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Category: East Asia
As North Korea’s economy struggles, disabled soldiers suffer more than most
North Korean soldiers who were injured during their service are now unable to depend on the state to care for them due to worsening economic conditions, sources in the country told RFA. Officially known as “honorable soldiers,” many of the disabled rely on the government for basic support. For those who are incapable of working, a sudden drop-off in government-provided stipends and food rations can be devastating. “Everyone is having a difficult time because the prices of goods are ridiculously expensive and business has not yet recovered,” a resident of Paegam county in the northern province of Ryanggang told RFA’s Korean Service April 6 on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “The honorable soldiers are facing a miserable situation, especially as the nation’s benefits have been reduced due to economic difficulties,” she said. The source discussed the case of an honorable solder in her neighborhood who lost both of his legs and cannot work. “There is no woman who wants to marry him, so he is living with his mother, who is the only person who can care for him. Since last summer, though, her health has become worse since she is getting older,” the source said. “She normally has a vegetable business that she’s been doing for a long time, but she is no longer able, so their livelihood has been badly affected,” she said. Honorable soldiers are classified as grade 1-3 depending on the severity of their injuries. Soldiers who have lost multiple limbs or have become paralyzed and must rely on others for basic tasks are classified as special grade. These soldiers are supposed to get support from the government for the rest of their lives, the source said. “But I know that there is no other support except for a small amount of corn due to the poor economic situation of the country. The military provided firewood after his mother stopped her business, but now even that support has been cut off,” she said. The daily supply of corn from the government amounts to less than 500 grams (1.1 lbs.), hardly enough to live on, the source said. Meat and cooking oils are rarely ever provided in the government support ration. “I haven’t seen our honorable soldier in a while. His wheelchair is broken and he isn’t able to go outside,” the source said. “If you go to the market in Hyesan, there’s a place there that sells Chinese-made wheelchairs, but they cost 200,000 to 400,000 won (U.S. $33 to $66). With no money he cannot afford to get a new one,” she said. The source said she did not know how the soldier had lost both of his legs but many of the injuries to soldiers occur when they are assigned to construction duty. If an accident occurs, their injuries are officially recorded as having occurred while the soldier was on a military mission. The soldiers are often reluctant to reveal how they were injured, except to their closest family members, according to the source. Living conditions for honorable soldiers in the northwestern province of North Hamgyong is “appalling,” a resident of the province’s Orang county told RFA. “The honorable soldiers in Pyongyang and other large cities work at ‘Honorable Soldier Factories’ which operate at full capacity because they are important to the country, but out here in the small-town rural areas the factories for them aren’t running,” he said. “In our county, we have more than 70 honorable soldiers with relatively minor disabilities. Most of them work at the honorable soldier fishing gear factory, but it has been a long time since they shut down due to a lack of electricity and raw materials,” the second source said. The source said that when the factories shut down, the able-bodied were able to support themselves through other means. “The ordinary residents can survive by going out to sea to fish or going to the mountains to collect firewood to sell, but the honorable soldiers cannot do those things because they can’t move around freely. The lives of the honorable soldiers are far more miserable than those of the able-bodied,” he said. “Even now, the number of honorable soldiers continues to increase. They either have an injured limb or they lost an eye, or things like that. The authorities say that those soldiers are the precious treasures of the country and that they should be taken care of, but there’s no actual support.” Translated by Claire Lee. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
Shanghai extends citywide lockdown after Beijing steps up pressure over zero-COVID
Authorities in Shanghai extended a citywide lockdown on Tuesday, in the face of growing public anger over ongoing restrictions under ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping’s zero-COVID policy. “Shanghai’s epidemic prevention and control is at the most difficult and most critical stage,” municipal health official Wu Qianyu told journalists. “We must adhere to the general policy of dynamic clearance without hesitation, without wavering.” Wu’s announcement came amid public anger over food shortages amid a citywide logistics crisis, the separation of parents and children in compulsory isolation facilities and the culling of family pets. More than 1,000 Shanghai residents petitioned online for asymptomatic children to be allowed to isolate at home, but the petition was no longer available on the social media platform WeChat on Tuesday, Reuters reported. Shanghai reported 13,086 new asymptomatic coronavirus cases on Monday compared with 8,581 the previous day, following a mass testing program that covered almost all of the city’s 26 million residents. The announcement came after vice premier Sun Chunlan “rushed” to to Shanghai from the northeastern city of Jilin to call on the city not to relax its grip on the virus. “We must adhere unswervingly to