Secretariat of the Northeast Office of the CCP Central Committee, 'News Briefing No. 28: Some Korean Nationality People are Sneaking across the International Border'

News Briefing

Internal Information No. 28 For Reference Only

May 5, 1962 Secretariat of the Northeast Office of the CPC Central Committee

Some Korean Nationality People are Sneaking across the International Border

During the past several days, letters from Korean nationality cadres and masses addressed to Chairman Mao and to the State Council have been received on illegal means that many people of the Korean nationality use to cross the international border.

 The information is summarized is as follows:

Zhu Wenjing, a Korean cadre and a representative of the Municipal People's Congress of Jiuliancheng Commune in the suburb of Andong City, Liaoning Province, wrote to Chairman Mao that although the lives of their Korean people are very fortunate, there are still many people who have an inadequate understanding of the good situation in the motherland and so are illegally cross the international border to [North] Korea. If this is not stopped, it will be bad for both China and Korea, I hope that my government will suggest to the Korean government that it not arrange for work and living arrangements for people who cross the border illegally. If several dozen households are sent back then people will no longer flee across the border. Now if they cross the border they find work. The people who fled also make propaganda that China is a bad place. This is not good and will have a bad political effect.

Jin Jun of Harbin believes that it would be impossible for the government refuse permission to travel to Korea to see relatives and to refuse to issue passports in order to prevent Korean nationality people from “returning to their country” to take a trip to visit relatives and not to open a passport to prevent "returning to China.” It would not be appropriate either to just label anyone who wants to “return to Korea” as simply being a nationalist.

 A person of the Korean nationality in the Yanbian region suggests allowing people of Korean nationality in China to freely choose their country of citizenship. He believes that they would never agree to treat their homeland as a foreign country. Most of the Koreans in Yanbian want to "return to Korea" because the Chinese government does recognize that desire, tens of thousands of people cross the border illegally. He also said that he disagreed with the Yanbian State Committee's analysis of the Korean nationality issue that people want to go back to Korea "due to several years of continuous disasters." He believed that for the most part it is an issue of citizenship. Therefore the way to solve the problem is to hold a secret internal process in Yanbian to let people freely choose their country of citizenship.

Zhu Wenjing believes that cross-border people are mostly people who do not have an occupation. They engage in speculation by selling for a lot of money things that they can carry on their persons. Their livelihoods thus depend upon the Korean government.

Distribution: Comrades [Song] Renqiong, Mingfang, Huoqing, Wude, Oudong, Xiaoqu; Deputy Secretary-General and Office Director, Political and Legal Affairs Group; the Central Investigation Team; Archives. Twenty copies printed.