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Category: Americas
Cambodian ruling party spokesman rejects criticism of Theary Seng conviction
Renewed calls from the U.S. State Department and a U.N. working group for the release of Cambodian-American lawyer Theary Seng are a violation of Cambodia’s sovereignty, the spokesman for the country’s ruling party said on Thursday. “Our court jurisdiction is under the laws of Cambodia as an independent and sovereign state,” said Sok Ey San, spokesman for the Cambodian People’s Party. “The court convicts [any person] based on the laws and the facts. She caused chaos in Cambodia for being a holder of foreign nation’s passport. She stirred chaos in Cambodian society.” In June 2022, Theary Seng was sentenced to six years in prison on treason charges, prompting condemnation from rights groups and the U.S. government. Her conviction was “a direct result of her exercise of her right to freedom of expression, which is protected under international law,” a U.N. working group of independent human rights experts said in a report released on Wednesday. “Her detention resulted from her long-term, high-profile criticism of the prime minister and her pro-democracy activism,” the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention said in the 17-page opinion. State Department comments Asked about the working group’s report, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said the United States continues to condemn the conviction and sentence of Theary Seng, who holds dual Cambodian and U.S. citizenship. When pressed by a reporter, Miller said the department still hasn’t determined whether she is “wrongfully detained” – a designation that could involve the department’s Office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs. “With respect to this case, there is no higher … pressure we can bring to bear than the secretary of state himself personally raising a case with his counterparts,” Miller said at Wednesday’s daily briefing. In August 2022, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken pressed Prime Minister Hun Sen to free Theary Seng and other activists during a visit to Phnom Penh. Other U.S. officials, including Under Secretary of State Uzra Zeya, USAID Administrator Samatha Power and Ambassador W. Patrick Murphy, have also called for her immediate and unconditional release. Theary Seng was sentenced along with 50 other activists for their association with the banned Cambodia National Rescue Party, once the main opposition in the country before it was dissolved by the Supreme Court in 2017. The specific charges stemmed from abortive efforts in 2019 to bring about the return to Cambodia of opposition leader Sam Rainsy, who has been in exile in France since 2015. Theary Seng and the other defendants denied the charges. Foreign intervention fears Last month, Hun Sen said he wouldn’t pardon Theary Seng or opposition party leader Kem Sokha, who was sentenced in March on treason charges widely condemned as politically motivated. Hun Sen said the decision was necessary in light of recent foreign intervention in Cambodia. He added that even though Theary Seng has dual citizenship, her case applies only to Cambodian law. In recent months, the prime minister has frequently invoked the specter of national security threats at public appearances ahead of the July 23 parliamentary elections, which he has framed as a referendum on who can best maintain Cambodia’s sovereignty. “From now on, those who seek foreign intervention will stay in prison,” he said last month. “We don’t release you. Don’t include them in prisoners who will be pardoned or have a reduced prison term. We are stopping foreign intervention in Cambodia.” Theary Seng’s case was submitted to the U.N. working group by the Perseus Strategies, Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights and Freedom House organizations, which represent her pro bono. “Theary Seng’s case is emblematic of the many people jailed in Cambodia for exposing human rights abuses, advocating for free expression, and calling for free and fair elections,” said Margaux Ewen, director of Freedom House’s political prisoner’s initiative. “The Working Group’s judgment comes at a critical time. As democracy and internet freedom are under threat globally and in Cambodia, we need the international community’s support of brave individuals like Theary Seng – and the rights for which they fight.” Translated by Sovannarith Keo. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.
Myanmar comedy troupe uses online video income for charity
A comedy troupe in Myanmar uses income generated from videos to fund charitable initiatives, including supporting needy families and single mothers, members of the team told us. The group, formed in 2021 in the central Sagaing region’s town of Kale is led by comedian Nau Sing, who moonlights as a taekwondo coach. The short videos are posted on Nau Sing’s Facebook and YouTube accounts, both of which have tens of thousands of followers or subscribers. Nau Sing told us that the Myanmar Service channel did not start out profitable, but now that it is, he continues to make them for charity. “I have loved charity since I was young,” he said. “After three years of creating these videos, I started to get money, so now that I have income, I donate as much as I can.” The comedy troupe lacks access to a computer, so all the editing is done on mobile phones, but recent trends have made short videos with minimal editing popular, and that has made the videos successful, the Nau Sing charity said. Ma San San, one of the team members, told us that she is happy when the charity can make a difference in other people’s lives. “When we … gave them a bag of rice, they burst into tears,” she said. “They said they had never been able to buy a whole bag of rice, rather they could buy only a few tins of here or beg for more there. They were in tears because they said a bag of rice would hold them over for a long time, and I was thrilled. The Nau Sing charity group, seen May 12, 2023, raises money by creating comedy short videos and posting them on Facebook and YouTube. Credit: Citizen journalist The group plans to donate to the needy once every month, said Ko Nau Sing, another member of the group. “We have established a Nau Sing page [on social media],” said Ko Nau Sing. “We are planning to donate once a month as much as we can based on the income. But whether there are contributions or not, we plan to donate once a month.” The charity donates food worth 100,000 kyats per month (US$48) for a family of five that is struggling to make ends meet, it said. The charity also supports single mothers who struggle to take care of their children. One such mother, Ma Man Lan Nyaung, lives with her five children at a shelter inside a church. She told us that she and two of the older children had been begging on the streets to support the family. “We were not shy anymore. We begged from every house that we thought had some food to spare,” she said. “At that time, the Nau Sing group donated rice, oil, salt, and chickpeas. I am very grateful to them for their donations.” Translated by Htin Aung Kyaw. Edited by Eugene Whong.