the general policy of ‘dynamic zero’ without hesitation, have a resolute and firm attitude, and act swiftly and powerfully,” Sun told municipal leaders in comments reported by state news agency Xinhua. Sun called for expanding mobile cabin hospitals and designated hospitals, preparing a sufficient number of isolation rooms, tracking down infected persons to achieve “daily clearing and settlement” of cases, and “strictly increasing community management and control and guaranteeing basic living conditions and regular medical care,” the report said. An online video clip showed Shanghai municipal party secretary Li Qiang inspecting a residential compound under lockdown, where he was mobbed by residents wanting to share issues. “We want to ask if you’re going to solve our livelihood issues,” one resident asks Li, who proceeds to listen to some of their concerns. Reports of price-gouging A Shanghai resident surnamed Zheng said the lockdown is a crude way of managing the virus, and its impact on people’s daily lives has been huge. “I wrote a letter to the mayor myself, and they replied that it had been passed on, but no one came, so I had to find a way to buy food by myself,” Zheng told RFA. “It is hugely troublesome because courier companies aren’t allowed to deliver now, supermarkets aren’t allowed to open and stores are closed,” he said. “They said they would organize group buying, but the vegetables were horribly expensive.” “We haven’t seen any of the vegetables sent by other provinces to support us here in Shanghai,” Zheng said. Zheng said local officials had been accused of price-gouging in the group-buying business and some had resigned. “The party secretary and mayor of Cai township in the northeast of Pudong stepped down … they earned 20 to 30 million yuan out of just a few days [of lockdown],” he said. A man looks outside from his window during a COVID-19 lockdown in Shanghai’s Jing’an district, April 12, 2022. Credit: AFP ‘No different than a lockdown’ While authorities announced on Monday that residents of thousands of residential communities would be allowed to move around in a limited manner for the first time in weeks, a resident surnamed Chen said this didn’t appear to have been implemented on the ground. “It just allowed people to move around within their compound, not to go out,” he said. “It’s no different than a lockdown.” Meanwhile, seriously ill patients across the city remain locked out of life-saving medical care by COVID-19 restrictions and ward closures that are being blamed in part on the diversion of the city’s healthcare personnel to compulsory mass testing programs. Economist Lang Xianping posted on Weibo that his mother had died of kidney failure after multiple PCR tests had failed to yield results soon enough to get her admitted to hospitals in the city. “I was in shock,” Lang wrote. “My mom left me forever after waiting at the door of the ER for four hours.” He said he had been unable to see her one last time. “This tragedy could have been avoided,” Lang wrote. ‘Little better than a slum’ Tensions were running high in locked-down communities, with people shouting out of windows that they were “going crazy” or “dying” or “need supplies.” Several videos circulating online showed authorities unable to respond to the explosion of numbers in need of quarantine beds, with 6-12 people to a room in hastily built field hospitals. In one, the person shooting the scene says the facility is “half-finished” and that everyone had to go and fight for their own bedding. “It’s little better than a slum,” the person says. Another video, titled “one person, one box”, showed confirmed COVID-19 patients sleeping in rows of long cardboard boxes alongside their personal belongings. Li Zhenghong, president of the Shanghai Taiwan Business Association, said member companies are having trouble sourcing supplies of coal, gas, water, electricity and food to take care of their employees. “Logistics is a bigger problem,” Li told RFA. Taiwan epidemiologist Ho Mei-hsiang said the lockdown would have to lift eventually, which would give rise to a larger wave of infections. “Even if they’re successful [in getting to zero] after 20 or 28 days, the question is what happens next?” Ho said. “There is still a bunch of virus circulating outside [Shanghai]. The next time the virus comes in, will they lock down again?” “As long as the virus exists in the world, completing the first three doses of vaccine should be the top priority, not lockdowns,” Ho said. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
Hong Kong police are ‘weaponizing’ the law against outspoken media mogul: lawyers
Lawyers for jailed pro-democracy media magnate Jimmy Lai, who is awaiting trial under a draconian national security law, have called on the United Nations to investigate the multiple criminal cases against him. Lai’s legal team led by Caoilfhionn Gallagher at Doughty Street Chambers filed an urgent appeal over “legal harassment” against him, saying he had been jailed simply for exercising his right to freedom of expression and assembly and the right to peaceful protest. The 74-year-old founder of the now-defunct Next Media empire, whose flagship Apple Daily newspaper was forced to close amid an investigation by the national security police, has been repeatedly targeted by the Hong Kong authorities, the firm said in a statement on its website. “Hong Kong authorities have repeatedly targeted Mr Lai, … and this has intensified since the passing of the controversial National Security Law in 2020,” it said. It said Lai faces a “barrage” of legal cases, including four separate criminal prosecutions arising from his attendance at and participation in various protests in Hong Kong between 2019-2020, including most recently in relation to his participation in a vigil marking the 1989 Tiananmen massacre in Beijing, for which he received a 13-month prison