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Category: Americas

Junta arrests former UK ambassador to Myanmar on immigration charges

Editor07 mins

Junta authorities have arrested former U.K. Ambassador to Myanmar Vicky Bowman and her husband, a Burmese former political prisoner, for allegedly violating the country’s immigration laws, according to the military regime and a source with close ties to the couple. Bowman, who served as the U.K.’s top diplomat to Myanmar for four years ending in 2006, and her husband, artist Htein Lin, were taken into custody from their home in Yangon’s Dagon township at around 10 p.m. on Wednesday and initially held at an area police station, a person close to their family told RFA Burmese. The pair were transferred to Yangon’s notorious Insein Prison on Thursday afternoon and will be held there pending a court hearing scheduled for Sept. 6, the family friend said, speaking on condition of anonymity. According to a statement by the junta, Bowman had obtained a residence permit to stay in Yangon, where she runs the nonprofit organization Myanmar Center for Responsible Business, but relocated to her husband’s home in Shan state’s Kalaw township between May 4, 2021, and Aug. 9, 2022, without informing authorities of her change in address. Htein Lin abetted her by failing to report the move, the statement said. They face up to five years in prison. The source close to Bowman’s family told RFA that she and her husband had “not violated any laws,” as alleged by authorities. The arrests came as the U.K. announced new sanctions against “military-linked companies” that it said was part of a bid to “target the military’s access to arms and revenue” amid a crackdown by the junta on opponents to its rule. The British Embassy in Myanmar confirmed the arrests to RFA by email and said it is providing the pair with consular assistance. Calls for release Rights groups on Thursday called on the junta to drop the charges against Bowman and Htein Lin, a former activist with the All Burma Students Democratic Front who spent more than six years in prison between 1998 and 2004 for speaking out against military rule. Phil Robertson, Asia deputy director for New York-based Human Rights Watch, slammed the decision to arrest the couple as an “absurd, ridiculous & vengeful action” in a post to his Twitter account and called for their immediate and unconditional release. “[Junta chief] Gen. Min Aung Hlaing & #Tatmadaw just making things up to strike back at critics any way they can,” Robertson wrote. The arrests also drew condemnation in a statement from PEN America, an NGO that campaigns for writers’ freedom of expression. “The arbitrary and sudden arrests of Vicky Bowman and Htein Lin are yet more examples of the sweeping and abusive power that the military junta has wielded since its violent and illegal seizure of power in February 2021,” said Julie Trébault, director of the Artists at Risk Connection at PEN America. “We are deeply concerned for the safety of Vicky Bowman and Htein Lin and call for their immediate release.” ‘Revenge’ arrests Friends of Bowman and Htein Lin told RFA they believe the junta had fabricated charges against the couple as a form of “revenge” for Htein Lin’s activism and the fresh U.K. sanctions. Artist Zaw Gyi said Bowman was within her rights to stay at her husband’s home, which should be seen as part of the couple’s collective assets. “This is just an example of trying to find fault to cause a problem,” he said. “How could Htein Lin stay out of this when his wife is being arrested?”  Writer Wai Hmuu Thwin called the arrests “a case of tit for tat by the junta.” “[In other countries] if you enter through immigration legally, there are no problems, regardless of where you stay,” he said. “I see this as a form of revenge because the British government announced sanctions … recently. Since Vicky Bowman was a former British ambassador, she and her husband got caught in the middle.” Authorities in Myanmar have killed nearly 2,250 civilians and arrested more than 15,200 others since the Feb. 1, 2021, coup, mostly during peaceful anti-junta protests, according to Thailand’s Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

