about this way we approach the 
issue as a simple, straightforward trafficking one because, 
ironically, the North Korean government and also the Chinese 
government have been very active in rounding up the human 
traffickers and their rationale is that these brokers are 
traffickers and--which is partly true, but they're not really 
as interested in protecting these trafficked women and girls as 
they are in using this as a legitimate tool to clamp down on 
the movement of people from North Korea to China.
    So basically we would recommend that while China, or North 
Korea even, claims to enforce the trafficking law, you should 
take into consideration this kind of very gendered aspect of 
the refugee flow.
    Representative Wild. And Ambassador King or Ambassador Lee, 
do either of you want to respond in any way as to whether there 
should be a gender-based approach to this?
    Ambassador Lee. Yes. The numbers speak for themselves. It's 
well known that a very high percentage, over 80 percent of the 
refugees, are women. But I wouldn't stop at just taking a 
gender-based approach to the North Korean refugee crisis in 
China.
    There's also a religion-based approach that should be 
taken, and a children-based approach, also. I think it has to 
be multifaceted. The children issue--there's a very well-known 
NGO activist in South Korea by the name of Tim Peters, who 
works on these children born of mixed marriage in China and the 
number is quite staggering. I mean, he quotes as many as 40,000 
to 50,000 kids in China who just roam the streets and try to 
make a living in China. So, certainly gender, but also 
religion, and also children-based approaches are necessary.
    And if I may take the opportunity to go back to one 
aspect--a question that was raised by Co-chair Merkley in terms 
of taking action, doing something about it.
    When I became the human rights ambassador in 2013, one of 
the first things I did was to make a CD and write letters to 
almost 30 celebrities in Hollywood, trying to reach out to them 
to--you know, hoping that they would take on the North Korean 
human rights issue.
    But, unfortunately, I did not get any response from any of 
them, and these were all very famous people that I wrote to, 
like Angelina Jolie and George Clooney, Oprah Winfrey.
    I know that CECC is a very influential organization of the 
Congress. I think it really would be a huge help to get some of 
the celebrities or athletes on board to take on the North 
Korean human rights issue--the refugee issue in China.
    We've had limited--I know Ambassador Bob King tried to do 
this. But if the Congress can get on board and really find some 
celebrities to take this issue on, I think it will be a huge 
event--a huge plus for the campaign.
    Representative Wild. Thank you. That actually leads to 
another question that I have. But I would like to ask, if you 
don't mind, can you forward this Commission a copy of the 
letter that you sent to these celebrities so that we can review 
it and perhaps formulate our own letter and attach yours? 
Because I think that's very, very important.
    It does lead to the question that I had about the overall 
international community's approach to this situation and 
whether it should be a high-profile approach or a behind-the-
scenes approach. And I guess I don't really understand whether 
high-level pressure, celebrity pressure, and that kind of thing 
has any kind of impact on the president and other leaders in 
North Korea.
    Can you just tell me that first? Or are they oblivious to 
high-level celebrity pressure?
    Ambassador King. North Korean leaders are oblivious to 
everything.
    Representative Wild. Okay. Thank you, Ambassador King.
    Ambassador King. High-level celebrities, Clooney, Oprah--
won't make any difference.
    Representative Wild. It won't make a difference.
    Ambassador King. And that's largely because they're so 
isolated, insulated from any pressure from their own people or 
anyone else. They do feel some pressure from the Chinese, to 
some extent from the Russians. They feel some pressure from the 
United Nations. But this is a regime that is so totalitarian 
that they are really----
    Representative Wild. Although, as we have seen, they are 
responsive to flattery by certain--by a certain United States 
president and who seemed to revel in that, correct?
    Ambassador King. Yes. They revel in it, but it doesn't last 
very long.
    Representative Wild. Okay. So I wanted to--I was intrigued 
by Ambassador Lee's recommendation about launching an 
international campaign similar to the one that was done with 
South Africa, and I'd be curious--perhaps, Ambassador Lee, you 
could answer this first--but I'd be curious to hear from any of 
you--what would a first step be to do something like what was 
done with South Africa?
    Ambassador Lee. Yes. Well, I think we have to first 
understand the U.N. General Assembly procedures, because when 
that happened in 1974, of course, the president of the U.N. 
General Assembly took the initiative and then later on there 
was a vote at the General Assembly.
    The thing is, this is not an expulsion. There is a specific 
article that deals with expulsions but, you know, that's more 
of a U.N. Charter case, and in such a case the Security Council 
has a say--which means that it's just not going to work because 
of China and Russia.
    But in the case of 1974 South Africa, you know, it happened 
within the General Assembly. That's what gives me hope that it 
might be possible without the interference of the Security 
Council.
    So I think we have to see who the members of the 
Credentials Committee are and make some diplomatic approaches 
to the president of the General Assembly and proceed as such.
    Now, it may not work. But, you know, just the fact that 
these sorts of efforts are being made is huge pressure on the 
DPRK to get its act straight.
    Now you were earlier wondering, you know, does it really 
matter? I think it does because when the COI report came out 
and particularly recommending that the North Korean 
perpetrators--the human rights issue be referred by the 
Security Council to the International Criminal Court--North 
Korea responded very, very sensitively.
    So they don't like the international community finding out 
about all the human rights violations that are going on in 
North Korea. So if some of the very high-profile celebrities 
start talking about human rights abuses and situations in North 
Korea, I think it would matter.
    Representative Wild. And who should the person or group of 
persons be who would approach the U.N. General Assembly, the 
credentials committee? Who would you recommend that be?
    Ambassador Lee. I think it has to be done at the 
governmental level. So there has to be some coordination 
between the U.S. and South Korean governments. But, you know, 
I'm not speaking as a government official. It's just my 
personal idea. So please don't consider this in any way as a--
--
    Representative Wild. No, I understand. I just find it to be 
an intriguing idea.
    And Ambassador King, do you, with your many years of 
experience with North Korea, think that that is a reasonable 
approach? Is that a good approach? The reason I'm asking is 
because what I'm hearing is that, while they may be sensitive 
to criticism, since they don't really have any feedback or 
repercussions from their own citizens, it's very hard to 
penetrate a government like that and to effectuate any kind of 
change.
    Do you have any thoughts on what a first step would be to--
--
    Ambassador King. You know, the North Koreans are sensitive 
to international pressure. When North Korea looks bad 
internationally they are concerned about that fact. That 
happened when the Commission of Inquiry report was published in 
the Human Rights Council in 2014.
    The North Koreans were suddenly--the foreign minister, for 
example, who had not attended the New York September meetings 
where all of the high-level officials attend; for the first 
time in 14 years the North Korean foreign minister showed up. 
So there is an effect. One of the things that has been very 
positive in terms of putting pressure on North Korea is 
debating North Korea's human rights in the Security Council.
    When the report came out from the Commission of Inquiry, 
the issue was taken up in the Security Council. At the time the 
United States worked cooperatively with other countries. The 
Security Council does not take action unless all five permanent 
members agree. But you can have a discussion as long as you 
have a majority of nine members of the Security Council calling 
for a discussion.
    And so we had a program going of annual discussions of 
North Korea's human rights problems at the Security Council. 
This raised it to the level of--it's not just something we're 
dealing with in this organization that deals with human rights. 
It's something the Security Council is concerned about and 
talks about.
    Representative Wild. And which countries does North Korea 
most worry about being influenced by this negative publicity 
about their human rights abuses? I mean, China, obviously, but 
who else?
    Ambassador King. China and Russia, but they're not going to 
object.
    Representative Wild. Right.
    Ambassador King. They're not going to be a problem. But 
basically the good countries of the world. They want respect 
from----
    Representative Wild. Okay. So is it a matter of respect 
mostly?
    Ambassador King. Part of it is respect. The North Koreans 
are sensitive about their stature. North Korea has some real 
questions about its legitimacy. There is a Korea and there's a 
sense that there's one Korea, and when you look at North Korea 
and it's being discussed in the Security Council and they're 
having votes against North Korea because of its human rights, 
it questions the legitimacy of the North Korean government and 
so there's value in continuing to do this.
    This is one reason why the Security Council debate was 
important and why it was very unfortunate that the United 
States has stepped in two or three times to block that from 
happening.
    We're back on track now. It's taking place. We need to 
continue this effort of questioning the credentials of the 
North Koreans, and that is the way to put pressure on them.
    Representative Wild. I've gone way over my allotted time 
but let me just ask Mr. Shin and Ms. Song, do either of you 
want to add anything else to any of the prior discussion in 
response to my questions?
    Mr. Shin. Thank you, Congresswoman.
    I think I definitely agree with everything that has been 
discussed thus far and I also want to add that--given the 
difficulty the Security Council has had in reaching any 
agreement about North Korea these days, perhaps the General 
Assembly is also an important forum, as was the case with 
Ukraine and other countries' situations.
    And I just also want to add that, since we are at the CECC 
meeting here, China's responsibility--that's one aspect that 
has not been fully or adequately raised over the past few 
years.
    It has been raised in the COI report, for example, but it 
hasn't--even the NGOs, quite frankly, have not really focused 
on the role that China has been playing and I think it's 
important to hold China accountable for what's happening in 
North Korea because at the end of the day, they are the 
enabler, and it's also important for the reason that Xi Jinping 
probably cares more about these kinds of international 
repercussions than Kim Jong-un would. So----
    Representative Wild. So it's an indirect effect.
    And Ms. Song, did you want to say anything?
    Ms. Song. Yes. The only other thing I would add to what has 
been already mentioned in terms of the launching of an 
international campaign is that we shouldn't just be thinking 
about what the North Korean leadership thinks of having an 
international campaign but what the North Korean people would 
react to.
    One of the reasons why the North Korean human rights issue 
hasn't had as much attention despite the fact that it's been 
going on for 25, 30 years in which NGOs have been continuously 
coming to the Hill, going to the U.N., raising this issue is, 
unfortunately, even many North Korean escapees who live in 
South Korea and the U.S. are still afraid to speak out.
    They're afraid of the repercussions that their family would 
face but also afraid that they will be shunned, locked away, 
and not given the recognition that they need. So having more 
North Korean voices at the table I think is crucial.
    Having the recognition that many other vulnerable and 
minority groups have, being heard by the international 
community, is such a source of strength which I think would 
allow us to have more information and know more about this very 
isolated country.
    Representative Wild. Thank you very much. That's a really 
important point. They certainly deserve to know of our support 
and our condemnation of the actions of China, which is most 
relevant, of course, to this Commission.
    I thank you all for a really excellent presentation. With 
that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    Chair Smith. Thank you very much, Ms. Wild.
    Without objection we will have three written submissions--
from Greg Scarlatiou, Suzanne Scholte, and Joanna Hosaniak. 
Without objection they will be made a part of the record.
    And before I go to just a couple of final questions I 
especially want to thank--we have an amazing group of people 
who staff the China Commission, just an amazing group that are 
scholars, who do the due diligence, the hard work of knowing 
what is really going on and rejecting surface appeal 
argumentation--they go far beyond that. So I want to thank them 
for their help with not just this hearing but with all the work 
we do.
    I especially want to thank Jungahn Kim, who's our special 
advisor, a fellow, who did yeoman's work on this hearing but 
also provides the Commission, with just tremendous insight, 
especially as it relates to Korea--North Korea and South--and 
China. I want to thank Piero Tozzi, who's our staff director, 
who just has done a tremendous amount of work, and he speaks 
fluent Chinese so, you know, when we get into discussions, 
particularly with interlocutors who would rather speak Chinese, 
there's Piero, and I sit there, and I have to get translation 
from both--on both sides. I want to thank Matt Squeri, who's 
Senator Merkley's top staffer on the Commission, for his 
tremendous work. And Scott Flipse, who has been with the 
Commission and does tremendous work. As I've pointed out 
before, some of the bills that have become law, including the 
Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, were his idea. So I 
want to thank you all, and I don't want to leave anybody out, 
but we do have a great Commission, group of staffers, and I'm 
just so grateful for the work that they do.
    Just a brief question on the issue of the Security Council. 
We know that South Korea just won a seat as a nonpermanent 
member, 180 votes in their favor out of 192 potential. So it 
was an overwhelming show of support for South Korea.
    And Hwang Joon-kook, the ambassador to the United Nations, 
made a very good statement. He did not mention, but I'm sure he 
will, the North Korea issue as it relates to the forced 
repatriation of people from China.
    But this would seem to me to be a prime opportunity, 
working with the United States, I would hope, and other 
democracies--to ensure that there is robust discussion about 
these individuals--human rights in general, obviously, in North 
Korea but also to really focus on this imminent forced 
repatriation.
    You know, delay is denial for them. If we delay and say 
someday something good might happen there, well, we have 2,000-
plus more victims, some of whom may be executed, tortured, and 
all the other terrible things. So I think we need to be doing 
whatever we can to assist the South Koreans as they assume that 
very important position.
    I also, you know--and perhaps you want to speak to that, 
our distinguished panel--but Assistant Secretary of State for 
East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kritenbrink recently went to 
China. We don't know exactly what was talked about. There were 
some critics, including myself, who wished that he would have, 
given the proximity of his visit to the Tiananmen Square 
massacre remembrance, mentioned something about that. And I 
think when you look to see what they've done in Hong Kong, they 
being Xi Jinping, they actually shut down not only the country 
but even any remembrance, which they claimed didn't happen, you 
know.
    You go on their social media--and I've done it in internet 
cafes in Beijing--and type in Tiananmen Square, Tiananmen 
Square massacre, and you get a bunch of pretty pictures--no 
tanks, no bayonets--and they say nobody died.
    When the Chinese defense minister Chi Haotian came here for 
a visit--he had been operational commander for the Tiananmen 
Square massacre--he was received at the White House by Bill 
Clinton with a 19-gun salute. He should have been sent to The 
Hague for crimes against humanity. He had the audacity to say 
nobody died at Tiananmen Square. Nobody.
    He was asked a question at the Army War College--I put 
together a hearing in two days. We had people who were there 
who told the story about all the death and mayhem and violence 
committed by the People's Liberation Army.
    So the hope is that that would have been raised. But we 
need to direct, I think, our comments and our focus on the 
administration here as well, including Secretary Blinken as 
well as Secretary Kritenbrink, to really raise this issue now, 
this matter of urgency because once these people are returned, 
who knows--God knows what's going to happen to them in terms of 
the violence they will suffer. So there needs to be a sense of 
urgency, which, perhaps, you might want to amplify a bit on 
right now.
    And, finally, I guess I'll just leave it at that and just 
ask if you can answer those or maybe speak about those two 
issues--the Security Council and trying to get our 
administration to do even more right now and to pivot.
    Ambassador King. One of the things that I'm encouraged 
about is that my successor has been nominated by the President, 
has actually had a hearing in the Senate. I'm sorry Senator 
Merkley isn't here. I'd like to see the Senate actually vote on 
that nomination so that she can take her place.
    It is helpful to have a special envoy for North Korea human 
rights issues, and I think it's encouraging that we've got 
that, and I think that's an important step forward. I think 
it's very useful to have discussions like we've had today.
    Thank you for having this session and being able to air 
these issues because I think that makes a big difference in 
terms of raising the level of consciousness here in the United 
States but also in North Korea thanks to Voice of America and 
Radio Free Asia, who are getting the word out on this. Thank 
you for doing that.
    Chair Smith. Ambassador Lee.
    Ambassador Lee. Yes. President Yoon Suk-yeol is very much 
committed to improving the human rights situation in North 
Korea and also raising the issue on a global scale.
    Ambassador Hwang Joon-kook, whom you've mentioned, who is 
South Korea's ambassador to the United Nations, is a very good 
friend of mine and he is also very stout on the human rights 
issue.
    So it's fantastic news that South Korea has just joined the 
Security Council as its nonpermanent member--that's 1 out of 10 
nonpermanent memberships--and I'm sure that we'll make every 
effort to get the North Korean human rights issue back on the 
agenda of the Security Council.
    We have to remember that you have, like, over 10 Security 
Council resolutions and sanctions on North Korea but none of 
them--none of them are on North Korean human rights. They're 
all on North Korean missiles and nuclear tests.
    So I think it's important that the Security Council--as we 
now take a nonpermanent membership--try to bring the human 
rights issue to the fore so that resolutions can be adopted on 
this issue as well.
    Chair Smith. Dr. Shin.
    Mr. Shin. Thank you.
    So, yes, it's really encouraging that South Korea has 
recently been elected to the Security Council for the next two 
years and we, certainly, hope for the resumption of the public 
briefing and discussion of the North Korean human rights 
situation.
    Now, it's probably not going to be easy, given the 
requirement for nine votes from supporting countries for this 
kind of procedural vote, but we hope that these kinds of 
diplomatic efforts will be redoubled. And I think it's also 
interesting that you mentioned the Tiananmen Square incident 
and other Hong Kong issues, and I think we noticed this kind of 
connection between the North Koreans and the refugees in China 
and also the other issues in China during the CEDAW 
discussions. So we hope that that kind of discourse might also 
take place at the U.N. level as well.
    And I hope, as Ambassador King said, that Julie Turner's 
appointment as the special envoy will take place sooner rather 
than later. Thank you.
    Ms. Song. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    As you mentioned, it's very important that the issue of 
North Korean human rights is raised at the Security Council, 
and we hope that South Korea's seat at the table will make that 
more likely.
    But, as you mentioned, I think it would be even more 
important to tie it to the Chinese issue. In the past, there 
have been discussions and advocacy efforts to just raise the 
issue of North Korean human rights at the Security Council. But 
having this transnational element I think would allow more 
international attention to be brought to the issue.
    In terms of what the U.S. Government could do more of, last 
Human Rights Day Secretary of State Antony Blinken designated 
the North Korean border guards to be put on the U.S. sanctions 
list--the Magnitsky-style sanctions. Yet, the public security 
border defense corps on the Chinese side who are also very 
responsible, as we have seen and discussed today, they are not 
being held accountable for their involvement in the 
repatriation of North Koreans.
    So we hope that we'll be able to see more of these 
designations and appointments of all who are involved in the 
human rights violations that are perpetrated against North 
Koreans.
    Chair Smith. If I could just give you the last word on 
this, Hanna Song.
    You had mentioned in your discussion about satellite 
imagery that at least one Chinese detention center had been 
enlarged. I wonder what you think is necessitating that, and if 
you could speak to the issue of the wall that's apparently 
being built. The Guardian and Reuters have both reported on it. 
What does that signal in terms of relations between China and 
North Korea?
    Ms. Song. As I mentioned in my statement, unfortunately 
it's difficult to know exactly what the situation is without 
speaking to those who have either been detained there or have 
passed through. In the past when NKDB has gathered data on 
these six detention facilities, we either did field 
investigations in China itself or were able to speak to former 
officials who worked in the detention facilities or North 
Korean escapees who had been detained there once and were able 
to come safely to South Korea.
    What we can only do at the moment is pose some questions. 
From our understanding from the many testimonies that we've 
gathered from North Korean escapees, they're not subjected to 
forced labor on the Chinese side. They're subjected to forced 
labor on the North Korean side because they're only detained in 
China for a few weeks, the longest a few months, before they 
are forcibly repatriated.
    Now what we're facing is a different issue because some of 
them have been detained there for as long as three years. We 
don't have concrete evidence for this, but this is something 
that we can monitor: Is China now subjecting North Korean 
detainees to forced labor during their long detention within 
these detention facilities?
    I think that is an area in which more investigations need 
to be done either by satellite imagery or, hopefully, we will 
be able to have more access on the ground. That is something 
that NKDB is looking at.
    In terms of the fencing on the Chinese side, that, again, 
shows China's responsibility in preventing and restricting 
North Koreans' freedom of movement and how they should also be 
subject to accountability measures, and not just the DPRK 
government.
    Chair Smith. Thank you.
    Would any of you like to make any final word? Your 
testimony has been outstanding.
    If not, I thank you again for conveying to this Commission 
the wisdom and knowledge that you have certainly well honed, 
and this hearing is now adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 12:18 p.m., the hearing was concluded.]