sentence. He is currently serving concurrent prison sentences in relation to all four protest cases, while awaiting trial for “collusion with foreign powers” and “sedition” in relation to editorials published in Apple Daily. The appeal calls on the United Nations to consider all of the cases against Lai “as they constitute prosecutorial, judicial and legal harassment of Mr. Lai, because of his advocacy of democracy and the rights to protest and freedom of expression in Hong Kong,” it said. “The appeal also highlights intimidatory tactics used against Mr. Lai’s lawyers, which raise further concerns,” the statement said. Lai’s son Sebastien Lai welcomed the move. “My dad’s trials are piling up with no end in sight,” he said. “The CCP [Chinese Communist Party] may have swapped their guns for a gavel. But with patience, a gavel can do as much damage, and make much less noise.” “I urge the United Nations Special Rapporteurs to investigate what the CCP through the Hong Kong government is doing to my father and dozens of other brave Hong Kongers.” Gallagher said the cases against Lai are “spurious,” and that Lai could spend the rest of his life in prison simply for speaking out to defend Hong Kong’s freedoms. “[The] appeal details how the Hong Kong and Chinese authorities are weaponizing the law against him – using the pretext of national security and a range of legal measures not only to silence and punish him for expressing his views, but also to deter others from doing the same,” she said. The Hong Kong national security police said the allegations were “groundless,” and that the national security law “safeguards … many rights and freedoms.” Lai has been in Stanley Prison for nearly 18 months. The appeal came as Hong Kong activist Max Chung pleaded guilty to “organizing an unauthorized assembly” in Yuen Long in protest at an attack by white-clad mobsters wielding sticks on passers-by and passengers in the Yuen Long MTR station on July 21, 2019. He was convicted by District Court judge Amanda Woodcock on April 11. Some 288,000 protesters went to Yuen Long on the day of the protest, which drew widespread public anger against the police, who didn’t respond to multiple emergency calls from the scene until nearly 40 minutes had elapsed. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
Relatives of detained Uyghurs forced to work in Xinjiang factories
Hundreds of family members of detained Uyghur residents of a small community in northwestern China’s Xinjiang region have been forced to work in local government-run factories, a source with knowledge of the situation and a local police officer said. At least 100 residents from Sheyih Mehelle hamlet in Ghulja (in Chinese, Yining) county have been imprisoned by authorities, a security guard from the area told RFA in an earlier report. The hamlet has a population of more than 700 people and is part of Cholunqay village, which has more than 10,000 residents. Authorities have been transporting their relatives, mostly women and some elderly men, by bus to the factories where they work 10-12 hours a day under the watch of staff assigned to oversee them, a source familiar with the situation said. During the first two years of the detentions from 2017 to 2019, Chinese authorities forced the family members of those who had been incarcerated or taken to internment camps to attend political study sessions, the source said. But in the last three years, they have forced the hamlet residents to work in factories for monthly wages of 1,000-2,000 yuan (U.S. $157-$314). China is believed to have held 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Muslim Turkic minorities in the camps since 2017. Beijing has said that the camps are vocational training centers and has denied widespread and documented allegations that it has mistreated Muslims living in the region. Authorities take the family members to factories in Yamachang on the outskirts of Ghulja city, a police officer in Cholunqay village said. “There are around 500 people working in that [place]. … There are factories there that make clothes, socks and gloves,” he said. RFA previously reported that Yamachang comprised more than 20 internment camps set up in 2017 and 2018. The officer, who said he did not know if the residents were paid for their work, told RFA that government officials are assigned to take the families of the detainees to the complex at 6 a.m. The residents are returned to the hamlet at 6 p.m. so they can take care of their children and elderly parents. Besides the mostly women and a few elderly men who work at the complex, at least one ill resident has been forced to work there, he said. “They are mostly women and elderly,” he said. “There’s even one who is always ill. “They have school-age kids, and some have elderly to take care at home,” he said. “That’s why they are brought back in the evening.” Some of the hamlet residents are also working in factories in Aruz farm field, the police officer said. The Chinese women’s affairs director in Cholunqay village said that people who have “graduated from re-education” are among the laborers who work in the factories in Yamachang and at the Aruz farm fields. Gulzire Awulqanqizi, an ethnic Kazakh Muslim who was held at the Dongmehle Re-education Camp in Ili Kazakh (in Chinese, Yili Hasake) Autonomous Prefecture’s Ghulja city from July 2017 to October 2018, told RFA that after her release, she had been forced to work at a glove factory in the Aruz farm fields. The woman, who now lives in the U.S. state of Virginia, said authorities transported her by bus from her dormitory to the factory, where she received only 600 yuan a month for her work. When she returned home at the end of the day, she had to undertake political studies and was subjected to police interrogations. “We went to work from 7 a.m. onwards, and we had 40 minutes for lunch,” she said. “After the factory work, we went to our dormitories.” Translated by RFA’s Uyghur Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
