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Category: East Asia
Archeologists unearth ruins of ancient Uyghur city in Mongolia
The discovery of the ruins of a long-lost city in northern Mongolia believed to be built by Uyghurs roughly 1,400 years ago enhances knowledge of Uyghur civilization amid the Chinese government’s efforts to rewrite the Muslim group’s history to fit into its own narrative, historians and other experts said. “This discovery fills a historical gap,” Saban Dogan, the project’s lead archaeologist from Izmir Katip Calabi University in Izmir, Turkey, told Radio Free Asia. “Second, it advances the understanding of [Uyghur] Turkic urban and residential life by another hundred years.” Turkish and Mongolian archaeologists discovered remnants of the lost city of Togu Balik in June and July during excavations in the Tuul River Valley, known as the Tugla River valley in Uyghur historical documents, according to Turkiye Today, which first reported the findings. Dogun suggested that Togu Balik was constructed between 630 and 680 CE, making it one of the earliest cities built by Uyghurs. Today, the Uyghurs are concentrated in the Chinese far-western region of Xinjiang, which they prefer to call East Turkistan, where some 11 million live under Chinese rule and are subjected to a genocide, according to the United States and the parliaments of some Western nations. RELATED STORIES China digs up the past to shore up official version of history Ancient Buddhist temple in Xinjiang stirs controversy INTERVIEW: Lawyer debunks China’s historical narrative of control over Xinjiang Togu Balik, built by the Toquz Oghuz — a confederation of Turkic Tiele tribes known as the “nine clans” in Inner Asia during the early Middle Ages — was a key city of the Uyghur Khaganate, or empire, under the Orkhon Uyghur nobility. That empire existed between 740 CE and 840 CE, following the Uyghurs’ destruction of the Second Turkic Khaganate, an empire in Central and Eastern Asia founded by a clan of the Goturks, another Turkic people, which lasted from 682–744 CE. The Uyghur Khaganate controlled a vast area of the Euro-Asian steppes, stretching from Lake Baikal in the north to the Great Wall of China in the south, and from Manchuria in the east to the Tian Shan mountain range and Lake Balkhash in the west. China’s narrative The discovery of the ruins comes at a time when Uyghur history and archaeology have become sensitive political topics as Chinese historians attempt to reshape Uyghur identity within the notion of the “Chinese nation,” experts said. These historians claim that Uyghurs have been part of the Chinese nation since ancient times and are not Turkic. Some argue that the Uyghurs migrated to what is now Xinjiang in the 9th century CE and that the Han Chinese were the original inhabitants of the area, contrary to historical facts. Turkish and Mongolian archeologists excavate the ruins of Togu Balik in northern Mongolia in 2024. (Turkey’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism/Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency) The discovery of Togu Balik intensifies the debate over Uyghur history, archaeology and the origins of the Uyghurs, the experts said. But Chinese historical documents also indicate that Uyghurs lived in a vast region from the north of the Tuul River in Mongolia to Tian Shan in present-day Xinjiang, said Alimjan Inayet, a professor of Uyghur folklore at Ege University in Izmir, Turkey. “Uyghurs have inhabited the East Turkistan geography since time immemorial,” he told RFA. “These historic documents show that Uyghurs didn’t come to East Turkestan in the 840s CE like current Chinese historians allege, but are the most ancient tribes that lived on this vast land,” Inayet said. “There is no historical basis for China to claim that Uyghurs came to this land only after the 840s.” Kahar Barat, a Uyghur-American historian known for his work on Buddhism and Islam in Xinjiang, agreed, saying Uyghurs at that time migrated from one side of the empire to the other, and did not invade others’ land. Highly civilized people Uyghurs were the first among nomadic Turkic tribes in Eurasia who had established cities and settled in them, giving up their nomadic lifestyles, Inayet said. “Togu Balik, also known as the East City, proves that the Uyghurs were a highly civilized people who established this earliest city,” he added. Dogan declined to comment at length on the political controversy involving China’s efforts to co-opt Uyghur history, but said that the long history of the Uyghurs is very clear and cannot be obscured by the political agendas of China or other countries. Historical sources mention Togu Balik, but its exact location was unclear until now, he said. Turkish and Mongolian archeologists excavate the ruins of Togu Balik in northern Mongolia in 2024. (Turkey’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism/Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency) “In our discussions with Mongolian archaeologists, we hypothesized that the excavated site might be Togu Balik,” Dogun said. “The artifacts found in the ruins of a building in the area confirmed this hypothesis.” The discovery of Togu Balik fills a historical gap in the urban life of the Uyghur and Turkic peoples, he added. “Togu Balik can be considered the oldest Uyghur city known so far,” he said. The city is historically recognized as the place where the Uyghur Toquz Oghuz inhabited and fought against a Turkish invasion in 715 CE. Togu Balik is mentioned in the inscriptions of the Second Turkic Khaganate as well as in the historical documents of the Tang Dynasty, said Barat. “Togu Balik is one of the earliest capitals of Uyghurs,” he told RFA. Khitan Empire It was once believed that Togu Balik was related to the Khitan Empire, a proto-Mongol nomadic people who ruled the northern part of China from the 10th to the early 12th century, and is also known as the Liao Dynasty. Turkish and Mongolian archeologists excavate the ruins of Togu Balik in northern Mongolia in 2024. (Turkey’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism/Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency) But because archaeologists have now found Uyghur ceramic tiles beneath walls at the Togu Balik site, Dogan suggested that the city was later used by the Khitans after the Uyghurs left. “Until now, it was considered that these ruins belonged to the Khitans, but archaeologists have discovered ceramics related to the Uyghurs, specifically related to the…
