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Category: Russia
I’ll never let go, Vlad
The sinking of the Moskva, Russia’s Black Sea fleet flagship, was the biggest wartime loss of a naval ship in 40 years. Despite the major embarrassment for Vladimir Putin and the vaunted Russian military, China’s Xi Jinping has maintained his embrace of his fellow strongman. Beyond the reputational damage to China from his alliance with Putin, analysts question whether Xi is getting accurate information about Russian battlefield failures, which may offer lessons for China’s military.
Russia says military drills planned with Vietnam
As fighting rages across Ukraine, Russia and Vietnam are planning to hold a joint military training exercise, Russian state media reported Tuesday, a move that analysts described as “inappropriate” and likely to “raise eyebrows” in the rest of the region. It comes amid international outrage over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the mounting civilian death toll there. It also coincides with U.S. preparations to host a May 12-13 summit in Washington with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, including Vietnam. Russian state-run news agency RIA Novosti said the initial planning meeting for the military training exercise was held virtually between the leaders of Russia’s Eastern Military District and the Vietnamese army. The two sides “agreed on the subject of the upcoming drills, specified the dates and venue for them” and “discussed issues of medical and logistic support, cultural and sports programs,” the news agency reported without giving further details. Col. Ivan Taraev, head of the International Military Cooperation Department at the Eastern Military District, was quoted as saying that the joint exercise aims “to improve practical skills of commanders and staffs in organizing combat training operations and managing units in a difficult tactical situation, as well as developing unconventional solutions when performing tasks.” The two sides also discussed what to call the joint exercise. One of the proposed names is “Continental Alliance – 2022.” Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu, right, and his then-Vietnamese counterpart Ngo Xuan Lich, left, reviewing an honor guard in Hanoi, Vietnam, Tuesday, Jan. 23, 2018. Shoigu was on a visit to Vietnam to boost military ties between the two countries. Credit: AP ‘Inappropriate decision’ Vietnamese media haven’t reported on the meeting, nor the proposed exercise. Vietnamese officials were not available for comment. “This is a totally inappropriate decision on Vietnam’s part,” said Carlyle Thayer, professor emeritus at the New South Wales University in Australia and a veteran Vietnam watcher. “The U.S. is hosting a special summit with Southeast Asian leaders in May,” Thayer said. “How will the Vietnamese leader be able to look Biden in the eye given the U.S. clear stance on the Ukrainian war and the Russian invasion?” “This is not how you deal with the world’s superpower,” he said. Earlier this month, Vietnam voted against a U.S.-led resolution to remove Russia from the U.N. Human Rights Council. Before that, Hanoi abstained from voting to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at the U.N. General Assembly. “As Russia’s closest partner in the region, Vietnam wants to demonstrate that it still has a firm friend in Southeast Asia,” said Ian Storey, senior fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore. “But this joint exercise is likely to raise eyebrows in the rest of the region,” Storey said. Vietnam and Russia have a long-established historical relationship that goes back to the Soviet era. Russia is Vietnam’s first strategic partner, and one of its three so-called “comprehensive strategic partners,” alongside China and India. Moscow was also Hanoi’s biggest donor until the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc. “Vietnam’s nuanced approach to the Russia-Ukraine war and its refusal to single out Russia’s invasion suggest introspection in Hanoi over its foreign and defense policy calculations,” wrote Hoang Thi Ha, a Vietnamese scholar at the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute. The Russia-led war in Ukraine “presented a hard choice for Hanoi between preserving the fundamental principle of respect for a sovereign nation’s independence and territorial integrity and maintaining its good relations with Russia — a key arms supplier and a major oil and gas exploration partner in the South China Sea,” Ha said. Political message That explains Vietnam’s moves but there are distinctions between casting votes at the U.N. and holding joint military activities. The latter would send a wrong message about Vietnam’s intention to work with the West and raise its profile among the international community, analysts said. In particular, the past decade or more has seen a notable growth in ties between the U.S. and Vietnam, which share a concern over China’s assertive behavior in the South China Sea. Details of the proposed Russia-Vietnam exercise have yet to be made public, and already some observers are expressing doubts that it would take place. A Vietnamese analyst who wished to stay anonymous as he is not authorized to speak to foreign media said the Russian side announced similar exercises in the past which didn’t materialize. The Press Service of Russia’s Eastern Military District also said back in 2015 that the first bilateral military drill between Russia and Vietnam would take place in 2016 in Vietnamese territory. The supposed drill was rescheduled to 2017 but in the end didn’t happen at all. Vietnam has, however, taken part in a number of multilateral military exercises with Russia. The latest was the first joint naval exercise between Russia and countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations last December. The Eastern Military District, headquartered in Khabarovsk, is one of the five operational strategic commands of the Russian Armed Forces, responsible for the Far East region of the country. The district was formed by a presidential decree, signed by the then-President Dmitry Medvedev in September 2010.
