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Category: East Asia
Jailed Uyghurs’ relatives forced to attend study sessions in Ghulja during UN visit
Chinese authorities forced the relatives of detained Uyghurs in the town of Ghulja in Xinjiang to attend political study sessions while monitoring their contact with others during a recent visit to the region by the U.N. human rights chief, a local officer police said. Michelle Bachelet, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, visited China on May 23-28 with stops in the coastal city of Guangzhou and in Urumqi (Wulumuqi) and Kashgar (Kashi) in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). It was the first visit to the country by a U.N. rights chief since 2005. Before her trip, China’s state security police warned Uyghurs living in Xinjiang that they could suffer consequences if their relatives abroad spoke out about internment camps in the region, a reflection of the government’s sensitivity to bad press about its forced assimilation campaign that has incarcerated as many as 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in the name of “vocational training.” Bachelet’s itinerary didn’t include a stop in Ghulja (in Chinese, Yining), the third-largest city in the XUAR and the site of a protest by Uyghurs against religious repression 25 years ago that left as many as 200 hundred people dead. But, given the city’s history, Chinese authorities there are sensitive to signs of popular unrest, and they redoubled the surveillance and indoctrination programs imposed on the 12 million Uyghurs across Xinjiang, a territory the size of Alaska or Iran. A village police officer said the “political study session” for the family members of detainees began in mid-April, and that authorities kept a tight rein on their work and social lives. As a result, those residents have been incommunicado with others in their community. “The ones whose fathers or mothers or other relatives were detained, came to the sessions and spoke at the political and legal meetings organized by the village,” he told RFA. During the sessions, the Chinese government enforced a rule for Uyghurs to immediately attend sessions whenever a bell sounded and to leave them when the bell sounded a second time, the police officer said. The attendees gathered in the morning on street corners or at residents’ committees to wait for the signal. “They come with a sound of a bell and leave with another sound of a bell,” he said. “We hold these meetings from 8 a.m. in the morning.” Organized by the village’s 10 family leaders or police, the attendees had to express their gratitude to the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese government and had to promise that they would help protect national security by not sharing any sensitive information with outsiders. The family members of detained Uyghurs were warned against accepting international calls to ensure that no “state secrets” — meaning in this case the detention of Uyghurs or other measures to repress them — were released. “We told them not to make phone calls or take phone calls from abroad,” the police officer said. “We told them not to directly tell [people] if they asked on the phone about their detained relatives. We warned them to first ask where they are calling from and why they need to ask for the information. We told them not take those phone calls from abroad in order to keep state secrets.” The residents were instructed as to how not to expose information on their detained relatives to the outside world and were told how to give “standard answers” to questions raised by anyone visiting from outside China, he said. Furthermore, if the residents were visited by relatives or friend from other cities, they would be summoned to the police station and asked about what they had discussed with their guests, he said. “If anyone came to [see] their family for a visit from other cities such as Kashgar, we would take them to the police station and investigate who the visitors were, why are they were here and what they talked about,” the policeman said. The mandatory political study sessions ended when Bachelet and her team left the region, he said. Translated by RFA Uyghur. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
China rounds up dissidents, activists ahead of Tiananmen massacre anniversary
Authorities in China have ordered dozens of pro-democracy activists and dissidents into house arrest or other forms of restriction ahead of the 33rd anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre on June 4. Dissident political commentator Zha Jianguo and veteran journalist Gao Yu are under house arrest at their Beijing homes, while rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang and his wife have been taken on a forced “vacation” out of town. Security is tighter than usual for this year’s anniversary of the bloody crackdown that ended weeks of student-led peaceful protests on Tiananmen Square, as the authorities tighten their grip ahead of the 20th congress of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) later this year. “The police have set guard detail and a car [outside my home] to watch me,” Gao told RFA on Friday. “If I want to go anywhere, they have to take me in their car.” “Also, my landline and mobile phone are no longer acceptable international calls, including calls from Hong Kong,” she said. Dissident commentator Zha Jianguo, who was among the founding members of the long-banned China Democracy Party (CDP), said