Koreans in China
Significant populations can also be found in Heilongjiang, Liaoning, and Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, with a sizable expat community in Shanghai.
[7] High levels of emigration to the Republic of Korea for better economic and financial opportunities have contributed to a decrease in their numbers in China.
This terminology parallels "Chaoxianzu," which is predominantly utilized in mainland China and stands as the official designation for this ethnic minority, as stipulated by the Chinese government.
The Joseon rulers were also forced by the Qing government to implement harsh penalties to prevent Koreans from entering the sealed areas.
[11]: 5 [25]: 88–91 But there were still Koreans living nearby who took the risk to collect ginseng, hunt animals, or cultivate agricultural products in the prohibited area.
Large numbers of Korean refugees moved to the north banks of the Tumen and Yalu rivers during those turbulent times.
[11]: 6 [12]: 77–78 [25]: 162 The development of paddy fields in Northeast China during the modern era was related to rice cultivation by Korean emigrants.
[25]: 240–242 [26]: 17 In 1916, the local government of Jilin Province submitted a paddy field farming specifications document of a Korean immigrant farmer to the central Agriculture and Business Administration.
Since there were no large enough urban industry to absorb these redundant rural population, the Japanese started to migrate these Korean farmers to Northeast China.
[25]: 316-321 Under these circumstances, Korean emigrants in Northeast China began to have the consensus of becoming naturalized and actively seeking local autonomy.
[25]: 342-347 In 1931, Japan staged the Mukden Incident and invaded Northeast China by force, then established a puppet state called Manchukuo.
[11]: 10 On 14 September 1936, the Japanese set up a special organization (滿鮮拓殖會社) and began to migrate Korean farmers to Northeast China in a planned systemic way.
[25]: 517-518 In 1945, when Japan surrendered at the end of World War II, there were more than 2.16 million Korean emigrants living in Northeast China.
[11]: 127 In June 1932, Korean leader Li Hongguang established one of the earliest Anti-Japanese Volunteer Armies (磐石游击队) in Northeast China.
[12]: 97 In September 1949, Zhu Dehai, the chairman and local specialist of Chinese Communist Party in Yanbian attended the first plenary session of Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) as one of the 10 ethnic minorities, participated in the establishment of CPPCC as a representative of Koreans in China.
[26]: 58-63 On 3 March 1952, Yanbian was officially designated as a Korean Autonomous Region and Zhu Dehai was appointed as the first chairman.
[26]: 67-68 [32] During the Cultural Revolution, many Korean cadres including Zhu Dehai were prosecuted as capitalist roaders, local nationalists or counterrevolutionists.
[33] According to Julia Lovell, "[e]vents took a horrific turn in the frontier town of Yanbian, where freight trains trundled from China into the DPRK, draped with the corpses of Koreans killed in the pitched battles of the Cultural Revolution, and daubed with threatening graffiti: 'This will be your fate also, you tiny revisionists!
It stipulated political, economic, cultural, educational, and social rights of and policies for Korean and other ethnic people in Yanbian Autonomous Prefecture in the form of law.
[12][38] According to a 2012 University of North Carolina honors thesis, the Chaoxianzu are seen as a model minority and have good relations with both the Chinese government and Han majority.
Some North Korean refugees who are unable to obtain transport to South Korea instead marry Chaoxianzu and settle down in China, blending into the community; however, they are still subject to deportation if discovered by the authorities.
Victor Cha states that 86% of refugees seek passage to South Korea rather than remain in China,[52] but this is disputed by The Hankyoreh.
[53] According to a 2015 UC Santa Cruz paper, many North Korean refugees met locals who gave aid to them and did not judge them for their communist origins.
[57] In June 2012, the Los Angeles Times reported that Beijing and Pyongyang had signed an agreement to grant as many as 40,000 industrial trainee visas to North Koreans to permit them to work in China per year; the first batch of workers arrived earlier in the year in the city of Tumen in Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture.
Other South Koreans moved to China on their own after becoming unemployed during the 1997 financial crisis; they used funds they had saved up for retirement to open small restaurants or shops.
[65] The low cost of living compared to Seoul, especially the cheap tuition at international schools teaching English and Chinese, is another pull factor for temporary South Korean migration to mainland China but usually after this period, those that have moved have mostly gone back to Korea.
[63] The number of South Koreans in China was estimated to be 300,000 to 400,000 as of 2006[update]; at the 2006 rate of growth, their population had been expected to reach one million by 2008.
However, due to the global economic downturn in 2008 and the depreciation of the Korean won, large numbers of those returned to South Korea.
That year the chairperson of the Korean Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Kang Hee-bang, stated that about 10,000 lived in Overseas Chinese Town (OCT).
[43] Donghai Garden began attracting Koreans due to its transportation links and because, around 1998, it was the sole residential building classified as 3-A.
