Party Committee of the Ethnic Affairs Committee, 'Situation Report No. 6: Concerning the Outflow of Members of the Korean Nationality'

Top Secret

Situation Report

No. 6

Edited by the Party Committee of the Ethnic Affairs Committee August 3, 1962

Concerning the Outflow of Members of the Korean Nationality

The party group of the Liaoning Provincial Ethnic Affairs Committee received a report on July 20 from the Andong City Ethnic Overseas Chinese Affairs Committee on July 20th about the current Korean nationality outflows. A summary of the report follows:

Since the last third of April, when the method for intercepting border crossers changed, the total number of Korean outflows during the month of June in Andong and Shahe Towns reached seven or eight hundred. This was about the same number as in April and a slight increase compared with May. Currently, the average number of Korean outflows is about twenty or thirty per day.

The June outflows to [North] Korea had some differences from the earlier outflows:

1. Korean nationality people who left for Korea via the Andong region were not only from Liaoning Province. Some were from Jilin, Heilongjiang and other provinces. It is widely known among Korean nationality people that Korean nationality people from other areas won’t have any problems if they cross the border from the Andong region. Therefore, residents of the Tumen River border region in Jilin Province also crossed the border in the Andong area. During the seventeen day June 13 – 30, a total of 102 people were persuaded not to cross the border. Seventy of these people were from Liaoning Province, 23 from Wushun, eight from Anshan, 26 from Jilin Province, and 54 from Heilongjiang Province, and 21 from other areas.

2. The composition of the outflow personnel has changed considerably. According to historical statistics, the largest number of outflows are farmers, but in June, the largest number of outflows were urban workers. Among the 228 people persuaded not to cross the border mentioned above, there were 116 urban workers, accounting for 57.4%; 60 farmers, accounting for 29.8%; and 26 others, accounting for 12.8%. According to the survey, the main reason was insufficient attention to the problems of Korean nationality workers. Change was due to insufficient care for Korean workers in the ongoing reductions in the urban workforce and reductions in urban populations. Of the 116 employees who were leaving for Korea, 104 had been laid off. The decline in peasant outflows is mainly due to the current improvements in rural areas and the busy season.

3. The people leaving China for Korea are act openly and have tough attitudes. Formerly, border crossings were done at night. Now, the border is mostly crossed by day. After getting off at the train station, they take the bus to the border. Some form a group and take a car. For example, on the morning of June 28, six households comprising over 20 people, took the bus from the Zhenzhubao to Jiuliancheng, and after getting off at Jiuliancheng, then go straight to the river crossing at the Aihe Bridge. The people leaving have a tough attitude and speak straightforwardly. They are not ashamed of crossing the border illegally. Instead, they say that they have been laid off in China and can’t do the exit procedures and so they have to leave China this way. They believe that they can be reduced in the country and that they can’t do it when they go abroad. They have to leave the country in this way. They Koreans “returning home” to Korea is just what Koreans should be doing.

4. Some outflow personnel carry more commodities, such as steel needles, streptomycin, penicillin, pens, and auto parts. The person who carried the most commodities was loaded down with seven thousand hand needles and two hundred doses of streptomycin. There are also auto parts worth more than a thousand RMB.

In addition, we were informed by border crossers to Korea that on June 24th Korea removed its reception center on Huangcaoping opposite Langtou and will no longer accept border crossers. However, a DPRK militia on the Huangcaoping told border crossers: You can go to Uiju, opposite the Jiuliancheng, where the reception center is still open. This turned out to be true.

Higher authority has instructed us to be generous and cautious on the issue of the outflow to Korea. We need to be both generous and not allow it to flow unimpeded. We need to reach the people in their homes. Therefore,

1. We propose that the municipal public security, civil affairs, customs, and civil affairs committees form a joint dissuasion station to handle some major problems among the people leaving for Korea. In the past, because there was no organized dissuasion station, the various departments all acted on their own and many problems were difficult to handle properly.

2. There must be an appropriate show of force at the border crossing and persuasion should be carried out to discourage people from crossing the border in order to maintain the dignity of the international border.

3. In layoff work, necessary attention should be paid to Korean nationality workers. Korean nationality workers should not be laid off or at least layoffs of Korean nationality workers should be kept as low as possible.