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Category: ASEAN

Cambodian opposition official hospitalized after motorbike attack

Editor07 mins

A group of 10 people on motorbikes on Sunday attacked an official of Cambodia’s main opposition Candlelight Party, causing a severe head injury that required hospitalization, the official told RFA. Nol Pongthearith was on his way to a meeting and on his own motorbike in front of the Candlelight Party office at Por Senchey district in the capital Phnom Penh when he was allegedly attacked by 10 people on four motorcycles. They shouted death threats and struck him, including on the back of his head, with an iron bar. He said he was bruised and bloodied all over his body and required 12 stitches. On Monday, Nol Pongthearith told RFA’s Khmer Service that he was forced to leave the hospital prematurely to continue his treatment at home to ensure his safety. He remains in pain and his wounds require further treatment. “I am concerned for my life because the assailants shouted that [they] wanted me dead. This is not normal,” he said, adding that he believes that he was targeted because he is a member of the Candlelight Party. Candlelight Party officials have complained for several months about incidents of violence and bullying by local officials representing Prime Minister Hun Sen’s ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP), especially in the run up to the June 5 local communal elections. The Candlelight Party ended up winning about one-fifth of the country’s contested commune council seats. “These assaults will continue. Today it happened to me, tomorrow it will happen to other members,” Nol Pongthearith said. “I demand that the government … arrest the perpetrators who caused these injuries to me as well as the other Candlelight Party activists and members, and that they are tried before the law.” The Candlelight Party condemned the attack in a statement it released on Sunday and called on authorities to open an independent investigation to find the people responsible. Police have received Nol Pongthearith’s complaint and require his cooperation to investigate, Phnom Penh Municipal Police spokesman San Sok Seiha told RFA. San Sok Seiha however urged the victim and journalists not to connect his assault with politics or similar incidents in the past before an investigation is completed. “Don’t just say this or that, because every assessment released by the police needs to be accompanied with clear evidence,” he said. Candlelight Party Vice President Thach Setha told RFA the violence against his activists undermine the credibility of Cambodian elections.   He said that if the authorities do not want to see criticism or accusations that the incidents are related to politics, the authorities must seek justice for all victims by allowing an independent investigation. “In the past, political activists and civil society have never seen the authorities arrest the perpetrators and punish them, that is why we are in doubt,” he said.  The government wants to protect its own reputation or considers all cases as non-political.  “Please catch the perpetrators, and [those who ordered the attack] and bring them to justice,” said Thach Setha. Civil society groups are very concerned about the recurrence of violence against political activists, Am Sam Ath, director general of the Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights, told RFA.  He said that if the police do not prevent these kinds of incidents, they will invite criticism of Cambodia’s political system at home and abroad. “The authorities need to protect the security of the people if there is a crime against an individual. It must be investigated to find the perpetrator and bring justice to victims and eradicate the culture of impunity,” Am Sam Ath said. According to RFA statistics, since 2019, around 40 social and political activists have been victims of the brutal assaults by unidentified assailants, causing serious injuries, permanent disability and even death.  The authorities were unable to identify the perpetrators in almost all cases. Many of the incidents were similar, involving helmeted attackers chasing their target on motorbikes, beating them or throwing stones at their homes. Sunday’s incident was the second time Nol Pongthearith was attacked — he was also assaulted in 2019, when he was a member of the banned-opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party.  Translated by Sok Ry Sum. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

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As many as 15 anti-regime teachers arrested in Myanmar