?













=======================================================================


                         A  P  P  E  N  D  I  X

=======================================================================

                          Prepared Statements

                                ------                                


            Prepared Statement of Ambassador Robert R. King

    The flow of ethnic Koreans back and forth from what is now North 
Korea to adjacent border areas in Northeastern China is a centuries old 
phenomenon. As international boundaries are now configured, North Korea 
has a population of some 25 million people, essentially all of whom are 
ethnic Koreans. The adjacent areas of Northeastern China (the Chinese 
province of Jilin, and to a lesser extent the provinces of Heilongjiang 
and Liaoning) are primarily ethnic Han Chinese, but that area also 
includes a Korean minority population of some 2 million people.
    Historically, there has been a considerable flow of ethnic Koreans 
back and forth between China and northern Korea. From the 1950s to the 
1990s China was undergoing the chaos of the Cultural Revolution, while 
North Korea was relatively stable and more prosperous. There was a 
modest flow of ethnic Koreans from China to North Korea for employment 
during that time. After the breakup of the Soviet Union, assistance for 
North Korea was cut back, and North Korea went through serious economic 
difficulty, particularly in the 1990s with the North Korean famine. At 
that same time, post-Mao China was undertaking significant economic 
reforms, and the Chinese economy was flourishing. Over the last couple 
of decades, many North Koreans have gone to China seeking work.\1\ Many 
have gone with the approval of the North Korean government, but others 
have gone without Pyongyang's sanction.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ See Hazel Smith, ``Explaining North Korean Migration to China'' 
including 11 translated Chinese documents on cross-border migration 
between China and North Korea, The Wilson Center Publication, online at 
https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/explaining-north-korean-
migration-to-china.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    That economically driven population movement of ethnic Koreans is 
still going on in the border areas of China and Korea. During the time 
that I was Special Envoy from 2009-2017, I made a point of visiting 
ethnic Korean areas of Northeastern China to get a feel for what was 
happening in the border area. I found it very interesting that ethnic 
Koreans who were Chinese nationals were getting work permits for 
employment in South Korea. There were direct flights from the largest 
``Korean'' city in China, Yenji in Jilin Province, to Seoul. That 
flight was packed with ethnic Koreans with Chinese nationality and 
passports, but who were working in South Korea.
    I also saw some of this labor flow in the Chinese city of Dandong, 
which is located on the west side of the Yalu River, directly across 
from the North Korean city of Sinuiju. At the train station in Dandong 
rail passenger cars were loaded with travelers going to North Korea. I 
was there just before the Korean autumn harvest holiday of Chuseok, and 
more than a hundred North Korean young women were boarding the train to 
return to their homes in North Korea for the holiday. All were dressed 
in matching clothes. They were apparently working as seamstresses at a 
Chinese clothing factory, but they were clearly North Korean.
    The point I want to make is that historically, culturally, and 
economically for centuries there are and have been extensive ties 
between ethnic Koreans who have lived in Northeastern China with 
Koreans living in the northern part of the Korean Peninsula. Those ties 
continue.

                 North Korean Escapees Go Through China

    In addition to North Koreans who have found employment 
opportunities in China and are working abroad with the knowledge and 
approval of the North Korean government, there is a second group of 
North Koreans who seek employment in China without going through 
official North Korean government channels. There are also North Koreans 
who go without official approval to Northeast China in order to escape 
from the repressive North Korean regime and seek opportunities to live 
and work elsewhere. This third group of North Koreans seek to escape 
the repressive Pyongyang government, and the vast majority seek 
ultimately to resettle in South Korea.
    For Koreans who want to leave North Korea, the easiest and safest 
route out of the North is through China.

