- China's sudden transfer of more than 30,000 Chinese troops
to border areas with North Korea is apparently intended to block a massive
influx of North Korean defectors, a Japanese newspaper reported on Oct.
7.
-
- The North Korean army has also dispatched elite forces
along the border in response to China's deployment, the Sankei Shimbun
reported, citing sources informed on Chinese issues.
-
- The Japanese government has confirmed military movements
along the Sino-North Korean border by using satellite photographs and is
monitoring the situation using its intelligence network.
-
- The deployment of Chinese troops was so sudden that there
were not enough barracks available and soldiers are being quartered in
farmhouses. The rapid deployment was ordered because of growing signs in
North Korea of an impending mass defection, the newspaper reported.
-
- The troop movements followed widespread rumors that North
Korean soldiers manning the border would flee the North en masse.
-
- Chinese troops were sent to the region ahead of the winter
season when North Koreans can easily cross the frozen river into China,
the newspaper reported. It quoted sources as saying that China is concerned
about the possibility that armed North Korean troops might escape due to
food shortage and assault homes and citizens in local cities bordering
the North.
-
- A diplomatic source in South Korea also said the military
movements by China and North Korea seemed aimed at blocking mass defections
of North Koreans.
-
- The Sanhe-Kaishantun-Nanping region in which the Chinese
troops were deployed is near one of main routes through which North Korean
escapees can make their way to China, according to the South Korean sources.
North Koreans can cross the narrow river with relative ease, especially
when it is frozen.
-
- The report also raised that possibility the deployment
was in response to preparations against a possible civil war in North Korea
over who would be the country's next leader.
-
- Meanwhile, the South Korea Defense Ministry said China
would send about 400,000 troops to fight alongside North Korea should war
break out on the Korean peninsula.
-
- China rescued North Korea in the 1950-53 Korean War,
sending some 1 million troops to fight with North Korea against South Korea
and the United States.
-
- "There are men - now in power in this country -
who do not respect dissent, who cannot cope with turmoil, and who believe
that the people of America are ready to support repression as long as it
is done with a quiet voice and a business suit." -- Former New York
Mayor John V. Lindsay
-
- "Terrorism is the war of the poor. War is the terrorism
of the rich." -- Leon Uris - Source: Trinity, a Novel of Ireland,
1976
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- http://216.26.163.62/2004/ea_china_10_12.html
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