Thanks for the correction; I should have read more carefully.
That being said, if they’re escaping into China, they must be even more desperate than had they escaped to the south; for all China’s economic progress, the hinterlands remain economically backward, and are certainly not on a par with South Korea.
I assume they try to escape to the South, but I think the border is too tight; I remember a few years back when they started escaping into Red China when the starvation became widespread (that’s where I read about the height disparity).