Editor04 mins

Myanmar’s military junta has been rounding up teachers who are members of the Civil Disobedience Movement (CMD) and have been giving online lessons at a school linked to the shadow National Unity Government (NUG). Kaung for You was set up to educate pupils who are boycotting classes or have been unable to attend school. It offers online education by CDM teachers for around 20,000 children across the country. “We heard that up to 15 people were arrested in Yangon, Mandalay, Shan state and Thanintharyi region,” a member of the Myanmar Teachers’ Federation (MTF) told RFA on Monday. “The parents of the students are so worried. I warned Kaung for You school to be careful before the arrests. Anything can happen at any time when [the school] is public,” said the MTF member, who declined to be named for safety reasons. The arrests took place between July 13 and July 18 and included Kaung for You founder Kaung Thaik Soe, the assistant director for education at Myitthar township in Mandalay region. The school’s plan to move from online lessons to classroom teaching last Wednesday was halted by the arrests that day of Kaung Thaik Soe and two teachers. The junta announced the arrests three days later. The school says its website was then hacked, allowing the military council to locate and arrest other teachers. Students and parents told RFA they were also afraid of being arrested if their names and addresses had also been leaked. The NUG’s Ministry of Education denounced the arrests as a violation of children’s rights to free education. It said it would offer help to the detained teachers, continue courses for pupils and open an emergency hotline to provide advice and assistance. Aside from school boycotts, many children in Myanmar have been denied education since the coup on Feb.1, 2021 due to a surge in attacks on schools, teachers and students. There were at least 260 attacks on schools between May 2021 and April this year, non-profit organization Save the Children said in a report last month. In April bombs were found in four schools and there were three explosions in or close to schools. There were also 33 recorded cases of educational buildings being set on fire, 10 direct attacks on teachers and 10 schools occupied by the military. The ruling junta says at least 40 teachers have been killed in demonstrations and fighting between troops and militias.

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Vietnamese Facebook activist’s family speak out about his ‘secret trial’

Editor07 mins

Facebook activist Nguyen Duc Hung’s family say he was denied visitors and they only found out about his five-and-a-half-year sentence from state media the day after it was handed down. Hung’s posts aimed to raise awareness of an environmental disaster in his hometown of Ky Anh. The Hung Nghiep Formosa Ha Tinh steel factory discharged chemical waste into the sea and environmentalists say the effects are still being felt by the residents. His social media posts did not focus solely on the disaster in his home town. He told his 9,000-plus followers about cases of social injustice and human rights abuses. He also focused on religious freedom, posting comments about the case of Thien An Monastery in which the provincial government of Thua Thien Hue “borrowed” land from the religious facility. Hung was convicted of “conducting anti-state propaganda” under Article 117 of the criminal code. The indictment said Hung’s actions directly affected the implementation of the Party’s guidelines and policies, the State’s laws, and the strength of the people’s government, divided national unity, reduced the people’s trust in the Party and State, and potentially caused national insecurity and disorder. While the court claimed it was a public criminal trial Hung’s family said they heard nothing from the police or the court. “When they carried out the trial, my family did not know,” Hung’s father Nguyen Van Sen told RFA. “I phoned the detention center and was told that the trial had been carried out the day before. When I asked why they didn’t notify my family, the police said the family was not involved.” Sen got the same response when the called the provincial police’s investigative department. According to a lawyer who has defended many similar trials Hung’s case is not uncommon. Ha Huy Son said the court does not have to notify the family or invite them to the trial. He said Criminal Procedure Code 2015 only stipulates telling the family the person is in custody, or has been arrested in the case of an urgent arrest. It is only necessary to tell the defense lawyer, the victim and any other parties involved at least 10 days before the trial. Hung is the sixth Facebooker this year to be convicted of “conducting propaganda against the state.” The others received sentences of between five and eight years. Hung, 31, was arrested on Jan. 6 this year and has been held incommunicado since then. His father said, despite repeated trips to the detention center, the family was not allowed to see him. The family did not hire a defense lawyer and Sen said he did not know if one was present at the trial. Sen did not want to comment on the sentence, other than saying he hoped it would be reduced because Hung’s wife had left him to raise their two primary school children. State media did not mention whether Hung had a lawyer, only saying he had pleaded guilty and asked for leniency. RFA called the People’s Court of Ha Tinh province but no-one replied Communist Party paranoia  “Given the worsening situation for activists and human rights defenders in Vietnam, it was sadly just a matter of time before Nguyen Duc Hung got arrested,” said Human Rights Watch Deputy Asia Director Phil Robertson. “It’s become obvious that the Vietnam Communist Party is so paranoid about dissenting views that it considers mere writing of words online to be a threat to state security. By giving out a five-and-a-half-year prison sentence for just writing criticism of the government on Facebook, the government has committed an outrageous and unacceptable violation of Nguyen Duc Thung’s rights.  In reality, he did nothing that would have been considered wrong, or even out of the ordinary, if he was in a democratic society, but of course he is stuck living under a single party dictatorship.” Roberts said Vietnam’s crackdown on freedom of expression means no peaceful activist can spread his views via social media without facing what he called “bogus state security charges” and many years in prison. “Quite clearly, Vietnam has become one of the worst rights abusing and dictatorial governments in Southeast Asia and now it wants to control the Internet as strictly as China. Any government donor or international business investor should think twice about investing in a country like Vietnam where freedom of expression and access to information is so strictly controlled,” Robertson said.

