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Category: East Asia
Taiwan hits out at Hong Kong’s vanishing freedoms, vows to protect its sovereignty
Democratic Taiwan on Friday said freedom had “vanished” in Hong Kong, as concerns were raised internationally over a political crackdown in the city after just 25 years of Chinese rule. “It’s only been 25 years, and in the past the promise was 50 years of no change,” Taiwan’s premier Su Tseng-chang told journalists as Hong Kong marked the 25th anniversary of the 1997 handover to Chinese rule. “Freedom and democracy have vanished,” he said, adding that Taiwan, which made a peaceful democratic transition in the 1990s after decades of authoritarian rule under the Kuomintang (KMT), must protect its own way of life in the face of Chinese territorial claims. “We also know that we must hold fast to Taiwan’s sovereignty, freedom and democracy,” Su said, in a reference to Beijing’s insistence that the island “unify” with China, despite never having been ruled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and despite widespread public opposition to the idea. “China’s so-called ‘one country, two systems’ has simply not stood up to the test,” Su said of the arrangement touted by Beijing as a success in Hong Kong, and as a possible pathway to a takeover of Taiwan. Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said CCP rule had led to the end of freedom and democracy in Hong Kong. In a statement, the council hit out at China’s imposition of a draconian national security law “to govern Hong Kong in a coercive manner, restrict the basic human rights of Hong Kong’s people, and to imprison democracy advocates, silencing the news media and prompting the collapse of civil society.” It also said recent changes to the city’s electoral system to ensure only “patriots” can hold public office “is even more contrary to goal of universal suffrage and the expectations of Hong Kong citizens.” “Democracy, human rights, freedom, and rule of law have seriously regressed in Hong Kong, compared with 25 years ago,” the MAC said, dismissing Beijing’s claims that the pro-democracy movement had been instigated by foreign governments. “Taiwan adheres to a free, democratic and constitutional government, that the Republic of China and the People’s Republic of China are not subordinate to each other, that sovereignty cannot be invaded and annexed, and that the future of the Republic of China and Taiwan must be decided by the people of Taiwan,” the statement said. “Taiwan will continue to safeguard universal values, democratic systems and ways of life, stand side by side with the international community, and firmly defend democracy,” it said. The statements from Taipei came after CCP leader Xi Jinping used the phrase “one country, two systems” more than 20 times during his speech on Friday marking the 25th anniversary of Chinese rule over Hong Kong, saying China’s tougher political grip on the city in the wake of the 2019 protest movement had enabled it to “rise again from the ashes.” MAC spokesman Chiu Chui-cheng called on China not to keep deceiving itself about the success of its policies in Hong Kong. “We solemnly urge [Beijing] to give the people back the democracy, freedoms and human rights that are their due,” Chiu said. Taiwanese political scientist Wu Rwei-ren said Xi wants to package the 25th anniversary as a kind of second handover. “The legal basis for one country, two systems was the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration [setting out the terms of the handover],” Wu told RFA. “By 2014, Xi Jinping’s regime had declared that it wouldn’t recognize [the treaty], saying it was a historical document with no meaning,” he said. “In this way, they redefined one country, two systems as a purely internal concept.” “The basis for [Hong Kong’s economic and social] achievements was the original political system, which has been destroyed by Xi Jinping,” Wu said. “He’s now saying that all sources of chaos have been eradicated, Hong Kong has returned to stability, and that everyone can start working hard to improve the economy,” he said. “But the institutional basis for that has been destroyed.” Wu said even the Taiwanese business community, which has typically been happy to overlook the CCP’s worst failings in the pursuit of greater profits, is now getting out of China and Hong Kong. “This isn’t about ideology; it’s about the very practical aspects of money,” Wu said. “These people were once more enthusiastic about making money than they were about their own country.” “They invested huge amounts in China because it was profitable, but now, faced with various deteriorating factors, they are getting out of China fast,” he said. Meanwhile, invitations were circulating overseas for people to attend a “Funeral for Hong Kong’s Lost Freedoms” in cities across the U.S., including New York, Washington and San Francisco. Hong Kong protest rallies were also planned in the U.K., Canada and Japan. A participant at the New York rally who gave only the nickname A Wai said the protest was over the CCP’s failure to deliver on its promises. “We’re only halfway through the 50 years during which Hong Kong was supposedly not going to change, and everyone can now see through the lie that is one country, two systems,” A Wai told RFA. “That’s why we chose July 1 to stand up … Hong Kong people are still angry about the crackdowns on protesters on June 12, 2019, July 21, 2019 and Aug. 31, 2019, and we can express all of that on July 1,” he said. Former 2014 Occupy Central leader Alex Chow said everyone will be wearing black — the color of the 2019 protest movements, but also the color of mourning in some cultures — and that protesters would lay funeral wreaths to signal the death of Hong Kong’s freedoms. “The situation in Hong Kong and the mainland is full of turmoil and tears,” Chow told RFA. “Behind the facade of prosperity, there is a lot of political in-fighting, and Hong Kong is one of the places where sacrifices are being made.” “That’s why Hong Kongers overseas who have enough freedom to do so … feel the…
Hong Kong’s last hand-painted porcelain factory carries on the tradition
Step into Yuet Tung China Works, Hong Kong’s last remaining hand-painted porcelain factory, and you find yourself surrounded by stacks of dinnerware, each piece painstakingly decorated by hand with vibrant motifs of flowers, fruits and animals. Joseph Tso, the third-generation owner of the factory, and his small team are among the few people in Hong Kong who have mastered the traditional technique of painting “guangcai,” or Canton porcelain. It is a fading art in this modern metropolis, as fewer young people are willing to put in the time and effort required to master the craft or to work at the factory full-time. “The business environment in Hong Kong is not suitable for labor-intensive industries,” Tso said. “Hong Kong’s traditional handicraft industry is gradually declining. It will eventually disappear.” Guangcai, which comes from the nearby Chinese city of Guangzhou, is characterized by an overglaze technique in which the painter sketches a design on white porcelain and then fills it in with color using thin brushes before firing the piece in a kiln. Tso’s grandfather established the factory in Hong Kong’s Kowloon City in 1928. It rose to prominence over the years, becoming famous for its delicate craftsmanship and custom dinnerware.
