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In North Korea, ‘Judas’ is nickname for informer and betrayer

Editor2 years ago06 mins

‘Judas’ has become a scornful nickname for informers in North Korea. For example, when a girl confided in her friend during the COVID-19 pandemic that she planned to escape North Korea once the border with China reopened, she was brought before authorities and punished. Residents began calling the friend who sold her out “a modern-day Judas,” a woman from Kimjongsuk county, in the northern province of Ryanggang, told Radio Free Asia on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “After this incident, whenever the informant passes by, other people in the neighborhood turn their backs on him and curse him as Judas,” the woman said. “Authorities who encourage the informants are called Judas as well.” The reference to the disciple who betrayed Jesus in the New Testament might be surprising given that Christianity has been illegal in the country for nearly 120 years. It is not a new term because underground Christians – who are persecuted in North Korea – are familiar with it. And Christianity does have roots in the country. Pyongyang was once such a bastion of Christians that it was called “Jerusalem of the East.” Korea was one of the only places in East Asia where Christianity had staying power after it was introduced in the 17th century. But came to an end once the peninsula fell to Japanese rule in 1905 and Shinto became the state religion, pushing believers underground. At the end of World War II in 1945, Christian missionaries returned to Korea, but only in the south, as the Soviet-occupied north forbade religion. Once North Korea was officially established in 1948, Christianity and other religions were completely outlawed, and the church remained underground. Efforts to stamp out Christianity But the nickname does appear to be used more widely these days. The fact that people are still aware of the story of Judas, who betrayed Jesus to the Romans for 30 pieces of silver, indicates that despite North Korea’s best efforts to stamp out Christianity, the religion still maintains a presence there. “People who lack loyalty or who stab their friends in the back are cursed as ‘Judas,’” a man living in Pyongsong, South Pyongan province, north of Pyongyang, told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “The five-household propagandist, who reports the movements of people and even trivial words to the police, is also called ‘Judas’ by his peers,” he said. The five-household watch is a sophisticated surveillance system in which paid informants, called propagandists, are tasked with monitoring five households in their neighborhoods. Five-household propagandists are enthusiastic Party members selected from factories and schools for exhibiting traits of loyalty. “As the public sentiment has worsened due to the prolonged COVID-19 crisis, the authorities are focusing on monitoring the residents by mobilizing the informants,” the South Pyongan resident said. “As if that was not enough, the authorities secretly planted more informants in the neighborhoods.” “In response, the residents are criticizing the authorities for creating distrust among the residents, telling them not to trust anyone, because they do not know who could be ‘Judas.’” North Korean authorities have tried hard to eliminate Christianity from the country, but believers are still there – though it’s impossible to know how many. The international Christian missionary organization Open Doors, citing a trusted North Korean source, described how in 2022 dozens of members of an underground church were discovered and executed, and more than 100 of their family members were arrested and sent to concentration camps. Translated by Claire Shinyoung Oh Lee. Written in English by Eugene Whong. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

