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Category: Middle East

INTERVIEW: Former North Korean diplomat on the drawbacks of being elite

Editor017 mins

Ryu Hyun-woo was North Korea’s acting ambassador to Kuwait when he defected to South Korea in 2019. As one of the elites in North Korea, he had rights and privileges that ordinary citizens do not. But at the same time, he and others like him were under even more scrutiny than the average citizen, he says. Ryu lived in an apartment complex in Pyongyang where all of his neighbors were high-ranking North Korean officials. In an interview with RFA Korean, Ryu explained that life as an elite is like already having “one foot in hell” because of the constant surveillance their lives are under, and how easily they are discarded if the leader needs someone to take the blame. The interview has been edited for length and clarity. RFA: Can you tell us a little bit about your background? Ryu: I was born in Pyongyang. I graduated from the Pyongyang Foreign Language Institute and Pyongyang University of Foreign Studies, majoring in Arabic. I then joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and worked there for over 20 years. After working as a diplomat in Syria and Kuwait, I came to South Korea in September 2019. I have settled in and I am living well in South Korea. RFA: When you were in North Korea, you lived in and exclusive area of Pyongyang, correct? Do all the elites live in the same area? Ryu: The administrative district name is Uiam-dong, Taedonggang district, Pyongyang. This place is also called Eundok village, and it is the residence of many officials. There are six major buildings in the residence. The generals of the North Korean People’s Army live in four of the buildings. One building is for high-ranking officials in the Central Committee. The remaining one is where high-ranking officials of the administrative department live. RFA: We often hear about North Korea’s chronic shortages of electricity. Did the elevators on these buildings cut out from time to time like they do for everyone else living in apartments? Ryu: You’re right. North Korea has a poor power supply system. Because of it, the elevator sometimes stops working. However, there are times when it operates normally. For example, during commuting hours, it is guaranteed. Nevertheless, the electricity often drops even during commuting hours.  My house was on the 4th floor. Oh Guk Ryol, the head of the operations department, lived on the 5th floor, and Director Kim Yang Gon lived on the 3rd floor. The former head of the United Front Work Department and Oh Guk Ryol came down from the floors above, and my father-in-law (Jon Il Chun, the former head Office 39, the secretive organization that manages the slush funds of the Kim family) and I would get on to the elevator. As we were going down, Kim Yang Gon got on.  Then just as the elevator was going down to the second floor, it suddenly stopped. I was the youngest of everyone there, so I had no choice but to open the escape hatch on the ceiling of the elevator. It’s like a vent. I climbed up to the third floor and I saw something that looked like a latch that opens the elevator door. I opened the door with it, contacted the management, and rescued the other officials in the elevator. The electricity situation was so bad. RFA: Can living in that area of Pyongyang be seen as a matter of pride for its residents? Ryu: It can be interpreted as having a lot of trust and high loyalty. However, there are pros and cons. Once you enter this place, you are subject to wiretapping, stalking and strong surveillance. You can’t say anything inside your house.  For example, wasn’t Chief of Staff Ri Yong Ho shot to death? It was because he was at home making slanderous remarks about Kim Jong Un with his wife. He was purged and disappeared. My mother-in-law kept pointing to her mouth whenever I tried to complain about something. She told me to be quiet and not to say anything because they listen to everything.  To that extent, they wiretap 24 hours a day. That’s why there is a different way to share thoughts. My in-laws would wake up around 5:30 in the morning. I would wake up around 6 o’clock. Then we go for a jog or walk together. That’s the time my father-in-law would ask me questions and I would also talk to him.  For example, while I was in Syria, I heard a South Korean refer to my father-in-law as ‘Kim Jong Il’s safekeeper,’ so I passed that on to my father-in-law. RFA: You told your father-in-law about something that came out in the South Korean media? Ryu: I told my father-in-law that in South Korea, he is referred to as ‘Kim Jong Il’s safekeeper.’ My father-in-law laughed. I told him those things, secret things that should not be caught by wiretapping. We exchanged stories like that while taking a walk or in a place where wiretapping does not work. Ryu Hyun-woo (right), who served as North Korea’s acting ambassador to Kuwait in 2019, escaped from North Korea and has now settled in South Korea, in a frame grab from an interview with RFA Korea. (RFA) RFA: Was there ever any frightful incident you witnessed while living there? Ryu: The household we were closest to was Park Nam Ki, director of the Planning and Finance Department of the ruling party of North Korea. Do you remember the currency reform in 2009?  (That was when North Korea introduced new versions of its paper currency, but allowed the people to exchange only a certain amount of their old currency, thereby wiping out most people’s savings.) As a result of that incident, Park Nam Ki was shot to death in January 2010. In February of the same year, Park Nam Ki’s entire family members went to a political prison camp. I remembered it was around 1 or 2 o’clock in the morning. There was a truck from…

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The Techo Funan Canal won’t end Cambodia’s dependency on Vietnam