      The 160-mile-long Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) boundary 
between North and South Korea is heavily fortified. Tens of thousands 
of troops guard both sides of the border. For North Korean citizens to 
get into the border zone many miles from the actual border requires 
special documentation. Furthermore, getting through the heavily guarded 
DMZ is difficult. An estimated 2 million explosive land mines are 
located in the border zone.

      Exiting through the 10-mile-long Russian-North Korean 
border is also not easy. It is too small a boundary to be significant. 
It is in the remote northeast corner of North Korea, and Russian troops 
guard that border and immediately return escapees they capture to the 
North Korean government.

      Leaving by boat from the east or west coast of North 
Korea is difficult. Coastal areas are closely guarded, access to boats 
is difficult, and naval vessels patrol the sea boundaries.

      The 850-mile border with China includes river boundaries 
and some forested mountainous areas. While this is by far the most 
accessible escape route, it is illegal to leave North Korea, and it is 
also illegal to enter China without proper documentation.

    North Koreans who reach Northeast China are able to find 
assistance, mostly from other Koreans, to help them cross Chinese 
territory from the Northeast corner of the country to the Southwest 
border. They are able surreptitiously to cross into more hospitable 
countries, including Laos, Thailand, and others. From there they are 
able to find help eventually to reach South Korea, the United States or 
European countries. Traveling through more densely populated parts of 
China makes it easier to blend in with crowds and avoid detection. 
Escape is difficult and dangerous, but there has been some success in 
getting out of North Korea and China.

                     The Disruptive Impact of COVID

    The COVID pandemic, however, has changed conditions and made it 
much more difficult for North Koreans to escape the North. In dealing 
with the pandemic, countries around the world have limited travel, 
tightened restrictions on movement, and increased border controls. The 
North Korean government has significantly tightened its already 
strictly guarded borders to prevent the return of potentially infected 
individuals to North Korea. Although tighter border controls due to 
COVID are focused on North Koreans returning illegally from China and 
elsewhere, the tighter border controls and the increased presence of 
North Korean police in border areas have also made it far more 
difficult for escapees to leave the North.
    China has likewise tightened its borders because of COVID, and this 
has made it more difficult than in the past to get into China. 
Furthermore, to prevent internal COVID spread, the Chinese government 
has also made travel inside the country even more difficult and 
restricted than in the past. Getting from the North Korean border to 
the southwest of China has become even more difficult now than it was 
before.
    Statistics show the precipitous decline in the numbers of escapees 
arriving from North Korea who are able to reach South Korea. \2\ The 
total number of escapees arriving in South Korea since counting began 
in the year 2000 has been about 34,000 North Koreans.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \2\ Figures from Republic of Korea, Ministry of Unification, 
``Policy on North Korean Defectors,'' https://www.unikorea.go.kr/
eng_unikorea/relations/statistics/defectors/.

       2011: Highest one-year total was 2,706 escapees
       2012-2016: annual average number of escapees--1,500
       2017-2019: annual average number of escapees--1,100

    The first COVID case was diagnosed in China in November 2019. Since 
that time, the number of North Koreans reaching South Korea has 
plummeted:

       2020: 229 individuals
       2021: 63
       2022: 67
       2023: (partial year--1st quarter) 34

    North Korean escapees going to South Korea are significantly more 
numerous than those going to other countries. By legislation the United 
States has sought to make clear our willingness to welcome North Korean 
escapees to our country. The numbers who have come, however, have been 
modest. The largest number admitted in one year to the United States 
was 12--admitted in 2017 and 2021. North Korean refugees admitted to 
the U.S. number around 200 over the last two decades. \3\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \3\ Robert R. King, ``Number of North Korean Defectors Drops to 
Lowest Level in Two Decades,'' https://www.csis.org/analysis/number-
north-korean-defectors-drops-lowest-level-two-decades
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    About a thousand North Koreans have been admitted to European 
countries in the last two decades, with the largest number going to the 
United Kingdom, which has admitted somewhat over 600. \4\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \4\ Eve Watling, ``Inside London's community of North Korean 
defectors,'' Independent, February 13, 2020, online at https://
www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/photography/north-korea-
defectors-london-traces-left-behind-catherine-hyland-new-malden-
a9333311.html
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

               Chinese Treatment of North Korean Escapees

    Chinese government agencies carefully guard entrance to and exit 
from China. North Koreans who enter China illegally are apprehended and 
imprisoned in China. They are not permitted to leave China, and they 
are handed over to the government of North Korea. \5\ But because of 
COVID restrictions, the North Korean government has apparently only 
accepted a small number of its citizens who have been apprehended by 
Chinese authorities since 2020 when the COVID outbreak began. The 
Chinese have unsuccessfully sought to return these North Korean 
citizens.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \5\ Roberta Cohen, ``China's Forced Repatriation of North Korean 
Refugees Incurs United Nations Censure,'' Brookings, 7 July 2014, 
online at https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/chinas-forced-
repatriation-of-north-korean-refugees-incurs-united-nations-censure/.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    In March of this year, Elizabeth Salmon, the UN Special Rapporteur 
on human rights in North Korea, told the UN Human Rights Council in 
Geneva: ``Due to border closures, over a thousand North Korean escapees 
have been detained in China indefinitely,'' and she added that forcibly 
repatriated individuals are at severe risk of being sent to North 
Korean political prison camps if they are returned to the North. \6\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \6\ ``Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human 
rights in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Elizabeth 
Salmon,'' United Nations Human Rights: Office of the High Commissioner, 
Document A/HRC/52/65.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Since the beginning of the COVID pandemic, however, the North 
Korean government has refused to accept its own citizens back when the 
Chinese government seeks to return them. The Chinese government appears 
to be detaining North Korean citizens who are found in China illegally. 
In July 2021, Human Rights Watch suggested that some 50 refugees were 
repatriated to North Korea by Chinese officials. \7\ This appears to be 
a single instance and not the beginning of a return of all escapees who 
were apprehended in China.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \7\ ``China Restarts Forced Return of Refugees to North Korea,'' 
Human Rights Watch, July 22, 2021, online at https://www.hrw.org/news/
2021/07/22/china-restarts-forced-returns-refugees-north-korea.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    In the various reports on North Korean escapees being detained in 
China, there has been no effort to distinguish between North Koreans 
seeking to leave the North and find refuge in South Korea or elsewhere 
and North Koreans who were seeking economic opportunities in China.
    As the U.S. Special Envoy for North Korean Human Rights, I met with 
Chinese diplomats at the United Nations in New York and others at the 
UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. I also made official visits to China 
on several occasions where I met with officials of the Chinese Foreign 
Ministry and the Chinese Communist Party's International Liaison 
Department to raise United States concerns regarding North Korean 
refugees. The Chinese officials were polite, but they showed no concern 
for the humanitarian impact of Chinese treatment of North Korea 
escapees.
    The Chinese government would not discuss North Korean escapees with 
United Nations officials who were resident in China or who were 
traveling to Beijing from Geneva. UN officials were able to deal with 
Chinese government officials regarding refugees from South Asia and 
Southeast Asia, but Chinese government officials refused to discuss 
North Korean refugees with UN officials.
    Mr. Chairman, I very much appreciate the Congressional-Executive 
Commission's interest and attention to the treatment of North Korean 
refugees by Chinese officials and the humanitarian tragedy that China's 
policy is creating.

                  Prepared Statement of Jung-Hoon Lee

    When the 2012 UNGA resolution (A/RES/66/290) stressed the ``right 
of people to live in freedom and dignity, free from poverty and 
despair,''\1\ it appeared the UN was determined to reach out to the 
most vulnerable in all corners of the world. When it comes to North 
Koreans, this commitment has proven to be more rhetorical than 
substantive. In North Korea, the people's fundamental rights, including 
``freedom from fear and want,'' are systematically trampled. Those who 
manage to escape to China in search of a better life do not fare much 
better. China's discriminatory policy leaves North Korean refugees with 
two choices: forcible repatriation or inhumane treatment in hiding. The 
plight of the North Korean refugees in China stands out as one of the 
most troubling challenges to the UNHCR.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ United Nations General Assembly, Transforming Our World: The 
2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, A/RES/70/1, Resolution adopted 
by the United Nations General Assembly (September 25, 2015).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

              North Korean Refugees in China: An Overview

    In the 1990s, facing severe political persecution and starvation, 
North Koreans fled the country en masse to take refuge in China. Up to 
200,000 North Koreans crossed the border in search of a better 
livelihood. The fortunate few made it out of China to countries like 
Laos, Thailand, and Myanmar before finding safety in South Korea or 
other countries willing to take them in as asylum-seekers. This pattern 
of exodus has continued for nearly three decades. Today, there are 
34,000 defectors living in South Korea. Having peaked in 2009 at 2,914, 
the number has significantly dwindled since 2020 due to COVID-19 border 
shutdown, stringent crackdown by both Chinese and North Korean 
authorities, and the Moon Jae-in government's aversion to addressing 
the defector issue in favor of placating Beijing and Pyongyang.
    When caught, the asylum seekers are forcibly repatriated since 
Beijing considers them ``illegal economic migrants,'' not refugees. 
Those who are returned to North Korea often join 120,000 others in 
gulags (political prison camps). Their lives filled with fear, hunger, 
and persecution are well chronicled by some of the escapees from these 
camps.
    Although the North Korean defectors are recognized as refugees by 
the UN, the Chinese government prevents them from receiving 
international protection and assistance. Without institutional support, 
North Korean refugees struggle not only to find food and livelihood but 
also to avoid capture and repatriation. In the event of repatriation, 
the punishment ranges from torture, incarceration, starvation, and even 
death. The North Korean refugee situation is particularly urgent 
because while the problem continues unabated, international concern 
over the longstanding crisis has weakened due to attention being 
channeled towards North Korea's nuclear and missile threats. Although 
the denuclearization goal remains a compelling responsibility for the 
global community, such goal should not hamper efforts to address North 
Korea's other problem--``crimes against humanity.''