Cyclone Mocha inflicts heavy damage on Myanmar’s Rakhine state

Editor2 years ago012 mins

Cyclone Mocha may have been less deadly than predicted, but it inflicted heavy damage on Myanmar’s Rakhine state, including the capital of Sittwe. On Monday, a day after the storm slammed into the coast, images from the city and surrounding area showed flattened homes, roads blocked by fallen electricity pylons, splintered remains of trees and widespread flooding. Power was cut off to Sittwe, a city of about 150,000. “Ninety percent of Sittwe township … is damaged or under debris,” aid and relief groups told Radio Free Asia. A precise death toll was hard to nail down. At least 30 people are believed dead, based on reports by local media and residents of the affected regions. Myanmar’s junta had said three people died, while the shadow National Unity Government – made up of opponents of the junta – put the figure at 18. Those figures are far lower than feared. Cyclone Nargis, which hit the same area in 2008, left nearly 140,000 dead or missing. The storm hit the coast on Sunday with sustained winds reaching over 220 kilometers per hour (137 mph). “Buildings have been badly damaged,” said a woman who lives in the Sittwe’s Lanmadaw (South) ward, asking not to be identified. “The monastery in front of my house is completely destroyed. Not one house is left undamaged.” The low-lying areas of Sittwe were inundated with flooding, she said, leaving residents to contend with brackish and, in some places, chest-deep water from the Bay of Bengal. “Piles of mud have been left inside the buildings,” she said. “Since there is no electricity, we haven’t been able to clean them … The roof of my house is almost gone and there is water downstairs. We don’t know what to do to clean them up.” Local residents stand on a broken bridge at the Khaung Dote Khar Rohingya refugee camp in Sittwe, Myanmar, Monday, May 15, 2023, after cyclone Mocha made a landfall. Credit: AFP A Sittwe firefighter told RFA that floodwaters in the city were “still as high as 1.5 meters (5 feet) in the low-lying areas” and that evacuated residents were waiting for word from the Rakhine state government to return to their homes. Impact in Bangladesh Meanwhile, in neighboring Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar to the west, some 1.2 million Rohingyas living in refugee camps after fleeing a military offensive in Rakhine state in 2017 remained largely unscathed by the cyclone, despite earlier fears that the mostly unprotected camps lay directly in the storm’s crosshairs. But while no casualties were reported in the aftermath of the cyclone, Rohingya refugees told RFA that thousands of homes were damaged in the sprawling camps due to strong winds, landslides, and flooding. “About 500 homes were damaged in our camp alone,” said Aung Myaing, a refugee at the Kutupalong camp in Cox’s Bazar. “About 10,000 homes in all refugee camps combined have been damaged. Some houses have been completely destroyed while others have been partially damaged.” He said camp residents are in need of bamboo and tarps to help shore up the damage. RFA-affiliated BenarNews reported that Mocha had destroyed more than 2,800 shelters, learning centers, health centers and other infrastructure in refugee camps in the neighboring sub-districts of Teknaf and Ukhia, citing Mohammed Mizanur Rahman, refugee relief and repatriation commissioner. He noted that landslides were also reported at 120 spots in the Rohingya camps. Rahman said there were no casualties because “we relocated them at an appropriate time.” ‘Trail of devastation’ In a flash update on Monday, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance called Mocha “one of the strongest cyclones ever to hit the country” and said the storm had left a “trail of devastation” in Rakhine state, which is also home to tens of thousands of people displaced by conflict in the aftermath of the military’s Feb. 1, 2021, coup d’etat. “Few houses have escaped damage in Sittwe and there is widespread destruction of flimsy bamboo longhouses in displacement camps,” UNOCHA said. “Health, relief items, shelter, and water, sanitation, and hygiene needs are already being reported. Explosive ordnance risks are high in conflict-affected rural areas where landmines may have been shifted during flooding and where people have been on the move to safer areas.” A downed tree lies on a building in Sittwe, Myanmar, Monday, May 15, 2023. Credit: Citizen journalist Damage to telecommunications towers has severely hampered the flow of information in Rakhine, while water and power services were disrupted throughout the day on Monday, forcing residents to rely on generators for electricity. Relief efforts underway UNOCHA said humanitarian partners are starting assessments to confirm the magnitude of the damage in Sittwe and the Rakhine townships of Pauktaw, Rathedaung, Maungdaw, Ponnagyun, and Kyauktaw. It called for “an urgent injection of funds” to respond to the impact of Mocha and subsequent flooding in the region. In a response to emailed questions from RFA, the World Food Program said it is “mobilizing emergency food and nutrition assistance to 800,000 people affected by the cyclone, many of them already displaced by conflict.” Before the cyclone, the U.N. had estimated 6 million people were “already in humanitarian need” in Rakhine state, and the regions of Chin, Magway and Sagaing. Collectively, the states host 1.2 million displaced people, prompting OCHA to warn of “a nightmare scenario.” However, Mocha had weakened by Sunday evening and moved toward Myanmar’s northwest, where it was downgraded to a depression on Monday over the country’s Sagaing region. RFA was able to document the deaths of at least a dozen people. They included a 30-year-old woman from Rakhine’s Ramree township, two men in their 20s in Ayeyarwady region’s Yegyi township and Rakhine’s Toungup township, and four men of unknown ages in Rakhine’s Kyauktaw township. Others killed included a resident of Sittwe, a man in his 50s from Mandalay region’s Pyin Oo Lwin township, a young couple from the Shan state city of Tachileik, and a 70-year-old woman from Magway region’s Sinphyukyun township. Attempts by RFA to contact…

