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Category: East Asia
Elderly suicide rates mar Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s ‘victory’ over rural poverty
The 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which convenes in Beijing on Oct. 16, is expected to grant an unprecedented third five-year term to Xi Jinping, the CCP general secretary and state president. In the run up to the congress, RFA has examined the 69-year-old Xi’s decade at the helm of the world’s most populous nation in a series of reports on Hong Kong, foreign policy, intellectuals, and civil society. In the summer of 2022, a Chinese video blogger had a viral hit with what he intended as an inspirational tale of his great uncle, a resourceful elderly relative who made a living as a carpenter, and was still working well into his eighties. But the narration also carried a sting in the tail: “Second Uncle really wants to earn a little retirement money for himself … but my grandmother can’t take care of herself any more, even telling me ‘I don’t want to live any more,’ and that she once hung up a noose ready on the doorframe.” As ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping gears up to seek an unprecedented third term in office at the 20th party congress on Sunday, he will be claiming among his achievements the “eradication” of extreme poverty in China. China declared in November 2020 that it had eliminated extreme poverty, claiming success for one of Xi’s key policy goals ahead of the CCP’s centenary the following year. Yet as government-backed employment schemes have focused on getting younger people to seek jobs in cities, elderly people in rural areas have been left to eke a meager living from government subsidies, without the younger generation around to help, and without enough money for decent medical care. Many are deciding such a life isn’t worth living any more. New research published in July 2022 and cited by state news agency Xinhua showed that the suicide rate among elderly people in rural areas has risen fivefold over the last two decades “When you go to the countryside, you often hear that someone died, and when you ask about it, they often tell you it was pesticides [which means] suicide,” former NGO worker Yao Cheng, who has researched women and children’s rights in rural China, told RFA. A scene from the film “Second Uncle,” which is about a man in his 80s still making a living as a carpenter. Old bachelors “In 2011, a German journalist and I went into a mountainous area of Hunan, where basically everyone in the village had left,” Yao said. “It took two hours walking through the mountains to get there.” “The younger people in the village had all gone to find work … and everyone left behind were old bachelors in their 60s and 70s,” he said. “A lot of them were living on monthly subsistence payments from the government of less than 100 yuan [currently 170 yuan/month].” “They didn’t want to die in pain; I heard that they would hoard extra sleeping pills because they wouldn’t have the strength to hang themselves if they were sick,” he said. “Another common suicide method is drinking pesticides.” “They don’t feel that they can carry on living any more.” A resident of a village in the eastern province of Anhui, who gave only the initial L, said at least two elderly people from his hometown have ended their lives during the past three or four years, often because of illness. “The most urgent need in rural areas is medical care: general medical care; chronic disease care and treatment for serious illnesses,” L said, adding that his mother-in-law currently struggles to find money for her glaucoma medication. While her medical insurance once reimburse half of the 3,000 yuan annual cost, now she gets nothing at all, prompting L to wonder whether the funding has been taken up by the constant COVID-19 tests required under Xi Jinping’s zero-COVID policy. U.S.-based rights activist Chen Guangcheng, who has represented rural residents trying to defend their rights through legal channels, told a similar story. “Elderly people in rural areas are actually forced to choose suicide by their circumstances,” Chen said. “They are ultimately still dependent on the small amount of food they can produce from the land.” “Without mobility, they have nothing,” he said. Lack of economic security Yu-Chih Chen, an assistant professor in social work and social administration at the University of Hong Kong who researches healthy aging, said China’s elderly are fundamentally insecure. “There’s a saying in rural China that goes ‘put off the small stuff, suffer through the big stuff, and don’t go to hospital till you’re at death’s door’,” Chen said. “This is a reflection of the general lack of economic security and people’s inability to meet their medical needs.” Data from China’s 2020 national census found that nearly 24 percent of the rural population is now over 60, with more than 100 million elder people now living alone in the homes where they once raised their families. Social isolation is also a major driving force behind suicide in this group, according to Chen Yu-Chih. “Social isolation has been proven to drive mortality in academic studies,” Chen said. “The impact on health is similar to the effect of smoking 15 cigarettes a day.” Conversely, a 2021 study by population researchers at the University of Pennsylvania found that the suicide rate among older adults fell by 8.7 percent during the Lunar New Year holiday, when grown children return to their parental home. Chen Guangcheng says the issue could be solved by better government policies. “The CCP shouldn’t misallocate its social resources,” he said, adding that there is a huge imbalance in government spending across rural areas and cities. More than 500 million people currently live in rural areas, around 36 percent of the population. Yet they depend for their healthcare on just 1.35 million rural clinics, of which only around 690,000 are staffed by certified doctors and healthcare workers, a ratio of one healthcare worker to more than 700 people….