‘Hong Kong must not become chaotic again,’ China’s Xi warns on handover anniversary
Chinese leader Xi Jinping swore in a new, security-focused government in Hong Kong on Friday, 25 years after Britain handed the city back to China, saying the current arrangements — which have seen a citywide crackdown on peaceful dissent and political opposition — are here to stay. “For this kind of good system, there is no reason at all to change it. It must be maintained over the long term,” Xi said in a speech at the inauguration ceremony. “After experiencing wind and rain, everyone can painfully feel that Hong Kong cannot be chaotic, and must not become chaotic again … Hong Kong’s development cannot be delayed again, and any interference must be eliminated,” Xi said. “Power must be in the hands of patriots,” Xi said. “No country or region in the world will allow unpatriotic or even traitorous or treasonous forces and figures to hold power.” “In the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, power is firmly in the hands of patriots, which is an inevitable requirement to ensure long-term stability in Hong Kong, and it will be unshakable,” he said. Xi also swore in former security chief and ex-cop John Lee, who has been sanctioned by the United States for his role in implementing the national security law, as chief executive. Police outside ran a massive security operation that included no-sail and no-fly zones, as well as roadblocks around the Convention and Exhibition Centre where Xi gave his speech. Xi’s defense of Chinese rule in Hong Kong came after British prime minister Boris Johnson and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken accused Beijing of failing to meet its handover commitments. China’s line is that the national security law ended months of mass protests for full democracy and official accountability in 2019, which saw some protesters fight back with makeshift weapons against riot police wielding batons, tear gas, rubber bullets, water cannon and even live ammunition. China’s President Xi Jinping (R) standing with Hong Kong’s new Chief Executive John Lee (L) after Lee was sworn in as the city’s new leader, during a ceremony to inaugurate the city’s new government in Hong Kong on July 1, 2022. Credit: Hong Kong’s Information Services Department. ‘New era’ Uniform decorations declaring a “new era” of stability were seen across many districts, including red lanterns and the Chinese national flag, and the Hong Kong regional flag. “Hong Kong has of course also encountered various challenges, including the global financial crisis, the unlawful occupy movement in 2014, the Mong Kok riots in 2016, the riots and violence in 2019 together with the interference in Hong Kong’s affairs by external forces which threatened our national security, and the COVID-19 pandemic,” Lee told the inauguration ceremony, thanking the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for its support. Lee also lauded the national security law for “bringing order out of chaos,” and new election rules under which he was selected as the only candidate for the city’s top job in May 2022. “It is therefore imperative that we should cherish and uphold the system for a long time to come, and we should make good use of it to effect sound governance,” Lee said, sounding the death knell for any hope of democratic development under the new regime. Chinese political scientist Chen Daoyin said Xi’s tone in the speech was condescending and parental, and that late supreme leader Deng Xiaoping’s promise that Hong Kong would remain unchanged for 50 years was already dead in the water. “What [Xi] talked about what different from what Deng Xiaoping proposed,” Chen said. “Deng said Hong Kong would be like mainland China after 50 years, and maybe not at all.” “Xi has a new view on Hong Kong, which he calls a new starting point, making the point that Hong Kong has been brought to order out of chaos,” Chen said. Current affairs commentator Sang Pu said Xi has deliberately distorted the meaning of “one country, two systems.” “If he admits that one country, two systems is over, that would be tantamount to inviting opposition from Europe and the U.S.,” Sang told RFA. “It would also make it look as if he has failed.” “Instead, he is repackaging it as a new beginning.” Sang said Xi’s mention of cooperation between Hong Kong’s judiciary and that of mainland China was worrying, suggesting that the authorities may start requiring “patriotism” from judges as well as from lawmakers and civil servants. Dutiful congratulations Across the internal border in mainland China, the CCP-controlled state media focused on a highly choreographed “welcome” for Xi in Hong Kong, and on praising Beijing’s governance of the city. “Some media didn’t report it at all, so we can see that Hong Kong isn’t a priority for the government, and that nobody cares if Xi or anyone else goes there,” a Chinese scholar surnamed Shen told RFA. “Hong Kong can never be given too much prominence in the Chinese media.” Official media reports on the anniversary garnered a few dozen comments, most of them dutifully congratulatory, on social media. Only one comment on an article by the China Youth Daily, the official newspaper of CCP’s Youth League, opined: “I wish Hong Kong a better tomorrow.” Current affairs commentator Johnny Lau said Xi’s promise of science and technology cooperation between Hong Kong and neighboring Guangdong province had likely been behind his visit to the Hong Kong Science and Technology Park on Thursday. “Hong Kong’s high-tech R&D is good, but there is a shortage of production capacity and talent,” Lau said. “Through cooperation with the mainland, we can ‘reap the east wind’.” Xi was likely taking the opportunity to try to reboot Hong Kong’s international reputation as a trading and financial center in the wake of the national security crackdown and the COVID-19 pandemic, Lau said. Xi was declaring to the rest of the world that he has confidence in Hong Kong’s future and its economic policies, to exiting foreign investors to return, he said. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