Vietnam’s communists are constrained domestically in choice between the US and China
It wasn’t the Communist Party that lifted the Vietnamese out of poverty; the people did it themselves. The country’s free-market revolution was the result of bottom-up pressure from the masses who broke the command-economy so much that the communist government had to accept a private sphere of business. Their pilfering from state-run companies and trading on the black market, and their ability to own more and more surplus produce after the state took its share, meant the government simply couldn’t handle the collectivized economy that had left Vietnam one of the world’s poorest countries in the 1980s. When the communist government gave an inch, the people demanded more. “The idea that economic success stems from a strategic shift in Party thinking [in 1986]… is actually a myth,” the economist Adam Fforde wrote. “Success instead drew upon systematic violations of Party ideology dating from the late 1970s, if not earlier.” The party’s economic reform package of 1986 (doi moi, or “renovation”) is common knowledge. Less so the promises of political renovation. Nguyen Van Linh, the incoming party general secretary that year, told writers and journalists that they should ‘stick to the truth’. One of those who took Linh at his word was Bao Ninh, a young novelist and war veteran from the North. “So much blood, so many lives were sacrificed for what?” he wrote in his 1990 book, The Sorrow of War. The poet and translator Duong Tuong called Bao’s work the “first truthful book about the war.” Truthful because it neither glorified victory against the Americans (“In war, no one wins or loses. There is only destruction”), nor regarded Communist Party leaders as the only heroes. Bao argued most Vietnamese were fighting for national peace, nor for Marxism. Naturally, the book was banned. Vietnam’s Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh (R) gestures to U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris in the Government office in Hanoi on August 25, 2021. Credit: Manan Vatsyayana / Pool / AFP The point is that even in a one-party, communist state, ordinary people can exert power. Today, the government still severely represses its citizens. There is no free media. There are no genuine elections. But the Communist Party is genuinely worried about the thoughts of the common man. Those domestic pressures are difficult to assess and frequently in debates on policy, such as about Vietnam hedging between the United States and China, it’s far easier to focus on “externalities”. The position at one extreme of that foreign policy debate, for instance, argues the Vietnamese government is denied any agency whatsoever because of material conditions: China is Vietnam’s main trading partner and principal aggressor; the United States is Vietnam’s main export partner and security “guarantor.” So by more closely aligning with either, Vietnam risks war or economic ruin. The other extreme says the Communist Party has a good deal of agency, and what shapes foreign policy is a shared ideology that makes it friendly with China, factional struggles within the party, and the whims of certain government officials. But consider a speech given in 2021 by Nguyen Phu Trong, now three-term Communist Party general secretary. Any nation “has to deal with two basic issues, internal and external,” he stated. “These two issues have an organic, dialectical relationship…[they] support each other like two wings of a bird, create positions and forces for each other, connect and intertwine more and more closely with each other.” Foreign policy today, he added, is a “continuation of domestic policy”. He said a little later: “Foreign affairs must always best serve the domestic cause.” That domestic cause for Trong is the survival and virality of the Communist Party. Domestic concerns dictate The other importance of The Sorrow of War was as an early sign nationalism was tumbling out of the hands of the Communist Party, which had staked its legitimacy on having led victory over the French, then Americans and then Chinese. But it was starting to lose its grip in the early 1990s when it struck peace with Beijing. Further anger flowed from the public as Chinese capital began flowing into Vietnam. In 2006, national hero General Vo Nguyen Giap (the “Red Napoleon”) accused the regime of selling off Vietnamese land for exploitation by Chinese bauxite speculators. Years-long protests turned “the nationalist tables on the Party by accusing it of caving in to the Chinese at the very time the latter were expanding their territorial claims against Vietnam in the South China Sea”, wrote the historian Christopher Goscha. That process has only expanded over time. One could say that the Communist Party is now scared of nationalism. Chinese academics seem especially taken with the idea that all nationalist protests in Vietnam are directed by the Communist Party. That is rarely the case. The party follows events; it seldom leads them. Netizen anger drove the recent cases of the Hollywood film “Barbie” being banned in Vietnam over a crude map that some said showed China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea, and threats to boycott concerts by the South Korean K-Pop band BlackPink. During the Vanguard Bank standoff in 2019, when the Chinese military was once again harassing Vietnamese vessels in the South China Sea, officials in Hanoi reportedly discussed whether to allow some limited protests. “But, warned some other officials, demonstrations must be tightly controlled. If not, the protests might be taken over by individuals and groups in Vietnam, specifically democratization advocates”, wrote Ben Kerkvliet in Speaking Out in Vietnam, a study of political activism. That remains a concern. If the party takes a strong stance against China, that risks setting off nationwide nationalist protests that the party cannot control and which might quickly be whipped up into anti-communist agitation. Between June 9 and 11, 2018, more than 100,000 protesters demonstrated across Vietnam, arguably the largest nationwide protest seen in decades, as the National Assembly debated a bill to create three special economic zones (SEZs) along Vietnam’s coastline. The investment minister said publicly…