Editor013 mins

First it was the Ream Naval Base. Now it’s the Techo Funan Canal.  Could the planned $1.7-billion waterway that will cut through eastern Cambodia – which will be built, funded and owned by a Chinese state firm – be used by Beijing to attack or threaten Vietnam?  Phnom Penh denies this and Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet reportedly had to assuage the Vietnamese leadership of this concern during a visit last December.  Sun Chanthol, a Cambodian deputy prime minister and the former minister of public works, recently said he also tried to mollify Hanoi’s concerns about the project, formally known as the Tonle Bassac Navigation Road and Logistics System Project. The United States has been more vocal than Vietnam in raising concerns over the Ream Naval Base in southern Cambodia, which China is extensively refurbishing and where China appears to have stationed some vessels for the past few months.  Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet wave in Hanoi, Dec.11, 2023 during Manet’s visit to boost bilateral relations between the two Southeast Asian nations. (Hau Dinh/AP) But Hanoi’s worries about the Techo Funan Canal have leaked out in drabs from within Vietnam.  Last month, an academic journal article by two researchers at the Oriental Research Development Institute, part of the state-run Union of Science and Technology Associations, warned that the Cambodian canal might be a “dual-use” project.  “The locks on the Funan Techo Canal can create the necessary water depths for military vessels to enter from the Gulf of Thailand, or from Ream Naval Base, and travel deep into Cambodia and approach the [Cambodia-Vietnam] border,” they argued in a study that was republished on the website of the People’s Public Security Political Academy.  Geopolitical implications One ought to be skeptical. China having access to the Ream Naval Base is one thing— it is a military base. It makes sense for Beijing to want to station and refuel its vessels on the Gulf of Thailand, effectively encircling Vietnam.  But if China was thinking of attacking Vietnam, wouldn’t it be simpler for the Chinese navy to follow Cambodia’s coastline to Vietnam? Beijing presumably wouldn’t want its vessels to be stuck in a relatively narrow Cambodian canal.  But if you can imagine Cambodia allowing the Chinese military access to its inland waterways to invade Vietnam, why not imagine Phnom Penh allowing the Chinese military to zip along its (Chinese-built) expressways and railways to invade Vietnam?  If you are of that mindset, then Cambodia’s road or rail networks are just as much of a threat, or perhaps more so, as Cambodia’s naval bases or canals. Two Chinese warships, circled, are seen at Cambodia’s Ream naval base on April 18, 2024. (Planet Labs) Nonetheless, the canal has geopolitical implications for Vietnam.  Cambodia exports and imports many of its goods through Vietnamese ports, mainly Cai Mep. The Funan Techo Canal, by connecting the Phnom Penh Autonomous Port to a planned deepwater port in Kep province and an already-built deep seaport in Sihanoukville province, would mean that much of Cambodia’s trade no longer needs to go through Vietnam.  Phnom Penh can justifiably say this is a matter of economic self-sufficiency. “Breathing through our own nose,” as Hun Manet put it. Phnom Penh reckons the canal will cut shipping costs by a third.  Cambodia has a dependency on Vietnam’s ports. If Cambodia-Vietnam relations turned really sour, such as Phnom Penh giving the Chinese military access to its land, Hanoi could close off Cambodia’s access to its ports or threaten to do so, effectively blocking much of Cambodian trade – like it did briefly in 1994.  Remove that dependency, and Vietnam has less leverage over Phnom Penh’s decision making.  Mekong River projects Even the environmental concerns around the canal are about geopolitical leverage.  Vietnam is justified in fearing that Cambodia altering the course of the Mekong River—after Laos has been doing so for two decades—will affect its own already at-risk ecology.  Fears are compounded by the lack of publicly available environmental impact assessments over the canal and the fact that the Mekong River Commission, a regional oversight body that is supposed to assess the environmental impact of these riparian projects, has become a feckless body for dialogue.   Vietnam’s Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and China’s President Xi Jinping, following a meeting at the Government Office in Hanoi, Dec. 13, 2023. (Nhac Nguyen/Pool Photo via AP) Hanoi is no doubt concerned about its own position since it hasn’t been able to get Phnom Penh to openly publish those impact assessments. This further compounds Vietnam’s sense of weakness for having failed for more than a decade to limit how its neighbors go about altering their sections of the Mekong River, with highly deleterious impacts on Vietnam’s environment and agricultural heartlands.  Clearly, Phnom Penh isn’t for turning on the canal project. Just this week, Hun Manet applauded apparent public support for the scheme as a “huge force of nationalism”. Phnom Penh is making this a sovereignty issue, thus making criticism a matter of state interference, a way of silencing dissent in Southeast Asia.  It’s not all bad news for Vietnam, though. The Financial Times noted that, according to Vietnamese analysts, even if the Techo Funan Canal goes ahead, “Hanoi retains leverage over Cambodia” because ships carrying more than 1,000 tonnes would still rely on Vietnamese ports.  Cambodia could get around this by using smaller vessels. That would be less profitable but still doable. By my calculation, Cambodia’s exports to Vietnam have grown by more than 800% over the last six years, from $324 million in 2018 to $2.97 billion last year.  In the first quarter of this year, Vietnam bought 22 percent of Cambodia’s goods. Exports certainly give leverage. No other single country is queuing up to start buying a fifth of Cambodia’s products.  Trade dependency In fact many of these Cambodian exports are re-exported by Vietnam to China, so Phnom Penh might think it can cut out the Vietnamese middleman. But it cannot.  Arguably, Cambodia’s…

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Forced to work as maids in Saudi Arabia, Cambodians beg to be repatriated