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Global heating, human development could drive future waves of disease in east Asia

Editor010 mins

Global heating is leading dozens of bat species to migrate to southern China and southeast Asian countries, amid growing concerns that the climate crisis could fuel more zoonotic disease and further deadly pandemics, experts told RFA. A 2021 University of Cambridge study found that climate change may already have played a role in the emergence of the current pandemic, after researchers tracked large-scale changes in vegetation patterns across southwestern Yunnan province and neighboring Myanmar and Laos. “Increases in temperature, sunlight, and atmospheric carbon dioxide – which affect the growth of plants and trees – have changed natural habitats from tropical shrubland to tropical savannah and deciduous woodland,” the study said. “This created a suitable environment for many bat species that predominantly live in forests.” It said the number of coronaviruses in a given area is closely linked to the number of different bat species present, with an additional 40 bat species moving into Yunnan during the past 100 years, bringing with them around 100 new coronaviruses. Genetic data suggests SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, may also have come from this region, according to study first author Robert Beyer, a researcher in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Zoology. “Climate change over the last century has made the habitat in the southern Chinese Yunnan province suitable for more bat species,” Beyer said. “As climate change altered habitats, species left some areas and moved into others – taking their viruses with them,” he said. “This … most likely allowed for new interactions between animals and viruses, causing more harmful viruses to be transmitted or evolve,” said Beyer. The world’s bats carry around 3,000 different types of coronavirus, with each bat species harboring an average of 2.7 coronaviruses – most without showing symptoms. While most coronaviruses carried by bats can’t jump into humans, several coronaviruses known to infect humans are very likely to have originated in bats, the study said. The area of Yunnan covered by the study is also home to pangolins, which are a likely intermediary host for SARS-CoV-2, experts said. “The virus is likely to have jumped from bats to these animals, which were then sold at a wildlife market in Wuhan – where the initial human outbreak occurred,” a press release accompanying the study said. Another study published by researchers at Georgetown University in the journal Nature also warned that the climate crisis may increase the risk of cross-species transmission of viruses — and could even trigger the next pandemic, citing bats as a likely source species. Dobson’s horseshoe bat. Credit: India Biodiversity Portal Increased risk of disease Chen Chen-chih, associate professor of wildlife conservation at Taiwan’s Pingtung University of Science and Technology, said both studies showed similar findings, warning that migratory shifts could bring bats into closer contact with humans. He cited an outbreak of Hendra virus in Australia in 1994, which caused deaths in humans and horses, and originated in fruit bats. “When their habitats are destroyed or reduced, fruit bats will of course find another way to live,” Chen told RFA. “There are parks in the city, so the likelihood of finding food is very high, added to the fact that people in Australia don’t actively kill bats.” “So they find an urban environment that they can adapt to.” Li Lingling, professor of ecology and evolutionary Biology at National Taiwan University, said humans have already interfered with natural habitats. “Bats are nocturnal and do not [normally] come into contact with humans,” Li said. “When we increase opportunities for bats to come into contact with other animals, the risk of humans being exposed [viruses] also increases.” Chen agreed. “Many studies have found that when habitat of wild animals is stable and undisturbed, the pathogens they carry are less likely to spread,” he said. “When protected animal habitats are well managed and biodiversity taken care of, a single highly lethal pathogen is less likely to emerge,” he said. According to the Georgetown study, there are at least 10,000 viruses currently existent in wild mammals that could be transmitted to humans. Prediction models show that under different carbon emission scenarios, more than 300,000 first contacts between species will occur, some of them in the next 50 years, potentially resulting in more than 15,000 new cross-species virus transmissions. “The vast majority of prediction models believe that the virus will spread across species, particular cross-species transmission from wild animals will become more and more serious under climate change,” Chen said. “These pathogens may jump the species barrier, infect livestock animals, and then infect humans from there, or even directly from wild animals to humans,” he said. “All of these routes are possible [but] whether transmission happens or not depends on the frequency of contact, or the immune status of the potential host,” Chen said. Li said the overall risk had definitely increased, however. “There are some key factors in between, but the risk of disease is indeed increased,” Li said. A greater horseshoe bat. Credit: Marie Jullion/Wikimedia Commons Managing biodiversity Chen said the key lies in the management of biodiversity, particularly in tropical and subtropics regions of east and southeast Asia. “The more species there are, the more potential virus species there are, but when wild animals live in a natural habitat, there are few opportunities for contact, and therefore everyone can coexist peacefully,” he said. Li said areas of high population density and ongoing development are most at risk. “Humans invade nature, transform their environment, or make use of wild animals … and then the risk of coming into contact with viruses carried by wild animals is relatively high,” she said. “Once an epidemic occurs in a densely populated place, then of course there’s a much higher chance of it spreading,” Li said. Chen cited the hunting of wild animals for food, and the trading of different species in the same markets as high-risk behavior. Wild animals that are trapped alive and held in cages in close proximity have weakened immune systems, making transmission more likely among them…