25 years of handover and havoc in Hong Kong
25 years of handover and havoc in Hong Kong have been presented in this investigative report. It shows the timeline of Hong Kong and changes post National Security Law in a comprehensive manner.
FET completes trials of advanced submarine rescue vehicle
U.S. firm Forum Energy Technologies (FET) has completed sea trials of an advanced submarine rescue vehicle (SRV), the main component of a submarine rescue vessel, for the Vietnamese Navy, reports said. A press release by FET said the Scottish branch of the Texas-based company “successfully completed sea trials” of the SRV “ahead of its deployment for an Asia Pacific-based navy.” Media sources said the client was the Vietnamese Navy which bought six Kilo-class submarines from Russia ten years ago. Vietnamese military officials were not available for comment. Vietnam commissioned a homegrown multi-purpose submarine search and rescue vessel, which it named Yet Kieu after a legendary hero, in July 2021 but this final step “indicates that the vessel should be nearing an operational capability,” said Gordon Arthur, a defense analyst and Asia-Pacific editor of Shephard Media. “Given that Vietnam has been operating Russian-built Kilo-class submarines since 2014, it is perhaps surprising that it’s taken nearly ten years to get such a rescue capability,” Arthur told RFA. Highly advanced vehicle According to FET’s statement, the sea trials tested the SRV’s capabilities to “perform a variety of demanding operations, including deep dives, navigation, and mating with a target.” In-country commissioning and testing took two months to complete, it said. The trials were done in close cooperation with the navy and Lloyd’s Register (LR), a maritime classification organization which “offered third party verification and supervised every part of the sea trials.” The SRV is divided into two sections including a command module for pilots and a rescue chamber for the chamber operator and people being rescued. It is capable of rescuing up to 17 people at a time and operates at depths of up to 600m, FET said. The vehicle boasts “some of the most advanced sensors and sonars” including a doppler velocity log, fibre optic gyroscope, sonar, and depth sensing to quickly locate a distressed submarine. FET will also be providing training for navy pilots as part of the contract, which includes theoretical training, maintenance, diving and recovery. The mother ship ‘927-Yet Kieu’ meanwhile is nearly 100m-long, 16m-wide and 7.2m-high, with a displacement of up to 3,950 tons, according to Vietnamese defense sources. The multi-purpose vessel can operate continuously at sea 30 days and nights and it is capable of withstanding high wind and waves. Vietnamese army company Z189 began building the ship in mid-2018 after the commissioning of the last of six Russian-made submarines in 2017. Vietnam has the largest submarine fleet in Southeast Asia with six Kilo-class diesel-electric submarines, dubbed “black holes” for their stealthiness. With the new SRV, the Vietnamese navy has now joined the club of countries with submarine rescue capability in the Asia-Pacific including Australia, China, India, Japan, Malaysia and South Korea. Flag-hoisting ceremony on Kilo-class submarine Ba Ria – Vung Tau CREDIT: Vietnamese Navy ‘Expensive and dangerous’ “There has been a growth in the number of submarines in the region,” noted Gordon Arthur, adding that as submarine incidents have the potential to quickly become catastrophic, “it is vital that navies operating submarines have their own rescue capability, so that they can quickly swing into action.” “A submarine rescue capability is like a tuxedo. They are expensive and are rarely used – but when you do need it, absolutely nothing else can replace it,” he said. In April 2021 an Indonesian navy submarine, the KRI Nanggala, sank off the coast of Bali killing all 53 crew on board. Yet Jakarta is seeking to expand its submarine fleet from four at present to at least ten by 2029. “Some nations think that owning submarines will bring prestige and respect but submarines are not shiny toys. They are very expensive and underwater operations are inherently dangerous,” said Arthur. “Navies need to ensure they have the skills, money and rescue capability to keep their submarines in top condition.” Vietnam, China and some other countries are entangled in territorial disputes in the South China Sea and the new submarine force would enable Hanoi to defend its interests, the Vietnamese military leadership said. But compared to its neighbor, Beijing has a much larger fleet of nearly 60 submarines, a third of which are nuclear-powered. Analysts have questioned if Vietnam’s new SRV could be used for reconnaissance purposes besides submarine rescue missions. But some experts such as Collin Koh, Research Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, point out that such submersibles are handicapped by range and endurance, “so they may have limited standoff reconnaissance capabilities.” “But such submersibles with suitable modifications can potentially do seabed espionage-related work, such as tapping undersea cables,” Koh said.