White House: Biden to host US-ASEAN summit in Washington May 12-13
President Joe Biden will meet with Southeast Asian leaders in Washington for a special U.S.-ASEAN summit next month, the White House announced Saturday. The meeting in mid-May will take place amid tensions in the South China Sea, divisions among members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations over its response to the crisis in post-coup Myanmar, and the lack of a collective condemnation by the bloc of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – a stark contrast to the West’s condemnation of it. “President Biden will host the Leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Washington, DC on May 12 and 13 for a U.S.-ASEAN Special Summit,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement. Cambodia, the 2022 holder of the ASEAN chairmanship, confirmed the new dates for the summit. “During this historic meeting, the Leaders of ASEAN and the United States will chart the future direction of ASEAN-U.S. relations and seek to further enhance strategic partnership for the mutual benefits of the peoples of ASEAN and the United States,” Phnom Penh said in a statement issued Sunday. The U.S.-ASEAN summit was originally scheduled for the end of March but was postponed because scheduling for the meeting ran into trouble when the facilitating country, Indonesia, could not get all ASEAN members to agree on a date. Next month’s meeting will be the second special summit between Washington and the Southeast Asian bloc since 2016 and the first in-person one since 2017, Cambodia said. “The Special Summit will demonstrate the United States’ enduring commitment to ASEAN, recognizing its central role in delivering sustainable solutions to the region’s most pressing challenges, and commemorate 45 years of U.S.-ASEAN relations,” Psaki said. The summit is also set to happen a few days after a general election in the Philippines to determine who will succeed Rodrigo Duterte as president of the longtime U.S. defense ally at the frontline of territorial disputes with Beijing over the South China Sea. During his nearly six years in office, however, Duterte has fostered closer relations with China despite diplomatic protests lodged by Manila over intrusions by Chinese coast guard ships and other vessels in waters within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone. Balancing power The U.S. sees Southeast Asia as crucial to its efforts to push back against China’s rising power in the South China Sea and across the Indo-Pacific region. “It is a top priority for the Biden-Harris Administration to serve as a strong, reliable partner in Southeast Asia. Our shared aspirations for the region will continue to underpin our common commitment to advance an Indo-Pacific that is free and open, secure, connected, and resilient,” Psaki said. The Biden administration announced the new dates for the summit more than two weeks after the American president met with Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong at the White House, where they discussed the South China Sea, among other issues. “From our point of view, freedom of navigation is important, international law is important, the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea [UNCLOS] is also important, and peaceful resolution of disputes so you avoid some accidental conflicts,” Lee said during an event at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington on March 30, a day after his meeting with Biden. Myanmar crisis ASEAN, meanwhile, has been grappling with a 14-month-old crisis in bloc member Myanmar, where the Burmese junta’s forces have bombed and burned swathes of the country to quell resistance to the military’s overthrow of an elected government in February 2021. In late March, the junta blocked ASEAN envoy Prak Sokhonn from meeting with deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi during his three-day visit to Myanmar, despite its pledge to grant him access to all political stakeholders, Prak, the Cambodian foreign minister, told reporters upon returning to Phnom Penh. At the end of an emergency meeting of ASEAN leaders in April last year, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, the junta chief who led the coup, agreed to allow an envoy from the Southeast Asian bloc access to all stakeholders in Myanmar as part of a Five-Point Consensus to end the political crisis in his country. Apart from the Myanmar crisis, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has tested ASEAN unity. In early March, the bloc as a whole issued a statement calling for a ceasefire but without naming Russia or using the word “invasion.” Meanwhile on March 2, most ASEAN member-states – except for Vietnam and Laos, which abstained – supported a much tougher U.N. General Assembly resolution against Moscow.
