Year: 2024

As Taiwan gears up for presidential and legislative elections next Saturday, voters on the streets of the democratic island’s capital Taipei say a Chinese invasion isn’t at the top of their list of concerns. Despite the Chinese Communist Party’s ongoing information wars, political infiltration and military incursions in the Taiwan Strait, some of the island’s 23 million people say that such worries aren’t at the forefront of their minds. As the country counts down the last days of a presidential race, voters must choose between incumbent ruling Democratic Progressive Party Vice President Lai Ching-te, who has a strong track record of standing up to China, against the more China-friendly opposition candidates – Hou Yu-ih for the Kuomintang and Ko Wen-je for the Taiwan People’s Party. But not all voters are following the threat from China as closely as they were. “It’s pretty pointless as a Taiwanese person to speculate on such matters, as we’ve been in this situation for a long time,” a voter who gave only the surname Lu told RFA Mandarin in a recent round of street interviews.  Much of the early debate on the presidential campaign trail revolved around how candidates will handle the military threat from China.  U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping walk together after a meeting during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders’ week in Woodside, California, on Nov. 15, 2023. Xi’s statement that there wasn’t a timetable for an invasion of Taiwan appears to have made voters feel more secure. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP) But Chinese President Xi Jinping’s comments to U.S. President Biden at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco in November, in which he denied there was a timetable for an invasion of Taiwan, appear to have made voters feel more secure. “We all know deep down that there can be no war,” a voter who gave only the surname Weng said. “I’m not worried,” said a voter surnamed Chou. “The Taiwanese people must have confidence in themselves, and make their country strong.” “There is no problem,” she said. “I feel confident.” Protecting sovereignty Xi hasn’t relinquished China’s territorial claim on the island, which split from the mainland in 1949 amid civil war and has never been ruled by the Chinese Communist Party, reiterating in a New Year address on Dec. 31 that “China will surely be reunified.” But a 31-year-old Taipei office worker who gave only the surname Hsieh said people are used to military threats and ramped-up rhetoric from Beijing at election time. “All of the parties want to protect Taiwan’s sovereignty,” Hsieh said, adding that he doesn’t see a vote for any of the candidates as a vote for war. Neither can any of them promise that China would definitely not invade if they won the election, he said, adding that low-level, city-level exchanges are likely to alleviate current tensions with China. A J-15 Chinese fighter jet takes off from the Shandong aircraft carrier during exercises around Taiwan, April 9, 2023. One Taipei office worker says people are accustomed to military threats from Beijing at election time. (An Ni/Xinhua via AP) Hsieh said the main advantage for the opposition parties is that China won’t talk to the DPP, which has dismissed Beijing’s claim on Taiwan and criticized its crackdown on dissent in Hong Kong.  But he said the ruling party has a better track record when it comes to diplomacy, national defense and boosting Taiwan’s international status, not to mention the all-important relationship with Washington. ‘Stop interfering’ A 90-year-old voter who gave only the surname Kao said he is a staunch Kuomintang supporter, who nonetheless doesn’t want to see Chinese interference in Taiwan’s democracy. “I wish China would stop interfering in Taiwanese politics,” Kao said. “Taiwan is under a democratic system now, which is different from communism.” He said Taiwan has come a long way since the civil war between Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai-shek, and has spent the last few decades moving towards democracy, while China has been under Communist Party rule for more than 70 years. “Taiwan has gotten used to ruling itself democratically,” Kao said. A resident uses a magnifying glass as he reads a newspaper article calling Taiwan Vice President Lai Ching-te’s debate speech “Disaster words,” in Beijing, Wednesday, Jan. 3, 2023. A 90-year-old voter says she wishes “China would stop interfering in Taiwanese politics.” (Andy Wong/AP) A voter who gave only the surname Li said anti-communism has been deeply ingrained in Taiwanese society since the 1927-1949 civil war between the Kuomintang government of the 1911 Republic of China and communist insurgents. “They may fear our independence, but they didn’t build our country,” she said. “It’s better if they live their lives, we live ours, and we maintain peaceful cross-straits relations.” Housing, the economy Some told RFA Mandarin that they are more worried about the high price of housing than the threat of war. “The economy is still pretty important, and our leaders need to take active steps to deal with it,” Lu said. “The high cost of housing has led a lot of young people to lose confidence in the future,” he said, adding that he feels it’s time for a change after eight years of DPP rule. “​​If you are in power for too long, then issues of corruption are more likely,” Lu said. “This is a problem faced by all ruling parties in the world, not just in Taiwan.” Chou disagreed, saying the current leadership has done a good job, and that “Taiwan is very happy now,” and that she’s counting her blessings. Others said they were keen on Ko, because he appeared more down-to-earth, and to have concerns that were closer to their daily lives. “The stuff about China is kind of out of our reach, and I don’t pay much attention to it,” a voter surnamed Qu told RFA Mandarin. A Lai supporter surnamed Yang said the issue was much simpler for him. “We must elect people who are able to protect Taiwan,” he…