North Korea military celebrates ‘Anti-U.S. Joint Struggle Month’
North Korea’s military has designated the end of June and most of July as “Anti-U.S. Joint Struggle Month” as a means to foment greater hostility toward the U.S. in retaliation for the Biden administration’s lack of interest in negotiating with Pyongyang, military sources told RFA. There were two summits between the two countries during Donald Trump’s presidency: 2018 in Singapore and 2019 in Hanoi. But ultimately the U.S. and North Korea were unable to work out a deal on sanctions relief in exchange for denuclearization. The shift in policy of the new administration makes a return to negotiations less likely, so North Korea is bringing back a more hostile style of rhetoric toward the U.S. The month-long education project started on June 25, the anniversary of the start of the 1950-53 Korean War, and will last until July 27, the anniversary of the signing of the armistice that ended hostilities in the conflict. Over the course of the month, military personnel must learn why the U.S. is North Korea’s main enemy, a military related source in the northwestern province of North Pyongan told RFA on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “The General Political Bureau of the People’s Army… created new anti-U.S. education materials that say the U.S. is our main enemy and sent it down to all the subordinate units. From the 25th, all units… have been attending anti-U.S. classes during their mental education hours, which are held each day for about an hour,” the source said. “Previous materials made since the time of the 2018 North Korea-U.S. [Singapore] Summit have used the [softer] term ‘imperialism’ to describe the U.S, in order to not provoke them,” said the source. The new materials have been changed to use harsher language. “They now call the U.S. an ‘imperialist aggressor.’ The content is intended to strengthen anti-U.S. sentiment and says things like, ‘The aggressive nature of the United States never changes. They are our enemy who must not live under the same sky with us,’” said the source. “The General Political Bureau has also instructed the political departments of each unit to visit their respective education center during Anti-U.S. Joint Struggle month. The political department should organize officers and soldiers to attend classes there, and they must also punish those who neglect to visit with their units. So the military officials are nervous,” the source said. Every province, city and county in North Korea has set up education centers that collect and display anti-U.S., anti-South Korean and anti-Japanese materials, according to the source. “Since 2018, when we were trying to improve relations with the U.S., anti-U.S. education for military personnel was suspended, but this time, we will bring it back in time for the anniversary of the Day of Victory in the Great Fatherland Liberation War,” the source said, using the North Korean term for the day the armistice was signed. The source said the soldiers are not happy with the government’s flip-flopping on whether the U.S. is the number one enemy or not. “They say, ‘They removed the hostile phrases to improve relations with the U.S., and now they are bringing them back. We don’t know how to play along.’” The new materials say that peaceful coexistence with the U.S. is not possible, a military source in the northeastern province of North Hamgyong told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “It says that coexistence is just an illusion and equivalent to death, and we must be armed with a high sense of antagonism and ideological determination to fight against the U.S.,” the second source said. “But the officers and soldiers come out of their mental education classes expressionless and with indifference,” said the second source. “The General Political Bureau is also telling all units to post up new propaganda signs bearing the slogan, ‘Destroy all U.S. imperialist aggressors, the absolute enemies of the Korean people’ in their barracks. By posting anti-U.S. slogans, which previously we only attached to combat equipment, they will more intently concentrate on hostility toward the United States.” The sources both said that they interpreted the renewed hostility toward the U.S. as the government expressing its dissatisfaction with a shift in Washington’s stance on North Korea to a more hardline position since the beginning of the Biden administration. Though fighting in the Korean War ended with the signing of the armistice on July 27, 1953, North and South Korea are still technically at war. Translated by Leejin J. Chung. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
China’s Xi Jinping says Hong Kong ‘risen from the ashes’ amid crackdown on dissent
Chinese leader Xi Jinping arrived in Hong Kong on Thursday ahead of the 25th anniversary of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) rule, saying the city had “risen from the ashes” under a draconian national security law that left former opposition lawmakers under house arrest and journalists shut out of official events. “Hong Kong has withstood challenge after challenge and won many a battle in recent years,” Xi told a crowd who turned out to greet him waving national flags and cheering, at the start of what observers said will be a heavily stage-managed trip subject to citywide security measures. “Hong Kong has lived through turbulent times and risen again from the ashes to renewed vigor,” said Xi, who arrived by special train with first lady Peng Liyuan on Thursday. As he spoke, former pro-democracy lawmaker Avery Ng tweeted that he had been placed under house arrest, likely for the duration of Xi’s visit, a form of treatment usually meted out by state security police to mainland Chinese dissidents during important political events. “I