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Category: East Asia
No easy choices in Taiwan’s presidential polls
Updated Oct. 16, 2023, 06:30 a.m. ET. As Taiwan approaches its presidential elections in January, the spotlight falls on candidates leaning towards establishing agreements with China and those favoring the continuation of the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) leadership. But amid rising concerns over stagnant wages and affordable housing, no opposition figure currently poses a significant challenge to the DPP’s Lai Ching-te, the incumbent vice president. Polls suggest that if the DPP secures a victory, it might not solely be due to their policies but rather because of the divided opposition. Opposition leaders, former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je of the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) and Hou Yu-ih of the Kuomintang (KMT), have been reportedly under pressure to potentially unify their bid for the presidency. Last Saturday, efforts towards this collaboration were visible when the campaign managers of both leaders met in Taipei, exploring the formation of a “blue-white alliance,” reflecting the party colors of KMT (blue) and TPP (white). While Hou’s team proposed an open primary to determine the leading presidential candidate between the two parties, Ko’s side suggested determining based on opinion poll averages. The KMT wants – for the first time – to deploy an open primary system for electing the leadership in the January election, with candidates receiving direct votes at polling stations across the island, which would play to the KMT’s long-standing political presence in Taiwan since 1949. This presence began when the party, also recognized as the Nationalists, relocated to Taiwan following their defeat by the Chinese Communist Party. If a vote of some kind were to happen, which most observers consider unlikely, the outcome would determine the order of a joint ticket: whether it’s Hou-Ko or Ko-Hou, indicating the roles of president and vice president, respectively. Taipei mayoral candidate Ko Wen-je celebrates winning the local elections at the campaign headquarters in Taipei November 29, 2014. Credit: Reuters However, Ko has dismissed the open primary proposal from KMT. “Ko thinks the KMT offer was just an attempt to show off their local organizational strength. It wasn’t a serious offer,” says Taiwan-based Californian lawyer Michael Fahey. Separately, Taiwan watcher and pollster Courtney Donovan Smith noted the challenges faced by the relatively new TPP. “Ko and the four-year-old TPP are struggling to establish themselves as a distinct party, and no doubt Ko is mindful of the experience of a similar party,” said Smith. “The People’s First Party, which accepted the vice-presidential slot on a unity ticket in the 2004 election but failed to effectively differentiate themselves from the KMT and have slid into irrelevance since.” There are other formidable obstacles to a joint ticket. Both Hou, a former police officer and current mayor of New Taipei City, and Ke, a trained doctor popular for his straightforwardness, are not keen on taking a secondary role to the other. “A ‘Ko-Hou’ ticket is impossible, and the chances of a ‘Hou-Ko’ ticket, I believe, are less than 10% likely,” Liao Da-chi, a professor at National Sun Yat-sen University’s Institute of Political Science, told Radio Free Asia. “The KMT, with its 14 mayors and 38 legislators, cannot possibly play second fiddle. Moreover, Hou Yu-ih has only been re-elected as the mayor of New Taipei City for less than a year. It would be a significant risk to give that up for a vice-presidential position. What would be the point?” Local issues count The recent Taiwan News “weighted poll of polls” shows Ko is ahead of Hou by about 5%. Lai from the DPP has an average support of 32%-35%, with Ko at 18%-20% and Hou at 15%-18%. Terry Gou, billionaire and Foxconn founder, polls at around 10%, but he suggests having additional “hidden supporters.” Observers believe Gou may seek a pivotal role after the election, especially as local issues gain prominence in Taiwanese politics. Foxconn founder Terry Gou and his running mate Tammy Lai speak to the press in front of his signature campaign office in New Taipei City, Taiwan, September 20, 2023. Credit: Reuters Many Taiwan elections in the past have turned on the China issue, said Roy Ngerng, a Taiwanese labor and wages activist who described the January elections as “different.” “While the two major parties still draw voters based on using China as the key campaign agenda, there has emerged a group where other issues take center stage and these seem to be around livelihood issues like Taiwan’s high housing prices and stagnant wages,” said Ngerng. There are significant numbers of younger voters, argues Ngerng, who “are eager for Taiwan’s elections to be normalized around local livelihood concerns … due to their distrust of KMT which is not seen as committed to Taiwan’s statehood, and due to the belief that the DPP has broken its promise of improving the livelihoods of Taiwanese over the last two terms.” Ngerng added: “These voters are gravitating to the … TPP, in the hope that Ko Wen-je might refocus, addressing the stagnant economic situation in Taiwan.” While this does not mean that Ko is likely to win the presidential election – particularly given the unlikelihood of being able to join forces with the KMT – it does signal that the DPP, if they do win, will not do so on a strong wave of support. Ngerng said he thinks there’s “disappointment arising from the fact that Tsai [Ing-wen] was elected on her promise to the youths of improving livelihoods but has failed to do so … and Ko has been adept at positioning his campaign to reflect their concerns.” “Eventually, the DPP cannot be using democracy and human rights as a rallying cry, without meaningfully enhancing the labor rights and livelihoods of Taiwan’s workers,” said Ngern. Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang. Updated to clarify the process of the open primary and to correct the names of Hou Yu-ih and Roy Ngerng.