Yellen woos China with chopstick diplomacy, talks tough on business
U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen touched down in Beijing on Thursday and ate at a popular Yunnan restaurant with the U.S. ambassador before meeting with key officials on Friday. Yellen met with China’s central bank governor Yi Gang, former economy point-man Liu He and State Premier Li Qiang on Friday to discuss the global, U.S. and Chinese economies. In prepared remarks, Yellen told Li she hoped her visit would spur more regular channels of communication between the world’s two largest economies, adding that both countries had a duty to “show leadership” on global challenges such as climate change. She said Washington would “in certain circumstances, need to pursue targeted actions to protect its national security,” but disagreements over such moves should not jeopardize the broader relationship. “We seek healthy economic competition that is not winner-take-all but that, with a fair set of rules, can benefit both countries over time,” she said. Separately, speaking at the American Chamber of Commerce on Friday, Yellen noted concerns in the U.S. business community. “I am communicating the concerns that I’ve heard from the U.S. business community, including China’s use of non-market tools like expanded subsidies for its state-owned enterprises and domestic firms, as well as barriers to market access for foreign firms,” she said. Meanwhile, in a sign of a possible thaw in China-U.S. relations, the usually provocative nationalist state tabloid Global Times asked in a tweet, what’s Yellen’s “preferred choice of food while in China? “It seems that Yunnan cuisine takes the top spot, as a popular Yunnan restaurant in Beijing’s Sanlitun area recently shared a picture of Yellen using chopsticks to enjoy a meal shortly after her arrival in Beijing on Thursday.” Yellen is in Beijing amid a flurry of visits aimed at breaking the ice between Washington and Beijing after the U.S. military shot down a Chinese government balloon over the United States. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Beijing in late June and U.S. climate envoy John Kerry will visit Beijing later this month Bloomberg reported. Mediating influence Yellen has a near “mission impossible” – to convince China that its measures in the interests of state security, restricting technology exports to China, are not intended to harm China’s interests as a rising nation state. But Chinese state media showed signs that Beijing may be in the mood for compromise – at least when it comes to trade and investment. China’s Global Times, in an uncharacteristically positive turn, editorialized that even though U.S. officials are downplaying any expectations from Yellen’s visit, “Chinese experts believe that one major point of significance of Yellen’s trip is to keep high-level communication channels open, which may help bilateral relations walk out of their downward spiral.” U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen walks after arriving at Beijing Capital International Airport in Beijing, China, Thursday, July 6, 2023. Credit: Mark Schiefelbein/Pool via Reuters Ahead of Yellen’s visit, in a response to restrictions on China’s access to high-technology semiconductor chips, on Monday, China announced it was restricting exports of two critical components in the chips that modern life runs on. “This is just the beginning,” Wei Jianguo, a former Chinese vice-minister of commerce, told the China Daily. “China’s tool box has many more types of measures available.” The trade and investment entanglement of China and the U.S. makes what the U.S. is now referring to as “de-risking,” rather than decoupling, hugely complex due to the entangled nature of the two nations’ trade. Firm on security It’s likely Beijing may think that accepting Yellen’s visit and appearing to be more receptive, as opposed to the cooler reception Secretary of State Antony Blinken received, could give the U.S. pause for thought about its tech restrictions. But Yellen reiterated that her mission, like Blinken’s, was to open up lines of communication and avoid a catastrophic confrontation between the world’s two leading superpowers. “I am glad to be in Beijing to meet with Chinese officials and business leaders. We seek a healthy economic competition that benefits American workers and firms and to collaborate on global challenges,” Yellen said in a tweet. “We will take action to protect our national security when needed, and this trip presents an opportunity to communicate and avoid miscommunication or misunderstanding.” A possible thaw “Yellen is a more rational voice on China issues within the Biden administration,” Wu Xinbo, dean of the Institute of International Studies at Shanghai’s Fudan University told The Wall Street Journal. But her visit comes amid “unsafe” moves in the South China Sea, a war of words over Chinese fentanyl exports, revelations of a multibillion-dollar Chinese spy base in Cuba and daily military harassment of Taiwan. Wendy Cutler, a former diplomat and Vice President at the Asia Society Policy Institute, talking to Taiwan +, an English-language TV news service, said of Yellen’s visit, “No 1, she has to go through the list of U.S. grievances, including their recent announcement of [export restrictions on] two critical minerals, the way U.S. companies are being treated in China and recent legislation to create more uncertainty in the business climate.” Cutler added that, as Yellen has previously pointed out, the U.S. doesn’t seek to decouple the two superpower’s economies, but “there are sectors of national security concern [and] we’re not going to be shy about protecting that.” Back to business Yellen took a jab at China’s planned economy, saying that Beijing should return to the era of market reforms that former leader Deng Xiaoping ushered in and which led to decades of rocket-fueled economic growth. “A shift toward market reforms would be in China’s interests,” Yellen told U.S. business executives on Friday, according to reports. “A market-based approach helped spur rapid growth in China and helped lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. This is a remarkable economic success story,” Yellen added. U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen meets with representatives of the U.S. business community in China, in Beijing, July 7, 2023. Credit: Reuters/Thomas Peter Yellen said that China’s vast middle-class was a market for American…
