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Category: East Asia
Water release from Chinese dam causes Mekong River to rise downstream
Residents in Laos said they were surprised to find water on the Mekong River rising this week due to unannounced releases from the Jinghong Dam upriver in China, although there were no reports of significant damage. The Mekong in parts of Laos rose more than 30 centimeters (0.98 feet), according to a notice issued Wednesday by water authorities in Thailand. Water levels rose higher in Thailand, to between 70 and 80 centimeters in Chiang Khan district in Loei province and Chiang Saen district of Chiang Rai province, Thailand’s Office of National Water Resources said. Officials in Laos and in Thailand said they were not notified of the release from the dam in in southwestern China’s Yunnan province. China has 11 massive dams, including two large storage dams, along the mainstream of the Upper Mekong Basin, known as the Lancang in China. Laos has two hydropower dams in operation on the Mekong mainstream and dozens more on its tributaries as part of the government’s aim to bring in revenue by exporting electricity to the country’s richer neighbors. A Lao fisherman who lives in Tonpheung district said he noticed higher water on Wednesday. “At 10 a.m. on April 20, the Mekong River water level in front of Tonpheung district was about 30 centimeters higher than it was the day before, and it is expected to be higher today and tomorrow,” he said. “So far, we haven’t been affected yet. We’ve already secured our boats by tying them up to the stakes on the riverbank.” The dam near Jinghong includes a 1,750-megawatt hydroelectric power station, and water is sometimes released to generate more electricity. But sudden releases of water can pose a threat to communities downstream. The Office of National Water Resources said that the Mekong’s water flow rose to 1,626 cubic meters per second, from 970 cubic meters per second, following the release at Jinghong. Thai water authorities and the Mekong Dam Monitor, which tracks water levels in the river, expect levels to increase between 80 centimeters and 160 centimeters, or 1.6 meters, on Thursday and Friday. Lao officials received no notice about the increased water discharge from China, an official at the Natural Resources and Environment Department of northern Laos’ Bokeo province said. “Usually there must be some kind of a notice or a letter informing us of the discharges so that we can issue a warning to our residents,” said the official, who like other sources in this report requested anonymity for safety reasons and to speak freely. An estimated 80% of the nearly 65 million people who live in the Lower Mekong River Basin depend on the river for their livelihoods, according to the Mekong River Commission (MRC), an intergovernmental organization representing Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam that manages the shared water resource. Agriculture and fisheries production in the Lower Mekong River Basin can be harmed by either higher or lower levels of water discharge from China. A resident of Bokeo’s Tonpheung district, which sits along the Mekong River, told RFA that locals heard about the upstream water release from the crew of a Chinese cargo ship. “Oh, the water level is now inching up,” he said. An MRC member told RFA that it also did not receive any notice or warning from the Chinese about the dam discharge. A member of the Hak (Love) Chiang Khong Group, a Thai nonprofit environmental campaign in Chiang Rai, told RFA that the Jinghong Dam has discharged more water nine times since the beginning of the year, including twice in April. “We believe that the dam will release more water whenever it wants to produce more electricity or to raise the Mekong River’s water level so that Chinese cargo boats can navigate down to Laos and Thailand,” he said. Reported by RFA’s Lao Service. Translated by Max Avary. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
Concerns remain over pro-CCP stance of U.K.-based Chinese community organizations
Hong Kong activists based in the U.K. have repeated warnings that community groups in the county may have been infiltrated by people loyal to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), posing potential threats to incoming migrants from Hong Kong under the British National Overseas (BNO) visa scheme. Former Hong Kong lawmaker Nathan Law said via his Twitter account on April 19 that most the of 100,000 people who have left the city following the imposition of the draconian national security law to make new lives in the U.K. support the 2019 mass protest movement, which called for fully democratic elections and greater official accountability. “HKers are anxious and insecure. Most of them are in support of the pro-democracy movement, therefore they left Hong Kong with trauma and worries of persecution,” Law wrote. “They fear that Chinese agents in the UK would send their activity records back to Hong Kong, thus endangering them.” Law voiced his concerns as The Times reported that pro-CCP figures appeared to have infiltrated large Chinese community organizations in Southampton and Birmingham, both of which have received tens of thousands of pounds in government funding to help newly arrived Hongkongers integrate into British society. Law added: “The Chinese govt is a dictatorial regime that destroyed our home. Many Chinese community organizations in the UK support the political lines of CCP. More than 200 of them endorsed the National Security Law,” he said, adding that Hongkongers would feel “scared and unwelcome” if government funds were awarded to such groups. According to The Times, two of the Birmingham center’s directors worked with the British Chinese Project, a scheme founded by Christine Lee, a lawyer who MI5 warned was trying to influence parliamentarians on behalf of Beijing in January 2022. A patron of the center, James Wong, has visited China on a trip sponsored by the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office, part of the CCP’s outreach and influence operation known as the United Front Work Department. The Birmingham Chinese Community Center denied it was under CCP influence, saying it had no wish to be drawn into the politics of the Hong Kong protest movement, and had no wish to become involved with such “toxicity.” A screenshot of former Hong Kong lawmaker Nathan Law’s Twitter account where he raises concerns that Chinese agents in the UK have infiltrated large Chinese community organizations in British cities. Allegiances hard to trace Meanwhile, U.K.