he is in a similar situation. “They’re stationed [outside],” Zha told RFA. “They do this every year from June 1 to June 5.” “I went out on the morning of June 1 and saw them setting out stools and sitting themselves down outside our home,” he said. “The district police department said they would be sending some people round today as well.” “As far as I know, about seven, eight, maybe 10 people are under house arrest like this in Beijing,” he said. Zha said police have also warned him not to speak about the anniversary in media interviews. “They called me yesterday and said I wasn’t to discuss June 4 with anyone, not in posts, nor in media interviews,” he said. “I told them, it’s been 33 years since June 4, and you’re still doing this?” Sources said fellow Beijing-based dissidents Hu Shigen, He Depu, massacre survivor Qi Zhiyong and others were also under some form of restriction. Construction workers stand next to Chinese characters reading “cold blood” on the ground as they use metal sheeting to cover up one of the last public tributes in Hong Kong to the deadly 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre which has adorned a campus footbridge at the University of Hong Kong (HKU) for over three decades, Jan. 29, 2022. Credit: AFP. Noticeably tighter security You Weijie, spokesperson for the Tiananmen Mothers victims group that campaigns for compensation, redress and transparency of information around the massacre, said she couldn’t talk when contacted by RFA on Friday. “It’s not convenient for me to talk to you right now,” You said, her response suggesting that the authorities were monitoring her communications. Asked if she had been banned from giving media interviews, You replied: “Yes, yes.” She said she and the other Tiananmen Mothers members were being escorted to Wan’an Cemetery on Saturday to make offerings for those who died in the crackdown. “I’ll go tomorrow; the car has been arranged. It’ll be the same families going,” she said. Zhou Xiang, a dissident scholar in the central province of Hunan, said security was particularly tight this year. “Several people in Zhuzhou city have been contacted [by police]. He Jiawei was the first, and they have taken away his mobile phone,” Zhou said. “I also got a call. They told me not to speak out, not to upload photos or text [relating to June 4, 1989], etc.” “As far as I know, maybe seven or eight people received these warnings in Zhuzhou city.” Dissidents in the southwestern megacity of Chongqing reported similar treatment. Democracy advocate Xu Wanping, who served 23 years in jail for trying to set up an opposition party, said he is being taken out of town by police. “They made a point of contacting me and emphasizing that I wasn’t to speak out on anything today or tomorrow,” he said. “They’re taking me out of town for a couple of days; I’ve just gotten ready to leave.” Hong Kong park closure Asked if police were present as he spoke, Xu laughed and replied: “I wish you a healthy Dragon Boat Festival.” He said many others in Chongqing were also being escorted away from their homes. According to Zhou, the moves are part of a nationwide coordinated effort by police to prevent any form of public commemoration of the June 4, 1989 bloodshed, whether through in-person meetings or online. He said the level of security was “unprecedented” for a June 4 anniversary, and was likely linked to political jitters ahead of the 20th Party Congress later this year. Meanwhile, authorities in Hong Kong, where a once-annual candlelight vigil for massacre victims is being banned for the third year running, announced the partial closure of Victoria Park, the venue where it once took place. “In view of the police’s observation that some people are using different channels to incite the participation of unauthorized assemblies in the Victoria Park and its vicinity which may involve the use of the venue for illegal activities, the Leisure and Cultural Services Department (LCSD) [is closing] part of the Victoria Park … until 12.30 a.m. on June 5, in order to prevent any unauthorized assemblies in the Park,” an LCSD spokesperson said in a statement on Thursday. The closed area will include the soccer pitches where the vigils once took place, it said. Police senior superintendent Liauw Ka-kei warned the public not to “test” the force’s willingness to enforce the law on June 4. He warned that solo candlelight vigils will be treated in the same way as gatherings, and that anyone wearing black clothing or carrying candles would be regarded as suspect. He cited recent court precedents as establishing that people could be guilty of “illegal assembly” even if they weren’t present at the scene, if it could be shown that they had in some way promoted such assemblies. “If the purpose of the person’s appearance at the scene makes it seem that he is inciting others to participate in an illegal assembly, the police will definitely search for evidence, and the specific law enforcement action will…
Wuhan activist Zhang Hai’s bank card, online payments frozen in murky move
