0 notes &
![China hires tens of thousands of North Korea guest workers
Because of sanctions, North Korea is unable to export weapons. So it is using its people to raise money. Most of their earnings will go directly to the North Korean regime
SEOUL — China is quietly inviting tens of thousands of North Korean guest workers into the country in a deal that will provide a cash infusion to help prop up a teetering regime with little more to export than the drudgery of a desperately poor population.The deal, which has not been publicly announced by either Beijing or Pyongyang, would allow about 40,000 seamstresses, technicians, mechanics, construction workers and miners to work in China on industrial training visas, businesspeople and Korea analysts say. Most of the workers’ earnings will go directly to the communist North Korean regime.“The North Koreans can’t export weapons anymore because of [international] sanctions, so they are using their people to raise cash,” said Sohn Kyang-ju, a former South Korean intelligence official who now heads the Seoul-based NK Daily Unification Strategy Institute.Although migrants from North Korea, as well as Vietnam, Myanmar and the Philippines, have worked illegally in China for years, it is unprecedented for Beijing to issue visas for unskilled and semi-skilled workers, several labor experts in China said. The deal, which provides workers for a region where China suffers no labor shortages, underscores how far Beijing is willing to go to support its potentially unstable protege.Longtime leader Kim Jong Il died last year and was replaced by his son Kim Jong Un, who is in his late 20s.“My gut feeling is that this is the beginning of a larger wave of North Korean workers coming in. It could be quite significant,” said John Park, an academic who has written widely on North Korean-Chinese relations. “It will allow the North Koreans to piggyback on China’s economic success to jump-start the economy under the new leadership.”Over the years, North Korea has exported smaller numbers of workers to far eastern Russia, where they work in logging and mining, as well as to Libya, Bulgaria, Saudi Arabia and Angola. Hundreds of young North Korean women used to work in garment and shoe factories in the Czech Republic, but their contracts were canceled because of European human rights activists’ concern that they were virtually slave laborers.The first North Korean workers under China’s new program arrived a few months ago in Tumen, a sleepy town hugging the North Korean border.“They are already here,” said a Tumen-based businessman, who asked not to be quoted by name. He said he knew of 140 North Koreans who were working in an underwear factory in town.
Pictured: Hundreds of young North Korean women used to work in garment and shoe factories in the Czech Republic, but their contracts were canceled because of concerns by European human rights activists that they were virtually slave laborers. (Ludvik Hradilek, For The Times / July 1, 2012)](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m6jow6YvZi1r165eko1_500.jpg)
China hires tens of thousands of North Korea guest workers
Because of sanctions, North Korea is unable to export weapons. So it is using its people to raise money. Most of their earnings will go directly to the North Korean regime
SEOUL — China is quietly inviting tens of thousands of North Korean guest workers into the country in a deal that will provide a cash infusion to help prop up a teetering regime with little more to export than the drudgery of a desperately poor population.
The deal, which has not been publicly announced by either Beijing or Pyongyang, would allow about 40,000 seamstresses, technicians, mechanics, construction workers and miners to work in China on industrial training visas, businesspeople and Korea analysts say. Most of the workers’ earnings will go directly to the communist North Korean regime.
“The North Koreans can’t export weapons anymore because of [international] sanctions, so they are using their people to raise cash,” said Sohn Kyang-ju, a former South Korean intelligence official who now heads the Seoul-based NK Daily Unification Strategy Institute.
Although migrants from North Korea, as well as Vietnam, Myanmar and the Philippines, have worked illegally in China for years, it is unprecedented for Beijing to issue visas for unskilled and semi-skilled workers, several labor experts in China said. The deal, which provides workers for a region where China suffers no labor shortages, underscores how far Beijing is willing to go to support its potentially unstable protege.
Longtime leader Kim Jong Il died last year and was replaced by his son Kim Jong Un, who is in his late 20s.
“My gut feeling is that this is the beginning of a larger wave of North Korean workers coming in. It could be quite significant,” said John Park, an academic who has written widely on North Korean-Chinese relations. “It will allow the North Koreans to piggyback on China’s economic success to jump-start the economy under the new leadership.”
Over the years, North Korea has exported smaller numbers of workers to far eastern Russia, where they work in logging and mining, as well as to Libya, Bulgaria, Saudi Arabia and Angola. Hundreds of young North Korean women used to work in garment and shoe factories in the Czech Republic, but their contracts were canceled because of European human rights activists’ concern that they were virtually slave laborers.
The first North Korean workers under China’s new program arrived a few months ago in Tumen, a sleepy town hugging the North Korean border.
“They are already here,” said a Tumen-based businessman, who asked not to be quoted by name. He said he knew of 140 North Koreans who were working in an underwear factory in town.
The deal, which has not been publicly announced by either Beijing or Pyongyang, would allow about 40,000 seamstresses, technicians, mechanics, construction workers and miners to work in China on industrial training visas, businesspeople and Korea analysts say. Most of the workers’ earnings will go directly to the communist North Korean regime.
“The North Koreans can’t export weapons anymore because of [international] sanctions, so they are using their people to raise cash,” said Sohn Kyang-ju, a former South Korean intelligence official who now heads the Seoul-based NK Daily Unification Strategy Institute.
Although migrants from North Korea, as well as Vietnam, Myanmar and the Philippines, have worked illegally in China for years, it is unprecedented for Beijing to issue visas for unskilled and semi-skilled workers, several labor experts in China said. The deal, which provides workers for a region where China suffers no labor shortages, underscores how far Beijing is willing to go to support its potentially unstable protege.
Longtime leader Kim Jong Il died last year and was replaced by his son Kim Jong Un, who is in his late 20s.
“My gut feeling is that this is the beginning of a larger wave of North Korean workers coming in. It could be quite significant,” said John Park, an academic who has written widely on North Korean-Chinese relations. “It will allow the North Koreans to piggyback on China’s economic success to jump-start the economy under the new leadership.”
Over the years, North Korea has exported smaller numbers of workers to far eastern Russia, where they work in logging and mining, as well as to Libya, Bulgaria, Saudi Arabia and Angola. Hundreds of young North Korean women used to work in garment and shoe factories in the Czech Republic, but their contracts were canceled because of European human rights activists’ concern that they were virtually slave laborers.
The first North Korean workers under China’s new program arrived a few months ago in Tumen, a sleepy town hugging the North Korean border.
“They are already here,” said a Tumen-based businessman, who asked not to be quoted by name. He said he knew of 140 North Koreans who were working in an underwear factory in town.
Pictured: Hundreds of young North Korean women used to work in garment and shoe factories in the Czech Republic, but their contracts were canceled because of concerns by European human rights activists that they were virtually slave laborers. (Ludvik Hradilek, For The Times / July 1, 2012)