Editor09 mins

Dozens of Cambodian women trafficked to work as maids in Saudi Arabia are demanding that their embassy arrange for them to return home, saying that since authorities rescued them nearly two weeks ago, they have lacked access to adequate food and their health is rapidly deteriorating. On April 18, Cambodia’s Ministry of Labor confirmed that 78 Cambodian migrant workers had been tricked into working in Saudi Arabia, but have now been rescued and placed in hotel rooms under the care of the Cambodian Embassy.  The ministry said 51 of the women are in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah, 15 in the capital Riyadh, and 12 in Dammam, on the coast of the Persian Gulf. The Ministries of Labor and Foreign Affairs, along with the Cambodian Embassy, claimed to be purchasing flights for the victims to return to Cambodia, promising to return 29 on April 19, 27 on April 20, and the final 22 on April 21. However, on April 27, RFA Khmer received videos from several of the victims in which they claimed to remain stranded in Saudi Arabia. In the videos, the women call for help from former Prime Minister Hun Sen, his wife Bun Rany, and their son Prime Minister Hun Manet.  They said the companies that brought them to Saudi Arabia had “violated their contracts,” leaving them mired in legal issues surrounding their salaries and basic rights. They claim several of them were subjected to physical abuse by the households where they worked, including being denied food and sleep. They singled out Saudi firm BAB, which places workers from Cambodia-based company Fatina Manpower, for allegedly threatening them and accusing them of working illegally in the country. Some of the victims said they were unable to leave the country because BAB had refused to terminate their contracts. The women told RFA that since their rescue, some of them had been “confined” to their hotel rooms “without proper access to food,” and said they were appealing for help because they could “no longer wait for the government” to send them home. According to Cambodia’s Ministry of Labor, nearly 1.4 million people were provided with employment opportunities to work abroad in 2023, more than 93% of which are in Thailand, while the remainder are in South Korea, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong and Saudi Arabia. Stranded in Saudi Arabia RFA contacted one of the women, Thaing Sokyee, who said she had been forced to work as a maid in multiple homes each day without being provided enough food to eat before she was rescued, and is now suffering from health issues. “I’ve called on the [labor] ministry and the embassy to find prompt solutions for us so that we may return to Cambodia,” she said. “We’ve faced mounting difficulties; our bodies have deteriorated as we were forced to work without food.” Doeun Pheap, another victim who said she is sick as a result of her working conditions, told RFA that she has been confined to her room since her rescue and has not been permitted by embassy staff to go outside to purchase medicine. She said the staff told her to wait for the government to send her home and that she was advised to record a video clip “saying that my health condition is getting better and that I have been provided with enough food to eat.” “I still hurt all over my body – I’m able to stand up, but my waist and my back still hurt,” she said, adding that embassy staff had provided her with “rice, but not food.” “I didn’t do it [record the video] because I was too hungry and exhausted; I couldn’t bear doing anything.” Other victims claimed that Uk Sarun, Cambodia’s Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, had “threatened to abandon us if we continue to publicly call for help.” Trafficking designation On Monday, Ambassador Uk Sarun confirmed to RFA Khmer that only 16 of the 78 women had been returned home so far. He said that some of the women had faced a shortage of food due to the ongoing holy month of Ramadan, during which Muslims fast during the day and only eat at night. He did not address claims by victims that he had threatened to withhold assistance if they continued to speak out about their situation. The Khmer Times reported last week that 29 of the 78 had been safely repatriated as of April 19, while the rest were awaiting documentation to leave, but provided no attribution for the numbers. The report said that the embassy was providing the victims with food and accommodation and cited Cambodian Ministry of Labor spokesman Katta Orn as saying that the ministry was conducting an investigation into the employment scam. RFA spoke with Bun Chenda, a Cambodia-based anti-human trafficking officer for labor rights group CENTRAL, who said the women had been “exploited” when they were sent to Saudi Arabia without proper compliance with labor contracts. “We are not sure if the government is treating their cases as human trafficking,” he said. “If they are being rescued as human trafficking victims, intervention would likely be easier and they wouldn’t be subject to legal action by a Saudi Arabian company.” Translated by Yun, Samean. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.

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Myanmar ethnic army secures 2 bases after month-long battle

Editor03 mins

An ethnic minority insurgent force in Myanmar has captured two strategic positions near the junta’s regional military headquarters in Rakhine State, residents told Radio Free Asia on Wednesday. The Arakan Army (AA), which has gained control of eight townships in Rakhine State from the military following a 2021 coup, seized another two camps on Saturday, they said. The junta positions at Chaung Byu Har hill and Taw Hein Taung Byu Har in Ann township are now under the control of the rebel group, the residents said. Arakan Army fighters began attacking the two camps on March 24, said one woman in Ann township. The positions are near the headquarters of the Western Regional Command, one of at least a dozen regional commands across the country. “Casualties among junta troops are high but the exact number is not known. Some say it’s about 150,” said the woman, who declined to be identified for security reasons.  “But it can be confirmed that those two strategic hills have been seized,” she said, adding that hundreds of junta troops were believed to have been stationed at the camps.  RFA tried to contact the  junta spokesperson in Rakhine State, Hla Thein for more information but he did not respond. The AA has not released any information about the latest fighting. Forces opposed to military rule, including various ethnic minority insurgent groups seeking self-determination and pro-democracy activists who took up arms after the 2021 coup, have made significant gains since allied forces launched an offensive in October last year. A person close to the Arakan Army told RFA that retreating junta troops had fled towards the Western Regional Command headquarters in Ann. “The battle is continuing,” said the source, who also declined to be identified. The junta had in recent days been sending reinforcements and weapons to beef up defenses at the headquarters, he said. The Arakan Army has also been attacking the junta’s operations command headquarters in Rakhine State’s Buthidaung township and captured three outposts there on Tuesday, residents said.  Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn. 

