Park Sun-Young, a politician from the Conservative South Korea opposition party Liberty Forward, collapsed after 11 days of hunger strike in protest of China repatriating North Korean defectors. The protests outside of the Chinese embassy in South Korea are still going strong, as are defections from the North with a new recently emerging report of 50 orphans defecting from Hyesan to China. It appears that the situation has frustrated South Korea politicians so much that on Monday they resorted to chanting pro-defector slogans at a North Korean diplomat at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Switzerland. In the midst of the drama, the question remains why, when so many influential celebrities and politicians are actively and loudly campaigning, does China seem to be paying no attention?

A report by the Asia Times gives the simple answer that China's harsh treatment of its own people tends to be widely ignored and somewhat passively accepted, therefore, some people think that it is natural for China to treat North Korean defectors in the same manner as its own people.