                   The COI Finding and Recommendation

    In February 2014 the UN Commission of Inquiry (COI) on Human Rights 
in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) identified the 
state's systematic and widespread ``crimes against humanity,'' 
including forced labor, forced abortions, infanticide, public 
executions, a massive gulag system, and overseas abductions.\2\ The 
predicament of the North Korean escapees in China was also highlighted, 
accusing China of ``aiding and abetting'' crimes against humanity. By 
forcibly repatriating North Koreans, China was found to be in violation 
of the non refoulement principle. China continues to violate this 
international human rights law which supposedly guarantees that ``no 
one should be returned to a country where they would face torture, 
cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and other 
irreparable harm.'' \3\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \2\ UN Human Rights Council, Report of the Detailed Findings of the 
Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People's 
Republic of Korea (A/HRC/25/CRP.1) (February 2014).
    \3\ OHCHR, https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/Documents/
Issues/Migration/GlobalCompact
Migration/ThePrincipleNon-
RefoulementUnderInternationalHumanRightsLaw.pdf
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Of course the fundamental problem with the North Korean refugees 
begins in their country of origin--North Korea. But China's position on 
interpreting their status as ``illegal economic migrants'' certainly 
compounds the problem.\4\ The Office of the UN High Commissioner for 
Refugees (UNHCR) in China has not helped the situation simply by 
remaining silent despite not having access to these ``migrants.''
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \4\ Human Rights Watch, ``China: Redoubling Crackdowns on Fleeing 
North Koreans.'' (September 3, 2017). https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/09/
03/china-redoubling-crackdowns-fleeing-north-koreans
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The legal tools are there for the UNHCR to do more for the North 
Korean defectors. The UNHCR concluded a bilateral agreement with China 
in 1995 that granted the UNHCR's staff in China unimpeded access to 
refugees within China. Determining who is a refugee requires 
interviewing the prospective asylum-seekers. With China strictly 
preventing UNHCR access to North Koreans near the border, the process 
towards refugee recognition has been completely thwarted. The forcible 
repatriation of North Koreans seeking refuge in China is a blatant 
breach of Beijing's obligations under the 1951 UN Convention Related to 
the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol.
    The 1951 Convention defines a refugee as ``a person who, owing to a 
well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, 
nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political 
opinion, is outside the country of their nationality, and is unable to 
or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to rely on the protection of that 
country, or to return there, for fear of persecution.'' \5\ That's 
North Koreans in China. The fact that North Korean refugees face 
detention, prison terms, torture, or in extreme cases, execution when 
repatriated back to North Korea is sufficient to classify them as 
``asylum-seekers'' or refugees.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \5\ Atle Grahl-Madsen, ``Refugees, UN High Commissioner.'' In 
Rudolf Bernhardt (ed.), Encyclopedia of Public International Law, Vol. 
5 (Amsterdam, 1985), 257.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

       The Causal Link between Songbun System and Refugee Status

    It is true that famine-related economic migrants cannot be 
classified as refugees in the traditional international legal sense. 
But the case of North Koreans is different; the main reason for their 
defection to a foreign country--economic plight--is the political 
outcome of a failed socialist system under totalitarian rule.
    The connection between political power and economic deprivation of 
a large percentage of the North Korean population can be traced to the 
state-sponsored discrimination policy known as songbun. North Korea is 
a society steeped in social stratification based on each individual's 
political-ideological background as determined by the Workers' Party of 
Korea (WPK). All North Korean citizens are classified into either the 
basic class (Kibon-gyech'ung), wavering class (Pokjab-gyech'ung), or 
hostile class (Chokdae-gyech'ung). Songbun is the source of systemic 
discrimination based on the evaluation of a person's religious, 
political, and family background spanning three generations, as well as 
his or her current behavior and perceived loyalty to the state. This 
system underpins the state's socio-economic exclusion policies 
responsible for an inter-generational discriminatory scheme that 
determines who receives what kind of food, healthcare, education, job, 
and even residence.\6\ The songbun class system is strictly enforced by 
North Korea's secret police, the Ministry for Protection of the State 
(Kukga Bowisong), which target the perceived ``enemies of the state'' 
in the lowest songbun class. Those targeted are not only deprived of 
socio-economic opportunities, but often persecuted in the vast network 
of North Korea's detention centers, including political prison camps.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \6\ For a discussion on songbun as a tool of the state, see Greg 
Scarlatoiu, ``Human Security in North Korea,'' International Journal of 
Korean Studies, Vol. 14, No. 2 (Fall 2015), pp. 128-31.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    It is not surprising that most of the victims of the widespread 
famine in the 1990s were those of the low songbun class, as they were 
the first to be cut from the government's public distribution system 
(baegupjedo). The famine led to the exodus of tens of thousands of 
North Koreans, primarily residents of the northernmost areas bordering 
China--North Hamkyong Province in particular. These areas were, and 
still are, largely mining areas, where many people had been sent as a 
form of punishment for their poor songbun background. With 
international humanitarian agencies prevented from reaching out to 
these people, many of them escaped to China as the only means to ensure 
their survival.
    The right to food is one of the most fundamental human rights 
ensured under the existing international laws. Denial of food, 
especially as a weapon of persecution, can therefore substantiate a 
claim to refugee status by those denied. The songbun system thus causes 
repeated attempts to defect, further aggravating the cycle of 
deprivation and persecution. Cognizant of this systemic problem, the 
COI found that there was enough evidence to recognize many North 
Koreans as refugees fleeing persecution or refugees sur place, entitled 
to international protection.\7\ Women, who constitute 70-80% of 
repatriated refugees, are particularly hard-hit as they are subjected 
to trafficking while in China, and to forced abortion, infanticide, and 
sexual abuse upon return.\8\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \7\ UN Human Rights Council, Report of the Detailed Findings of the 
Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People's 
Republic of Korea (A/HRC/25/CRP.1) (February 2014), p. 130.
    \8\ Daye Gang and Joanna Hosaniak, They Only Claim That Things Have 
Changed: Discrimination against Women in the Democratic People's 
Republic of Korea, NKHR Briefing Report No. 8 (Life & Human Rights 
Books, Citizens Alliance for North Korean Human Rights, 2018), pp. 38-
46.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The principle of non-refoulement guarantees that no one should be 
returned to a country where they would face ``torture, cruel, inhuman 
or degrading treatment or punishment and other irreparable harm 
irrespective of their migration status.'' This measure is explicitly 
stipulated in the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman 
or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT), the International 
Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced 
Disappearance (ICPPED), and other international human rights, refugee, 
humanitarian and customary law.\9\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \9\ UN Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees, ``The 
principle of non-refoulement under international human rights law.'' 
https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Migration/Global
CompactMigration/ThePrincipleNon-
RefoulementUnderInternationalHumanRightsLaw.pdf
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

                             Where's UNHCR?

    The UNHCR's lack of access to North Korean refugees is generally 
viewed as the main reason for its ineffectiveness. But in actuality, 
the 1995 agreement between the UNHCR and China gives the UNHCR 
unimpeded access to all refugees within China. Why, then, has the UNHCR 
not done more to help the North Korean refugees? The UNHCR Beijing 
Office is, after all, responsible for determining refugee status in 
China, as well as for providing life-sustaining assistance such as 
accommodation, living allowances and access to basic health care. The 
fact that China permits the presence of the UNHCR office in Beijing 
suggests at least a minimum level of professional partnership. In fact, 
China and the UNHCR have enjoyed a cooperative relationship, for 
example, in working together in the 1980s to support the Vietnamese 
refugees in China. The UNHCR has also provided training for Chinese 
government officials and held joint symposiums to address refugee 
protection issues. Thus, the lack of cooperation on North Korean 
refugees appears to be more an exception than the rule.
    This raises the question why the UNHCR has not been more aggressive 
in obtaining access to interview the escapees. It is also puzzling that 
the UNHCR has never opted to invoke binding arbitration regarding 
China's refusal to allow access to North Korean defectors. Binding 
arbitration in the event of a bilateral dispute is permissible as 
stipulated in the 1995 UNHCR-China agreement. In such a case, China is 
obligated to accept an arbitrator acceptable to both parties within a 
45-day period.
    Clearly, the UNHCR has failed to do its job on the North Korean 
refugee issue. At the very least, the UNHCR should have been more vocal 
in condemning Beijing's refusal to provide legal protection for female 
refugees from being trafficked within China. China, after all, is 
obligated under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of 
Discrimination against Women, adopted by the General Assembly in 
December 1979, and the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish 
Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, adopted by the 
General Assembly in November 2000, to take measures to safeguard 
against the trafficking of women and children inside its own borders.

                         Short-term Suggestions


      Despite its shortcomings, the UNHCR remains the best 
instrument available to deal with the North Korean refugee issue. But 
its presence in China will be ineffective until it begins to assert its 
right to ``binding arbitration'' with China. UNHCR should be pressed to 
do this, especially regarding the current detainees in danger of 
imminent repatriation against their will.

      UNHCR could also convince Beijing to open an official 
corridor--``underground railroad''--through which North Korean refugees 
could pass, escorted by UNHCR officials on their way to Mongolia, 
Vietnam, Myanmar, or Laos.

      Beijing can be persuaded to periodically allow amnesty 
for ``illegal aliens,'' a conduct more becoming of a P5 and an aspiring 
global leader.

      A semblance of a refugee camp or a temporary settlement 
for the escapees to provide a much-needed shield from human rights 
violations would mean a major breakthrough. Considering many refugee 
camps are erected impromptu, establishing one specifically for North 
Korean refugees should not be complicated in practical terms. It's just 
a matter of political will.

             Accountability Requires Strong Political Will


      Reinforce the existing international sanctions by 
addressing loopholes.

      Benchmark international campaign against South Africa's 
apartheid system.

      UNGA Credentials Committee should be prodded to re-
examine the credentials of the DPRK pursuant to its Rule 29. Question 
is: If South Africa was bad enough to be suspended from all UN 
activities for twenty years, shouldn't the UNGA consider doing at least 
the same to North Korea until the nonproliferation and human rights 
goals are met?

      What has the UN done instead? It recently elected North 
Korea to the executive board of the World Health Organization and in 
June 2022 permitted North Korea to assume presidency of the Conference 
on Disarmament. Such display of weakness in not dealing with countries 
like North Korea will only lead to the perpetuation of the human 
suffering in that country.

This text is extracted from the author's original article published as 
``UN's Human Security Challenge: The Plight of North Korean Refugees in 
China'' in the Journal of International Politics, Vol. 25, No. 1 
(Summer 2020), pp. 39-75.
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                 Prepared Statement of Hon. Chris Smith