China conducts major military drills as US lawmakers visit Taiwan
The Chinese military conducted a large multi-force exercise on Friday morning around Taiwan, just hours after U.S. lawmakers arrived for a visit to show support for the self-ruling island and meet President Tsai Ing-wen. Chinese military aircraft, warships and troops were taking part in the combat readiness drills in the East China Sea as well as in the sea and airspace around Taiwan, according to a statement from Col. Shi Yi, spokesman for the Eastern Theater Command of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). The number of troops and weaponry was not disclosed but the Taiwanese military said six PLA aircraft including four J-16 fighter jets and two J-11 fighter jets entered Taiwan’s southwest air defense identification zone (ADIZ) on Friday. The PLA statement said the drills were being conducted “in response to the recent wrong signals the U.S. sent related to the Taiwan issue.” “The U.S. wicked tricks are completely futile and very dangerous,” it said, adding “those who play with fire will set themselves on fire.” The Taiwanese Ministry of National Defense responded that its naval ships and aircraft have been dispatched to closely monitor the cross-strait situation and safeguard the security in “our airspace and territorial waters.” Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen (R) speaks with Sen. Lindsey Graham at the Presidential Office in Taipei, Taiwan, April 15, 2022, during a visit by U.S. lawmakers. Credit: Taiwan Presidential Office via AP U.S. delegation in Taiwan Six members of the U.S. Congress arrived in Taipei Thursday evening. The bipartisan delegation was led by Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, and included Democrat Sen. Bob Menendez, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The delegation met Friday with President Tsai. The U.S. lawmakers voiced support for the self-governing island and its democracy. Menendez described Taiwan – which China regards as a renegade province– as a “country of global significance” and said its security has implications for the world. The previously unannounced visit came after reports last week that U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi was planning a landmark visit to Taiwan but had to postpone it after she tested positive for COVID-19. Such visits are sensitive because Washington and Taipei do not have formal diplomatic relations, although they do have substantial ties and the U.S. is committed by law to help provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian told reporters in Beijing on Friday that China “firmly opposes any form of official interaction between the U.S. and the Taiwan region” and confirmed that the military drills were a response to the lawmakers’ visit to the island. Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry issued its own robust statement late Friday in response to the Chinese drills, saying “the threat of force … will only strengthen the will of the Taiwanese people to defend freedom and democracy.” “Democratic Taiwan will continue to deepen cooperation with the United States and other like-minded countries, safeguard the security of the Taiwan Strait and the free and open Indo-Pacific region, and prevent the continuous expansion of the totalitarian government of the Chinese Communist Party,” the statement said. On Thursday, U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said at a meeting at The Economic Club of Washington D.C. that it is U.S. policy to ensure that a Chinese invasion of Taiwan does not occur. China is watching the war in Ukraine closely and some observers fear that Beijing may consider opportunistic moves against Taiwan, which it seeks to unite with the mainland, by force if necessary. During the drills on Friday morning, PLA Air Force Su-35 fighter jets flew over the Bashi Channel south of Taiwan in formation with H-6K strategic bombers. Qi Leyi, a Taipei-based military analyst and commentator for RFA Mandarin Service, said: “Whenever the U.S.-Taiwan relations advance, the PLA has a corresponding military response. Beijing’s worried that Taiwan and the U.S. are entering a quasi-alliance.”
Owners facing COVID-19 isolation in Shanghai scramble to save pets from ‘disposal’
Residents of Shanghai are banding together to save each other’s pets from being killed as the COVID-19 lockdown in the city drags on, RFA has learned. More than 1,000 listings have been made to an online document listing people who have tested positive for coronavirus in the past few weeks, and are looking for people to take care of their pets while they are in compulsory isolation facilities. “I basically have tested positive … but they haven’t notified me when I will be sent to isolation,” a woman surnamed Wang from Shanghai’s Putuo district wrote on the page on April 12. “I have a five-month-old kitty at home.” Wang was told by her neighborhood committee that her cat would need to be “disposed of,” she told RFA. “I wanted to see if … I could get it sent to a friend’s house, but I don’t know if the neighborhood committee will accept this or not, or whether they will agree to have the cat stay in my home,” she said. “They told me that, strictly speaking, the cat should be disposed of, and that I shouldn’t tell anyone about this,” Wang said. “[They told me] if I can move the cat away, or give it to a friend, before I get sent to isolation, it would be safer [for the cat],” she said. Wang said she was at her wits’ end to know what to do. The mutual assistance page for pet owners suggests she is far from alone. “I’m worried that [will also test] positive, and my pet’s life will be in danger,” another Shanghai resident wrote. “The neighborhood committee won’t allow the cat to leave, should I want to hand it over to a friend.” “If I go into isolation, I fear the consequences of leaving my pet at home will be unimaginable. Please help!” they said. Another wrote: “My family members are all … contacts [of an infected person], and they could all test positive. I’m afraid our dog will be disposed of by the neighborhood committee.” “Please take my dog to a foster home, with dog food, litter tray and toys.” Seeking foster homes The majority of posts were labeled as being from Pudong New District, with hundreds of distraught pet owners requesting help. A