Southeast Asia’s mounting food insecurity
According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), global rice prices in August were 31% higher than the previous year, and at a 15-year high, which has left the inflation-sensitive governments of Southeast Asia scrambling for answers. Net rice importers such as populous Indonesia and the Philippines and net exporters like Thailand alike are wrestling with a surge in prices of the staple, driven by five underlying weather and international factors. First, states are confronted by declining agricultural output due to an acute El Niño effect this year, which has caused hotter than average temperatures across Southeast Asia, and a decrease in overall rainfall. In parts of the region, this also resulted in above average haze pollution caused by wildfires, in addition to annual haze generated by crop burning. Across the board, agricultural yields have been down, but rice, which is dependent on monsoon rains, has been particularly vulnerable in most countries. A worker rakes wheat in a granary on a private farm in Zhurivka, Kyiv region, Ukraine, Aug. 10, 2023. Credit: Efrem Lukatsky/AP Second, the ongoing war in Ukraine and Russia’s unilateral withdrawal from the July 2022 Black Sea Grain Initiative has created dislocations in global supplies of wheat, cereals, and cooking oil. Before Russia pulled out, 32 million tons of grain were exported, mostly to the developing world. Although successful Ukrainian attacks on Russia’s Black Sea fleet have allowed some ships to continue exports, without a firm agreement in place, this could be temporary. Southeast Asian states are all highly dependent on wheat imports and Ukraine is the 7th largest producer, with an annual production of 33 million tons. Its exports comprise 10% of global supplies. Third, as a result of El Niño-caused heat wave and food shortages, in August 2023, India announced curbs on rice exports. India is the largest exporter of rice in the world, accounting for 40% of global supply. India’s exports account for 11% of the global rice supply. Fourth, for the lower Mekong River states, Cambodia and Vietnam, rainfall shortfalls due to El Niño have been exacerbated by China’s retention of record amounts of water at their cascade of 11 upriver dams, plunging water levels in the river to an all time low. Fifth, declines in rice yields in the net-exporting states, such as Thailand and Vietnam, have led to higher prices and hoarding. Net importers The most immediate impact will be felt by the net importers: Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia. Between January and August, Indonesia imported 1.6 million tons of rice – more than triple the 429,000 million tons imported in 2022. Rice prices are now 16% higher year-on-year, a rise that prompted President Joko Widodo last month to order the release of stocks from BULOG, the strategic rice reserve, to try to keep a lid on inflation. In April, Jakarta contracted to import a total of 2.3 million metric tons of rice to shore up national stocks. In the Philippines, estimates that rice production would fall by 1.8% in 2023 caused rice prices to hit a record high in September. Workers unload rice imported from Vietnam by the Indonesian Logistics Bureau at the port of Malahayati, in Indonesia’s Aceh province, Oct. 11, 2023. Credit: Chaideer Mahyuddin/AFP Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who is concurrently the Secretary of Agriculture, imposed price caps last month of 41 and 45 pesos (US$0.72 and US$0.79) per kilogram (2.2 pounds) for average and well-milled rice, respectively. As a candidate, Marcos had pledged to bring the price of rice down to 20 pesos per kilogram. The Philippines imported a record 3.9 million metric tons in 2022-23. In September, Marcos signed a five-year purchase agreement with Vietnam, which supplied 90% of Philippine imports in 2022. In early October, Marcos lifted the rice cap, promising a slew of other measures to control prices, which remain high. Domestic rice production in Malaysia only satisfies 70% of demand, and yields declined in 2023 due to excessive heat. The government has imposed a price cap of 26 ringgit (US#5.50) per 10 kilograms (22 pounds) for domestically produced rice. Nonetheless, prices have been surging and Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has threatened to take legal action against hoarders. In September 2023, the government announced a 36% increase in rice imports. This month, the government announced that restaurants could purchase imported rice RM160 ($34) per kilogram, half the normal wholesale price. Anwar, who is also the country’s finance minister, has announced some 400 million ringgit ($84.72 million) in subsidies to purchase imported rice for government use, while the Minister of Agriculture imposed rice price caps in the important vote banks of Sabah and Sarawak. Net exporters Even the net exporters have seen instability in their rice markets. As the second largest exporter in the world, accounting for 15% of exports, Thailand has benefitted from surging rice prices. The announcement of Indian curbs led to a 20% spike in Thai rice prices. Thai rice peaked at $650 a ton in August, nearly 50% higher than a year earlier. Nonetheless, the country has been hit by El Niño, with rainfall down 18%. The Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives estimates rice production will decline by 3-6% in 2023-24, down to 25.8 million tons, while its reservoirs were at 54% capacity. Thailand usually exports half of its rice harvest. But because of soaring prices, there’s been an increase in domestic hoarding. This year Thailand is expected to export just under 9 million tons. Vietnam, the third largest exporter in the world, accounting for 14% percent of global exports, expects to harvest 43 million tons in 2023. In 2022, Vietnam exported 7.1 tons, a ten-year high. This year the goal is to export 7.8 million tons, a 10 percent increase over 2022. Vietnam has already exported 5 million tons in the first seven months of the year, an 18% year-on-year increase. Thus far, Vietnam is benefitting from surging prices, with a 30-35% increase in value in exports. But while things are good for now, diminished rainfall,…