    Some of you may have crossed the Potomac River to attend this 
hearing today. It flows alongside our nation's capital past many iconic 
landmarks. For those who are currently watching this hearing from South 
Korea, the Han River flowing through Seoul likewise holds tremendous 
historical, cultural, and economic importance.
    However, for many North Koreans who brave the treacherous journey 
across the Yalu and Tumen Rivers--natural borders between North Korea 
and China--those rivers represent only sorrow and terror. These rivers 
have been their only means of escape from the world's cruelest family 
dictatorship, necessitating desperate crossings by small boat, swimming 
directly or walking across frozen waters amid the bitter Korean 
winter--all while knowing that an alert border guard with shoot-to-kill 
orders could end their lives in an instant.
    Even after successfully crossing the Yalu or Tumen Rivers, the 
plight of a North Korean refugee can rapidly take a turn for the worse. 
Startling estimates indicate that up to 80% of female North Korean 
refugees become victims of human traffickers, who exploit them in the 
lucrative sex trade industry. It is believed that this illicit trade 
generates over $105 million annually for North Korean and Chinese 
criminal networks.
    The lucky ones try to remain hidden. According to a recent report 
by Global Rights Compliance, an international human rights law firm, 
there are approximately half a million female North Koreans, some as 
young as 12, hiding in border regions. If they are discovered, they 
face the likelihood of forced repatriation--or to use the technical 
term, ``refoulement''--to North Korea.
    Today's hearing is especially timely because we have good reason to 
believe that such repatriation is imminent, as North Korea reopens its 
border following its extended closure in the wake of the COVID 
pandemic.
    It is reported that approximately 2,000 North Korean refugees are 
awaiting imminent forced repatriation, which would subject them to 
severe human rights violations upon their return to North Korea, some 
of which we will hear about in testimony from our witnesses.
    I shared this deep concern regarding the perilous situation of 
North Korean refugees in China directly with Antonio Guterres, the 
Secretary-General of the United Nations, when he visited my office on 
April 27. I believe that while there are limits to what our government 
and the South Korean government can do to influence Chinese decision 
making in this regard, the UN is well positioned to use its influence, 
given how much the Chinese government seeks validation from, and indeed 
seeks to influence, the United Nations system. So I ask again, 
Secretary-General Guterres, please use your influence to the utmost to 
dissuade the Chinese government from forcibly repatriating these 
refugees.
    It is also extremely important that the United Nations High 
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Filippo Grandi take a more active 
role on behalf of these refugees.
    One of our highly distinguished witnesses today, Ambassador Jung-
Hoon Lee, points out that ``The legal tools are there for the UNHCR to 
do more for the North Korean defectors. The UNHCR concluded a bilateral 
agreement with China in 1995 that granted the UNHCR's staff in China 
unimpeded access to refugees within China. Determining who is a refugee 
requires interviewing the prospective asylum seekers. With China 
strictly preventing UNHCR access to North Koreans near the border, the 
process towards refugee recognition has been completely thwarted. The 
forcible repatriation of North Koreans seeking refuge in China is a 
blatant breach of Beijing's obligations under the 1951 UN Convention 
Related to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol.''
    On May 30, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination 
against Women issued its Findings of their review of China, calling for 
unrestricted access by the UNHCR and relevant humanitarian 
organizations to victims of trafficking from North Korea in China. 
CEDAW has also recommended that China regularize the status of North 
Korean women who face human rights violations such as forced marriage 
and human trafficking, and refrain from cracking down on them due to 
their undocumented status.
    Against this moral pressure, however, are malign incentives--both 
political and economic--for the People's Republic of China to 
repatriate refugees to North Korea. North Korea and its dictator Kim 
Jong Un view those who flee the dictatorship as traitors, which gives 
China a political incentive to placate a Communist ally which remains a 
thorn in the side of the United States and our allies. Economically, a 
written submission for this hearing, which I ask to be entered into the 
record, from Citizens' Alliance for North Korean Human Rights (NKHR), a 
human rights NGO based in Seoul, sheds light on the disturbing economic 
incentives that China has in forcibly repatriating these refugees. 
According to their ongoing investigation, ``There is a high probability 
that a portion of products originating from North Korea but produced 
for Chinese companies have been made in prisons detaining repatriated 
North Korean refugees from China using forced labor and other human 
rights violations.'' This suggests that businesses in China are 
profiting from the exploitation of repatriated North Korean refugees, 
an issue that demands thorough investigation and accountability.
    There is of course a role that both the South Korean government, 
and our government, and indeed Congress and this Commission, can play. 
The CECC does report on the situation of North Korean refugees in China 
in its annual report--and this year the CECC will likely issue a stand-
alone report on the issue--while today's hearing is an example of how 
we can bring attention to this impending humanitarian disaster. I 
myself have chaired seven congressional hearings on North Korean human 
rights, and I have also introduced new legislation--H.R 638, the China 
Trade Relations Act of 2023--that withdraws China's Permanent Normal 
Trade Relations (PNTR) status unless there are substantial and 
sustained improvements in human rights--including how China treats 
refugees within its borders.
    The refugees in question are not mere statistics; they are 
individuals with inherent rights, hopes, dreams, and aspirations. China 
has failed to confront the human traffickers who prey on vulnerable 
North Koreans. If Beijing wishes to be recognized as a true leader in 
the global community, it must not be complicit in the plight of North 
Korean refugees in China who are under imminent danger of repatriation.
    Human rights transcend mere privilege; they are an inherent 
entitlement. We cannot turn a blind eye to China's complicit and 
flagrant violations of human rights.
    I eagerly anticipate exploring further avenues of collaboration--
including with the Government of South Korea--to emphasize the 
significance of this issue as we explore our policy options through our 
witnesses' testimony.
                                 ______
                                 

                Prepared Statement of Hon. Jeff Merkley

    This Commission tries to do its part to shine a light on the plight 
of North Korean refugees in China, with this year marking the 20th year 
that we have dedicated a chapter of our Annual Report to this topic. 
Yet we last held a hearing on this 11 years ago, so this hearing is way 
overdue and thank you for arranging it. In many ways, not much has 
changed. In fact, the announcement for the Commission's first public 
event on North Korean refugees, way back in 2004, included many of the 
same characterizations we'll hear about today: desperate individuals 
fleeing North Korean government persecution and severe food shortages; 
Chinese authorities' willful refusal to assess any of these individuals 
as refugees; stonewalling UN Refugee Agency efforts to help those in 
need.
    Precisely because so little has changed is why we can't avert our 
eyes. Human rights abusers play a waiting game, waiting for the world 
to grow weary, outrage to dissipate, and people to move on. But those 
who are suffering cannot move on. The North Korean and Chinese 
governments are playing the same cynical game, and we can't let them 
off the hook.
    As we'll hear today, the Chinese government has obligations under 
Chinese law, under international law, and under basic humanitarian 
decency to provide individualized determination of the refugee status 
of asylum seekers. Instead, China's approach flouts the principle that 
anyone has the right to seek asylum, treating all North Korean escapees 
as illegal immigrants. If anything, this is backward, and all North 
Koreans who escape to China should be understood to be at risk. The 
2014 UN Commission of Inquiry on human rights in North Korea was clear: 
The forcible repatriation of thousands of North Koreans subjects them 
to crimes against humanity. Just being a North Korean in China means an 
individual would be in grave peril if sent back to North Korea. The UN 
Commission of Inquiry was equally clear about that: China's approach 
violates the international principle of non-refoulement, which is 
supposed to guarantee that nobody will be repatriated to a country 
where they would face torture; cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment; 
and other irreparable harm. Irreparable harm is what awaits the 
vulnerable North Koreans that Chinese authorities plan to send back to 
the gulag.
    Though much has has not changed on this topic over the last two 
decades, we're holding this hearing because of what has changed. COVID-
19 changed much in our world, and the landscape of North Korean 
defection is no different. Border closures and tougher travel 
restrictions on both sides of North Korea's border with China made 
defection more difficult and more expensive. Now, the potential easing 
of North Korea's border closures raises the specter that China will 
again start forcibly repatriating North Koreans. The other thing that 
has changed is the same thing we observe in so many other contexts: 
China's Orwellian surveillance state supercharges its ability to keep 
an eye on the people it seeks to control, including North Korean 
refugees. Vulnerable people facing either repatriation or hiding now 
face a much more difficult task in remaining hidden or in receiving 
help without catching the attention of authorities who wish them ill.
    This all leaves a bleak situation for North Korean refugees in 
China, but those of us fighting for human rights should not shy away 
from the challenge and instead must double our efforts. I look forward 
to our witnesses' counsel on what we can do, and just on a personal 
note, I traveled to South Korea and to the China/North Korea border 
where the three highways exist a few years ago. In South Korea I met 
with refugees, some of whom had swum across the border, some of whom 
had crossed the land border to China, some who had come through the 
Demilitarized Zone. I'll never forget one young woman who had escaped 
only to be returned as a teenager with her father. He faced horrific 
punishment. She faced less harsh punishment but still a very difficult 
course. He encouraged her to escape again, knowing what would happen to 
his family; she actually did succeed, and I think about that father 
trying to get his daughter to freedom knowing the torture that he would 
be facing. We're going to be hearing from you all as experts and I'm so 
glad you've come to share your knowledge, your experiences. Thank you.
                                 ______
                                 

              Prepared Statement of Hon. James P. McGovern

    Good morning. I join my colleagues in welcoming those present to 
today's hearing on the risk of refoulement of North Korean refugees to 
China, in contravention of international law. I regret that I am unable 
to join you in person.
    The mandate of this Commission is to examine grave human rights 
violations committed by the People's Republic of China against its own 
people. But today we are focused on potential rights violations the 
Chinese state may commit against citizens of the Democratic People's 
Republic of Korea, also known as North Korea. The concern is that as 
North Korea relaxes its COVID-era border restrictions, the PRC may 
begin to deport back to the DPRK North Koreans who entered China 
without proper documents, where they could be severely punished, 
tortured or even killed.
    Every country has requirements in place to control who can enter 
its territory. If someone crosses an international border without 
having the required documents in hand, usually a passport and visa or 
work permit, and they are caught, they may face sanctions, including 
deportation. Anyone who enters a country without going through regular 
channels may face this risk, unless they are seeking asylum.
    An asylum seeker is a person who has left their country and is 
seeking protection from persecution and serious human rights violations 
in another country, but who hasn't yet been legally recognized as a 
refugee. Asking for asylum is a human right, and governments are 
obligated under international law to evaluate the situation of each 
person who requests it.
    The issue is that the PRC routinely labels all North Koreans who 
are in its territory without proper documents as ``illegal economic 
migrants.'' As we will hear today, many, maybe even most, may be 
economic migrants. But there's no way to know for sure without looking 
at each person's case. To not allow people from North Korea, a country 
that is infamous for the severity of the human rights abuses it 
commits, to be considered for asylum, is a human rights violation.
    But even if all the North Koreans in China were ``illegal economic 
migrants,'' under international law, the PRC may not repatriate them to 
the DPRK. As a state party to the 1951 Refugee Convention, its 1967 
Protocol, and the UN Convention against Torture, the PRC may not 
forcibly return North Koreans if they would be at risk of persecution 
or torture upon return. As you will hear today, the North Korean 
authorities have criminalized departure from the country without 
permission and there are many credible reports of the serious 
mistreatment to which returnees are subjected. For the PRC to forcibly 
return people to the DPRK, knowingly placing their well-being and even 
their lives at risk, violates human rights as well as basic principles 
of human decency.
    This problem is not new. The same alarm was raised when news broke 
of the detention and possible deportation of North Koreans by the PRC 
in 2017 and in 2021. As we will also hear today, the problem is not 
limited to China; Russia engages in the same practice. So what can be 
done?
    First, the Senate can approve the Administration's nomination of 
Julie Turner to serve as Special Envoy on North Korean Human Rights 
Issues, a position that was vacant throughout the Trump Administration. 
I was glad to see that Ms. Turner's nomination was placed on the Senate 
calendar on June 1.
    Second, according to the information that is available to us, many 
North Koreans who enter China without documents are seeking to transit 
through to other countries. The U.S. should encourage the PRC to either 
provide them asylum or give them safe passage to South Korea or another 
safe third country.
    Third, the option for North Korean refugees to resettle in the 
United States should remain available. Even though the numbers are 
small, the door must remain open.
    Fourth, the Administration should continue to encourage and support 
the International Red Cross and the UN refugee agency in their efforts 
to track what is happening to North Koreans in China, Russia, and 
elsewhere, and to persuade governments to never forcibly return them to 
the DPRK.
    I expect today's witnesses will have additional recommendations. I 
am especially interested in how to protect the well-being of the North 
Koreans who are victims of this situation--unable to survive in their 
country of birth, and unable to reach safety. They should be the focus 
of our concern.
    Finally, as a strong believer in the human right to food, I thank 
Jung-Hoon Lee, one of today's witnesses, for recognizing that ``The 
right to food is one of the most fundamental human rights ensured under 
the existing international laws. Denial of food, especially as a weapon 
of persecution, can therefore substantiate a claim to refugee status by 
those denied.''
    Thank you.
                                ------                                