A far cry from sweet and sour: Hong Kongers bring their food to the UK
Hong Kongers fleeing a political crackdown in their home city are the biggest wave of migrants to settle in Britain since the Windrush generation arrived from the Caribbean — and they’re bringing their food with them. While previous generations of Chinese immigrants would gravitate towards Chinatowns in London and Manchester to make and sell dim sum or roast Cantonese duck to local diners, this cohort is bringing an updated menu of Hong Kong food that offers fellow migrants a nostalgic taste of home. Instead of being concentrated in inner city areas like their forerunners, the nearly 200,000 holders of the British National Overseas passport are making use of a lifeboat visa program to fan out across the country, from Sutton in Surrey, to Brick Lane and Canary Wharf in East London, to affordable neighborhoods in Leeds, Liverpool and Manchester. They’re even growing their own vegetables in their backyards instead of relying on the fresh foods available through chains of Asian foods wholesalers. A shop in the U.K. sells Hong Kong-style milk tea. (Cynthia Hung Jones/RFA) The Hong Kong food stall with the longest line of waiting diners at a weekend food market in the Canary Wharf financial district in early June 2024 offers salt beef tripe, brisket and tendon braised Hong Kong style, attracting a mixed crowd of expectant customers. For some, it’s the taste of home, and for others raised on typical fare from earlier British Hong Kong takeaways, it’s a far cry from sweet and sour chicken balls. “Food has always been an important part of the way that immigrant communities construct their identities,” says Hong Kong columnist Carpier Leung. “I have high hopes for the influence that this wave of immigration can have on Hong Kong cuisine.” The new wave is already breaking on British shores. Over the past two years, more supermarkets have started selling packages of dim sum like har gau shrimp dumplings and char siu pork buns, while Hong Kong-style egg tarts and the city’s signature mix of strong black tea with evaporated milk have started popping up in trendy cafes in areas where Hong Kongers have congregated. You can buy street snacks like egg waffles and French toast, Hong Kong diner (or cha chaan teng) style, in Sutton and Manchester these days. Dreams of Mong Kok Nicole, who founded the Hong Kong nostalgia restaurant HOKO in Brick Lane, said she was drawn to the area because its grittiness and trendiness reminded her of Kowloon’s Mong Kok district. That was home to the “fishball revolution” of 2016 when disgruntled young people — some of them supporters of the city’s independence movement — ripped up paving bricks from the area’s narrow shopping streets and hurled them at police. Founder Nicole outside her Hong Kong nostalgia restaurant HOKO in London’s Brick Lane. (Cynthia Hung Jones/RFA) The first thing you see when you walk into HOKO is a row of evaporated milk tins used by cha chaan teng, with their distinctive red-and-white packaging. The next is the diner-style layout with high-backed, partitioned seating of the kind where low-paid office workers would rub shoulders with blue-collar workers in search of an affordable breakfast or set lunch deal. The tables are stacked with orange melamine chopsticks, with menus in glass cases, throwbacks to Nicole’s memories of these eateries that date back to the 1960s and ‘70s in her home city. Cantopop by Justin Lo is blaring from the speaker system, while posters of Hong Kong bands bedeck the walls. “We sell Hong Kong food that tells a story,” she says, listing milk tea, French toast, pork chop, Swiss chicken wings and borscht, all staples of cha chaan teng — food that arrived in a global free port from somewhere else, only to acquire a peculiarly Hong Kong twist, making it quite unlike the original. “Swiss chicken wings” was the result of a miscommunication between English-speaking tourists and Hong Kong chefs, who heard “Swiss” when the customer said “sweet,” according to HOKO’s menu. Milk tea was brought in during British colonial times and persisted long after British tea-drinkers had forgotten all about evaporated milk. Nicole thinks the latest generation of migrants from Hong Kong is “braver, and truer to ourselves and to Hong Kong cuisine.” Telling the difference Another Hong Kong eatery in east London, Aquila, has directly imported some of its ingredients from Hong Kong to ensure its dishes remain authentic. “We have to insist on that authenticity so that British people will be able to tell the difference between Hong Kong and China [when it comes to food],” says co-founder Lucas. The founders and manager of Hong Kong restaurant Aquila in London’s Leytonstone pose for a photo under the flags of British Hong Kong and the Republic of China (Taiwan) in June 2024. (Cynthia Hung Jones/RFA) The first thing you see when you walk into this joint is a political statement — the flags of British Hong Kong and the Republic of China, currently located in democratic Taiwan, alongside photos from the 2019 protest movement against the loss of Hong Kong’s promised freedoms that would land a person in hot water back home, under two national security laws. But the founders don’t worry much about annoying China, which took back control of Hong Kong in 1997 and still insists on a territorial claim on Taiwan. “I’m running a British business — what is there to be afraid of?” says Lucas. “My grandfather’s business was ruined by the Chinese Communist Party, and my family has been anti-communist ever since.” “I hope that customers will ask why these things are on display, so I can tell them the story of Hong Kong,” he adds. Chicken hotpot Not all food translates easily, however. Hong Kongers have developed a passion in recent years for a local form of chicken hotpot. But Hong Kong migrant and entrepreneur Sam says he doesn’t think the dish has taken off with British diners, who prefer their chicken boneless and not floating around in scalding hot…
Bicycle built for who?
