Could reports of a North Korean workers’ riot in China ‘pose threats’ to the regime?

Workers at a North Korea-run factory in China were said to have staged a deadly protest after learning their back pay had been transferred to the regime’s arms programme

The apparent incident has sparked concern it could trigger a chain of protests among other disgruntled North Korean workers overseas, observers say

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North Korean leader Kim Jong-un visits an arms factory on January 10. Photo: KCNA via Reuters

Published: 8:00am, 31 Jan 2024Updated: 10:11pm, 31 Jan 2024

Pyongyang’s persistence in funding its weapons programme could become a “political time bomb” for the regime, observers have warned, after North Korean workers in China were said to have rioted over the discovery their back wages had been transferred to prop up their country’s arms production.

Reports of the deadly incident earlier this month have sparked concern it could trigger a chain of protests among other disgruntled North Korean workers at Pyongyang-controlled factories who are owed wages and have been stranded in China for years because of pandemic lockdowns.

South Korea’s spy agency on Tuesday reported multiple incidents of “various accidents” involving North Korean workers abroad, citing “poor working conditions”. “We’re closely following this situation,” a spokesman for the National Intelligence Service told This Week in Asia without elaborating.

Cho Han-bum, a senior analyst at South Korea’s Institute of National Unification, said the riots erupted around January 11 at a garment factory in China’s Jilin province, where some 2,500 North Koreans are hired by the Jonsung trading firm operated by the North’s defence ministry.

“A North Korean manager was killed, and three other executives were seriously injured,” Cho told This Week in Asia on Tuesday.

The workers were angered to find out earlier this month that their back payments had been transferred to Pyongyang as special contributions for the regime’s weapons programme, he said, citing unidentified sources in Jilin.

Their owed wages totalled an estimated US$10 million, according to Cho. “When they found out their wages were gone, they just exploded,” he said of the apparent riots.

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