Hong Kong warrants spark fears of widening ‘long-arm’ political enforcement by China
Concerns are growing that China could start using the Interpol “red notice” arrest warrant system to target anyone overseas, of any nationality, who says or does something the ruling Communist Party doesn’t like, using Hong Kong’s three-year-old national security law. Dozens of rights groups on Tuesday called on governments to suspend any remaining extradition treaties with China and Hong Kong after the city’s government issued arrest warrants and bounties for eight prominent figures in the overseas democracy movement on Monday, vowing to pursue them for the rest of their lives. “We urge governments to suspend the remaining extradition treaties that exist between democracies and the Hong Kong and Chinese governments and work towards coordinating an Interpol early warning system to protect Hong Kongers and other dissidents abroad,” an open letter dated July 4 and signed by more than 50 Hong Kong-linked civil society groups around the world said. “Hong Kong activists in exile must be protected in their peaceful fight for basic human rights, freedoms and democracy,” said the letter, which was signed by dozens of local Hong Kong exile groups from around the world, as well as by Human Rights in China and the World Uyghur Congress. Hong Kong’s national security law, according to its own Article 38, applies anywhere in the world, to people of all nationalities. The warrants came days after the Beijing-backed Ta Kung Pao newspaper said Interpol red notices could be used to pursue people “who do not have permanent resident status of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and commit crimes against Hong Kong outside Hong Kong.” “If the Hong Kong [government] wants to extradite foreign criminals back to Hong Kong for trial, [it] must formally notify the relevant countries and request that local law enforcement agencies arrest the fugitives and send them back to Hong Kong for trial,” the paper said. While Interpol’s red notice system isn’t designed for political arrests, China has built close ties and influence with the international body in recent years, with its former security minister Meng Hongwei rising to become president prior to his sudden arrest and prosecution in 2019, and another former top Chinese cop elected to the board in 2021. And there are signs that Hong Kong’s national security police are already starting to target overseas citizens carrying out activities seen as hostile to China on foreign soil. Hong Kong police in March wrote to the London-based rights group Hong Kong Watch ordering it to take down its website. And people of Chinese descent who are citizens of other countries have already been targeted by Beijing for “national security” related charges. Call to ignore To address a growing sense of insecurity among overseas rights advocates concerned with Hong Kong, the letter called on authorities in the United Kingdom, United States of America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Europe to reiterate that the Hong Kong National Security Law does not apply in their jurisdictions, and to reaffirm that the Hong Kong arrest warrants won’t be recognized. The New York-based Human Rights Watch said the “unlawful activities” the eight are accused of should all be protected under human rights guarantees in Hong Kong’s mini-constitution, the Basic Law. Hong Kong police on Monday, July 3, 2023, issued arrest warrants and offered bounties for eight activists and former lawmakers who have fled the city. They are [clockwise from top left] Kevin Yam, Elmer Yuen, Anna Kwok, Dennis Kwok, Nathan Law, Finn Lau, Mung Siu-tat and Ted Hui. Credit: Screenshot from Reuters video “In recent years, the Chinese government has expanded efforts to control information and intimidate activists around the world by manipulation of bodies such as Interpol,” it said in a statement, adding that more than 100,000 Hong Kongers have fled the city since the crackdown on dissent began. “The Hong Kong government’s charges and bounties against eight Hong Kong people in exile reflects the growing importance of the diaspora’s political activism,” Maya Wang, associate director in the group’s Asia division, said in a statement. “Foreign governments should not only publicly reject cooperating with National Security Law cases, but should take concrete actions to hold top Beijing and Hong Kong officials accountable,” she said. Hong Kong’s Chief Executive John Lee told reporters on Tuesday that the only way for the activists to “end their destiny of being an abscondee who will be pursued for life is to surrender” and urged them “to give themselves up as soon as possible”. The Communist Party-backed Wen Wei Po newspaper cited Yiu Chi Shing, who represents Hong Kong on the standing committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, as saying that those who have fled overseas will continue to oppose the government from wherever they are. “Anyone who crosses the red lines in the national security law will be punished, no matter how far away,” Yiu told the paper. The rights groups warned that Monday’s arrest warrants represent a significant escalation in “long-arm” law enforcement by authorities in Beijing and Hong Kong. Extradition While the U.S., U.K. and several other countries suspended their extradition agreements with Hong Kong after the national security law criminalized public dissent and criticism of the authorities from July 1, 2020, several countries still have extradition arrangements in force, including the Philippines, Portugal, Singapore, South Africa and Sri Lanka. South Korea, Malaysia, India and Indonesia could also still allow extradition to Hong Kong, according to a Wikipedia article on the topic. Meanwhile, several European countries have extradition agreements in place with China, including Belgium, Italy and France, while others have sent fugitives to China at the request of its police. However, a landmark ruling by the European Court of Human Rights in October 2022 could mean an end to extraditions to China among 46 signatories to the European Convention on Human Rights. “The eight [on the wanted list] should be safe for now, but if they were to travel overseas and arrive in a country that has an extradition agreement with either mainland China or Hong Kong, then…
