Category: East Asia

Chinese coast guard vessels intruded more than 60 times in the past year in waters near Taiwan-held Kinmen islands, which lie close to mainland China, Taiwan’s coast guard says. The spate of incursions follows a February 2024 incident when a Chinese speedboat capsized after evading inspection by Taiwan’s coast guard. Two Chinese men died. The incident raised tensions between Taiwan and China. Since then, China’s coast guard has mounted what it describes as “law enforcement” operations, but which Taiwan calls “grey zone” activities intended to undermine its control. Last Thursday, four Chinese coast guard ships encroached into waters south of Kinmen and were driven away, only to return the following day, the Taiwanese coast guard said in a statement Friday. It added that there had been 63 incursions since the February 2024 incident. A Taiwanese analyst described that as an effort to undermine Taiwanese sovereignty of the islands, which are home to about 200,000 people. “The deployment of coast guard ships denies the legitimacy of local law enforcement and denies Taiwan’s jurisdiction and sovereignty,” said Lee Chun-yee, an associate researcher at the National Defense Security Research Institute, a think tank under Taiwan’s defense ministry. “It intends to regard the waters of Taiwan’s outlying islands such as Dongsha and Kinmen as Chinese waters, so it has these jurisdictions. This is coercion against us,” Lee added. Dongsha, also known as Pratas, refers to a Taiwanese-held atoll southwest of Taiwan. China has yet to comment publicly on the Taiwanese allegations. Beijing considers Taiwan a breakaway province which it threatens to seize by force if necessary. Self-ruled Taiwan, which has a democratically elected government, views itself as a sovereign state. Kinmen is an archipelago that lies less than 10 kilometers (6 miles) from China’s Fujian province but more than 180 kilometers (110 miles) from Taiwan’s main island. Its residents have family and history on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, and shuttle regularly by ferry back and forth to the Chinese city of Xiamen. Taiwan describes as “prohibited waters” the territorial waters around Kinmen that extend about halfway to the Chinese coast, or roughly 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) to the north and northwest. “Restricted waters” extend a little further, about 8 kilometers (5 miles), to the south. But Chinese officials have said they will not recognize those restrictions. Locals on Kinmen have told RFA that even before the February 2024 incident, Chinese fishing boats were helping themselves to fish that were once the preserve of Kinmen’s fishing community. Edited by Mat Pennington. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika

Read RFA coverage of this story in Uyghur. Chinese authorities in Xinjiang are forcing Uyghurs to work during Ramadan to prevent them from fasting and praying as the Islamic holy month requires, sources in China’s northwestern region said. Videos circulating on social media platforms last week showed Uyghurs performing forced labor en masse during Ramadan. Some toiled in fields, while others performed cleaning work. The move is one of several measures by authorities to ban religious practices among the roughly 12 million mostly Muslim Uyghurs who live in Xinjiang amid China’s wider, systematic persecution of Uyghurs and their culture. Muslims are urged to fast between dawn and dusk during Ramadan, which this year runs from Feb. 28 to March 29. In most countries, Muslims can do this freely. But in China, authorities have banned fasting during the holy month under the guise of stamping out religious extremism — even requiring people to send officials video proof that they are eating lunch during the day. They also have forbidden Uyghurs from gathering at mosques to pray on Fridays and from observing other Muslim holidays. A video posted on Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, showed residents of Hotan toiling in agricultural fields on the second day of Ramadan. Other information from a video posted on the seventh day of Ramadan indicated that residents of all Uyghur households had to perform collective cleaning. None of the videos gave details, such as where the residents performed the work, and no one offered an explanation as to why it had become necessary to work during Ramadan. “For 15 days, the residents have been working under the leadership of village and county governments to clean house yards and renovate public restrooms,” said a staffer who works for the Onsu county government in Aksu prefecture. Labor is good for you A policeman at a county police station told RFA that some residents were unhappy about being forced to work during Ramadan, but tried to defend the measure, saying that the labor was beneficial to them. “They hope that local authorities reduce their forced labor time and allow them to do their housework,” he said. A staff member of a neighborhood committee in Onsu county said Uyghurs have been working unpaid since the beginning of Ramadan, and they must perform cleaning as required or be punished for resisting. “We divided households into two groups, and each group had 10 people, and they all had to perform the expected tasks,” the staffer said. “We have not taken any measures against anyone opposing the government’s order.” Those who refused to do the work would be detained in a local cadre’s office for 7-10 days or taken “to the camps” if their resistance was strong, the staffer said, referring to the re-education camps Beijing built across Xinjiang. Uyghurs living in the Gulbagh neighborhood of Aksu’s Shayar county cleaned and organized their gardens and yards, the police officer said. Uyghur workers sew clothing at a garment factory in Maralbeshi county, northwestern China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, in 2018.(Chinese State Media) Chinese authorities in Aksu prefecture are forcing Uyghur residents to work during Ramadan so they can’t fast, said a person with knowledge of the situation who requested anonymity for safety reasons. Authorities also have required Uyghur villagers in the prefecture to attend political study sessions on the central Chinese government’s policies in Xinjiang nonstop since the beginning of Ramadan, this person said. Village cadres are intentionally holding the sessions during sahur, the pre-dawn meal, or iftar, the meal after sunset during the holy month. such as studying central government’s Xinjiang policies, the source said. A policeman from Uchturpan county in Aksu prefecture said the purpose of forced labor during Ramadan was to observe the Uyghurs. “Our purpose in doing this is to explain to them the policies of our [Chinese] Communist Party, educate them, and observe their thoughts and feelings,” he said. If a Uyghurs tire easily, feel weak or do not eat or drink while working, it proves that they have been fasting and have an ideological problem, he said. “Around 10 people were reluctant to comply with these rules, so we intensified our ideological work on them,” he said. Translated by RFA Uyghur. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika

Read a version of this story in Korean The North Korean army is ordering soldiers to stop scrounging the streets for cigarette butts to smoke even as commanders keep some of the soldiers’ monthly cigarette rations for themselves, members of the country’s military told Radio Free Asia. The subject was broached during a video conference of the General Political Bureau of the army on March 14, a member of the military in the northern province of Ryanggang told RFA Korean on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “The meeting very seriously discussed the issue of lax discipline among commanders and soldiers,” the military member said, adding that desertion and theft were also brought up as examples of lax discipline. “At this meeting, soldiers were strongly warned against picking up cigarette butts,” he said. “It was officially declared that any soldier caught picking up cigarette butts on the street would be punished with revolutionary labor for at least three months,” a reference to getting the toughest chores. According to the military member, people sifting through cigarette butts to salvage unsmoked tobacco is a recent problem, but it’s a breach of decorum for a uniformed soldier to do it. “Each soldier is provided with 15 packs of cigarettes per month, but the commanders take them all up. So, the soldiers are left picking up the butts because they don’t have any cigarettes to smoke,” he said. “In the past, it was just the lower-ranked soldiers who looked for butts, but now even the higher-ranked soldiers are doing it too.” Cigarette rations have declined, another member of the military from the same province told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “In the case of the border guards, each soldier used to be supplied with 15 packs of Baekseung-brand cigarettes per month, but since last fall, they have only been supplied with 10 packs,” he said. “After the commanders skim off the top, the soldiers are left only 7 packs per month,” he explained. He said that every afternoon the leaders of the border guards send two soldiers to go collect cigarette butts because every unit has a shortage of cigarettes. “Even the border guard units, which are supposedly well-supplied, is in this state, and situations are much worse with other infantry units,” the second source said. “What is more troubling is that this year, even female soldiers have been spotted out on the streets, picking up cigarette butts.” Male units of the border guard are after the tobacco, but the female guards are after the filters, which contain cotton that can be used to make clothes or ceremonial blankets for newlyweds, a customary gift at weddings, he said. So the women — who aren’t allowed to smoke at all — trade the tobacco they collected in exchange for the filters that the men collected. With the money they get for selling the filters, they buy food for their unit. “The supply chain for soldiers is in such a sad state that soldiers are selling cigarette butts for food,” he said. “I wonder if threats like revolutionary labor can even work against these soldiers.” Translated by Clare S. Lee. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster. We are : Investigative Journalism Reportika Investigative Reports Daily Reports Interviews Surveys Reportika