The North Korean authorities reportedly now allow North Korean-born Chinese children to change their North Korean citizenship to Chinese citizenship by accepting a very large sum of money, Radio Free Asia reported on June 20.

 

In North Korea, if the citizenship of one of the parents is North Korean, then the citizenship of those parents’ children are automatically registered as North Korean. However, recently the North Korean authorities are allowing changing those children’s citizenships to Chinese by receiving lots of money. Since the price to change a citizenship is too expensive, regular people cannot easily afford it.

 

One Chinese Korean, a trader between China and North Korea, said that since his wife is North Korean, their children are registered as North Koreans, and the North Korean authorities have demanded him to pay 10,000 American dollars to change the citizenship of each of his children. The majority of Chinese Koreans in North Korea have already moved to China but there are still some Chinese Koreans in North Korea because their children’s citizenship is North Korean. North Korean people are criticizing the authorities for using this issue to earn foreign currencies.