Rohingya must stay at camps despite approaching cyclone, Bangladesh govt says

Editor2 years ago09 mins

Bangladeshi authorities evacuated hundreds of thousands of people Saturday from coastal areas near the projected path of a monster storm, but Rohingya refugees would be prevented from leaving their camps in Cox’s Bazar, the home minister said. As of late Saturday, Bangladeshi state media reported, the government had moved as many as 400,000 people into 1,030 cyclone shelters in Chittagong division, which covers Cox’s Bazar and other districts near Bangladesh’s southeastern border with Myanmar’s Rakhine state, where Cyclone Mocha is expected to make landfall on Sunday. During a public event in Dhaka on Saturday, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal said that agencies including the Armed Police Battalion in Cox’s Bazar were ordered to stop any of the 1 million or so Rohingya sheltering at camps there from leaving those confines and spreading across the country. “Law enforcers are on alert so that the Rohingya people cannot take advantage of the disaster to cross the barbed-wire fence. But if Cyclone Mocha hits the Bangladesh [areas] instead of Myanmar, the Rohingya people will be brought to a safe place,” Khan said in televised comments. World Vision, a humanitarian group, had warned on Friday that the storm threatened the safety of thousands of children at the world’s largest refugee camp, situated in Cox’s Bazar. “Cyclone Mocha is expected to bring heavy rain and flooding along the coasts of Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh, posing severe threat to the safety of children and communities in danger zones along coastal and low-lying areas,” the NGO said in a statement. The cyclone is the most powerful and potentially dangerous sea-based storm seen in this corner of the Bay of Bengal in nearly two decades. On Saturday, India’s meteorological department said the weather system had intensified into an “extremely severe cyclonic storm.” This satellite image provided by the India Meteorological Department shows storm Mocha intensify into an extremely severe cyclonic storm, May 13, 2023. Credit: India Meteorological Department via AP As of 12 p.m. Saturday (local time), the center of the storm was over the sea close to Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine, and packing winds of up to 231 kilometers per hour (143.5 miles per hour) as Mocha churned toward the low-lying coastal border areas between Myanmar and Bangladesh, according to the United Nations Satellite Centre (UNOSAT). Rakhine is expected to take a direct hit from the storm. “According to the forecast by GDACS [Global Disaster Alert and Coordination System], tropical cyclone MOCHA can have a high humanitarian impact based on the maximum sustained wind speed, exposed population, and vulnerability,” UNOSAT said. In a press release, the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR warned that Mocha could bring “significant rainfall with landslides and flooding of camps near the sea.” The U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a separate bulletin on Saturday that the storm was forecast to generate wind speeds of up to 200 kilometers per hour (124.2 miles per hour) when it makes landfall on Sunday afternoon. “Heavy rain and strong winds associated with the cyclone are expected to cause flooding across Rakhine, where many townships and displacement sites are in low-lying areas and highly prone to flooding,” OCHA said. “Many communities are already moving to higher ground to designated evacuation centers or to safer areas staying with relatives,” the U.N. agency said. A girl looks out from a tuk tuk while evacuating in Sittwe, in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, ahead of the arrival of Cyclone Mocha, May 13, 2023. Credit: Sai Aung Main/AFP In the Bangladeshi capital, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said her government was preparing to safeguard the nation and its people from the storm, but that there might have to be shutoffs to the electricity and gas supply. “Cyclone ‘Mocha’ is coming. We’ve kept ready the cyclone centers and taken all types of preparations to tackle it,” the state-run news agency Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha quoted Hasina as saying on Saturday. Her Awami League government faces a general election in late 2023 or early 2024. In Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh’s meteorological agency raised the danger signal for the coming cyclone to 10, the most severe rating. Meanwhile, Mohammad Mizanur Rahman, the country’s refugee relief and repatriation commissioner, confirmed that law enforcement agencies would prevent Rohingya from leaving the camps. He said Rohingya would have to seek shelter at mosques, community centers and madrassas located within the sprawling refugee camps in the district. “We have prepared some buildings including mosques and community halls as temporary cyclone shelters. About 20,000 Rohingya people would likely need cyclone shelters if there will be a landslide,” he said. The Rohingya would face no risk from storm surges because their shelters are located in hilly areas, he added. “As there are 1.2 million Rohingya, we have no capacity to evacuate them to [cyclone] shelters,” according to a statement issued on Saturday by Md. Enamur Rahman, Bangladesh’s state minister for disaster management and relief. He did not give a reason and did not immediately respond to a follow-up phone call from BenarNews. Nearly three-quarters of a million people who live in the camps fled to the Bangladesh side of the frontier with Myanmar after the Burmese military launched a brutal offensive in Rakhine, the homeland of the stateless Rohingya, in August 2017. “Four and a half thousand volunteers are working under the leadership of the Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner for the Rohingya people,” Enamur Rahman said. “There is no risk of floods on the hills but rainfall can cause landslides. Keeping this fear in mind, I have asked the volunteers to be prepared,” the state minister said. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news service.

More than 5,000 evacuees in Myanmar’s Ayeyarwady region prepare for cyclone to hit

Editor2 years ago04 mins

More than 5,000 people have arrived in Labutta township over the past few days, amid warnings that a fierce tropical cyclone is bearing down on Myanmar’s western coast, aid groups helping the evacuees told RFA Wednesday. They said evacuees arrived from the nearby villages of Pyin Sa Lu, Sa Lu Seik and Kwin Pauk and have been put up in monasteries and friends’ homes. One local social assistance group official, who didn’t want to be named for security reasons, told RFA that although monasteries have been providing food it is not enough. “There are places where cyclone evacuees gather to get food [but] there are 400 to 500 evacuees in each monastery or monastic school,” the official said. RFA called the junta spokesperson and social affairs minister for Ayeyarwady region, Maung Maung Than, to ask what was being done to feed and house evacuees and minimize casualties if the cyclone is severe but no one answered. Junta Deputy Information Minister Major Gen. Zaw Min Tun told regime-controlled newspapers Monday that 118 disaster shelters have been built in Ayeyarwady region and 17 more were under construction. He said relief materials had been arranged for 6,000 people in six townships in the region. According to a report by Myanmar’s Department of Meteorology at 7 a.m. local time Wednesday, a Depression in the Bay of Bengal was likely to turn into a Very Severe Cyclonic Storm by Friday morning. The department forecast the storm would make landfall at Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh, Kyaukpyu in Myanmar’s western Rakhine state and the northern Rakhine coast. It warned people to beware of strong winds, heavy rain, flash floods and landslides and issued a warning to flights and shipping near the Myanmar coast. A tropical cyclone is a rapidly rotating storm which has a diameter of between 200 and 1,000 kilometers (124 to 621 miles) and brings violent winds, torrential rains and high waves. Cyclones are named by the U.N. World Meteorological Organization in order to avoid confusion when there is more than one in the same region simultaneously. If winds reach a certain speed, this storm will be named Cyclone Mocha after a port city in Yemen. Myanmar has been hit hard by severe weather conditions in the past. More than 138,000 people died when Cyclone Nargis hit the country in May 2008. It was the world’s third most deadly meteorological disaster of its time according to the WMO Atlas of Mortality and Economic Losses from Weather, Climate and Water Extremes (1970-2019). About 80,000 people died in Labutta township alone, according to local authorities. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.