am now in prison,” Ng wrote, adding “#ifyouknowyouknow” and a salty Cantonese epithet referring to somebody’s mother. Ng took to social media to livestream about the anniversary instead, telling followers: “This is the first time this has happened … I’m sitting here at home with nothing to do … I can’t go out.” Organizers of the city’s once-traditional July 1 protest march said it wouldn’t be going ahead, citing conversations with the national security police, who are spearheading a citywide crackdown on peaceful political opposition and public criticism of the authorities. “Today, some volunteers and friends from the League of Social Democrats were spoken to by the national security police,” LSD chairwoman Chan Po-ying said in a statement earlier this week. “We have assessed the situation, and there will be no demonstration on July 1,” Chan wrote on June 28. “We hope you can forgive us. We are in a difficult situation.” Police guard a closed road outside the West Kowloon station in Hong Kong on June 30, 2022, after Chinese President Xi Jinping arrives in Hong Kong to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the handover of Hong Kong from Britain to China taking place on July 1. Credit: AFP Roadblocks and station closures Xi’s visit has also prompted a huge deployment of police at roadblocks near the 25th anniversary ceremony venue. People and vehicles heading to the area around the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre will be stopped and checked, while footbridges and flyovers along the route of Xi’s motorcade will be closed, police told journalists. The MTR subway station serving the venue was closed on Thursday, and will reopen after the ceremony on Friday, while a no-fly zone has been set up over the whole the city’s iconic Victoria Harbour, including for drones. Xi’s itinerary includes visits to the Hong Kong Science Park, dinner with outgoing chief executive Carrie Lam and top officials, and meeting carefully selected “people from all walks of life” in Wanchai. The Chinese leader, Hong Kong’s top officials and Xi’s entourage will remain in a bubble throughout, to minimize the risk of COVID-19 transmission. Xi, Peng and their entourage wore masks on arriving at the West Kowloon high-speed rail terminus. Exiled former pro-democracy lawmaker Ted Hui said the reality of life in Hong Kong is very far from Xi’s claims, and that Beijing’s promise to allow Hong Kongers to run the city under “one country, two systems,” had come to nothing. “Xi Jinping called ‘one country, two systems’ a good system … but the people of Hong Kong feel very differently,” Hui told RFA. “The human rights and freedoms guaranteed in the Basic Law have completely disappeared.” “Hong Kong is part of one country, and one system now,” Hui said, adding that many have yet to recover from the trauma of the crackdown on the 2019 protest movement, during which police violence sparked an international outcry. “He says Hong Kong has been reborn from the ashes, but I only see anger in Hong Kong; anger and hatred for the [CCP] regime,” he said. Just like the mainland now Hui said Xi’s visit is the first by a high-ranking Chinese leader during which protests and demonstrations have been banned. “The relationship between the people and the government has been lost,” Hui said, adding that bans on protests were a symptom of the CCP’s cowardice in the face of criticism. “This never used to happen in Hong Kong, only mainland China, but now it’s happening today in Hong Kong,” he said. “Does the lack of [public] dissent mean success, or the end of freedom? It’s a huge step backwards.” Hui said those who greeted Xi were hired for the role in the manner of movie extras, and had nothing to do with regular Hong Kongers. The Hong Kong Journalists’ Association (HKJA) said only a selected number of media outlets were invited to apply for accreditation to cover the anniversary celebrations. “Similar handover official events in the past were open to media registration without requiring invitations,” the group said in a statement on its website, saying it was “deeply concerned” by the move. “At least 10 well-known local online and overseas media outlets, news agencies as well as photo wires were not invited nor allowed to sign up for the events, making them unable to report from the handover’s official events,” the HKJA said in a June 16 statement. The government replied on June 29, saying the decision was “a balance as far as possible between the needs of media work and security requirements,” government broadcaster RTHK reported. The government declined to comment on accreditations for individuals or organizations. Meanwhile, London mayor Sadiq Khan said the crackdown on Hong Kong had been “devastating,” pledging to do everything in his power to help Hong Kongers fleeing the crackdown to start new lives in the British capital. The Greater London Authority said it had set up the Migrant Londoners Hub to provide Hong Kongers arriving…
China’s plan to turn Xinjiang into industrial hub is threat to Uyghurs, report says