To Lam made his first foreign trip as general secretary of Vietnam’s Communist Party to China, where President Xi Jinping gushed about the two countries’ “shared future.” But the goals of the neighboring nations with similar political systems don’t always align, including on matters of sovereignty in the South China Sea, where China’s sweeping territorial claims have earned rebukes from Hanoi and sparked widespread public protests in Vietnam. While both leaders are pedaling forward, they appear to be headed in opposite directions.
Lao and Chinese security forces raid call centers in the Golden Triangle
Lao and Chinese security forces detained 771 people in the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone during a joint operation conducted ahead of a deadline for illegal call centers in the notorious zone to close. Authorities in northern Laos have notified call centers in the Chinese-run special economic zone, or SEZ, that they have until Sunday to shut down their operations. Scamming operations run by Chinese nationals who try to trick people into fake investments are rife in the zone. Many of the workers are mistreated and prevented from leaving the premises. The Golden Triangle SEZ along the Mekong River in Bokeo province in northern Laos has been a gambling and tourism hub catering to Chinese visitors, as well as a haven for online fraud, human trafficking, prostitution and illegal drug activities. The Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone Command dismantles a gang of telecommunication fraudsters in a video posted to their Facebook page in Bokeo Province, Laos, Aug. 20, 2024. (Mass Media of Public Security via Facebook) The Lao government’s closure order came after an Aug. 9 meeting between the Bokeo provincial governor, high-ranking officials from the Lao Ministry of Public Security, and Zhao Wei, the chairman of the Golden Triangle SEZ. The joint raids with Chinese authorities began on Aug. 12, according to the Lao Ministry of Public Security website. Among the 771 people detained were 275 Laotians, 231 Burmese and 108 Chinese, the ministry said. Other nationalities included people from the Philippines, India, Indonesia, Ethiopia and Vietnam. “Most of them are just workers who were hired to work at the centers,” a ministry official told Radio Free Asia. “It’s a form of human trafficking because they were lured to come to the SEZ to work at stores or restaurants, but later they were forced to work as scammers.” Computers and cellphones A Bokeo provincial official, who like other sources in this report requested anonymity for security reasons, said many of the Chinese citizens who were arrested were in leadership roles at the call centers. “We handed over all the Chinese to Chinese authorities at the border gate in Luang Namtha province several days ago,” she said. “Other foreigners, such as Indians and Filipinos, are waiting for their respective embassies to pick them up.” Most of the arrested Lao nationals were booked, reeducated and handed over to family members, she said. Authorities have also seized more than 2,000 pieces of electronic equipment, including 709 computers and 1,896 mobile phones, according to the ministry. “All Chinese people and equipment seized from the raid have been sent back to China to comply with the agreement between the Lao Ministry of Public Security and the Chinese counterparts,” a Luang Namtha province official told RFA. RELATED STORIES Laos orders Golden Triangle scammers out of zone by end of month 280 Chinese arrested in Laos for alleged online scamming Laos repatriates 268 Chinese suspected of scamming In the first half of 2024, as many as 400 call centers were operating in the Golden Triangle SEZ. The centers mostly targeted Chinese, which eventually prompted authorities in China to team up with their counterparts in Laos. The owner of a Vientiane employment agency that hires workers for Chinese companies in the SEZ said they have paused recruitment activities and are waiting to see what happens after Sunday’s deadline. “If the police stop raiding the places, we’ll be back in business,” he said. Translated by Max Avary. Edited by Matt Reed.