Banned by Beijing, Badiucao opens London show
In the brick-walled crypt of a church in central London hangs a painting of a many-armed, black-clad figure wearing an elastomeric mask and a yellow construction hat, evoking a figure that was once a familiar sight during the 2019 protest movement in Hong Kong. One of its many pairs of hands – protesters were referred to in Cantonese at the time as the “hands and feet” of the movement – is clasped in apparent prayer, with other pairs clutching water bottles and a retractable baton for fending off charging cops. In the goggles of the figure – a composite of the front-line protesters who used Molotov cocktails, bricks, bows and arrows and street barricades to engage in pitched street battles with riot police during the 2019 Hong Kong protests – is reflected the black bauhinia, symbol of the protest movement. Other works depict a shower-head washing an exposed brain, a reference to attempts by the ruling Chinese Communist Party to brainwash its citizen, and a portrait of jailed pro-democracy Joshua Wong behind bars formed of black umbrellas, bringing to mind the 2014 “umbrella movement,” when protesters used umbrellas to protect against pepper spray. Badiucao expresses solidarity with Hong Kong democracy activist Joshua Wong. Credit: Stone They are all works of art by Badiucao, whose latest exhibit showcases political and protest art that is deemed so incendiary by Beijing that it has made repeated attempts to have his exhibits shut down in other countries. Transnational repression Its theme is transnational repression. Overseas dissidents are increasingly finding that even if they leave China and settle in a democratic country, they are still targeted by agents and supporters of the Chinese state in their new home. Chinese Communist Party agents and supporters have carried out physical attacks and smear attempts on dissidents far beyond its borders, kidnapped them and forced them to return home to face punishment using threats against their loved ones, according to rights groups and personal stories shared with Radio Free Asia. Badiucao depicts jailed Hong Kong publisher Jimmy Lai in “Apple Man.” Credit: Stone Badiucao has remained undeterred by Beijing’s attempts to censor him overseas, however. The walls of the exhibit are packed with political punches – a portrait of jailed pro-democracy media mogul Jimmy Lai has pride of place, while another work shows students at the Chinese University of Hong Kong engulfed in flames while defending their campus against a determined assault by riot police, who fired thousands of rounds of tear gas during the attack. One image shows Chinese President Xi Jinping wearing a pair of TikTok logos for glasses, with the warning “Xi is Watching You,” highlighting privacy concerns around the Chinese-owned social media platform. Such images would quickly run afoul of a strict national security law in Hong Kong, where depictions of scenes “glorifying” the protests are banned from public display. Some have already been shown in Poland, where the organizers kept the exhibit open despite strong displeasure from Chinese officials. ‘Threats to my family and safety’ Many were inspired by the response of Hong Kong protesters, who used his artwork in response to the banning of his planned 2018 exhibit in the city, just a day before it opened. “The Chinese Communist Party doesn’t just come up with ways to get my exhibits canceled — it also threatens me with threats to my personal safety,” Badiucao told Radio Free Asia as the exhibit opened. “It also threatens the safety of the people I work with, and my family back in China,” he said. Also on display in the “Banned by Beijing” exhibition are works by Vawongsir, a former visual arts teacher in Hong Kong, such as this piece on the “Pillar of Shame.” Credit: Stone The Hong Kong theme of the exhibit is aimed at speaking out on behalf of people who haven’t been allowed to speak for themselves since Beijing imposed a draconian security law on the city three years ago, criminalizing public criticism of the government. Hong Kong artist Kacey Wong, who now lives in Taiwan, said he has faced similar attempts at censorship outside China, adding that the national security law has stifled freedom of expression both in his home city, and even far beyond China’s borders. “Don’t think you’ll be fine once you have left Hong Kong,” Wong warned. “Last year I took part in a small exhibition in the United Kingdom, and the Hong Kong party newspapers sent their people to carry out a smear campaign.” “This is long-arm control … you’re not safe in Europe, because they’re not very vigilant there about preventing censorship by the Chinese Communist Party,” he said. “However, it’s safer in Taiwan.” For Badiucao, a Hong Kong democracy movement that carries on in exile is still valid. “I don’t think it means that Hong Kong has fallen,” he said. “You can take your home with you anywhere.” “All of those Hong Kongers now in exile have taken the spirit, culture and identity of Hong Kong with them,” he said. “Wherever you have Hong Kongers still drawing breath, there is still hope,” he said. Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
Getting rich during China’s boom – then fleeing as prospects darken