China’s efforts to turn its far-western Xinjiang into a manufacturing powerhouse could force more Uyghurs to work against their will and make it harder to track whether the country’s exports are made with forced labor, according to a new report from a Washington, DC-based research group. The Center for Advanced Defense Studies (C4ADS), which studies global conflict and transnational security issues, said China is establishing industrial parks, providing more financial assistance from state-owned enterprises, and connecting manufacturers within its borders as part of a long-term objective to bolster supply chains. “The Chinese government is undertaking a concerted drive to industrialize the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), which has led an increasing number of corporations to establish manufacturing operations there,” the report says. “This centrally-controlled industrial policy is a key tool in the government’s efforts to forcibly assimilate Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples through the institution of a coerced labor regime.” The 25-page report, titled “Shifting Gears: The Rise of Industrial Transfer into the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region,” analyzes publicly available data and case studies to detail the political nature of China’s industrial transfer in the Xinjiang, the patterns through which it takes place, and the scale at which abuses in the region are embedded within Chinese and global supply chains. “Forced labor is a major component of these human rights abuses,” the report says. “It occurs not only within extrajudicial detention centers and through the placement of detainees in factories but also through the threat of detention to pressure Uyghurs into jobs across XUAR and throughout China. “Both state-owned and private corporations are significant perpetrators of human rights abuses, implementing coercive working conditions, indoctrination and mass surveillance.” The main mechanism for the central government’s industrialization drive in the XUAR is a program to pair Xinjiang counties and municipalities with wealthier provinces and municipalities on the east coast. The effort began 25 years ago and was expanded in 2010, the report says. Government bureaus in the coastal provinces design and implement programs in their respective partner localities in the XUAR and help train Uyghur workers to build loyalty and obedience to the Chinese Communist Party, the report says. “The central government wants economically dynamic east coast cities to reproduce their successful export-led growth model in the region by attracting manufacturers through low labor costs and subsidized land, electricity and freight fees,” the report says. For example, the Yining Textile Industry Zone, containing two industrial parks — the Yining County Home Textiles and Garment Industrial Park and the Yining County Weaving Industrial Park, in Ghulja (in Chinese, Yining) prefecture — was constructed under the pairing program of Nantong, Jiangsu province, a major textile production hub in eastern China. The Yining zone is linked with the Jiangsu Nantong International Home Textile Industrial Park, the largest home textile distribution center in the world. As of March, about 20 Nantong-based textile companies had set up operations in the Yining Textile Industry Zone, the report says. At least 1,000 people work in the Yining industrial park, including those sent via organized labor transfers from the surrounding county, according to the report. Several ethnic Kazakhs have testified that they were forced to work in a factory in the park after being released from a detention camp. A guard tower and barbed wire fences are seen around a facility at the Kunshan Industrial Park in Artush in northwestern China’s Xinjiang region, Dec. 3, 2018. Credit: Associated Press ‘Modern industrial workers’ The industrial transfer policies have increasingly focused on four prefectures in the southern half of the XUAR with concentrated Uyghur populations and relative economic isolation that the Chinese government sees as problematic to its assimilation goals, says the report. “The government sees the mass detention campaign and the establishment of a police state as prerequisites that allow Chinese manufacturing companies to feel secure enough to move into XUAR,” it says. “In turn, these manufacturers move Uyghurs from their farms and villages to factories and industrial parks where they can be monitored, indoctrinated and transformed into ‘modern’ industrial workers.” Since 2017, Chinese authorities have ramped up their repression of Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities throughout the XUAR, detaining up to 1.8 million members of these groups in internment camps. The maltreatment also includes severe human rights abuses, torture and forced labor as well as the eradication of linguistic, cultural and religious traditions. Credible reports by rights groups and the media documenting the widespread abuse and repression in the XUAR have led the United States and some parliaments in Western countries to declare that the Chinese government’s action amount to a genocide and crimes against humanity. The Center for Advanced Defense Studies analyzed Chinese corporate data of tens of thousands of companies based in the XUAR, publicly available trade data, and government and media reporting to show how manufacturers there are linked to local governments and companies in eastern China. The group said that subsidiaries and partner companies in China make it hard to track whether goods originated from Xinjiang and were produced by forced labor. The U.S. enacted the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act in December 2021 to strengthen an existing ban on the importation of goods made wholly or in part with forced labor into the country and to end the use of forced labor in the XUAR. The act, which took effect on June 21, creates what is referred to as a “rebuttable presumption” that assumes goods made in Xinjiang are produced with forced labor and thus banned under the U.S. 1930 Tariff Act. The law requires U.S. companies that import goods from the region to prove that they have not been manufactured at any stage with Uyghur forced labor. But the report said the structure of Chinese industrial policy, where goods are shipped and reshipped within its borders, will make enforcing forced labor laws difficult. “[A]s long as the flow of goods produced in the region to exporters elsewhere in China is left unaddressed, tainted goods will continue to enter global supply chains,” the…