Uyghurs sentenced to cumulative 4.4 million years in prison: study
All told, Uyghurs imprisoned by China in the far-western region of Xinjiang have been sentenced to a cumulative 4.4 million years, a report by Yale University’s Genocide Studies Program says. And the true tally is probably far higher, researchers said. The figure highlights the scale and severity of the Chinese government’s crackdown on the mostly Muslim Uyghurs since 2017, when thousands of Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities were herded into re-education camps and prisons. The 25-page report, “Uyghur Race as the Enemy: China’s Legalized Authoritarian Oppression & Mass Imprisonment,” frames the massive incarceration not only as a crime against humanity and genocide, but also as a form of “dangerous lawfare” designed to erode the Uyghurs’ future prospects for dignity, prosperity and freedom. The study drew on information from the Xinjiang Victims Database, which has data on nearly 62,700 Uyghurs detained in Xinjiang, based on leaked Chinese police documents and other records. Researchers also studied records from the Xinjiang High People’s Procuratorate from 2017 to 2021. It does not include numbers from years since then, after the court stopped publishing data, meaning the true number is much higher. They found 13,114 cases that included a prison sentence, with an average term of 8.8 years, and multiplied the figure by 500,000, which they called a “conservative” figure based on the 540,000 individuals prosecuted by court from 2017 to 2021, to get 4.4 million years. “This is happening on a scale that the world has not seen,” said Uyghur human rights lawyer and advocate Rayhan Asat, principal author of the report. “And if China is allowed to fulfill the 4.4 million years of a cumulative imprisonment it has sentenced the Uyghur people to, it will mean a total ethnic incapacitation for the Uyghur people.” RELATED STORIES UN rights chief calls on China to protect human rights in Tibet and Xinjiang Rights groups blast UN for inaction on China’s repression in Xinjiang Call for debate on rights violations in Xinjiang rejected by UN Human Rights Council UN human rights chief issues damning report on Chinese abuses in Xinjiang This data is crucial for understanding the profound human rights violations and the long-term impacts on the Uyghur community. ‘Legalized human rights abuse’ The Chinese government uses “legalized authoritarianism” to extend the reach of the authoritarian state by weaponizing its legal system against people critical of state policies, the report said. In the case of Xinjiang, Beijing has recognized the Uyghur identity as an enemy and has used laws such as Article 120 of the Criminal Law governing terrorist crimes, the Counter-Terrorism Law, and the Xinjiang Implementing Measures for the Counter-Terrorism Law “to legitimize human rights abuses,” it said. “The involvement of laws as a means of carrying [out] human rights abuses sufficiently characterizes Uyghur incarceration as a legalized human rights abuse,” it said. The study also noted that while the Chinese authorities make public criminal records in other parts of the country, records from almost 90% of cases in Xinjiang are not public. Asat told Radio Free Asia that she wanted to contextualize the consequences of China’s actions for the entire Uyghur population given that the mass incarceration of Uyghurs without due process and with disproportionately harsh imprisonment is already horrific in isolation. She has publicly campaigned on behalf of Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in China, including her brother Ekpar Asat, who has been held in detention in Xinjiang since 2016. “With a cumulative imprisonment of 4.4 million years — a conservative estimate — it’s nearly impossible for the population to carry on their culture and community — our culture and community,” she said. Human toll The analysis comes before the second anniversary on Aug. 31 of a report by former U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet who visited Xinjiang in May 2022 and said China’s mass detentions of Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in the region may constitute crimes against humanity. Her successor, Volker Türk, this March urged China to carry out recommendations from his office to protect human rights in Xinjiang, Tibet and across the country, but Beijing ignored his call. “[In] the context of mass imprisonment, it gives an idea of just how much, human capital is lost to the Uyghur community, the Uyghur population in China as a result of what is arguably a political and arbitrary, punitive, ethnically-based system of mass imprisonment,” said David J. Simon, director of the university’s Genocide Studies Program. “The one other thing I will add about that figure is that the authors of the report have stressed to me that it is a conservative estimate — that the real number, the number of years that Uyghur political prisoners may actually be facing under these laws, could actually be substantially higher,” he told RFA. The report makes several recommendations to address the issue. It says Türk, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, or OHCHR, and U.N. member states must trigger all accountability mechanisms to pressure China to free innocent detainees and to use diplomatic tools to collectively push for the release of all imprisoned Uyghurs. It also recommends that individual states declare they are not willing to do business with China and to impose targeted sanctions like those already imposed by the United States, Britain, the European Union and Canada. The report also recommends that the U.N.’s Human Rights Commission and the OHCHR jointly condemn Beijing’s actions and establish a Commission of Inquiry in China to investigate atrocity crimes. “It’s been nearly a decade after China rolled out its extensive atrocity campaigns against the Uyghurs, and the world’s attention is slowly waning due to other crises emerging,” Asat said. “But the horrors in the Uyghur region have not ceased.” With additional reporting by RFA Uyghur. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
Myanmar rebels capture last junta base in township on China border