Mercurial and combative Solomon Islands leader reaps benefits where he may
Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare has maneuvered himself to the center of U.S.-China rivalry in the Pacific, stirring debate about his aims. To some, he’s an autocrat in waiting, and to others, a smart operator seeking to maximize aid for his volatile and economically-lagging nation. A Seventh-Day Adventist who has a martial arts black belt, Sogavare is also a political brawler whose fortunes have fluctuated over the years alongside the frequent strife of Solomon Islands politics. After rising through the civil service in the 1990s, he is now in his fourth stint as prime minister. His first term, from June 2000 to December 2001, followed a coup, though he was elected by parliament – part of a chaotic period that resulted in a years-long military intervention in the Solomon Islands led by U.S. ally Australia. Over time, Sogavare has become more adept at marshaling the levers of power in his favor, researchers say. Earlier this year he pushed a constitutional amendment through parliament that allowed elections, set for 2023, to be delayed on the basis the country couldn’t afford a national vote and a major sporting event – the Pacific Games – in the same year. “He is totally driven by the desire to remain PM forever,” said Matthew Wale, leader of the opposition in the Solomon Islands parliament. “He grants the demands of anyone who will help him achieve that.” Sogavare, 67, has increasingly tilted the government of the South Pacific archipelago of some 700,000 people towards China. In 2019, he switched diplomatic recognition to China from Taiwan – an unpopular move in the country’s most populous province, Malaita – and earlier this year, he signed a security pact with Beijing. China is helping to bankroll the Pacific Games in the Solomon Islands capital Honiara next year and is training the country’s police. Last weekend, more than 30 Solomons police officers headed to China for a month’s instruction in policing methods. Meanwhile, Sogavare signed up to a pact between Pacific island nations and the United States at a summit in Washington last month, in what one observer described as a pragmatic move. “Solomon Islands, and Sogavare himself, needs good relations with traditional partners, despite Solomon Islands’ growing security ties with China,” said Mihai Sora, a Pacific analyst at the Lowy Institute and former Australian diplomat in the Solomon Islands. “It’s not zero-sum for Sogavare, rather it’s about maximizing the potential benefits he can bring to his country. So pragmatism is the main driver, but there is also a personal element when push comes to shove.” Mercurial and perplexing Sogavare can seem a mercurial and perplexing figure to outsiders, and even for researchers and others who have spent years in the Solomon Islands. His office didn’t respond to a request for an interview. At a regional meeting in July, Sogavare effusively greeted Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese with a hug following months of tensions with Australia, the largest donor to the Solomon Islands. But within weeks, Sogavare was threatening to ban foreign media from the Solomon Islands, after critical Australian coverage of its China links, and lashing out at perceived Australian government interference. Canberra had offered, clumsily, some analysts say, to pay for the Solomon Islands elections. Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese (left) meets with Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare on the sidelines of the Pacific Islands Forum, in Suva, Fiji July 13, 2022. Credit: Pool via Reuters In his address to the United Nations General Assembly last month, Sogavare said the Solomon Islands had been vilified in the media for joining most other countries in recognizing China. He also urged the United States to end its embargo on Cuba and thanked the Cuban government for training Solomon Islands medical students. Sogavare credits his formative political ideas and skills to Solomon Mamaloni, a charismatic Solomon Islands leader who died in 2000. A staunch nationalist and man of the people who chewed betel nut and drank heavily, Mamaloni distrusted the West, Australia in particular, and U.S.