                       Submissions for the Record

                                ------                                


                      Statement of Joanna Hosaniak

    Honorable Chairs and members of the Congressional-Executive 
Commission on China, Citizens' Alliance for North Korean Human Rights 
would like to thank the Commission for the opportunity to submit this 
written statement. In consideration of the issue of forced repatriation 
of North Korean refugees from China, it is important to consider the 
often-overlooked economic and trade relations of China with the 
Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK/North Korea) and how 
policies of refoulement of refugees by China benefit Chinese companies 
and both states.
    The Chinese government's classification of North Korean refugees as 
illegal economic migrants, and their deportation to DPRK to face 
extreme punishment, prevents North Koreans (a majority women and girls) 
from accessing necessary resources, such as administrative or legal 
procedures, to legalize their status in China under domestic or 
international law. They are vulnerable to deportation back to North 
Korea, even in cases where they are victims of trafficking or qualify 
as refugees. Those who are deported face a range of harsh punishments, 
including lengthy prison terms, torture, and forced labor in detention.
    It is often argued that China is pursuing such policies to maintain 
political ties with North Korea, and to prevent destabilizing the 
regime. However, looking from the economic perspective, the continued 
repatriation of North Korean refugees from China provides an unimpeded 
supply of free forced labor for North Korea's detention centers, which 
often produce products for China-based companies at significantly lower 
cost. This is extremely concerning as it suggests that Chinese 
businesses are profiting from the abuse of North Korean refugees. As 
such, the Citizens' Alliance for North Korean Human Rights would like 
to request that the Commission look into this intricate supply chain 
and business connections between China and North Korea and how they 
affect abuses faced by the North Korean refugees.
        1. crimes against humanity in north korean supply chain
                  and connection to the refugee issue
    The Citizens' Alliance's years-long ongoing investigation into the 
role of the North Korean regime's top structures in export linked to 
large-scale human rights abuses (Report: ``Blood Coal Export from North 
Korea'') has revealed that the DPRK sustains its economic system 
through a coercive quota system, which requires civilians to submit 
quotas of goods for the export of minerals, agricultural and livestock 
products, metal, construction materials, etc. This pyramid of extortion 
is enforced through each Ministry and Party organ and is imposed on 
every citizen throughout society.
    The quotas of goods are also fulfilled using forced labor and 
slavery in detention centers. In particular, detained populations 
produce the top commodities for export, which are often the target of 
the most restrictive international sanctions, such as coal and 
minerals. Our investigative findings indicate that production in 
detention centers is based on intergenerational discrimination based on 
the songbun system, which determines which citizens will replenish the 
slave labor force in the infamous prison system. North Koreans deported 
from China, most of whom are women, are held in detention facilities 
that sustain themselves and provide revenue for the regime through 
forcing labor upon detainees. The lower the songbun, the more 
vulnerable a deported North Korean is to harsher work and life 
conditions in detention.
    The hunting system for prisoners and slave labor is enforced by the 
Ministry of State Security (MSS/secret police) which, together with the 
Ministry of People's Safety (MPS/police) and Korea People's Army (KPA), 
sits under the current leader in the State Affairs Commission--the top 
organ of the State. The law enforcement ministries have numerous 
subsidiaries that are corporations trading in the production obtained 
through slave labor in detention centers. These companies have their 
intermediaries operating in China to supply their products to China-
based businesses.
    The MSS is the primary investigative authority dealing with persons 
deported from China who have crossed the border with the aim of finding 
work or seeking asylum in third countries, or as victims of 
trafficking.
    Former MSS Officers and prosecutors from North Korea reported 
during Citizens' Alliance's investigation that the seriousness of 
crimes is evaluated based on the discriminatory songbun classification, 
using biased information unverified by an independent court. 
Furthermore, these insiders reported that women repatriated from China 
should consider themselves ``lucky'' to be released from pre-trial 
detention to police custody where they faced trial and subsequent 
detention in a kyohwaso prison (long-term correctional prison with 
forced labor) operated by MPS or police. This is because it is the MSS, 
not any independent decision-maker or court, that decides at the pre-
trial secret investigation stage, which women will remain in MSS 
custody, with the risk of being sent to an MSS political prison camp 
from which a release is unlikely, and which women will be handed over 
to MPS custody to face trial and sentence in an MPS-operated detention 
facility.
    Women interviewed after 2012 also reported an increase in the 
punishment for border crossing; five years in a kyohwaso prison on 
average for illegal border crossing. This reflects reported legislative 
amendments to North Korean criminal law and should be viewed and 
further analyzed through the lens of the quota system of production in 
detention centers, which forms a vicious cycle of hunting for free 
forced labor. Women have always been, and continue to be, the primary 
victims of this cycle. In this way, the MSS is providing a constant 
supply of slave labor.
       2. production ``made in china'' in north korean detentions
    Similar to political prison camps operated mostly by MSS, the 
kyohwaso prisons operated by MPS are also major sites of production 
(mining, lumbering, farming, production of goods). Women repatriated 
from China who served sentences in those prisons have been reporting 
for more than a decade that some kyohwaso prisons have been operating 
large wards for women deported from China where women produced 
textiles, wigs, or fake eyelashes labeled ``Made in China''.
    In recent years the data provided from the General Administration 
of Customs in China disclosed the increasing import of such beauty 
products from North Korea to China. According to NK Pro, Chinese import 
of wigs or eyelashes from North Korea jumped from 37 metric tons in 
December 2022 to 121 metric tons in April 2023 and constituted 71 
percent of China's overall trade with North Korea. According to a Radio 
Free Asia report from 2021, a 20-kilogram (44-pound) box of raw 
materials for wig manufacturing costs 7,000 yuan (about U.S. $1,100), 
but the finished products made from those materials can earn a profit 
of more than 30,000 yuan (about $4,600). While some of these products 
have been stockpiled due to closed borders with China during the 
pandemic, this type of product constitutes substantial earnings for the 
North Korean regime (valued at $22.6 million in April) and Chinese 
companies.
    Reports indicate at least 1,000 prisoners in Chinese prisons are 
awaiting deportation to North Korea because of the closed border. Given 
high production in North Korean detention centers for Chinese 
companies, the reopening of borders will cause a surge in deportations 
from China that will only exacerbate grave human rights violations and 
labor exploitation used for the benefit of Chinese companies.
                             3. conclusion
    This statement provides a general overview of the worrying 
situation of forced repatriation of North Korean refugees from China to 
North Korea, which is accompanied by their forced labor in detention 
facilities in North Korea. These detention facilities are used to 
supply products for Chinese companies, leading to a cycle of 
exploitation and human rights abuses.
    It is clear that further action must be taken in order to combat 
this issue, including pressuring Chinese officials into ceasing all 
forms of forced repatriation and enforcing stricter regulations 
regarding businesses engaging in unethical practices within their 
borders. Ultimately, it is the responsibility of the importer to ensure 
that their products have not been produced using forced labor.
    For this reason, U.S Customs and Border Protection has issued a 
notice of enforcement guidance for companies importing goods from North 
Korea and China. Currently, cosmetic and beauty products such as wigs 
or eyelashes that are produced also in North Korean detention 
facilities are not listed on the sanctions lists. But even if they are 
included in the future, it is not preventing Chinese companies from 
maintaining business relations with North Korean companies and 
benefiting from the trade. Due to the lack of transparency on the 
Chinese side, U.S. authorities should adopt in the North Korean case a 
similar approach to its position on Chinese production in Xinjiang.
    There is a high probability that a portion of products originating 
from North Korea but produced for Chinese companies has been made in 
prisons detaining repatriated North Korean refugees from China using 
forced labor and other human rights violations, in some cases amounting 
to crimes against humanity. All products sold by Chinese companies, 
especially those registered in Jilin Province bordering North Korea, 
can therefore be assumed to have used forced labor unless due diligence 
can prove otherwise. Such products should be restricted from 
international export, given that free, unrestricted export enables 
supply extracted from detained North Koreans to flow through Chinese 
companies.
    Accordingly, Congress needs to consider expanding the existing 
sanctions regime to require exporters of products reported as 
originating from China's border regions with North Korea to demonstrate 
that they did not entail prison labor or slave labor from North Korea. 
By creating such a presumption and shifting the burden of proof from 
U.S. authorities to Chinese exporters, the latter would have a strong 
incentive to root out prison labor or slave labor from their supply 
chain.
    Our organization also calls upon the United States to raise issues 
and make recommendations concerning China's policy of forcible 
deportation for North Korean refugees and the exploitation of North 
Korea's prison labor at China's fourth Universal Periodic Review (UPR) 
which is scheduled to take place in January or February 2024. It would 
be helpful to also call for China to disclose the number of North 
Koreans arrested and forcibly repatriated or waiting in detention to be 
repatriated each year.
    It is also necessary for governments to consider updating and 
strengthening the UN's accountability work for North Korea's crimes 
against humanity, including China's responsibility, taking into 
consideration the accountability mechanisms for Syria and Myanmar 
created by the UN in 2016 and 2018 respectively, to prepare case files 
for future judicial process.
    Third countries like Mongolia, Vietnam, and Laos where many North 
Korean escapees in China are heading to in search of freedom must also 
be compelled to respect the principle of non-refoulement and give them 
free passage to South Korea or other countries where they want to 
resettle.
    Your consideration of these matters and solutions is very much 
appreciated.
                                 ______
                                 

                      Statement of Greg Scarlatoiu

    The witness wishes to thank the Congressional-Executive Commission 
on China for the invitation to submit this written testimony. The 
witness wishes to thank and credit HRNK's team for the thorough, 
tireless, and effective work invested into this report, especially 
Ingyu Choe, Raymond Ha, Rick Herssevoort, Doohyun Kim, Elizabeth J. 
Kim, Kaylee Kim, Daniel McDowall, and Isabella Packowski. The witness 
also wishes to thank the North Korean escapees and human rights leaders 
who answered the questionnaire designed in support of this report, 
including Ji Seong-ho, Jung Gwang-il, Kang Cheol-hwan, Lee So-yeon, Lee 
Hyun-seung, Ko Young-hwan, Kim Ji-eun, Phillip Lee, Kim Sung-eun, and 
many others who chose to remain anonymous.

                               The Issue

    North Koreans who manage to escape Kim Jong-un's oppressive, 
totalitarian regime often first flee to China, where they have no 
protected legal status or opportunity to seek asylum. As a result, 
North Koreans seldom find safety in China and are highly vulnerable, 
living under the constant threat of deportation to North Korea. North 
Korean escapees face serious hardships and challenges in China. They 
are victims of human rights violations committed by the Chinese 
Communist Party (CCP) and by Chinese individuals. The status of North 
Koreans in China has decidedly worsened under COVID. HRNK is currently 
assessing how the human security and human rights of North Koreans have 
been affected by restrictions imposed under the pretext of COVID 
prevention, including that of North Koreans who are trapped in China.

                           Living Conditions

    Living conditions for North Koreans in China are appalling. In 
addition to these harsh conditions, North Koreans are vulnerable to 
physical, emotional, and sexual exploitation.\1\ For the most part, 
North Korean refugees hide in isolated refuges, which may come in the 
form of hidden rooms in cities like Yanji or isolated rural settlements 
in the mountains. These shelters are often of very low quality, lacking 
proper sanitation and running water. The only facility available is the 
kang, a ``raised platform heated by underfloor pipes upon which the 
Korean household sleeps, eats, and spends any leisure time.'' \2\ The 
situation is so poor that one individual, in a letter to the UN, stated 
that ``we North Korean refugees in China
[ . . . ] live worse than dogs in a mountain hut.'' \3\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ Hazel Smith, ``North Koreans in China: Defining the Problems 
and Offering Some Solutions,'' Research Paper for the Center for East 
Asian Studies (2005): 124.
    \2\ Ibid., 125.
    \3\ Ibid.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    This lifestyle is very turbulent and insecure. Scholars like Andrei 
Lankov have described it as a ``hybrid of shuttle trading, smuggling, 
and fugitive status,'' as these people live under the constant fear of 
being caught by either the Chinese or North Korean authorities.\4\ 
Their condition is ``akin to indentured servitude,'' given the extreme 
dependence of North Korean refugees on their employers for all aspects 
of life.\5\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \4\ Andrei Lankov, ``North Korean Refugees in Northeast China,'' 
Asian Survey 44, no. 6 (2004): 871.
    \5\ Joel Charny, ``North Koreans in China: A Human Rights 
Analysis,'' International Journal of Korean Unification Studies 13, no. 
2 (2004): 83; Smith, 125.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Finding work is paramount to their survival. North Korean refugees 
may find work in remote mountainous farming areas. They may provide 
other forms of casual or unskilled labor, such as becoming waiters, 
dishwashers, construction workers, or maids.\6\ The remuneration which 
refugees receive for their work is abysmal. As a result of the North 
Koreans' ``illegal'' status in China, their wages are far below that of 
the locals. There are structural barriers to filing complaints about 
working conditions due to the absence of legal protections.\7\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \6\ Smith, 125; Lankov, 862.
    \7\ Smith, 125.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