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Economies in Shambles

The devastating hyperinflation in the post COVID world

Editor019 mins

The devastating hyperinflation in the post COVID world COVID19 has had a devastating impact on the economies of the world. Many economically fragile nations got ruined post-COVID. The world is going through an uncertain passage where hyperinflation, depreciating currencies, wars between countries, internal protests/riots and debt traps are taking the center stage. Here is a case study on how different countries of the world are faring in terms of inflation and currency depreciation in the post COVID19 world presented by our analyst David May. First, we will see the list of the countries with inflation rates soaring to over three figures. The world-affected nations are Zimbabwe 257% (Jul/22) Lebanon 210% (Jun/22) Sudan 149% (Jun/22) Syria 139% (Aug/21) Venezuela 137% (Jul/22) Causes of the crisis: Zimbabwe is stifling under climbing international debt as it begins to pay the price for borrowing heavily from China for infrastructure projects at the tail end of Robert Mugabe’s regime. Ongoing giant infrastructure projects funded by Chinese financiers include the expansion of the Hwange Thermal Station with a loan of $1.2 billion, the upgrading of Robert Mugabe International Airport, and the construction of dams. Zimbabwe owes $13.5billion to multilateral financial institutions, bilateral partners, and other creditors. Due to extreme inflation in the country post COVID19 pandemic, 61% of people in Lebanon reported challenges in accessing food and other basic needs at the end of 2021 according to the World Food Program (WFP). Causes of the crisis: One of the worst Debt to GDP ratios in the world and huge depreciation in the currency. The refugee crisis of over 1.5 million refugees from the Syrian civil war. Collapse of the Ponzi scheme led to the steady decline of the Lebanese lira. Devastating double blast at the port of Beirut on 4th August, 2020: In addition to killing more than 200 and injuring 7,000, the explosion ruined businesses and the port infrastructure, including giant wheat silos. Dependence on Ukraine for the import of wheat in the country. Sudan had the worst impact of COVID19 and geopolitical tensions since 2020.  Sudan’s inflation rate for 2019 was 50.99%. For 2020 it was 150.32%, a 99.33% increase from 2019. For 2021 it galloped to 382.82%, a massive 232.49% increase from 2020. But now in 2022, it is coming down but still is in three digits. Causes of the crisis: Military Coup and political instability has resulted in protests and economic instability in Sudan. Furthermore, Sudan’s government pursued a policy of economic liberalization that has enabled a tiny group of traders, influential people, and capitalists to regulate the majority of Sudanese commercial activity. As a result, monopolistic practices have spread in primary commodities like sugar and building materials, and a significant proportion of the import and export sectors. All this coupled with the Ukraine-Russia war leading to extreme food insecurity has led to extreme inflation in Sudan. Sudan has undertaken a huge debt from France, Austria, the United States, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and China along with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Reasons : Historical civil wars, the ISIS crisis,  drought in North-Eastern Syria and increase in global commodity prices as a result of the Russia-Ukraine war has led to hyperinflation in Syria. Syria is seeking debts from China out of misery to rebound from the steady and sharp plunge in its economy since 2011, the year the civil war amplified. However, joining hands with China will come with the risk of a vicious #DebtTrap that countries like Srilanka, Zimbabwe, Djbouti, and Pakistan are already suffering from. Causes of the crisis: The crisis in Venezuela is an ongoing socioeconomic and political crisis that began in Venezuela during the presidency of Hugo Chávez and worsened during Nicolás Maduro’s presidency. It has been marked by hyperinflation, escalating starvation, disease, crime, and mortality rates, resulting in massive emigration from the country. More than 6 million refugees, asylum-seekers, and migrants from Venezuela have left the country seeking food, work, and a better life. COVID19 however, exacerbated the crisis in Venezuela. Venezuelan migrants who returned to the homeland after losing their jobs abroad in the wake of the pandemic have been unable to earn wages back home. Deficiencies of fuel, electricity and clean water have flared riots and left many migrants with no option but to flee again. The country was once believed to be the most affluent in Latin America, thanks to holding the most extensive petroleum reserves in the globe. But more than a decade of plunging oil revenue and flawed administration led to the descent of the national economy, and the government has not been able to provide sufficient social services. The next group of countries whose economies are facing the heat due to the geopolitical crisis, food insecurity, debt traps, and hyperinflation in the post-COVID world are as follows Turkey 79.6% (Jul/22) Argentina 71% (Jul/22) Sri Lanka 60.8% (Jul/22) Suriname 55.6% (May/22) Iran 54% (Jul/22) The currency of Turkey has lost more than 20% of its value against the US dollar since the start of 2022. The inflation rate which was just over 8% in October 2019, reached 80% in July 2022. Other than global issues concerning all the nations, following the causes of the crisis in Turkey: President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s flawed monetary policy. (like decreasing the cost of borrowing to increase the demand instead of cooling it down) Irrational hikes in the minimum wages. (A massive hike of over 50%) An all-time high External Debt reached $451.2 billion in March 2022, compared with $442.5 billion in the previous quarter. A woman displays her electricity bill during a protest against high energy prices in Turkey. Protests have erupted in various parts of Turkey to protest against the rising prices. Over hundred thousand people participated in a march for employment and fair wages and against hunger and poverty on the Plaza de Mayo in the center of Buenos Aires organized by the workers movement Unidad Piquetera (Picketers Union), as part of widespread protests across Argentina.  After the year 2020, inflation galloped past 70%. Analysts surveyed by Argentina’s central bank raised their inflation estimate for 2022 to 90.2%.  The primary…

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Critics say Cambodia tries to trick UN official into believing it respects rights

Editor08 mins

Cambodian labor activists said a visiting United Nations human rights official was given the false impression that the country supports worker rights by authorities who paused a violent crackdown on a  months-long protest by a group of former casino employees while the official toured the site. Vitit Muntarbhorn, the U.N. special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Cambodia, is on an 11-day official visit to the country, his first since assuming office in March 2021. His tour included a meeting with the group of former NagaWorld Casino workers who have been protesting since they were among 1,300 laid off by the casino in December 2021. The workers say they were unfairly fired and offered inadequate compensation. “I was pleased to be able to visit striking workers and see them exercise their freedom of expression and right to peaceful assembly today,” Vitit Muntarbhorn wrote in a Facebook post on Wednesday. During the visit, the former workers were uncharacteristically allowed to protest directly in front of the casino on Wednesday and Thursday. United Nations Human Rights in Cambodia also monitored the protest on Wednesday, releasing video footage on Facebook with a statement acknowledging that the protest was peaceful.  “The UN Human Rights Cambodia office welcomes today’s developments and looks forward to authorities continuing to protect strikers’ rights, including the right to #peaceful #assembly and #FreedomofExpression,” the statement said. But the scene has not alway been so peaceful. The striking workers have more typically been met by police officers, who often used violence to force the protestors onto buses, which would then shuttle them to quarantine centers on the outskirts of town on the premise that their protests violated COVID-19 prevention measures. Some strikers have been injured in the crackdown, now in its ninth month. One woman said she suffered a miscarriage as a result of her injuries inflicted by police.  Rong Chhun, president of the Cambodian Confederation of Unions, told RFA’s Khmer Service that the new hands-off approach to the worker over the past few days is a ruse intended to convince Vitit Muntarbhorn and the U.N. that Cambodia respects human rights, but things will return to normal once he leaves. “The government wants to save face and trick the rapporteur,” Rong Chhun said. “Please, Mr. Rapporteur, don’t believe this trick. … [Later] there will be more freedom restrictions.” The rapporteur’s presence alone was enough to get authorities to ease restrictions, Chhim Sithar, leader of the NagaWorld union that represents the strikers, told RFA. “Before the arrival of the rapporteur, there were serious violent attacks [on the strikers] which injured at least two women recently. It is completely different now,” she said.   “We have observed that [Prime Minister] Hun Sen requested that [the rapporteur] report positive things about Cambodia, so violence has been reduced. This is just a show to make sure that the rapporteur  can’t see factual events,” she said. Government supporters say that the special rapporteur is being shown the true Cambodia. “Those who accuse the government of faking respect for human rights are trying to create a toxic environment to destroy the government’s reputation,” Kata Orn, spokesman for the government-backed Cambodian Human Rights Committee, told RFA. He said that there is an understanding between the workers and the authorities that allows the workers to strike without any crackdown. Political analyst Kem Sok told RFA that the rapporteur should gather information from all the stakeholders before making any statement.  “Hun Sen has no desire to respect human rights and democracy otherwise it is a threat to his power,” he said. U.S. delegation A group of U.S. lawmakers led by Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) also visited Cambodia this week as part of their tour of Asia. During a meeting with more than a dozen government officials, Markey urged Cambodia to protect human rights, political freedoms and free speech. “Cambodians overcame decades of war and chaos that cost the country millions of lives, and deserve to enjoy the democratic freedoms they were promised. The government must release political prisoners, end the crackdown against opposition parties, and allow for freedom of expression and a free press,” Markey said in a statement.  Markey also called for the release of Cambodian American activist Theary Seng, who is serving a six-year prison sentence for her outspoken opposition to Hun Sen. The delegation also met with opposition leader Kem Sohka, who is on trial for what critics say are politically motivated charges of treason. “I thank Mr. Kem Sokha for his bravery and willingness to continue to stand up for the rights of all Cambodians despite ongoing harassment by the government,” said Markey.  “All charges against him should be dropped immediately, and he and the Cambodia National Rescue Party should be free to participate in elections.”  Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