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Indonesia: Unity among G20 needed to avoid ‘catastrophic’ crisis in developing world

Editor05 mins

Indonesia’s finance minister said Friday it is imperative that G20 countries are united in dealing with a looming food crisis caused by the conflict between breadbaskets Russia and Ukraine, or the world’s most vulnerable countries will face disastrous consequences. During a meeting in Bali, Sri Mulyani Indrawati also told the top finance and economic diplomats from the Group of Twenty counties to schedule a forum of members’ finance and agriculture chiefs to devise a plan to deal with food and fertilizer shortages. “The unresolved COVID-19 pandemic as well as the unfolding war in Ukraine are likely to exacerbate the already severe 2022 acute food security that we are all already seeing. In addition to that, a looming fertilizer crisis also has the potential to further exacerbate and extend the food crisis even in 2023 and beyond,” said the finance minister of Indonesia, this year’s holder of the G20’s rotating chair and host of the Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors Meeting. “We are acutely aware that the cost of our failure to work together is more than we can afford. The humanitarian consequences for the world and especially for many low-income countries would be catastrophic,” Sri said. Since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, it has blocked all of the latter’s Black Sea ports and cut off access to almost all of that country’s exports, especially of grain. Those moves sparked fears of a global food crisis. In its April report, the Global Crisis Response Group, set up by the United Nations secretary general, said Ukraine and Russia provide 30 percent of the world’s wheat and barley, a fifth of its maize and more than half of its sunflower oil. Russia also is the world’s largest natural gas exporter and second largest oil exporter. Sri said it was essential to deploy all available financing mechanisms to save lives and strengthen financial as well as social stability. “The G20 could urgently convene a joint G20 finance and agriculture ministers meeting to improve coordination between finance and agriculture ministers and explore actions to address the growing food insecurity and related issues,” she said. “This is exactly like we did or what we are doing with joint finance and health ministers when we were dealing with COVID-19 and preparing a pandemic preparedness mechanism.” Sri kept her comments about G20 unity general, but it’s no secret that the group is split between the West, which has condemned Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, and others including China, Indonesia and India, which have refused to do so and continue to maintain ties with Moscow, analysts have said. So sharp have the divisions been that in April, U.S., British and Canadian finance chiefs walked out of the last G20 finance ministers’ meeting in Washington when the Russian minister rose to speak. The Russian foreign minister reciprocated at last week’s G20 foreign ministers’ meeting in Bali during the top U.S. diplomat’s address. Media reports said no one walked out on Friday, day one of the two-day meeting, but it remains to be seen whether the forum will produce a communiqué on Saturday. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news service.

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Lao fishermen return to Malaysia, despite risks

