Category: East Asia

North Korea is attempting to discredit reports of a failed intercontinental ballistic missile launch, dismissing the accounts as hearsay even though many people in Pyongyang saw the rocket explode over the city, sources in the capital told RFA. North Korean media reported on March 24 that it successfully completed tests of the new Hwasong-17 ICBM, attributing its success to leader Kim Jong Un’s bravery. South Korean military authorities, however, reported Tuesday that the Hwasong-17 was involved in an earlier failed test launch on March 16. The March 24 launch was actually the older Hwasong-15 missile, they said. The North Korean government is now denying “rumors” of loud sounds and flashes that could be heard and seen over Pyongyang on March 16. “I have heard on various occasions through meetings and gatherings that there have been baseless rumors circulating about missile explosions. These rumors undermine the defense technology of our republic,” a Pyongyang city official told RFA’s Korean Service March 30. “There is an emphasis from higher ups that we should not believe or get involved in these false rumors spread by hostile forces, and evil people who hold a grudge against our way of life,” said the official, who requested anonymity for security reasons. The official admitted that the so-called rumors were in fact true. “On the morning of March 16th, people in the districts of Sunan, Hyongjesan and Ryongsong heard a loud roar that seemed to pierce the sky and a ‘bang’ sound and witnessed pieces of debris falling and smoking,” he said. “I heard from a friend in the same department who has a house in Sunan … that his wife went outside to hang clothes and heard a big airplane passing by and heard a ‘bang.’ After a while, she saw small pieces of shards falling nearby while smoking,” the official said. The official said that others in Ryongsong and Hyongjesan districts saw similar events unfold. “I even heard from a friend who lives in Ryongsong district that two people in Chungi-dong were struck by large pieces of debris falling,” he said. “About a week after these testimonies, there was a report that the launch of new intercontinental ballistic missile ‘Hwasong-17’ on March 24th was a great success under the direct guidance of Kim Jong Un,” said the official. Pyongyang has not only been trying to pass off the launch on the 24th as the Hwasong-17, it is also trying to use the event to lionize Kim. “People say that Kim Jong Un seems like an actor in a well-produced music video on the TV reports he appears in. The missile launch failed, but I don’t understand the government’s effort to hide it,” he said. North Korea has sent agents into the provinces for damage control, a resident of South Pyongan province, north of Pyongyang, told RFA. “Last week, an executive appeared at the morning assembly at my company, saying there were rumors that a missile launch failed. He emphasized that we were not to believe the false rumors spread by evil forces intent on internally breaking us down,” said the resident, who requested anonymity to speak freely. “But people are acknowledging the missile explosion as a fact. In Pyongyang as well as here, people saw flashing lights and smoke from the sky, and small fragments of debris fell here and there,” she said. The resident said others, including her cousin who lives in another South Pyongan town, saw flashing lights and heard bangs in the sky. “Although the incident has been witnessed by many, the authorities are dismissing it as a rumor spread by evildoers. There are many citizens who directly witnessed the explosion in the air, but I don’t know what the authorities are afraid of that they would hide the truth,” she said. More sanctions The U.S. Treasury Department Friday sanctioned five North Korean entities for their involvement in ballistic missile development programs in violation of several United Nations Security Council resolutions. In a statement, the Treasury Department said the sanctions target a North Korean organization that conducts research and development of weapons of mass destruction and four of its revenue-generating subsidiaries. “The DPRK’s provocative ballistic missile tests represent a clear threat to regional and global security and are in blatant violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions,” said Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen in the statement. “The United States is committed to using our sanctions authorities to respond to the DPRK’s continued development of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles. I also commend Japan for their actions today against the DPRK, and stand ready to continue to work together to counter the DPRK’s continued threatening behavior,” she said. Analysts applauded the move. “It’s a positive sign, in that the U.S. is taking action against North Korea’s weapons development and testing,” Soo Kim of the RAND Corporation told RFA. “But I would underscore that the latest designations are subsidiaries of organizations that should probably have been designated. So it’s unclear whether this will have teeth in terms of impact,” she said.  Bruce Klingner of the Heritage Foundation, a group that promotes free enterprise and limited government, that there are any remaining North Korean entities to sanction, given its long and expansive history of violations of U.N. resolutions and U.S. laws. “It raises the question as to why Washington chose not to [sanction them] until now and how many other North Korean and other country entities the US could sanction but has not done so,” Klingner told RFA. “Each U.S. administration has claimed to be tough on North Korea and other violators but chose not to fully enforce U.S. laws. Trump’s ‘maximum pressure’ was never maximum. Indeed, he announced he was not sanctioning 300 North Korean entities and 12 Chinese banks that had violated US laws. Sanctions, like diplomacy, are a tool that should be used in conjunction with other tools of international power,” he said.  Translated by Claire Lee. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