Wuhan-based activist Zhang Hai, who has campaigned for redress after his father died in the early days of the pandemic, has had restrictions placed on his bank account, RFA. Zhang, who has been an outspoken critic of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) since the pandemic prompted a city-wide lockdown in Wuhan and killed his father, said he believes the move is a form of official retaliation. Zhang was recently asked to submit additional proof of ID in recent transactions via his account at the Bank of China Nantou branch in the southern city of Shenzhen, where he currently lives. Similar restrictions have been placed on several of his bank cards since the beginning of this year, he told RFA, while online banking transactions often fail to go through, he said. “The card I have is an ordinary bank card, which is linked to my mobile phone,” Zhang said. “All of the cards under my name are restricted, meaning that I can’t do online transactions using payment services like WeChat Pay and Alipay, only cash.” “The way things are in China right now, so many places rely on those services to accept payment, and some places don’t want cash at all, even if I offer it,” he said. Staff at the Nantou Bank of China branch initially said the restrictions were requested by the Wuhan city police department, Zhang said. “The first time I went, they said that the Wuhan police had me under investigation, and had placed the restrictions,” Zhang said. “I went there yesterday, and they told me the bank card had been flagged by their own risk control mechanism, which made me feel as if they were just trying to inconvenience me,” he said. “They wanted me to submit further proofs, but then they said all of my cards were under investigation by Wuhan police,” he said. Zhang filed a lawsuit suing the Wuhan municipal government and a hospital over the wrongful death of his father in 2020, who died of COVID-19 after visiting a doctor in the early days of the pandemic, when the authorities hadn’t warned anyone about the virus. He has also given many interviews to foreign media outlets in recent years. “I have been called in to ‘drink tea’ by the local state security police,” he said. “The Wuhan city government is furious with me, and have used all of their power to deal with me.” “The entire service sector in China, including banks, has to take orders from the government,” he said. Similar restrictions Rights attorney Ren Quanniu, whose lawyer’s license was revoked by the authorities last year, said his bank card had been placed under similar restrictions last year. “My Bank of Communications card was restricted some time ago. I went to the bank to report it, and they said it was under investigation,” Ren said. “I asked by which department, and they said that was confidential.” “But it wasn’t the police or a court, so it’s my guess that it was the state security police,” he said. He said the bank should honor the terms of its contract with customers in the absence of any judicial proceedings. “The bank has no right to inquire about customers’ transactions or how they use the funds,” Ren said. “So the problem with his account is clearly some action behind the scenes.” “If there is a problem, the department should issue a document saying the account-holder is suspected of law-breaking and then the account will be frozen or restricted openly,” Ren said. “But there has been no document issued [regarding Zhang], nor any result from any investigation,” he said. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
Invasion of Ukraine may spark a world war, experts warn
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has brought to the fore U.S.-China frictions with no end in sight, analysts warned, while a former Asian leader cautioned about the risk of a new world war. “I am afraid that wars have a habit of beginning small and then grow into world wars,” former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said at the Future of Asia conference hosted by Nikkei Inc. last week. Mahathir served as Malaysia’s prime minister from 1981 to 2003 and again from 2018 to 2020. He was 20 when World War II ended. Meanwhile, Chinese and U.S. analysts present at the conference traded accusations against each other’s countries and their roles in trying to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. Bonnie Glaser, Director of the German Marshall Fund of the United States, said that China and Russia share a common interest in weakening U.S. global influence and they “seek to change the international order.” She reminded the audience at the conference that before the Russian invasion of Ukraine it was reported that the U.S. shared intelligence with China about Russia’s military plan and urged Beijing to intervene to prevent the war, only for China to share that intelligence with Moscow. This “underscores how much mistrust is there between the U.S. and China,” Glaser said. In response Jia Qingguo, professor at the Peking University’s School of International Studies, said the difference between China and the U.S. is that the U.S. is seeking an ideological world order while China is seeking a secular one “based on national sovereignty and territorial integrity.” It is the U.S. that has been trying to contain China, Jia said. China does not endorse Russia’s military attack against Ukraine but is sympathetic to Moscow being pushed by NATO’s possible expansion, the Beijing-based professor said, adding: “Never push a country, especially a big country, to a corner, however benign the intentions are.” “Countries should respect each other,” Jia said. Regarding that statement, the German Marshall Fund’s Glaser argued that China has been showing double standards when it comes to the definition of “respect.” “When countries have put their own interests ahead of Chinese interests, that has been interpreted by Beijing as disrespect,” she said. China-U.S. rivalry As the war drags on, “rather than be a strategic partner for China, Russia will become a burden,” predicted Glaser. “One possibility is that the U.S. will be freed up to some extent to focus even more intently on the competition with China and on cooperation with allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific region,” the American analyst said, pointing out that officials in the Biden administration believe “that is the most likely outcome.” Veteran diplomat Bilahari Kausikan, who is a former permanent secretary to Singapore’s Foreign Ministry, said the key issue at present is U.S.