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U.S. lawmakers visit Taiwan amid renewed Chinese military drills

Editor09 mins

China conducted a fresh round of military drills around Taiwan on Monday as another U.S. Congressional delegation visited in Taipei and met with President Tsai Ing-wen, just 12 days after the controversial stopover by Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi. When Pelosi, the most senior U.S. official to visit Taiwan in 25 years, arrived in Taipei, Beijing responded by launching an unprecedented week-long military exercise around the island. The Chinese military said Monday’s drills were “a serious deterrent to the continued ‘political tricks’ played by the United States and Taiwan,” Reuters reported. A Chinese state newspaper called the two-day visit by the U.S. delegation led by Democratic Senator Ed Markey “sneaky” and “provoking tensions” in the Taiwan Strait. On Friday, Deputy Assistant to the U.S. President and Coordinator for the Indo-Pacific Kurt Campbell said Beijing used Pelosi’s visit as a “pretext to launch an intensified pressure campaign against Taiwan.” “China has overreacted, and its actions continue to be provocative, destabilizing, and unprecedented,” Campbell told a press briefing in Washington D.C., adding that the U.S. will be “conducting standard air and maritime transits through the Taiwan Strait in the next few weeks.” U.S. support for Taiwan Markey and four other U.S. lawmakers are making the Taiwan visit as part of a “larger visit to the Indo-Pacific region,” the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) – the U.S.’s de facto embassy in Taipei – said in a press release. “The delegation will have a meeting with President Tsai Ing-wen and visit the Taiwanese Legislator’s Foreign and National Defense Committee,” it said. The meeting with Tsai has already taken place. “The visit is not a challenge to China but to re-state what Biden administration officials and Biden himself have told their Chinese counterparts: U.S. Congress members have the right to visit Taiwan,” said Norah Huang, associate research fellow at the Prospect Foundation, a Taiwanese think-tank. “The visit is important as to reiterate the U.S. support to Taiwan, that the U.S. is implementing its One China Policy and isn’t intimidated,” Huang told RFA. Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy’s only forward-deployed aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan has been operating in the waters east of Taiwan, likely to offer support to U.S. activities including the Congressional visit. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered the carrier and its strike group to “remain on station” in the area to monitor the situation in the wake of Pelosi’s visit. 4,900 sailors aboard the USS Ronald Reagan have been rehearsing to “maintain the ship’s warfighting readiness,” said the U.S. 7th Fleet in a press release.  On Sunday, 22 Chinese aircraft entered Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) with half of them crossing the median line dividing the Taiwan Strait, according to Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense. An ADIZ is an area where foreign aircraft are tracked and identified before further entering into a country’s airspace. Since the latest military drills, Chinese aircraft have crossed the median line, which serves as the de facto boundary between Taiwan and China’s mainland, daily. Taipei calls it an act of “unprovoked intimidation.” ‘Repeated provocations’ Taiwan’s Foreign Ministryុំ in an welcome statement to the U.S. lawmakersុំ said: “As China is continuing to escalate tensions in the region, the U.S. Congress has again organized a heavyweight delegation to visit Taiwan, demonstrating a friendship that is not afraid of China’s threats and intimidation, and the U.S.’s strong support for Taiwan.” Senator Ed Markey currently serves as Chair of the East Asia, the Pacific, and International Cybersecurity Policy Subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “Markey is a seasoned China hawk, who often chides China on human rights issues,” noted China’s mouthpiece Global Times, recalling that in March 2020, the Senator co-introduced a bipartisan resolution calling on the International Olympic Committee to move the 2022 Winter Olympics out of China. Taiwan’s Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Yui (right) greets U.S. Senator Ed Markey at Taoyuan Airport on Aug. 14, 2022. CREDIT: Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs The U.S. Congressional visit “shows that the U.S. has ignored China’s stern warnings and will have to face severe punishment due to its egregious provocations,” Zhang Tengjun, an analyst at the China Institute of International Studies, was quoted as saying. The delegation’s visit, which “was only made public at the last minute when they arrived in a sneaky and stealthy manner, exposed their diffidence in triggering anger from the Chinese mainland,” Zhang told the paper. Markey’s office, meanwhile, said the delegation “will reaffirm the United States’ support for Taiwan as guided by the Taiwan Relations Act, U.S.-China joint communiques, and six assurances, and will encourage stability and peace across the Taiwan Strait.” Before the visit, Biden’s Indo-Pacific Coordinator Kurt Campbell said that the U.S. and Taiwan are “developing an ambitious roadmap for trade negotiations, which we intend to announce in the coming days.” “This is not something super sensitive but a trade agreement is important for Taiwan as it could have a sampling effect for other countries which are interested in negotiating trade deals with Taiwan,” said Norah Huang from the Prospect Foundation.