One of Myanmar’s most powerful insurgent armies has taken full control of a strategically important township in Kachin state on the border with China, its information officer told Radio Free Asia. The Kachin Independence Army, or KIA, together with People’s Defense Forces loyal to the shadow National Unity Government, defeated junta forces to capture their last remaining battalion base in Momauk township in northern Myanmar on Monday, Col. Naw Bu said. “We were able to completely seize Infantry Battalion 437,” he said. “The military council launched airstrikes but now we can say we have taken control of the whole of Momauk township.” There were casualties on both sides, Naw Bu said, but he declined to give details. RFA telephoned the junta’s Kachin state spokesman and social affairs minister Moe Min Thei to ask about Momauk but he did not answer. The KIA, fighting for self-determination against the forces of the junta that toppled a democratically elected government in 2021, launched an initial attack on Momauk on May 7, then began their final push, along with their allies, on July 24. Momauk is about 130 kilometers (870 miles) south of the Kachin state capital of Myitkyina, and only about 14 kilometers (9 miles) east of the town of Bhamo where the junta’s Operations and Command Headquarters 21 is based, Naw Bu said. Junta forces had withdrawn towards Bhamo, which is on the east bank of the Irrawaddy River, he said. The KIA and its allies have captured more than 20 junta camps in the township since late July and about 200 junta camps in the whole of Kachin state since the beginning of the year, he said. RELATED STORIES China fires into Myanmar after junta airstrike on border, group says Fighting flares near state capital in north Myanmar Northern Myanmar residents caught up in fighting, dozens hurt Residents flee fighting Junta airstrikes, artillery attacks and arson led to the destruction of more than 100 homes in Momauk and more than 3,000 people had fled, many to the safety of areas under KIA control, residents said. One displaced resident sheltering near the Chinese border said he was afraid of more fighting. “The town is being cleared up but I haven’t gone back,” said the man, who wished to remain anonymous for safety reasons. “I would like to check my home if I could but I’m still worried that there will be more fighting,” he said, referring to Bhamo and Mansi towns where junta forces are based. “There are so many difficulties when we flee and shelter with relatives”. The KIA is one of several insurgent forces to make significant gains against junta forces since late last year. An alliance of three rebel factions has pushed junta forces out of major towns in Shan state, to the southeast of Kachin state, while the military has lost ground to ethnic minority insurgents in Rakhine state in the west, and in Kayah and Kayin states in the east, as well as in parts of the deep south. The junta has responded with airstrikes including on the KIA headquarters at Lai Zar on Aug. 15. That attack unsettled neighboring China, which fired warning shots at junta jets, according to the KIA. The United Nations says about 3 million people have been forced from their homes by the fighting in Myanmar, many since clashes surged at the beginning of the year. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
South Korea jails scam group leader for 8 years over Laos, Myanmar operation
A South Korean court sentenced the head of an online scam group that operated in Laos and Myanmar to eight years in prison for luring South Koreans with a false promise of “making big money” and forcing them to commit fraudulent crimes. Nearly 60 victims lost more than 23 billion won (US$17 million) between May and October last year after the scam group imprisoned victims in offices set up in special economic zones in Laos and Myanmar to commit fraudulent crimes, the Daegu District Court revealed. The court also sentenced a senior officer and a recruiter of the group to four years in prison each. Ten other group members, including a “consultant,” were jailed for up to to three years. Online gambling and scam centers that have proliferated in Southeast Asia in recent years. University of Texas researchers estimated in a March report that scammers had tricked investors out of more than US$75 billion since January 2020. The South Korean scam group targeted financially struggling individuals by presenting them with falsified data, convincing them that there were promising investment opportunities in Laos and Myanmar, the court added. “The victims are complaining of extreme economic and mental suffering as a result of the crime and are pleading for severe punishment for the defendants,” the court said, explaining the reason for the sentences. Lured by offers for jobs such as Korean language interpretation and cryptocurrency sales, South Korean job seekers are forced into illegal activities such as voice phishing, investment scams, romance scams, and sex trafficking, according to South Korea’s foreign ministry. Employers compound the abuse by confiscating passports for “visa processing,” and then demanding payment for travel and living expenses. Victims can be detained and assaulted. Given the increase in criminal activities targeting South Koreans, the ministry in January imposed a travel ban, known as a level 4 alert, for the Lao Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone from Feb. 1. As of Monday, the ban was in place. South Koreans must obtain a special government permit if they wish to stay in areas under a level 4 alert, the highest of a government travel warning system. Those who remain in a country without permission face criminal penalties under the passport law. In November last year, South Korea announced that 19 citizens had been rescued by Myanmar police after being held by an illegal business in a town in eastern Myanmar on the Thai border.. RELATED NEWS Laos orders Golden Triangle scammers out of zone by end of month Laos concerned over scam ring influx amid China’s Myanmar crackdown Myanmar police rescue 19 South Korean captives Southeast Asia’s scam centers are increasingly raising concern around the world and governments in the region are being pressed to take action against them. Authorities in Laos recently gave illegal call centers operating in the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone until the end of the month to clear out or face police action. Following an Aug. 9 meeting between the governor of Bokeo province, high-ranking officials from the Lao Ministry of Public Security, and Zhao Wei, the chairman of the Golden Triangle SEZ, Lao authorities ordered all scam centers to be “completely shut down by Aug. 25,” according to state media reports and an official from the public security ministry. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to security concerns, told RFA Lao on Monday that the centers were given the opportunity to “remove all of their belongings by the deadline.” “After that, we’ll set up a special force to enforce the order,” he said. Edited by RFA Staff.