Newly published documents reveal how China skirts forced labor scrutiny in Xinjiang

Editor2 years ago011 mins

Lazy persons, drunkards, and “other persons with insufficient inner motivation” must be subjected to “repeated … thought education” to ensure they take part in state-sponsored “poverty alleviation” campaigns to pick cotton in China’s Xinjiang region, a previously unpublished internal government document ordered local cadres. If such efforts fail to produce “obvious results,” coercive measures should be taken, the July 2019 document, issued by the Poverty Alleviation Work Group in Kashgar (in Chinese, Kashi) prefecture’s Yarkand (Shache) county, advises authorities. By late 2019, authorities in Yarkand were compiling lists of the “unmotivated,” including individuals as old as 77 years, and proposing solutions for their “laziness,” which included sending them to other counties to labor in cotton fields. The documents were released in a report Tuesday by Adrian Zenz, senior fellow and director in China studies at the Washington-based Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. They show that state efforts to compel Uyghurs into “poverty alleviation” measures – including labor transfers and seasonal labor – intensified in Xinjiang after 2018. In some cases, the documents mandated an increase of the “political status” of poverty alleviation work, and warned cadres of “severe” repercussions for not achieving outcomes. They also demonstrate that historical models, such as that used by the International Labor Organization, often fall short when used to evaluate state-sponsored coerced labor in areas including Xinjiang because they only account for commercial and not political exploitation, the report said. “If a government like a Western government wants to effectively combat Uyghur forced labor, these are the elements that they need to take into account and look at,” Zenz told RFA Uyghur in an interview. “State-sponsored forced labor is a whole-of-government, whole-of-society approach affecting an entire region, and not just … isolated pockets of forced labor that are detected here and there. It creates a whole regional systemic risk, a societal risk.” Linking forced labor to fighting terrorism By elevating poverty alleviation to a political task, rather than a purely economic one, Beijing has been able to tie forced labor to the eradication of terrorism, Zenz said. “You take them off the land where they might be free to do their own thing and they might have an idle season, so they may choose to work or to not work,” he said. “But this perceived Uyghur idleness is seen as a national security risk and that’s why the drive in 2018 and 2019 to push Uyghurs into all kinds of work is seen as a matter of national security … and of course, this urgency creates a very strong level of coercion,” Zenz said. In Xinjiang, Beijing has leveraged a centralized authoritarian system to penalize noncompliance with its poverty alleviation campaign, said the report, entitled “Coercive Labor in the Cotton Harvest in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and Uzbekistan.” Those penalties included the threat of internment and the detection of deviance through automated systems of preventative policing. “The resulting environments of ‘structurally forced consent’ are not necessarily immediately observable to outsiders, and may be challenging to assess through conventional means such as the ILO’s forced labor indicator framework, which was not designed to evaluate state-sponsored forced labor,” the report said. Legislative teeth Zenz called on the European Union to develop “effective legislation” that targets state-sponsored forced labor affecting an entire region and for the United States to continue to enforce the December 2021 Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which requires American. companies that import goods from Xinjiang to prove that they have not been manufactured with Uyghur forced labor at any stage of production. Without the proper tools necessary for the international community to hold China accountable for such practices, “Beijing’s economic and long-term political aims in [Xinjiang] could mean that coercive labor transfers into cotton picking and related industries might persist for a long time to come,” the report warned. Andrew Bremberg, the president of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation and former U.S. representative to the U.N., told RFA that steps taken by the United States and the international community to address forced labor in Xinjiang are “woefully insufficient” and have done little to change Beijing’s policies in the region. “The United States needs to help lead in this effort both on a bilateral basis, in terms of strengthening the enforcement of our own laws … [and] work[ing] with other countries to hold China accountable in multilateral settings like the International Labor Organization,” he said. “At the same time, we need to strengthen those organizations and entities with other countries to ensure that they better protect against state-sponsored forced labor.” The EU is currently reviewing proposed legislation that would allow for an import ban on products related to severe human rights violations such as forced labor. Bremberg welcomed the proposed legislation, but warned that such a rule must be constructed correctly if the EU wants it to have the desired effect. “If they try to only use forced labor indicators that the ILO has used in the past, it likely will not affect importations of products made by forced labor from Xinjiang, given the unique nature that state-sponsored forced labor poses,” he said. Bremberg said a strong response by the international community that includes boycotts of imports is needed to “make clear to China that their behavior, their actions violating individual rights, human rights … will not be allowed without consequence.” ‘Hidden from plain sight’ The Washington-based Campaign for Uyghurs issued a statement on Tuesday condemning the state-sponsored coercive labor practices outlined in Zenz’s report, which it said reveals the “sociocultural contexts and authoritarian systems that have created coercive labor environments in [Xinjiang], which are not easily captured through standard measures such as the ILO forced labor indicators.” The report “reveals the deeply embedded and systemic dynamics of coercion that have perpetuated environments of ‘structurally forced consent’ in [Xinjiang], leaving innocent Uyghurs powerless and at the mercy of China’s repressive state apparatus,” said CFU Executive Director Rushan Abbas. “These atrocities are hidden from plain sight, making them extremely difficult to detect and…

