A Quote by Lee Hyeon-seo

When many Chinese escaped to North Korea during the Cultural Revolution, we embraced them. People in China have forgotten about this. — © Lee Hyeon-seo
When many Chinese escaped to North Korea during the Cultural Revolution, we embraced them. People in China have forgotten about this.
If there's any country that has the capacity not to control North Korea, but to influence North Korea, it's still China. The Chinese always say they have very little influence. They have more than they say they do. We should put pressure on them to do it and there's finally, we're seeing the first signs of a little bit of Chinese disaffection. At some point they're getting tired of the antics of this country. This is a dangerous ally for China to have. And the more Chinese can pressure them and put the economic screws on them, the better it will be for everybody.
The solution to North Korea is the reunification of the Korean Peninsula. China could influence the North; it supplies 80 to 90 percent of North Korea's energy. The United States have to put pressure on China in order for China to pressure North Korea.
I can't take anything off the table. Because you look at some of these countries, you look at North Korea, we're doing nothing there. China should solve that problem for us. China should go into North Korea. China is totally powerful as it relates to North Korea.
China is ruthlessly pragmatic. It supports North Korea for its own selfish interests. And I believe that China no longer considers us an ally. The current president, Xi Jinping, cultivates close relations with South Korea. He has never met with me, the leader of North Korea, something that the leader of China has always done. At the grand celebrations in Beijing two years ago commemorating the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, he placed the president of Russia and the president of South Korea at his side. In North Korea, we pay a lot of attention to ceremonies and what they signal.
Of other countries, to impose economic sanctions, it'd really begin to dry up the enormous amount of money coming into North Korea, a lot of it from China - from Chinese banks - whereas, if we sanction the Chinese banks, there could be friction with China. But this is something we're going to have to face.
Chinese people of my parents' generation who lived through the Cultural Revolution knew so much of death at such a young age, and the psychic toll those experiences left was immense. I knew the stories of the Cultural Revolution before knowing what the Cultural Revolution was.
One of the great famines in human history took place during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. [At the same time] Western journalists were reporting how marvelously Chinese society was working. We know so little [about what happens in China].
China should go into North Korea. China is totally powerful as it relates to North Korea.
I think the fact that this was a essentially a person under [China] protection and the North Koreans went and assassinated [Kim Jong-nam], this made be the straw that really does it. And as you know, just a couple of weeks ago, the Chinese stopped all coal imports from North Korea.So there are signs that are getting serious. I guess from the policy perspective from the U.S., I mean, we got to decide what`s important to us with China?
It's clear the relationship between China and North Korea has hardly ever been worse. Kim Jong-un has never been to Beijing in his leadership. The Chinese press are saying some amazingly negative things about the north, and about Kim Jong-un. So - so they are weighing in, and they are bringing greater pressure. Whether it will be enough I think remains to be seen.
North Korea is no threat at all. I have already spoken about it during countless televised interviews. I visited North Korea and mingled with its people. There, nobody wants war. The North Korean people paid a terrible price for their independence. Its civilians were murdered mercilessly in tunnels by Western forces; its women were brutally raped, entire villages and towns leveled to the ground, or burned to ashes. All this is never discussed in the West, but is remembered in North Korea.
I think it's possible that China is ready for a serious change regarding its North Korean defector policy. Chinese people are starting to realize that so many defectors have been suffering in China, and it doesn't have to be this way.
It was very shocking for me to read newspapers that openly criticised the government in South Korea. That is impossible in North Korea and almost impossible in China. I was really impressed, and I became addicted to reading the news and watching the media so I could learn about the world. North Koreans would be stunned if they experienced this.
Japan and South Korea are on high alert after North Korea successfully launched a long-range rocket. Both countries are surprised by North Korea's successful launch, but definitely not as surprised as North Korea.
I was growing up in Hyesan, right by the closest North Korea-China border. China was just across the river: you could see across. So I was curious. On the river, on both sides, you have houses, then mountains. I wanted to know what was on the other side of the Chinese mountains.
A China-friendly North Korea serves as a buffer between southern China and the U.S.'s sphere of influence in the region - something of which China is perpetually skeptical.
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