Nine killed in junta raids on Myanmar villages near China-backed copper mine
At least nine civilians are dead, and dozens are missing after a month of military raids on villages near a China-backed copper mine in Myanmar’s Sagaing region that prodemocracy paramilitaries had threatened to destroy because it could provide income for the junta, residents said Wednesday. Sources in Sagaing’s embattled Salingyi township told RFA Burmese that at least seven residents of Done Taw, Moe Gyoe Pyin (North), Ton, and Hpaung Ka Tar villages were killed, and three others reported missing following junta troops raids from June 15-25. Two men from Salingyi’s Ywar Thar village were taken hostage by the military on May 25 and later killed, they said. Speaking on condition of anonymity, citing fear of reprisal, a resident of Moe Gyoe Pyin (North) told RFA that Tin Soe, 46, and Wa Gyi, 47, were killed when the military shelled his village early on the morning of June 21, before setting fire to homes there later that day. “They came in so fast; some people were not able to escape, and some were trapped,” the resident said. “As they were killing people and burning houses, no one dared to stay. We just had to flee.” The resident said that “around 20 people were taken hostage” during the raid and that the bodies of the two victims were discovered after the troops left the following day. Other sources from the area told RFA that the body of 30-year-old Sai Myat Soe from Sar Htone village was found mutilated on June 26 near Hpaung Ka Tar village. Junta troops attacked the Salingyi villages of Nat Kyun and Htan Taw Gyi as recently as Tuesday, residents said, forcing inhabitants to evacuate and seek shelter. A woman who had to flee her home during Tuesday’s raid said she was separated from her family members during the ordeal and doesn’t know what became of them. “I went back to the village today hoping things had calmed down, but just as we arrived at the village, soldiers came in from the other side through the forest, while others approached from the river. We had to leave right away,” she said. “My whole family is on the run and I’m worried whether I’ll ever see them again or if I’ll be able to go back to my house. I can’t stop worrying because [the soldiers] were burning the villages.” Sources claimed that the raids were conducted by military units based in a compound run by China’s Wanbao Mining Ltd., which operates the Letpadaung Copper Mine – a joint venture between the Chinese government and the junta that has been suspended for the 16 months since the military seized power in a Feb. 1, 2021 coup. Other villages targeted in the raids included Lin Sa Kyet and Wadan, they said. The raids follow an April 21 warning issued by 16 local People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitary groups that the Letpadaung copper project would be attacked because it could provide income for the junta. Attempts by RFA to contact junta Deputy Minister of Information Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun went unanswered Wednesday. He has previously rejected reports of military raids, as well as allegations of civilian deaths and acts of arson by junta troops. Caught in the crossfire Members of the local anti-junta People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitary group have said they are reluctant to intercept the raids for fear of causing civilian casualties while the military holds hostages. However, the group has attacked military units stationed within the copper project compound and recently destroyed a power line connected to the site. Wanbao has strongly condemned attacks in the region, saying in a statement that its presence has nothing to do with the ongoing civil unrest in Myanmar and demanding that armed groups in the area refrain from targeting its employees. A member of the anti-junta Salingyi Revolution Army (SRA) said that Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG), to which local PDF forces have sworn loyalty, has never ordered attacks on Wanbao or its employees. “We haven’t attacked Wanbao, only the military units housed in the compound,” said the SRA fighter, who also declined to be named. “Of course, some of [Wanbao’s] equipment might get destroyed in the chaos, but our NUG government has not instructed us to attack Wanbao and we would never do it on our own. The local defense groups are following the guidelines and instructions of the NUG.” In an interview on May 29, Zaw Min Tun told RFA that all governments have a responsibility to protect foreign investment on both legal grounds and for reasons of security. He said at the time that the military’s use of force to clear the territory was aimed at protecting the Chinese project. Thet Oo, a member of the prodemocracy Salingyi Multi-Village Strike Steering Committee, told RFA that the junta has deployed “two military columns for clearance operations in the Letpadaung area,” indicated that it “is clearly concerned with defending the Chinese project.” But he said that his and other PDF units in the area do not want the mine to resume operations because profits from the project will be used by the junta to fund its repression of Myanmar’s people. According to local sources, military raids have forced around 20,000 residents of 25 villages near the project site to flee their homes and take shelter in the jungle. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
Taiwan activist Lee Ming-Cheh says world pressure on his Chinese jailers helped him