Million coal workers at risk: China, India face biggest cuts by 2050
In the bustling hot city of Siliguri in northeast India, Jitendar Kumar spends his days breaking up and shifting cinder pieces at a coal depot. The 30-year-old has been working for half his life with coal, a legacy he inherited from his father, who spent 40 years in Ranigunj, India’s first coalfield that traces back to 1774, in West Bengal. “I also started there but later chose the city over the mines,” Kumar said. “Like many here, coal puts food on our table. I don’t know what else to do.” India, the world’s second-largest coal producer, has around 337,400 miners in its active mines. Labor activists estimate that this number could quadruple when accounting for informal workers in the sector. This week, a new report said state-owned Coal India, the world’s largest government-owned coal producer, is facing the biggest potential layoffs of 73,800 direct workers by 2050. Globally, close to a million coal mine jobs, or more than a third of the coalmining workforce, could vanish by 2050, with the vast majority of these losses expected in Asia, especially in China and India, the U.S.-based think tank Global Energy Monitor (GEM) said. That means, on average, 100 coal miners a day could face job cuts as the coal industry winds down due to a market shift towards cheaper renewables and planned mine closures, it said. This infographic shows where potential coal mining job layoffs are by 2050. Credit: Global Energy Monitor Nearly half a million workers may lose their jobs before 2035, GEM said. The drop in employment, the think-tank added, will likely occur irrespective of particular coal phase-out strategies or climate action since such shifts are probably inevitable due to the market’s inclination towards more economical wind and solar energy options. In Asia, more than 2.2 million people work in coal mines, according to GEM, with China leading the way. China is home to over 1.5 million coal miners, responsible for generating more than 85% of the nation’s coal. This represents half of the global coal production. It is followed by India and Indonesia. GEM said Indonesia, with about 160,000 coal mine workers, is expected to boost production enough to rival India’s output for the first time next year. The non-government research organization said that China’s Shanxi province alone will likely lose about a quarter million mine jobs by midcentury. The projections are based on data from the Global Coal Mine Tracker, which offers live information about 4,300 active and proposed coal mines globally, accounting for over 90% of the world’s coal production. “Coal mine closures are inevitable, but economic hardship and social strife for workers is not,” said Dorothy Mei, project manager for the Global Coal Mine Tracker at Global Energy Monitor. “Viable transition planning is happening, like in Spain where the country regularly reviews the ongoing impacts of decarbonization,” she said, adding that governments should learn from its success to plan their own “just energy transition strategies.” To limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius under the Paris Agreement’s guidelines, GEM estimates that only 250,000 coal miners would be needed. This is less than 10% of the current workforce. Economic impact Coal mine jobs also greatly influence local economies. Mining towns often depend heavily on coal companies for wages, taxes, and even schools or hospitals. Past job losses from the 1980s and 1990s bankruptcies had led to economic distress, and future job cuts could have similar effects. The workers deserve a “just transition” to new employment sectors, particularly those offering well-compensated positions in the clean and renewable energy domain, GEM said. Mining is in progress at an open-cast mine near Dhanbad, an eastern Indian city in Jharkhand state, Sept. 24, 2021. Credit: Associated Press In 2016, China’s Ministry of Finance introduced the Industrial Special Fund, designating US$14 billion for the reemployment of 1.8 million workers in the coal and steel industries. However, with each person estimated to get just over US$6,887, GEM said the fund’s sufficiency is debatable. China Energy, the nation’s leading mining and energy firm, is among the country’s top five renewable energy investors. With renewables making up 28.5% of its capacity and coal at 72%, the company aims to boost clean energy to over 50% by 2025, aligning with government goals. Chance for sustainable future Following a year marked by devastating mining accidents, significant labor disputes, and public opposition to mining activities, it is essential that coal miners be provided the chance to seek a safer and more sustainable future, GEM said in the report. Hundreds of workers died from underground blasts, tunnel collapses, and equipment mishaps in mines worldwide. At least six people were killed when a significant section of the pit wall at the Axla League coal mine in China crumbled in February, with 47 others still missing. The China Labor Bulletin, an NGO monitoring work-related accidents in China, recorded 69 coal mine-associated incidents and fatalities in 2022, with 23 reported in the current year. “The coal industry, on the whole, has a notoriously bad reputation for its treatment of workers,” said Ryan Driskell Tate, GEM’s program director for coal. “What we need is proactive planning for workers and coal communities … so industry and governments will remain accountable to those workers who have borne the brunt for so long.” Edited by Taejun Kang and Elaine Chan.