Editor08 mins

Thousands of Laotians are once again leaving their home country to work in the Malaysian fishing industry, where they are susceptible to abuse from employers due to their illegal status, the fishermen told RFA. The Lao Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare estimated that about 2,000 Laotians had recently traveled illegally to Malaysia for fishing jobs. During the pandemic, 700 Lao migrants had returned home from Malaysia, but most have since gone back as economic conditions in their home country worsen due in part to high inflation. Though the pay is sometimes better there than what they could earn in Laos, illegal migrants are often exploited by their employers, a Lao fisherman who has been working in Malaysia’s Pahang state told RFA’s Lao Service, on condition of anonymity for safety reasons. “There’s no fairness,” he said. “The main drawback is that we, as fishermen, don’t know the total weight of the fish we catch and we don’t know how much money our employers make. We just get whatever they give us. The information about the total catch and revenue is not known to us.”  To ensure their rights are protected, the Lao government is working on finding ways for more migrants to go to Malaysia legally. “We recently sent about 70 Lao workers to Malaysia, legally, for a pilot project. We are requesting that the Lao Ministry of Foreign Affairs send more workers to Malaysia, as we know many Laotians are going there to work illegally,” an official of the ministry’s Department of Labor Skill Development and Employment Service told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely. Despite the risks, Malaysia is attractive to migrants because it is a relatively easy country to work in, the fisherman said. “The main reason so many choose to come here is because we don’t have money. Most of us don’t even have enough to make a passport,” he said. “In my case, the employer sent some money to me in Laos to apply for a passport and pay for all my documents. If I had gone to, say, South Korea instead, I would have had to pay for everything myself. I’d have to borrow money to fly over there,” he said. The fisherman said that he came to Malaysia via a land route through Thailand. The trip cost 100,000 baht (U.S. $2,800), which he repays through deductions from his paycheck.  “More than one thousand Lao fishermen are working here …, about 60 percent more than there were last year. Most of these new fishermen, who have never even been on the sea, come from the Vientiane suburbs or from nearby Borikhamxay province,” he said. Another Lao fisherman told RFA how he came to work in Malaysia. “Nobody told me to come here, but I came because in Laos, there are no jobs and labor is cheap,” he told RFA.  “I didn’t come here via the Lao Labor Department. At first, I came to Malaysia as a tourist. I took a bus to the town of Nong Khai in Thailand, then I traveled by bus to Pattani Province in southern Thailand where my employer’s bus was waiting to take me to Malaysia. Then, in Malaysia, my employer obtained all the necessary documents including a work permit for me, so I can work,” the second fisherman said. A third fisherman told RFA that the pay was good. “We make at least 3,700 ringit, or about 30,000 baht [$836] per month, but in some months when the catch is big, we can earn up to 7,000 ringit, or 50,000 baht [$1,581],” he said. “There are about 100 Lao fishermen working here … That’s not a lot. There are also Thais, Burmese and Cambodians too and we mingle together,” he said. The Lao government is making efforts to protect the migrants by making it easier for them to go to Malaysia legally, thereby making them harder to exploit. Authorities are collecting information in hopes of entering into an agreement with Malaysia to allow Laos to send more workers, Anousone Khamsingsavath, the director of the Department of Labor Skill Development and Employment Service, said at an August 2021 meeting that discussed workers’ rights in Southeast Asia. He acknowledged widespread exploitation in Malaysia’s fishing and seafood processing industries. Lao fishermen in Malaysia support the effort between the countries to reach an agreement, because it would increase the likelihood that their rights would be protected, a fourth Lao fisherman told RFA. BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news source, sent inquiries on this issue to the Malaysian government but received no response. BN reached out to MY govt officials for comment but didn’t receive an answer. Translated by Max Avary. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

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Thousands forced to flee Sagaing airstrikes that killed one and injured two

Editor03 mins

Around 4,000 locals were forced to flee junta airstrikes on around 15 villages in Myanmar’s northwestern Sagaing region on Thursday. The attacks are part of a three-day scorched-earth campaign that continued Friday. It involved around 100 troops, targeting residents of a township that has fiercely resisted military rule. Four helicopters carried out raids on the villages in Depayin township, killing a man, identified as Khin Maung San, and injuring another man and a woman. “Khin Maung San died on the spot and the injured woman was critically wounded in the bladder. She was treated by military council forces,” a local told RFA on condition of anonymity. “The residents fled and didn’t return until the military left. The conditions on the ground are very bad.” The local said around 100 residents who could not flee were interrogated and had the contents of their mobile phones searched by the military to check whether they had contacted People’s Defense Forces (PDFs). These are not the first air strikes on Depayin this month. Residents said two military helicopters fired on three villages on July 2. Township residents have fiercely resisted the junta that have been ruling the country since the Feb.1, 2021 coup, offering support to local PDFs. The junta has tried to control opposition by cutting off mobile phone and internet access. More than 100 residents of Sagaing region were killed by junta forces in the first 15 months after the coup. Casualties across Myanmar have risen above 2,000. Calls to the military council spokesman by RFA to ask about the raids on Depayin went unanswered on Friday.

