[INTERVIEW] China must help North Korean defectors move South: diplomat defector

Thae Yong-ho, a former North Korean diplomat who defected to South Korea, speaks during an interview with The Korea Times in Seoul, April 20. / Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul

By Kim Rahn

China is one of the key players in addressing the North Korea nuclear issue, but has not been active in doing so, according to Thae Yong-ho, former North Korean diplomat who defected to South Korea.

Despite some positive changes it has been showing since the summit between its President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump, the international community is still doubtful about its seriousness in checking the North.

Thae says China must stop sending back North Koreans who fled from the impoverished nation and help the defectors move to the South. Without these efforts, it is hard to conclude that China is seriously working to resolve the nuclear issue, he said.

Regarding the U.S.' possible pre-emptive strike on the North, Thae said if the U.S. would really conduct such an attack, the strike should be one-time and powerful enough to collapse the North 100 percent, not leaving a single chance for it to strike back, because Kim would use nuclear weapons if any chance remains.

Thae also noted that North Korea needs to conduct a large-scale nuclear test to complete its nuclear development, but is hesitating out of fear of possible failure to control the test which will bring a nuclear catastrophe to the Korean Peninsula and the consequent fall of the Kim Jong-un regime.

About the possibility of North Korean residents rising up against the Kim regime, the former diplomat said nobody _ not even the regime's leaders _ knows when their discontent and anger at the regime will reach boiling point.

Thae, who has suffrage here and plans to cast his vote in the upcoming presidential election, advised political parties not to exploit the North Korea issue for victory in the election.

Q: What can South Korea do to influence China to seriously take part in sanctions against the North?

A: In terms of economic pressure, it is difficult to prove whether China is actively carrying out the sanctions because we don't know how much smuggling between the border is taking place and whether China is preventing it or not.

Provable pressure will be the North Korean defector issue. There are tens of thousands of defectors in the northeastern part of China, and we have to demand China directly send them to the South so they will not need to make a detour via Southeast Asia.

China has never accepted this demand but has caught defectors and sent them back to North Korea, although it is against international law, because China knows if people begin to move out of the North, it will soon lead to the regime's collapse as seen in East Germany and other Eastern European countries.

Q: Will Kim Jong-un really use nuclear weapons if the U.S. launches a pre-emptive strike?

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A: The U.S. should make a pre-emptive strike only if it can destroy the North completely so that the Kim regime cannot counterattack. If it destroys the North 50 percent and plans to destroy the rest in a couple of days, then the North will use nuclear weapons.

Kim will use them even if it will lead to his self-destruction. He has seen how dictators in the Middle East and Eastern Europe ended. He knows he will die once an armed conflict takes place. So if he dies anyway, he will use the weapons.

Thus if the Trump administration conducts a pre-emptive strike incompletely (failing to destroy the North 100 percent), South Korea will suffer the damage. I don't think Trump will decide on pre-emptive action without consulting with the South Korean government because there are 230,000 Americans here. I don't think he will risk their lives.

Q: North Korea has conducted five nuclear tests. What will the North's future tests be like?

A: In developing nuclear weapons technology, a large-scale test is a must. As far as I know, North Korea needed at least seven tests to have enough data to miniaturize nuclear warheads, so the sixth or the seventh test may be the large one.

But it hasn't conducted a large-size test yet because it was uncertain whether it could control the radioactivity with its technology. If it fails to control it, it will result in a huge nuclear holocaust: the Punggye-ri nuclear test site is close to residential areas, not far from Seoul as well and only 100 kilometers away from China. A radioactive contamination there would also lead to massive defections to China and will cause the North's political collapse.

Q: Will it be possible for North Korean residents to cause an uprising despite the authorities' strict control?

A: There is a fundamental difference between liberal democratic society and a communist one.

In the former, people are allowed free expression so they express their thoughts and complaints; in the South, such complaints are reflected in presidential elections so people can change their leader every five years. So what people think and want can be read.

But in the latter, the dictatorship controls everything, including the press, and pressures only one ideology, so it is hard to read what people really think and whether or not they are discontent with the regime. There is no way to learn whether their discontent level is approaching the boiling point to overthrow the regime.

Even the North Korean leadership doesn't know at what point they can still control the residents. Once this reaches boiling point, the system will collapse immediately, as seen in the Soviet Union and East Germany.

But it is also impossible for Kim to acknowledge the market economy system to relieve economic hardship and soothe people's discontent. North Korean society has been maintained based on deification of the Kim family and controlled by his instruction. So if capitalism is adopted, Kim's power of control will be decreased, thus he can't introduce such a system.

Q: What advice will you give to presidential candidates and political parties here?

A: Political parties should not take advantage of or abuse North Korean policies as their political strategies. They should let people know the exact situation of North Korea and adopt the most suitable, most practical policies. If parties abuse North Korean policies for political purposes, unification will be unattainable.