Indonesia’s president condemns Myanmar attack, says push for peace will continue

Editor2 years ago07 mins

Indonesia’s president says an attack on humanitarian workers in Myanmar’s eastern Shan state won’t deter his country in its efforts as this year’s ASEAN chair to try to bring peace to Myanmar. Joko Widodo, commonly known as Jokowi, was speaking in the Indonesian town of Labuan Bajo ahead of a three-day summit of the 10-member grouping which starts Tuesday. He confirmed that members of the ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on disaster management (AHA Centre) came under fire from an unknown group as they were “delivering humanitarian assistance” on Sunday but said “the shooting got in the way.” “This will not diminish ASEAN’s and Indonesia’s determination to call for an end to the use of force and violence. Stop the violence because civilians have become victims. Let us sit together and start a dialogue,” Jokowi said. Locals told RFA the convoy was also carrying officials from the Indonesia and Singapore embassies in Yangon. It came under fire on Sunday morning on a road through Hsihseng township, according to residents who didn’t want to be named for safety reasons. They said the convoy was heading to the Hsihseng-based Pa-O National Liberation Army (PNLO) Liaison Office to discuss assistance for internally displaced persons (IDPs) but was forced to turn back. Along with two officers from the Embassy of Singapore and two from the Embassy of Indonesia, there were three AHA Centre officials and several junta administrative workers, the locals said. The Pa-O National Organization (PNO), which is allied to Myanmar’s military regime, and the junta both have checkpoints near the scene of the shooting. A PNO military affairs official who did not want to be named for security reasons, told RFA the shooting was carried out by five members of the Pa-O National Liberation Army, which is fighting for a democratic federal union system in Myanmar. “They were caught by the army when they fired and tried to run away,” said the official. “The incident happened in our PNO-controlled area. They invaded it and started shooting although there was no problem. I don’t know why they shot.” He said no one was injured although vehicle windows were smashed by bullets. RFA’s calls to the PNLO went unanswered Monday, however an official close to the organization who also declined to be named told RFA the PNLO would not have carried out the shooting. “The PNLO is working to help IDPs,” he said. “Now they are calling for foreign diplomats and officials from the aid group to meet up to [discuss] that issue. It is impossible that the PNLO shot [the convoy].” Calls to the junta spokesperson for Shan state, Khun Thein Maung, went unanswered. RFA also called and emailed the embassies of Singapore and Indonesia in Yangon regarding the incident but received no reply The conflict in Myanmar is likely to be one of the main topics of the ASEAN Summit but junta leader Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing has not been invited to attend. However, Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said Friday her country has been quietly engaging with the State Administration Council – as the junta regime is formally known – along with Myanmar’s parallel National Unity Government and Ethnic Armed Organizations in its role as ASEAN chair this year. She said the more than 60 engagements this year, which also included talks with the European Union, Japan, the United Nations and the United States, aimed to build trust “with non-megaphone diplomacy.” Referring to ASEAN’s five-point plan – agreed to by the junta in April 2021 and subsequently ignored by the country’s military leaders – President Widodo said Monday the 10-member group may struggle to get buy-in from the junta but he wasn’t giving up hope. “The situation in Myanmar is complex and Indonesia continues to push for the implementation of the five-point consensus. Various efforts have been made,” Jokowi said. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn. Ahmad Syamsudin in Labuan Bajo contributed to this report. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news service.