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ASEAN aid promised in May has yet to reach Myanmar’s refugees

Editor017 mins

Myanmar’s junta has yet to deliver humanitarian assistance pledged three months ago by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) for the country’s more than 1.2 million refugees of conflict, who aid workers say are in dire need of food and medicine. At a May 6 meeting in Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh, the ASEAN Coordinating Center for Humanitarian Assistance (AHA) agreed to deliver aid to Myanmar under the supervision of the military regime, which would distribute it to those in need. However, aid workers in northwest Myanmar’s Sagaing region told RFA Burmese that as of Monday none of the promised aid had been delivered there or other regions with refugees in need, including Chin, Kayah and Kayin states. “ASEAN’s help hasn’t made it to Sagaing yet,” said Thet Oo, who is assisting victims of conflict with the People-to-People Program in the region’s Yinmarbin and Salingyi townships. “It’s been three months since their meeting, but nothing has come to Yinmarbin district at all.” Thet Oo warned ASEAN not to trust the junta’s promises. “The junta, which is terrorizing us, will never provide the aid or assistance they agreed to with ASEAN,” he said. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs announced on Aug. 3 that 866,000 people had joined the ranks of Myanmar’s refugees since the military’s Feb. 1, 2021 coup, bringing the total number to more than 1.2 million, or more than 2% of the country’s population of 54.4 million. Of the new refugees, some 470,000 were forced to flee their homes in Sagaing, where clashes between junta troops and the armed opposition are among the deadliest and most frequent in the nation. Thet Oo said his organization is struggling to provide assistance with only donations to rely on. Meanwhile, the military is carrying out a scorched earth offensive in the region, conducting raids on villages and setting them on fire, and creating new refugees each day, he said. In neighboring Chin state, where fierce fighting is also a daily occurrence, refugees are also facing severe shortages, aid workers told RFA. “The need for food and medicine is still very great. There isn’t enough food in the mountains. No NGOs have yet come here,” a spokesman for the Mindat Township Refugee Camps Management Committee said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “Since the beginning, when we heard ASEAN would be providing assistance through the junta, we have been skeptical. It was clear that Chin state would not be included in the distribution program. Sure enough, no aid has reached the refugees in Mindat township to date.” Repeated calls by RFA seeking comment from junta Deputy Information Minister Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun on the status of the ASEAN aid distribution went unanswered. Agreement panned ASEAN’s decision to deliver assistance to Myanmar’s refugees through the junta was slammed by the country’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG), as well as the Karen National Union (KNU), Karenni National Progressive Party and Chin National Front ethnic parties as “unacceptable” in a joint statement on May 30. The groups, which the junta says are terrorist organizations, were not extended an invitation by ASEAN to the May 6 meeting in Phnom Penh at the request of the military regime, nor was the U.N. secretary general’s special representative to Myanmar, Nolin Heza. Win Myat Aye, NUG minister for Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management, told RFA this week that ASEAN’s plan to provide aid through the junta will not do anything for the people who are suffering the most in Myanmar. “What ASEAN is doing …  is impractical. It hasn’t been successful because it never reached those who really need it for more than three months now,” he said. “NUG is now already working to meet the actual needs on the ground. We are working in cooperation with international organizations, so the information we act on will be true and we can provide the necessary help. … In order to be successful, we need to help with real action, not just words.” Win Myat Aye noted that the NUG disaster ministry had been providing shelter and medicine to refugees for the last 18 months since the coup. Aid workers helping refugees in Chin, Kayah and Kayin states, as well as some townships in Sagaing and Magway regions, told RFA that even if the junta is working to deliver assistance from ASEAN, it only controls Myanmar’s cities and its administration is broken in rural areas. KNU spokesman Pado Saw Tawney said that the junta is incapable of reaching all of the country’s refugees on its own. “There are over a million [refugees] according to available statistics. But in fact, what we believe is that there may be 2 million or more,” he said. “This situation has become a problem that cannot be solved internally. It requires cooperation with the international community. … That’s the bottom line. Nothing will happen if it is carried out by the junta alone.” The U.N. humanitarian affairs office said in its statement on Aug. 3 that the security and humanitarian aid situations in Myanmar have worsened significantly as fighting continues throughout the country. The agency said efforts to deliver assistance to refugees have been hamstrung by military restrictions on the transportation of essential goods, including food and medical supplies. Ethnic Chin refugees shelter in a jungle area after fleeing fighting between Myanmar’s junta forces and local militias in Chin state’s Mindat township, May 2021. Credit: Citizen journalist Call for stronger measures Reports of the worsening refugee situation in Myanmar came as the country’s opposition groups and analysts called on ASEAN to adopt stronger measures in its dealing with the junta following the bloc’s 55th Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Phnom Penh from July 31 to Aug. 6. During the gathering, most ASEAN member states criticized the junta for failing to implement the bloc’s agreements and for its July 25 execution of four democracy activists, including former student leader Ko Jimmy and a former lawmaker from Myanmar’s deposed National League for Democracy party….

