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Despite strengthening its border guard and broadcasting intentions of a greater crackdown on North Korean defectors, there are signs that China is continuing its practice of permitting defectors who manage to enter its territory foreign legations.
It has been confirmed that 15 of the 29 North Korean defectors who broke into a Japanese school and 15 of a separate group that penetrated the Canadian Embassy in Beijing in September have entered South Korea by way of a third country. The two groups totaled 73 defectors.
A spokesperson for the Japanese Embassy in China said Thursday that 15 of the defectors who had received that country's embassy guardianship since they broke into a Japanese school in Beijing on Sept. 1 left China on Wednesday to gain entry to a third country.
The spokesperson said, "The Chinese authorities permitted their exit for humanitarian reasons ... For reasons of security, we cannot reveal their final destination, but all of them had hoped to go to South Korea."
Of the 29 defectors who entered the Japanese school, five came to Korea on Sept. 24. The latest deployment of 15 leaves nine remaining in the Japanese Embassy.
Of the 44 defectors who made it into the Canadian Embassy on Sept. 29, it has been confirmed that 12 came to Korea on Nov. 24 and another three arrived Nov. 28, all by way of a third country.
(Cho Jung-sik, jscho@chosun.com )
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