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Vietnamese police try to stamp out religious sect

Editor07 mins

The police have been working for the past year to eliminate a religious sect based in northern Vietnam, according to a police newspaper.  On Tuesday the Cong an Nhan dan, which is the mouthpiece of the Ministry of Public Security, published an article about “Project 78”. It said its goal is to “fight, prevent, and proceed to eliminate the illegal Duong Van Minh organization,” in Bac Kan province. There are roughly 8,000 ethnic Hmong practitioners of the Duong Van Minh religion in four provinces in the northern mountains. The religion is not officially registered and the police article said the government believes the sect is conspiring to “establish an independent Hmong state” and break away from Vietnam. “The illegal sect Duong Van Minh, which has existed for more than 33 years, is an organization hiding in the shadow of beliefs and religions, propagandizing, gathering mass forces, enticing the Hmong ethnic people, plotting to establish an ‘independent Hmong state,’ seeking the support of hostile forces, and forming political opposition,” the article said. Followers of the sect have repeatedly denied claims they want independence. Duong Van Minh was founded in 1989 with the stated goal of promoting the elimination of outdated, expensive and unhygienic funeral customs. Hmong funeral services can last as long as a week before the body is buried. All family members are expected to attend the ceremonies, sacrifice animals and prepare feasts for the guests. Last December hundreds of police raided the funeral of founder Duong Van Minh, in Tuyen Quang province, citing Coronavirus concerns, despite the official cause of his death being lymphoma. Police arrested around 35 people, smashed windows in the family home and threatened the family with electric batons. Nine more people were arrested when they went to the police to protest and another four were later charged with assaulting police officers. On May 18 this year, a court in Tuyen Quang province convicted 12 followers of “resistance against on-duty state officials,” and sentenced them to between two and four years in prison. Over the years Vietnamese authorities have imprisoned many sect members for “abusing freedom and democratic rights” and have destroyed dozens of religious structures used as funeral homes. The police newspaper said the abolition of the Duong Van Minh religion must be turned into a political goal. It urged Bac Kan province set a “road map to eliminate” the sect by next year. Another northern province, Cao Bang, has already included the goal of “preventing and eliminating” the sect in its resolution on socioeconomic development for 2020-2025. A human rights lawyer, who did not want to be named for safety reasons, said the government’s plan to abolish the Duong Van Minh sect “is a serious violation of the people’s right to freedom of belief and religion. It shows that this State does not respect its Constitution and the laws that it promulgates.” “Article 24 of Vietnam’s constitution stipulates that everyone has the right to freedom of belief and religion, to follow or not to follow a religion. The State respects and protects the right to freedom of belief and religion,” the lawyer said. He added that Project 78 proved that the State had decided to destroy the lives of Duong Van Minh followers. “If it is a state that knows how to take care and think for the people the government must be responsible for helping and guiding people,” he said. “They set up such a project obviously to erase [the religion], not to acknowledge the Duong Van Minh sect.” The Vietnamese government has always insisted that it does not suppress religion, and calls Duong Van Minh’s sect an “illegal organization”. However, international organizations and foreign governments, including the U.S., have refused to accept the claim and regularly accuse the Vietnamese government of violating the right to religious freedom. According to the Report on Religious Freedom 2022, released by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom on April 25, the situation of religious freedom in Vietnam is still assessed as negative due to government’s religious persecution. The organization suggested that the US Government place Vietnam on the list of countries of special concern because of its systematic, persistent and serious violations of religious freedom.

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Chinese homebuyers withdraw mortgage repayments in protest at stalled construction