-China relations. “China has been put in a very awkward situation. It has no other partner of the same strategic weight as Russia anywhere in the world,” he said. Speaking from the perspective of Southeast Asian countries, Kausikan said geopolitics are “moving in the direction of the West” but “if you insist in defining this conflict as a fight between totalitarianism and democracy you’ll likely make that support more shaky and shallow.” “Not every country in this region finds every aspect of Western democracy universally attractive. Nor do they find every aspect of Chinese authoritarianism universally unappealing,” he argued. Former Malaysian PM Mahathir seemed to echo the Chinese government’s stance when describing the attitude of the U.S. as “always to apply pressure to force regime change.” “When people do not agree, the U.S. would show that it may take military action,” he said. “That is why there is a tendency for tension to increase whenever it involves the U.S.” But “it’s not easy to contain China,” Kausikan said. “China and the U.S. are both parts of the global economic system. They’re linked together by supply chains … Like it or not, they’re stuck together,” the Singapore analyst said. “Competition will be very complicated,” he added. Arleigh-burke class guided missile-destroyer USS Barry transits the Taiwan Strait during a routine transit on Sept. 17, 2021 in this US Navy photograph Taiwan question Experts at the Tokyo conference also discussed the possibility of a conflict involving Taiwan, which China considers a breakaway province that should be reunified with the mainland. Jia Qingguo stated that there should be no comparison between Ukraine and Taiwan. “No country has the right to support some residents of another country to split the place in which they live away from that country,” he said. “China has every right to make sure that Taiwan will not be split from China.” Glaser said China’s military is, without doubt, following the war in Ukraine closely. “There are some differences between Taiwan and Ukraine and it’s not a perfect analogy but there are lessons to be drawn.” “Russia has far greater military capabilities than Ukraine but the Ukrainian resistance has been fierce and I wonder if the PLA has actually anticipated a possibility of facing a fierce resistance in Taiwan,” Glaser said. She said she hoped Taiwan would also draw some lessons from the conflict in Ukraine and develop its own defense capabilities in the face of security threats from China.
Chinese medical team returns home after training North Korea on COVID response
A Chinese delegation of medical experts who last month traveled to North Korea to advise on COVID-19 containment strategies has returned to China, sources in both countries told RFA. RFA reported last month that the 13 doctors and medical technicians were in Pyongyang to help train North Korean medical personnel. “The Chinese medical experts left Pyongyang by train on the morning of May 29 and arrived in Dandong in the afternoon,” a North Korea related source, in the city on the Chinese side of the border, told RFA Wednesday on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “They passed on the experience and technology that China has gained about quarantine and response to the coronavirus to North Korea,” the source said. The Chinese health experts conducted training on the use of vaccines and testing at a bio-research center in Pyongyang, and discussed their clinical experience with staff at four Pyongyang hospitals, according to the source. “The North Korean quarantine authorities expressed their gratitude for their help in containing the spread of coronavirus in Pyongyang. Cooperation between the two countries regarding the COVID-19 quarantine will continue in the future,” the source said. State-run media this week reported that the COVID situation had “improved” in North Korea, after the country declared a maximum emergency last month due to a wave of outbreaks. The World Health Organization disagreed with that assessment, saying on Wednesday that the coronavirus situation in North Korea is getting worse, not better. Authorities still say an ongoing quarantine should continue, a source in the northwestern province of North Pyongan told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “Currently, they are doing a project to raise the skill level of hospital doctors in provincial areas,” the second source said. “In Pyongyang, technical training has already been conducted for medical staff at central hospitals. … Now in the provincial areas, preparation for receiving clinical education on coronavirus testing, medicines and treatment methods are in full swing through an online education system operated by Pyongyang Medical University,” the second source said. “Doctors in all areas are working really hard. Doctors have always been respected by the residents, but the popularity of doctors is increasing due to the recent Omicron outbreak,” the source said. North Korean authorities said on Thursday that the number of new suspected coronavirus cases remained below 100,000 for three consecutive days. North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency reported that from 6 p.m. on May 31 to 6 p.m. on June 1, there were about 96,610 new fever cases and about 108,990 patients had recovered, while no deaths were recorded. About 3.8 million people have been hit by outbreaks of fever, 70 of whom have died, according to data based on the most recent reports from North Korean state media published by 38 North. Around 3.7 million are reported to have made recoveries, while around 165,390 are undergoing treatment. Translated by Leejin J. Chung. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