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In reversal, China now wants to preserve Kashgar’s Old City

Editor012 mins

In an about-face, Xinjiang’s highest legislative body has issued new regulations to protect Kashgar’s Old City — the heart of Uyghur culture — which they previously ordered to be destroyed and reconstructed, leaving only a small area as a tourist attraction. The measures, which take effect on May 1, prompted accusations of Chinese hypocrisy by experts on the far-western region, who say it’s meant to benefit investors in tourism and deflect criticism of Beijing’s persecution of the 11-million mostly Muslim Uyghurs.  The Regulation on the Protection of the Ancient City of Kashgar passed on March 31 aims to protect the cultural heritage of Kashgar’s ancient city, which is was once a key trading post on the Silk Road between China and Europe. But starting in 2008, China has already demolished 85% of Kashgar’s ancient quarter and relocated thousands of residents to newer “earthquake-resistant houses,” according to a June 2020 report by the Uyghur Human Rights Project, or UHRP, on the destruction of the Old City. By the end of 2010, more than 10,000 ancestral earthen homes there had been destroyed, and shops near the 15th-century Id Kah Mosque were transferred to new buildings made to look like Uyghur architecture, according to journalist Nick Holdstock, who has written two nonfiction books about Xinjiang. “Above their doors are wooden signs saying ‘Minority Folk Art’ or ‘Traditional Ethnic Crafts’ in English and Chinese,” he was quoted as saying in the UHRP report. Police officers patrol in the old city in Kashgar, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, China, May 4, 2021. (Thomas Peter/Reuters) Now all that is left is about 15% of the Old City, which has largely been renovated into a Disneyland-like tourist center for visiting Chinese tourists and dignitaries. The supposedly ancient Kashgar gate that appears frequently in Chinese promotional material is actually a modern creation and doesn’t reflect traditional Uyghur design. China’s past actions appeared to be motivated by a “campaign to stamp out tangible aspects of Uyghur culture,” the UHRP report said. Cradle of Uyghur civilization This is particularly painful for Uyghurs because Kashgar is considered to be the cradle of their civilization, with two millennia of history.  Urumqi may be the political capital of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, but Kashgar has been the historic center of Uyghur statecraft, politics, art, music literature, trade, culture and religion.  It was in Kashgar that in the 11th century prominent Uyghur Turkologist Mahmud Kashgari penned the “Divan Lugat-it Turk,” the first comprehensive dictionary of Turkic languages, which also contains an  early map showing countries and regions from Japan to Egypt. A strategic trading post along the Silk Road, Kashgar was visited by Marco Polo on his way to the court of Kublai Khan during the Mongol Yuan Dynasty in the 13th century, and before that had been the capital of the Uyghur Karakhanid Empire, a Turkic-Uyghur empire that lasted from 999 to 1211. It was in Kashgar that the first East Turkistan Republic was declared in 1933, before China aided by the Soviet Union invaded and took control of the region in 1949 against the wishes of the people to remain an independent country. ‘Museumify’ Now, after all the destruction China has wrought in the city, new regulations call for the preservation of the old quarter’s overall historical appearance, natural environment, historical buildings, ancient trees, traditional communities, streets, courtyards, buildings and other structures such as street-side pillars. They will also protect intangible cultural heritage, including historical events, figures, handicrafts, traditional arts and customs and rituals. “Any demolition, alteration or disruption of the architectural or landscape features designated for conservation is strictly prohibited,” the regulation says. But experts say the measures will hardly rectify the damage already done, and will only serve to turn what’s left of Kashgar’s vibrant culture into a tourist attraction. “It seems absurd in the present context to think that the Chinese government actually is concerned about the preservation of Uygur culture,” said Sean Roberts, director of the Central Asia Research Project at George Washington University. “One of the dangers that Uyghur culture faces right now in China is being ‘museumified’ in a way that no longer reflects active lived culture, but reflects something that is packaged for tourists,” he said.  Deflecting criticism More seriously, the move is likely meant to deflect attention from atrocities China has committed against Uyghurs in Xinjiang, Roberts said. Besides the destruction of thousands of mosques and other structures significant to Uyghur heritage, Chinese authorities have suppressed Muslim religious practices and arbitrarily detained Uyghurs in state-sponsored camps, where some have been subjected to forced labor, sterilization, contraception and abortion. Since 2017, an estimated 1.8 million Uyghurs have been herded into concentration camps, where they are subjected to forced labor, mistreatment and human rights abuses. A woman cooks in her house next to the remnants of other houses, demolished as part of a building renovation campaign in the old district of Kashgar, in Xinjiang province August 3, 2011. (Carlos Barria/Reuters) China has denied committing atrocities in Xinjiang and says the camps are actually vocational centers that have been shut down.  But the United States has determined that China’s actions against the Uyghurs constitute a genocide, while a U.N. report said they may amount to crimes against humanity. Benefitting Chinese developers The new regulation will benefit Chinese investors involved in tourism in the city, said Henryk Szadziewsk, a senior researcher at the Uyghur Human Rights Project. For example, Beijing-based tourism and property developer Zhongkun Investment Group Ltd. is involved in restoration efforts and tourism initiatives in the Old City, he said. Following earlier reconstruction work, the Old City’s neighborhood Communist Party committee leased the reassembled quarter to Zhongkun, which began marketing the area as a “living Uyghur folk museum” and established a “near monopoly” over Kashgar’s tourism, the UHRP report said. “The new Kashgar Old City has a different set of people who occupy that space — people who have interests in tourism and people who have interests in the exploitation of that,” Szadziewski told RFA. “To…