-based activist Ping Hua, who has termed reports of the mass incarceration of Uyghurs in Xinjiang “appalling lies and fabrication,” founded the Southampton group, which told the paper she is no longer part of the organization. Law tweeted a day after being quoted in the article: “We must know more about the infiltration activities of the Chinese govt and prevent these mistakes from happening. The best way is to engage with the UK-based Hong Kong community and conduct thorough background checks on the org’s connection to the Chinese embassy.” U.K. activist and former consular worker Simon Cheng said that while the links between Wong and Ping and the CCP were fairly clear, many other Chinese community organizations have made statements that suggest where their allegiances lie, even if connections with the CCP are harder to trace. “They want to carefully blunt our democratic consciousness and fighting spirit,” Cheng said. “For example, they could, once people have settled in, encourage them to move on from the past.” “If they really have a pro-CCP agenda, or are United Front, the most important concern is that they could report people’s personal information to the national security police [in Hong Kong],” he said. “Then, you could run into problems if you go back to Hong Kong, or to any country that has a current extradition treaty with either China or Hong Kong.” According to a 2017 report by New Zealand political science professor Anne-Marie Brady, Chinese leader Xi Jinping is leading an accelerated expansion of political influence activities worldwide, much of which rely on overseas community and business groups, under the aegis of the United Front Work Department. Some 100,000 Hongkongers have emigrated to the U.K. under a pathway-to-citizenship visa scheme aimed at around three million people eligible for the BNO passport. Overseas properties Community groups have sprung into action to offer career, job-hunting and taxation workshops to new arrivals, provide entertainment and social opportunities and to offer advice on education, mental health and starting a new business. Meanwhile, the U.K.-based rights group Hong Kong Watch said nine high-ranking Hong Kong officials and 12 lawmakers elected under Beijing’s approval to the city’s legislature hold property overseas, including in the U.K., Canada, the U.S., Australia, Japan, and France. In a new report, the group lists health secretary Sophia Chan as owning or co-owning three properties in London, civil service secretary Patrick Nip as owning a flat in Islington, and former University of Hong Kong senior leader Arthur Li as owning two west London properties. All are members of chief executive Carrie Lam’s cabinet, the Executive Council, and are collectively responsible for implementing the national security law, which bans public criticism of the government and criminalizes acts of political opposition, journalism and online dissent. All of the officials and lawmakers in question have pledged allegiance to Beijing and expressed their public support for the national security law, the report said. “The report recommends that like-minded countries consider auditing the assets of Hong Kong officials and introducing a Hong Kong specific sanctions list covering those named,” it said. The group’s senior policy adviser Sam Goodman said: “The Hong Kong officials and lawmakers who are complicit in the ongoing human rights crackdown in Hong Kong are more than happy to continue to use the West as a safe haven for their hidden wealth.” Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
Analyst suspects China pressure as Philippines suspends oil exploration
The Philippines has suspended oil and gas exploration activities in the disputed South China Sea, a presidential spokesman said, under what an analyst described as “coercion” from China. Martin Andanar, spokesman for President Rodrigo Duterte, told reporters on Tuesday in Manila that the Security, Justice and Peace Coordinating Cluster (SJPCC), or the government’s security advisors, decided to suspend all exploration activities within the disputed areas in West Philippine Sea. West Philippine Sea is the name used by the Filipinos for the part of the South China Sea over which Manila claims sovereignty. Local companies in the Philippines have been test drilling two sites at Reed Bank, also known as Recto Bank, off Palawan province for survey purposes, but the Department of Energy (DOE) has now ordered them to stop. Andanar said that the DOE has requested the government to reconsider the suspension because “under international law, a geophysical survey is perfectly legitimate activity in any disputed area.” In 2018, Manila and Beijing signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for joint oil and gas development in contested areas and those two sites were identified by the DOE as possible sites for joint exploration with China. Jay Batongbacal, director of the University of the Philippines’ Institute for Maritime Affairs and Law of the Sea, said Beijing has been pressuring Manila to accept its exploration terms or to stop drilling. “Through diplomacy and the actions of the China Coast Guard, Beijing has been trying to coerce Manila to stop conducting seabed exploration and research activities in the West Philippine Sea until the latter submits to China’s conditions for joint development,” Batongbacal said. The Philippines, China, Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam all hold claims in the South China Sea but China’s claim is the most expansive, occupying nearly 90 percent of the sea. In 2016, the Philippines brought a case against China to an international tribunal and won but Beijing refused to accept the ruling. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte gestures as he meets cabinet officials at the Malacanang presidential palace in Manila, Philippines, March 7, 2022. Credit: Malacanang Presidential Photographers Division via AP Joint exploration in contested waters In 2014, under Duterte’s predecessor President Benigno Aquino, the Philippines imposed a ban on oil and gas exploration in the disputed areas of the South China Sea in protest against China’s aggression. Duterte lifted the moratorium in 2020, paving the way for joint development with China, hoping to attract new investment from the biggest player in the region. There were also fears that unilateral exploration activities might hurt the Sino-Philippines relationship. Yet until now, the MOU the two countries signed in 2018 has not resulted in any actual project. All efforts made to date by other countries in prospecting for oil and gas in the South China Sea have made little progress because of heavy opposition from China, said Fitch Solutions, a global market analysis agency. “China has formally claimed the rights to explore and exploit hydrocarbon resources in the disputed waters, but has not done so in practice and appears content to prevent others from exploring the area,” said Fitch Solutions. “There is limited scope for the current deadlock over the South China Sea to ease,” it added. Tensions have been high between the Philippines and China in the last few months of Duterte’s presidency. In the latest incident, the Philippines lodged a diplomatic protest against China after a Chinese coastguard ship maneuvered dangerously close to a Filipino vessel in the disputed Scarborough Shoal in March.
Amnesty International blasts new proposed social media regulations in Vietnam
An international rights group condemned the Vietnamese government’s plan to adopt new regulations to tighten control over social media platforms in the communist one-party country where leaders already have little tolerance for public criticism or dissent. The planned amendments to existing law will require social media companies like Facebook and TikTok to remove content and services deemed illegal within 24 hours, block illegal livestreams within three hours of notice, and immediately remove content that endangers national security, Reuters reported Wednesday, citing people with knowledge of the matter. Companies that do not comply with the requirements risk having their social media platforms banned in Vietnam, the report said, adding that it is expected that Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh will sign the new regulations in May. The Vietnamese government is finalizing the amendments for June 2013 decree on the management, provision and use of internet services and online information for both domestic and foreign companies and individuals. The government has been using the decree to ask companies that run popular social media platforms in Vietnam to take down “anti-government” content. Human rights organizations expressed concern that the restrictive internet environment in Vietnam will become worse under the new regulations. “In Vietnam, social media, including Facebook, is one of very few places for local people to express their opposition,” said Ming Yu Hah, deputy regional director of campaigns in East and Southeast Asia for London-based Amnesty International. “They face the risk of being imprisoned for years if their posts are deemed to violate the law. “Such harsh laws are an existential threat to the freedom of expression in Vietnam,” she added. Facebook, YouTube, TikTok and Twitter are popular foreign social media platforms in the Southeast Asian country, used by citizens to express their opinions of and dissatisfaction with the government and politics. However, many Vietnamese have been sent to prison for their expressing their opinions via social media. In March, for instance, RFA reported that a court in Hanoi sentenced independent journalist and activist Le Van Dung to five years in prison for discussing political and socioeconomic issues in livestreamed videos on social media. Reuters said that Vietnam’s communications and foreign ministries did not respond to requests for comment. Facebook-owner Meta Platforms Inc. and Alphabet Inc., which owns YouTube and Google, and Twitter Inc. declined to comment. TikTok, owned by China’s ByteDance Ltd., said it will continue to comply with applicable local laws and would remove content that violates platform guidelines. For years, the Vietnamese government has demonstrated its desire to control foreign social media platforms via the decree passed in 2013 and a cybersecurity law that entered into effect in 2019. In November 2020, Facebook announced that it had been forced to increase content censorship as requested by the Vietnamese government, after being threatened with a ban if it did not comply. The move drew heavy criticism from rights groups that have accused social media companies of putting profits before human rights and the freedom of expression. Amnesty’s Ming Yu Hah called on social media companies to protest the forthcoming regulation and “put human rights above profits and market access rights.” About 60 million-70 million Vietnamese use Facebook, generating about U.S. $1 billion in annual revenue for its parent company, according to the Reuters report. YouTube has 60 million users in the country, while TikTok has 20 million. Open letter to Biden In a related development, more than 40 NGOs and 40 individuals signed an open online letter to U.S. President Joe Biden, calling for him to raise concern with Prime Minister Phạm Minh Chinh at a U.S.