By Really when you think about it, this makes sense for the Chinese government to deny that North Korean soldiers violated Chinese sovereignty by dragging the two US journalists to North Korea:
Breaking a month of silence since they returned home in the U.S., the two American journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, working for Current TV, a San Francisco-based Internet outlet co-founded by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, said at the time of their arrest they were in the Chinese land.
“We were firmly back inside China when the soldiers apprehended us,” they said in a long piece on the company’s Web site.
They first acknowledged that they indeed entered the North Korean territory. But “we didn’t spend more than a minute on North Korean soil before turning back,” they said. “Feeling nervous about where we were, we quickly turned back toward China.”
They said they were “violently” dragged back by North Korean border guards, who chased them, across the ice to North Korea.
The Chinese government rejected the pair’s claim. In a regular press briefing on Thursday, the foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said, “We checked it with competent authorities” and discovered “there was no such thing” as what the U.S. journalists described. She didn’t elaborate. [Korea Times]
The Chinese government’s claims to me are of little value considering that the North Koreans have kidnapped people before from China with little care from the Chinese government. I don’t think the Chinese government had anything to do with the capture of Laura Ling and Euna Lee, but they sure are not going to admit that the North Koreans can just freely grab people from Chinese territory.
With that said someone who can shed some further light on this is Mitch Koss who has yet to provide his account on what happened. Futhermore the North Koreans claim they have video footage taken from the two reporters that show them on the North Korean side of the river and even picking up rocks as souvenirs. If this is true why isn’t the North Koreans showing this footage? It would quickly cast doubt on the reporters’ account of why and how long they were in North Korea. I guess we will have to continue to sit back and see how this all plays out because obviously someone isn’t telling the truth about what happened that day.
4:24 am on September 6th, 2009 1
" Futhermore the North Koreans claim they have video footage taken from the two reporters that show them on the North Korean side of the river and even picking up rocks as souvenirs. If this is true why isn’t the North Koreans showing this footage? "
Either the two women were telling the truth about damaging the tapes or the North Koreans are holding back and waiting for an opportune moment in typical North Korean fashion.
10:41 am on September 6th, 2009 2
China's denial is simply to appease public opinion at home. I don't think most Chinese are happy at the thought of the CCP not retaliating when foreign soldiers enter their country.
5:55 pm on September 6th, 2009 3
Curious as to what Mitch might have to say about events, that would be difficult for him to see, as he was "high stepping it" as fast as he could to safety.
6:17 pm on September 6th, 2009 4
Wasn't Mitch Koss the cameraman? How did the North Koreans get the video from the women? Did Mitch toss his camera as he was hauling a$$ out of there?
7:41 pm on September 6th, 2009 5
Notice that neither one of them is hot?
11:08 pm on September 6th, 2009 6
Joe Koss had the larger camera and was most likely filming from the Chinese side of the river. Lee supposedly had a smaller personal camera she was using to film Ling as she narrated them crossing over into North Korea. That is the camera the Norks got while the Chinese got Koss' camera.
6:19 pm on September 9th, 2009 7
Laura and Euna said that they damaged tapes; they didn't claim to have destroyed all tapes. They could easily have picked up a rock within a minute.
I, too, hope that Mitch Koss will speak out soon.