volunteer from Shanghai surnamed Lin said she helped to arrange foster homes for three cats. “They are very anxious to send their cats and dogs [to a foster home], but some neighborhood committees won’t help them with that, so they have to figure out what to do by themselves,” Lin said. “Sometimes, volunteers from their community can come to their door [and take the pet] and send it to me,” she said. “It’s very hard for them to send their pets away, because they’re not allowed out themselves.” She said there had been a surge in requests for pet foster homes after a video surfaced on social media showing a corgi being beaten to death by neighborhood committee members with a shovel, amid loud screams from the animal and shocked comments from the person shooting the video. Once pets have been successfully removed from the residential community, then logistics personnel must be hired to deliver them to the foster home, Lin said, which is very expensive. Some pet owners have sent their pets to pet hospitals, but places are hard to secure. An employee who answered the phone at the Sanlin branch of the Shanghai Hanghou Pet Clinic chain said most of the pet hospitals are now full. “We are all full, right now; the hospital is overcrowded,” the employee said. “There have been a couple of cases in Shanghai of pets being killed, this is true.” Shenzhen shelters Meanwhile, authorities in the southern city of Shenzhen have set up two pet shelters, where pets of people sent into isolation are housed for free. There are places available for up to 300 pets, and the facility is the first of its kind in China. Peter Li, head of China affairs at the Humane Society International, said the humane disposal of pets isn’t official policy in Shanghai. “The few cases we have seen in Shanghai are the result of grassroots government workers not following Shanghai government policy,” Li told RFA. “This failure, in addition to incompetence and lack of empathy, may also be due to the fact that they are handling situations they have never experienced before, resulting in huge psychological pressure.” Li, whose organization is also working to save pets beleaguered by war in Ukraine, called on Chinese officials to formulate policies for pets in the event of an emergency or disaster. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
Japan PM set to visit SE Asia in late April
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is planning a visit to Southeast Asia later this month to counter China’s growing assertiveness in the region, according to news reports and a government official. Kyodo, a Japanese news agency, said Kishida’s trip would take place during the so-called Golden Week holidays and includes stops in Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam. The report cited unnamed diplomatic sources. Golden Week 2022 runs from April 29 to May 5. It starts with Showa Day and ends on Children’s Day, with a five-day consecutive holiday between May 1–5. It also reported that Kishida may consider a visit to Europe during the holiday period. A previously proposed meeting between ministers of defense and foreign affairs from Japan and India in mid- to late-April may therefore have been postponed as usually foreign ministers accompany the prime minister on his foreign trips. RFA has approached the Japanese Foreign Ministry for confirmation. In Jakarta, the Foreign Ministry spokesman Teuku Faizasyah on Thursday confirmed to BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated news agency, that Kishida would visit Indonesia “at the end of April.” He said the exact date would be announced later. Kyodo reported that in Southeast Asia, the Japanese prime minister is expected to “underscore cooperation toward realizing the vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific amid China’s rise.” Thailand and Indonesia are this year’s chairs of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum (APEC) and the Group of 20 respectively. Vietnam meanwhile shares interest with Japan in safeguarding maritime security in the South China Sea where China holds expansive claims and has been militarizing reclaimed islands. Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force personnel on the destroyers JS Suzutsuki (L) and JS Inazuma (R) after arriving as part of an Indo-Pacific tour at Tanjung Priok Port in Jakarta, Indonesia, in a file photo. Credit: Reuters Free and open Indo-Pacific “China is the principal geopolitical threat, be it for India, Japan or Southeast Asian countries,” said Pratnashree Basu, associate fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, an Indian think tank. “Pooling resources and strengthening capacities is therefore an ongoing process for almost all countries in the Indo-Pacific in order to be in positions of stronger pushback in the face of China’s aggression,” she said. Japan last year joined a growing list of countries that are challenging China’s maritime claims in the South China Sea. Tokyo sent a diplomatic note to the United Nations rejecting China’s baseline claims and denouncing what it described as efforts to limit the freedom of navigation and overflight. Japan is not a South China Sea claimant, but Tokyo has deepened security ties with several Southeast Asia nations with claims or interests there. The Japanese Navy and Coastguard have conducted joint exercises with Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam. Stephen Nagy, senior associate professor at the Department of Politics and International Studies, International Christian University in Tokyo, said that Japan prioritizes maintaining stability and a rules-based approach to governing the South China Sea as its sea lanes are critical arteries for the Japanese economy. Tokyo has also been playing an important role in supporting the U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy. Leaders of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or Quad, including Japan, the U.S., Australia and India are meeting in person later in May in Tokyo for a summit. The Quad is widely seen as countering China’s weight in the region. Kishida visited India and Cambodia in March, his first bilateral trips since taking office in October 2021. Cambodia is the current chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
Interview: ‘Do you realize there is also a price to pay for silence?’