As President Xi Jinping began a third term in office pledging “Chinese-style modernization” in October 2022, commentators expected him to steer China further in the direction of a state-dominated, planned economy. Xi’s ideology sounded an ominous note for the private sector, as well as for private individual wealth and influence. Meanwhile, three years of China’s zero-COVID policy sounded the death knell for many private companies, prompting an exodus of wealthy and middle-class Chinese who had previously benefited from the post-Mao economic boom. Meng Jun, a former vegetable salesman-turned-flight charter agent-turned-rubber factory boss who now lives in Florida, was one of them. “When the pandemic hit, I started to reflect on things, and to watch what was happening,” Meng Jun, who once headed up three companies turning out rubber goods in Guangxi, Chongqing and Beijing with a total turnover of 300 million yuan a year, told Radio Free Asia. “And I found that the actual problem was with the system as a whole, which made people bad,” he said. “I figured that if I carried on much longer, I’d get dragged down with some official, because, as someone who gave bribes, I would be implicated.” Meng in his heyday was a smooth operator, cashing in on relationships cultivated with local officials in his main stamping ground in the southeastern region of Guangxi. In 2000, officials in Guangxi’s Beihai city let him get his hands on an unfinished property, thanks to a total lack of transparency around government property deals, and a 200,000 yuan kickback to a local official. Meng Jun bought this unfinished government-owned building in Guangxi’s Beihai city in 2000 and then flipped it for a profit. Credit: Provided by Meng Jun “I moved very quickly, and made a million in less than six months,” Meng said. “I just packaged it up to some kind of rough standard and sold it on.” “There were so many unfinished buildings around at that time, more than a million square meters, all of them owned by [the local government].” ‘Total U-turn’ Former tech CEO Hu Liren knew as early as 2018 that it was time to leave. “Nobody wants to leave their home country,” Hu, who also lives in Florida, where he has become friends with Meng, told Radio Free Asia. “But I had no choice.” “Things had gotten so bad in China, and there was no way they were going to get better,” he said, in a reference to Xi Jinping’s renewed emphasis on state-owned assets and a planned economy. “In the four years since I left, there has been a total U-turn, exactly the way I thought there would be at the time.” It’s a far cry from the economic boom-time of the 1990s where both Hu and Meng made their fortunes. Back then, in 1994, China was putting out more than 2% of global economic output, while the number of private companies grew from zero in 1978 to 1.76 million by 2000. Hu Liren and his team when he was the CEO of an internet company in China in 2000. Credit: Provided by Hu Liren “It was great, very prosperous,” Meng said. “As long as you worked hard and gave it your all, you could make a lot of money.” “Everything was plain sailing, and it was possible to succeed at anything you did, and make money at it, too,” he said with a sigh. The private sector was booming so hard back then that the catchphrase “56789” was born, the first and last digits reminding people that it was contributing around 50% of government tax revenues, and was the source of around 90% of new jobs. ‘To get rich is glorious’ Deng’s golden era of market liberalization and breakneck economic growth spawned other catchphrases too, like “To get rich is glorious,” giving the go-ahead to an emerging generation of private entrepreneurs, freed from the political orthodoxies of Maoist China. Hu and Meng were among them. Born in the northeastern province of Jilin to working-class parents who were made redundant during the mass layoffs of the late 1980s, Meng started working various jobs straight out of high school in 1989. “I would sell vegetables and do other seasonal stuff with my friends, all across Jilin, Yanji, Changchun and Mudanjiang,” he said, referring to cities in northeastern China. His search for work took him to the southern island province of Hainan, where he eventually saved enough money to open up his own seafood restaurant in 1993. Meng Jun in 2010. Credit: Provided by Meng Jun “During that period from 1993 to 2000, I started my own seafood restaurant, and also got into chartered flights,” Meng said. “That was very profitable because at that time I had a monopoly.” “Then I started doing cross-border trade, because I knew Vietnam, which was really actually smuggling,” he said, adding that he raked in nearly 500 million yuan at that time. Raking it in Hu was born in Shanghai to a family of intellectuals and started working in a research institute focusing on television technology in the mid-1980s. When the institute was shut down in 1991, he found work at a foreign company. By the time the internet was changing the face of business in 1997, Hu was also raking in the money, working for a company owned by Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing, Mei Ya Online. “I became the director and executive vice president of this Mei Ya Online, and I had equity in it.” he said. “The annual income at that time was 400,000 to 500,000 yuan.” Boosted by stellar connections with He Xingtong, grandson of Communist Party elder He Long, and invited to lecture to officials in Shanghai and Beijing, Hu went on to run an investment research and credit ratings company, as well as founding a green tech company making air-conditioning systems for factory shop floors. Hu Liren during his entrepreneurial era. Credit: Provided by Hu Liren “We were growing at a rate where we were doubling our profits annually,”…
Tibetan political leader calls for ‘true autonomy’ within China in Australian address