-ASEAN Summit in mid-May about the government’s antagonistic policies toward religions that do not submit to government control. “Of particular concern is the intensifying state-directed and state-supported propaganda that promotes hate speech and incites violence against religious and lay leaders with real and deeply disturbing consequences,” the letter says. The letter says organized mobs known as Red Flag Associations have used social media to slander Catholic priests, characterize respected monks of the Unified Buddhist Church’s Sangha as “bad forces” who “distorted the nature of religious freedom in Vietnam,” and call on the government to eliminate the Montagnard Evangelical Church of Christ in Dak Lak province. “So far, Red Flag members have enjoyed complete impunity,” the letter says. “Their messages promoting hatred and violence have rapidly multiplied throughout Vietnam’s society.” Certain government units also have incited hatred against ethno-religious minorities, including the Department of Public Security of Gia Lai Province, which characterizes Montagnards who have converted to Catholicism as a cult and in December 2020 declared that it had completed the heretical religion. The United Nations Human Rights Committee singled out the Red Flag Associations as a source of incitement to hatred and violence following a review of Vietnam’s implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) in 2019. “In light of this worrying trend, we ask that you communicate directly to Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh of Vietnam and urge his government to comply fully with both Article 18 of the ICCPR, which guarantees the right to religious freedom or belief, as well as with the requirement of Article 20 that incitement to violence be prohibited by law,” the letter says. On Monday, a coalition of Vietnamese NGOs and individuals issued an open letter to U.N. member states, asking them not to elect Vietnam to the U.N. Human Rights Council for the 2023-2025 term. Among the organizations that signed the letter were the Vietnam Human Rights Network, Defend the Defenders, Assembly for Democracy of Vietnam, Humanistic Socialist Party, the Great Viet Party, Vietnam Democracy Federation, the Independent Journalists Association of Vietnam, and Vietnam Democracy Radio. They noted that Vietnam voted against a U.N. General Assembly resolution on April 7 to suspend Russia from the Human Rights Council over its invasion of Ukraine, which has killed thousands of people. “Before looking for membership of the council, the Vietnamese government must improve its human rights record, strictly enforce international human rights…
Biden nails down a date for ASEAN summit but not a full invite list
President Joe Biden, keen to showcase American interest in Southeast Asia, has secured a date to celebrate 45 years of U.S. ties with the far-away region, but not all of ASEAN’s leaders are coming to the party. Myanmar’s junta chief, Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, won’t be welcome because of the military coup he launched a year ago. And Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who leaves office in June, is also expected to be a no-show. He has not visited Washington during his six years in office that have been characterized by turbulent relations with the United States. The May 12-13 summit between the U.S. and leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations is an opportunity for Biden to forge a closer bilateral partnership with ASEAN and counter China’s influence in the region. The White House is keen to advance its vision of a “free and open” Indo-Pacific. The summit will mark U.S.-ASEAN relations, which began in 1977. It will be only the second such summit with Southeast Asian leaders hosted by an American president in the United States. Barack Obama welcomed ASEAN leaders to Sunnylands estate in Rancho Mirage, Calif., in February 2016. While next month’s meeting will therefore carry heavy symbolic value, it will make for some unusual diplomatic bedfellows for Biden. Cambodia’s foreign ministry says that Prime Minister Hun Sen – whose government has faced U.S. sanctions for its suppression of democracy – will be there. Cambodia is the current rotating chair of the 10-nation bloc. “Of course, Samdech Techo Prime Minister Hun Sen, as the ASEAN rotating chair, will co-chair this summit with the president of the United States,” Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ spokesman Chum Sounry told Radio Free Asia (RFA), the parent company of BenarNews. He was using the honorific adopted by Hun Sen, who has ruled for 37 years. It translates roughly as “glorious, supreme prime minister and powerful commander.” But officials indicated that Min Aung Hlaing – who recently awarded himself two of Myanmar’s highest honors for services to his country despite the current, violent chaos there – won’t be invited to Washington. “The consensus among ASEAN is (that) Myanmar should be represented by a non-political representative,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Teuku Faizasyah of Indonesia, which is the bloc’s coordinator for U.S.