                      North Korean Women in China

    Women represent the majority of North Koreans who escape to China. 
North Koreans flee into China for different reasons, many desperate to 
escape the oppression under the Kim regime and seeking economic 
survival. North Korean women and girls are often lured to China by 
human traffickers under the premise of finding work. As a result, many 
are sold as ``brides'' to rural Chinese men or forced into prostitution 
or online sex work. Based on HRNK's interviews with escapees, many are 
subject to exploitation and abuse. Because China considers North Korean 
refugees to be ``illegal economic migrants,'' these women and girls are 
even more vulnerable to abuse. They can be turned over to the 
authorities, arrested, and refouled despite a credible fear of 
persecution by the North Korean authorities. Those who are repatriated 
are subject to torture and inhumane treatment at detention facilities 
in North Korea. North Korean women suspected of having become pregnant 
with Chinese men even suffer forced abortions and infanticide.
    Women and girls face abject conditions in China's ``Red Zone,'' a 
region in China in which authorities hunt refugees to send back to 
North Korea. Although the numbers are still disputed, it is estimated 
that up to 500,000 female North Koreans, some as young as 12, hide in 
this region. They are subjected to systematic rape, sexual slavery, 
forced marriage, unwanted pregnancy, forced labor, and cybersex 
trafficking. This mistreatment has become normalized within the region. 
Additionally, the COVID pandemic and associated lockdown measures have 
made movement much more difficult for these individuals. As many as 80% 
of female North Korean refugees fall into the hands of human 
traffickers and are sold into the sex trade, which is estimated to 
generate more than $105 million a year for Chinese and North Korean 
organized crime networks.\8\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \8\ Julian Ryall, ``North Korean girls exploited in China's `Red 
Zone','' Deutsche Welle, Mar 27, 2023. https://www.dw.com/en/north-
korean-girls-exploited-in-chinas-red-zone-report/a-65137209.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

                     North Korean Children in China

    Children are another vulnerable group of North Koreans living in 
China. This includes children who have traveled with their families, 
children of ``mixed'' marriages, and orphans. More recently, there has 
been a growing prevalence of stateless children in China, born outside 
of North Korea but not in possession of Chinese citizenship. Life for 
these children is extremely arduous. For the most part, they remain 
indoors to avoid detection. Because very few of these North Korean 
children speak Chinese, this increases the risk of detection and 
creates barriers to accessing education.\9\ Some live in shelters 
provided by humanitarian organizations or churches and receive basic 
schooling.\10\ Not all children are so fortunate, and only a handful 
have access to even this very basic form of education.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \9\ Ibid.
    \10\ Ibid., 126.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    A significant number of children are orphans and cross the border 
in groups. These are almost always boys aged between 12 and 18. Groups 
are generally made of up of 10 to 15 people, but can sometimes be as 
large as 30.\11\ These children are known as kkotjebi (``fluttering 
swallows'') and could often be seen wandering the streets in cities 
like Yanji during the famine of the 1990s.\12\ The area in which these 
orphan groups can be found is enormous. While most live in the 
northeastern region of China, some go as far as Beijing or to the 
provinces further south. Some even go to Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar, 
and Thailand.\13\ Having initially crossed the border, these groups may 
work for loggers in exchange for shelter and meet up with other North 
Korean children once they reach a city. Frequently, they beg from South 
Korean tourists, though this is particularly risky because they become 
easy targets to spot as a result of their ragged clothing.\14\ 
Additionally, the general health of these orphans sets them apart. 
Chung Byung-ho discusses how ``many of them have visible signs of 
malnutrition in their faces and bodies, and most are very short for 
their age. Many are also afflicted with various skin diseases.'' \15\ 
In extreme cases, a 16-year-old boy may be just 132 centimeters tall, 
or an 18-year-old may speak with a voice that has not broken yet. In 
terms of housing, these orphans will live in secret shelters.\16\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \11\ Chung Byung-ho, ``Living Dangerously in Two Worlds: The Risks 
and Tactics of North Korean Refugee Children in China,'' Korea Journal 
43, no. 3 (2003): 199.
    \12\ Ibid.; Smith, 125.
    \13\ Chung, 194.
    \14\ Ibid, 202.
    \15\ Chung, 203.
    \16\ Ibid., 205.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    As a result of the severe famine of the 1990s in North Korea, a new 
group of young people has emerged--stateless children. Having been born 
outside of North Korea, they do not have legal status there. They 
cannot legally reside in China, and they are not eligible for Chinese 
citizenship. Additionally, as marriages between North Koreans and 
Chinese citizens are illegal, these refugees are similarly not afforded 
Chinese citizenship, and therefore are denied basic rights such as 
health, education, or welfare.\17\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \17\ Smith, 126; Charny, 87.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Recent Developments and China's International Legal Obligations

    With the gradual loosening of border restrictions and easing 
pandemic prevention measures, North Korean escapees are at great risk 
of being forcibly repatriated to North Korea. According to UN Special 
Rapporteur Elizabeth Salmon, if repatriated, these escapees risk being 
sent to a kwan-li-so, where they will be subjected to a myriad of human 
rights abuses, including torture.\18\ As of October 2022, the UN 
estimated that there were as many as 2,000 North Koreans currently 
detained by Chinese authorities as illegal migrants, at risk of being 
forcibly returned to North Korea.\19\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \18\ Anthony Kuhn, ``North Korean defectors in China face 
deportation as COVID border controls ease,'' NPR, April 25, 2023. 
https://www.npr.org/2023/04/25/1169464713/north-korea-
defectors-deportation-china.
    \19\ UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, ``Report 
of the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the 
DPRK to the General Assembly, 2022.'' https://seoul.ohchr.org/en/node/
495.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Pursuant to its international legal obligations under the 1951 UN 
Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and the 1967 Protocol 
Relating to the Status of Refugees, China must recognize North Korean 
nationals fleeing persecution in their homeland as refugees sur place, 
precisely because they face a credible fear of persecution upon 
refoulement. Both China and North Korea are in violation of 
international law and basic human rights and should be held 
accountable. In the aftermath of the COVID pandemic, North Koreans in 
China are even more vulnerable. They remain in hiding without access to 
adequate healthcare, or they have been detained by Chinese police as 
they await North Korea's border reopening.
    Special Rapporteur Salmon has called on China to not repatriate the 
North Korean escapees once border restrictions are lifted. However, in 
response to Special Rapporteur Salmon's comments at the UN Human Rights 
Council in March, China stated that ``those North Koreans who have 
entered China illegally are not refugees,'' and that China ``attaches 
great importance to protecting the legal rights of foreign nationals in 
China, and to suppressing trafficking in women and children.'' However, 
the escapees' legal status is irrelevant. Under international law, 
according to Special Rapporteur Salmon, if people are deported to face 
persecution, torture, or other serious human rights violations, then 
``these states are prohibited from transferring or removing individuals 
from their jurisdiction to a place where these awful things may 
happen.'' \20\ These concerns were most recently reiterated during the 
UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women 
(CEDAW)'s 85th session in Geneva in May. The committee raised concerns 
about the forced deportation of North Koreans in China and the (lack 
of) legal protection, particularly North Korean women and their 
children. Beijing reiterated its stance that North Korean women come to 
China for ``economic reasons'' and therefore do not qualify for legal 
protection. According to Chinese authorities, North Koreans engaging in 
illegal activities will be ``sent back to their country.'' \21\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \20\ Kuhn, ``North Korea defectors in China face deportation.''
    \21\ Ifang Bremer, ``UN committee questions China about forced 
deportation of North Korean women,'' NK News, May 16, 2023. https://
www.nknews.org/2023/05/un-committee-questions-china-about-forced-
deportation-of-north-korean-women/.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

           Estimates of the North Korean Population in China

    Due to COVID-related restrictions in both North Korea and China, it 
has become even more difficult than before to assess the approximate 
number of North Koreans in China. The sources contacted for this report 
provided a wide range of estimates regarding the North Korean refugee 
population in China, ranging from as few as 5,000 to as many as 
250,000. This reflects the difficulty of obtaining accurate estimates 
due to the refugees' precarious status in China. Ms. Kim Ji-eun, a 
Seoul-based reporter for Radio Free Asia, derived an estimate of 
100,000 to 200,000 based on her experience with WeChat groups (quan) 
formed by North Korean refugees in China to exchange information. Each 
group typically has between 300 to 600 members, and she estimates that 
there are dozens, if not hundreds, of such chat groups.
    There are also a variety of estimates regarding the number of 
officially dispatched North Korean workers in China. Nevertheless, 
multiple sources report that most of these workers are in the three 
northeastern provinces of Jilin, Liaoning, and Heilongjiang.
    According to ROK National Assemblyman Ji Seong-ho of the People 
Power Party, the ROK government estimated that there were 50,000 North 
Korean workers in China prior to the onset of the COVID pandemic. While 
this number has likely fallen due to restrictions on overseas workers 
placed by UN Security Council resolutions 2375 and 2397, he added that 
most of these workers have likely remained in China after the 
expiration of their visa.
    Ms. Kim Ji-eun estimated that there are between 120,000 and 150,000 
North Korean workers in China who have not been able to return due to 
COVID-related border restrictions. According to a source in Dandong, 
around one year into the COVID pandemic, the DPRK consulate in Dandong 
gathered the passports of all North Korean workers dispatched to the 
region to extend their visas. During this process, it was revealed that 
there were 100,000 North Korean workers in Dandong. Ms. Kim added that 
there are also industrial parks in Yanji, Changchun, and nearby areas 
that host between 5,000 and 6,000 North Korean workers. The highest 
estimate came from an individual involved in rescuing North Korean 
refugees, who put the number of officially dispatched North Korean 
workers in China at 500,000.
    There was a narrower range of estimates regarding the number of 
North Koreans who are currently held in detention by Chinese 
authorities, ranging from around 100 to 3,000. Assemblyman Ji Seong-ho 
reported that there are at least 1,300 in detention, mostly in the 
three northeastern provinces. Pastor Kim Sung-eun of the Caleb Mission 
gave a similar estimate of 1,200 North Korean escapees who were 
arrested during the COVID pandemic and are currently being held in 
detention facilities operated by China's border security forces, 
located along the Sino-North Korean border. A former North Korean 
overseas worker stated that the Chinese police appear to have been 
carrying out more frequent arrests of North Korean refugees recently.
    Some information is also available about the number of North Korean 
escapees being held at specific facilities. Mr. Kang Chol-hwan of the 
North Korea Strategy Center noted that there are at least 500 held in 
detention facilities across China, including those in Beijing, Dandong, 
and Shenyang. This includes officially dispatched workers and North 
Korean officials who were caught while trying to escape. Mr. Kang 
specifically noted that 280 are held at a police detention facility in 
Shanghai. Mr. Jung Gwang-il of No Chain stated that 300 are held at the 
border holding facility in Tumen, and another 300 at a jail in Yanji. 
According to escapee testimony received last month by Ms. Lee So-yeon 
of the New Korea Women's Union, 400 North Korean refugees are being 
detained at a border police station in Jilin Province, awaiting 
repatriation to North Korea.
    Ms. Kim Ji-eun, who estimated that there are between 500 and 1,000 
North Koreans in detention in China, stated that these individuals 
would likely be repatriated to North Korea once border restrictions are 
lifted. A representative of an organization involved in rescuing North 
Korean refugees put the number of detainees at 3,000, but also reported 
that these individuals are awaiting repatriation. A former North Korean 
overseas worker noted that when these refugees are repatriated, North 
Korea's Ministry of State Security officers are likely to impose 
harsher punishments than before and extort the detainees more severely, 
as no refugees have been repatriated in the past 2 to 3 years due to 
COVID.