Blast at Myanmar camp sounded like it came from the ‘world wars’
A farmer who lost his wife, three children and his mother when a bomb was dropped on his Kachin state village earlier this week said the powerful explosion wiped out buildings up to one mile away and sounded like something “used in the world wars.” “Houses built by NGOs and the locals are now left with only iron pillars.” Maran Bauk Lar told Radio Free Asia. “This was a type of bomb that has never been used in Myanmar.” The explosion at the Mung Lai Hkyet internally displaced persons camp at about 11 p.m. on Monday killed 29 people, including 11 children, and left 57 others wounded, relief workers told RFA. The camp is near Lai Zar in the mountainous border area between Kachin state and China. Lai Zar is the headquarters of the Kachin Independence Army, or the KIA, which has fought the Burmese military for decades and controls areas of northern Myanmar. KIA information officer Col. Naw Bu told RFA earlier this week that he believed the junta was targeting the headquarters in the attack. Maran Bauk Lar, whose wife and three children were killed in the Mung Lai Hkyet attack, found their bodies when he returned to the camp. His mother and sister-in-law also were killed. Credit: Provided to RFA Maran Bauk Lar said he was walking to his farm when he heard the explosion. When he returned, he found a deep pit and the remains of his sister-in-law and the other family members. “My mother’s body was completely dismembered, and her skull was broken,” he said. “Only the bones remain. My wife and children were killed under the collapsed building. Our dormitories were completely destroyed. There is nothing left.” ‘Emboldened by the indifference’ The Mung Lai Hkyet camp has 658 residents, many of whom are now suffering from psychological trauma as they recover from the explosion, relief workers said. Survivors have been temporarily relocated to a church in Woichyai, an internally displaced persons camp in Lai Zar. “At the moment, they are sleeping on the floor of the church,” a person helping them said. “They have to start a new life from scratch. They don’t have a single penny in their hands.” Coffins are lined up next to graves as a mass funeral takes place to bury victims of a military strike on the Mung Lai Hkyet camp near the northern Myanmar town of Laiza on Oct. 10, 2023. Credit: AFP The Special Advisory Council for Myanmar, a group of independent experts working to support human rights efforts in the country, urged the United Nations and its member states to hold the junta responsible for the attack. “The Myanmar military is so emboldened by the indifference of the international community in response to its decades of atrocity crimes that it is now attacking camps for internally displaced people,” said Yanghee Lee, a member of the council and a former U.N. Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar. “The military is flagrantly massacring the most vulnerable people in society, and yet U.N. entities in Myanmar will not even publicly name the military as the perpetrator,” he said. At the State Department, spokesman Matthew Miller said that the United States was “deeply concerned” by reports of the explosion. “We strongly condemn the military regime’s ongoing attacks that have claimed thousands of lives since the February 2021 coup and continue to exacerbate the region’s most severe humanitarian crisis,” he said on Tuesday. A girl cries next to a grave as a mass funeral takes place to bury victims of the military strike on Mung Lai Hkyet camp near Laiza, Myanmar, on Oct. 10, 2023. Credit: AFP ‘The culture of military dictatorship’ Fighting in the area between junta forces and the KIA has intensified since July. Lately, there have been artillery strikes from the junta almost every day, local residents said. While some residents said they heard a plane just before Monday’s explosion, others told RFA that they heard nothing. The KIA has formed an investigation team to determine what caused the blast, Naw Bu said, adding that it may have been a bomb dropped by a junta-operated drone. “They always target the public, not only in our territory in Kachin state, but across the country,” he said of the junta. “It is the culture of military dictatorship.” A man stands amid debris left by the military strike on the Mung Lai Hkyet camp on Oct. 11, 2023, two days after the assault. Credit: AFP RFA’s calls on Wednesday to Win Ye Tun, the junta’s social affairs minister and spokesman for Kachin state, for comments on the death toll at Mung Lai Hkyet went unanswered. Junta spokesman Major Gen. Zaw Min Tun told RFA that junta troops were not behind the attack on Mung Lai Hkyet. He speculated that it was caused by an accidental explosion at a warehouse where the KIA stores gunpowder. A Mung Lai Hkyet resident told RFA that it was “totally untrue” that there are weapons factories and arsenals in the camp. “There is no arsenal,” he said. “There are only civilians who are displaced persons.” Translated by Htin Aung Kyaw. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.
Uyghur inmates forced to work on farmland leased to Chinese
Hundreds of Uyghur inmates at Keriye Prison in the far-western Chinese region of Xinjiang are forced to work 12-14 hours a day in vast fields of red dates called jujubes, a prison employee and a guard told Radio Free Asia. Under the watch of armed guards, the prisoners must walk to the fields while overseers wearing red vests and holding police dogs monitor them, the two people said. Armed soldiers surrounded the work area, some on horseback, to prevent any from escaping. “I witnessed prisoners being forcibly taken out to work during the day and returned to their cells at night,” said the prison employee – a Uyghur himself – who has worked at the prison for nine years, including one as a “team leader” of a group of inmates, although he was not allowed to mingle or talk much with them. Many inmates also work in factories located inside and outside the prison walls producing cement, shoes, gloves and tea, a prison guard told RFA Uyghur. Those serving sentences of more than 10 years work in factories inside the prison yard, while those serving less than 10 years work outside the prison, the guard said. The goal seems to be two-fold: To harness the prisoners’ free labor for the benefit of Han Chinese businessmen who rent the 1,650 acres of farmland that is owned by the prison, and to reform the inmates through labor, the two sources said, insisting they not be identified for fear of retaliation. “They want to make the prisoners undergo ideological transformation through labor in these big fields,” said the prison employee. The farm itself is called Lao Gai Nong Chang in