-ASEAN ties. He told BenarNews on Tuesday that Indonesian President Joko Widodo plans to attend. In Kuala Lumpur, Malaysian Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah confirmed that Prime Minister Ismail Sabri will also join the summit. He further noted: “I don’t think Myanmar should be represented. I am not so sure if Washington invited Myanmar.” However in Bangkok, the Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that Prayuth Chan-o-cha, the prime minister and ex-junta chief, was “considering the journey” to Washington. ASEAN has been grappling with a 14-month-old crisis in Myanmar, where the Burmese junta’s forces have bombed and burned swathes of the country to quell resistance to the military’s overthrow of an elected government in February 2021. In late March, the junta blocked ASEAN envoy Prak Sokhonn, who is Cambodia’s foreign minister, from meeting with deposed Myanmar civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi, setting back efforts to forge a political resolution – and backtracking on a commitment the junta chief made to ASEAN to allow access to all stakeholders in the country. ASEAN itself has excluded Min Aung Hlaing from its own summits. The Myanmar military council’s spokesman said on Tuesday that Myanmar has not been invited so far to the Washington summit, and they would only attend anyway if they had equal representation. “If, as in the past, we could only attend with someone who does not hold political office, we absolutely would not attend any meeting. Our position is to engage only at equal rank,” the spokesman, Maj Gen Zaw Min Tun, told RFA. Myanmar has been subject to U.S. asset seizures and sanctions since the coup – including restrictions levied against Min Aung Hlaing himself. No such restrictions are faced by Duterte. The Philippines is a U.S. treaty ally, meaning the two nations are committed to each other’s defense if they come under attack. The U.S. is bound to Thailand by a similar treaty. But Duterte, who has sought closer relations with China despite recurring disputes in the South China Sea, has sworn repeatedly that “he will never go to the U.S.” At one time he even called America “lousy.” BenarNews asked an aide to Duterte whether that position has changed in view of the upcoming summit, and was told it had not. The aide spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment to media about it. There’s another reason for the Philippine leader to skip the Washington summit: The two-day meeting falls just three days after May 9 elections in the Philippines. It is customary for any Filipino leader to avoid foreign travel during an election season, particularly when the election is for the position they will be vacating. Jason Gutierrez in Manila, Tria Dianti in Jakarta, Nontarat Phaicharoen in Bangkok, Nisha David in Kuala Lumpur, and RFA’s Cambodian and Myanmar Services contributed to this report by BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated news service.
North Korea orders wartime readiness during joint U.S.-South Korean military drills
North Korea put its military in a wartime posture–mobilizing troops and stepping up army political indoctrination– in response to the semi-annual U.S.-South Korean joint military exercises that began this week, sources in the country told RFA. The exercises are mostly computer simulations and involve cooperation between alliance command posts. But North Korea still views the exercises as a threat to its sovereignty, and its General Political Bureau has ordered the military to be ready for war. “Artillery and other important mission units were instructed to maintain a high state of readiness and conduct frequent inspections on their combat equipment so they could enter battle immediately in the event of a crisis,” a military source in the northwestern province of North Pyongan told RFA’s Korean Service Tuesday on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “During the South Korea-U.S. joint military exercises, commanders must not leave the areas under their jurisdiction. Soldiers in the units are prepared to mobilize in a ready state, day or night,” he said. But soldiers are exhausted, having just finished their grueling “winter training” sessions, where they toil as essentially free labor for the government on the premise of training, and coming off a major holiday full of political events, the source said. “They are angered by the authorities’ orders to immediately mobilize at a time when they lack fuel and materials, and they say the situation is not realistic,” he said. Authorities want soldiers not only to be ready on the physical battlefield, but also on the ideological battlefield, a military source in the northeastern province of North Hamgyong told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “From the 19th, political departments in all units were urged to use ideological education classes for high-ranking officials this coming Saturday, and daily mental education hours for soldiers, so that they can propagandize the tension of the current political situation, and confirm their determination to defend our supreme leader,” he said, referring to the country’s leader Kim Jong Un. “The General Political Bureau has ordered the Korean People’s Army newspapers, telecommunications, and the third broadcast within the military to put out intensive propaganda that shows the party and the military’s resolve, and our principled and ruthlessly super-hardline stance,” the second soruce said. Third broadcast refers to government-controlled loudspeakers that transmit messages or instructions to everyone they can reach. “The propaganda must emphasize the need to show the will of tens of millions of people to respond to the U.S.-South Korean war provocations with military action and not just words,” the second source said. “In response to the orders … high-ranking officials and the soldiers below them complain that they are already tired from winter training and the various different political events concentrated in April. They wonder whether it makes sense to ‘arm soldiers with the 1950 spirit of defending the motherland…’ when what they want the most right now is adequate rest and enough food to eat,” he said. The source said the propaganda is essentially meaningless. “If you listen to the third broadcast inside the Korean People’s Army, you will only hear songs on the theme of defending our leader. All day long,” he said. “These songs include ‘I will defend Gen. Kim Jong Un with my life,’ ‘Our weapons don’t forgive,’ and ‘Leader, just give us an order.’ I don’t understand why the authorities are obsessed with ideological education when the joint military exercises between South Korea and the United States happen every year.” The joint exercises will run through Friday, then break for the weekend, resuming April 25 and ending April 28, according to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff. Hostilities in the 1950-1953 Korean War ended with an armistice agreement, but North and South Korea are technically still at war as no peace treaty has ever been signed. Translated by Claire Lee and Leejin Jun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
