China handed over a North Korean defector to Japan in 2020 after she was found to be the grandchild of a Japanese woman who moved to North Korea decades earlier, a source close to the matter said Friday.
It is rare for Beijing to hand over a North Korean defector as Chinese authorities send most of the defectors they capture back to North Korea, according to the source.
The Japanese Foreign Ministry started supporting her after learning that she was the granddaughter of a Japanese woman who accompanied her ethnically Korean husband from Japan to North Korea.
The defector, who is in her 20s, crossed into China around the spring of 2020 and was sent to Japan in December that year after the Japanese ministry negotiated for her handover.
It was around the same time that Japan and China eased border controls to resume business travel while the coronavirus pandemic ran rampant.
An official of the organization that supported the woman said whether China hands over defectors of Japanese heritage to Japan depends on the political situation between the two countries.
The Foreign Ministry has not disclosed any information on North Korean defectors of Japanese heritage, and it declined to comment on this case.
After the defector left North Korea, she was caught by Chinese authorities when traveling toward Vietnam from the southwestern province of Yunnan.
The defector told the authorities that her mother and grandmother lived in Japan, and after a DNA examination this was proved to be the case.
Although she subsequently moved to Japan and was given residency status, the woman eventually moved to South Korea in July 2022.
Japanese law has provisions on granting residency status to people of Japanese heritage, including third-generation Japanese.
The Japanese government, in principle, accepts North Korean defectors on humanitarian grounds, as long as they are Koreans who previously lived in Japan and went to North Korea under a repatriation program between 1959 and 1984.
It also accepts their Japanese spouses, their children and grandchildren, according to a support group for defectors.
The number of North Korean defectors plummeted after North Korea closed its borders in 2020 due to the pandemic. The woman was apparently able to escape into China under tight surveillance.
==Kyodo