An 81-year-old Tibetan man has died after a self-immolation protest over Chinese rule, setting himself on fire last week at a police station in front of a major monastery in the western Chinese province of Sichuan, a source from the monastery’s branch in India told RFA late Saturday. The burning death on March 27 of a man identified as Taphun raises to 160 the number of Tibetans confirmed to have set themselves on fire since 2009, nearly all to protest Chinese rule in the Tibetan Autonomous Region, as well as historically Tibetan areas of Sichuan and Qinghai provinces. “On the 27th of March, around 5 o’clock in the morning, 81-year-old Taphun self-immolated in front of a police station near Kirti Monastery in a protest against the Chinese government’s oppression,” said Kanyak Tsering, a spokesman at the monastery’s branch in Dharamsala, India, home to the Tibetan government in exile and the Dalai Lama. “He was immediately taken away by the Chinese police. Though it’s been a few days since we learned about this incident, now it is confirmed that he has passed away,” the spokesman told RFA’s Tibetan Service. The 550-year-old Kirti Monastery lies in Ngaba (in Chinese, Aba) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan Province, part of what was formerly the Amdo region of Tibet before it was absorbed by China. “The place where Taphun self-immolated is in front of the police station that is right outside Kirti Monastery’s entrance,” said Tsering. “March is usually a very sensitive month for Tibetans and we have often seen many Tibetans in Ngaba self-immolate in the past,” the exile Kirti spokesman noted. “There are more restrictions and police presence around this time than usual and Tibetans are often arbitrarily interrogated by the Chinese police,” he added. March 10 is Tibetan Uprising Day, the date in 1959 of a failed armed rebellion against Chinese rule that resulted in a violent crackdown on Tibetans that drove the Dalai Lama across the Himalayas into exile in India. Although disclosed on April 2, the Kirti incident took place three days before the most recent known self-immolation–that of a man, known only as Tsering, who set himself ablaze in front of a Chinese police station near a Buddhist monastery in Kyegudo (in Chinese, Jiegu), in Yushul (Yushu) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Qinghai. His fate and other details remain unknown. Sporadic demonstrations challenging Beijing’s rule over what was an independent nation until China’s invasion in 1950 have continued in Tibetan-populated areas of China since widespread protests swept the region in the run-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics. High-technology controls on phone and online communications in Tibetan areas often prevent news of Tibetan protests and arrests from reaching the outside world, and sharing news of self-immolations outside China has led to jail sentences. Chinese authorities maintain a tight grip on the Himalayan region, restricting Tibetans’ political activities and peaceful expression of ethnic and religious identity, and subjecting Tibetans to persecution, torture, imprisonment, and extrajudicial killings. Translated by Tenzin Dickyi for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Written in English by Paul Eckert.

Public satisfaction with the media in Hong Kong has hit rock bottom, according to a recent public opinion survey. Satisfaction with the performance of the news media in general hit an all-time low since records began in 1993, according to a survey of 1,004 Cantonese-speaking adults carried out by the Hong Kong Public Institute Research Institute (PORI). Meanwhile, satisfaction with the freedom of the press in Hong Kong fell by 23 percentage points … its lowest point since records began after the 1997 handover to Chinese rule, PORI said in a report published on Friday. Just 28 percent of respondents expressed satisfaction with the level of press freedom in Hong Kong, a new low since this question was first asked in September 1997, while 51 percent said they were dissatisfied, the highest level since October 2020. In addition, a record 46 percent felt that the Hong Kong news media didn’t make full use of what freedom of speech it did have, while 63 percent said the media held back on criticisms of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP), while 51 percent said it avoided criticizing the Hong Kong authorities. Senior journalist Chris Yeung said the figures were a reflection of an ongoing crackdown on public dissent and political opposition under the CCP’s draconian national security law, which has seen several pro-democracy news outlets forced to close and senior journalists arrested under the law. “The trend is obvious,” Yeung told journalists on Friday. “At the very least, it’s very clear that the public believes the media has reservations and self-censors when dealing with matters relating to the central government.” “Many Hong Kong matters now include the point of view of the central government, from the national security law to COVID-19 policy and even the recent [China Eastern] air crash,” Yeung said. “The media are also careful how they handle other news that isn’t ostensibly political, like the case of Peng Shuai,” he said. Yeung said the poll results were “absolutely” related to the closure of a number of media outlets including the pro-democracy Apple Daily newspaper and Stand News, Yeung said. “Diversity of media voices is an very important element of press freedom,” he said, adding that there is really only room for pro-government voices in the Hong Kong media now. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.