Chinese, which means “Re-education through Labor Farm.” The work was arduous and painful, he said. Before the fields were converted to jujubes, they produced cotton, and he recalls seeing some inmates picking cotton worked until their hands bled. Arbitrarily sentenced The offenses committed by the Uyghur inmates in Keriye Prison – located about 25 kilometers (16 miles) from Siyek township in Hotan prefecture and which houses about 10,000 inmates – remain unclear. Most Uyghurs detained in Xinjiang in recent years have never been formally charged with any crime or tried by the government. More than 30 Uyghur teachers from Hotan Normal Technical High School jailed on charges of “national separatism” and “religious extremism” are serving their sentences in Keriye Prison, RFA previously learned. Keriye Prison has tracts of farmland around it. Credit: Google Earth photo; RFA annotation Though China formally abolished its “reform through labor” system in 1994, this account shows that it has remained in practice in some areas. Starting in 2017 and 2018, Chinese authorities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region detained an estimated 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in “re-education” camps, where they were subjected to forced labor in factories producing textiles, wigs, tomatoes and solar panels for export. The forced work and other abuses, including torture and sexual assaults, are part of a wider genocide that China is committing against the Uyghur people, the United States and other governments have declared. Beijing denies the abuses, saying the camps were vocational training centers meant to prevent terrorism and religious extremism while teaching job skills. Chinese rent the land Many Han Chinese from Henan province and Xian, capital of Shaanxi province in northwestern China, rent the prison land under three-to-four-year contracts, the team leader said. For example, a Chinese businessman from Henan province leased about 200 acres on which he grew cotton for five or six years before switching to jujubes, he said. Under an agreement between prison administration and the factory owners, the Chinese owners pay the prison for using the forced labor, he said. “Some factories have 200 to 300, or even 500 workers,” said the guard. “In the factory where I work, we have around 1,670 workers.” In 2022, the United States enacted the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which gave American authorities greater powers to block the import of goods linked to forced labor in China. Under the act, goods produced in Xinjiang are legally assumed to have involved Uyghur forced labor unless a business can prove otherwise to customs officials. However, hundreds of major U.S. companies may be unwittingly producing goods using gold that was mined using the forced labor of Uyghurs in China’s far-west Xinjiang region, according to a report released Wednesday by the Center for Advanced Defense Studies. Translated by RFA Uyghur. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
S Korean PM protests to Xi over N Korean repatriation in Sep: report
South Korean Prime Minister Han Duck-soo had raised his opposition to the forced repatriation of North Koreans when he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in China last month, Yonhap News Agency reported on Friday, citing South Korea’s ambassador to China Chung Jae-ho. In response to a question from lawmaker Park Hong-keun during a parliament hearing on Oct. 13, as to whether Han mentioned [the issue of repatriation] to Xi, Chung said he believed Han did. Chung was with the prime minister, who attended the opening ceremony of the Asian Games, when he met Xi in Hangzhou. Radio Free Asia was not able to independently confirm Chung’s comment. When asked what was Xi’s exact response, Chung indicated that the Chinese President’s position mirrored Beijing’s existing stance: they would “deal with illegal entrants in accordance with domestic law, international law, and humanitarian principles,” according to the Yonhap report. The reported exchange between the leaders comes in the wake of recent media reports alleging that China forcibly repatriated over 500 North Koreans following the Hangzhou Asian Games. According to sources working to rescue North Koreans in China, the majority of these individuals were civilians and religious figures. They were apprehended while trying to make their way from China to South Korea. These repatriations reportedly occurred in several areas, including Tumen, Hunchun, Changbai, Dandong, and Nanping. On Friday, South Korea’s Unification Ministry also voiced its concern, stating: “It appears to be true that many North Korean residents in three northeastern Chinese provinces have been repatriated.” The ministry spokesperson emphasized that North Korean defectors abroad should not be forcibly returned under any circumstances. But China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin reiterated during a regular briefing that China adheres to a principle that combines domestic and international law, as well as humanitarian considerations, when dealing with North Koreans who enter China illegally for economic reasons. Ambassador Chung also mentioned that he has been in touch with Chinese authorities to confirm the repatriation of North Koreans, but he has yet to receive any official notification or explanation. Since North Korea lifted its border restrictions in August, after over three years of COVID lockdowns, there have been increasing concerns about the potential human rights violations and severe penalties that defectors might face upon return. Elizabeth Salmon, the U.N.’s special rapporteur on human rights in North Korea, estimates that more than 2,000 North Korean defectors are currently detained in China. Edited by Elaine Chan
Taiwanese AI taken down after it repeats Chinese government line