North Korea appears to be rebuilding tunnels at closed nuclear testing facility
North Korea appears to be restoring tunnels at its Punggye-ri nuclear testing site, nearly four years after Kim Jong Un publicly closed it in a move that observers said was an attempt to ease tensions in the region. Foreign journalists who attended the closing ceremony Kim Jong Un presided over in May 2018 in the northeastern province of North Hamgyong reported that tunnels used for testing had been destroyed. But later reports noted that only the entrances to the tunnels were demolished and that maintenance activity at the site had resumed. The Open Nuclear Network (ONN), a non-profit organization headquartered in Vienna, Austria, reported last week that North Korea is believed to have built an entrance to tunnel 3, south of the Punggye-ri nuclear test site. The ONN report was based on satellite imagery taken between March 24 and April 6. Residents of the province who were near the Punggye-ri test site told RFA’s Korean Service that they too have seen evidence of construction activities. “A few days ago, I went to my relative’s house in Kilju county close to Punggye-ri, and I saw trucks carrying construction debris,” a resident of Musan county, in the same province, told RFA’s Korean Service April 7 on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “The trucks unloaded the construction debris in the open space at nearby Chaedok rail station. Then the construction waste was loaded onto a freight train using a forklift. As soon as it was loaded, the freight train departed,” she said. Access to the part of the station where the debris is stored and loaded is very limited due to a military presence there, the source said. “I heard from my relative who works at Chaedok station that the debris area is surrounded by armed soldiers and is off-limits to the public,” she said. “According to my relative, the rocks carried by the freight train are from the tunnel restoration site of the Punggye-ri nuclear testing site, but no one knows why the debris is loaded onto freight trains … instead of being dumped at the nuclear test site,” said the source. Restoration work at the site has been ongoing around the clock at the site. “Soldiers from the engineering units under the General Political Bureau of the Ministry of Defense are mobilized day and night to excavate and restore the Punggye-ri nuclear test site.” A former high-ranking North Korean official who escaped and resettled in South Korea told RFA that it was likely that the orders to restore the tunnels came from the very top. “The engineer corps under the General Political Bureau is in charge of important construction projects promoted by the party’s Central Committee. If they were the people mobilized to restore the Punggye-ri nuclear test site, it must be considered that this order comes from the supreme commander,” the former official said, referring to Kim Jong Un. Local residents noticed when construction equipment and materials rolled into Kilju county at the beginning of this year, one county resident told RFA. “I don’t know when the tunnel restoration of the Punggye-ri nuclear test site started, but it was in mid-February that we saw things like trucks and excavators loaded with rebar and wood and other construction materials entering the village at Punggye-ri,” the Kilju resident said on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “The nuclear test site tunnels are located in the mountains,” he said. “As trucks loaded with construction materials and excavators are heading toward the tunnels in the mountains where the nuclear test site is located, it seems that the tunnel restoration started in earnest from mid-February.” The Kilju resident also said he had no idea where they were taking the debris after it was loaded at Chaedok rail station. “No one can go near the debris because it is so heavily guarded. If you take a tiny stone from the pile of rubble at the station, you can be treated as a spy and accused of trying to sell it … to hostile countries, “he said. The two sources both said they were able to see debris unloaded and loaded at the station from a distance of about 100 meters (109 yards) away. RFA reported in March that movement had been detected in satellite imagery of the test site, and experts predicted the site could be completely restored in six months at the latest. Of the four tunnels at the test site, all except the first, which was heavily damaged during North Korea’s first nuclear test in 2006, could possibly be restored, Joseph Bermudez, a senior fellow for Imagery Analysis at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told RFA in March. Translated by Leejin Jun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
Malaysian Police arrest fugitive allegedly close to US-sanctioned Chinese triad boss
Malaysian police announced the arrest of a suspected criminal leader who is said to be close to the Chinese underworld, following his surrender to law enforcement here on Monday after more than a year in hiding. Nicky Liow Soon Hee, who faces 26 counts of money laundering according to the police, had been on the run since March 2021 when authorities smashed his syndicate and arrested more than 60 suspects, including some law enforcement officers, police said. Nicky is alleged to be close to the United States-sanctioned Chinese triad leader Wan Kuok Koi (commonly known as Broken Tooth), the head of the 14K Triad, one of the largest Chinese organized crime gangs in the world. “[Nicky] Liow Soon Hee also known as Nicky Liow was arrested at 11 a.m. at the Federal Police Commercial Crime Department office in Jalan Tun Razak after he turned up and surrendered to police,” Commercial Crime Director Kamarudin Md. Din said. “Liow will be charged with 26 