Cambodian woman says police assault during strike led to miscarriage
A Cambodian woman said a physical assault she suffered at the hands of police officers during a labor protest outside the NagaWorld Casino may have led to the death of her unborn child. Sok Ratana told RFA’s Khmer Service that she had been pregnant when she joined the ongoing strike outside the casino’s offices on May 11. The police pushed and shoved her during the protest, she said. Fearing they may have hurt her baby in utero, she went to her doctor, who told her that the baby only had a 50% chance to live. Sok Ratana said that she miscarried on May 28. The doctor told her that the baby had likely died two days before he removed it from her womb, she said. “Losing my beloved baby has caused me an unbelievable pain that I will feel the rest of my life,” said Sok Ratana. “This experience has shown me the brutality of the authorities and it has deeply hurt my family.” Sok Ratana is one of thousands of NagaWorld workers who walked off their jobs in mid-December, demanding higher wages and the reinstatement of eight jailed union leaders, three other jailed workers and 365 others they say were unjustly fired from the hotel and casino. The business is owned by a Hong Kong-based company believed to have connections to family members of Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen. The strikers began holding regular protest rallies in front of the casino. Cambodian authorities have said their gatherings were “illegal” and alleged that they are part of a plot to topple the government, backed by foreign donors. Authorities began mass detentions of the protesters, claiming that they were violating coronavirus restrictions. They often resorted to violence to force hundreds of workers onto buses. “The labor dispute has turned to a dispute with authorities because they constantly crack down on us without any clemency,” Sok Ratana said. “I never thought that Cambodia has a law saying that when workers demand rights … authorities can crack down on us.” She said that authorities worked with the company to pressure workers to stop the strike. She urged the government to better train its security forces to not become violent. Kata Orn, spokesperson of the government-aligned Cambodia Human Rights Committee, expressed sympathy with Sok Ratana’s circumstance but said that it was too early to say whether the authorities were at fault. He urged Sok Ratana to file a complaint with the court. “We can’t prejudge the loss due to the authorities. Only medical experts can tell,” he said. “We can [only] implement the law. It is applied equally to the workers and the authorities.” Sok Ratana said she is working on collecting evidence to file a complaint, but she wasn’t confident a court will adjudicate the case fairly. “I don’t have much hope because my union leader was jailed unjustly for nine weeks. Her changes have not been dropped yet,” she said. “To me, I don’t hope to get justice. From who? I want to ask, who can give me justice?” Police violence is a serious human rights violation, Am Sam Ath of the Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights told RFA. He urged relevant institutions to investigate the miscarriage and bring those responsible to justice. “Labor disputes can’t be settled by violence and crackdowns. This will lead to even more disputes and the workers and authorities will try to get revenge,” he said. The Labor Ministry has attempted to mediate the dispute between the casino and the union leaders, who have been released on bail, but no progress has been made after more than 10 meetings. Am Sam Ath said the difficulty in resolving the labor dispute might push the government to crack down harder on the holdouts and make more arrests. RFA attempted to contact Phnom Penh Municipal Police spokesman San Sok Seiha and the Ministry of Women’s Affairs spokeswoman Man Chenda, but neither were available for comment. Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
US report on international religious freedom cites genocides in China and Myanmar
