Last month, there were reports that North Koreans working in China revolted after learning that they were not being paid and that their wages were being used to build weapons for Pyongyang, writes the BBC.

Protests are virtually unheard of in North Korea, as the state exercises almost total control over its citizens and public dissent can lead to execution.

The unrest, though not officially confirmed, has worried tens of thousands of workers’ relatives who need money sent from abroad to survive.

The BBC spoke to a former North Korean worker in China who said that those working for some inefficient companies were being paid withheld.

I have also seen correspondence from someone who says he is an IT worker and claims he is being “used as a slave”.

According to reports from a former North Korean diplomat, riots broke out at several North Korean garment factories in northeastern China on January 11.

Ko Young-hwan, who fled to South Korea in the 1990s, told the BBC that the workers exploded when they learned that their wages, which had not been paid for months, had been transferred to a fund intended to help Pyongyang prepare for war.

“They became violent and started breaking sewing machines and kitchen utensils,” Mr Koh said. “Some even locked North Korean officials in a room and attacked them.”

The BBC cannot verify Mr Ko’s account of these protests as there is no information that can be independently verified.

An estimated 100,000 North Koreans work abroad, mostly in factories and construction sites in northeastern China run by the North Korean government, where they earn valuable foreign currency for the sanctions-hit North Korean regime. They are estimated to have brought Pyongyang $740m (£586m) between 2017 and 2023.

Most of their income is transferred directly to the state. The workers at the textile factory were told they would be paid when they returned to North Korea.

Workers typically spend three years abroad, but North Korea’s border closures have forced foreign workers to extend their stay

Resentment began to build last fall, Mr. Ko says, when Pyongyang eased its border restrictions and allowed people to return. Some of the workers tried to get their money, but learned that they would not receive it.

A similar version of events was shared by Cho Han-beom, a senior researcher at South Korea’s government-funded think tank the Korea Institute for National Unification (KINU), who also cited sources in China. He believes that up to 2,500 workers from 15 factories in Jilin province took part in the protests.

Although the protests cannot be independently confirmed, we do know that there are tens of thousands of North Korean workers abroad who are being withheld at least some of their earnings.

“Many of these workers will be both psychologically and physically exhausted after working abroad for so long without pay,” Cho said.

The BBC spoke to a North Korean man who worked in China from 2017 to 2021, and who we’ll call ‘Yung’ for security reasons. He said he was one of the top performers working for one of the most profitable companies. But despite this, Jung only received 15% of his salary, and the rest went to his managers and government projects, which upset him.

“Some people had no heating in their apartments during the harsh winter months and were not allowed to leave the compound, even to do essential shopping,” he said. Jung was allowed to leave the grounds once a week, but during Covid even that little freedom was taken away

Despite the restrictions, work abroad is in high demand among North Koreans, sometimes paying up to 10 times better than the salary in the country.

Candidates are carefully vetted to see if there is any crime or emigration in their families. Selected workers must leave their families in the country to prevent them from emigrating.

The BBC has obtained an email from a North Korean now working in China which suggests that the level of surveillance of workers has increased over the past four years.

The man, who says he is an IT worker in northeastern China, has been emailing Mr. Ko for more than a year and contacted him again last week when he heard about the protests, Mr. Ko said.

“The North Korean state exploits IT workers as slaves, forcing us to work six days a week for 12-14 hours a day,” the programmer wrote. According to him, staff work at night for clients in the US and Europe, causing chronic sleep deprivation.

When he first arrived, he received 15-20% of his earnings every month, but in 2020 his payments stopped. The man told how managers are pressured to publicly shame those who do not perform well by slapping them in front of everyone and then beating them until they bleed.

Instead, he said the top performers are rewarded with a trip to a restaurant where they can choose one of the waitresses to spend the evening with. The first can choose the best employee of the month.

A former worker, Jung, claimed that these weekends also happened at his company, adding that they have become more frequent in the age of Covid

Despite the frustration among the workers, Pyongyang appears unwilling to send them home. After the protests broke out, Pyongyang sent its Chinese officials to the factories to pay the workers some of their wages, but millions of dollars remained unpaid.

While it is entirely possible that the large-scale riots are exaggerated, most analysts the BBC spoke to agreed that such incidents were likely to have taken place, the BBC writes.

South Korea’s intelligence service told the BBC of “several incidents” involving North Korean workers abroad due to “poor working conditions” and said it was “monitoring the situation”.

Although, if true, Dr. Ward does not believe it is a direct challenge to the regime.

“This is like a labor dispute, these people are not trying to overthrow the government,” he said. Instead, he argued, it would be further evidence that “the North Korean government is really struggling for money, to the point where they are now literally stealing from their own workers.”

Dr Ward added that North Korea needed to address the issue, not least because it could create tensions with China. Beijing will not want protests on its territory and may decide to stop facilitating these arrangements.