counts of money laundering under … the Anti-Money Laundering, Anti-Terrorism Financing and Proceeds of Unlawful Activities Act 2001,” he added. Liow is scheduled to be produced at Shah Alam court in Selangor on Tuesday. He is staring at a prison sentence of 15 years and hefty fines, if convicted. Last month, the Federal Police Commercial Crime Department obtained an arrest warrant for Liow after it filed charges against him at the Shah Alam Court for money laundering offenses under the instructions of the Attorney General’s Chambers, according to Kamarudin. Liow’s Nicky Gang operated a telecommunication scam where it tricked victims, mostly in China, into handing over large sums of money, allowing the gang to allegedly amass millions of ringgit, police said. The syndicate would also target investors from China by promising them huge returns through investments in cryptocurrency, real estate and the foreign exchange market. During a series of raids in March 2021 to take down the Nicky Gang, police arrested more than 50 people and seized 773,000 ringgit (U.S. $187,500) along with 35 vehicles valued at 8.86 million ringgit ($2.14 million) under provisions of the Anti-Money Laundering, Anti-Terrorism Financing and Proceeds of Unlawful Activities Act of 2001. Among those arrested were Liow’s two brothers, Liow Wei Kin and Liow Wei Loon, but they were later freed after prosecutors dropped charges against them. A series of sanctions by the U.S. Treasury Department on Wan Kuok Koi, the Macau underworld kingpin allowed the Royal Malaysia Police to establish links to the Nicky Gang, Ayob Khan Mydin Pitchay, then the police chief of Johor state, told BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service, in an interview last April. “It was crucial information as based on the tip of the iceberg. We were able to study the serious and extensive operations of the local syndicate, which has international connections,” Ayob told BenarNews. “It is very serious and we are very concerned what would have happened should we have failed to react accordingly and slam the brakes on their operation.” He described Liow’s and Wan Kuok Koi’s relationship as close. “Liow and Broken Tooth are as close as siblings,” Ayob said. “They have known each other since 2018 and Broken Tooth … had since been providing Liow with patronage and security assurance under his 14K Triad.”
Seriously ill patients die after being denied hospital care in Shanghai lockdown
Patients in Shanghai are being locked out of life-saving medical treatment as the city pushes ahead with Xi Jinping’s zero-COVID policy, RFA has learned. As large swathes of the city remain under lockdown and thousands of new infections are reported every day, hospitals are increasingly closing their doors to patients, even those in need of dialysis and cancer treatment. Jiading district resident Wang Zhumin’s 77-year-old father — who would typically need dialysis three times a week — hasn’t been able to get it for seven days, she said. “I keep seeking out the neighborhood committee and the municipal government, but they tell me they can’t get him into Jiading Central Hospital, and that we can’t come in,” Wang said. “I said, so does that mean he has to stay home and wait for death?” Wang’s father once received dialysis three times a week at Haihua Hospital near his home, but that facility was initially hit by staff shortages and a lack of beds, then announced it was shutting down the dialysis clinic because of a COVID-19 outbreak. Neither the neighborhood committee, the city government nor emergency services have been able to help, she said. “They told me to find a hospital myself … like kicking a ball around,” she said. She later took her father to the Jiading Central Hospital and waited all day on the off-chance of a dialysis slot, but went home with nothing. “I didn’t see hide nor hair of a doctor,” Wang said. Repeated calls to the Haihua Hospital and the Jiading Central Hospital ER rang unanswered on April 7 and April 8. According to Haihua Hospital’s WeChat account, the hospital has dispatched more than 500 people to “the front line” to support the mandatory, city-wide COVID-19 testing effort. The Jiading Central Hospital also sent some 100 medical staff to Pudong to support the PCR testing operation there on March 28, according to publicly available information. More than 20,000 patients in Shanghai rely on regular dialysis to stay alive, and new appointments were already few and far between. A report in the China News Weekly said many dialysis facilities have been shut during lockdown, with their staff in compulsory isolation centers after testing positive for COVID-19. Desperate patients — including those needing dialysis, cancer treatment or those with complex chronic illnesses — frequently post appeals to social media calling for help from somewhere; anywhere. Shen Ruiyin, a 77-year- old Shanghai resident, died on the evening of March 28 due to heart failure caused by going without kidney dialysis for a prolonged period. His son Shen Li took to Weibo to complain that his father had been transferred between three difference hospitals after testing positive for COVID-19 on March 26. He died alone in the hospital, with no family at his side, without the medication he needed, and with no dialysis, Shen Li wrote. Qi Guoyong, a 79 -year-old Shanghai resident, lost his wife Zhang Siling at the end of March. “I am very saddened by the death of my wife, but I can’t do anything about it,” Qi told RFA. “I hope the hospital can give me some kind of answer… I just want them to give me an explanation.” Qi said the hospital is “too busy” to worry about his wife’s death, with a huge backlog of cancer patients awaiting chemotherapy. But he wants to know if Zhang, who was passed around three different hospitals after presenting with abdominal pain on March 22, was misdiagnosed; if anything could have been