China digs up the past to shore up official version of history
China is working on major archaeological projects with its neighbors in Central Asia in a bid to dig up fresh finds to shore up its official historical narrative and extend its regional soft power, experts told RFA Mandarin in recent interviews. Since President Xi Jinping launched his “Belt and Road” global influence and supply chain initiative in 2013, the country has invested heavily in high-profile excavations along the ancient Silk Road trading routes that once linked China to the Middle East via Central Asia. The Chinese Communist Party relies on strongly stated historical narratives to boost China’s image at home and abroad, and Xi believes archaeology can help with that, experts said. Last month, Chinese historians and archaeologists claimed that a 7th century Chinese empress ordered the construction of an ancient Buddhist temple in Xinjiang, home to 11 million mostly Muslim Uyghurs, emphasizing the idea of the region as a “melting pot” going back centuries. Yet the whole idea of the Silk Road was invented in the 19th century as a colorful metaphor to describe ancient patterns of trade and communication between China, Central Asia, the Middle East and Europe, according to Sören Stark of the Center for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University. Related stories Ancient Buddhist temple in Xinjiang stirs controversy Chinese research in Xinjiang mummies seen as promoting revisionist history “The whole notion of the Silk Road is … a construct, right, in which we are operating,” he told RFA Mandarin in an interview earlier this month. “There wasn’t such a thing like the Silk Road — there never was. It’s a 19th century construct.” “There were corridors, there was a network of communication between China, Rome, India, the Near East, northeastern Europe, the Tigris,” he said. “It’s just a little bit heightened right now because there’s obviously a lot of government funding from the Chinese side into the sphere of Central Asian archaeology.” 70 digs China has carried out more than 70 archaeological collaborations in Central Asian countries in a bid to “study the ancient Silk Road exchanges between China and Central Asia,” the nationalistic Global Times newspaper reported in June. One joint dig in Uzbekistan recently unearthed an ancient settlement dating back to the 8th century BC near the Surkhandarya river. A researcher checks the ceramics discovered at the archaeological site of Shuomen ancient port in Wenzhou, east China’s Zhejiang Province, Oct. 11, 2022. The archaeological site of Shuomen ancient port was discovered at the end of 2021, with ruins of ancient buildings, shipwrecks, and porcelain pieces unearthed in the following archaeological excavations. According to the National Cultural Heritage Administration, the discovery is important to studies of the ancient Maritime Silk Road. (Weng Xinyang/Xinhua via Getty Images) “Chinese and Uzbek experts have made a total of three discoveries in the Central Asian country from April to June,” the paper reported on June 23, citing an investigation into the ancient Kushan Empire, along with ruins and cliff paintings in the Fergana valley. The projects are being touted as part of the Belt and Road initiative, with the paper quoting cultural scholar Fang Gang as saying that “the story of the ancient Silk Road is transforming into today’s Belt and Road Initiative to strengthen the ties between China and Central Asian countries.” The point, according to archeologist Wang Jianxin at Xi’an’s Northwest University, is to “challenge Western-centered interpretations of ancient Silk Road culture while also enhancing the world’s understanding of China’s contribution to ancient Silk Road civilization,” the paper said. But archaeologists said nationalistic agendas and archaeology make uneasy bedfellows, although China isn’t the only country to look to the past to boost its legitimacy in the present. “My concern is that as with any country or any government that supports archaeological excavations (in contrast to excavations supported by academic institutions or private funds) that there is a nationalistic agenda,” Silk Road scholar Judith Lerner told RFA Mandarin in a written reply. The aim is often “to prove that we were there first, that people speaking a particular language can be traced by that language back to the country supporting the excavations, that is, China,” she said. ‘Add Chinese voices’ For example, the idea of China as a historically peaceful influence in the region has been widely propagated by Northwest University’s Wang Jianxin, who has used findings from the Uzbekistan digs around the Kushan Empire and Yuezhi sites as evidence that the two peoples lived peacefully side by side near the Surkhandarya river. Wang has said his mission is to “add Chinese voices” to the archaeological work currently being done in Central Asia. “We just really don’t know,” Lerner said. “And I think we really have to look at things more culturally and sociologically.” Stark said Chinese teams typically look for evidence from the point of view of the official history of China, to see if it supports it or disproves it. “Essentially they come equipped with their national … Chinese-language, historical sources and what they tell about the history, what they tell about the history of the Western regions,” Stark told RFA Mandarin in an interview earlier this month. “That’s their guide in what they are doing … they always come from a Chinese perspective on things.” Visitors look at a 3,000-year-old mummified body of a child found along the Silk Road in China’s far western region of Xinjiang at an exhibition in Beijing, Jan. 16, 2003. (China Photos via Getty Images) “They’re not fundamentally questioning actually whether this whole narrative in these sources is problematic,” he said. For example, the people known in China as the Yuezhi who allegedly lived in harmony with the proto-Chinese Kunshan Empire may not have been called that when they were alive, Stark said, adding that they could have been a tribe of Central Asian nomads, giving them more links to the Turkic peoples of Xinjiang than to modern Han Chinese. “The tombs that the Chinese team has excavated are very consistent with the burial…