-dominated institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. Sogavare became Mamaloni’s protege in the late 1990s. Sogavare believed he was in contact with Mamaloni after his death, according to a biography of Mamaloni by Christopher Chevalier, and other sources. “He was like a father to me, I was like his son and he taught me many things,” American anthropologist Alexis Tucker Sade quotes Sogavare as saying of Mamaloni in her 2017 doctoral dissertation on the Solomon Islands. Seances with spirits In an interview with Tucker Sade, Sogavare described a four-hour encounter in his government office with Mamaloni’s spirit, one of a number of supernatural encounters with the former prime minister that Sogavare claimed to have had in the decade following his death. He also acknowledged being a heavy drinker around the turn of the century. Nowadays, he is widely said to abstain from alcohol. Sogavare’s seances are not out of the ordinary in the Solomon Islands, where strong traditional beliefs are mingled with Christianity’s emphasis on the afterlife, said Chevalier. “He is his own man. But I don’t think he has forgotten the lessons of Mamaloni,” Chevalier said. “He has obviously learned how to strategize and how to bring people on board in the very complex horse-trading that goes on.” Not everyone in the Solomon Islands views the connection with Mamaloni positively. The former leader sought a strong and independent Solomon Islands, but his legacy, which at the time of his death included a country mired in corruption and ethnic strife, is debated. “Some people may say Mamaloni is some kind of a political savior to them,” said Celsus Irokwato, an adviser to the premier of Malaita province. “I see him as one of those who have set the stage for the failures of Solomon Islands.” Sogavare stands out because he is unpredictable and doesn’t conform to local cultural norms for leadership, based on respect earned from constant community involvement, said Clive Moore, an emeritus professor at the University of Queensland and…
Hong Kong police say cartoonist’s art damages their image
Hong Kong police have expressed “strong concerns” to the city’s Ming Pao newspaper over what a spokesman called a “misleading” cartoon by political satirist Zun Zi that lampooned authoritarian education policies, media in the city reported. Zun Zi’s cartoon, published on Tuesday, shows a police officer fully-clad in riot gear at a school asking “What have the students done today, headteacher Chan?” The teacher lists the students’ various offenses including losing erasers and talking back to teachers. The cartoon was published in the wake of A widely-publicized case in which 14 secondary school students were suspended for three days for failing to show up to a flag-raising ceremony at St Francis Xavier’s School in Tsuen Wan district. Under a national security law imposed by Beijing in mid-2020, authorities in Hong Kong have conducted a wide-ranging crackdown on pro-democracy activists, many of whom are students at universities and other educational institutions. Students are among the dozens of activists arrested, campus activism has been banned, and schools are under pressure to adjust their curriculum to inculcate nationalism and fealty to the ruling Chinese Communist Party. Zun Zi’s cartoon could give readers the misleading impression that Hong Kong police would be deployed to handle small campus issues, police spokesman Joe Chan wrote to Lau Chung Yeung, Ming Pao’s executive chief editor, reports in the city said. “The false descriptions in [the cartoon] might make the public misunderstand police work. They not only damage the Force’s image, but also harm the cooperation between the police and the public, as well as our effectiveness on cracking down crimes,” said Chan’s letter, quoted in the Hong Kong Free Press. The cartoon remained on Ming Pao’s website on Wednesday, while Ming Pao’s editorial board issued a statement saying that the paper would “continue to provide accurate and credible news content to readers in a professional spirit and support columnists in providing professional work.” Hong Kong has plummeted in global press freedom rankings following a citywide crackdown on dissent under the national security law. Speaking to RFA Cantonese when Hong Kong’s national security law was first enacted in 2020, Zun Zi said that the local Hong Kong government cooperated with Beijing to pass the national security law, which had a chilling effect on society. “Now we have to be careful when we laugh. We need to be skillful when laughing. We can’t draw fists or point fingers everyday,” he said. “Only when you integrate politics, incidents, with people’s life stories and the culture of the society, can you create top-rated and inspiring works of art,” Zun Zi said, vowing to keep drawing despite the crackdown. “As to when is the time to stop, if someone holds a knife, and puts my hand on the chopping board and tells me that he will cut off my hand if I continue to draw. If this happens, I will stop. This is the only way (to stop me).” Zun Zi is the pen name of Wong Kee-kwan, a 40-year veteran cartoonist who initially contributed to the pro-Beijing New Evening Post and Takungpao publications before moving to Ming Pao. His cartoons have also appeared in the pro-democracy Apple Daily, which has been shut down by national security police since the passage of Hong Kong’s national security law. At least three Hong Kong cartoonists who published their work in Ming Pao, Hong Kong Worker, vawongsir and Ah To, have announced their plans to leave the city amid the crackdown. Translated by RFA Mandarin. Written by Nawar Nemeh.
