Originally published on the CGS blog on January 30, 2015.
China’s international mantra is that human rights start with a socio-economically stable foundation–before democratization. In other words, people need to eat breakfast before they cast ballots.
China is also an advocate of sovereignty and emphasizes not interfering in other countries’ internal affairs. This comes from interference by Western powers in the past, particularly Great Britain during the opium wars, who told the Chinese Imperial Court to give up its protests about the drugs being smuggled into the Chinese Empire, despite the social ills it was causing to Chinese society.
It’s unrealistic to ask China to demand that North Korea end its political prison system or to accept North Korean escapees as political refugees. China itself has the largest number of political prisoners in the world. Lists such as this one indicate only some of the thousands of people in China held in political prisons.
China also has many citizens who escape it or are deported from it as political refugees, such as Wei Jingsheng and Harry Wu, to name a few.
Overall, China has human rights issues similar to North Korea. It does, however, allow people slightly more freedom of expression than North Korea does as long as the Communist Party is not subject to rhetoric that undermines it.
For example, people have the right in China to say that things aren’t perfect, and people can sometimes air their opinions about certain issues like economic problems that need to be resolved.
This isn’t the case in North Korea. The Kim Regime projects via the state media propaganda that everything in North Korea is great–thanks to the Kims! This is especially evident on the Korean Central News Agency website, which is full of grandiose articles.
China prefers an orderly and harmonious society, but it does encourage economic innovative thinking–something that North Korea does not openly advocate, but allows on small levels. Also, North Korea has been looking north to its economically successful neighbor, China.
Perhaps democratic countries could encourage China to coax North Korea to improve its socioeconomic conditions so that people won’t be as desperate to escape the state. Democratic countries like the United States would prefer that North Korea allow its citizens the right to come and go as they please, as freedom of movement is a sacred right in democratic society.
However, China might also be willing to persuade North Korea to provide its citizens with economic opportunities based upon individual talent rather than supposed ancestral political loyalty in its Songbun caste system.
After all, Karl Marx never would have believed in setting up such a caste system, as it’s anathema to his ideas of an egalitarian society where everyone works for the common good. China could point out that North Korea loses potential innovative talent via its continued reliance on such an outdated sociopolitical favor system.
Democratic countries should encourage China to provide advice to North Korea on how to improve its socioeconomic conditions, as this will alleviate much of the suffering that most of its citizens go through on a daily basis. China could encourage North Korea to allow more individual economic initiative, as it can help society as a whole when distribution of goods and services can get to the people who need or want them.
Democratic countries also could persuade China to convince North Korea that it should provide economic opportunities to repatriated refugees instead of sending them to political prisons, especially since China considers these refugees to be economic migrants.
In conclusion, although we may not see a democratic North Korea in the near future–especially since China is still authoritarian and is bound to be for years to come–asking for help in persuading North Korea to address its socioeconomic issues might motivate China to practice what it preaches on the global stage.
