The recent mass defection of 13 North Koreans working at a restaurant in China shows Beijing considers relations with South Korea important and is increasingly frustrated with the North, the U.S. human rights envoy on the North said Monday.

Amb. Robert King, special envoy for North Korean human rights, made the remark during a Center for Strategic and International Studies discussion, calling for continued pressure on Beijing to recognize refugees fleeing from hunger and oppression in the North.

"The Chinese have a mixed record on repatriation. Initially, they were returning pretty much all of the North Koreans who went through China that they captured. A week or two ago, 13 North Koreans who were working at a restaurant in China, they ended up in South Korea," King said.

"Now it's hard to believe that in a state like China, that could have happened if the Chinese had not wanted that to happen. I think the Chinese are conflicted and I think the Chinese have relations with South Korea that are important to them and I think they're increasingly frustrated with the North Koreans," he said.

King said that the international community should continue to put pressure on China to "recognize the refugees who are leaving North Korea and fleeing through China, which is the only way for them to leave, and to allow them to go to South Korea if that's where they want to go."

King also said that despite presidential elections in the U.S. this November and South Korea next year, there won't be any change in the importance both countries attach to the North's human rights problem.

"We can't find our Congress able to confirm a Supreme Court justice or even vote on a Supreme Court justice, we find great difficulty in dealing with budgets and other important issues, but when the House and the Senate considered legislation on North Korea earlier this year, it passed the Senate unanimously and there were only two votes against it in the House," he said.

King also noted the recent passage in South Korea of the human rights law.
"I think it reflects a growing consensus in South Korea that the human rights issue is an issue that needs to be dealt with and it covers the very broad spectrum of differences in South Korea on that North Korean issue," he said. (Yonhap)