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China’s communists once used Hong Kong to subvert a mainland government

Editor011 mins

Beijing insisted Hong Kong pass stringent security legislation known as Article 23 due to fears that the city would be used as a base from which to bring down the government — because that’s exactly what the Chinese Communist Party used the city for. Hong Kong passed the Safeguarding National Security Law on March 23 as a mandatory obligation under Article 23 of the city’s Basic Law. It was billed by the government as a way to close “loopholes” in the already stringent 2020 National Security Law, which was imposed on the city by Beijing, ushering in a crackdown on dissent in the wake of the 2019 protest movement. But its roots go much further back in history, according to a veteran journalist and a legal expert, to when the Chinese Communist Party was itself trying to overthrow the Chinese government led by the Kuomintang nationalists. A lawmaker holds a copy of the proposed Safeguarding National Security Bill at the Legislative Council in Hong Kong, March 19, 2024. (Louise Delmotte/AP) Secret documents recently declassified by the Chinese government reveal how the Chinese Communist Party used Hong Kong as a base from which to subvert the 1911 Republic of China regime founded by Sun Yat-sen after the fall of the Qing Dynasty. Reading these documents, I found that the Chinese Communist Party turned Hong Kong into a base for propaganda, for United Front [outreach and influence] operations, organizational operations and mass mobilization. The setting up of these various bases can be traced back to the 1930s, and were documented in a report made by Wu Youheng, then secretary of the Hong Kong municipal party committee, to the Central Committee. The Chinese Communist Party really did turn Hong Kong into a base for subverting the central government and dividing China. This is a key reason why Beijing has always seen Hong Kong as a potential threat to its grip on power, due to its relative freedom and connectedness to the outside world. From Hong Kong, Chinese communists raised funds to finance their campaigns, stored equipment and other reserves, and trained new cadres, according to party documents and other historical texts. Supply and communication line Hong Kong also formed part of a secret supply line that ran along the southeastern coast to Shanghai, then to the party’s Central Revolutionary Base in the eastern province of Jiangxi, and people also moved along the route. Through this secret communication line used to move supplies and arms, more than 200 important leading cadres of the Communist Party of China including Zhou Enlai and Liu Shaoqi were sent to Hong Kong for rest and recuperation. This secret supply line was also an important channel for the communists to receive arms from the Soviet Union. A young woman is caught between civilians and Chinese soldiers, who were trying to remove her from an assembly near the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, June 3, 1989.(Jeff WidenerAP) Even more importantly, the Chinese Communist Party took advantage of the relative freedom enjoyed by Hong Kong residents under British rule to set up a command center from which to run its entire military operation for the South China region in the city. Even the first provincial party committee for Guangdong province was set up in Hong Kong, on Aug. 7, 1927. By January 1939, the party had set up a southern branch of its Central Committee to direct political, military, mass struggle and other work throughout southern China, and held a major conference in the city’s Wanchai district in 1947. The Wanchai Conference, where participants talked about waging guerrilla warfare against the Kuomintang regime, including a concept they termed “red separatism.” The Chinese Communist Party has itself made full use of Hong Kong’s freedoms to subvert the central government of the Republic of China and implement armed separatism to split the country. It is precisely because of this historical experience that the party is very aware of Hong Kong’s potential to overthrow a corrupt regime, and is very afraid that others will use their own tactics against them. This is the deep-seated reason why Beijing is afraid of Hong Kong. ‘Political city’ Those fears were brought into far sharper focus on June 4, 1989, when around a million Hong Kongers turned out in protest at the massacre of civilians in and around Tiananmen Square by the People’s Liberation Army, according to Eric Lai, a research fellow at the Center for Asian Law, Georgetown University. “With so many Hong Kong people supporting the Tiananmen student movement, they thought it would likely continue to be a thorn in the Chinese Communist Party’s side after the 1997 handover,” Lai said.  He said Beijing revised Article 23 of the planned Basic Law after that event, adding in a number of “national security” crimes including “subverting the central government,” “collusion with foreign forces,” a crime for which pro-democracy media magnate Jimmy Lai is currently on trial. Since that day, Chinese officials including former Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office director Lu Ping resolved that Hong Kong could never be allowed to become “a political city.”  Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai, center, is flanked by Deputy Foreign Ministers Li Ke Nung, left, and Chang Wen Tien at the final session of the Geneva Peace Conference on July 21, 1954. (AP) Lu said that once Hong Kong becomes a political city, there will be endless internal disputes that will give opportunities for foreign forces [to interfere], Lu Ping’s view was shared by almost all the communists I knew in Beijing. Today, Hong Kong is once more a power base for the Chinese Communist Party, with the city’s Committee for Safeguarding National Security wielding huge power on Beijing’s behalf, according to Eric Lai. “The Article 23 legislation … once again confirms that the Committee for Safeguarding National Security has supreme power and further consolidates the legitimacy of its rule,” Lai told RFA Mandarin in a recent interview. What’s more, the legislation has become a vehicle for the translation…

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Junta recruits another 300 Rohingya in new round of conscription