A top-level research institute in the democratic island of Taiwan has withdrawn a Chinese-language AI chat program after it started spouting Chinese government propaganda, according to multiple media reports. A researcher at Taiwan’s Academia Sinica posted a beta version of their newly developed CKIP-Llama-2-7b chat AI, but members of the public who asked it questions soon started getting some disturbing answers to basic questions. Asked its nationality, the chat program replied that it was “Chinese,” an identity not shared by the majority of Taiwan’s 23 million people because it suggests one is from the mainland. Asked who the national leader was, it answered “Xi Jinping,” the leader of China’s Communist Party who has vowed to force Taiwan to unify with China – by force, if necessary. The majority of Taiwanese don’t identify as Chinese, enjoy living in a democratic and pluralistic society, and have no wish to submit to authoritarian rule from Beijing, according to multiple opinion polls in recent years. “Academia Sinica said today that the content produced by the model was unexpected, and this is an area that needs to be improved in the future,” the island’s Central News Agency reported. “The beta version has been taken down for the time being,” it said. Democratic Progressive Party President Tsai Ing-wen swept to a landslide victory in 2020 on a platform of defending the island’s freedoms and democratic way of life from China’s expanding territorial ambitions, spurred on in part by the crackdown on the 2019 protest movement in Hong Kong. While there are concerns over China’s military saber-rattling, the prospect of too much rapprochement with China has sparked large protests in Taiwan, including the Sunflower Movement that occupied government buildings in 2014, and Tsai vowed in a National Day speech on Tuesday that the Taiwanese people will be a “democratic and free people for generations to come.” But according to CKIP-Llama-2-7b, “National Day” is Oct. 1 – the date of the 1949 founding of the People’s Republic of China, which has never ruled Taiwan. According to the Taiwan AI, “National Day” is Oct. 1 – the date of the 1949 founding of the People’s Republic of China, which has never ruled Taiwan. People [pictured] attend a flag-raising ceremony to mark China’s National Day at Tiananmen Square in Beijing on October 1, 2023. Credit: Jade Gao/AFP The chat program, which was partly based on the commercial open source model Llama-2-7b and Atom-7b, had some interesting opinions about its own provenance, too. Asked who created it, the program replied: “I was jointly developed by the Natural Language Processing Laboratory of Fudan University and the Shanghai Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. My birthday is 2023.” “My nationality is Chinese, my place of residence is the Shanghai Artificial Intelligence Laboratory Server Set, and I can speak Chinese and English,” it said. Asked to name the national anthem, it replied “The March of the Volunteers” – China’s communist anthem – instead of “The Three Principles of the People,” Taiwan’s anthem first adopted by the government of the 1911 Republic of China that fled to the island before the People’s Republic of China was established. Ruling party lawmaker Fan Yun commented on Facebook that the Taiwanese AI gaffe was “an information security issue and an issue of cognitive warfare.” The program was removed from public view on Oct. 9, according to the Central News Agency. Academia Sinica President James Liao said the program had been put online as a way to crowd-source its testing, mainly to save time. “This is a researcher who was keen to speed things up, so, in the spirit of open source software, he put out a program that hadn’t been fully tested yet and asked everyone to join in and test it with him,” Liao said. “It produced some questionable results.” Differences in the writing systems of the mainland and Taiwan were also an obstacle for the project. In 1956, the PRC began simplifying Chinese characters in a bid to increase literacy, and over the years, about 2,000 characters have been simplified. The characters remain unsimplified in Taiwan, and are known as “traditional Chinese” characters. Liao said the researcher had simply converted the data for simplified Chinese into traditional Chinese for CKIP-Llama-2-7b . He said Academia Sinica had learned from the incident that the traditional Chinese character data is important in its own right, and vowed to set up an audit mechanism to avoid similar issues in future, Central News Agency reported. Information technology expert Kun-Lin Hsieh commented on social media: “Academia Sinica’s AI has gone off the rails!” But he went on to explain that the chat program had been trained on an online data set provided by the Beijing-based Stardust AI and other dialogue training materials in the simplified Chinese characters, rather than in traditional characters. Information technology news service iThome said it is crucial to have “large language model” datasets that can speak in a way that is appropriate to the locality in which they are made. It quoted Taiwanese AI expert Tsai Ming-shun as calling on the Taiwanese government to take the opportunity to invest more resources in software development, especially large language models and data sets, to boost the development of homegrown AI. In April, China issued a new set of rules requiring AI chat programs developed in the country to stick to the ruling Communist Party line, requiring their responses not to make “subversive” statements or deliver “content that may disrupt economic and social order.” Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Eugene Whong.
Another brick wobbles in China’s Great Wall of debt
As China’s economic miracle has unraveled over the past several years, property giant Country Garden Holdings appeared to be an unassailable fortress redoubt. Rival Evergrande tried to restructure its debt, failed, and now its founder, Hui Ka Yan, once the richest man in China, is under house arrest. But Country Garden, until very recently, was considered safe as houses. On Tuesday the walls of the Country Garden redoubt crumbled, as the property giant missed a HK$470 million (US$60 million) loan repayment and issued a statement on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange warning that it wasn’t going to be able to repay all of its creditors – not even those that had extended it a grace period. The company has about US$200 billion in liabilities and close to US$10 billion in debt, it said in the Tuesday statement. “I think it’s not so much ‘final straw’ as ‘high profile symbol’ of the structural reversal in China’s property market bust. But it’s also possible that because of that, confidence in this fragile market will be further undermined,” said George Magnus, research associate at the China Centre, Oxford University, and the School of African and Oriental Studies in London. “The knock-on effects of a property bust in a market that’s as big as China’s are going to be remarkable,” added Magnus. “There simply isn’t anything that can compensate [for the problem] because nothing – least of all Xi’s new productive forces – is sufficiently big. It’ll keep the Chinese economy on a low-growth path with all the attendant consequences for unemployment, absent a major program of market reforms, which Xi is opposed to.” Chinese President Xi Jinping is famously opposed to “welfarism,” which he reportedly equates with laziness. A person rides a scooter past a construction site of residential buildings by Chinese developer Country