China Joins the (We)Chat: Is it No Longer Safe to Communicate with North Korean Refugees in China?

THE BIG TECH CRACKDOWN

Since Xi Jinping assumed the role of President of the People’s Republic of China, the Chinese Communist Party has asserted itself even more in the everyday lives of Chinese citizens. This has become apparent in the way that the country monitors most, if not all, facets of technology and communications. The impact to the day-to-day operations of Crossing Borders cannot be overstated as all of our means of communicating with our staff in the country are monitored. 

Data is now considered a fundamental building block of the Chinese economy. The China Academy of Information and Communication Technology has estimated to account for 38.6 percent of China’s GDP in 2020 alone. As it grows its economic  importance, China is setting an early precedent to exercise state control over data activities in the private sector as a matter of national security.  

The Cyberspace Administration of China (or CAC) started out policing China’s internet for pornography and sensitive online content. The CAC has grown into a powerful gatekeeper in charge of China’s enormous censorship apparatus. From reviewing user data at small private tech companies to the Chinese ride-hailing giant, Didi, who recently announced their decision to delist from the NYSE following CAC’s cybersecurity review, no Chinese government agency has held such explicit gatekeeper powers in the past. Beyond public investigations and reviews of private user data, ongoing surveillance of personal data, including 150,000 pieces of “harmful” online content related to the support of celebrities on social media platforms were removed by the CAC, while more than 4,000 accounts related to fan clubs were punished earlier this year.

China’s Data Security Law, which took effect on September 1, 2021, claims that all data activities both within and outside China’s borders that are considered to be “relevant to China’s national security” will fall within China’s jurisdiction and its strict regulations. China plans to tightly regulate their data and tech industries for the foreseeable future and has made those intentions very clear to its citizens and the watching world. In order to enable law enforcement agencies to more closely monitor data and users, the use of a national electronic ID authentication system has been proposed.  Further research into China’s digital economy in areas such as artificial intelligence, big data and cloud computing have also been included in the plan. 

In short, China is preparing the way to make monitoring and censorship even more accessible and powerful for its government.

SOCIAL MEDIA AND APPS FOR SURVEILLANCE 

Chinese social media platforms detect keywords and phrases and routinely censor content that are considered to be politically or culturally sensitive. Although it is not clear as to whether such decisions are directed by the government or are made internally, there is evidence that censorship decisions based on referenced keywords closely echo government policies. For example, to prevent social instability, all content related to Covid-19, a wide range of speech about the outbreak of Covid-19, including neutral information about the virus, were automatically taken down from WeChat and other online platforms.

WeChat is the most widely used, government-approved messaging app in China and government control through keyword-censorship is no secret to its 800 million users. It is reported that content triggering censors are continually updated as the category of sensitive material broadens. Citizen Lab, a research group from the University of Toronto, has experimented on WeChat’s response to messages related to China’s targeting of 709 human rights lawyers in China, including “detaining, questioning, and disappearing them” following the 709 Crackdown which started on July 9, 2015.  The group attempted to send a message containing keyword combinations related to politically sensitive topics, and these messages were simply not sent while users remained unaware of such automatic censorship.  

Citizen Lab found that “WeChat performs censorship on the server-side, which means that messages sent over the app pass through a remote server that contains rules for implementing censorship.”  They further identified the following keyword combinations, among others, that trigger censorship: 

• (Deutsche Welle + (Washington) Demands Beijing to (Curb) North Korea + China Is Discontent); 德国之声+要求北京对朝鲜+中国大为不满 

• (same as above, in Traditional Chinese characters); 德國之聲+要求北京對朝鮮+中國大爲不滿 

• (Low-grade Calculation + Indirectly Criticize China's Sanctions (against North Korea) + Korean Central News Agency); 低级的算法+暗批中国制裁+朝中社署名 

In addition to keywords in Simplified Chinese, which is the official language of the Chinese Communist Party, at least two other types of written characters, including Traditional Chinese and English, are also detectable and subject to censorship by WeChat.

