SEOUL — The American G.I. who bolted across the line into North Korea on July 18 just got off easy. The North Koreans, who years ago held on to American army deserters and ruthlessly beat civilians who entered the country illegally, made an exception for Private Travis King.

Now the question is whether the Americans will be so generous after the North Koreans turned him over to the Swedish ambassador to North Korea, who delivered him to the American ambassador to China, Nicholas Burns, at the Chinese border.

The Americans appeared ecstatic — and immensely relieved. President Biden’s National Security Adviser, Jake Sullivan, credited “the dedication of the interagency team that worked tirelessly out of concern for Private King’s wellbeing.”

Mr. Sullivan thanked both the Swedish ambassador, representing American interests in Pyongyang, and the Chinese government for persuading the North Koreans to bid farewell to Private King.

Whether Private King will appreciate such concern is another matter. Having been arrested and jailed in South Korea, he had been taken by military escorts to the international airport near Seoul in July and checked in for a flight that would have landed him in the arms of American military authorities pending disciplinary action. He slipped away after his military escorts had left.

Pyongyang’s Korean Central News Agency said earlier that “the relevant organ of the DPRK” – Democratic People’s Republic of Korea – “decided to expel Travis King, a soldier of the U.S. Army who illegally intruded into the territory of the DPRK.”  

Presumably the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, was ultimately the one to send him on his way.

For the North Koreans to show such mercy, Private King would have had to say what they wanted to hear after he broke away from a tour group in the Joint Security Area at Panmunjom and dashed to the North Korean side. 

Private King was “disillusioned about the unequal U.S. society,” said KCNA, after suffering “inhuman maltreatment and racial discrimination within the U.S. Army.”

The KCNA report was the first news about Private King since it confirmed in August that he was being held after having “illegally intruded into the territory of the DPRK.” By now, said the latest report, with an air of finality, the investigation into his defection is “complete.”

Thus Private King escaped the fates of the six other American army soldiers who defected between 1962 and 1982. Five crossed the line from South to North Korea while a sixth disappeared from his unit in Germany.

All of them died in North Korea with the exception of Charles Jenkins, who defected in 1965 but was permitted to leave 39 years later to join his Japanese wife, with whom he had two daughters in captivity. Kidnapped from Japan, she’d been freed in 2002 after Japan’s prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, interceded with Kim Jong-Il, the father of Kim Jong-un.

Mr. Jenkins, freed in 2004 with his daughters, was given a dishonorable discharge by the American army, wrote a book about his experiences and died in Japan six years ago. All the other defectors before Private King died in North Korea. 

Just because North Korea agreed to expel Private King, however, does not mean he’s home free. He now faces the prospect of a court martial for either going AWOL, absent without leave, or desertion, charges that could land him a lengthy sentence in a military prison and a dishonorable discharge.

But why did the North Koreans decide they didn’t need him any more, even for propaganda purposes? The overriding reason evidently was his rank as a private was too low for him to be of any practical value as a source of information.

“Most likely they could not figure out a way to effectively exploit him,” a retired American army colonel who has served five tours in South Korea, David Maxwell, told The Sun. “If he is of no use to them, then the best thing to do might be to return him.”

In which case, of course, Private King may still hope to get off easy again by telling the Americans all about how the North Koreans grilled him, who conducted the interrogations, where they held him and how in general he was treated.