Laos put on edge by two recent brutal killings of Chinese nationals
The grisly killings of two Chinese nationals, whose bodies were found stuffed into bags and floating in rivers within two weeks of each other, have put residents of Laos on edge. No connection between the two killings has been confirmed, but authorities say both may have been involved in business deals gone sour, sources in Laos told Radio Free Asia. On Sept. 15, villagers from Vientiane Province’s Phon Hong district found a body floating near a dam that was identified as belonging to Chinese businessman Yang Youhai, 37, who had operated an iron bar manufacturer. The body was found in a plastic bag with his hands and feet bound, a police official said. “They are still investigating and the cause is unknown,” a police official from Vientiane’s Naxaythong district told RFA’s Lao Service. “There is no closed-circuit camera at the location where they dumped the body. They don’t know where it came from, what direction. They know only that this body is of the person from the iron bar company.” Yang was a “big boss” at his company, and had come to Laos three months prior, another police official from the capital said. The body was cremated in Vientiane, and some of the bones are to be sent to China for further investigation. The suspected motive is a business-related conflict, the second police official said. Dismembered body Two weeks later, Thai police on Sept. 29 discovered a suitcase floating in the Mekong River containing the dismembered body of Viphaphone Kongsy, 36, chairwoman of the Lao VIP investment company. A dual citizen of Laos and China, the woman also went by the name Lì Jūn Vp. She had been missing since Sept. 10. The Lao Ministry of Public Security set up a special committee to investigate, but hasn’t released any statements or information about evidence. An official from the rescue team in Thailand’s That Phnom district, where the body was found, told RFA he went to pick up the body bag and found evidence that suggested murder. “Her face was beaten by something strong like an iron bar,” he said. “The right side of her stomach has been torn out. She might have been beaten hard with an iron bar before she died.” A couple days later, residents in Vientiane spotted what turned out to be her car floating in the Mekong River. Her decomposing body parts are being kept at the Nakhon Phanom hospital in Thailand, a Thai police official said. “They have to test her relatives’ DNA before they can return her body to Laos,” the official said. The two killings are the latest in a string of similar incidents involving Chinese nationals engaged in business in Laos, where China has invested heavily in infrastructure and manufacturing projects. ‘Very Afraid’ With the news of each case, the Lao public has grown ever more fearful, sources told RFA, sparking fears of growing lawlessness. “News of the murder is making villagers very afraid. They want local officials, police and soldiers to patrol all the time, and the villagers want to take part to be the eyes and ears helping them as well,” said a villager from Phon Hong, where Yang’s body was found. Soldiers patrol the dam where the body was found 24 hours a day, he said. “This was a murder with the intent to kill this guy without mercy,” a police official said, asking not to be identified. “There have been killings in many provinces in Laos in the past mostly from drug trafficking and drug trades or robbery and stealing, conflict in the family, or among friends, but not as harsh as this one.” Reports of such killings have increased in recent years of growing resentment in Laos over Chinese business presence in the country, over Chinese casinos and special economic zones which have been linked to human trafficking and crime. Viphaphone’s investigation should be handled in a transparent way to ease the fears of the people, a Lao source who has been following the case told RFA. “They should announce what they know to the public, what’s going on, right now,” he said. Another Lao source who is following the case said that it was likely a business-related killing. “Based on observation, this case of murder looks like it stems from business conflict. But the police have not revealed anything yet,” the second source said. “We never dreamed that anything like this would happen in Laos.” A former Lao government official with knowledge of cases like these also believes the deaths are a result of business conflicts, “perhaps with Laotian, Vietnamese or Chinese who invested money and had a conflict with her and lost,” he said. A Lao expert on criminal law declined to express an opinion on the case or speculate on its outcome. “But I believe that related sectors must urgently solve this case because it is a horrible case for the public to think about,” the expert said. Translated by Sidney Khotpanya and Ounkeo Souksavanh. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
The single-person quarantine zones in Shanghai are the new NORMAL amid fresh lockdown fears
China is stepping up its efforts to control Covid-19 outbreaks ahead of the 20th National Party Congress, with national cases mounting to the highest in nearly two months and concerns about broadening lockdowns rippling across Shanghai, the financial hub of China. The country reported 1,878 cases for Sunday, the highest since Aug. 20, as the week-long National Day holiday saw cases erupt among returning visitors. Shanghai posted 34 new local infections, the most in nearly three months. The 20th party congress and the memories of the Zero-Covid policy lockdown earlier this year have raised the apprehensions of Chinese citizens. People are panic posting stories of struggles and fear on Weibo and other Chinese Social media platforms. There has been a sudden rise in the number of people searching, reading and discussing Shanghai lockdowns on Weibo. On top of this, the authorities have started to impose single-person temporary isolation mini-quarantine zones in Shanghai. In this inhumane practice, people who even have a remote chance of being COVID-19 positive are quarantined for hours on the spot alone in isolation. The people of Shanghai are in a dire need of respite, and the Chinese Regime needs to be people-friendly instead of obsessing over the 20th National Congress. Sources: https://twitter.com/StephenMcDonell https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-10-10/lockdown-worries-return-to-shanghai-as-china-covid-tally-climbs
