SCMP A1 cover for 1997-02-13

A chief architect of North Korean communism on February 12, 1997, became the highest ranking Pyongyang official to seek asylum in South Korea. Hwang Jang-yop, a close aide to North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, was at a South Korean Embassy compound in Beijing, and Seoul diplomats were negotiating with Chinese authorities over the defection. The South Korean Foreign Ministry said Hwang, 73, arrived at the Embassy’s consular section with his assistant Kim Dok-hong and sought asylum. Pyongyang claimed that if Hwang was in the South Korean Embassy, he had been kidnapped. Hwang is credited with playing a leading role in shaping the policy of juche, a brand of fanatical self-reliance providing the ideological underpinning for the world’s last Stalinist state. Diplomats said the defection was embarrassing for China. The front page also covers: convict Yip Kai-foon is finally brought to justice for the escape from custody which gave him seven years of freedom, a cockatoo is rescued from a Hong Kong treetop, Macau’s war on triads must get Chinese help, and Beijing admits that 10 people died and 140 were hurt during ethnic riots in Xinjiang.

A1 cover for the South China Morning Post