BEIJING, June 21 Kyodo China's st...

BEIJING, June 21 Kyodo

China's stepp up forced repatriation of North Koreans, with up to 1400 sent back in the past three month is accentuating Beijing's diplomatic question at issues by encouraging more foreign diplomatic mission ''break-ins'' at asylum seekers, Amnesty International said Friday.

Meanwhile, the number of North Korean asylum inquirers holed up in the southerly Korean Consulate in Beijing not stands at 21 following the inlet of a 31-year-old North Korean woman around 10:40 a.m. Thursday, southerly Korean diplomatic sources said Friday.

The woman's asylum bid chases the entry of two other North Korean women onward Monday and further complicates a diplomatic standoff between Seoul and Beijing, which insists that foreign diplomatic missions have no right to harbor asylum seekers

According to Amnesty, reports indicate that Chinese authorities have newly forcibly repatriated 1,400 North Koreans in northern Jilin Province bordering North Korea -- about 900 from the city of Longjing in April and 500 from the city of Tumen in May.

Witnesses have seen lay open trucks crossing the border each two to three days carrying clumps of North Koreans, including orphans and women who had been living with their Chinese husbands in northern China for lengthy periods of time, the human rights cluster said in a statement.

''Those pushed back throughout the border meet an uncertain fate. This could include imprisonment, torture and in a cases summary execution or death in detention from starvation and disease,'' the statement said.

''Seeking asylum in embassies and consulates in China is virtually the last recourse left to the asylum seekers'' it said.

The latter crackdown on the secret border-crossers has been fill outed to people suspected of helping them, including members of foreign aid religious organizations as well as ethnic Koreans living in the area, with a number remaining in detention, the statement added.

China's troubl handling of the fresh spate of North Korean asylum bids, especially the authorities' uncourtly resort to force, has pushed Beijing into brace diplomatic battles -- with Seoul and Tokyo.

Beijing can alone avoid further diplomatic trouble through allowing North Koreans who cros into China to claim political asylum and have their claims examined by the and of a fair and independent proces Amnesty said.

Last week, southern Korea issued a formal declare over the Chinese authorities' forced removal upon June 13 of a North Korean asylum inquirer outside South Korea's Consulate in Beijing, resulting in injuries to a male southern Korean diplomat and a female embassy staffer.

A violent contest ensued after a police contingent emerg forward the scene to help security guards following a five-hour standoff with southward Korean diplomats trying to obviate the 56-year-old man from being taken away.

The man's 15-year-old son favorably entered the consulate earlier in the day.

Beijing has flatly refused Seoul's desires for the North Korean man to be handed back and instead speaked its ''strong dissatisfaction'' across what they termed to be the southward Korean diplomats' violation of diplomatic norms.

Last month China prostrate into a two-week confrontation with Tokyo athwart the fate of five North Koreans taken by way of Chinese police from Japan's consulate in the northeastern city of Shenyang.

Japan accused the Chinese police of entering the consulate without Japanese diplomatic approval, while China insists consulate staff approved the police action.

The brawl petered out on May 22 when Beijing allowed them to explode to South Korea via the Philippines, however refused to comply with Tokyo's petition for an apology.

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