The June 19 defense pact signed between Russia and North Korea included a promise to provide military assistance to one another – within days Pyongyang said it was sending troops to Ukraine.
The South Korean immigration and labor laws make finding work south of the border incredibly difficult. North Korean expats are confined to menial service sector and grueling industrial work while being largely cut out of South Korean social life due to heavy stigmas against them. Its an incredibly hard life and not remotely like the glamorous existence of social elites that Americans claim drive the periodic defections.
The 18% figure is a biased sample from an anti-DPRK NGO. More comprehensive research into North Korean defectors by Cho Cheon-hyeon for his book Defectors indicate that most North Korean defectors simply want to make money in China, with only about 40% of defectors wanting to go to South Korea.
So I did misremember, but my point still stands on the fact that most of them don’t want to defect to South Korea, even before taking into account that even at their 2009 peak defectors were a tiny fraction of a percent of North Korea’s population and the existence of them in no way implicates all of North Korean society in secretly wanting to escape.
That last statement is meaningless given the crazy levels of security they have on keeping people in. If they took away all the restrictions on leaving then the numbers would go through the roof.
If so few people want to leave, why are so many resources directed into preventing people from leaving? I can’t think of any other country that works so hard to keep their citizens from escaping. Usually the largest barrier to leaving a country is the policies of the country you’re entering.
Most of the ones that do end up regretting it /shrugThis is wrong - it’s not that they end up regretting it so much as most of them never want to go to South Korea in the first place.
About 18% of North Korean defectors regret it.
The number one reason is wanting to see family and friends who are still trapped in North Korea.
Around 20% of defectors have considered returning to North Korea. But that has less to do with the appeal of the North than the poor treatment of expats in the South.
The South Korean immigration and labor laws make finding work south of the border incredibly difficult. North Korean expats are confined to menial service sector and grueling industrial work while being largely cut out of South Korean social life due to heavy stigmas against them. Its an incredibly hard life and not remotely like the glamorous existence of social elites that Americans claim drive the periodic defections.
The 18% figure is a biased sample from an anti-DPRK NGO. More comprehensive research into North Korean defectors by Cho Cheon-hyeon for his book Defectors indicate that most North Korean defectors simply want to make money in China, with only about 40% of defectors wanting to go to South Korea.
So I did misremember, but my point still stands on the fact that most of them don’t want to defect to South Korea, even before taking into account that even at their 2009 peak defectors were a tiny fraction of a percent of North Korea’s population and the existence of them in no way implicates all of North Korean society in secretly wanting to escape.
That last statement is meaningless given the crazy levels of security they have on keeping people in. If they took away all the restrictions on leaving then the numbers would go through the roof.
If so few people want to leave, why are so many resources directed into preventing people from leaving? I can’t think of any other country that works so hard to keep their citizens from escaping. Usually the largest barrier to leaving a country is the policies of the country you’re entering.
The fact they’re called defectors says it all. Anywhere else they’d be called emigrants.
I’m sure you’ll be able to provide me with a sound study confirming this.