China and Myanmar feature prominently in the U.S.’s latest report on global restrictions on religious rights and practices, which singles out the two countries for their repression of mostly Muslim Uyghurs and Rohingya. “We have seen to genocides of religious minority communities in recent years in China and Burma,” said U.S. Ambassador-at-Large Rashad Hussain of the Office of International Religious Freedom during a press conference Thursday to release the report. The State Department is required to submit its assessment of religious freedom across the globe to Congress each year. Witnesses and experts provided grim testimony in the report about torture, rape and other human rights violations in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). “It comes as no surprise that the People’s Republic of China is a glaring example” of a government that represses citizens who practice certain religions, said Hussain, who serves as an advisor to the President Joe Biden on religious freedom conditions and policy. “The PRC government continues to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs who are predominantly Muslim and members of other ethnic and religious minority groups,” he said. Hussain noted China’s continued use of technologies, including artificial intelligence and facial recognition, “to surveil and maintain control of its open-air prison in Xinjiang.” Human rights groups and Uyghur advocacy organizations have amassed credible evidence of the severe abuse Uyghurs in Xinjiang have suffered, from mass incarcerations and the destruction of mosques to torture, rape and forced sterilizations. Beijing has angrily denied the accusations, calling them the “lie of the century.” “China continues its genocide of predominantly Muslim Uyghurs and other religious minority groups,” said U.S. Secretary of State Blinken at the press conference. “Since April 2017, more than 1 million Uyghurs, ethnic Kazakhs, Kirghiz and others have been detained internment camps in Xinjiang.” RFA has reported that up to 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities have been detained in China’s vast network of hundreds of internment camps throughout Xinjiang. Chinese officials have said that the camps are vocational training centers designed to offer an alternative path away from terrorism and religious extremism. Dolkun Isa, president of the World Uyghur Congress in Germany, said the comments by Hussain and Blinken show that the U.S. stands with Uyghur Muslims and will hold China to account for the Uyghur genocide. “Their powerful words should encourage the international community to act to end the Uyghur genocide,” he said. “China wants to eradicate Islam because it believes Islam is a cancer. China is committing genocide against Uyghur people precisely because we are Muslims.” Rushan Abbas, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Campaign for Uyghurs, said she was pleased that Blinken called out China’s gross violations of human rights, genocide and crimes against humanity. “Blinken’s words reveal to the world that China is like the emperor’s new clothes, hiding behind lies,” she said. There was no immediate comment from the Chinese government about the U.S. report. The report also noted Myanmar’s repressive treatment of members of the Rohingya ethnic and religious minority group. Violent clearance operations of Rohingya communities in western Myanmar by the country’s military in 2017, including arbitrary killings, torture and mass rape, drove more than 740,000 people to neighboring Bangladesh, where they now living in sprawling refugee camps. “In March, based on extensive legal review of the evidence, I made the determination that Burma’s military committed genocide and crimes against humanity with the intent to destroy predominantly Muslim Rohingya in 2017,” Blinken said, citing evidence of attacks on mosques, use of religious and ethnic slurs, and the desecration of Korans. The military junta that seized power from the democratically elected government in February 2021 had confined 144,000 Rohingya in internal displacement camps in Rakhine state by the end of 2021, the report says, citing information from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. The junta also continues to restrict where Rohingya are allowed to travel in Myanmar and has made no efforts to initiate the return of Rohingya refugees from Bangladesh, the report says.
Democracy in China won’t come without a ‘huge crisis’ for ruling party: analysts
Democracy is unlikely to come to China unless a number of circumstances fall into place at just the right time under the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP), exiled dissidents told RFA ahead of the 33rd anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre. Wang Dan, a former leader of the 1989 student-led democracy movement in China and the founder of the Dialogue China think-tank, warned that people shouldn’t harbor illusions about deliberate political reform under the CCP. He said there was likely a less than 0.1 percent chance that the ruling party would willingly reform itself in a democratic transition seen under the Kuomintang government in Taiwan. Instead, internal divisions over how to deal with a crisis are more likely to weaken the CCP’s hold on power, Wang Dan told RFA. “Perhaps if there is a huge crisis and challenge [facing China], generating a certain level of internal disagreement, and the government misjudges and makes the wrong response are wrong, then maybe history will turn,” he said. “Without the combination of these factors, I advise everyone to drop any remaining illusions they hold about the CCP,” he said. Exiled dissident and political commentator Wang Juntao said CCP leader Xi Jinping’s insistence on a zero-COVID policy in response to the pandemic could prove to be just such a crisis, however. “Now that the enforcement methods used to implement zero-COVID disease control and prevention measures have brought disaster to the people, more and more people agree that Xi Jinping is going against the opinions of experts from all over the world, and yet there is no way to make him correct his course,” Wang Juntao said. He said that Mao Zedong’s initiation