China and Us at Odds Over Embassy's Korean Refugees

The plight of tens of thousands of North Korean refugees in China came under the international spotlight again yesterday as three asylum seekers who had climbed into the US embassy were allowed to fly to South Korea.

The three were among 10 refugees whose desperate and high-profile bids to find safe haven have become a diplomatic embarrassment for the government in Beijing.

Aid agencies estimate that between 50,000 and 200,000 North Koreans have fled across the border to China to escape famine in their isolated country. Although many face repression if they are repatriated, China says they are illegal economic migrants for whom it has no responsibility to provide safe haven.

"China does not want a large influx of economic migrants, which would be destabilising. It would much prefer they stay where they were," said a diplomat in Pyongyang.

Yesterday, however, the United States and South Korea effectively contradicted the view that the refugees were merely economic migrants, by enabling the three to fly to Seoul. Canada is likely to follow suit by allowing two North Koreans who entered its embassy on Saturday to fly on to a third country.

Another diplomatic feud has blown up over the treatment of five others who sought refuge in the Japanese consulate in the Chinese city of Shenyang last Wednesday.

Television footage clearly shows the five, including a mother and her three-year-old daughter, being dragged kicking and screaming out of the compound by Chinese police.

Japan has demanded an apology for this violation of international law and requested that the refugees be treated in a humanitarian manner.

"We have been demanding their handover," said the foreign minister, Yoriko Kawaguchi. "It is important that no person, under any circumstances, is sent to countries or regions where they may face persecution."

Japan's position, however, has been weakened by the fact that it is notoriously reluctant to accept refugees and would probably not have considered doing so on this occasion if the incident had not been played up in the media.

The TV footage - taken by a South Korean crew who had been tipped off by the refugees' supporters - show a Japanese consular staff member apparently helping the Chinese police by picking up and returning caps that were knocked off in the scuffle.

The footage has also been shown repeatedly in South Korea, where sympathy for the refugees has been heightened by reports that poverty had forced the mother of the child to work as a prostitute.

Attention, however, could shift during the football World Cup, which will be held in Japan and South Korea from 31 May. Norbert Vollertsen, a German doctor who has campaigned tirelessly on the issue, has said that he will try to organise a boat to carry refugees to the South from China during the tournament.