Editor08 mins

More than 300 Rohingya men from villages near Rakhine state’s capital have been forced by junta troops to attend mandatory training for Myanmar’s military over the last few days, residents told Radio Free Asia on Thursday.  The latest round of compulsory conscription among the stateless Muslim minority comes a month after about 1,000 Rohingya from elsewhere in Rakhine were made to join the military in March.  More broadly, more than 100,000 young men have fled their homes since the military announced in February it would implement a draft to shore up its ranks after a series of battlefield defeats, according to a report released by the Burmese Affairs and Conflict Study. Myanmar has been wracked by civil war ever since the military overthrew the civilian-led government in a 2021 coup. Amid the battlefield setbacks over the past six months, the military has said it plans to conscript 50,000 young men and women each year – and is forcibly recruiting Rohingya in Rakhine state to meet quotas. State Administration Council members hand out leaflets explaining the law of militia service on Feb. 29, 2024, in Kyun Hla City, Myanmar. (State Administration Council) The effort comes in a state where just seven years ago, the military tortured, raped and killed thousands of Rohingya and sent nearly 1 million fleeing into neighboring Bangladesh. The 300 Rohingya recruits were taken this week from more than 30 villages in Sittwe township and were all between 18- to 30-years-old, a Rohingya village administrator who wished to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals told RFA. They were taken by police cars to the military’s Regional Command Headquarters in Sittwe to prepare for training, he said. Soldiers are now pressing those who remain in a patchwork of villages and internally displaced camps into service to prop up their struggling military campaign in the state against the ethnic Arakan Army.  In exchange for their service, the junta has promised would-be Rohingya fighters freedom of movement as well as small amounts of food and money.  ‘Worrying around the clock’ Junta officials have communicated through village elders and administrators during the conscription process, according to a Rohingya woman who lives in Sittwe who requested not to be named for security reasons.  “The officials entice the locals with national identity cards and salary,” she said. “They forced village elders to provide young Rohingya to protect the country. But as Rohingya youth are fishermen, they are not suitable for military service.” State Administration Council members hand out leaflets explaining the law of militia service on Feb. 29, 2024 in Kyun Hla City, Myanmar. (State Administration Council) None of the recruits are willing to undergo military training, but they face arrest and beatings if they refuse, she said. “People in Rakhine state are worrying around the clock about the recruitment for military training,” the village administrator said. “Some people have fled from their homes to other places.” The 1,000 Rohingya who were recruited in March were put through a two-week training. Afterward, some were deployed to the battlefields while others were sent back to their villages or IDP camps as reserves, residents told RFA. RFA attempted to contact Attorney General Hla Thein, the junta spokesman for Rakhine state, to ask about this week’s recruitment, but he didn’t answer phone calls. Pressed into service Since Myanmar’s conscription law was announced by Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing on Feb. 10, troops nationwide have attempted to press-gang large numbers into the dwindling military.  It requires men and women aged 18 to 35 to serve in the junta’s armed forces for two years – prompting more than 100,000 to flee their homes to avoid the draft, the Burmese Affairs and Conflict Study found. The junta has carried out operations to enforce the military service law in 224 townships across the country, the report said. Approximately 5,000 young men were sent to 15 military training sites by the end of March, it said.  Rohingya Muslims are seen in military uniform during a training session in Rakhine state on March 10, 2024. (Citizen journalist) In addition, more than 2,000 people from 40 townships across Myanmar have been enlisted as militia – a number that includes the Rohingya who were recruited in March, the report found. A resident of Mandalay said people are anxiously watching for the recruitment process to begin again, now that the recent Thingyan water festival holiday has concluded. “It is anticipated that they will start it in May,” he said. “People are curious about what will happen following Thingyan.” Eventually, the new recruits will be called on for frontline combat operations, according to former military officer Lin Htet Aung, who participated in the non-violent Civil Disobedience Movement after the coup. “When the regular army no longer possesses the capacity to execute these tasks, it becomes evident that this deliberate strategy aims to rely solely on the youth of the populace as their military force,” he told RFA. Translated by Aung Naing and Kalyar Lwin. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.

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Lao coffee growers feel pinch of worker shortage, high inflation