of the political turmoil of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) had prompted calls for democracy from within CCP ranks after the late supreme leader’s death. Those people understood the need to prevent the emergence of another strongman like Mao, and tried to make power less concentrated, so that the entire party and country were subject to the rule of a single person ever again. But it seems that a similar pattern has emerged under Xi Jinping, he said. Students gather at Tiananmen Square in Beijing, April 22, 1989.AFP The new generation Wang said the crackdown on the 1989 Tiananmen protests was to be expected under such a repressive system, and that crackdowns on dissent had been ongoing since then. But he said he wasn’t pessimistic, because different generations make different meanings out of history. “You have to believe that democratization is the overall trend,” he said. “You have to believe that constitutional human rights are based on the basic aspirations of human nature, and you have to believe that the political demands of 1989 are the inevitable destination of human beings and the Chinese nation.” “This generation may not have been through the Tiananmen massacre, but they will have experienced their own events, and will soon start connecting their destiny with the events of the past,” he said. “When that happens, the Tiananmen protests and massacre will take on a fresh meaning, like a stele [stone carved with a commemorative inscription],” he said. “As long as China remains undemocratized, there will come a time when the next generation shares the same fate we do, unless those in power stop suppressing their struggle for democracy,” Wang Juntao said. Wang Dan said most young people in China had heard of the Tiananmen massacre, but were unlikely to understand what took place in detail. “Most people know about June 4th, but they don’t know the cause, the outcome, or the ins and outs,” Wang Dan said. “But they do know that June 4, 1989 is a sensitive date.” “There are actually very few young people who don’t know this huge things happened in China,” he said, adding that current events could trigger their curiosity. He said that Chinese people often do their own research once they go overseas to study, and are free of government censorship or surveillance. “As long as the wheel of democracy is rolling forward, I’m not worried at all,” he said. “From a historical perspective, it’s fairly irrelevant whether young people know about June 4, 1989 right now or not.” View of a residential building during a COVID-19 lockdown in the Jing’an district in Shanghai, April 8, 2022. Credit: AFP Protests over lockdown In recent days, protests involving hundreds of students have sprung up at university campuses in Beijing and Tianjin, over draconian COVID-19 restrictions imposed on higher education. The scenes at Tianjin University, Beijing International Studies University and Beijing Normal University were eerily reminiscent of the early stages of the 1989 student movement, which later took over Beijing’s Tiananmen Square for weeks on end with demands for democratic reforms and the rule of law. Those protests culminated in a bloody massacre of civilians by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) on the night of June 3-4, with an unknown number of casualties. In Shanghai, an open letter from entrepreneurs dated May 30 called for the release of all political prisoners and for the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to begin a process of political reform at the 20th Party Congress later in the year, warning of mass capital flight and a widespread loss of public confidence in Xi Jinping’s leadership. It urged the industrial sector not to act like “sheep fattened for slaughter” by returning to full production in the wake of the weeks-long Shanghai lockdown. It said the “rule of law” had been reduced to “rule by man”, while the economy had been hijacked by politics, leaving millions of COVID-19 “graduates” unemployed, calling on people to “take back their civil rights and rebuild the country.” The letter also called on the government to overturn the guilty verdicts against entrepreneurs Ren Zhiqiang and Sun Dawu, as well as punishing officials responsible for “violating the law and disregarding public opinion” as part of the zero-COVID policy and loosening CCP controls on the media. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
Jailed Changsha NGO worker subjected to physical abuse, mistreatment in jail: wife
The wife of one of the Changsha Funeng NGO workers jailed in the central Chinese province of Hunan says he is being subjected to physical abuse and mistreatment in Chishan Prison. Changsha Funeng co-founder Yang Zhanqing, who now lives in the U.S., has previously said that the three men were targeted because their rights work had received overseas funding, which the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) regards as “collusion with hostile foreign forces,” and a threat to its national security. Changsha Funeng sought to prevent discrimination and ensure equality in line with Chinese law by using the courts to strengthen protections for individuals living with disabilities and with HIV/AIDS and other communicable diseases. Shi Minglei, wife of Cheng Yuan, recently received a handwritten letter form her husband detailing his treatment while serving a sentence for “subversion of state power” handed down by the Changsha Intermediate People’s Court in August 2020. She spoke to RFA about