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Taiwan grapples with the potential impact of ‘normalized’ war-games on its doorstep

Editor011 mins

Prolonged military exercises around the democratic island of Taiwan by China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) could mean a longer-term impact on the island’s trade and economic development, especially if Beijing decides to normalize blockading the island, analysts told RFA. Some cited recent activity as suggesting that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is shifting from a policy of seeking peaceful “unification” to an emphasis on military force to put pressure on the island, which has never been ruled by the CCP, nor formed part of the 73-year-old People’s Republic of China. They said there are growing concerns that China will normalize military exercises, ignore the median line of the Taiwan Strait, and use ongoing military exercises to blockade the island and prepare the PLA for invasion. Tso Chen-Dong, political science professor at National Taiwan University, said military action was unlikely to occur immediately, however. “They need to take into account how they would actually do this, and they will only get behind the idea if it’s doable,” Tso told RFA. “Otherwise, it’s not very useful just to look at the numbers of troops on paper.” “The main thing is that they want to use this opportunity to put further pressure on the relationship with Taiwan,” he said. According to Wang Chi-sheng of Taiwan-based think tank the Association of Chinese Elite Leadership, China’s People’s Liberation Army has already been doing this by repeated incursions over the median line and into Taiwan’s territorial waters near the islands of Kinmen and Matsu, which are visible from China’s southeastern province of Fujian. “Flying over the median line of the Taiwan Strait is an attempt to erase that line by means of a fait accompli,” Wang told RFA. “Chinese ships have also started moving into [Taiwan’s] restricted waters around Kinmen and Matsu, which they haven’t done up until now.” “The focus is on normalization,” he said, adding that Beijing’s future intentions will only likely become clear after the CCP’s 20th National Congress later this year. He said Beijing will likely continue to insist on “unification” with Taiwan, which has never been ruled by the CCP nor formed part of the 73-year-old People’s Republic of China, under the same system it currently applies to Hong Kong, where a citywide crackdown on dissent is under way. U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi gestures next to Legislative Yuan Vice President Tsai Chi-chang as she leaves the parliament in Taipei, Taiwan August 3, 2022. Credit: Reuters Repeated incursions Taiwan government legal expert Shen Shih-wei agreed, saying that the positioning of the military exercises following Pelosi’s visit made repeated incursions across the median line. “This has a very significant impact on the compression of our airspace for training purposes, and on international flight routes,” Shen told reporters. “This kind of targeted deterrence [contravenes a United Nations charter], which stipulates that no country should use force to threaten the territorial integrity or political independence of another country,” he said. “We believe that the CCP is very clear about these norms, and we hope that it will abide by them.” Vincent Wang, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Adelphi University, said Taiwan’s democratic way of life is walking a tightrope, as far as the CCP is concerned. “This is why China had such a big reaction to Pelosi’s visit,” he said. “China doesn’t want the world to see a high-ranking U.S. politician visiting a democratic society [run by people it considers Chinese] yet is independent of China,” Wang said. “The visit was a public show of support for Chinese democracy [as China sees it],” he said. The visit doesn’t appear to have deterred other foreign politicians from visiting Taiwan. Britain’s parliamentary foreign affairs committee said it will send a delegation to the island by the end of the year. “If American dignitaries can visit Taiwan one after the other, this will provide moral support for people from other democratic countries who want to make similar visits,” Wang said. He said recent economic sanctions imposed on more than 100 Taiwanese food companies would have a short-term impact on trade with China, which accounts for 30 percent of exports in that sector, but later recover. A Navy Force helicopter under the Eastern Theatre Command of China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) takes part in military exercises in the waters around Taiwan, at an undisclosed location August 8, 2022 in this handout picture released on August 9, 2022. Credit: Eastern Theater Command/Handout via Reuters Blockade concerns Meanwhile, Frank Xie of the Aiken School of Business at the university of South Carolina, said the CCP’s lifting of a fishing moratorium in the area could mean it starts blockading the island. “Such a blockade would have a huge impact on international shipping and air traffic, further amplifying the global supply chain crisis,” Xie said. “Taiwan, including its chip industry, would bear the brunt of the impact.” Xie said the military exercises have had a small impact on international trade, mainly in the field of transportation, including flight delays and cargo ship detours to avoid military exercise areas. But a longer-running blockade would be hugely damaging to Taiwan, both because of the increased risk of miscalculations, and the economic impact from increased transportation costs, Xie said. A Taiwanese businesswoman surnamed Lee who has run a plastics business in mainland China for many years, says many Taiwanese businesses in mainland China are currently thinking about relocating. “Of course they’re nervous, because most of the Taiwanese businesses are in coastal areas, which is where the military exercises are,” Lee said. “But there’s very little they can do.” “If they were to relocate to Taiwan, that would be easier said than done … because it’s hard to find cheap labor,” she said. “But many countries in Southeast Asia aren’t very stable.” William Yu, an economist at UCLA Anderson Forecast, said Taiwan’s economy is still in a robust state despite the rising tensions with China, however. “There will be no impact on Taiwan’s economy in the short term,” Yu…

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China steps up cyberattacks, disinformation campaigns targeting Taiwan