WHAT IT MEANS FOR NORTH KOREAN DEFECTORS AND OUR OPERATIONS IN CHINA

Since China’s censors have begun tightening their grip on messaging platforms including WeChat, any operation related to the aiding and abetting of North Korean defectors in China which passes through WeChat can potentially be monitored and traced by the government. Helping North Korean defectors in China is still an illegal and punishable crime. 

A prime example of this is Chinese lawyer Chen Qiushi’s case, whose viral videos covering the Covid-19 outbreak in Wuhan had subsequently led to his WeChat account being taken down, his questioning by the police and subsequent arrest.  Another incident describes a Beijing-based user whose WeChat account was blocked before he was taken in for questioning for criticizing China’s foreign policy.  The user explained that police officers obtained and held printouts of his private WeChat chat logs during the two-hour interrogation. 

While tech companies have yet to announce how they plan to reform the handling and protection of users’ personal data, it is undisputed that China’s swiftly evolving state surveillance renders fewer and fewer private spaces for Crossing Borders to communicate with North Korean defectors in China and run our operations that are deemed illegal in China. In other words, authorities who once had to use informants to find out about our work and the identity of those under our care in China can now rely on a vast web of new technology.

Raising North Korean Orphans - Technology

It was an abrupt ending to what was a wonderful time with our North Korean orphan, "Jae Hwa". One evening about two years ago, a child in one of our group homes said she was leaving for a boarding school nearby. The house fell under a muffled silence after she left, as if covered in a thick blanket. Jae Hwa had been planning this with her father for months but nobody in the home knew.

Like all the children in this home, Jae Hwa’s mother was North Korean refugee who was purchased by a Chinese man. Her mother was captured by the Chinese police and sent back to a North Korean prison camp when Jae Hwa was eight-years-old. She came into Crossing Borders’ care in 2011, when she was 13-years-old.

Jae Hwa’s father went to South Korea to find work and kept in touch with his daughter by text message via the smart phone he purchased her.

The children in this home were allowed to have smart phones for this very purpose. As time went on, these phones became a nuisance. The kids were using them to play games and to text with their friends. It became harder to hold their attention and this led to conflict as the caretakers of this home would sometimes take these phones away.

Parents around the world are grappling with how to control their children’s smartphone use and so too are the caretakers of our North Kroean orphans. Not only do they have to deal with them as distractions but they must also be wary of the way our children portray their living conditions in these homes to their parents.

Jae Hwa would tell her father that she felt trapped in her home, that her caretakers were too strict and that she was unhappy. These accounts, one must note, were filtered through the lens of a teenage girl. She didn’t report any abuse or specific incidents of wrongdoing. What drove her away was the rigid structure of the home, something teens around the world struggle with.

Teenagers are impulsive. They make poor choices. They are reckless.

In 2012, National Geographic Magazine published a fascinating study on the teenage brain. It was once thought that brains are fully developed by the age of 10, recent studies found that teenagers have brains that are about 90 percent developed. This development could be one of the reasons why teenagers are so impulsive, the study said.

“These studies help explain why teens behave with such vexing inconsistency: beguiling at breakfast, disgusting at dinner; masterful on Monday, sleepwalking on Saturday,” the writer says. “Along with lacking experience generally, they're still learning to use their brain's new networks.”’

This might explain one of the factors to what we consider a poor decision on the part of Jae Hwa.

She thought that living in a dorm would allow her to do what she wanted. She thought that she would be able to go to play games at a local PC gaming business through the night. She thought she would be able to go to parties.

She realized that this wasn’t true at all.

Her dormitory has strict rules and in some ways is even stricter than her Crossing Borders group home.

Our caretakers are adjusting now. They are now loosening the grip they once held on our North Korean orphans. They are now allowed to go to birthday parties and their schedules are less rigid but for now, smartphones are banned in this home.

Jae Hwa visits the home every weekend for church and even brings her classmates along. She looks thin. She doesn’t like the food at the dorm and it does not offer meals on the weekends.

Every weekend our caretakers take Jae Hwa grocery shopping and they cook her any meal that she wants. They tell her repeatedly that she could come back to the home but she does not. Her father will not allow it based on the testimony she once gave him.

For now, all we can offer her are some meals, prayers and an open door.