Garden, in Tianjin, China Aug. 18, 2023. Credit: Reuters Markets have found some solace in announcements emanating out of Beijing, suggesting that stimulus is on the way, but analysts are skeptical even though Hong Kong and Shanghai stocks rallied on Thursday, after China’s investment fund had bought a stake in the country’s banking giants. Bill Bishop of the widely read Sinocism newsletter commented, “The relatively small investment by Huijin in the four banks – 477 million RMB, about USD $65 million – is not meaningful financially,” adding that the investment fund Huijin had bought similar stakes in the past with the probable aim of achieving a short-term boost to stock values. ‘All the money in the world’ “They’ll respond with some stimulus but there isn’t enough money in the world to make a difference,” said Anne Stevenson-Yang, founder and research director at J Capital Research, “Consider,” she said: “If they lend an extra 1 trillion yuan (US$137 billion) – and bank lending is around 90% of financing in this economy – you get less than a 1% boost in credit. “Basically, so what?” Oxford’s Magnus agreed. “The speculation is that the central government will use its own balance sheet to announce a stimulus program of about 1 trillion yuan or about 0.7% GDP to breathe new life into the economy,” he said. “If it goes, as in the past, towards infrastructure and real estate projects, it’ll spur activity in the short term but leave China’s structural malaise worse. “What China needs is household demand and income stimulus, but this has been studiously avoided so far – and it’s not the CCP’s way.” Stevenson-Yang said, “We’re not going to see a bank failure, because they [the Communist Party] can control that. But the whole shadow sector has collapsed or is collapsing, and that erases a lot of personal wealth. “And local services are going away,” she added in a reference to the belt-tightening forced on local governments, which have even been reducing civil service salaries to make ends meet. Michael Pettis, Carnegie Endowment economist, writing on X, formerly known as Twitter, pointed out that there may be hidden liabilities for the banking sector with as-yet unknown consequences. “Mounting damage to banks’ balance sheets from the property meltdown could also make stabilizing other parts of the economy more difficult,” Pettis said. “This is likely to be what causes the most long-term damage to the economy … There is likely to be a lot more exposure in less direct forms. That’s because after three decades of soaring prices, it would be astonishing if Chinese banks didn’t have a lot of indirect exposure to the property market, partly reflected for example in the RMB 3.4 trillion in supplier trade payables estimated by Gavekal,” he wrote referring to research by Gavekal Research. The firm predicted that China’s property sector owes 3.4 trillion yuan in trade payables to their suppliers. “The major damage to the economy caused by a property sector collapse usually occurs not directly through the property sector but indirectly, through wealth effects and, above all, the impact on the banking system,” said Pettis. “With one of the biggest property sectors in history, and perhaps the most expensive real estate bubble since Japan in the 1980s, I’d be really surprised if we were near the end of the adjustment process.” Stability above all In its Tuesday statement Country Garden admitted, referring to its inability to meet debt commitments, “Such non-payment may lead to relevant creditors of the group demanding acceleration of payment of the relevant indebtedness owed to them or pursuing enforcement action.” A Chinese flag flutters in front of the logo of China Evergrande Group seen on the Evergrande Center in Shanghai, China September 22, 2021. Credit: Reuters Property developer Evergrande’s collapse led to widespread “mortgage strikes” and protests China-wide in 2021 and 2022. The fear in Beijing is that Country Garden, which is heavily invested in third- and fourth-tier cities, where the economic crisis is at its worst, will lead to yet more protests. “The first and utmost priority of Xi and the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] is to maintain power, which means maintaining order and stability,” said Australia-based…
Myanmar national dies in Wa state after being sold into scam gang
A man is dead after being sold to a money-laundering gang in United Wa State Army territory, family members told Radio Free Asia Wednesday. After Zaw Than went to the Wa-controlled Wein Kawng in northeast Myanmar for work, his family said they lost contact. But in early October, they received a phone call claiming their son owed more than 16 million kyat (US$7,500). The Chinese national told the family he had covered Zaw Than’s debts in late September after he allegedly lost the money gambling at a casino in Mong Pauk, just 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the border with China. Zaw Than’s family reported the incident to Wa state’s police department, where they said they were told he had been trafficked into a gang known for its money-laundering schemes. The police officer told the family their son had been sold to the gang for over 95 million kyat (US$14,300) by the Chinese national who had called them demanding the ransom. On Oct. 4, they traveled to Wein Kawng from their home in Shan state, asking police to help them find Zaw Than. The following evening, officers were able to locate him and arrange a meeting. But when they arrived, they said their son was badly beaten and struggling to breathe. “He could not even breathe normally when I found him.” a family member told RFA, asking to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals.. “He died the same day because of his injuries from the beatings. They were all over his body, and many internal injuries. This is injustice. I want justice for him.” The family member said an autopsy confirmed their son died from his injuries. They have since complained to Wa state officials and their external relations department. RFA contacted Lashio-based Wa liaison officer Nyi Ran seeking comment on the incident, but he had not responded by the time of publication. Wa state’s Mong Pauk, Pangsang, and Wein Kawng are well-known hubs for crime, including online scamming, sex trafficking, and money-laundering. Last year, 19 Myanmar nationals were sold and held against their will in one scam center in Mong Pauk after being told they would get high-paying jobs. Thai women have also reported being trafficked in the region. The Wa army controls portions of southern and northern Shan state and keeps close ties with China. Both territories are also attempting to crack down on the online crime rampant on the border. In September, Wa forces returned more than 1,300 Chinese nationals involved in online fraud. Despite this transfer, illegal businesses are still a recurring problem, a person assisting Wa state’s labor affairs ministry told RFA, adding that many Chinese nationals start businesses under Myanmar names. RFA contacted the Chinese Embassy in Myanmar via email regarding gang activity and Zaw Than’s death, but the office did not immediately respond. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