For China’s ‘young refuseniks,’ finding love comes at too high a price

Editor2 years ago025 mins

Linghu Changbing will be 23 this year. Even before the pandemic hit China, he was already starting to feel that the traditional goals of marriage, a mortgage and kids were beyond his reach. “I had no time to find a girlfriend back in China, because I was working from eight in the morning to 10 at night, sometimes even till 11.00 p.m. or midnight, with very little time off,” said Linghu, who joined the “run” movement of people leaving China in 2022. “I didn’t earn very much, so I couldn’t really afford to go out and spend money having fun with friends, or stuff like that,” he says of his life before he left for the United States. “I had very little social interaction, because I didn’t have any friends, which meant that I couldn’t really pursue a relationship,” he said. “As for an apartment, I had no desire to buy one at all.” The situation he describes is common to many young people in China, yet not all are in a position to leave. They are part of an emerging social phenomenon and social media buzzword: the “young refuseniks” – people who reject the traditional four-fold path to adulthood: finding a mate, marriage, mortgages and raising a family. They are also known as the “People Who Say No to the Four Things.” Three years of stringently enforced zero-COVID restrictions left China’s economic growth at its lowest level in nearly half a century, with record rates of unemployment among urban youth. Refusing to pursue marriage, mortgages and kids emerged from that era as a form of silent protest, with more and more people taking this way out in recent years. ‘Far too high a price’ Several young people who responded to a brief survey by RFA Mandarin on Twitter admitted to being refuseniks. “I’m a young refusenik: I won’t be looking for a partner or getting married, I won’t be buying a property and I don’t want kids,” reads one comment on social media. People use mobile phones in front of a fenced residential area under lockdown due to Covid-19 restrictions in Beijing, May 22, 2022. Credit: Noel Celis/AFP “Finding love comes at far too high a price,” says another, while another user comments: “It’s all very well having values, or being sincere, but all of that has to be backed up with money.” “It’s not that I’m lazy,” says another. “Even if I were to make the effort, I still wouldn’t see any result.” Others say they no longer have the bandwidth to try to achieve such milestones. “I’ve been forced back in on myself to the point where I feel pretty helpless,” comments one person. For another, it’s more of a moral decision: “I think the best expression I can make of paternal love is not to bring children into this world in the first place.” Similar comments have appeared across Chinese social media platforms lately, and have been widely liked and reposted. Marriage rates have been falling in China for the past eight years, with marriages numbering less than eight million by 2021, the lowest point since records began 36 years ago, according to recent figures from the Civil Affairs Ministry. People are also marrying much later, with more than half of newly contracted marriages among the over-30s, the figures show. According to Linghu Changbing, who dropped out of high school at 14 and moved through a number of cities where he supported himself with various jobs, refuseniks are mostly found in the bigger cities with large migrant populations. Young people in smaller cities like his hometown are more likely to be able to afford a home, and will often marry and start families as young as 18. “In my experience, refuseniks seem to cluster mostly in the busier cities,” he says. “The more competitive a city, the more you will see this phenomenon.” Curling up, lying flat, running away and venting Shengya, a migrant worker in Beijing, has a similarly depressing view. He spent two years doing nothing at his parents’ house, a phenomenon that has been dubbed “lying flat” on social media. “I basically lay around at home the whole time,” he said. “I couldn’t get motivated to do anything. My dad asked me why I didn’t go out and get a job, and I told him: ‘The only point of a job would be to prevent starvation, but I already get enough to eat here, so what difference would it make?’” An employment agency in Shanghai. Credit: Reuters Linghu Changbing went through a very similar phase, until someone got him a job working overseas. Looking back on that time, he says that China’s young refuseniks are similar to the rats in the Universe 25 experiments by ethologist John B. Calhoun in the 1960s, in which rats given everything they needed eventually stopped bearing young, leading the population to collapse. “The marginalized rats gradually gave up competing at all, and suppressed their natural desires, leading to constant personality distortions,” he says. “Lying flat” has entered the online lexicon as a way of describing the passive approach adopted by many young people in China, while “curling up,” also known as “turning inwards,” describes a personality turned in on itself from a lack of external opportunity for change. While those who can join the “run” movement, leaving China to seek better lives overseas, others act out their frustrations in indiscriminate attacks on others, known on social media as “giving it your all,” or “venting.” For late millennials and Generation Z in China, curling up, lying flat and running away are the main available options, as not many young people have the wherewithal to leave the country and start a new life elsewhere. ‘A very heavy burden’ A Chengdu-based employee of an architectural firm, who gave only the nickname Mr. J, said he first came to the realization that he would be a refusenik during the rolling lockdowns, mass incarceration in quarantine camps and compulsory daily testing…

Popular Lao activist who criticized government on Facebook shot and killed

Editor2 years ago04 mins

A 24-year-old Lao activist who championed human rights and posted articles critical of the government was shot and killed in the capital by an unidentified gunman, according to video footage posted on a Facebook page he helped maintain. Jack Anousa, an administrator of a Facebook group that uncovered and denounced human rights abuses in Laos and called for the end of one-party rule, was shot at 10:26 pm on Saturday in the After School Chocolate & Bar shop in Vientiane’s Chanthabury district. He was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital at 4 am early Sunday, the Facebook page said. Black-and-white security camera footage shows a man wearing a cap coming to the door of the shop and appearing to ask a question of a woman standing in the kitchen area. He briefly closes the door before entering again, stepping inside and firing two shots at Jack, and leaves, prompting two women with him to scream, “Jack, Jack!” Separate color footage from a security camera outside the back door shows the assailant, wearing a gray cap and brown shirt, come to the back door and use a handkerchief to grab the doorknob, presumably to avoid leaving his fingerprints, before asking the question and then stepping inside to fire the gun. No arrests have been made. Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch, strongly urged the government to investigate and reveal the facts for the public to know. “If they don’t do anything, people will think that state officials have a connection with the case,” he said. “Right now, we can’t say who did the killing.” Robertson said that those who have been critical of the government have paid a heavy price in the past, including getting kidnapped and disappearing. The most prominent example is the case of Sombath Somphone, an activist who was stopped at a police checkpoint in 2012, forced into a white truck and driven away. He hasn’t been seen since then. On his Facebook page, which has over 10,000 followers, Anousa recently posted comments saying that while the government has blamed thick haze on farmers burning forests and farmland, city dwellers have also burned lots of trash and Chinese and Vietnamese companies have burned toxic waste that has polluted the air. Last May, he published a post about how the Lao and Chinese governments helped each other get rich while Lao people have only grown poorer. Translated by Sidney Khotpanya. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