Editor012 mins

Cyber attacks and a Chinese disinformation campaign targeting the democratic island of Taiwan throw the spotlight on Beijing’s use of hybrid warfare in the wake of Pelosi’s visit, a Taiwanese military official said on Monday. Maj. Gen. Chen Yu-lin, deputy director of the Political and War Bureau of Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense told journalists on Monday that the current wave of “cognitive operations” started before the military exercises were announced. Chen said the hybrid warfare campaign sought to create an atmosphere suggesting China might be invading Taiwan, to attack the public image of the government, and to disrupt civilian and military morale. “The CCP’s military exercises began on Aug. 4, when the number of cognitive warfare-related posts targeting Taiwan skyrocketed to 73, peaking at 87 on Aug. 5,” Chen. “[But] official media posted a total of 87 messages on Aug. 2, before the military exercises started.” “We immediately issued a press release to … inform the public that these messages weren’t true,” Chen said, citing one message claiming the PLA had shot down a Taiwanese fighter jet accompanying Pelosi’s plane. “We immediately clarified that this was fake news,” Chen said. Hybrid warfare denotes a combination of conventional military action on the ground and hacks or disinformation campaigns designed to attack public morale and sow confusion. Chen Hui-min, editor-in-chief of the Taiwan FactCheck Center, said his organization had detected a 30-40 increase in fake reports online since Pelosi’s visit. “The biggest difference [from the past] is that it seems to be spreading from English-language Twitter,” Chen told RFA. “There is also a lot of fake information on China’s [social media platform] Weibo, some of which has made its way onto social media platforms used in Taiwan, including LINE and Facebook.” “It used to be pretty rare to see such posts in the English Twittersphere,” Chen said. “Accounts that once focused on the war in Ukraine suddenly started spreading fake news about Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan.” National Taiwan University was hacked, with the words “there is only one China in this world” appearing on its official website. Meanwhile, the National Palace Museum issued a statement denying online rumors that the government was preparing to send tens of thousands of rare artifacts overseas for safekeeping. Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying tweeted on Sunday that the maps showed Shandong dumpling restaurants and Shanxi noodle restaurants in Taipei, saying the presence of the restaurants means that Taiwan has always been a part of China. “Palates don’t cheat,” Hua wrote, adding: “The long lost child will eventually return home.” Outdated photos According to Chen Hui-min, some of the images used by the disinformation posts used military images from two years earlier to suggest the PLA had fired rockets across the island. “It’s incorrect to say that the CCP’s long-range rockets have flown across Taiwan. Even the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and official Chinese media have reported that they landed in the Taiwan Strait, stopping short of crossing Taiwan,” Chen said. “Another annotated photo said the Chinese army was assembling on the coast, using edited photos of North Korean military exercises that took place in 2017.” Another report cited China’s state broadcaster CCTV as saying that China was expelling Taiwanese nationals before Aug. 8, also untrue. Last week, several convenience store branches and government facilities across Taiwan saw their digital signage hacked with messages slandering visiting U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi during her recent visit to Taiwan, which sparked days of military exercises and missile launches near Taiwan by China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA). As Pelosi visited Taiwan and met with president Tsai Ing-wen on Aug. 3, messages started popping up on digital signage in 7-Eleven convenience stores across the country that read: “Warmonger Pelosi, get out of Taiwan!” Digital signage at a railway station in the southern port city of Kaohsiung and at a government office in Nantou county also displayed a message calling Pelosi “an old witch.” Investigators said the attacks originated from an unknown IP address, the island’s Central News Agency (CNA) reported at the time. The hacks came after the official website of Tsai’s Presidential Office was taken down for around 20 minutes by a cyberattack, after which full service was restored, CNA reported. Mainland Chinese website Baidu joined in the cognitive warfare, releasing maps of Taiwan for the first time, which went viral after social media users noticed that many streets in Taiwan’s cities are named for cities in mainland China. Chinese officials and pro-CCP commentators have launched a global media offensive around Pelosi’s Taiwan visit, claiming that the island, which has never been ruled by the CCP nor formed part of the 72-year-old People’s Republic of China, is an “inseparable” part of Chinese territory. CCP leader Xi Jinping has repeatedly said that Taiwan must be “unified” with China, and refused to rule out the use of military force to annex the island. But Taiwan president Tsai Ing-wen, who was re-elected in a 2020 landslide after vowing to stand up to China on the issue, has said that Taiwan’s 23 million population have no wish to give up their sovereignty, a view that is borne out by repeated opinion polls. Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying tweeted on Sunday that the maps showed Shandong dumpling restaurants and Shanxi noodle restaurants in Taipei, saying the presence of the restaurants means that Taiwan has always been a part of China. “Palates don’t cheat,” Hua wrote, adding: “The long lost child will eventually return home.” Hua Chunying Twitter users responded with parodies of the tweet, citing the ubiquitous presence of American fast-food chains KFC and McDonalds in China, and claiming China as “part of Kentucky.” Taiwan cookery expert Clarissa Wei said many of the restaurants had already altered their dishes to suit the local palate, however, drawing parallels with the evolution of Chinese dishes in the United States to suit local tastes. Feminist writer Shangguan Luan said China’s CCP-supporting Little Pinks could be forgiven for their ignorance, given that they…

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US seeks to dial down tension over Taiwan Strait