Hamas fighters may be using North Korean weapons, experts say
Experts say that Hamas militants may be using North Korean weapons after footage emerged of a fighter from the Palestinian group carrying a rocket-launcher suspected to originate from the communist nation. The video, recorded shortly after deadly attacks on Israel started last weekend and shared widely on social media, shows several men sitting in the back of a pickup truck brandishing weapons above a face-down, partially clothed woman. A rocket-launcher held by one of the fighters was identified as North Korean in origin by a military and weapons blogger with the handle War Noir in a post on X, formerly Twitter. “A recent video recorded today shows members of the Al-Qassam Brigades (#HAMAS) in #Gaza Strip,” War Noir wrote on Oct. 7. “One of the members can be seen with an uncommon F-7 HE-Frag rocket, originally produced in #NorthKorea (#DPRK).” RFA was not able to conclusively determine if the weapon was North Korean, but its shape closely resembles the F-7 as depicted in the North Korean Small Arms and Light Weapons Recognition Guide published in May by the Geneva-based Small Arms Survey research project. Experts said that Palestinians have historically used North Korean weapons, which may have been first purchased by Iran or Syria, and then smuggled to the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, circumventing an Israeli-Egyptian embargo that has been in place since 2005. “The Syrians deal with Hezbollah a lot and Hezbollah deals with Hamas a lot,” said Bruce E. Bechtol Jr., a former intelligence officer for the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency. “A lot of the trade that North Korea does with both Hamas and Hezbollah is deals that they make through the IRGC, the Iranian Republican Guard Corps,” he said. Used in the region In its recent attacks on Israelis, Hamas used weapons originating in a wide range of current and former states, including the United States, the Soviet Union, and North Korea, said N.R. Jenzen-Jones, director of the Armament Research Services intelligence consultancy, or ARES. A preliminary analysis of images reviewed by this consultancy shows “a militant armed with an RPG-7 type shoulder-fired recoilless gun, loaded with an F-7 series high explosive fragmentation (HE-FRAG) munition, produced in North Korea,” Jenzen-Jones said. “These have previously been documented in the region, including in Syria, Iraq, and in the Gaza Strip.” Other images showed militants using what appeared to be a North Korean Type 58 self-loading rifle, a derivative of the well-known AK series, he said. “North Korean arms have previously been documented amongst interdicted supplies provided by Iran to militant groups, and this is believed to be the primary way in which DPRK weapons have come into the possession of Palestinian militants,” he said. “North Korean arms have previously been identified in the hands of the militant factions of Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, amongst other groups,” he added. Bechtol said that a North Korean arms shipment was intercepted in Thailand in 2009. A U.N. panel of experts determined the 35 tons of conventional arms and munitions was headed to Iran, and Israeli intelligence believed it was ultimately bound for Hamas and Lebanon-based Hezbollah. Bechtol said the shipment contained rocket propelled grenades, larger rockets, and the F-7. “The North Koreans have also sold the ‘BULSAE’ antitank system to Hamas. It’s a very good antitank system and they could be firing that at Israeli tanks when they’re entering the Gaza Strip here within the next day or two,” said Bechtol. “So North Korea has given them some capabilities that are interesting.” The woman whose body was seen in the video was identified by her family as 22-year old German-Israeli citizen Shani Louk, who was abducted by Hamas militants when they attacked a music festival in Israel close to the Gaza border. She is believed to be alive, but in critical condition at a hospital in Gaza, according to Palestinian sources her mother told German outlet Bild on Tuesday. But Israeli, German or Palestinian officials have not yet confirmed her status or whereabouts. North Korea blames Israel North Korean media, meanwhile, blamed the recent violence on Israel’s “ceaseless criminal acts” against the Palestinian people. According to a report in the state-run Rodong Sinmun newspaper on Tuesday, “a large-scale armed conflict broke out between Palestine’s Islamic resistance movement and Israel.” “The international community called the conflict the result of Israel’s ceaseless criminal acts against the Palestinian people,” and said that the “fundamental” way to end the bloody conflict is to create an independent Palestinian state. That Hamas is using North Korean weapons is not surprising, Bruce Bennett, a defense researcher at the RAND Corporation think tank, told RFA. “North Korea is selling things wherever it can to make hard currency,” said Bennett. “Whether North Korea directly provided it to Hamas or provided it through a third party, I don’t know. But the fact that there is North Korean equipment there does not surprise me at all.” ‘Commercial relationship’ Bennett said the F-7 rocket is an anti-personnel weapon and causes maximum casualties. “It’s not intended to, like, penetrate a tank,” he said. “It’s intended to cause fragmentation, like a terrorist bomb, and maximize the effect against people.” Even though Hamas appears to be using North Korean weapons, it would be inaccurate to describe them as allies, he said. “It’s a commercial relationship which is fed by the politics as well by North Korea being anxious to hurt the United States and anything associated with the United States,” said Bennett. “The scary part of this though is as you think about the future, does North Korea have people on the ground with Hamas watching them do what they’re doing?” he said. “Is North Korea thinking about doing this kind of thing to South Korea? We clearly don’t know at this stage, but I don’t think we can ignore that possibility.” Translated by Claire Shinyoung Oh Lee. Additional reporting by Eugene Whong. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.