                      New Trends and Developments

    The sources contacted for this report provided noteworthy 
information about recent developments in the situation of dispatched 
North Korean workers and North Korean refugees in China.
    Assemblyman Ji Seong-ho, based on testimony from North Korean 
escapees who have recently arrived in South Korea, noted that North 
Korea appears to be sending workers overseas under the guise of sending 
students or military personnel. He noted that this practice merits 
further investigation.
    Ms. Kim Ji-eun also stated that the North Korean and Chinese 
authorities have made secret arrangements to send North Korean workers 
across the border. These workers, mostly women between 19 and 30 years 
old, are selected from the border areas and quietly taken across the 
border at night by bus. They do not have passports, and they do not go 
through customs when crossing the border.
    Pastor Kim Sung-eun stated that last year, he saw a large 
industrial park being built at the North Korea-China Free Trade Zone in 
Tumen, Jilin Province. Some North Korean workers had already arrived at 
this site. Others at the site said that more workers were expected to 
be sent there from North Korea. The Chinese government has a perception 
that North Korean workers are meticulous, skilled workers who are 
cheaper to employ than Chinese workers.
    Mr. Jung Gwang-il drew attention to the dire situation of North 
Korean workers in China who could not return home due to COVID-related 
restrictions. These workers, mostly young women who worked at sewing 
factories, were out of work once their initial contract expired. The 
economic slowdown in China due to COVID only added to their troubles. 
These workers were ``sold'' by local brokers to carry out various kinds 
of short-term work, and some of these North Korean women resorted to 
working at local restaurants. Many suffer from malnutrition, with some 
resorting to collecting and boiling vegetables that were thrown away at 
local markets. Mr. Jung added that some of these women have reportedly 
committed suicide, as they could not send enough money back home to 
repay the bribe they gave to be sent overseas.
    Ms. Kim Ji-eun added that if North Korean workers fall ill while in 
China, they pay out of pocket for medical treatment. Official 
representatives of North Korean companies sometimes provide an 
interpreter if someone must go to the hospital, but they do not provide 
additional assistance. If a North Korean worker is seriously ill and 
admitted to a hospital, Chinese doctors and nurses are forbidden from 
speaking directly to such patients. In these instances, the North 
Korean worker is essentially left to die.
    Lastly, Mr. Jung Gwang-il reported that some local authorities are 
allowing female North Korean refugees to remain in China. Specifically, 
in rural areas of Heilongjiang Province, North Korean women who have 
married Chinese men and have given birth to two or more children are 
issued temporary identification papers by local officials. These 
children are also officially registered in the hukou system. This 
practice reportedly stems from the recognition that the father will 
face difficulties in raising the children alone if the North Korean 
mother is forcibly repatriated.

                      Consequences of Repatriation

    There was broad agreement among multiple sources regarding the 
consequences of forcible repatriation for North Korean refugees. 
Refugees who are judged to have crossed the border for economic reasons 
are sentenced to time at a mobile labor brigade (ro-dong-dan-ryeon-dae) 
or a long-term prison-labor facility (kyo-hwa-so). In these instances, 
detainees can use bribes or rely on connections to reduce their 
sentence. Assemblyman Ji Seong-ho noted that the minimum sentence is 6 
months at a kyo-hwa-so, and Ms. Kim Ji-eun noted that the sentence can 
range from 5 to 15 years at a kyo-hwa-so. Ms. Kim added that 90% of all 
forcibly repatriated North Korean refugees eventually die after their 
return, since conditions at the kyo-hwa-so are extremely harsh. An 
escapee who left North Korea in 2019 reported that the punishment for 
repatriated refugees depends on how long the refugee has stayed in 
China. Another North Korean escapee who spent almost 20 years in China 
added that the punishment is more severe for those who have spent more 
time in China. This witness further noted, however, that it is possible 
for North Korean refugees to use bribes and connections to be released 
from detention from local and municipal authorities while in China.
    North Korean refugees who attempted to escape to South Korea or 
encountered Christianity during their escape attempt are punished 
severely. These individuals are sentenced to death or sent to political 
prison camps (kwan-li-so). Mr. Kang Chol-hwan noted that since 2014, 
all North Korean refugees who have been forcibly repatriated are sent 
to kwan-li-so.
    North Korean workers who were officially dispatched overseas are 
subject to investigation upon return. Assemblyman Ji Seong-ho noted 
that officially dispatched workers who encountered South Koreans, 
Americans, or other Westerners or watched unauthorized content (e.g., 
YouTube) while overseas are investigated by the Ministry of State 
Security or the Overseas Workers' Bureau. Any workers who are found to 
have engaged in such conduct are immediately returned to North Korea. 
He added that the punishment depends on the seriousness of the 
violation, and that such individuals are unlikely to be sent overseas 
again. Mr. Ko Young-hwan, a policy advisor to the ROK Ministry of 
National Defense, stated that workers who have encountered a South 
Korean citizen (or missionary) while overseas are sentenced to 1 to 5 
years at a kyo-hwa-so.
    Ms. Kim Ji-eun provided a similar account. Korean Workers' Party 
(KWP) authorities or security agencies (Ministry of Social Safety, 
Ministry of State Security) conduct a preliminary investigation of 
workers who have returned to North Korea. Workers must confess and 
declare any infractions they committed during their time overseas. If 
they are discovered trying to hide such violations, they are subject to 
further investigation by security agencies, where they may be detained 
during interrogation. They may be able to avoid punishment by paying a 
bribe, but this bribe may be so large that they must pay almost all the 
money they earned and retained while overseas.
    Multiple sources confirmed that officially dispatched workers who 
are caught while trying to escape while overseas are treated no 
differently from North Korean refugees who are caught in China during 
escape attempts. After being forcibly repatriated, they are given, at 
minimum, a life sentence and may be sentenced to death. Mr. Phillip Lee 
of Unification Hope Mission noted that 10% to 20% of North Korean 
escapees were originally officially dispatched workers.
    If an officially dispatched worker escapes while overseas, there 
are consequences for the worker's family members back home in North 
Korea. This applies not only to officially dispatched workers, but also 
to other North Korean refugees who have escaped. Assemblyman Ji Seong-
ho stated that due to an increase in the number of escapees over the 
years, it is now difficult for the North Korean authorities to punish 
the remaining family members of all escapees. Nevertheless, these 
family members are subject to close surveillance by the Ministry of 
State Security, and they are forbidden from holding key official 
positions in North Korea. A North Korean escapee who arrived in South 
Korea in 2020 stated that remaining family members would be under 
``severe surveillance.'' Mr. Phillip Lee also noted that remaining 
family members will not be able to join the KWP or attend college.
    Other sources also reported that remaining family members are 
typically banished to remote areas of North Korea. Ms. Kim Ji-eun noted 
that this is to make it difficult for the escapee to establish contact 
with remaining family members. She added that the remaining family 
members will be completely ostracized by others in North Korea.

                         Policy Recommendations

    Further research and documentation are needed to clarify the 
number, status, and humanitarian situation of North Korean refugees and 
officially dispatched workers currently trapped in China.
    China must be persuaded to cease and desist its policy of refouling 
North Korean refugees, under the pretext that they are ``illegal 
economic migrants.'' This is a direct and blatant violation of China's 
obligations under the 1951 UN Refugee Convention and the 1967 
Additional Protocol.
    Both the U.S. Government and U.S. civil society must urgently seek 
ways to reach out to the North Koreans trapped in China and educate 
them on the path to seeking asylum in the United States.
    North Korean refugee protection and rescue must become a pillar of 
U.S. North Korea human rights policy, in accordance with the letter and 
the spirit of the U.S. North Korean Human Rights Act.
    In order to provide the resources necessary for North Korean 
refugee protection and rescue, the North Korean Human Rights Act, which 
expired in September 2022, must be reauthorized.
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                          Witness Biographies


    Robert R. King, Former Special Envoy for North Korean Human Rights 
Issues, U.S. Department of State


    Ambassador Robert R. King served as Special Envoy for North Korean 
human rights issues at the U.S. Department of State (2009-2017). Since 
that time, he has been a senior advisor to the Korea Chair at the 
Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a senior fellow 
at the Korea Economic Institute, and a board member of the Committee 
for Human Rights in North Korea. Previously, Ambassador King served for 
25 years on Capitol Hill (1983-2008) as chief of staff to Congressman 
Tom Lantos (D-California) and as Democratic staff director of the House 
Foreign Affairs Committee (2001-2008). King is the author of Patterns 
of Impunity: Human Rights in North Korea and the Role of the U.S. 
Special Envoy. With Gi-Wook Shin he edited The North Korean Conundrum: 
Balancing Human Rights and National Security. (Both are published by 
the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia and Pacific Research Center at Stanford 
University.)


    Jung-Hoon Lee, Dean, Graduate School of International Studies, 
Yonsei University & Former South Korean Ambassador-at-Large for North 
Korean Human Rights


    Jung-Hoon Lee is the Dean and Professor of International Relations 
at the Graduate School of International Studies, Yonsei University. He 
is the former Ambassador for Human Rights for the Republic of Korea as 
well as its inaugural Ambassador-at-Large for North Korean Human 
Rights. His academic affiliations include a visiting professorship at 
Keio University and he is a Senior Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School. 
Prof. Lee currently advises the government as Chair of the National 
Unification Advisory Council's International Affairs Committee, Chair 
of the Ministry of Unification's newly created Commission for North 
Korean Human Rights, and Policy Advisor to the National Security 
Council. Internationally, he is a Board Member of the Committee for 
Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK) in Washington, DC, an International 
Patron of the Hong Kong Watch in London, and an Advisory Council Member 
of the International Bar Association's Human Rights Institute, also 
based in London. He received his BA from Tufts University, MALD from 
the Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy, and D.Phil. from the University 
of Oxford (St. Antony's College).


    Ethan Hee-Seok Shin, Legal Analyst, Transitional Justice Working 
Group


    Dr. Ethan Hee-Seok Shin is a legal analyst at Seoul-based human 
rights documentation NGO Transitional Justice Working Group (TJWG). He 
has been interviewing North Korean escapees who make their way to South 
Korea through China to record enforced disappearances and other grave 
human rights violations, made submissions to the UN human rights 
experts on their behalf and set up FOOTPRINTS, an online database of 
the people taken by North Korea. He is an advocate for ending China's 
policy of indiscriminate refoulement for North Korean refugees without 
individualized determination and has helped raised the issue recently 
at the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women 
(CEDAW). He holds a Ph.D. in international law from Yonsei University 
in South Korea and an LL.M. from Harvard Law School.


    Hanna Song, Director of International Cooperation, Database Center 
for North Korean Human Rights


    Hanna Song is the Director of International Cooperation and a 
researcher at the Seoul-based North Korean human rights NGO, the 
Database Center for North Korean Human Rights (NKDB). NKDB, officially 
established in 2003, has recorded over 130,000 entries related to human 
rights violations in its database, carries out advocacy based on the 
data, and also provides resettlement support to North Korean escapees. 
NKDB has interviewed over 20,000 North Korean escapees who have 
resettled in South Korea. Through interviewing North Korean escapees 
who have recently entered South Korea since the pandemic, NKDB has been 
able to examine the current situation on the ground in China and how 
COVID-19 has changed the landscape of North Korean defection. As 
Director, Ms. Song has briefed diplomats, policymakers, and foreign 
correspondents on the human rights situation in North Korea. She has 
created partnerships with international stakeholders, with research 
institutions, universities, and NGOs overseas. As a researcher, she has 
documented human rights violations in NKDB's Unified Human Rights 
Database--the largest repository on North Korean human rights 
violations. She has published reports on the human rights situation in 
North Korea's military, humanitarian assistance sent to North Korea, 
the Sustainable Development Goals, and the Universal Periodic Review. 
She has appeared in The Economist, Financial Times, and BBC among other 
international news outlets.


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