North Korea and China, after the big boys' get-together.
From the Daily NK on North Korea:
North Korean authorities have dramatically intensified surveillance of the population following Kim Jong Un’s visit to China and the regime’s founding anniversary on Sept. 9, with citizens reporting extreme fatigue and pressure from constant monitoring.
A Daily NK source in South Pyongan province said recently that “these days, even leaving home for just a few hours means being hounded by everyone from the neighborhood watch unit leader to security officers and state security agents to report your destination — people don’t even have room to breathe.”
The source added that “quite a few people have gotten into trouble after leaving home thinking ‘a few hours should be fine’ only to be caught unexpectedly.”
According to the source, neighborhood watch unit leaders visit each household in their districts, asking who is leaving home and when, recording expected return times, then actually returning during those time slots to verify whether people have come back — tracking people’s every movement.
People are voicing their frustration with this behavior, often using sarcasm to express their feelings. Comments like “it’s surprising they don’t make us report going to the bathroom” and “we even have to watch ourselves breathe” highlight their sense of suffocation under the authorities’ excessive surveillance.
Chinese police investigating online criticism of a military parade celebrating the 80th anniversary of “Victory Day” are targeting North Korean female defectors—who are illegal aliens in China—confiscating phones and bringing them in for questioning.
Multiple sources in China told Daily NK recently that Chinese police have been cracking down on online criticism of the Chinese Communist Party, the People’s Liberation Army and the leaders of Russia and North Korea who attended the military parade at Tiananmen Square in Beijing.
“Posts that criticize Chinese President Xi Jinping for standing beside Kim Jong Un and Vladimir Putin at Tiananmen Square—a sacred historical site infused with the spirit of the Cultural Revolution—were spreading on Weibo,” the source said, referring to China’s popular microblogging platform.
“Remarks about Kim Jong Un have led investigators to consider female defectors as being potentially implicated in the posts and to bring them in for questioning,” the source said.
It was once an article of faith that as China liberalised, so too would North Korea. It seems like a long time ago. It was a long time ago. In fact it seems to be working the other way round: North Korea becomes more and more suffocatingly Orwellian, and China follows.
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