Editor08 mins

Homebuyers across China are threatening a mortgage payment strike in protest at stalled construction of off-plan properties by major developers across the country. Investors started selling off Chinese banking and real estate stocks, as well as corporate bonds issued by property developers, on Thursday, amid fears the strike would hit the financial system, Reuters reported. A growing number of homebuyers across China are saying they will halt mortgage payments to banks until developers resume construction of pre-sold homes, local media and social media reported. Japan’s Nomura has estimated that developers have only delivered around 60 percent of homes sold off-plan between 2013 and 2020. China’s outstanding mortgage loans rose by 26.3 trillion yuan during that period. “We are the owners of a property in Wuhan Optics Valley,” one homebuyer wrote on social media. “My husband and I both graduated from Tsinghua University with a master’s degree. Now working in Shenzhen, we originally planned to return to Wuhan to settle down, but last August I heard the news that the construction site was suspended. So I am very anxious now.” By July 12, buyers of 35 residential projects across 22 cities in China said they had decided to stop mortgage repayments, according to a report by Citigroup Inc. on Wednesday, despite the fact that it could mar their personal credit rating. Citigroup said the move could lead to bad debts of up to U.S.$83 billion, with large state-owned banks like China Construction Bank and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China facing greater risks as a result. A document titled “Summary of Loan Suspension Notices of Unfinished Buildings in Various Provinces and Cities of the Country” said that buyers of apartments in more than 110 unfinished buildings across 21 provinces had decided to halt mortgage repayments as of July 13. Buyers were linked to 32 unfinished projects in Henan, 15 each in Hunan and Hubei, eight in Jiangxi and seven in Shaanxi, it said, adding that well-known real estate companies like Shimao, Greenland, Aoyuan and Xinyuan were among those affected by the action. ‘Black hole’ A former financial industry employee surnamed Song said the outcome was entirely predictable. “China’s real estate market is a black hole, which is the result of the collusion between the owners of real estate companies and local governments,” Song said. “The off-plan sale of properties is illegal, but they don’t implement the law; the [local] leaders have the final say.” China’s real estate has long been in crisis, with the country’s top 100 real estate developers selling 43 percent fewer new homes in June 2022 than during the same period last year, according to China Real Estate Information Corp. Song said mortgage income is currently propping up several major Chinese banks. “Several major banks in China are supported by housing loans,” Song said. “Mortgages in China have now reached 50 trillion yuan, equivalent to one fifth or one sixth of money in circulation.” Wang Longde, a former lawyer who lives in Laos, says the blame or the mortgage strike lies with the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP). “With a [government-issued] license, legally speaking, property can be sold [off-plan]. But the government doesn’t supervize developers to ensure they deliver the … real estate to consumers on time and as required,” Wang said. Risk passed to consumers Wang said many developers just build the main body of the building, accounting for 70-80 percent of construction costs. If they run out of funds, they will then just halt production, passing the risk onto consumers. Many homebuyers don’t demand a contract setting out what happens to a mortgage in the event of construction delays or failure to complete, he said. Song agreed. “All problems in the banking system are caused by local government officials,” he said. “For example, Shanghai Bank of Communications or China Construction Bank, their presidents are mostly mute. The real [power] is held by local government.” “This is on central-level officials.” Citibank analyst Griffin Chan has warned that the mortgage strike is “is a critical moment for social stability,” as government censors were scrambling to delete posts about the strike. Posts on the topic available earlier on Thursday had disappeared from social media later in the day, RFA found. “Judging from the current economic situation in China … if people refuse to make repayments [companies] go bankrupt,” Song said. “All aspects of banking and credit reporting will be affected, but regular folk don’t care any more, and are lying down because they have lost faith in society as a whole,” he said. Many homebuyers have said in social media posts that they turned to a mortgage strike as a last resort, and only plan to withhold repayments until their properties are completed by the developers. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

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Cambodian diplomat’s concubines employed by soccer club shareholder