China boosts port surveillance as mpox virus spreads globally
China has stepped up emergency pandemic drills across the country and announced tighter surveillance of incoming travelers amid warnings that a more lethal and transmissible strain of the mpox virus is spreading internationally. From Aug. 15, anyone arriving in China from countries and regions where mpox cases have been confirmed, or with symptoms like fever, headache, back or muscle pain, swollen lymph nodes or a rash is now required to declare their condition to customs authorities on entry, state news agency Xinhua reported on Friday. sThe move comes after the World Health Organization on Wednesday declared mpox a public health emergency of international concern, sounding the alarm over its potential for further international transmission, with several African countries, Sweden and Pakistan all reporting confirmed cases of the deadly virus. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, mpox is spread through “close contact,” including sexual contact, and by touching contaminated surfaces. But The Lancet medical journal cited animal studies in March 2023 as showing that transmission through the air is also possible with some variants of the virus. Data from the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cited by Xinhua showed that during the past week alone, more than 2,000 new mpox cases have been reported in African countries, with 38,465 mpox cases and 1,456 deaths across the continent since January 2022. Worries about another lockdown Authorities across China recently began emergency pandemic preparedness drills, resulting in photos of personnel clad from head to toe in white personal profective equipment, or PPE, and widespread concern on social media as people wondered if lockdowns were in the cards once more. Local authorities rolled out emergency drills to prepare for “pneumonia of unknown cause” in Henan’s Zhengzhou city, Zhangye in the western province of Gansu, southwestern Sichuan and the megacities of Beijing and Chongqing. Workers take part in an emergency pandemic drill in Beijing’s Shijingshan district, Aug. 7, 2024. (Beijing Municipal Health Commission) Similar drills happened ahead of the World Military Games in Wuhan in 2019, while COVID-19 was also initially described as “atypical pneumonia” when it tore through the central city of Wuhan in December 2019 before being named by the WHO as a global pandemic. According to a post on X by citizen journalist “Mr. Li is not your teacher,” the drills form part of a nationwide disease control and prevention action plan. The financial news service Yicai.com said the drills will be rolled out across 10 provinces by the end of August. Photos from emergency infectious disease drills in Chongqing on July 4 included a photo of two people in full-body PPE collecting samples from two chickens, although there was no mention of avian influenza in the official report. Some online comments referred to “post-traumatic stress syndrome” caused by the three years of lockdowns, compulsory quarantine and mass-testing of ruling Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping’s zero-COVID policy, which ended amid nationwide protests in late 2022. “This is so we can be on a war footing again, right? I think if this happens again, the Chinese Communist Party will bring about its own downfall,” said one comment, while another said: “We don’t want to go through that again.” The first comment also alluded to a renewed wave of COVID-19 infections in China, adding: “It’s still out there, and it’s peaked again recently, but it’s too hot to mention.” More behind the scenes? Lin Xiaoxu, a former virology researcher at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center said there could be more going on in China currently than meets the eye, citing the government’s track record in trying to cover up public health emergencies. “Generally speaking, the government still conceals a lot of health information, especially during public health crises,” Lin said. “I don’t think they’re doing these so-called emergency drills for no reason.” Chinese social media users seem to be thinking along similar lines. A recent wave of COVID-19 infections in the southern province of Guangdong was listed among “hot topics” on Weibo on Thursday, claiming that the latest strain of the coronavirus was causing more severe symptoms in younger people. Clicking on the search term refers readers to a video on the official account of the Southern Metropolis Daily newspaper and N Video, in which reporters visit Guangzhou Xinshi Hospital to investigate the recent spike in COVID-19 cases, quoting an expert as saying that the latest wave of the disease is hitting younger people with more pain and fever than previous variants. Guangzhou’s Yangcheng Evening News and the Luzhong Morning News both reported a sharp spike in the number of COVID-19 cases in July, with “more