'Fishing net': Police quotas, surveillance trap North Koreans in China

SEOUL/BEIJING — Border police in China's northeast have been given quotas to identify and expel undocumented migrants, one key aspect of broader surveillance that is making it harder for North Korean defectors to evade capture, according to previously undisclosed official documents and a dozen people familiar with the matter.

China has implemented new deportation centres, hundreds of smart facial-recognition cameras and extra boat patrols along its 1,400-kilometre frontier with North Korea, according to a Reuters review of more than 100 publicly available government documents that outline spending on border surveillance and infrastructure.

In addition, Chinese police have begun to closely monitor the social media accounts of North Koreans in China, and collect their fingerprints, voice and facial data, four defectors and two missionaries told Reuters.

Stephen Kim, a missionary who helps North Koreans defect, told Reuters that based on his contacts with some 2,000 defectors, more than 90 per cent of those currently in China had registered personal and biometric data with the police.

The measures took effect since the Covid-19 pandemic and have ramped up from 2023.

Cracking down on unauthorised migration helps Beijing manage a thorny issue in ties with Pyongyang while ensuring stability on China's periphery, according to eight people, including security scholars, rights activists and a former North Korean official.

It also gives China potential leverage over its neighbour because Beijing can control the fate of these undocumented North Koreans, several of them said.

"But primarily, China has feared that if too many North Koreans find refuge in China, more and more North Koreans would follow suit, and in time the outflow