As families leave Hong Kong in droves in a bid to remove their kids from an education system that is increasingly steeped in Chinese Communist Party propaganda, they are building new lives in democratic societies like Taiwan and the United Kingdom. Many middle-class parents, asked why they chose to leave their home amid an ongoing crackdown on public dissent in Hong Kong, say it’s for the kids. Yet the challenges for children uprooted from friends, school, family and the city they once called home are far from insignificant. Three years ago, the Cheungs emigrated to Taiwan with their family of five, including Yuet, 13, Guji, 10 and Yiu, 8. According to a YouTube video made by Yuet at the time, they called out excitedly “We’re going through the gate now!” before giving their relatives a quick hug, and embarking on their new life more than 700 kilometers (400 miles) away. Around the same time, the Ho family were taking off for the United Kingdom, with 10-year-old Marcus and 9-year-old Max. “[My dad] just said we were going to the U.K.,” Marcus said in a recent interview with Radio Free Asia. “Actually, I don’t remember the details because we were very young at the time.” “I never thought much about leaving behind all my classmates and friends.” The Cheung children said they had some idea of why they were leaving, other than their parents wanting them to get a better education, and that there wasn’t much room for resistance to the idea. Language problems Coming from Cantonese-speaking Hong Kong, they also found it hard to communicate when they first got to Taiwan, where Mandarin Chinese is the medium of instruction in schools, and where Taiwanese – mutually unintelligible with Cantonese – is also widely spoken. “I didn’t understand Mandarin at all, or any other languages,” Guji said. “It was hard for me to communicate.” All three children were thrown into a system that taught them in a spoken language they didn’t know well, and required them to understand phonetic notation systems they had never been taught, leading them to lose marks in Chinese tests that should otherwise have been a cinch. “They all know this phonetic system because they learned it in kindergarten,” Yuet complained. “But we were in fifth and sixth grade and we didn’t know it, yet 20 marks out of every 100 were for phonetic spellings, so I got 70.” “There’s a bit less homework compared with Hong Kong, and the teachers are kinder and a bit less scary when they tell you off,” Guji said. “They’re not as strict.” The Ho family emigrated to the United Kingdom with 10-year-old Marcus and 9-year-old Max. (Shi Shi) The Cheungs also get to spend more time with their parents instead of being left with a domestic helper, as they were in Hong Kong. In the U.K., Marcus and Max have also had to work hard to overcome the language barrier. Marcus found leaving Hong Kong, where he was on the soccer, badminton and swimming teams and class president, quite a wrench. But there have been compensations, too. British schools have far less of a hothouse atmosphere than the education system in Hong Kong, and don’t expect kids to study all hours of the day and night just to keep up with requirements. That leaves more time and energy for doing the things they love, including plenty of energetic outdoor play. “The pace in school seemed very leisurely,” their father Simon told RFA Cantonese. “But after I looked at what he was doing, it turned out he wasn’t just playing around — he had written two pages.” “After they caught up in English, communication became easier, and they both like to play football, so it became a lot easier for them to communicate with their friends,” he said. “I think they’re fairly happy,” he said. “They’re not particularly unhappy.” Less pressure Asked if this was an accurate assessment, Marcus said he prefers life in the U.K., because there’s less pressure. Early years education expert Bonnie, who has also emigrated to Taiwan with her children, said children are adaptable and generally manage to settle, even after such a move. But they thrive in an atmosphere where they can talk about their feelings, and have a sense that the family is working together to overcome problems. “First, remember that you’re in this together, and second, give them time and give them space,” she advised. “I don’t mind letting my kids see my weakness, because that’s a very real feeling.” But ultimately, the parents are the ones responsible for emigration, not the kids, she said. “Children have to let go of the people and things they love most because of a decision made by their parents,” she said.  Marcus, Max and the Cheung children aren’t alone. BNO visas So far 40,000 Hong Kong minors have been approved for the British National Overseas visa program, which offers a pathway to permanent residency and citizenship. Childhood education expert Bonnie, who has emigrated to Taiwan with her children, says children are adaptable and generally manage to settle, even after such a move. (Chunyin) Meanwhile, schools in Taiwan reported 129 new students from Hong Kong in the 2020 academic year, and 174 in the 2021 academic year, compared with less than 100 between 2015 and 2019. National Taiwan University sociologist Lu Ching-hu said parents who emigrate from Hong Kong were far more likely to oppose the changes in that city than those who stay behind. “There is a positive relationship between resistance and immigration,” said Lu, who has studied emigrating Hong Kong families. “If you are a parent, the relationship is even stronger.”  U.K.-based Simon said that was a key factor in the Ho family’s decision to leave. “One of the reasons is that the teaching materials have been changed,” he said. This makes it harder for parents to help kids revise for tests in what has become an unfamiliar and hostile education system. “There are some…