done to save her. Zhang was initially treated for pancreatitis, before developing sepsis likely caused by a bowel obstruction, Qi said. A Hangzhou resident surnamed Lei, 33, said she had brought her terminally ill mother to Shanghai to seek treatment at the Shanghai Fudan Cancer Hospital on March 23, and surgery was scheduled within seven days from her admission. But lockdown hit, and Lei’s mother’s surgery was repeatedly postponed, with doctors telling Lei that her mother had to wait two weeks because they weren’t Shanghai residents. “We are really desperate,” Lei said. “My mother’s metastatic tumor could still be surgically removed, but it’s been more than 60 days since her last chemotherapy, and the tumor could grow … or metastasize at any time.” “My mother has diabetes, and there is no food or medicine available around here … this has been devastating for my mother’s mental health.” It’s a humanitarian disaster that has rippled through Shanghai since lockdown came. At least two asthma patients have died after being refused treatment by medical staff on the grounds of disease prevention, according to online reports. Miao Xiaohui, former chief physician at Shanghai Changzheng Hospital, wrote in an April 7 article that the government should be taking steps to address the issue of non-COVID excess deaths caused by the restrictions. He cited figures reported in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) as saying that the mortality rate from diabetes in China increased by 83 percent during 2021, while the suicide rate has risen by 66 percent, compared with before the pandemic. Meanwhile, local officials charged with imposing draconian stay-at-home restrictions have been resigning en masse, citing a lack of understanding of the impact of the zero-COVID policies on the ground, and a lack of support for those tasked with enforcing them, many of whom are retirees and volunteers. Wu Yingchuan, branch CCP secretary at Shanghai’s Changli Garden residential compound, said in a resignation letter that the committee were resigning as they were unable to meet testing and contract-tracing requirements as required by the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). “There are too many things that we grassroots officials needed to know from the start, but we weren’t told,” Wu wrote, adding that his neighborhood committee had tried their hardest to arrange transportation for chemotherapy and dialysis patients, but had been told repeatedly not to send them to hospitals. The Hancheng neighborhood committee sent an open letter to residents on April 9, saying that its members had been separated from their families since March 17. “We are also doing our best…
Vietnamese girl’s 1940 birth certificate could support Paracels sovereignty claim
New evidence has emerged that may help support Vietnam’s claims over the Paracel islands in the South China Sea, currently occupied by China. A copy of a birth certificate issued in June 1940 claims that Mai Xuan Quy, a girl, was born at 3 p.m. on Dec. 9, 1939, on Pattle Island to Mai Xuan Tap, a Vietnamese meteorologist and his wife, Nguyen Thi Thang. The paper was witnessed by Nguyen Tang Chuan, a medical doctor, and Do Duc Mui, head of the local radio communication station. As such, it indicates that French Indochina, of which Vietnam was part, had administration of the island and Vietnamese people worked there. That could be significant evidence as claimants to disputed features in the South China Sea may seek to show they were the first to have an official presence there. Pattle is a coral island, part of the Crescent Island group of the Paracel Islands in the South China Sea. It served as the main base for the colonial-era French Indochinese and later, South Vietnamese occupation of the Paracels. Vietnam, Taiwan and China all claim sovereignty over the entire Paracel archipelago but China has occupied it since 1974. Peaceful life During the 1930s, the French colonial government built some infrastructure including a weather station, a medical facility and a post office on Pattle Island. Mai Xuan Tap, father of Mai Kim Quy, was among the civilians sent there to man the weather station when it was first set up in 1938. He brought with him his wife and two daughters, Mai Thi Phi, then two years old, and a newly born baby, Mai Thi Phuong. The eldest daughter, Mai Thi Phi, who is now 86 and lives in Ho Chi Minh City, said: “Our family lived in Pattle four years, from 1938 to 1941. My sister Mai Kim Quy was born there.” “Unfortunately Quy died in 1942 after we returned to the mainland.” “Our life on Pattle Island was quiet and peaceful. The Vietnamese living there were mainly civil servants working at the weather station, the post office and the hospital,” Phi recalled. “We had never seen any Chinese person on the island during the whole time we were there,” she said. Mai Xuan Tap died in 1983, his wife died much earlier in 1954. After returning to Saigon, the couple had seven more children including three sons and four daughters. The birth certificate of Mai Kim Quy was passed to the eldest son, Mai Xuan Phu, for safekeeping. “My family has donated the birth certificate to the Vietnamese foreign ministry,” said Mai Thi Phi. “The ministry said this is a valuable document that can play an important role in defending the country’s territorial claims in the South China Sea,” she added. The birth certificate issued in June 1940 by the French colonial authority on Pattle Island in the Paracels for Mai Xuan Quy. Credit: Mai Xuan Tap family ‘Useful evidence’ The Paracel archipelago is now occupied and fully controlled by China, with the biggest feature – Woody Island – being extensively developed. China has also carried out land reclamations and substantial upgrades of its military infrastructure there, according to the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. Yet disputes