Taiwanese NGO worker Lee Ming-Cheh was released from Chishan Prison in the central Chinese province of Hunan on April 15 after serving nearly five years for “attempting to subvert state power.” Lee, a course director at Taiwan’s Wenshan Community College, was a lifelong activist for Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, which Beijing vilifies as a separatist group that rejects China’s claim over the democratic island. Among the accusations he faced at Hunan’s Yueyang Intermediate People’s Court was that he set up social media chat groups to “vilify China.” Lee has been invited to Washington, D.C. to testify before the U.S. Congress and other institutions about human rights conditions in Chinese prisons, the role of international pressure in helping him get slightly better treatment while in jail, and Beijing’s expansion of repressive tactics to Taiwan and around the world. He was unable to enter the U.S., however, because the Chinese-made COVID vaccines that he received while he was in prison are not recognized and approved by the World Health Organization and therefore do not meet Centers for Disease Control regulation for entry. He spoke to Hsia Hsiao-hwa and Paul Tuan of RFA Mandarin about his prison experience, which he describes as “field research” into China’s human rights situation. Lee stressed to RFA that constant activism on his behalf by his wife, American and Taiwanese supporters and U.S. and European Union government entities helped him during his incarceration. On his trial: “Since Xi Jinping took office, mine was the only ‘subversion of state power’ case that was tried in public. There is an upside of an open trial. The prosecutor must lay out the evidence clearly. They cannot smear me as a spy, nor can they claim that I went to China for prostitution. None of the incriminating evidence that China has presented in court was about what I actually did in China. The public trial turned out to be a display of evidence that China has violated freedom of speech globally. China provided self-incriminating evidence. “In political cases, there would be a rehearsal before the trial. The attorneys and the prosecutors rehearsed the entire process of a trial. Even the defense lawyer (who was the then-Hunan delegate to the NPC) that the Chinese government has hired for Peng Yuhua, the co-defendant of the case, questioned how the national security agency can list social media app chat groups as formal organizations and fabricated stories about these groups having solid structures and specific job assignments.“ On isolation under observation: “The prison guards would not let you have any contact with the outside world. There was no formal arrest. There was no lawyer representation. You were not allowed access to any books, magazines, televisions. You were just under full arrest. Twenty-four hours a day, you were being watched by a two-person team, even when you went to the bathroom or took a shower. It caused tremendous psychological stress. Many political prisoners in China suffer from mental health issues because they were severely restricted in terms of their residence locations and conditions of their living quarters. I am very fortunate. Under pressure from the international society, (the situation) only lasted for two months. The damage inflicted on one’s mind and body fits what the United Nations considers as psychological torture.” On prison food and water that left him with polyps in his gall bladder when he was released: “The doctor said what I ate and drank over the past few years had been too dirty. In Chishan Prison, we drank water from the Dongting Lake. There was a lot of sediment in the boiled water. Even the prison guards would not drink it. Many prisoners who served longer terms have suffered from diseases such as urethral stones and kidney stones because of the poor living conditions.” On a letter-writing campaign for Lee led by NGOs in Taiwan: “In China’s domestic propaganda, these people (activists) were cooperating with the US imperialism power and mobilizing color-scheme revolutions to destroy peace in China. If the police officers did not know me, they might have really believed that I was a vicious villain who would become violent when interacting with someone. Yet if you write letters to prisons, the police would know that many people care about this prisoner and that they should not treat him with excessive force. A saying in China goes like this, ‘there is no unconditional love’; ‘there is no unconditional hatred.’ The fact that so many strangers are writing to this person who they do not know would make the prison guard and the warden think again: This person may not be as vicious as they’d thought he would be.” Taiwanese activist Lee Ming-cheh (center) appearing in Yueyang Intermediate People’s Court, in central China’s Hunan Province, Nov. 28, 2017. Credit: Yueyang Intermediate People’s Court On regular visits from his wife, Lee Ching-yu, until the COVID-19 pandemic halted them: “Many families of Chinese political prisoners were deprived of the visitation rights to meet with their loved ones. My wife’s visits helped me physically and mentally. I am able to disclose the obsolete practices in the Chinese prisons. The visitations also allowed me to be more than just an inmate but someone who advocates for human rights and conducts field research on human rights.” On China’s creeping extension of repressive policies and censorship to self-ruled Taiwan and beyond: “China is acting to extend its jurisdiction beyond its borders to Taiwan, over which China has never ruled. China also used comments collected on the Internet as its evidence to find me guilty of ‘subversion of state power’. China clamps down on freedom of speech and on the use of Internet. It extends its jurisdiction to anyone in the world who uses Chinese social media apps.” On China’s crackdown against human rights lawyers, NGO activists and other rights defenders: “Ever since Xi Jinping took office, many were found guilty of ‘subverting state power’ and sent to prison. Specifically, if you look at these NGO activists, none of…
