North Korea News Podcast by NK News - Jingwu Fang: How a ‘third’ Korea formed on the North Korea-China border

Episode Date: January 2, 2025

Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture is located in northeast China, just across the border from North Korea, and while few outsiders may know about it, the region is home to a sizable population of ethnic Koreans whose story is wrapped up with the decades-long division of the peninsula. In this episode, Chinese YouTuber Jingwu Fang joins […]

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And joining me via StreamYard is Mr. Jingwu Fang, who is an independent documentary filmmaker who runs a show on YouTube called Jingwu Show. He's based in China, but travels the world to make his films, which are very interesting. He recently made a two-part video called, How Did a Third Korea Form, in brackets, in China, which is two hours and 20 minutes in total. I recommend all of you go and have a look at it. These videos together about Korea have had almost 400,000 views and we'll share links to both of those videos in the show notes. Jinggu, welcome on the show. Thank you, Jacob, for having me.

Thank you for the introduction. Very glad to be here. So this idea of a third Korea, for our listeners who may not have seen your video yet, what is it and where is it? So this third Korea is a swath of land just north of North Korea. It is about 30% of North Korea's land area and about 43% about South Korea's land area. So it's actually quite large, but most of people have never heard about this place. Right. So North and South Korea together are the first and second Korea in whatever order.

And so you're talking about this piece of China, Northeast China. Northeast China. And there are lots of ethnic Korean people living there, aren't there? Yes, there are close to a million Korean Chinese live in that piece of land called Yanbian. Actually, it's called Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture. So there's actually Korean in the name of that land. So it's a legit Korean region. Yeah.

Right. And what drew you to this story? Yeah. So, uh, I think I first learned about the existence of the Korean Chinese when I was nine or 10 years old. I said there was a kid in my class who was Korean Chinese and, uh, I didn't really know or care about their lives and the struggles back then when I think cause I was a kid too, you know, I know I knew nothing, uh, but then I think 10

years later when I was in college, I watched this South Korean gangster movie called The Yellow Sea. It's called Hwanghae in Korean. And that movie, in my opinion, is one of the best movies in the history of cinema. Wow, okay. I haven't seen it. I have to confess. I have to watch it now. Please, please do. And it is about a struggle of a very desperate Korean Chinese man from Yanbian. You know, the economic difficulties, this job opportunity, well, illegal job opportunity, waiting for him in South Korea that can solve all his problem. And I was absolutely fascinated by the storytelling, the plot and the well, of course, the actors are all really, really good. So a couple of years later, you know, after right after I finished watching that film, I told myself, I have to check this place out. So a couple of years later, I made my first trip to Yanbian.

I think that was in 2019. And then two years later in 2021 during the COVID, I went there again for the second time. And that must've been difficult during COVID. It certainly was. It certainly was. Uh, have to do the, you know, the COVID testing every three days, I think. And, uh, there was, uh, one region is called the Hunchun, Hunchun, because it

was so close to the, uh, North Korean border and the, uh, Russian border, but they had special regulations. I think you have to take multiple tests a day to, you know, to work around in that region. Well, that was, uh, Well, that was the COVID times. Yeah, terrible. Hey, now you speak a little bit of Korean, don't you? I speak very little Korean.

Yes, I learned it a little bit. I think back in 2018, 2019. Yeah. Okay. And so you've been there to Yangbyon. And how was it going around and speaking a bit of Korean and meeting ethnic Korean Korean Chinese citizens? It's interesting because the Korean I learned at least some South Korean, you know, the Korean from South Korea, people in South Korea spoke speak.

But the people in Yanbian, they had what back then. Well, I think they still do. They speak a very unique Korean Chinese dialect. It is closer to North Korean from how I understand it. In 2024, I went there a certain time. At that time, I managed to film a lot of really important footage. So it took me many, many years to produce this documentary. Wow. You really have been working on it for quite a while. Now have you been to North Korea itself? No, I haven't because I just learned about this Korean Chinese thing back in 2019. I really didn't have the opportunity to make such a trip to

North Korea. Yeah. Do you want to go now that you've finished your film series on the three Koreas? Do you still want to visit there? You mean Yanbian or North Korea. Yeah. Do you want to go now that you've finished your film series on the three Koreas? Do you still want to visit there? You mean Yanbian or North Korea? To North Korea? Yes, definitely. Yeah, it's one of I love to see Pekdusan from the North Korean side. Because I... In your first film you went on the Chinese side to Baekdusan. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Do you know if Chinese tourism to North Korea has restarted? Have you seen it advertised, for example?