Editor012 mins

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Saturday said Beijing had acted irresponsibly in halting cooperation with the United States on topics including defense and climate change, as he sought to reassure Southeast Asian countries over raging tensions in the Taiwan Strait. Meanwhile, China pressed forward with its major military exercise around Taiwan for a third day on Saturday, with the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) apparently staging a simulated attack on Taiwan’s main island, Taipei’s Defense Ministry said. “Since their missile launches, Beijing has taken an irresponsible step of a different kind:  They’ve shut down eight different areas where our two countries have been able to work together,” the top U.S. diplomat said during a press conference Saturday in Manila. Beijing announced the “countermeasures” on Friday in response to U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s recent visit to Taiwan, freezing bilateral dialogue on several military-to-military channels as well as talks on the climate crisis, repatriation of illegal immigrants, counter-narcotics and legal assistance in criminal matters. “The world’s largest carbon emitter is now refusing to engage on combating the climate crisis.  Suspending climate cooperation doesn’t punish the United States; it punishes the world, particularly the developing world,” Blinken said.  While Beijing appeared to have halted live-firing exercises around Taiwan, multiple Chinese military aircraft and vessels operated near Taiwan on Saturday, some of them crossing the median line dividing the Taiwan Strait, the ministry said in a statement. The Taiwanese military sent warnings, scrambled aircraft and deployed defense missile systems to track the Chinese military planes, the statement said. Blinken, traveling from Cambodia where he attended ASEAN meetings, said that the U.S. government was determined to avoid a crisis and to deescalate the tensions. “The United States is not going to engage in any provocative actions of our own,” Blinken told the Voice of America in an interview late Friday in Phnom Penh, transcripts of which were released to the press Saturday. “We think the seas should be calmed.” “The Taiwan Strait is of vital importance to virtually every country in the region.  So much commerce goes through there.  If that were interrupted, it would have a terrible impact on the global economy and on everyone’s desire to recover from COVID,” Blinken stressed. “So I think it’s incumbent upon all countries – the United States, but also China – to act responsibly and not use the visit of a member of our Congress as a pretext for engaging in potentially dangerous and destabilizing actions,” he added.  Nonetheless, he noted that the U.S. House Speaker had every right to make the recent trip to Taiwan, and that China’s reaction by launching 11 ballistic missiles and deploying its ships around the region “is so disproportionate and so dangerous.” Meeting with Marcos The U.S. diplomat met with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Saturday morning, and underlined the two sides’ long-standing alliance. Blinken is the highest-ranking U.S. official to travel to the country since the inauguration of Marcos, the son and namesake of the late dictator whom Washington helped flee into exile in Hawaii after a 1986 “people power” uprising. “We’re committed to the Mutual Defense Treaty. We’re committed to working with you on shared challenges,” Blinken said, referring to a 1951 pact between Manila and Washington that binds both sides to come to each other’s aid in times of aggression from outside forces. The U.S. government has repeatedly cited that partnership in the face of continued Chinese buildup in the disputed South China Sea region, where Beijing’s maritime claims overlap with those of the Philippines and other Southeast Asian countries. He assured Marcos the United States would honor its commitments to the decades-old joint defense pact. “The alliance is strong and I believe can grow even stronger,” Blinken said. Marcos, for his part, stressed the importance of the alliance amid the volatile outlook in the region even as he stated that Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan “did not raise the intensity” of tensions in the Taiwan Strait.  “But nonetheless, this just demonstrates how volatile the international diplomatic scene is, not only in the region,” Marcos said. “So again, this just points to the fact of the importance of the relationship between the United States and the Philippines.” He said that the MDT “is in constant evolution” while noting that the Philippines and the United States enjoyed a special relationship linked by shared history. Marcos succeeded President Rodrigo Duterte in May after six years of a somewhat rocky relationship with Washington that saw the Philippines pulling away from its traditional ally in favor of Beijing.  After meeting with Marcos, Blinken held a virtual meeting with his counterpart, Enrique Manalo, who earlier this week announced that he had contracted COVID-19. Manalo likewise reiterated the ties that bind the two nations, and the importance of keeping the peace over the Taiwan Strait. “The Philippines continues of course to look at the big powers to help calm the waters and keep the peace,“ Manalo stressed. “We can ill afford any further escalation of tensions in the region.” Blinken responded by saying that Washington was ”determined to act responsibly, so that we avoid crisis, we avoid conflict.” Beijing considers the self-ruling, democratic island a breakaway province, to be united with the mainland by force if necessary, and objects strongly to high-level U.S. visits. The United States does not recognize Taiwan diplomatically, as part of a One China policy demanded by Beijing, but retains close unofficial ties with Taipei and is obligated by law to provide it with defense capabilities. Myanmar situation worsens Meanwhile, Blinken said that the situation in Myanmar had deteriorated sharply, with the military regime there “totally unresponsive” to international calls for it to resolve the crisis there peacefully. “Well, I think what we’ve seen, exactly as you say, is a situation that’s gone from bad to worse, including with the heinous act of executing four members of the democracy movement despite pleas from ASEAN, from Cambodia, from many others not to do that,” Blinken said, according to…

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China’s military exercises near Taiwan continue as drones fly over Kinmen islands

Editor06 mins

China’s major military exercise around Taiwan entered day three Saturday, with the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) apparently staging a simulated attack on Taiwan’s main island, Taipei’s Defense Ministry said. Multiple Chinese military aircraft and vessels operated near Taiwan on Saturday morning, some of them crossed the median line dividing the Taiwan Strait, the ministry said in a statement. The Taiwanese military sent warnings, scrambled aircraft and deployed defense missile systems to track the Chinese military planes, the statement said. A Taiwan Air Force air defense missile troop monitoring the situation, Aug. 6, 2022. CREDIT: Taiwan Defense Ministry On Friday night, four Chinese drones were spotted flying over the Kinmen islands near China’s Fujian province, the defense ministry said.  During the day on Friday, Chinese military aircraft made a record 68 incursions into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ), many of them crossed the median line, which serves as a de facto border between Taiwan and the mainland. This is the highest number of incursions in one day. The previous single-day record was 56, on Oct. 4, 2021.   By “squeezing the median line,” the PLA intends to make its encroachments on Taiwan’s air space and waters routine, therefore changing the status quo in the Taiwan Strait and making it a Chinese inner sea,” said Shen Ming-Shih, acting deputy chief executive officer at Taiwan’s Institute for National Defense and Security Research, a government think-tank. The unprecedented drills are set to continue until noon on Sunday local time and Chinese media reported that a Chinese aircraft carrier group, featuring at least one nuclear-powered submarine, would take part in the first carrier deterrence exercise. Details however remain sketchy and the whereabouts of both Chinese carriers, Liaoning and Shandong, were unclear as of Saturday. Sailors aboard the USS Ronald Reagan participate in flight operations on the ship’s flight deck while sailing through the Philippine Sea, Aug. 3, 2022. CREDIT: U.S. Navy USS Ronald Reagan returns The U.S. Navy’s only forward-deployed aircraft carrier, the USS Ronald Reagan, seems to have returned to east of Taiwan from a position near its Japanese home port, several sources said. The amphibious assault ships USS Tripoli and USS America were also heading to waters near Taiwan, the U.S. Naval Institute reported. The carrier and other ships are expected to conduct maritime transit through the Taiwan Strait in the coming weeks, according to U.S. National Security Spokesperson John Kirby who added that the U.S. “will take further steps to demonstrate our commitment to the security of our allies in the region.” On Friday China released a set of eight “countermeasures” in response to U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, freezing collaboration on three sets of military dialogues with the U.S., as well as from talks on the climate crisis, repatriation of illegal immigrants, counter-narcotics and legal assistance in criminal matters. The breaking off of the wide range of bilateral talks came after Beijing announced sanctions against Pelosi and her direct family members, accusing her of “vicious and provocative actions.” Pelosi is the most senior U.S. official to visit Taiwan in 25 years. On Thursday Japan said it had lodged a diplomatic protest after five ballistic missiles fired by China appear to have landed inside Japan’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ), which stretches 200 nautical miles (370 kilometers) from the outer limits of Japan’s territorial seas. Beijing rejected the complaint saying China and Japan have not carried out maritime delimitation in the waters and China’s missile test-launch in the area was “consistent with international law and practices.”

