She showed up at a school in a coastal city in China nearly five months ago and begged for help. Instead, she was deported to her native North Korea and never seen again.
Now the case of Kim Chun Hee has made its way to the desk of President Bush, threatening to complicate the first White House visit of China's leader tomorrow and further irritate an irritable relationship.
Urged on by evangelical supporters from his home town and elsewhere, Bush has taken a personal interest in human rights in North Korea and decided to make an example of Kim's asylum case. Alerted to her situation by a South Korean lawmaker, the White House issued a rare statement last month pronouncing itself "gravely concerned" about her fate and chastising China for sending her back.
The story of how an obscure instance of individual hardship came to figure in a meeting between two of the world's most powerful leaders sheds light on the crosscurrents of U.S. foreign policy under Bush. The son of a former envoy to Beijing, Bush has worked to build stable relations with China and wants its help on urgent priorities such as curbing Iran's nuclear ambitions. Yet the same president has proclaimed that expanding freedom to be the guiding principle of his foreign policy, with the goal of "ending tyranny in our world."
So as diplomats and bureaucrats throughout the U.S. government in recent weeks assembled briefing books on the Chinese currency and the trade deficit and other issues of importance to Bush's business backers, another corner of government, much smaller, has worked to put on the table China's treatment of desperate North Koreans who slip across the border.
They have been aided in that quest by a growing movement of Christian activists who lately have adopted North Korea as a cause, much as they earlier did Sudan, and pushed Congress into passing legislation intended to make human rights in Asia's last Stalinist outpost a higher U.S. priority.
"We just feel this is what we're commanded to do," said Deborah Fikes, executive director of the Midland Ministerial Alliance from the president's Texas home town. "If you're a follower of Christ, this should be one of your number one priorities, speaking out for the oppressed, and I can't think of anybody more oppressed than the North Koreans."
Pointed timing
The case of Kim offered an opportunity to put their concern front and center. Never before has the Bush White House singled out a North Korean asylum seeker by name and held Beijing responsible for her fate, according to U.S. officials and human rights workers. The timing was especially pointed, coming just before the arrival of Chinese President Hu Jintao, who will be greeted tomorrow by a 21-gun salute on the South Lawn of the White House.
Administration officials said Bush feels strongly about the situation. "He's taken a very personal interest and a fairly significant interest in the issue of human rights," said Jay Lefkowitz, whom Bush appointed last year as a special envoy for human rights in North Korea. "He fundamentally believes the character of the North Korean regime is defined by its human rights conduct."
The White House statement cheered many who have been working on the issue even though they said it represents just a fraction of what should be done. "I'm glad they did it, but it's not enough," said Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-Va.), who wrote to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in February seeking more action by the administration.
Tom Malinowski of Human Rights Watch said: "The real question is whether the president's going to actually say anything to Hu. I'm happy they did it. But do they see this as a signal of what they're going to do or as a substitute?"
Not much is known about Kim beyond the bare bones of her travails. An account pieced together from a South Korean lawmaker, a U.S. diplomat in the region, South Korean media and her sister suggests Kim's experience resembles those of many seeking to escape the North.
Kim, 31, is popularly known by a pseudonym. Her real name has been reported in South Korean newspapers as Lee Chun Sil. North Korean authorities put her in prison for eight months after other family members escaped to the South. Her 5-year-old son died during her captivity. She managed to cross into China last September and on Nov. 30 tried to enter a school for Koreans in the Chinese city of Dalian on the Yellow Sea, hoping to win asylum and be sent to Seoul to join relatives. But the school kicked her out.
Usually a North Korean asylum seeker who manages to get into a South Korean school or diplomatic facility in China is allowed to go to South Korea after several months of waiting, while those captured on the outside are often sent back. So Kim made her way to Beijing, where she tried to enter another Korean school on Dec. 2, but Chinese authorities arrested her. Her sister in Seoul began faxing letters of appeal to politicians and human rights workers around the world.
A week later, Lefkowitz attended a conference in Seoul dedicated to North Korean human rights. A lawmaker he met there, Kim Moon Soo, sent him a letter dated Dec. 16 asking him to help Kim. "Do you think it would be possible for you to use any influence you can to free the North Korean woman?" he wrote.
What happened next soured U.S. officials on China. U.S., South Korean and U.N. officials all began pressing China not to deport Kim to North Korea, noting Beijing's obligations under the U.N. convention on refugees of 1951 and its 1967 protocol. The Chinese responded that the case was under review and told U.N. officials that she would probably be released on the occasion of the visit of Antonio Guterres, the U.N. high commissioner for refugees, who visited China from March 19 to 23.
‘The Chinese basically misled us’
But according to the U.S. diplomat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, Beijing had already sent Kim back to North Korea even as it was promising her release and informed the U.S. Embassy of her deportation on March 24, the day after Guterres left. "The Chinese basically misled us," the diplomat said.
Now no one is sure what has happened to Kim. Many defectors who are returned to North Korea face prison or death, according to human rights groups. "I don't know whether she is alive or dead," her sister said by telephone, asking not to be identified for security reasons.
Fikes said Kim's case became an important example for activists, who made their concern known to the White House and State Department. Six days after the embassy was informed of her fate, the White House issued its statement. "The United States is gravely concerned about China's treatment of Kim Chun-Hee," it said, reminding Beijing of "China's obligations as a party" to U.N. conventions.
Lefkowitz said Kim's case was highlighted because she offered a rare face to a broader problem. "A lot of what goes on over there is shrouded in such secrecy," he said. "The North Koreans have made it very, very hard to get out. Over the years, a lot of people have been sent back over the border. In this instance, we had a name. It was very appropriate for the international community to call it out."
Bush has expressed visceral distaste for North Korea's autocratic leader, Kim Jong Il, calling him a "tyrant" who runs "concentration camps" and saying he "loathes" him for the way he treats his people. Last year, Bush read "The Aquariums of Pyongyang" by Kang Chol Hwan, who survived 10 years eating rats in a North Korean prison, then invited the author to the White House.
"This is a topic he raises frequently, not just with leaders from Asia but around the world," said Michael Green, the president's former Asia adviser. "He cares deeply about it. It's not just about Kim Jong Il. It's the fact that these kinds of horrors happen on this kind of scale in our day and age."
But Wolf and others complain that personal commitment is not translated into enough action. In 2004, Congress passed the North Korean Human Rights Act, which created Lefkowitz's position. But the administration has not designated money to implement the law or offered asylum to any North Korean, according to a Feb. 21 letter to Rice signed by Wolf and eight other members of Congress.
‘A struggle’
Some administration officials said the State Department is more focused on North Korea's nuclear arms and has not made human rights a priority. "He is completely right," one official said of Wolf's criticism. Another official said "it's been a struggle" to get the administration to pay attention. During a White House briefing on Monday discussing issues at tomorrow's Bush-Hu summit, no official mentioned North Korean refugees.
Human rights groups and evangelical activists vowed to press until they do. "We intend to carry through on this," said Richard Cizik, vice president for governmental affairs at the National Association of Evangelicals. "The forthcoming coalition is going to be stronger than ever and we don't intend to lose. This is a major movement. . . . We have a left-right coalition that bar none will move Washington, and it's got China in the headlights."
Special correspondent Joohee Cho in Seoul contributed to this report.
