Cable from the Jilin Provincial Party Committee, 'Korean Citizen Border Crossers Arriving in China’s Changbai County Request Residency'

Telegram Received, Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Cable Precedence: Priority

Received at Jilin Station

Foreign [Ministry] Received Telegram No. (61) B Xu-1149

[North] Korean Citizen Border Crossers Arriving in China’s Changbai County Request Residency

To the Tonghua Regional Committee, copying the Yanbian Prefectural Committee, and reporting to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs:

Telegram of November 15th received, reply as follows:

1. After reviewing all information relating to [North] Korean citizens who illegally crossed the border, we should persuade them to return and then after contacting border defense representatives, and after recording their names and investigating their situations, turn them over as a group to Korea.

2. Those who through investigation are determined to be Korean citizens who came to China to visit relatives, but not having gone through the appropriate procedures, crossed the border illegally, should be told that what they did was not right and have them sent back within a short period.

3. Those who through investigation are determined to be Korean citizens but have already married Chinese citizens of the Korean nationality, who after three attempts at persuasion still refuse to return to Korea, should be handled as an exception. A list of the names of these people should be sent to the provincial Foreign Affairs Office for reporting to the Korean Consulate General [in Shenyang]. If Korea agrees that they may remain in China, then they can be handled as foreign residents.

4. Those who through investigation are found to be members of China’s Korean national minority, should be educated and have their original Chinese citizenship restored to them.

5. Anyone who committed a crime in China after crossing the border should be handled according to our country’s laws concerning foreign citizens who commit crimes in China.

In order to correctly implement the principles above, we must the work described below:

1. We must carry out patriotic and internationalist education among our cadres, explaining to them that returning border crossers benefits the unity of the Chinese and Korean people and is our internationalist responsibility.

2. Strengthen border management work. Border crossers should be all be confined and persuaded through education to return. Rude treatment of border crossers is not permitted.

3. For those individuals for whom attempts to persuade them to return have failed, the local authorities should handle the issues of providing them suitable food and clothing.

Those Korean citizens who crossed the border in 1960 or earlier, and are determined not to return should, with the permission of the Provincial Communist Party Committee, be transferred to the Public Security Department and the Foreign Affairs Department for handling according to the principles of the “Report on the Handling of Korean Illegal International Border Crossers or Those Holding Expired Credentials But are Unwilling to Return.”

If there is anything problems with the opinions above, please ask the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for guidance.

 Jilin Provincial Committee of the Chinese Communist Party 

November 25, 1961

Jilin Province Document No. (81) 443

Distribution: Prime Minister's Office, Foreign Affairs Office (5), Public Security, Civil Affairs Committee, Participation (7), Overseas Chinese Affairs Commission, Commerce, Chen, Ji, Han, General Office (2), Ministry of Foreign Affairs Second Asian Department and Consular Affairs Department, Treaty Office, Ambassador Hao

One copy retrained for files, total of 27 copies

Approved on the 29th, at 0915. Copied at 1430. Received at 1149