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Culture War Roundup for the week of December 2, 2024

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The problem isn't South Korea not letting North Koreans in, it's North Korea not letting them out. North Koreans aren't allowed to travel at all. They can't even travel around their own country without a permit, which is not given without a reason (or a bribe). They certainly can't travel abroad. An amount of smuggling into and out of China is generally tolerated to keep the economy going, but that's it.

North Koreans who manage to make it to South Korea somehow are considered traitors and their family is punished in their stead, so if you're going to do that you better take your whole family at once.

Both China and Russia will deport North Korean 'illegal immigrants' back to North Korea, so basically the only way to get out is to travel the length and breadth of China and then sneak into Mongolia or one of the SEA countries from where they'll be 'deported' to South Korea instead.

South Korea already considers them citizens (SK claims the whole peninsula, so does NK.) When they arrive, they're even given some money and an acculturation course. They couldn't really be much more welcoming.