SEOUL—While the protests that have dogged the Olympic torch around the globe have been focused on Beijing’s handling of Tibet, little has been said about China’s treatment of North Korean refugees.

But with the torch now on its way to Seoul before heading to Pyongyang the issue will hopefully garner more attention, though I’m skeptical it will outlast the news cycle. North Koreans, it seems, are truly isolated. And aside from Pyongyang’s nuclear activities in Syria, their plight continues to fall under the radar.

Experts are now predicting another food crisis in North Korea similar to the famine that struck in 1997 and sent waves of refugees across the Yalu River into China. For its part, Beijing continues to maintain these individuals are ‘economic migrants’, a term which opens a legal loophole allowing their return to North Korea.

With the Olympics approaching it isn’t inconceivable that human rights groups working with North Korean refugees may, like Tibet, take advantage of the games to highlight their plight. Pressure has already been put on South Korea’s president Lee Myung Bak to follow through with his promise to press the North on its human rights abuses. An article on the Human Rights Watch website calls on Lee to take China to task for its handling of North Korean asylum seekers.

Yet while several Korean torchbearers have recently declined to carry the torch, I’m skeptical Lee will use the event in this way. Still, it does highlight the fact that the many political fault lines that run through Asia intersect in China. Whether it’s Tibet or Taiwan, North Korea or Myanmar, China has truly become the “Middle Kingdom” when it comes to the region’s political turmoil.

The other day I asked an acquaintance of mine about her thoughts on the Olympics. She’s a young Chinese woman who grew up in Hong Kong, and is now studying Korean here in Seoul to bolster her job prospects back home.

She said at first she was excited about the games, but that over time she’s grown more frustrated with their politicization. “The Olympics are supposed to bring people and nations together, but instead they are creating more division.” I tell her it sounds a lot like the Hillary – Obama presidential race and she breaks into laughter.

Then she lowers her voice and casts a quick glance at the other students in the room, half of whom are from Mainland China. “When China made its bid to host the 2000 Olympics a lot of us in Hong Kong felt it wasn’t ready. I think it still isn’t ready… but maybe they think otherwise,” she says, referring to the others. — Peter Schurmann