Vietnam promotes ‘problematic’ bid for UN Human Rights Council membership
Vietnam is mounting an assertive campaign to win a seat on the United National Human Rights Council in an Oct. 11 vote, but critics say Hanoi’s poor record at home and diplomatic support for major rights violators abroad disqualify the one-party state. Fourteen seats on the 47-member Council will be filled by the U.N. General Assembly full-member vote. The highest human rights body has long faced criticism that countries seen as major rights abusers are members who team up to shield each other from scrutiny. Critics say Hanoi’s record of cracking down on journalists, activists and social media commentators makes it a poor choice for the Council. And they say Vietnam would join the bloc of countries that block Council action on major crises, as it did in its previous 2014-16 term. “There is little doubt that Vietnam will be a problematic, highly negative influence on the Human Rights Council if it is elected to the 2023-2025 term,” said Phil Robertson, deputy director of the Asia division at Human Rights Watch (HRW). “In fact, at every opportunity, Vietnam does not hesitate to show its contempt for international human rights law, and if they get a seat, it’s highly likely they will seek to undermine meaningful actions by the Council,” he told RFA. Tuesday’s vote in New York comes days after China and its allies on the 47-member Council defeated a U.S. proposal that the Council hold a debate on a recent report by the body’s rights chief on abuses in China’s Xinjiang region. Vietnam has conducted an intense propaganda and lobbying drive to support its effort to be elected to the Council. On Sept. 30, Deputy Prime Minister Phạm Binh Minh approved a huge public relations campaign intended to boost the country’s reputation in the human rights field. Under the project, all Vietnamese state agencies will regularly provide human rights information to the media by 2028, while state officials working in the field will receive communications training. Over the past month, state media have touted what they say are Vietnam’s human rights achievements and criticized the international community’s accusations of rights violations in the Southeast Asian country. Vietnamplus, an online newspaper, recently ran two stories titled “Vietnam attaches importance to international cooperation in human rights protection” and “Vietnam ready to contribute further to UN affairs.” The Voice of Vietnam online newspaper, meanwhile, ran a story titled “Vietnam pledges to make active contributions when becoming member of the UN Human Rights Council.” ‘Unworthy’ candidate Human rights lawyer Nguyen Van Dai, a former political prisoner who now lives in Germany, said Vietnam was seeking Council membership for the 2023-25 term to boost its standing. “Authoritarian governments often try their best to join the United Nations agencies, including the Human Rights Council, so that they can use it to tell people inside their country that accusations of their human rights violations are inaccurate,” he told RFA. “The fact that the Vietnamese Communist government has made every effort to become a member of the Human Rights Council is for political purposes only,” he told RFA. “They will not make any contributions to protect the human rights of their own people as well as of other peoples in the world.” In April, a coalition of eight organizations from inside and outside Vietnam, including the Vietnam Human Rights Network, Human Rights Defenders, Dai Viet Quoc Dang and the Vietnam Independent Journalists Association, sent an open letter to the U.N. calling on it to reject Vietnam as a Council member for the next term. They said the country was “unworthy” because of its poor human rights record and support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. On Oct. 3, three NGOs — UN Watch, Human Rights Foundation and the Raoul Wallenberg Center for Human Rights — jointly issued a report on rights abuses by the 14 candidate countries, including Vietnam, to circulate to U.N. diplomats. The report says that the rights situation inside Vietnam has not improved. It noted that when Vietnam served on Council from 2014-16, it opposed resolutions supporting rights victims in Belarus and Iran and failed to support resolutions on behalf of rights victims in Burundi and Syria. Another coalition of rights NGOs groups from Europe, the U.S. and Canada has called on U.N. member states to oppose the election of Vietnam, Afghanistan, Algeria, Sudan and Venezuela, countries deemed “unqualified” because of their grim human rights records and voting records on U.N. resolutions concerning human rights. London-based Amnesty International said Vietnam’s efforts to be elected to the Council flew in the face of the facts on the ground. “Vietnamese authorities should show that they are willing to uphold international human rights standards, but nothing could be further from the reality on the ground, where the government continues to pass laws that restrict freedom of expression and association while promoting a climate of fear among people who dare to speak out,” an Amnesty spokesperson told RFA. Getting worse in Vietnam Nguyen Dinh Thang said human rights in Vietnam had worsened since the country’s nomination as a Council member in April 2021. A further stain on the country’s human rights record was its vote against a resolution to dismiss Russia from the Council for invading Ukraine, he said. Vietnam does not deserve membership after years of rounding up its critics, said attorney Nguyen Van Dai. “Over the past four years, Vietnam has arrested many political dissidents who only had exercised their freedom of expression and press freedom,” he said. There are more than 100 political dissidents in jail, most of whom openly criticized the government for wrongdoings, including corruption and rights violations, though none of them opposed the state, Dai said. “They only raised social issues which were completely true,” he said. “Almost all of them only commented on and analyzed the issues raised by state media. They did not collect the information from somewhere or provide inaccurate information about the Communist government of Vietnam.” Vietnam is currently detaining 253 prisoners of conscience, according to the rights group Defend…
ANALYSIS: How long will Xi Jinping’s third term in office last?
Ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping is widely expected to seek a third term in office at the party congress, which opens in Beijing on Oct. 16. What is less predictable is how long that term will be, and how much support he will need from rival factions in the party to achieve it, analysts told RFA. “No major leaks have occurred so far,” Li Cheng, director of the John L. Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institution, told RFA in a recent interview, adding that the closed-doors nature of internal negotiations wasn’t unusual, but the lack of leaks ahead of the congress was “a rare phenomenon.” Currently, analysts are unsure of who will make it into the 25-member Politburo, still less of the makeup of the next Politburo standing committee, current a seven-member body at the heart of political power in China. They do agree that Xi is likely to be replacing incumbent premier Li Keqiang — who has spoken off message recently regarding the direction of economic policy — with a strong political ally. “There are different points of view within the CCP Central Committee, and different factions have formed,” political scholar Li Ting told RFA, referring to Li Keqiang’s vocal public support for the “reform and opening up” policies of Deng Xiaoping, which Xi has been moving away from in recent years. “Li Keqiang speaks and acts on behalf of a different faction [from Xi’s ‘princelings’ faction],” he said. The relative clout of these different factions will affect Xi’s success in achieving a third term, along with the Politburo standing committee line-up that suits him best, analysts said. “In the first two terms of Xi Jinping’s tenure, especially the first term, he governed through cooperation with political partners, but in the third term he will run the country with his henchmen,” Li Cheng said. While Xi’s anti-corruption campaign won him widespread public support earlier in his tenure, public anger has grown over the economy-slowing lockdowns brought by his zero-COVID policy and among the urban middle-classes, where many are paying back mortgages on homes yet to be completed by developers, Li said. Shanghai party chief Li Qiang takes part in a group discussion held on the sidelines of the National People’s Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, March 6, 2018. Credit: Associated Press Scenarios Li said there are no guarantees, however, that Xi will only seek another five-year term in office, now that term limits have been abolished through amendments to the constitution in 2018. He could seek an indefinite term, or present himself once more for a fourth term in five years’ time, he said. In a recent analysis, the Asia Society suggested five potential scenarios resulting from the party congress. In one, current Shanghai party chief Li Qiang or a “similarly loyal dark horse” Xi ally, takes over as premier from Li Keqiang. “Li [Qiang]’s competitiveness has been undermined by Shanghai’s serious and embarrassing difficulties in containing outbreaks of COVID-19 earlier this year,” the report said. “Should Li nonetheless take the position, it would therefore indicate that Xi remains in a very powerful political position.” In another, Wang Yang, loosely allied with the CCP Youth League faction, gets the job, with Li Qiang as executive vice premier. If Xi manages to achieve a Politburo standing committee packed with his allies, this would suggest he now enjoys “unbounded” power within the party, it said. “This scenario appears to remain relatively unlikely, but it is hardly impossible,” it said. But if Xi’s influence is more limited than that, he may be forced to expand the standing committee to nine seats to make room for enough of his allies alongside compromise candidates, it said. Intense bargaining Political commentator Wu Gang said the behind-the-scenes negotiations are likely to be intense. “There will be a lot of bargaining,” Wu said. “I think the most likely [outcome] is that he serves another five years at least.” There have also been rumors that vice premier Hu Chunhua, aligned with the Youth League faction, and CCP general office director Ding Xuexiang, are likely to be in the new Politburo standing committee line-up. According to the Asia Society report current convention sets the resignation age at 68. Among current Politburo standing committee members, Xi is 69, Li Zhanshu is 72 and Han Zheng is 68, while Li Keqiang, Wang Yang and Wang Huning are all over 67. The reports expects Xi to focus on promoting younger allies to replace them. Wu said the ideal outcome for Xi would be to be voted in for a lifelong third term in office. “They want him to get lifelong tenure,” he said. “Otherwise, there would be no guarantee of a stable future for his supporters.” Political scholar Xu Guang said it was hard for Chinese leaders to remain relevant for all time, however. “When all’s said and done, it’s a logical impossibility for [Xi] to go from victory to victory [indefinitely],” Xu told RFA. “Victories always come to an end.” “Dialectical materialism teaches us that … any extreme will be reversed, and that this is inescapable,” he said. “Just as a person can’t stay young forever, revolutionaries can’t last forever within the party.” “The trajectory of human life is a parabola,” he said. “We’ve had the second generation revolutionaries; next it’ll be the third generation — can the revolution last forever?” Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
Amnesty for North Koreans who leak government propaganda to South Korea