remain over the islands’ ownership. Contested territorial claims are hard to verify, especially because until the 20th century, there was no permanent military nor civilian presence of any country there. China, Vietnam and Taiwan all have ample historical documents to back up their claims, including maps, declarations and different materials. Vietnam, which was part of French Indochina, said the troops of Annam (the then-name of colonial Vietnam), and after that, civilian administrators, set up base on the Paracels before anybody else. Mai Xuan Quy’s birth certificate may serve as a historical evidence of physical acts of administration on the Paracel islands, said Bill Hayton, associate fellow in the Asia-Pacific Program at Chatham House, an independent U.K. think tank. “My argument would be that this [the birth certificate] doesn’t swing the argument decisively but it is very useful evidence that Annam was in effective occupation of some of the Paracels at that time,” Hayton said. “If the case ever went to a tribunal of some kind, the Chinese would put forward their own evidence and the judges would decide which case was stronger.” “Such cases aren’t decided by vague claims or printing names on maps but on proving that a state had administrative control over a feature – and registering a birth on the island to a civil servant is quite strong evidence of that,” the British analyst said. His argument, however, is being rejected by some historians who point out that China’s stance would be to stick to historical claims. “The French Government stated at the time that they only occupied the Paracels ‘before any other Power did so’, meaning Japan. This was widely reported in the press,” said Mark Hoskin, an independent researcher and lecturer on China’s maritime history and law. This action was taken because the Japanese had occupied Hainan and implemented a blockade of the Southern Chinese coastline. Japan was threatening France due to the transport of arms via Indochina to China. “So the French occupation of the Paracel islands had strategic and military reasoning, but was not sovereignty related. The French statements themselves negate any potential for a sovereignty claim,” Hoskin added.
Hong Kong police arrest senior journalist, radio host on colonial ‘sedition’ charge
Hong Kong national security police on Thursday arrested a senior journalist for ‘sedition,’ as Beijing’s preferred candidate and former police chief John Lee launched his campaign to win the city’s top job. Former TVB News producer and former RTHK radio show host Allan Au, who has also had columns in Stand News and in the Ming Pao newspaper, was taken away from his home in Kwai Chung at around 6 a.m. local time on suspicion of “sedition” under colonial-era laws. Au’s arrest for “conspiring to publish seditious material” came after his sacking from RTHK in June 2021 as the government moved to exert editorial control over the broadcaster, amid an ongoing crackdown on public dissent and political opposition that began with the July 1, 2020 imposition of the national security law on Hong Kong by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP). “The arrest of veteran journalist Allan Au is a further blow to press freedom in Hong Kong,” the U.K.-based rights group Hong Kong Watch said in a statement on its website, adding that his arrest appeared to be part of an ongoing national security case involving former senior editors at Stand News, Chung Pui Kuen and Patrick Lam. “The international community must condemn this latest attack on the free press in Hong Kong, and work to pressure China and the Hong Kong Government to stop targeting journalists and to release political prisoners in Hong Kong,” Hong Kong Watch CEO Benedict Rogers said. Hong Kong Journalists’ Association (HKJA) chairman Ronson Chan said he was “very sad” at the news of Au’s arrest. “We worked together and used to hike together,” Chan said. “Everyone grew up reading Au’s [columns]. His name represented the [best of the] Hong Kong press … He explained the news in a calm and rational way.” Chan said shifting “red lines” about what constitutes acceptable public speech have become the new norm in Hong Kong, which is now very similar to mainland China. The HKJA said in a statement on its website: “The HKJA is deeply concerned about the arrest, and that it will further damage freedom of the press in Hong Kong.” It said Au had also worked as a lecturer at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK)’s journalism department, and “often shared his experience with the younger generation.” “We call on the government to protect the freedom of the press and speech enjoyed by Hong Kong citizens in accordance with the [law],” it said. The CCP-backed Global Times newspaper said more arrests could follow, citing a police statement. Former police officer and security chief John Lee, in a file photo. Credit: AP Photo Crackdown on public dissent The national security law ushered in a citywide crackdown on public dissent and criticism of the authorities that has seen several senior journalists, pro-democracy media magnate Jimmy Lai and 47 former lawmakers and democracy activists charged with offenses from “collusion with a foreign power” to “subversion.” Au’s arrest came as former police officer and security chief John Lee launched a high-profile campaign to succeed Carrie Lam as chief executive, with pro-CCP media singing his praises. Lee is widely regarded as Beijing’s intended winner of a closed-circle “election” slated for May 8. The Global Times said Lee was committed to ensuring that nobody will be allowed to stand in elections in Hong Kong unless they are truly loyal to Beijing. Lee joined the Hong Kong Police Force in 1977, rising through the ranks before being made undersecretary for security in September 2012, and secretary for security from 2017 to 2021. He recently resigned as the city’s