Tibetans would willingly accept Chinese rule if granted true autonomy by Beijing, the leader of Tibet’s government-in-exile said Wednesday. “If those kinds of autonomies are granted to the Tibetans, they will be happy to live under the framework of the People’s Republic of China’s constitution,” said Sikyong Penpa Tsering, the head of the Central Tibetan Administration, referring to the status of Scotland and South Tyrol within the context of British and Italian rule. “It is not a matter of who rules; it is the quality of the rule,” he said, speaking to the Australian National Press Club in Canberra on “resolving Sino-Tibet conflict and securing peace in the region.” Penpa Tsering reiterated the Central Tibetan Administration’s commitment to resolving the Sino-Tibet conflict through the “Middle Way Approach” formulated by Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama. The strategy promotes true autonomy for Tibetans under Chinese rule, as written in China’s constitution. But he highlighted the historically independent status of Tibet and said that unless that status is recognized, China would have no reason to negotiate with the CTA. Embassy lobbying efforts Penpa Tsering’s hour-long address, which also touched on the Chinese government’s attempts to control the reincarnation process of the Dalai Lama, surveil Buddhist monasteries and restrict the movement of Tibetans, took place despite Beijing’s best efforts. Earlier this month, Chinese Embassy representatives met with press club chief Maurice Reily and voiced their opposition to Penpa Tsering’s appearance at Wednesday’s event, requesting that his invitation be revoked. China has controlled Tibet since it invaded the region in 1949, and rejects any notion of a Tibetan government-in-exile, particularly the legitimacy of the Dalai Lama, who lives in Dharamsala, India. Beijing has also stepped up efforts to erode Tibetan culture, language and religion. Speeches given at the National Press Club are broadcast on Australian TV and attended by prominent members of the press, and observers suggested Beijing may have lobbied Reily because it was worried about the wider exposure Penpa Tsering would get. “I want to thank the Chinese government for always being the best publicity agent,” Penpa Tsering said at Wednesday’s event, implying that Beijing’s efforts did more harm than good. Visit to parliament Earlier on Wednesday, Penpa Tsering delivered a speech on the geopolitical significance of Tibet at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. On Tuesday, the Sikyong observed proceedings at the Australian parliament, where lawmakers Sophie Scamps and Susan Templeman detailed the situation inside Tibet under Chinese rule. He also met with several Australian MPs. Speaking to RFA Tibetan, Kalsang Tsering, the president of the Australian Tibetan Community Association, welcomed Penpa Tsering’s visit on behalf of the estimated 2,500 Tibetans living in Australia. “The honor that Sikyong Penpa Tsering has received here in Australia and in the Australian parliament has been overwhelming and it is evident that there is so much support from the parliamentarians for the Tibetan cause,” he said. Translated by Tenzin Dickyi. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.
Biden ‘dictator’ comment sparks Beijing backlash
China has called U.S. President Joe Biden’s use of the word “dictator” to describe Chinese leader Xi Jinping “extremely absurd and irresponsible.” The latest war of words comes just two days after U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken wrapped up a diplomatic mission that sought to ease tensions between the two superpowers. Diplomatic relations between China and the U.S. are broadly agreed to have reached their lowest point since they formally recognized each other nearly five decades ago. ‘Totally against facts’ On Wednesday Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said at a daily briefing that Biden’s remarks at a fundraiser in California “go totally against facts and seriously violate diplomatic protocol, and severely infringe on China’s political dignity.” “It is a blatant political provocation. China expresses strong dissatisfaction and opposition,” Mao said. “The reason why Xi Jinping got very upset in terms of when I shot that balloon down with two box cars full of spy equipment is he didn’t know it was there,” Biden told a fundraiser Tuesday in support of his bid for a second presidential term at the 2024 elections. A fighter jet flies near the remnants of a suspected Chinese spy balloon after it was struck by a missile over the Atlantic Ocean, just off the coast of South Carolina near Myrtle Beach, Saturday, Feb. 4, 2023. Credit: Chad Fish via AP Biden uttered similar words ahead of Blinken’s visit to Beijing in what was interpreted at the time as a peace offering to pave the ground for a meeting between Xi and Blinken, which took place on Monday. On this occasion in Kentfield, California, Biden apparently decided to elaborate. “That was the great embarrassment for dictators, when they didn’t know what happened. That wasn’t supposed to be going where it was,” he added. Biden also said that China “has real economic difficulties,” a comment that is also sure to aggravate China’s leadership, which is in general very bad-news averse. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao once again defended the Chinese position that the balloon, which was shot down over U.S. coastal waters in February this year, was for meteorological research and had been blown off-course. “The U.S. should have handled it in a calm and professional manner,” she said. ”“However, the U.S. distorted facts and used forces to hype up the incident, fully revealing its nature of bullying and hegemony.” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, center, exits a vehicle to attend a meeting with China’s top diplomat Wang Yi, not in photo, at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing, China, Monday, June 19, 2023. Credit: Leah Millis/Pool Photo via AP Blinken’s trip to Beijing yielded no major breakthroughs, but Xi appeared to agree that it was the right time to stabilize rivalry between China and the U.S. that has threatened to veer into outright conflict on at least two occasions this year. They also agreed to further diplomatic engagement and Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang verbally agreed to visit the U.S. some time later this year at Blinken’s invitation. Biden, prior to calling Xi a dictator, said he thought relations between the two countries were on the right path, suggesting that Blinken’s trip had resulted in progress. “We’re in a situation now where he wants to have a relationship again,” Biden said of Xi separately on Tuesday. “Antony Blinken just went over there … did a good job and it’s going to take time.” Edited by Mike Firn.