Editor017 mins

There’s another plot twist in Chinese-businessman-turned-Cambodian diplomat Wang Yaohui’s secretive investment in a prominent English soccer club. RFA can reveal that two mothers of his children were employed by a company associated with Yaohui, Chigwell Holdings Ltd.  The company acquired a sizeable stake in Birmingham City Football Club back in 2017. ​Just weeks ago, the English Football League said it was looking into reporting by RFA that Yaohui and a man said by former associates to be a close relative and frequent proxy for Yaohui control a large stake in the club through a series of offshore shell companies.  Yaohui’s undeclared ties to Chigwell Holdings – yet another entity owning shares in the club – is likely to factor into that investigation. Under its rules, the league requires clubs to publicly disclose the identity of any person controlling more than 10 percent. A complicated man Yaohui was born in China but as RFA has reported, became a naturalized Cambodian citizen in 2014 after a checkered business career characterized by secretive dealings and bribery scandals in China and Africa where associates were convicted although Yaohui himself was not charged.  If his corporate interests have been complex, the same can be said of his personal life. Despite having spent the last 15 years or so living as man and wife with Chinese film star Tang Yuhong, Yaohui has had at least five children by two other women in that time. The mothers, Wang Jing and Wang Qiong, were born seven years apart during the 1980s in Sichuan province, China. In 2015, both women approached Henley & Partners, a broker for citizenship-by-investment schemes, seeking to acquire Maltese passports for themselves and their children. Multiple documents obtained by RFA, including the children’s birth certificates, show that their children shared a common father, Yaohui. Wang Qiong’s declaration to the Maltese authorities that while Wang Yaohui is the father of her children, they are “just friends, but not in spousal relationship.” Those documents were part of a tranche of internal Henley & Partners data leaked to the Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation, forming the bedrock of the foundation’s “Passport Papers” investigative collaboration with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, which made the data available through its Aleph database in June this year. A review of that data also revealed that from 2015 onwards, the women were both employed in the accounting department of Chigwell Holdings Ltd, a Hong Kong-based real estate holding firm connected to Yaohui, although the detailed biographies provided by both women as part of their Maltese citizenship applications indicated no educational background or employment history in finance or bookkeeping. Regardless of their seeming lack of experience, they were handsomely compensated. HSBC bank statements for an account in Jing’s name show monthly deposits of HKD$36,500 ($4,650) from the company. Statements for Qiong’s account show her receiving the slightly higher HKD$44,500 ($5,670) each month. A letter signed by Chigwell Holdings HR manager Helen Ho attesting to the company’s employment of Wang Qiong, mother of several of Wang Yaohui’s children. Both women also provided letters signed and stamped by Helen Ho, human resources manager at Chigwell Holdings, attesting to their employment by the firm. Ho’s name and phone numbers both appear in Yaohui’s Hong Kong passport as his emergency contact person. Hong Kong corporate records also show that in April 2017 the assets of Chigwell Holdings were used to secure a $40 million loan to Yaohui – suggesting that he has considerable influence over the company’s decision-making and the property under its management. An extract from a Hong Kong corporate filing registering that Chigwell Holdings’ assets have been used as security against a $40 million loan to Wang Yaohui. Buying into the game When eight months later, on Dec. 14, 2017, Chigwell Holdings acquired 500 million shares in a company listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange, Yaohui’s name was nowhere on the associated disclosure. Under Hong Kong law, companies owning significant stakes in companies listed on the stock exchange are required to disclose their stakes, as well as the identity of their beneficial owner. The company Chigwell Holdings had bought the 500 million shares in was Birmingham Sports Holdings Ltd, which at the time owned 96.64 percent of Birmingham City Football Club. At the time, Chigwell Holdings’ 500 million shares accounted for 5.97 percent of Birmingham Sports Holdings’ total stock, or 5.76 percent of the club. On the same day, another company bought an even larger chunk of shares in Birmingham Sports Holdings. Registered in the British Virgin Islands, Dragon Villa Ltd also omitted to mention its ties to Yaohui when it acquired just over 714 million shares, equivalent to 8.23 percent of Birmingham City Football Club at the time. However, earlier this year, RFA reported on evidence it had seen strongly suggesting that Yaohui is in fact Dragon Villa’s owner. The key piece of evidence was an affidavit submitted to a Singapore court on behalf of Yaohui’s longtime right-hand woman, Taiwanese-American dual national Jenny Shao. In the affidavit, Shao claimed that Dragon Villa “is beneficially owned by Mr. Wang [Yaohui].” A beneficial owner is a person who enjoys the benefits of owning a company which is in someone else’s name. Her testimony was echoed by multiple former business associates of Yaohui whom RFA spoke with. A wealthy wallflower But why would Yaohui want to obscure his stake in an English football club, something normally considered a prestige purchase? And perhaps more perplexingly, if he does indeed control Chigwell Holdings and Dragon Villa, why go to the trouble of splitting the purchase of shares in Birmingham Sports Holdings between the two companies when they took place on the same day? We may never know the true answer since representatives of both companies have not responded to repeated requests for comment in recent months. The combined stakes of the two companies represent more than 10 percent of Birmingham City Football Club  – therefore exceeding the threshold at which clubs are required to publicly disclose the…

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