No. 2 official, chief secretary for administration, to pursue the campaign for Lam’s job. “Coming in the same week that the former police officer and security minister, John Lee, was anointed as Carrie Lam’s successor, the arrest of Allan Au confirms what many of us feared, that Beijing will continue its crackdown on human rights and press freedom in the city,” Rogers said in a statement on Au’s arrest. Former pro-democracy lawmaker Ted Hui, who recently had his family’s assets frozen by national security police, in a file photo. Credit: Reuters Assets frozen Meanwhile, former pro-democracy lawmaker Ted Hui, currently in exile in the U.K., has had his family’s assets frozen by national security police, he said in an April 9 Facebook post. Hui’s family is now subject to a restraining order under the national security law that prevents him or his family members from disposing of any assets in Hong Kong, according to a copy of the official document posted to Facebook. Hui said the move was a form of political persecution “using judicial means.” “This is the second time I have been robbed by the Hong Kong government … using shameful methods,” he wrote, calling on the international community to impose further sanctions on Hong Kong officials responsible for the move. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
Wealthy North Koreans refuse loans to farms after government cancels farm debt
The North Korean government’s order to cancel the debts of collective farms is causing reluctance among wealthy lenders to issue new loans to farmers, a major funding setback that could hamper the country’s ability to produce food this year, sources told RFA. After a devastating famine from 1994-1998, North Korea’s cash-strapped government stopped subsidizing collective farms, instructing them to become self-reliant. The loss of state funding led farm managers to seek loans from wealthy North Koreans with the promise that after the fall harvest, they would repay them in harvested crops worth twice what was borrowed. The farms were still obligated to produce enough food to satisfy quotas mandated by the state under this new system, and as long as the harvests went according to plan, there was enough to pay off both the lenders and the state. Poor harvests in 2021 made both impossible. But during a meeting of the Central Committee of the ruling Korean Workers’ Party in December, the country’s leader, Kim Jong Un, declared that North Korea would take special measures to cancel the debts incurred by collective farms to the state, meaning that they were off the hook for the 2021 production quota. This also meant indirectly that private debt was canceled, as the whole point of forgiving the farmers’ state debts was so they could get back to farming in 2022 with a clean slate. But the move seems to be backfiring, as lenders are now unwilling to provide the collective farms with capital. “It’s not like last year, when the farm officials could just go into the city and borrow 10,000 yuan [U.S. $1,577] from wealthy lenders,” a resident of Ryongchon county, in the northwestern province of North Pyongan, told RFA’s Korean Service on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “This year they don’t even want to lend just 100 yuan, so all the farm officials are really getting anxious,” said the source. According to the source, after Kim Jong Un gave the order in December, law enforcement officials threatened lenders that they could be branded as anti-socialist for engaging in capitalistic activities. Wealthy North Koreans who did lend money to the farmers may never be repaid, a source from Musan county, in the northeastern province of North Hamgyong, told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “They have their money taken by the state-run collective farms with their eyes open. Even if they want to try to get it back, they are afraid they might get caught and punished as an example to others,” the second source said. “They are complaining that the debt cancellation measure is really the state’s confiscation of their wealth,” said the second source. The policy could jeopardize a system that has been in place for decades, Seo Jae-pyoung, the secretary general of the Seoul-based Association of the North Korean Defectors, told RFA. “Farm officials have been borrowing rich people’s money every year under the party’s policy of self-reliance since the Arduous March of the 1990s,” he said, using the local term for the 1994-1998 famine, which killed millions. “They have set up and built trust with the rich lenders through loan transactions with them. This relationship of trust has been broken by the authorities, which will be an unfavorable factor for the collective farms,” said Seo. Another North Hamgyong resident told RFA that the mercantile class has all the money in North Korea. “The country doesn’t have the money. … Farms don’t have money to buy gasoline, so they borrow the money from the rich. They have to plow the fields, but they can’t run the tractors without gas, which they have to buy illegally,” the second North Hamgyong resident said. The sudden cancellation of farm debt is causing confusion among farm managers this year because the farms are still supposed to be self-reliant even if they cannot find funding, a resident of South Pyongan, north of the capital Pyongyang, told RFA. “The farm officials are urgently visiting the rich lenders on the down low to ask them to lend them money again this year. They say they will pay back even more than double,” the South Pyongan source said. “If they refuse to lend, some of the officials are even offering to lend them farmland,” he said. North Korea canceled collective farm debt only once before — in the 1960’s — under the rule of Kim Jong Un’s grandfather, national founder Kim Il Sung. Translated by Claire Lee and Leejin Jun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