Chinese police order residents to hand over passports ‘until after the pandemic’
Police in the central Chinese province of Hunan have ordered local residents to hand over their passports to police, promising to return them “when the pandemic is over,” amid a massive surge in people looking for ways to leave China or obtain overseas immigration status. A March 31 notice from the Baisha police department in the central province of Hunan posted to social media ordered employers to hand over the passports of all employees and family members to police, “to be returned after the pandemic.” An officer who answered the phone at the Baisha police department confirmed the report, and said the measure is being rolled out nationwide. “According to official requirements, [passports] must be handed over because of the pandemic,” the officer said. “It’s everywhere, not just Hunan. It’s across the whole country,” they said. “Anyone with a passport has to hand it over, not just people who have an employer.” “If people don’t hand them over … then they have to expect to be investigated,” the officer said. China’s zero-COVID policy of mass compulsory testing, stringent lockdowns and digital health codes has sparked an emigration wave fueled by “shocked” middle-classes fed up with food shortages, confinement at home, and amid broader safety concerns. The number of keyword searches on social media platform WeChat and search engine Baidu for “criteria for emigrating to Canada” has skyrocketed by nearly 3,000 percent in the past month, with most queries clustered in cities and provinces under tough, zero-COVID restrictions, including Shanghai, Jiangsu, Guangdong and Beijing. Immigration consultancies in Shanghai confirmed they have also been seeing a huge spike in emigration inquiries in recent weeks. Many clients are now looking for “a green card from a big country and a passport from a small country” to supplement their Chinese passports, a consultant who gave only the surname Liu told RFA. “Some clients also need a favorable exchange rate [with their destination country],” he said. “We have had nearly four times as many inquiries this year as this time last year.” He said most people are looking for a one-step process to achieve permanent residency, and don’t mind spending more of their savings to achieve it. “There are many who are applying to Turkey, because [you need to] buy a house for at least U.S. $250,000, which is between one and two million yuan,” Liu said. “There are rumors this will go up to U.S. $400,000 in May, so a lot of people are trying jump aboard the last bus before the price hike.” A Shanghai-based immigration consultant surnamed Shen said more and more people are applying now, as there is scant sign that the government will ease up on the zero-COVID policy. “You could maybe start by applying for permanent residency of another country, in case this escalates in future,” Shen said, referring to the order to hand over passports. Mao Runzhi The wave of interest in leaving the country has sparked memes around the Chinese characters “runzhi,” a satirical reference both to late supreme leader Mao Zedong and the English word “run.” “Mao Zedong’s [birth] name was Mao Runzhi, and he ran away at the most critical moment,” Xia Ming, professor of political science at New York’s City University, told RFA. “There is also the word run in English, as in run away.” Xia sees the current exodus as the peak of a wave of migration that began around five years ago, and cited recent news events like the woman found chained by the neck in the eastern province of Jiangsu as catalysts, along with the pandemic. “There are constantly cases of abduction and trafficking and missing persons,” Xia said. “Anyone could become that chained woman; it’s so random.” “Women and children are kidnapped and sold as sex slaves or for organ donations, and this has had a big impact on China’s middle classes,” he said. He said the Shanghai lockdown had also come as a huge shock to some of the most privileged people in Chinese society. “These people who used to live more comfortable lives than everyone else suddenly found themselves facing starvation overnight, and lost any sense of personal dignity,” Xia said. “This was a huge shock to the quietly successful middle class.” Taiwan-based Hong Kong commentator Sang Pu said people from Shanghai aren’t fleeing COVID-19 so much as their government’s draconian disease control restrictions. “Emigration is being driven by the CCP’s authoritarian approach to disease control and prevention, not by the virus,” Sang said. “The reason is a political one.” “But do their politics accord with those of the countries they are moving to? Not necessarily,” he said. “These people aren’t just refugees; they are looking for some kind of paradise where they can live freely, but they bring with them the legacy of authoritarian rule. We should stay vigilant.” He said if rich Chinese businesspeople and senior officials are allowed to flee overseas with money, this would effectively set up a tried-and-tested channel for money-laundering, as well as providing the CCP with a growing foothold overseas. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
I’ll never let go, Vlad