obvious symptoms” in young people. Workers take part in an emergency pandemic drill in Beijing’s Shijingshan district, Aug. 7, 2024. (Beijing Municipal Health Commission) Huang Yanzhong, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations, said Japan, Europe and the United States are all currently seeing a wave of COVID-19 infections, and that cases in China appear to be following the same pattern. “China is getting this too, but I don’t see any pattern suggesting any essential mutations that would make it different from what is happening overseas,” Huang told RFA Mandarin in an interview on Thursday. Young people hit He said the latest strains of COVID-19 have hit younger people harder everywhere, not just in China, likely due to impaired immunity caused by repeated infections. “The number of young people infected is increasing, so I think that a large proportion of Chinese population has impaired immunity, with a lot of people who’ve been repeatedly infected, but the Chinese government basically doesn’t report it much,” Huang said. He said a return to citywide lockdowns could happen if the Chinese authorities find the current wave is getting out of control. “Given that the whole economy and the unemployment situation are very bad right now, the government could use a public health crisis as an excuse to impose more stringent social controls, as a way of clamping down…
Dalai Lama talks about life in exile in first speech since surgery
In his first public speech since knee replacement surgery in June, the Dalai Lama spoke on Friday about how living in exile had brought awareness about Tibet and Buddhism to a global audience. “If I had not been a refugee, I may be sitting on a high throne in Lhasa, Tibet,” the Tibetan spiritual leader told over 100 Tibetans and other well-wishers gathered at the Dalai Lama Library and Learning Center in Ithaca, New York. “By coming into exile, I had an opportunity to travel around the world explaining the essence of Buddhism to a wider audience, building a human-to-human connection that has proved to be beneficial and connect with many people globally,” he said. “People around the world today feel a deep sense of closeness and unity with Tibet and Tibetans,” said the 89-year-old spiritual leader during his first visit to the center that was established by the Namgyal Monastery. RELATED RFA CONTENT Dalai Lama marks 89th birthday, allays concerns about his health China clamps down on social media ahead of Dalai Lama’s birthday Dalai Lama discharged from hospital after knee surgery Tibetans worldwide rejoice over Dalai Lama’s successful knee surgery Thousands welcome Dalai Lama’s arrival in US for knee surgery The center, which opened to the public in September 2023, includes a digital audio archive with 40,000 hours of the Dalai Lama’s teachings, about 4,000 books with translations of ancient texts on the evolution of Buddhist thought, and Buddhist artifacts from India and Tibet. Clad in the finest Tibetan attire and holding white silk ceremonial scarves, Tibetans of all ages stood in long rows in the center’s premises to welcome the Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama at the Dalai Lama Library and Learning Center in Ithaca, New York, Aug. 16, 2024. (RFA) The roughly 100-strong Tibetan community in Ithaca had spent weeks helping with the preparations at the center. “We all took turns to volunteer at the center over the past month, doing everything from gardening to cleaning to hoisting prayer flags and other chores with the intention of making the center as beautiful and as clean and as ready as possible to receive His Holiness,’ said Tenzin Tsokyi, a resident. Oneness of humanity In his address on Friday, the Dalai Lama reaffirmed his commitment to serving the Tibetan people and promoting the Buddhist tradition, and emphasized the importance of preserving their religious and cultural heritage. “Everyone has done their best, and I encourage you to keep doing so,” he told those gathered at the center. “I was born in Amdo and have had good relationships with people since my childhood,” he said. “And now, even as I am aging, I have built relationships with people from all over the world. “Under the concept of oneness of humanity, I have received compassion and care from others,” he said. “No matter where I go in the three provinces of Tibet, I never waver in my belief in our shared humanity.” The Dalai Lama at the Dalai Lama Library and Learning Center in Ithaca, New York, Aug. 16, 2024. (RFA) The Dalai Lama, who celebrated his 89th birthday last month, has been in the United States since late June for medical treatment. After undergoing successful knee surgery at a top New York hospital, the Dalai Lama has been recovering and undergoing physical therapy in Syracuse, New York. Dr. David Mayman, chief of the adult reconstruction and joint replacement who performed the surgery, on June 28 said the Dalai Lama was progressing positively. On Aug. 22, more than 10,000 Tibetans, Mongolians and people of Himalayan communities based in North America are scheduled to offer a collective long life prayer offering to the Dalai Lama at the UBS Arena in New York. The Dalai Lama at the Dalai Lama Library and Learning Center in Ithaca, New York, Aug. 16, 2024. (RFA) The following day, the Dalai Lama is scheduled to depart for India via Switzerland. The Dalai Lama arrived in New York on June 23, marking his first visit to the United States in over seven years and his first overseas trip since November 2018. Translated by Tenzin Dickyi and Tashi Wangchuk. Edited by Tenzin Pema and Malcolm Foster.