No, it haven't. As of 2024, at least it haven't. OK, well, now what about South Korea? Have you been to South Korea? When I was a kid, I had had been there once. And I think in 2016 I transferred once in South Korea but I didn't exit the airport. So that was many years ago. I remember I think I was in Busan, I think, for a couple of days and that was when I was a kid. Yeah. So, so in the process of making this two part film, the most time that you spent

surrounded by Korean speaking people was in Yanbian. Yes. Yanbian, Yanbian. Yep. In this third career. Now in this film, you, you tell the story of Korean immigration to Northeast China in the mid to late 19th century, and also the tragedy of colonization by Japan and the division of Korea after World War II, which led to the Korean War.

And you tried to give a neutral balance to count. But in the Korean story, that's so difficult. How did you do that? How did you try to stay neutral? Well, that's a very good question. Because I think because I have a very deep love for the Korean culture, I don't, I have a lot of respect for the South Koreans and the North Korean struggle and the Korean Chinese communities. And I had so many, have so many friends, so many Korean friends in the United States, in China, and in Yanbian as well. I don't want, I think because I loved them so much,

I don't want to hurt any of them. So that's how I maintain my neutrality in some way, I think, yeah. Right. Now China and North Korea, of course, have a very special relationship, state to state and party to party relationship going back to 1950.

So apart from yourself, generally speaking, how do you think Chinese people look at North Korea? How do they see North Korean people? I think that it depends on the generations. For example, my grandparents' generation, I think they feel for them, they feel for the North Koreans. But my parents' generation, the, because that they grew up during the cultural revolution, you know, the relations between China and North Korea wasn't so good back then. So they didn't, they don't, they don't really like the North Korean government. And our generation, we don't really talk about that at all, because, uh, we, we

speak more about the United States, Japan, South Korea and Russia. And North Korea is not really a big topic among us. Yeah. Yeah. So I guess it's kind of ignored by the young generation. Would that be fair to say? Yes.

It's probably not so different from the young people in South Korea, I guess, who also don't spend a lot of time talking or thinking about North Korea. Right. Now, how do Han Chinese people see the autonomous Korean prefecture of Yanbian and the ethnic Korean Chinese people who live there? So, yeah, that because majority of the Han Chinese in Northeast China, they are also descendants of the Han immigrations to North East China. And they had in the earlier stage, they had this competition with the Korean immigrants, the Han Chinese immigration competed with the Korean immigrants. So the relation wasn't so good in the early stage, especially under the Japanese rule. Under the

Japanese rule, the government of Japan, they really successfully turned the Chinese against the Korean and the Koreans against Chinese. So there was a lot of race war, I would say happened in the NBN. Yeah. And after the Japanese colonization, yes, during the Japanese colonization. And after the war, after the Korean War, a lot of North Koreans and South Koreans, well back then it was just one Korea, a lot of Koreans fled the war and entered Yanbian, the state ever since, they never returned. So gradually after the new China was established, after Yanbian was established, after this prefecture was formally established, there was a lot of Han Chinese people actually

left that region. And it was purely Korean immigrants, the descendants of the Korean immigrants, and they lived there. So it was kind of, the memory was cut off. They no longer share the same memory under the Japanese rule, under the Manchu Qing rule, no longer the Korean Chinese rule Yanbian. That's all. But during the Cultural Revolution, it was all disrupted. But after the Cultural Revolution, it returned to the previous state. So that's the thing. And after China and the South Korea established the diplomatic relations in the 1990s, a lot of Korean Chinese left China, left the Caribbean. They moved to South Korea for work.

They moved to Shandong Peninsula for work. And then a lot of Han Chinese re-entered the region because, you know, Deng Xiaoping, the former leader of China, he opened Yanbian up to South Korea, North Korea, and the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union already dissolved at that time, and Russia. So a lot of Han Chinese also came and did a lot of business there. But then the economy in North China didn't take off at all and they left again. So nowadays it is very abandoned, I would say. Yanbian, you can see empty houses everywhere. Nobody lives there anymore.

Yeah. Yeah. You showed that in the first part of your film there. Now I've seen some news articles where there are children left behind in Yanbian being raised by their grandparents while their parents are in South Korea trying to make money. Yes. Now do you know anything about the Hwagyo, the ethnic Han Chinese who live in North Korea, not as citizens, but as residents? Chinese who live in North Korea not as citizens but as residents? Want the full story? Become an NK News member to continue listening to the complete episode packed with insights, analysis and everything you love about the NK News podcast.

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