The sinking of the Moskva, Russia’s Black Sea fleet flagship, was the biggest wartime loss of a naval ship in 40 years. Despite the major embarrassment for Vladimir Putin and the vaunted Russian military, China’s Xi Jinping has maintained his embrace of his fellow strongman. Beyond the reputational damage to China from his alliance with Putin, analysts question whether Xi is getting accurate information about Russian battlefield failures, which may offer lessons for China’s military.
China, Solomon Islands confirm they have signed security pact
China and the Solomon Islands have both confirmed they signed a controversial security pact that has sparked concerns about China’s rising influence in the Pacific region. The confirmation came as a U.S. delegation led by the National Security Council Indo-Pacific coordinator Kurt Campbell was heading to Honiara to discuss regional security issues. Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare told parliament on Wednesday that the agreement with China was to help with the country’s “internal security situation,” referring to recent unrest that saw businesses and buildings burned and looted. The prime minister said the decision “will not adversely impact or undermine the peace and harmony of our region.” Hours before that, a Chinese government spokesman said that the pact is “part of normal exchanges and cooperation between two sovereign and independent countries” and does not target any third party. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin told reporters in Beijing that Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his Solomon Islands counterpart Jeremiah Manele officially signed the document “the other day.” China did not offer an explanation about whether the signed document is the final agreement. Neither party has revealed any details of the deal, with Sogavare saying it would be disclosed after a “process.” Kurt M. Campbell, the Biden administration’s coordinator for the Indo-Pacific, pictured official at the China Development Forum in Beijing, China March 23, 2019. At the time, Campbell was chairman and CEO of a consultancy, the Asia Group. Credit: Reuters. Lack of transparency Solomon Islands’ neighbors Australia and New Zealand have repeatedly voiced concerns since a copy of the draft agreement was leaked online in March. On Tuesday, Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne and Pacific Minister Zed Seselja issued a joint statement saying “Australia is deeply disappointed by the signing” of the pact. “We are concerned about the lack of transparency with which this agreement has been developed, noting its potential to undermine stability in our region,” the statement reads. Seselja traveled to Honiara last week to urge the Solomon Islands prime Mminister not to sign the deal with Beijing, without success. New Zealand’s Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta said her country was “saddened” that the Solomon Islands had made the pact. The U.S. also expressed concern over “the lack of transparency” in China’s security pact with the Solomon Islands, calling it part of a pattern of Beijing offering “shadowy” deals to countries, Reuters news agency reported. Two top U.S. officials for the Indo-Pacific region – Kurt Campbell and Daniel Kritenbrink, the assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs – are currently in Fiji before traveling to Honiara to meet with the island nation’s leaders. Campbell said in January that the U.S. has “enormous moral, strategic, historical interests” in the Pacific but had not done enough to assist the region. Their trip has been criticized by China as having “ulterior motives.” “Several senior U.S. officials now fancy a visit to some Pacific island countries all of a sudden after all these years,” said Chinese Foreign Ministry’s Wang Wenbin, pointing out that the U.S. Embassy in Solomon Islands has been closed for 29 years. This February, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken traveled to Fiji to meet with Pacific island leaders, and announced that the embassy in Honiara would be reopened. The Chinese national flag flies outside the Chinese Embassy in Honiara, Solomon Islands, April 1, 2022. Credit: AP. Military presence China has maintained that Pacific island countries need to diversify their cooperation with other countries and “have the right to independently choose their cooperation partners.” “China is always a builder of peace and a promoter of stability in the South Pacific region,” Wang said. A draft copy of the security pact leaked onto social media in late March suggested there would be Chinese logistical hubs or bases in the island nation. One of the clauses says: “China may, according to its own needs and with the consent of Solomon Islands, make ship visits to, carry out logistical replenishment in, and have stopover and transition in Solomon Islands.” David Capie, director of the Centre for Strategic Studies at the Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand, told RFA that the security pact would allow Beijing to set up military bases and deploy troops in the Pacific island nation, “marking the start of a much sharper military competition than anything we’ve seen in the region for decades.” Capie said that the agreement “would allow the People’s Republic of China to deploy police and military personnel to Solomon Islands with the consent of the host government, and potentially provide for refueling and support of Chinese ships.” U.S. State Department Spokesperson Ned Price said earlier this week that the U.S. is concerned that the agreement “leaves the door open for the deployment of Chinese forces on the Solomon Islands.” “We believe that signing such an agreement could increase destabilization within the Solomon Islands and will set a concerning precedent for the wider Pacific island region,” Price added. Analysts say a presence of Chinese troops in the Solomon Islands could raise the risk of confrontation between China and the U.S. and its allies, as well as challenge the U.S.-led vision of a “Free and Open Indo-Pacific.”