The recent retraction of an academic journal article that discussed the genetic information of Uyghurs and Kazakhs in China’s northwestern Xinjiang region has raised questions and concerns about ethical standards in scientific research, as people familiar with the study believe that genetic samples were obtained under duress. In June, Elsevier, a Dutch publisher, announced the retraction of a scientific article published in 2019 in its journal “Forensic Science International: Genetics.” The retraction was attributed to the failure to meet necessary ethical approvals in scientific research, The Guardian reported. The deleted study, entitled “Analysis of Uyghur and Kazakh populations using the Precision ID Ancestry Panel,” was authored by Chinese and Danish researchers in Ürümqi.  It involved the collection of blood and saliva samples from 203 Uyghurs and Kazakhs, which were then tested using genetic sequencing technology developed by the American biotech company Thermo Fisher Scientific. The article’s authors claimed that their findings could help police in using genetic sequencing techniques to identify suspects in cases. “A clear knowledge of the genetic variation is important for understanding the origin and demographic history of the ethnicity of the populations in Xinjiang… [which] may offer an investigative lead for the police,” the article said. In the redaction notice, the journal said that an investigation revealed that those who collected the samples did not obtain the necessary ethical approval. Forced collection Yves Moreau, a professor at the University of Leuven in Belgium, has raised the concern that the Chinese government forcibly collects and arbitrarily uses genetic information from Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities. He told Radio Free Asia’s Uyghur Service that he had been critical of the 2019 study for a considerable period of time before it was finally deleted. “The article that was retracted … That’s a case that has been open for a very, very long time,” said Moreau, who added that he is working toward getting journals to reevaluate numerous articles, many on the same subject.   Moreau had also taken issue with a similar study published in the June 2022 issue of “Forensic Science Research,” a journal acquired by the Oxford University Press in 2023. That article detailed a study sponsored by China’s Ministry of Justice that analyzed the genetic information of Uyghurs based on blood samples collected from them. The retracted 2019 article and the 2022 article was written by the same authors, Claus Børsting, Niels Morling, and Xalmurat Ismailjan (Halimureti Simayijiang) from the forensic genetics department at the University of Copenhagen. Qelbinur Sidiq, shown speaking at the “Uyghur Tribunal” in 2021, says she saw samples collected from blood, as well as collections of fingerprints and retina scans. She said she herself was made to give all three in 2016. (Tolga Akmen/AFP) Ismailjan is known to have ties to China’s public security agencies and is listed as being jointly affiliated with Xinjiang Police College, The Guardian report said.  Experts like Moreau contend that the blood samples utilized in both studies were obtained from people who had no choice but to participate.  Moreau was reluctant to take on the 2022 article, he said, because one of editors-in-chief of the journal was from the Institute of Forensic Science of the Chinese Ministry of Justice. “So I thought, well, if I’m going to write a letter asking for ethical re-evaluation of an article in that journal, I’m not going to get much of an answer,” he said.  But when the journal was acquired by Oxford University Press, he was able to raise the issue with that institution, he said. “Now I can write to Oxford University and tell them, … you know, you were actually publishing this journal for the Institute of Forensic Science of the [Chinese] Ministry of Justice,” said Moreau. In an email sent to Irene Treacy, vice chancellor of the University of Oxford, Moreau noted that “such consent should be given voluntarily, and he does not believe that the Uyghurs consented to [biometric data collection] voluntarily.” After Mr. Moreau raised the issue, the editorial departments of the University of Copenhagen and the editor departments of the aforementioned journals replied via email that they would investigate the matter, he explained. Coerced samples Witnesses have observed coerced genetic data collection both inside China’s secretive “reeducation camps” in Xinjiang and also outside of the camps.   