North Korean dissident calls out China for enabling brutal regime

A North Korean dissident who escaped the brutal dictatorship as a teen is calling on the international community to condemn the Chinese Communist Party’s sponsorship of the regime, and denouncing Western leadership for ignoring human rights abuses to maintain Chinese favor.

“Most people do not understand that North Korea can only exist with the Chinese Community’s Party’s help. Without it they could never survive,” human rights activist Yeonmi Park, 26, told The Post from her home in Chicago.

“China sponsors this dictatorship. The Chinese Community Party gives them oil so they can maintain their missile weapons program,” she explained. “North Korea could never make anything on their own.”

“When defectors escape to China, the Chinese regime catches them and sends them back to North Korea to be killed. That is against international law and the Geneva Convention,” she continued.

Park fled the despotic regime with her mother at the age of 13. After crossing the frozen Yalu River into China in 2007, her mother was raped by a human trafficker and they were both sold into sex slavery. Her price was less than $300.

Enlarge ImageChinese President Xi Jinping and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un
Chinese President Xi Jinping and North Korean leader Kim Jong UnGreg Baker/AFP via Getty Images

Now safe in her new home of America, the mom-of-one and outspoken critic of the regime said there were up to 300,000 North Korean women like her who are trafficked in China. She said their plight was ignored by the international community.

“You hear about the Boko Haram girls, you hear about these girls captured by ISIS. We give them Nobel Peace Prizes, but nobody has acknowledged the North Korean defector women in China,” she said.

“Up to to 300,000 of us are being enslaved by these traffickers and no one talks about it. Ninety percent of them have been trafficked and raped constantly,” she continued. “I was one of them.”

Enlarge ImageChina's foreign minister Wang Yi shakes hands with North Korea's foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho.
China’s foreign minister Wang Yi shakes hands with North Korea’s foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho.Kim Won-jin/AFP via Getty Images

“This is happening right now and nobody in the western countries, because they all have interest in having business with China, none of these people want to talk about it, so these issues are completely buried on purpose,” she added.

China and North Korea have been allies since the 1960s. The Communist nation is also the largest trading partner and supplier of aid to the hermit kingdom.

The two countries continue to boost their nuclear stockpiles, in defiance of the US, and President Trump’s efforts attempts to drive a wedge between the two countries have stalled since he first took office in 2017.

Enlarge ImageA Chinese flag flies by the Yalu river on the country's border with North Korea.
A Chinese flag flies by the Yalu river on the country’s border with North Korea.Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty Images

When asked if the regime would ever fall, Park said the average North Korean was too brainwashed to rise up and said countries had to provide a safe way for whistleblowers to undermine Kim without fearing the execution of their families.

“If there is some way for countries like America and South Korea to secure a safer way for the elites to defect, I do think that can help in shaking up the regime,” she said.

“But right now, I don’t think any country is trying to do that.”