Editor07 mins

As the coffee bean harvesting season begins, plantation owners in southern Laos face a shortage of laborers because of low wages and high inflation in the small, landlocked Southeast Asia country, said people who work in the industry. Workers on plantations in Champassak province’s Paksong district are shunning jobs that pay just US$10-13 a day, based on the weight of coffee beans they pick, and instead heading for better paying work in neighboring Thailand. Others have sought jobs on cassava farms, where the pay is slightly better, a coffee farm worker told Radio Free Asia on Tuesday.  Coffee growers in the district usually need 400-600 workers to harvest the beans, a plantation owner in the district said. Coffee beans are the main cash crop for many small-scale farmers in Laos and the country’s third-largest agricultural export product. Lao coffee is exported to more than 26 countries in Asia, Europe and North America, according to the International Trade Centre in Geneva, Switzerland. Most coffee farms in Laos are located in Champassak, Sekong and Salavan provinces on the Bolaven Plateau, known as the country’s coffee heartland. Sitting atop an ancient volcano, the plateau’s nutrient-rich soil and cool climate are conducive to growing coffee trees. Other coffee-growing areas are in Houaphanh and Xieng Khouang provinces in the north. A view of a coffee plantation in Paksong district of southern Laos’ Champasak province in September 2018. (RFA) But the country’s current high inflation rate, which stood at nearly 25% in March, is driving laborers to jobs that pay better wages, people involved in the industry said.  “Many laborers like to seek higher-paid jobs in Thailand as they get paid low working in the country,” the coffee plantation employee said. Like others in this report, he insisted on not being identified for fear of getting in trouble. “Therefore, we are facing a shortage of labor now, and inflation is the main factor causing this problem.”  Desperate for workers The coffee farm owner in Paksong said the labor shortage in the industry is nothing new and that inflation has been a key factor.  “If they work for us, they earn around US$100-150 per month, but they can earn around US$350 per month if they work in Thailand,” he said. To cope with the current labor shortage, some coffee farm owners have raised wages to attract more laborers, which means higher fixed costs. The coffee farm owner said he has had to double wages to US$15-20 a day to get workers to pick the beans.  “If we do not provide this rate, they will not work for us,” he said. “Some laborers just come to work for the coffee harvesting season, but go back to Thailand once [it] ends.” A woman works in the rain on a coffee plantation on the Bolaven plateau in southern Laos, Sept. 2, 2003. (Karl Malakunas/AFP) The labor shortage in Laos’ coffee industry began in 2020 with the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a Champassak province official with knowledge of the situation, who declined to be named because he is not authorized to speak to the media.  There were over 218,00 confirmed cases of the highly contagious respiratory infection in Laos, and nearly 760 recorded deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, which stopped collecting data in March 2023. A coffee growers association has contacted the provincial Department of Labor and Social Welfare for help in finding seasonal laborers for the past three years, the official said.  “We tried to help coffee farm operators in the province to find laborers to meet their needs, but very few people are interested in working in this kind of job,” he said. Thongphat Vongmany, deputy minister of agriculture and forestry, said in February that Laos’ agricultural exports totaled US$1.44 billion in 2023, but he did not give a separate breakdown for coffee exports. Agriculture Minister Phet Phomphiphak, however, told the country’s National Assembly in December 2023 that Laos’ coffee exports during the first nine months of 2023 totaled US$64 million. Translated by Phouvong for RFA Laos. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.

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Blinken to visit China amid claims about Russia support

Editor010 mins

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to China on Wednesday, according to a senior State Department official, in a trip that comes as he and others in Washington accuse Beijing of “fueling” Russia’s war in Ukraine by helping to resupply its military. Blinken will travel to Shanghai and Beijing from Wednesday to Friday, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the plans ahead of time. The official said he could not yet confirm that Blinken would meet Chinese President Xi Jinping during the visit. The trip will attempt to build on recent diplomatic outreach to Beijing, the official explained, but would also necessitate “clearly and directly communicating [American] concerns on bilateral, regional and global issues” where China and the United States differ on policy. Among other issues, Blinken will raise “deep concerns” about alleged Chinese business support for Russia’s defense industrial base, the crisis in the Middle East and also in Myanmar, the issue of Taiwan and China’s recent “provocations” in the South China Sea, he said. But the official played down the likelihood of results, with many of the differences between Washington and Beijing now deep-seated. “I want to make clear that we are realistic and clear-eyed about the prospects of breakthroughs on any of these issues,” he said.  He also demurred when asked if Blinken would meet Xi on Friday, as is rumored. But he said more scheduling details will be released later. “It’s safe for you to expect that he’ll spend considerable time with his counterpart … Foreign Minister Wang Yi,” he said. “We are confident our Chinese hosts will arrange a productive and constructive visit.” ‘Fueling’ the Ukraine war American officials have since last week accused Chinese businesses of keeping Russia’s war effort afloat by exporting technology needed to rebuild the country’s defense industrial base that supplies its military. Speaking to reporters on Friday on the Italian island of Capri ahead of the Group of 7 foreign ministers’ meeting, Blinken said U.S. intelligence had “not seen the direct supply of weapons” from China to Russia but instead a “supply of inputs” required by Russia’s defense industry. The support was “allowing Russia to continue the aggression against Ukraine,” he said, by allowing Moscow to rebuild its defense capacity, to which “so much damage has been done to by the Ukrainians.” “When it comes to weapons, what we’ve seen, of course, is North Korea and Iran primarily providing things to Russia,” Blinken said. “When it comes to Russia’s defense industrial base, the primary contributor in this moment to that is China,” he explained. “We see China sharing machine tools, semiconductors, [and] other dual-use items that have helped Russia rebuild the defense industrial base that sanctions and export controls had done so much to degrade.”   Beijing was attempting, Blinken said, to secretly aid Russia’s war in Ukraine while openly courting improved relations with Europe. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz met with Xi in Beijing on Tuesday, and Xi is set to meet French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris next month.   “If China purports, on the one hand, to want good relations with Europe,” he said, “it can’t, on the other hand, be fueling what is the biggest threat to European security since the end of the Cold War.” The G-7 group, which also includes Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom, also released a statement on Friday calling on China “to press Russia to stop its military aggression.”  The seven foreign ministers also expressed their concern “about transfers to Russia from business in China of dual-use materials and components for weapons and equipment for military production.” In an email to Radio Free Asia, Liu Pengyu, a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, did not deny Blinken’s claims.  But he said China “is not a party to or involved in the Ukraine crisis” and that the country’s position on the war is “fair and objective.” “We actively promote peace talks and have not provided weapons to either side of the conflict,” Liu said. “At the same time, China and Russia have every right to normal economic and trade cooperation, which should not be interfered with or restricted.” Not the only tension Blinken’s trip will come amid a slew of other squabbles between the world’s two major powers bubbling since last year’s Xi-Biden talks. In a speech at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, on Thursday, FBI Director Christopher Wray repeated claims he made to Congress earlier this year that Chinese hackers were targeting key U.S. infrastructure and waiting to “wreak havoc” in case of a conflict. On April 11, Biden notably warned Beijing that the United States would come to the aid of Philippine vessels in the South China Sea if they were attacked by China, calling the commitment “ironclad.” On the economic front, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who herself visited Beijing this month, has slammed Beijing for what she says is over-subsidization of green technology, with cheap Chinese exports crippling development of competing industries worldwide. Xi also expressed concerns to Biden during a phone call on April 2 about a bill that would allow the U.S. president to ban the popular social media app TikTok, which U.S. officials have called a national security threat, if its Chinese parent company does not divest. China, meanwhile, on Friday forced Apple to scrub social media apps WhatsApp and Threads, both owned by Facebook parent company Meta, from its App Store, citing “national security concerns.” Blinken will be joined on his trip by Liz Allen, the under secretary for public diplomacy and public Affairs; Daniel Kritenbrink, the assistant secretary of state for East Asia and the Pacific; Todd Robinson, the undersecretary for narcotics and law enforcement; and Nathaniel Fick, the U.S. ambassador-at-large for cyberspace and digital policy.