Qelbinur Sidiq, who currently lives in the Netherlands, said she saw samples collected from blood, as well as collections of fingerprints and retina scans. She said she herself was made to give all three in 2016. “Blood samples and DNA sequencing are mandatory, whether you are inside the camp or outside. There is an order where authorities instruct you on when to go to which hospital for the collection of your blood sample and DNA,” she said. “There is no freedom or choice to refuse.” Sidiq said that the police inform residents through the chat platform WhatsApp as to when they must appear at a specific hospital for collection. “Participants are given one week, and the notice explicitly states that failing to participate will result in severe consequences,” she said. “As a result, there is no freedom or choice in the matter, and individuals are unable to inquire about their results. Asking for the result of the blood sample is not an option.” Duarte Nuno Vieira, the co-editor-in-chief of “Forensic Science Research,” denied the journal had received financial support from China’s Ministry of Justice, according to the Guardian report. Journals have a responsibility to evaluate the ethics of the studies that appear in articles they publish, Maya Wang, associate Asia director for New York-based Human Rights Watch, told RFA. “Given the brutality of the collection process, I believe it is important for such journals to check and review research articles on samples taken from Uyghurs and Tibetans by Chinese police agencies,” she said. “It is unlikely these journals not know the background of such articles.”  In 2021, Professor Yves Moreau initially uncovered similar articles published by Chinese researchers about Uyghurs in the American journal Molecular Genetics and Genome…

North Korea is toning down its annual candy giveaway to children this year ahead of leader Kim Jong Un’s Jan. 8 birthday, handing out less candy and snacks than in previous years – and to fewer children, residents in the country told Radio Free Asia. The quality of candy is also lower, they said. Meanwhile, adults were buying their annual New Year’s “present” from the state: wall calendars that came with a variety of illustrations, including rockets and images of plump children. The calendars, marking the important dates for “Juche 113” –  also known as 2024 – were once free, but now must be purchased. Gifts of sweets to children on or around the birthday of the country’s leader has been a tradition in North Korea dating back to the reign of national founder Kim Il Sung – Kim Jong Un’s grandfather – and continued during the rule of his father Kim Jong Il. But this year the government is limiting the gift to kids aged 6 or younger. The government began distributing this year’s candy gift on Dec. 31, a resident of the northeastern province of North Hamgyong told RFA Korean on condition of anonymity for security reasons. But children will likely be disappointed because they are getting less this year, and the quality has declined, he said. “The number of recipients who qualify for the gifts also decreased significantly,” he said. “Starting this year, elementary school students [and anyone older] are excluded from receiving confectionery gifts.” The gift package this year consists of hard candy, packaged snacks like chips or sweet breads, bean powder coated candy, and other select items, he said.  The government has not overtly said that the candies are for Kim Jong Un’s birthday, however. But residents assume that must be the reason, because they remember that under the rule of the previous leaders, children received candy ahead of their birthdays, the resident said. Self-reliance With the changing of the year from Juche 112 to Juche 113, adults are also “given” paper calendars from the state, which they must purchase. “Juche,” is North Korea’s founding philosophy of self-reliance, and the Juche era is said to have begun with the birth of Kim Il Sung in 1912.  RFA reported in 2022 that pandemic concerns had resulted in people having to pay for their own annual calendar gift, and those who could pay more received better quality calendars. That trend is continuing into this year, but the people have several versions of the official calendar they can buy, with themes centered around missiles, the cult of personality, the military, education, and tourism, another North Hamgyong resident told RFA on condition of anonymity for personal safety. The missile calendar is titled “The Status of the Juche Powerhouse,” he said, while the calendar about soldiers and marines is called, ”Let’s Destroy the U.S. Imperialist Invaders, the Bitter Enemies of the Korean People.” A North Korean wall calendar for the year ‘Juche 113’ or 2024. Residents were “gifted” calendars like these, this year, though they had to be purchased. (RFA) The tourism-themed calendar seemed tone deaf though, because it pictures a lifestyle that most North Koreans can not even dream of, he said. “How many people in North Korea can enjoy sightseeing and eating at restaurants on a boat like in the calendar?” he said. “Furthermore, there are students who cannot go to school because they are starving, and there are all these chubby students featured in the [education] calendar.” The calendars are printed on low-quality paper this year due to a paper shortage, and even then there are different versions of varying cost, a resident of North Pyongan province in the northwest told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “A multipage calendar costs 5,000 won (59 U.S. cents), and a single page calendar [displaying the entire year] costs 500 won (6 cents),” she said. “Well-off residents purchase the multipage calendars and there is a high demand for calendars featuring pictures of flowers and souvenirs.” She said that the militaristic calendars were less popular because they feature missiles, soldiers or scenes from the 1950-53 Korean War, which North Korea calls the “Great Fatherland Liberation War.”  The overly militaristic themes are a turnoff for some, but the resident said that people will always find reasons to complain.  “Last year’s calendar featured a picture of a young child holding a milk cup, but milk is a luxury for most people.” she said. Translated by Claire Shinyoung Oh Lee. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.