Chinese visits to Myanmar sow influence, but may hinder interests

Editor2 years ago011 mins

A slew of recent visits by top Chinese officials to Myanmar appears to be part of a bid by Beijing to counter U.S. influence on the nation, but rebel leaders warned that propping up the junta is a miscalculation, as there will be no stability while it remains in power. In the nearly 27 months since the military carried out a coup d’etat, China has been Myanmar’s staunchest ally. While most Western nations shunned junta chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing in the aftermath of the takeover and a violent crackdown on his opponents, Beijing stood by the general in Naypyidaw. While foreign investment has fled the embattled nation, Chinese investors have flocked there. And despite international sanctions leveled at the regime, trade between the two neighbors continues unabated. Support notwithstanding, Chinese officials have made multiple visits to Myanmar since the start of the year in what some analysts say is an influence peddling campaign by Beijing following U.S. President Joe Biden’s signing in late December of the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, which will assist the country’s democratic forces. “China has increased its dealings with the military junta,” a China affairs expert told Radio Free Asia, speaking on condition of anonymity citing security concerns. “It seems to me that China is worried about the United States’ NDAA and Burma Act. That’s why it has tried to maintain its influence by having more dealings with the military leaders.” Among the provisions in the NDAA are programs designed to support those fighting the better-equipped military for democracy in Myanmar – including the country’s shadow National Unity Government, anti-junta People’s Defense Force paramilitary group, and various ethnic armies – with technology and non-lethal assistance. Slate of high-profile visits In the latest high profile visit, Peng Xiubin, the director of the International Liaison Department of the Communist Party of China, traveled to Naypyidaw on April 16 and secretly met with former junta leader Than Shwe, who ruled Myanmar from 1992 to 2011, and Thein Sein, the president of the country’s quasi-civilian government from 2011 to 2016. Reports circulated that following Peng’s visit, Min Aung Hlaing met with the two former leaders to discuss the political situation in Myanmar. Peng’s trip followed visits in February and March by Deng Xijun, China’s special envoy for Asian Affairs, who met with the junta chief on both occasions. Only two months earlier, the Chinese envoy convened a meeting with several ethnic armies from northern Myanmar across the border in southwestern China’s Yunnan province. In this photo combo, from left: former General Than Shwe, former President Thein Sein, and current Myanmar junta leader General Min Aung Hlaing. Credit: AFP Thein Tun Oo, the executive director of the Thayninga Institute for Strategic Studies, which is made up of former military officers, described the uptick in meetings between the junta and Chinese officials as a bid by Beijing to “balance U.S. influence” in the region. “The U.S is no longer the only country influencing the world,” he said. “Among such changes in world politics, Myanmar and China – which share a very long border – need to cooperate more closely. The bottom line is that China-Myanmar relations will continue to develop based on this.” RFA emailed the Chinese Embassy in Yangon to inquire about the frequency of visits by top Chinese government officials to Naypyidaw in recent months and Beijing’s position on the political situation in Myanmar, but received no reply. At the Chinese government’s regular press briefing held in Beijing on March 17, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin called Myanmar a “good neighbor,” adding that Beijing is closely following the situation there and hopes for a resolution through dialogue and consultation among all stakeholders. Interests tied to peace Chinese affairs expert Hla Kyaw Zaw told RFA that China will only be able to realize its interests in Myanmar if the country is at peace. “China can only continue its investments and projects … if Myanmar is at peace,” he said. “The reason why China wants Myanmar to be peaceful is for its own economic interests.” Among the China-backed megaprojects in Myanmar are the New Yangon City urban planning project, the Mee Lin Gyaing Energy Project in Ayeyarwady region, the Letpadaung Copper Mine in Sagaing region, and the Kyauk Phyu deep sea port and special economic zone in Rakhine state. According to ISP-Myanmar, an independent research group, there are 35 China-Myanmar economic corridor projects underway in Myanmar that include railways, roads, special economic zones, sea ports and urban planning projects. Than Soe Naing, a political analyst, agreed that Beijing’s relations with the junta hinge on the furtherance of its strategic interests. “I see China cooperating with the military junta only to continue to maintain, implement and expand its economic interests in Myanmar, such as the strategic Kyauk Phyu deep sea port project, which is a bid by Beijing to obtain access to the Indian Ocean,” he said. In this handout photo Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi, center is welcomed at Myanmar’s Nyaung-U Airport to attend a foreign ministers’ meeting of the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation mechanism on July 2, 2022 Credit: Myanmar Military/AFP Than Soe Naing noted that China is trying to “divide the [ethnic armies] in northern Myanmar from the anti-junta resistance groups … under the pretext of peacemaking.” But he said that China is actually working to exploit Myanmar’s internal conflict by attempting to “hold all the keys to the situation.” No stability with junta Kyaw Zaw, spokesman for the National Unity Government’s presidential office, warned China that there will only be stability in Myanmar if the forces of democracy succeed in their fight against the junta. He said only with stability in Myanmar will China realize its economic goals in the country. “As long as there is a junta, Myanmar will not be at peace,” he said. “The junta will only terrorize the country with more violence and continue to torture the people. That’s why the country will remain destabilized under [the junta].” A lack of…