Authorities free 3 Tibetans jailed for running ‘illegal’ land rights group
Authorities in China’s Qinghai province have released three of the nine Tibetans who received prison terms in 2018 for running an “illegal organization” promoting land rights. Three more from the group are due to be released in June, according to Tibetan sources in exile. Sonam Gyal and two others, who were not immediately identified, completed their terms and were freed earlier this year, a source living in India told RFA’s Tibetan Service, speaking on condition of anonymity. “In January this year, Sonam Gyal and two others were released after serving their prison term,” said the source. “Tashi Tsering and two others are scheduled to be released in June, also after completing their prison terms,” the source added. The names of the other two who are expected to be freed are also unconfirmed. While the source said that the terms of the second trio are set to expire in June, “it is also uncertain if [they] will be released accordingly.” According to the source, the remaining three had their cases “sent back for retrial and were sentenced to seven years again.” “The prison time they had already served until now was invalidated,” they said. In April 2019, RFA reported that the nine Tibetans, all residents of Horgyal village in Qinghai’s Rebgong (in Chinese, Tongren) county, were handed terms of from three to seven years by the County People’s Court for running an “illegal organization,” citing information from the Dharamsala, India-based Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD). Authorities had additionally accused the men — Gendun Soepa, Drukbum Tsering, Bende Dorje, Tashi Tsering, Sonam Gyal, Dargye, Shawo Tsering, Khajam Gyal and Choesang — of usurping the duties of already established village committees, “extortion,” and “gathering people to disturb social order,” the group said at the time. Detained in July 2018, the nine men were formally arrested in August, and were serving their sentences at a large prison facility in Rebgong, a second Tibetan source in exile told RFA. “Though the prison is very close to Horgyal village, their families and relatives were never allowed to meet them over the last several years,” said the source, who also declined to be named. “Sonam Gyal’s health was not in a good state for a long time while in prison, but we don’t know much about his current health status, even though he is released. … People in the region were all too scared to talk about it and tried to avoid the conversation.” The second source said that the health conditions of the six still in prison are also uncertain. Petition to reclaim land In a petition signed on Feb, 21, 2017, the nine, part of a larger group of 24, had mobilized village support to demand the return of Horgyal village land handed over for use by three brick factories in exchange for lease payments to the village that ended when the works were closed down by government order in 2011. For the next seven years, authorities compensated the factories annually for their loss of business, though payments to the Horgyal village government then stopped, TCHRD said in its statement at the time of their sentencing, adding that villagers had called since then for the land’s return. Two years before, a Tibetan monastery in Rebgong had appealed for the return of property formerly leased to a teacher’s college but seized by local officials as the college moved to a new location, Tibetan sources told RFA in an earlier report. The property, comprising one third of the total estate of Rongwo monastery, was confiscated in 2016, and monks had petitioned ever since for its return, sources said. Chinese development projects in Tibetan areas have led to frequent standoffs with Tibetans, who accuse Chinese firms and local officials of improperly seizing land and disrupting the lives of local people. Many projects result in violent suppression, the detention of protest organizers, and intense pressure on the local population to comply with the government’s wishes. Translated by Tenzin Dickyi. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
