Ros-Lehtinen calls out Chinese government in Seoul
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) participated in a candlelight vigil outside the Chinese Embassy in Seoul Thursday and chastised the Chinese government for forcibly repatriating North Korean refugees who flee to China. "I too was a refugee," she said, standing beside Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI) and South Korea Assemblywoman Park Sun Young. "Having ...
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) participated in a candlelight vigil outside the Chinese Embassy in Seoul Thursday and chastised the Chinese government for forcibly repatriating North Korean refugees who flee to China.
"I too was a refugee," she said, standing beside Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI) and South Korea Assemblywoman Park Sun Young. "Having fled communist totalitarianism in Cuba, I have walked their lonely road and have experienced both the fears and the hopes that combine to motivate their arduous journey toward freedom."
She compared the plight of North Korean refugees to the plight of Jews fleeing Egyptian slavery as told in the Old Testament of the Bible and compared Chinese President Hu Jintao to the Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses II.
"To the cold-hearted regime in Beijing we call out, as Moses did to Pharaoh over three thousand years ago: Mr. Hu, let these people go! Mr. Hu, let all North Korean refugees have safe passage to South Korea and other democratic nations!" she said.
Ros-Lehtinen and McCotter posed for photos holding up a framed copy of the James R. Lilley and Stephen J. Solarz North Korea Human Rights Reauthorization Act, named after the former ambassador and former congressman who were active on the issue of North Korean refugees. The bill passed the House May 15.
"The Chinese regime has proven to be consistently tone deaf to the appeals of these two great men and other voices, including our own, calling on Beijing to meet its humanitarian obligations to North Korean refugees. And so we stand here today to appeal directly to the Chinese people to hear the cries of the oppressed in their midst," she said.
Ros-Lehtinen also called on the Chinese government to end its harassment of the friends and associates of blind Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng. She said the fight to press Pyongyang and Beijing to halt its persecution of refugees would take a long time.
"We cannot achieve this in one day or perhaps not even in a decade. But an old Asian proverb states that a journey of one thousand miles begins with a single step," she said. "Another Asian proverb states that it is better to light a candle, as we have done tonight, than to curse the darkness. And so we lift our candles tonight."
Josh Rogin covers national security and foreign policy and writes the daily Web column The Cable. His column appears bi-weekly in the print edition of The Washington Post. He can be reached for comments or tips at josh.rogin@foreignpolicy.com.
Previously, Josh covered defense and foreign policy as a staff writer for Congressional Quarterly, writing extensively on Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantánamo Bay, U.S.-Asia relations, defense budgeting and appropriations, and the defense lobbying and contracting industries. Prior to that, he covered military modernization, cyber warfare, space, and missile defense for Federal Computer Week Magazine. He has also served as Pentagon Staff Reporter for the Asahi Shimbun, Japan's leading daily newspaper, in its Washington, D.C., bureau, where he reported on U.S.-Japan relations, Chinese military modernization, the North Korean nuclear crisis, and more.
A graduate of George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs, Josh lived in Yokohama, Japan, and studied at Tokyo's Sophia University. He speaks conversational Japanese and has reported from the region. He has also worked at the House International Relations Committee, the Embassy of Japan, and the Brookings Institution.
Josh's reporting has been featured on CNN, MSNBC, C-Span, CBS, ABC, NPR, WTOP, and several other outlets. He was a 2008-2009 National Press Foundation's Paul Miller Washington Reporting Fellow, 2009 military reporting fellow with the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism and the 2011 recipient of the InterAction Award for Excellence in International Reporting. He hails from Philadelphia and lives in Washington, D.C. Twitter: @joshrogin
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