Biden warns North Korea that a nuclear attack would mean end of the regime

Editor2 years ago08 mins

U.S. President Joe Biden warned North Korea on Wednesday that any nuclear attack on the United States or its allies would result in an end to the isolated regime while promising closer cooperation with South Korea on deterring the nuclear threat. “Look, a nuclear attack by North Korea against the United States or its allies or partisans or partners is unacceptable and will result in the end of whatever regime [takes] such an action,” Biden said during a press conference following a summit with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, who arrived in Washington on Monday for a six-day official state visit. During their meeting, the two leaders recognized the importance of the South Korea.-U.S. Alliance, now in its 70th year, which Biden called a “linchpin” of security in the Indo-Pacific region, and “an alliance of values based on [Seoul and Washington’s] shared universal values of freedom and democracy.” “Our mutual defense treaty is ironclad, and that includes our commitment to extended deterrence, and — and that includes the nuclear threat and — the nuclear deterrent,” Biden said. Yoon and Biden also signed the Washington Declaration, which acknowledged Seoul and Washington’s close relationship and commitment to strengthen mutual defense agreements. The declaration said that Seoul had full confidence in U.S. deterrence commitments, and that Washington would make “every effort” to consult with South Korea on any “employment” of nuclear weapons on the Korean peninsula. Through the declaration, the two sides also formed a new Nuclear Consultative Group, or NCG, which will “strengthen extended deterrence, discuss nuclear and strategic planning, and manage the threat to the nonproliferation regime posed by North Korea.” The two presidents also restated that they are open to dialogue with North Korea without preconditions in order to achieve the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. “Sustainable peace on the Korean Peninsula does not happen automatically,” said Yoon, through an interpreter, at the press conference. “Our two leaders have decided to significantly strengthen extended deterrence of our two countries against North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats so that we can achieve peace through the superiority of overwhelming forces and not a false peace based on the goodwill of the other side.” ‘Enhances credibility’ The NCG is an important contribution to strengthening the alliance, Gary Samore, the former White House Coordinator for Arms Control and Weapons of Mass Destruction, told RFA’s Korean Service. “By greater consultation and simulation and exercises to deal with the North Korea nuclear threat … it shows that Seoul and Washington are not ignoring the changes that are taking place and recognize they have to do something to respond to it.” he said. “It enhances credibility, I think the most important element of credibility is the presence of US military forces.” U.S. President Joe Biden and South Korea’s President Yoon Suk Yeol watch as members of the U.S. military parade during an official White House State Arrival Ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, U.S. April 26, 2023. Credit: Reuters Because the NCG gives South Korea more input on nuclear deterrence, it is a nuclear power sharing agreement short of sharing the weapons themselves, said Patrick Cronin, Asia-Pacific security chair at the Hudson Institute. “At least Seoul will have a much better window into the U.S. thinking about potential responses to aggression. Deterrence is already strong but even the Kim regime will have to be a bit more cautious about even thinking about the use of force,” he said. The NCG obliges Washington to consider Seoul’s views in nuclear decision making on multiple levels, said Michael O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institution. “It may be even more key for alliance reassurance than for deterrence of North Korea and it reinforces the idea or truth that the two allies are co-equals,” he said. Trade matters Biden and Yoon also discussed trade issues during their talks, including what Biden characterized as “economic influence being leveraged in coercive ways.” To that end, the two sides agreed to strengthen technological cooperation. “So, that is about really strengthening the competitiveness of our two countries. And it will enhance productivity and create added value — high added value,” said Yoon. “These are the types of products that are going to be produced.” U.S. President Joe Biden, First Lady Jill Biden, South Korea President Yoon Suk Yeol and First Lady Kim Keon Hee, visit the Korean War Veterans Memorial in Washington, April 25, 2023. Credit: AFP Biden said Washington supports a prosperous South Korea. “It’s overwhelmingly in our interests for Korea to do well [economically],” said Biden. “It’s very much in America’s interest that Korea do well … because they are one of our most valued partners.” Yoon will attend a state dinner at the White House on Wednesday, and will address a joint session of Congress on Thursday. Additional reporting by Sangmin Lee. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

Category: Europe