Month: April 2022

North Korea said it tested a new “tactical-guided weapon” on Saturday designed to bolster its nuclear capabilities, although experts questioned how big of a military advance the launch represents when Pyongyang has no miniature warheads. The state-run Korea Central News Agency said the test was successful and the new weapons system “is of great significance in drastically improving the firepower of the frontline long-range artillery units and enhancing the efficiency in the operation of tactical nukes of the DPRK and diversification of their firepower missions.” The launch came days before the U.S. and South Korea on Monday began annual joint military exercises, which the North says threatens its sovereignty. The new weapons system, though classified as long-range artillery by North Korea, is not different from guided missiles, Jeffery Lewis of the California-based Middlebury Institute of International Studies’ East Asia Nonproliferation Project, told RFA’s Korean Service Monday. “North Korea uses the phrase ‘Hwasong artillery’ to refer to its long-range ballistic missiles. This is probably what the U.S. government calls a ‘close-range ballistic missile’ that is apparently capable of delivering a nuclear warhead about 100 km,” Lewis said. Photos of the tested weapon appear to show “some kind of heavy rocket artillery or close-range ballistic missile,” Ian Williams of the Center for Strategic International Studies (CSIS) in Washington told RFA. Williams likened the projectile to the KN-25, a tactical ballistic missile North Korea first tested in July 2019. “The rhetoric about nuclear fighting capability could be North Korea signaling this rocket is meant to deliver a tactical nuclear weapon. However, we have not seen evidence that North Korea has been able to miniaturize its nuclear weapons to this extent,” he said. The Pentagon’s description of the new weapon as a “long-range artillery system” was one of many choices, said Ankit Panda of the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “Tactical-ballistic missile, close-range ballistic missile, and even long-range artillery system are all reasonable ways of defining this new ‘tactical-guided weapon,’” he told RFA by email “The main significance of this weapon is its presumptive nuclear weapons delivery role,” said Panda. The Rand Corporation’s Bruce Benet said having built-in guidance makes a rocket a missile, “so these apparently guided artillery rockets are actually guided artillery missiles.” Benet also expressed doubts North Korea’s claim that the new missile could carry a nuclear weapon. “Even if the new missiles did, the North could always have used its KN-23 and other larger missiles to deliver nuclear weapons close to the battlefield, so this new type of missile appears to have more political impact than military impact,” he said. Though he didn’t know what type of weapon was actually fired, David Maxwell of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington said the weapon was a means for Pyongyang to further its geopolitical strategy. “This is likely in support of the regime’s political warfare strategy and blackmail diplomacy to use threats, increased tensions and provocations to gain political and economic concessions,” he told RFA.   “In the context of the regime’s objective to dominate the peninsula, this weapons test supports the development of advanced military capabilities to support warfighting to eventually use force to achieve unification under the rule of the Guerrilla Dynasty and Gulag State. This test serves two purposes: support to blackmail diplomacy and support to warfighting,” Maxwell said.  The U.S. remains open to engagement with North Korea, U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price said at a news briefing. “We have … sought to make very clear to the DPRK that the door to diplomacy is not closed, that it does remain open, but that the DPRK needs to cease its destabilizing actions and instead choose the path of engagement, something it has not yet done,” said Price. “Unfortunately, it is the DPRK that has failed to respond to our invitations, and instead they’ve engaged in this series of provocations, including the ICBM launches in recent weeks,” he said. The U.S. Department of Defense declined to release intelligence assessments but confirmed the weapons test and reaffirmed Washington’s commitment to the defense of its allies in the region.

Ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP)-backed censors have deleted an online list of people who died as a result of the Shanghai lockdown, and blocked the URL after internet users saved it to a blockchain-based site. “They did not die of COVID-19, but because of it,” the introduction to the list on the Airtable collaboration platform — which uses blockchain technology — said. “They should neither be ignored, nor forgotten.” The site showed “incomplete numbers” of more than 152 people whose deaths were believed to be directly linked to the CCP’s zero-COVID policy and stringent lockdowns that have dragged on in Shanghai for weeks. Searches for the list yielded no results on Weibo on Monday, with one repost of the Airtable URL to the social media platform yielding a notice that read: “This content cannot be viewed at this time.” Among dozens of others, the list names Qian Wenxiong, a former official at the Hongkou district maternal and child health center, as having committed suicide; Zhou Shengni, a nurse at the Dongfang Hospital, as having died of an asthma attack; Wei Guiguo, vice president of Netcom Securities, as having died of a cerebral hemorrhage; and “Captain Zhao,” a security guard at the Changning Hongkang Phase III residential community, as having died of overwork. Several suicides are recorded in the list, many as a result of people jumping from tall buildings. “Someone put the list of the dead onto the blockchain now, because the authorities deleted the post titled ‘Shanghai’s Dead’ yesterday,” internet user Zhou Ni told RFA. “It can’t be deleted, but the website has been blocked in China, so people there can no longer see it.” “Anyone in China will have to circumvent the Great Firewall to see it,” Zhou said. Meanwhile, Shanghai-based rapper Fang Lue, known by his stage name ASTRO, said he had taken down a video of a song he wrote about lockdown titled “New Slave.” “I am very grateful yet nervous that my song “New Slave” has been getting a lot of attention in recent days,” Fang wrote in a statement posted to his YouTube channel. “I had essentially  hoped to use this song to call for more reflection and debate about the particular time we are living through and the problems we are having,” he said. “It was never my intention to bring up unfounded criticisms.” “I was told that there have been some reposts and appropriations of my song on other social platforms, alongside messages that are a long way from what I wanted, so I have deleted my public video of New Slave on YouTube,” Fang wrote. The song’s lyrics included the lines “When freedom of thought and will are imprisoned by power … when people who aren’t sick are locked up at home and treated as if they are sick, yet those who are truly sick can’t get into a hospital … it stinks; the stench of rotting souls fills the air.” “Open your mind, just open your mind,” Fang sings. “How much guilt and pain does the prosperity of skyscrapers cover up?” Before it was deleted, “New Slave” had gone viral on China’s tightly controlled internet, with commentators saying this kind of social commentary was exactly what rap should be doing, and supporting Fang to carry on writing and performing. The CCP has banned hip-hop from social media since the beginning of the year, and its propaganda and cultural officials have ordered entertainment platforms to avoid any “non-mainstream” cultural performances characterized as “decadent” by its directives. Protest slogans have also been popping up on the streets of Shanghai in recent days, according to photos posted to Twitter, one of which riffs on a common notice left in place of deleted content by censors: “This content can’t be viewed due to violations [of relevant laws and regulations].” Others have simply complained that “People are dying,” or referenced the “list of the dead.” Meanwhile, vice premier Sun Chunlan was found to have filmed some of her reported “visit” to Shanghai on the roof of the headquarters of a state-owned enterprise, rather than in Menghua Street, as claimed in the official footage. And rights activist Liu Feiyue was summoned by local police for questioning after he criticized COVID-19 restrictions in Suizhou. Liu was suspected of “violating supervision and management regulations,” according to the Zengdu branch of the Suizhou municipal police department, according to a copy of the summons uploaded to Twitter. He was ordered to go to the Dongcheng police station at 9.00 a.m. Monday local time for questioning. Liu Feiyue, who founded the Civil Rights and Livelihood Watch website, was convicted of “incitement to subvert state power” on Jan. 29, 2017 after giving interviews to foreign media. He was sentenced to five years in prison, deprived of political rights for three years, and had 1.01 million yuan of personal assets confiscated. He was awarded the 9th Liu Xiaobo Writers of Courage Award in November of the same year, as well as the 13th Writers in Prison Award from the Independent Chinese PEN Association. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.