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USS Ronald Reagan strike group monitoring China’s military exercises off Taiwan

Editor011 mins

The U.S. is keeping a close watch on China’s military drills around Taiwan and may take further action, with the USS Ronald Reagan carrier strike group remaining on station to monitor the situation, the U.S. National Security Spokesman John Kirby said late Thursday. On Friday, day two of the three-day military exercise held in response to U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) dispatched “multiple” military aircraft and warships to the Taiwan Strait, Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense said in a statement. Some of the aircraft and vessels crossed the median line dividing the Taiwan Strait, the ministry added, calling the PLA drills “highly provocative” and vowing to “respond appropriately.” Before that, the defense ministry said the Chinese military also flew four drones over Taiwan’s outlying islands of Kinmen on Thursday night. Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen said China firing missiles near busy international air and sea routes around Taiwan on Thursday was “an irresponsible act” and called on Beijing “to act with reason and exercise restraint.”  An F/A-18E Super Hornet prepares to launch on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan in the Philippine Sea, Aug. 4, 2022. CREDIT: U.S. Navy U.S “will take further steps” China has decided to sanction U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her immediate family for her stopover in Taiwan earlier this week, the Chinese foreign ministry said on Friday. Pelosi is the most senior U.S. official to visit Taiwan in 25 years. “They may try to keep Taiwan from visiting or participating in other places, but they will not isolate Taiwan by preventing us to travel there,” news agencies quoted the U.S. House Speaker as saying on Friday in Tokyo, the final leg of her Asia tour. The U.S. National Security Spokesperson John Kirby said at a press briefing on Thursday that the Biden administration condemns China’s actions. “China has chosen to overreact and use the speaker’s visit as a pretext to increase provocative military activity in and around the Taiwan Strait,” he said, adding: “We also expect that these actions will continue and that the Chinese will continue to react in coming days.” U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has directed the USS Ronald Reagan carrier strike group to “remain on station in the general area to monitor the situation,” Kirby said. The carrier strike group is currently in the Philippines Sea and two big deck amphibious ships, USS Tripoli and USS America, are on their way to the east of Taiwan, the U.S. Naval Institute reported. Besides conducting “standard” air and maritime transits through the Taiwan Strait in the next few weeks, the U.S. “will take further steps to demonstrate our commitment to the security of our allies in the region” including Japan, the National Security spokesperson said. Washington, however, postponed a long-planned test of an Air Force Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile to avoid escalating tensions with Beijing.  The U.S. military seems to have expanded aerial ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) operations around Taiwan on Friday, a Beijing-based think-tank that has been tracking regional military movements said. The South China Sea Probing Initiative (SCSPI) said it has spotted at least seven U.S. reconnaissance aircraft, supported by six military aerial refueling aircraft KC-135 in the area. An MH-60R anti-submarine Seahawk helicopter was also seen flying close to the southwest of Taiwan before moving north towards Japan’s Okinawa island, according to data provided by the flight tracking website Flightradar 24. A map showing where Chinese missiles are believed to have landed in Taiwan’s waters and Japan’s Exclusive Economic Zone. CREDIT: Japanese Defense Ministry Japan’s concerns On Friday morning, about 10 Chinese navy ships and 20 military aircraft “briefly crossed” the median line – the tacit maritime border between Taiwan and China’s mainland – Reuters quoted an anonymous source close to the matter as saying. China’s state media meanwhile said that the PLA “has sent an aircraft carrier group featuring at least one nuclear-powered submarine to the ongoing drills” around Taiwan for its first carrier deterrence exercise. The Global Times quoted Zhang Junshe, a senior research fellow at the Naval Research Academy which is affiliated with the PLA, who said on Thursday at least one nuclear-powered submarine has been deployed. Zhang did not name the aircraft carrier. China has two carriers in operation – the Liaoning and the Shandong. The third aircraft carrier, Fujian, is near completion.  Taiwanese media reported that the two operating aircraft carriers have left their home ports of Qingdao in Shandong province, and Sanya in Hainan province, but this information cannot be independently verified. On Thursday Japan said it had lodged a diplomatic protest after five ballistic missiles fired by China appear to have landed inside Japan’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ), which stretches 200 nautical miles (370 kilometers) from the outer limits of Japan’s territorial seas. “To have five Chinese missiles fall within Japan’s EEZ like this is a first,” Japanese defense minister Nobuo Kishi told reporters. Japan’s Ministry of Defense provided a detailed report of the Chinese missile launches and a map showing the missiles’ projected routes. It appears that four missiles, launched from mainland China, flew over Taiwan’s capital, Taipei. “This is the second time that Chinese missiles flew over Taiwan’s main island, the previous time was in 1996,” said Shen Ming-Shih, acting deputy chief executive officer at Taiwan’s Institute for National Defense and Security Research, a government think-tank. That time, Chinese missile tests and live-fire exercises led to the U.S. intervention in the so-called Third Taiwan Strait Crisis.  This time, an American involvement is yet to be seen but on Wednesday the U.S., together with six other developed countries, including Japan and the European Union, released a G7 Foreign Ministers’ Statement on the situation in the Taiwan Strait. The G7 countries expressed their concerns over “threatening actions” by China which risk “increasing tensions and destabilizing the region.” China responded by canceling a pre-scheduled meeting on Thursday afternoon between its foreign minister Wang Yi and his Japanese…

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Investigative Journalism Reportika © March 2022 by Ij-Reportika is licensed under CC BY 4.0