China’s president meets top US diplomat in Beijing
Chinese President Xi Jinping met with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the Great Hall of the People on Tiananmen Square in Beijing late Monday afternoon in a climax of high-stakes diplomacy. Xi said he hoped the U.S. diplomat’s visit would stabilize ties, adding that state-to-state interactions should be based on mutual respect, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying, who was present in the meeting, wrote in a tweet. Blinken had earlier met with China’s top foreign policy official Wang Yi and Foreign Minister Qin Gang. Achieving a meeting with Xi, who is also China’s General Party Secretary, was widely perceived as the key measure of the success of Blinken’s visit as the two nations’ relations plumbed depths not seen since the countries diplomatically recognized each other in 1978. President Joe Biden said he hoped to see Xi in several months. Blinken is the first secretary of state to visit China in five years, amid China’s strict COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns and strains over China’s claims on the self-governing island of Taiwan, Russia’s war in Ukraine, Beijing’s human rights record, assertive Chinese military moves in the South China Sea and technology trade. “This visit was basically a means of re-establishing the normal process of contacts between the U.S. and China that was supposed to follow the Bali Xi-Biden meeting but then got derailed by the spy balloon,” Andrew Small, a senior transatlantic fellow with the U.S. German Marshall Fund’s Indo-Pacific Program told RFA. “It is intended to pave the way for other visits to China … and ultimately an expected visit from Xi Jinping for the APEC meeting in San Francisco.” The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit will be held in the Californian city on November 12 this year. Small described China-U.S. relations as essentially “frozen” prior to the trip, adding, “The US side anticipated that, assuming meetings with Wang Yi and Qin Gang proceeded according to plan, Blinken would see Xi Jinping, and it was understood to be important that various messages could be delivered directly to him.” ‘Candid, substantive, and constructive’ On Sunday Blinken began the two days of meetings with 7½ hours of direct talks and a dinner meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang, discussing a host of topics and agreeing to work together on increasing the number of flights between the U.S. and China, a senior state department official said. Blinken invited Qin to continue the discussions in the U.S, and the spokesperson said the pair agreed to schedule a visit at a “mutually suitable time.” A senior official said, under the condition of anonymity, that the meeting between Blinken and Qin was not about reading talking points to one another, describing the exchange of views as a substantive conversation. The PRC readout on the meeting said, “China is committed to building a stable, predictable and constructive China-U.S. relationship,” which Bonnie Glazer, managing director of the German Marshall Fund’s Indo-Pacific program and nonresident fellow with the Lowy Institute in Sydney, Australia, described in a tweet thread as “important.” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken walks with Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing, China, Sunday, June 18, 2023. Credit: Leah Millis/Pool Photo via AP Blinken’s talks with Qin were “candid, substantive, and constructive,” said State department spokesperson Matthew Miller. “The Secretary emphasized the importance of diplomacy and maintaining open channels of communication across the full range of issues to reduce the risk of misperception and miscalculation,” Miller said in a written statement late Sunday. Blinken, the spokesperson added, “raised a number of issues of concern, as well as opportunities to explore cooperation on shared transnational issues with the PRC where our interests align.” Chinese state media described the talks as “candid, in-depth and constructive communication on the overall relationship between China and the United States and related important issues.” A report by China’s foreign ministry quoted Qin as saying that “Sino-US relations are at the lowest point since the establishment of diplomatic relations. This does not conform to the fundamental interests of the two peoples, nor does it meet the common expectations of the international community.” ‘Crucial juncture’ On Monday morning, amid much suspense as to whether Xi would agree to meet him, Blinken met with China’s top foreign policy official Wang Yi to discuss re-forging diplomatic channels of communication between the powers. Observers in Beijing described the meeting as “frosty” but free of acrimony, unlike their last meeting, in Munich in March this year, when the two traded barbs in their first meeting since the U.S. shot down a Chinese spy balloon on February 4. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken (second from left without mask) meets with China’s Director of the Office of the Central Foreign Affairs Commission Wang Yi (second from right without mask) at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing, China, June 19, 2023. Credit: Reuters/Leah Millis/Pool The Chinese readout described the meeting as coming at a “crucial juncture” in U.S.-China relations and that choices needed to be made between dialog or confrontation, cooperation or conflict, while blaming the downturn in relations on the “U.S. sides erroneous understanding of China.” Wang asked the U.S. to stop “hyping up the China threat,” lift its “illegal sanctions,” stop hindering China’s technological progress and said that on the subject of Taiwan, which he described as “core of China’s core interests,” there was “no room for compromise.” Little progress on key issues The two sides appeared to have made no progress on key issues such as Taiwan, trade, human rights and stemming the flow of chemicals used in the production of the synthetic opioid fentanyl. “Despite very low expectations for any breakthroughs made during Blinken’s visit to China, there is still hope that both sides can maintain their ‘bottom line’ in the relationship,” state tabloid Global Times said in an editorial on Monday. It added, “It is normal for any country to have low expectations after being continuously suppressed by the US.” Derek Grossman, a former daily intelligence briefer to the director of…
