August 8, 2003
A new approach is emerging in the US on how to deal with North Korean refugees. The US Congress may pass a bill on this issue as early as this fall that will have a significant impact on Northeast Asian geopolitics. Japan may be obliged to act as a regional coordinator.
American officials have been discussing the idea of pressuring Kim Jung Il on his violation of human rights, as well as on nuclear issues. On July 9, 2003, a noteworthy piece of legislation passed in the US Senate. The amendment, part of the State Departments' foreign policy budget, will allow North Koreans to apply for refugee status.
Previously, the US had recognized escapees as South Korean citizens, and therefore did not grant them refugee status. Only two North Korean escapees were granted visas, and they came to the US through Mexico. The new legislation will mean that the US will no longer see North Korean escapees as merely a South Korean problem and will deal with the escapees directly. Observers in Washington expect this legislation to pass both houses of Congress and to become law as early as this fall.
Congressional staffers have already begun talking with the Administration about the ideal number of North Korean refugees the US can accept. The number ranges between 3,000 and 300,000 per year. The actual limit will be decided after a joint session of Congress, and it is expected to be at least tens of thousands. American acceptance of North Korean runaways will have a significant impact on North Korea, South Korea, China and Japan.
First, the number of people fleeing from North Korea will rise if the US started to accept them as refugees. Escapees from North Korea will likely follow those who are already living in the three northeastern provinces of China. This trend could continue until the regime collapses, and would also encourage the North Korea elites, who are familiar with the outside world, to distance themselves from Kim Jong Il.
Second, China will have an increasingly important role on the Korean peninsula. Geographically, escapees have to go through China to reach a third country. Currently China regards the escapees as matters between North Korea and China, and it employs this principle to return them to North Korea. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Beijing deported at least 6,000 North Korean escapees in 2000. If China keeps deporting them despite the UN conventions on refugee protection, it could very well create diplomatic friction between the US and China.
The US may use the UN as a tool to handle the North Korean escapees so that it create international pressure on China, which is gearing up for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. It is uncertain to what extent China would be attuned to international voices, but it is clear that China will be unable to ignore the escapee issue. China carries responsibility on this matter, and, its influence on the Korean peninsula would therefore be enhanced.
Third, South Korea's ambiguous attitude toward the escapee issue would create friction with the US. South Korea did not vote for the resolution criticizing the human rights record in North Korea in April in Geneva, which made clear that South Korea would not talk about North Korean human rights violations. It is likely that the US will push the North Korean escapee issue, going over South Korea's head.
The escapee issue would be discussed as an international political issue. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard Lugar said in his column in the Washington Post on July 17, that the US "should authorize the resettlement of some North Korean refugees in this country, and press our allies to do the same." While the number of Vietnamese boatpeople was in the tens of thousands in the 1970s, the scale of the North Korean escapees is expected to total several hundred thousand. Many Congressmen believe international cooperation is inevitable.
From geopolitical point of view, it is likely that Japan will be required to play a significant role here. In the past, Japan played important roles in refugee assistance. Japan made the second largest contribution, $129 million in 2000 base, after the US for refugee assistance, and it is notable that the former UN High Commissioner for Refugees Sadako Ogata was Japanese. This time the expectation of Japan is not only monetary but also humanitarian, such as accepting some escapees into Japan. Japan took about 8,000 Indochina refugees after the Vietnam War.
There are four ways Japan can help. First, Japan should gather information about escapees. By cooperating with other countries, Japan can investigate the actual scale of the exodus, areas of inhabitancy, and the health of women and children. Second, Japan should create an organization at the government level to coordinate the roles of participating countries. Japan can be the coordinator utilizing its soft power, which differs from US power. Japan can obtain legitimacy by UN support. Third, Japan should establish an international guideline that sets the standards and reasons to accept escapees into a country, based on democracy, human rights and transparency. Fourth, Japan should make the world recognize that North Korea had committed another human rights violation when it kidnapped Japanese citizens.
Japan first faced this issue last May when five escapes were whisked away from the Japanese consulate in Shenyang. The global community is obliged to solve the North Korean escapee issue together. As a member of the global community, Japan has decided to send its Self Defense Forces to Iraq to make the country safe so that democracy may one day flourish. The world will have an eye on Japan as to what role it will play in the imminent North Korean refugee crisis.
(A version of this article first appeared in Japanese in the Nikkei Shimbun on August 5, 2003.)
Author: Michael Yoo
Research Associate,
Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI)
Editor-in-Chief, Masato Hisatake
Director of Research
Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI)
e-mail: hisatake-masato@rieti.go.jp
tel: 03-3501-8248 fax: 03-3501-8416
RIETI invites you to visit its English website
[http://www.rieti.go.jp/en/index.html].
The opinions expressed or implied in this paper are solely those of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), or of the Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
