Wanna catch a ride?
Posted on 07/31/2003 3:56:37 AM PDT by Kaslin
BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) - Ten Koreans, possibly from the communist North, sneaked into the Japanese Embassy in Bangkok on Thursday, diplomats said, apparently seeking political asylum.
The group - consisting of four men, four women, a boy and a girl - entered the embassy compound through a gate when it opened to let a car in, said embassy spokesman Toshihisa Takata. They passed beside the car shouting "North Korea" in English.
"They are safely in the building of the Japanese Embassy. We are now investigating their names and their wishes, those sorts of things," Takata told reporters.
He said they speak only Korean. "They don't speak Japanese or English but we are trying to communicate with them," he said.
"About whether or not they are trying to seek asylum we are investigating," Takata said.
A security guard stopped them inside the gate and they were escorted into the building where they were later provided lunch.
"It seems to me their health condition is normal and they seem to be reasonably relaxed at the moment," Takata said, adding that he doesn't know how long they had been in Thailand.
In the past, North Koreans have attempted to sprint into Japanese missions in China to seek political refuge.
In Tokyo, the national Kyodo News, citing unnamed sources, said the Foreign Ministry was cautioning embassies and consulates abroad that people who have fled from North Korea may be asking for protection.
In March, four people, all apparently from North Korea, entered the Japanese School in China's capital carrying letters asking for Tokyo's help in seeking asylum.
In May last year, five asylum-seeking North Koreans dashed into a Japanese consulate in the northeastern Chinese city of Shenyang and were forcibly removed by Chinese authorities. The incident spurred recriminations between Beijing and Tokyo.
Scores of North Korean asylum-seekers have sought refuge in foreign missions in China over past years.
As its biggest ally, China has a treaty with Pyongyang requiring it to send back any illegal escapees. Yet, it hasn't always done so in cases that have become public for fear of international backlash, and many asylum-seekers have eventually made their way to South Korea via third countries.
Ummm....the figure is HIGH?
It's commendable, and it is far more generous than the vast majority of countries. And then there's the fact that Japan has been extremely generous in funding the UN.
But just so I can get it right:
Are you also telling me that there are large numbers of these poor Asians who've been welcomed into Japan, and who've made their permanent home here?
And mind you, I'm not talking about special working-visa programs for Latin-Americans of Japanese ancestry, or, to take another example, Japan's act of taking in and granting citizenship to Alberto Fujimori, deposed dictator of Peru?
Second largest, actually....
But that doesn't frame the picture squarely; Japanese women plain don't have babies anymore; it's striking how quickly this has come on, and there's no end in sight to it, I'm afraid. This country is quickly racing towards being an archipelago of doddering seniors, with no one to man factories, no one to pay taxes (though the government now gives compensates women who have kids).
So the EXTREME reluctance of elusive Japanse bureaucrats to accept immigrants into Japan on a permanent basis --and this reluctance has always strong-- is coming into even sharper focus. Granted, there have been highly public government reports touting the need for a certain percentage of foreigners admitted into Japan, but this has mostly been for foreign consumption.
Partly because of America's example, the usually temporary but somehow quaint presence of "great numbers" of foreigners in Japan is sometimes taken as a hallmark of Japan's accession into fully 1st world status:
Oh, how the powers that be trumpeted when it could be shown that fully 1% of Tokyo residents were foreign-born. Oooooh my, there's sophistication for ya, eh?
Whoo-hooo!
Wanna catch a ride?
Gee, does that crowded bus "prove" that Japan should not be expected to accept a significant number of Korean refugees? Maybe you should take some photographs of a few crowded American emergency rooms...you'd be surprised at the similarities.
North Koreans fleeing psycho-communist torturers aren't the same as Mexicans looking for freebies.
Most FReepers and modern conseratives, though, are "classical liberals." We value our freedom above all else, and will do anything to preserve it. These two viewpoints are incompatible, since the hide-bound types try to keep everything in stasis, which often means curtailing freedom.
Among the things we can do to encourage and protect freedom here is to help those oppressed by the enemies of freedom as much as possible, a thing which is generally measured by how much they are willing to help themselves. Any North Korean who is motivated enough to risk death for them and their family for three generations just to breathe free certainly has my vote to become one of us. Just like Soviet and PRC defectors, these people come here, work their arses off to be successful, and vote Republican forever.
Why not let em in?
Basically, if someone has the drive, courage and ingenuity to escape a country-size gulag, they're somebody I want in this country.
As it is, the laws go unenforced and there are no prospects for seeing them enforced as no leader will pay attention to the pleas of the public on this point. GW won't even help the hospitals at the borders--where the ambulances carry Mexican citizens across the border to American hospitals for free care!!
So you'll be attempting to persuade a very weary and overwhelmed system to accept more non-English speaking competitors for jobs, more demands on social servicrs...
Looks like the race card is about your only ace. Have away. But notice that the liberals have just about exhausted its effectiveness.
To try again--the system is overwhelmed. Perhaps you are making the point that Koreans should not be turned away because we do not enforce our immigration laws? In a metaphysical world, I might agree. That doesn't address the "overwhelmed" part. There is a critical mass at work here...
South Korea is the ethnic and cultural brother of NK. Let them take responsibility for NKoreans when Kim falls. Japan can help--Japan and Korea are also culturally close. Japanese culture has certainly borrowed from Korean. If Germany can do it, certainly SK can. Frankly, SK is a much more can-do economy than Germany.
You make only the point that there is no such thing as "pure", and your implication of racism rather ignores the fact that I put the adjective within the quotation marks that it deserves.
Bus, schmus. Who cares?
If they want to defend themselves from Kim they ought to prepare themselves to accept some Korean refugees, which is what this discussion is about--not your vast and important world travels.
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