North Korea is offering amnesty to citizens who have sold propaganda lecture publications to buyers in South Korea, but only if they turn themselves in by the end of the month, sources in the country told RFA. Citizens in North Korea are frequently made to attend lectures either at their workplace or in their neighborhood watch units. The purpose of the lectures can range from glorifying the leadership to reinforce loyalty, explaining the government’s stance on world events, educating the public about new government policies or initiatives, or justifying unpopular ones. To ensure uniformity in lectures given nationwide, they use official materials provided by the Propaganda and Agitation Department. Occasionally, copies of the materials end up in South Korea, which is a problem because they could be used by organizations, media, or intelligence to gain accurate information about the North, or could be used to show how the government keeps its people in the dark. Authorities are now telling people who leaked lecture materials in the past that they will be forgiven if they come clean now. A resident of Songchun in South Pyongan province, north of the capital Pyongyang, said authorities in the city recently lectured people on the policy. “The meeting was hosted by a local official of the State Security Department, and the main topic was that citizens who have had communication with ‘hostiles’ should surrender,” the source told RFA Korean Tuesday on condition of anonymity for security reasons. The source said that “close communication with hostiles” specifically refers to citizens who use brokers who can contact people in South Korea by using a Chinese mobile phone near the Sino-Korean border. “They hand over the publications of the Propaganda and Agitation Department, including lecture materials, to South Korea,” he said. “The amnesty period is until the end of this month. The authorities promised that those who turn themselves in during this period would be forgiven of their charged crimes,” the source said. If they are caught after the amnesty period ends, punishment will be harsh, according to the source. “The authorities threatened that if the residents do not turn themselves in during the surrender period, they and their family members would be sent to a political prison camp,” he said. The amnesty is only available to ordinary citizens, according to the source. Government officials guilty of handing over lecture materials to the South are not to be forgiven, he said. At a similar meeting in North Pyongan province’s Ryongchon county, which borders China, the lecturer said those turning themselves in would need to expose others, a source there told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “[They] would have to reveal which party officials they contacted to steal lecture materials and learning materials,” the second source said. “Residents are very nervous, arguing that the authorities may be using self-defense and mercy as bait to purge party officials,” he said. Sources say that authorities tend to offer amnesty to citizens for “non-socialist behavior” whenever there is a tense situation inside or outside the country, or when public sentiment is low. The amnesty is always coupled with threats to more harshly punish those who did not turn themselves in, they said. Translated by Claire Shinyoung Oh Lee. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
China, Russia say North Korea launch provoked by US military drills
A U.S.-led push to condemn North Korea’s launch of a missile across Japan was blocked by China and Russia in the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday, with the veto powers saying Pyongyang was provoked by recent U.S. military drills. The meeting of the 15-member council was called by the United States after North Korea fired a missile across Japanese territory into the Pacific Ocean on Tuesday, violating council resolutions banning Pyongyang from such tests. The test missile launch was condemned by the 12 other members of the U.N. Security Council – Albania, France, Ireland, Norway, the United Kingdom, India, the United Arab Emirates, Ghana, Mexico, Kenya, Brazil and Gabon. Each called for a return to “dialogue” between countries in the region. But Russia and China – who had opposed a public council meeting and in May vetoed a resolution to impose new sanctions against North Korea for its new program of test launches – both said the United States was also at fault. Russia’s deputy representative to the United Nations, Anna Evstigneeva, defended the test launches, and blamed the context of what she termed America’s “unilateral security doctrine in the Asia-Pacific region.” She noted that the United States, Japan and South Korea last month carried out military exercises in the Sea of Japan using a nuclear aircraft carrier that she said focused training on hitting key targets in North Korea. “It is obvious that the missile launches by Pyongyang are a consequence of a short-sighted confrontational military activity surrounding this country conducted by the United States, which hurts their own partners in the region and also hurts the situation in Northeast Asia as a whole,” Evstigneeva said. China’s deputy permanent representative to the United Nations, Geng Shuang, mirrored the comments, also blaming U.S.