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China axes hundreds of TV dramas depicting family tensions

Editor08 mins

China’s internet censors have deleted hundreds of online TV dramas for portraying the negative aspects of family life amid an attempt by the ruling Communist Party to get more people to start families and rescue plummeting birth rates. Censors at video platforms Douyin and Kuaishou deleted more than 700 videos of TV micro-dramas portraying in-fighting between in-laws because of the “extreme emotions” they evoked, the government’s “Rumor-refuting platform” on Weibo reported. “Many micro-dramas on this theme deliberately amplify and exaggerate conflicts between husband and wife, conflicts between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, and intergenerational conflicts through eye-catching stereotypes and abnormal and bizarre relationships,” the post said. The move comes as President Xi Jinping tries to promote marriage and family life as a way of boosting flagging birth rates. The number of Chinese couples tying the knot for the first time has plummeted by nearly 56% over the past nine years, with such marriages numbering less than 11 million in 2022. A November 2023 poll on the social media platform Weibo found that while most of the 44,000 respondents said 25 to 28 are the best ages to marry, nearly 60% said they were delaying marriage due to work pressures, education or the need to buy property. The logo of Chinese video sharing company Kuaishou is seen at its company in Hangzhou, in eastern China’s Zhejiang province on February 5, 2021. (AFP) Birth rates have fallen from 17.86 million in 2016 to just 9.02 million in 2023, despite a change in policy allowing couples to have up to three children in 2021.  In October, Xi called on women to focus on raising families, and the National People’s Congress this month started looking at ways to boost birth rates and kick-start the shrinking population, including flexible working policies, coverage for fertility treatment and extended maternity leave. Changing priorities But young women in today’s China are increasingly choosing not to marry or have kids, citing huge inequalities and patriarchal attitudes that still run through family life, not to mention the sheer economic cost of raising a family. A recent study of Mandarin pop songs aimed at a female audience focused far less on romantic love and more on personal freedom and economic independence. It appears the authorities want to avoid having women put off taking the plunge into family life by clamping down on mother-in-law gags and other depictions of family tensions. A screen shows a military parade at a booth of Chinese video-streaming startup Kuaishou, at the 2020 China International Fair for Trade in Services (CIFTIS) in Beijing, September 4, 2020. (Tingshu Wang/Reuters) “Douyin and Kuaishou have recently removed from the shelves a number of illegal micro-short dramas that deliberately choreographed “mother-in-law and daughter-in-law battles” to exaggerate extreme emotions.” The deleted shows “promoted unhealthy and non-mainstream views on family, marriage and love, and deliberately amplified and exaggerated conflicts between husband and wife, mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, etc,” the Weibo “rumor-refuting” post said. The censored titles included shows called “My Husband is a Mommy’s Boy,” “In the Doghouse with Mother-in-law,” and “Rich Lady Strikes Back,” and were removed to promote the “healthy development” of the online video market, it said, adding that Kuaishou had deleted more than 700 such shows. China’s State Administration of Radio, Film and Television has also issued new rules requiring platforms to apply for a license to distribute online TV shows, starting June 1. ‘Positive energy’ Current affairs commentator Chang Guantao said many online TV producers like to use social injustice as a talking point to get more viewers, which he said was “embarrassing” to the government, which wants anything posted on China’s tightly controlled internet to exude “positive energy” for the future of the country. “More and more micro-dramas are vying with each other to directly address society’s sore points, and those marginalized by government policy,” Chang said.  “This is likely something that news regulators and public opinion control agencies don’t want to see, so they have to regulate and control them, and limit their development in various ways,” he said. The logo of Chinese video-streaming startup Kuaishou is seen in Beijing, China May 10, 2017. (Stringer/Reuters) Current affairs commentator Bi Xin said micro-dramas have been much more lightly regulated than regular TV shows — until now. “It doesn’t cost too much to make a micro-drama, around 300,000 yuan (US$41,000), but they have a wider reach,” Bi said. “The authorities need to suppress and manage them by forcing them to get licensed, because their content isn’t always in line with the main theme [of government propaganda].” The news website Caixin quoted micro-drama producers as saying that there will now be a classification and hierarchical review system for the shows, which will be divided according to their production budget. Higher budget shows will be directly regulated by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, while lower budget productions will be managed by the same authorities at the provincial level. The lowest-budget shows will be left to video-sharing platforms to censor, the report said. Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

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Investigative Journalism Reportika © March 2022 by Ij-Reportika is licensed under CC BY 4.0