YANBIAN SINO-KOREAN HARMONY: THIS IS HOW WE DO IT

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 SHENYANG 000185 SIPDIS DEPARTMENT FOR EAP/K, EAP/CM, INR MOSCOW PASS TO VLADIVOSTOK E.O. 12958: DECL: TEN YEARS AFTER KOREAN UNIFICATION TAGS: CH EAGR ECON KN KS PGOV PHUM PREF PREL SUBJECT: YANBIAN SINO-KOREAN HARMONY: THIS IS HOW WE DO IT REF: A. SHENYANG 143 ¶B. SHENYANG 163 Classified By: Consul General Stephen B. Wickman. Reasons 1.4(b/d). ¶1. (C) SUMMARY: China is hard at work on its ethnic minority policy in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture bordering Russia and North Korea. In exchange for political allegiance, the Chinese seem to allow the local Sino-Koreans considerable sovereignty in governing most issues, from refugees to economic relations with the Koreas. Meanwhile, our contacts in the area report that their usually combative North Korean counterparts have become more accommodating than in recent memory. Contacts recently returned from North Korea say the food situation continues to be stable in comparison to past years. END SUMMARY. ¶2. (U) Consul General and ConGenOff traveled to Jilin Province's Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture October 15- 18 to participate in the celebration of Yanbian University's 60th anniversary. Notable guests included former State Ethnic Affairs Commission Chairman Li Dezhu, Vice Minister of Education Lu Xin, Jilin Province Party Secretary Wang Min, Kim Il-Sung University President Song Ja-rip, and the Director of the North Korean Academy of Social Sciences. CHINESE MESSAGE: ETHNIC SOLIDARITY -------------- ¶3. (C) For a small university on the China-DPRK border, Yanbian University's 60th anniversary ceremony was attended by a large number of luminaries, including the former State Ethnic Affairs Commission Chairman Li Dezhu, himself a Sino- Korean. University President Jin Bingmin punctuated his keynote address with more than one pointed reference to "ethnic harmony" and solidarity between the Korean and Han Chinese people of the Prefecture, a theme repeated throughout the weekend's festivities. ¶4. (C) During dinner before the party began watching the televised confessions of the Uighurs convicted for their part in the Urumqi violence, the university's Foreign Affairs Office (FAO) Director Liu Mingzhu, a Sino-Korean, shook his head and said: "Something like that would never, ever happen here... impossible." After several minutes of watching violent replay, Liu said the news was "depressing" and asked the waitress to change the channel. ¶5. (C) Even more over the top were the antics of a Beijing- based Sino-Korean "boy band" performing at a star-studded musical event featuring well-known alumni and headlined by the Sino-Korean winner of China's 2008 "American Idol"-style CCTV talent competition. The Beijing-based band took the stage to a screaming crowd of hundreds of students and community members. Prancing about the stage, warming up the audience, and building up the crowd to garner screams of many female college students, the band leader asked all of the Sino-Koreans in the audience to "raise their hands and cheer." The Sino-Koreans cheered loudly. He then asked all of the Han Chinese students in the crowd to do the same, and the Han Chinese crowd did their best to outdo the Sino- Koreans and cheered loudly. Satisfied by the substantial volume from both quarters, the band leader then excitedly reminded the entire audience that they were "all Chinese, the future of the People's Republic of China" and asked everyone to cheer "together." The crowd, somewhat nonplussed, cheered loudly, but the sudden political correctness seemed to dampen an even louder final cheer. SPLIT NORTH KOREAN PERSONALITY -------------- ¶6. (C) Yanbian University of Science and Technology (YUST) and Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST) Vice President David Kim was back in town for the festivities, at least partly because he said it made no sense for him to remain in Pyongyang as planned when the university was not yet up and running. Kim said that his North Korean Education Ministry interlocutors were very positive and cooperative during his short stay in Pyongyang, proposing that the PUST leadership go ahead with its plan to begin business courses this fall. However, Kim convinced other PUST leaders to set their sights on a successful April SHENYANG 00000185 002 OF 002 1, 2010 launch rather than a late fall escapade that might unwittingly derail the entire project. ¶7. (C) FAO Director Liu spent the Chinese national day holidays accompanying a delegation of agricultural experts to Rason, far from Pyongyang, where the university had donated rice, wheat, and potato seeds and shared farming best practices. Liu said that in contrast to his previous visits to North Korea a few years ago, his North Korean hosts were more laid back, less focused on protocol and propaganda, and more focused on making outreach and achieving shared goals (Ref A). ¶8. (C) Sino-Korean Yanbian University lecturer Jin Xinghai said that while he enjoyed visiting North Korea because of its cleanliness, hospitality, and the fact that he had relatives in North Korea, he echoed a common complaint of Chinese officials who have extensive DPRK dealings. He said the North Koreans regularly caused a protocol ruckus by finding excuses to get angry at their Sino-Korean hosts (NOTE: the Prefectural FAO Vice Director also told us she dreaded having to host North Korean delegations to Yanbian because they would undoubtedly find something to get angry about). ¶9. (C) Jin cited the visiting North Korean delegation to the University's 60th anniversary festivities as an example. Their flight from Shenyang arrived after the start of a dinner banquet; while the Kim Il-sung University president was quickly ushered to his seat at the head table, the rest of the roughly 20-member delegation was seated further away from the front. With the exception of the president, the entire delegation walked out thinking they had been disrespected. Jin praised FAO Director Liu for reminding the Yanbian University leadership that "a poor country with a damaged ego" is more likely to be offended and act petty. Liu convinced the Yanbian University President to pay special attention to the North Korean delegation at a banquet on their final night before returning to Pyongyang via Shenyang. FOOD SITUATION IMPROVED, DEFECTORS IN YANBIAN LEFT ALONE -------------- -------------- ¶10. (C) YUST Dean Norma Nichols, also recently returned from Pyongyang, relayed the puzzled statements of a Western aid organization leader who was with her on the same trip for PUST's dedication (Ref B). The aid director, a veteran of religious charity work in sub-Saharan Africa, expressed surprise at the appearance of Pyongyang citizens somewhat critically: "I know what starving people look like... these people are clearly not starving." Nichols said that Pyongyang in September 2009 was a "world apart" from her prior visit in the late 1990s as an aid observer and that the food situation appeared to be much better. She assumed, however, that remote rural areas were much worse off than Pyongyang or the PRC-DPRK border regions. ¶11. (C) A Sino-Korean trader whose childhood friends are actively involved in farming exchanges, however, said the situation was far from being ideal. Apart from the obvious shortages of arable land and fertilizer that perennially limited North Korea's total output, his expert friends complained about poor land management, such as overplanting and monoculture fields. ¶12. (C) When Congenoff asked David Kim about the situation of undocumented North Koreans living "illegally" in China, Kim opined once again that the Chinese officials in Yanbian were "reasonable" and "willing to turn a blind eye" to their presence. WICKMAN