-led drills for Pyongyang’s launch. “We have also noticed the multiple joint military exercises held by the U.S. and other countries recently in the region,” Geng told the Security Council. “A brief examination will reveal that [North Korea’s] launch activities took place either before or after such military activities and did not exist in isolation.” Pedestrians walk under a large video screen showing images of North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un during a news update in Tokyo on Oct. 4, 2022, after North Korea launched a missile prompting an evacuation alert when it flew over northeastern Japan. Credit: AFP ‘Blaming others’ However, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, speaking for a second time after first making a case to condemn North Korea’s actions, said the explanation from China and Russia made little sense. “As we expected, instead of putting the blame where the blame lies,” Thomas-Greenfield said, “Russia and China want to blame others for their actions.” She said that U.S.-led drills with South Korea and Japan were carried out “responsibly and consistent with international law” and that there was “no equivalency” with the “unlawful, reckless” missile launches by North Korea. Japan’s permanent representative to the United Nations, Ishikane Kimihiro, who is not currently sitting on the council but was invited to address it, called on the council to enforce “unanimously adopted” resolutions banning such tests. “This council should be mindful that it is being tested and that its credibility is at stake. Silence is not an option,” Ishikane said. “North Korea has violated multiple Security Council resolutions and this council should act and provide an outcome that restores its credibility and fulfills its responsibilities.” The North Korean missile test was the first to pass through Japanese territory in five years, and flew 2,800 miles at 17 times the speed of sound. The United States and South Korea conducted their own missile tests in response earlier on Wednesday, with a malfunctioning South Korean missile crashing into an air force base on the outskirts of the coastal city of Gangneung.
Cambodian officials post photos of 8 Chinese migrants found dead after boat accident
Cambodian authorities said the bodies of the final eight missing Chinese migrants from a small fishing vessel that sank last week off the Cambodian coast washed up on a Vietnamese island, bringing the total number of dead from the accident to 11. Officials in Preah Sihanouk province initially posted photos of the eight on Facebook after they were found on Phu Quoc, which is off the coast of Cambodia in the Gulf of Thailand. The photos were later removed from the social media platform. The wooden boat, which was carrying 33 Chinese migrants, encountered problems on Sept. 22 near the Cambodian coastal city Sihanoukville, a popular resort town known for its casinos, and capsized. The Chinese aboard had been promised jobs as fishermen. Twenty-two passengers were rescued by Cambodian authorities and by a fishing boat in Vietnamese waters. Three of the migrants were found dead in the initial aftermath of the accident, while eight remained missing until Thursday. Sihanoukville is a hotbed for human trafficking, with victims from across the region being tricked into working in the casinos or as online scammers, and sometimes being held against their will by employers. According to an earlier report by AFP, the surviving passengers said they had been promised 10,000 to 20,000 yuan (U.S. $1,405-$2,809) to work in Cambodia for 10-20 days. Speaking at the 6th National Inter-Faith Forum Against Human Trafficking on Thursday, Prime Minister Hun Sen on Thursday blamed illegal gambling operations in Cambodia as contributing to rampant human trafficking and pledged tough action in response. “It is a complicated issue and it doesn’t only happen in Cambodia,” he told attendees at the conference, organized under the theme “Do Not Use Cambodia as a Destination of Trafficking in Persons.” “If we are not prudent, Cambodia will become a safe haven for criminals to commit crime in our country,” Hun Sen said. “They are using Cambodia as a place to produce drugs and then distribute them to Vietnam, Thailand and other countries.” Ny Sokha, president of the Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association, an NGO known as ADHOC, said he welcomed the prime minister’s commitment to fighting human trafficking, but questioned the government’s ability to follow through. He noted that Hun Sen has made other pledges, such as ending illegal logging in the country, that have not come to fruition. “Human trafficking is not committed by ordinary poor people, and the justice system in Cambodia must prevent impunity because with impunity and corruption, human trafficking can’t be prevented,” Ny Sokha said. Interior Minister Sar Kheng told attendees at the conference that the country was working to prevent trafficking, rescue victims and apprehend ringleaders. “Criminals are committing crimes silently online via cyber-technology and are using other tricks to exploit victims to work overtime [or] to detain, torture and kidnap them,” he said. “Some criminals are armed, and if they are not deterred, they will become a threat to national security in the future.” As of late August, Cambodian authorities received almost 400 complaints about human trafficking, and authorities had rescued about 400 victims, about 55 of whom had been trafficked, according to Cambodia’s Interior Ministry. The victims were from Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, China, Pakistan, India, Myanmar, the Philippines, the United States, Turkey and South Korea. At least 43 suspects have been brought to justice, and their operations have been shut down, according to the ministry. Translated by Samean Yun for RFA Khmer. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