the contents of the letter: The letter said that as soon as he got out of the van, he was taken to the high-security wing, where he was detained for three months until April 18. Anyone who has been in a high-security prison area knows that it forms part of a correctional center, also called a strict management center, with poor food and substandard living conditions. There were hourly roll calls taken through the night, and there was a lot of physical abuse, like forced duck-walks, and many other kinds of psychological and physical abuse. The treatment in high-security prisons is tantamount to torture. What I heard is that they learned from the experience of the concentration camps in Xinjiang. He [included one quotation, a couple lines of poetry] written in pain by [Chinese historian] Sima Qian after being tortured, very severely. What this means is that Cheng Yuan has never confessed or pleaded guilty, so they sent him to a high-security jail to try to force him to ‘confess.’ He also used a couple lines of poetry to express in a very cryptic way … that he is getting up before daylight to do forced labor and getting back very late from the workshop. He only has two hours to himself in which he has to wash himself and his clothes, so he’s also not getting enough time to rest. For example, the molding workshop contains chemicals and harmful gases, and there isn’t even any basic protection. They only get regular masks or even fabric masks. Washing frequently doesn’t have any protective effect. They distribute disposable medical masks only when the prison leaders come round on a tour of inspection. [Taiwan political activist and former inmate] Lee Ming-cheh told me that most prisoners are taken straight to prison, and even maybe to study centers for study, but not to the high-security wing. High-security prisons are places meant for punishing existing inmates. Cheng Yuan had done nothing wrong when he went to Chishan Prison, but he was taken to the high-security wing, which is standard practice for torture. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
Warships arrive in Kyauk Phyu township as tensions rise in Myanmar’s Rakhine state
Myanmar’s military is sending more troops into Rakhine state amid fears that an informal ceasefire with the Arakan Army (AA) is about to collapse. A submarine arrived at Kyauk Phyu township on May 31, after sailing through the Bay of Bengal and traveling up the Than Zit river, according to locals. They said a warship arrived the following day. A resident, who declined to be named for safety reasons, told RFA’s Burmese Srrvice the ship was equipped with heavy artillery and helicopter landing pads. “The warship is huge,” the resident said. “It docked at Number Three Port in Kyauk Phyu and I saw soldiers disembark. I don’t know how many there were but I estimate that hundreds of soldiers were on board.” The two vessels moved to Number 15 Port at the Thit Pote Taung Naval Base in Kyauk Phyu after the troops disembarked. The township is home to one of China’s largest infrastructure projects in Myanmar, including the Kyauk Phyu Deep Sea Port. The resident speculated that the troop reinforcements were sent to protect China’s business interests amid fears of further clashes between the military and the AA. “There are a lot of Chinese projects here,” the local said. “The construction of deep-sea ports for docking submarines was also done by Chinese companies. So if the fighting intensifies I think the military is being deployed to protect China’s economic projects.” Some locals told RFA they were concerned about being able to get hold of basic supplies such as rice, cooking oil and salt as a result of the military reinforcement. When contacted by RFA, a junta spokesman denied that more troops had arrived on May 31. At a news conference on May 19 he said that the military could not be blamed if fighting breaks out in Rakhine state. Military tensions between the military council and the AA have been high since early May, with locals and Rakhine politicians concerned that fighting will soon intensify. An NGO which is monitoring the crisis released a report on Wednesday urging both sides to refrain from fighting. International Crisis Group (ICG) said people in Rakhine state would suffer if the war between the army and the AA breaks out again. Renewed clashes could impact 3 million Rakhine residents The AA began as a resistance group in 2009 and grew into a powerful ethnic army. It fought a two-year war with Myanmar’s military, which ended with an informal ceasefire in November 2020. The ceasefire has still not been formalized and the AA says it remains committed to establishing an independent state for ethnic Rakhines. Clashes between AA fighters and the military in two villages near Paletwa township on May 26 have raised fears the uneasy truce is about to crumble. The resumption of full-scale conflict between the military and the Arakan Army could put the lives of millions of ethnic minority residents of Rakhine State at risk, according to ICG. It said AA moves to gain territory in the north are likely to affect the lives of as many as 3 million ethnic Rakhines and Rohingyas. ICG senior adviser on Myanmar Tom Kean told RFA the humanitarian consequences would probably be worse than during the two-year war. Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG) has invited the AA to join an alliance of regional armies to fight the military, which IGC said could also lead to an escalation in violence in Rakhine state.
