2002/5/10
BEIJING, APBrushing off an escalating diplomatic mess, China insisted Thursday that its paramilitary guards were just offering protection when they burst into a Japanese consulate to extract two suspected North Korean asylum-seekers. Japan demanded an explanation.
Another North Korean, meanwhile, scaled the wall of the American consulate in Shenyang, the same northeastern city, bringing to three the number of North Koreans inside that diplomatic facility, a U.S. spokeswoman said. South Korean activists promised more to come.
Kong Quan, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, said the People's Armed Police were not only respecting the international practice of protecting diplomatic compounds -- contained in the Treaty of Vienna -- but were being diligent given "the backdrop of the international fight against terrorism."
"The Chinese guards did their duty," he said. "It was totally out of concern for the consul general."
Japan, whose relations with China are often punctuated by tension, said otherwise.
The Japanese prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, said Thursday in his country's parliament that he had strongly protested the Chinese police action.
Japan said the two people inside its consulate, said to be members of a North Korean family, were removed Wednesday despite pleas from Japanese staff. Three others were caught outside at the gate. Koizumi met Thursday with Hu Qili, a high-ranking Chinese official visiting Tokyo, and asked for China to "deal with this issue sincerely," according to Misako Kaji, a spokeswoman for Koizumi.
"Our embassy in China immediately protested to the Chinese government and we are waiting for a reply," Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi said. Diplomatic offices are foreign territory under international treaty, and Chinese authorities are not supposed to enter them without permission. Kong refused to say whether the guards were under instructions to breach other nations' sovereign soil.
But the Chinese government, caught between its alliance with North Korea and its hunger for international acceptance, is jumpy about the spate of North Koreans barging into embassies in Beijing and, now, consular offices in other cities.
Shenyang, the biggest city in China's northeast, is of particular concern. Thousands of North Koreans are believed to live in hiding in the region, which abuts the North Korean border.
Across Beijing's embassy neighborhoods in recent weeks, guards have been seen toting billy clubs and even aluminum baseball bats. Paramilitary officers in camouflage garb troll the sidewalks with automatic weapons. Hundreds of meters (yards) of barbed wire have been erected atop walls and along sidewalks.
The three inside the U.S. consulate remained in diplomatic limbo Thursday night. A spokeswoman, on customary condition of anonymity, said American diplomats were working with the Chinese government "to resolve the situation."
China wouldn't say whether those detained were North Koreans or whether they would be sent home.
Two North Koreans who entered the U.S. Embassy in April were allowed to leave for South Korea. The United States has said repeatedly that North Koreans should not be repatriated to probable persecution.
In Seoul, South Korean activists gave a letter to the Japanese Embassy appealing to Tokyo to demand custody of the five detainees. The Citizens' Coalition for the Human Rights of North Korean Defectors and of Peace said it also organized the mass asylum bid at the Spanish Embassy in March. "There will be more similar attempts as long as North Koreans crave for freedom," said Do Hee-yoon, the group's spokesman.
This is the ChiCom's contribution to the fight against terrorism.
In the picture at top you can see the little girl is still inside the consulate, whereas they have all ready dragged the mother out.