Wang Jixian is Chinese national living in Odessa who turned citizen journalist when the war in Ukraine began, posting first-hand accounts of the conflict. But his outspoken YouTube videos cursing out Russian troops were out of step with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s official stance on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and have been deleted or blocked from social media platforms in China by government censors, while Wang’s personal social media accounts have been shut down. Wang, an artificial intelligence expert by day, has also been the target of online abuse from Little Pinks, an online army of troll-commentators who enforce the CCP line on China’s tightly controlled internet. He spoke to RFA’s Mandarin Service about what motivates him to keep posting. I’m a programmer by profession. I have to go to work every day … I don’t even have advertisements [on my YouTube channel]. I’m not an influencer, and I’m not doing this for the money. I make my videos to show people what is going on in my region, which is the Russian-speaking world, where there is even more censorship, information blockage and brainwashing going on than in the regions you criticize. My idea is to use logic and reasoning to awaken people’s consciences. I’m not looking to get more traffic, or more subscribers. They started out by deleting one or two of my videos … then they started doing it by stealth. It got to the point where, one day, every single social media account under my name — not just WeChat — had been shut down. The whole lot of them. All of them had been set up personally by me in China, using my national ID card, and they were all deleted simultaneously, on Baidu, on Douyin, different companies. So how were they able to delete them all at the same time? And that’s not all. They even deleted my face. They deleted videos in which the only thing I said was that I was still OK. Anything with my face in it. Then they said I was spreading rumors. I read out parts of the Chinese Communist Party charter and the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China. How are those things rumors? And what reason did they have for deleting the accounts of people who reposted my posts? I didn’t just read [about freedom of speech], but also freedom of the person, of religious belief, freedom of speech, all of that is written in the constitution. As a Chinese citizen, I want the protections that are enshrined in the constitution. The constitution itself states that breaching the constitution is the worst kind of law-breaking, because it carries the highest legal authority. I don’t understand what I’m supposed to have done wrong. What did I say to oppose the party, or the government? I’m an incredibly patriotic person. My point in reading out those sections of the CCP charter was to urge people to be a passable CCP member before they start saying I’m opposing anyone. I was telling them that they should look to within party ranks. The day [my social media accounts were deleted], I remember it very clearly … it took me a very long time to get in contact with my family. My dad is a pretty tough person, and he told me he was fine. But the last time I spoke to them I noticed that their hair was a lot greyer than the last time I spoke with them. [Now that my WeChat account has gone], I have to rely on friends … to find ways to send them my videos, so they can still see them. I’m just an ordinary person. I’m not a member of any party or political faction. My beliefs just tell me that I shouldn’t do anything evil. I don’t see anything wrong with that. They didn’t report [the Ukrainian perspective]. This is something that mainstream media from all over the world managed to do. They sent their own journalists to the front line to report. What other country’s media just translated what the Russian media was saying, word for word about the Bucha massacre. Haven’t we had reports from the United Nations, from Ukraine, or any other country’s media? Why has none of it made it into Chinese? But even if [people in China] can’t see what’s going on, they should be able to figure it out for themselves. Just look at a map of the world. This is Ukraine. There’s a bunch of tanks — have they got Ukrainian license plates? Do the guys driving them have visas? You send these young Russian men to war, telling them that it’s just a military exercise taking place over the border in Ukraine and in the capital … that the people of Ukraine will welcome them with wreaths of flowers. Later on, you tell them that everyone they are killing is a Nazi, that they deserve to die. What Nazis? Who decided this? What did these people do for you to call them Nazis? It’s all lies. Some internet users in China have tried to threaten me, saying, “You do realize you’ll have to pay a price for speaking like this, don’t you?” I told them, “Of course I realize that. But I have a question for you, too. Do you realize that there will also be a price to pay for your silence today? Do you not think you’ve already paid too high a price for that silence?” There’s a price to pay for courage, but no price to pay for silence? I want to wake people up a bit. I ask them what or who they think my speech is opposing. I don’t really understand what news I’m supposed to be breaking. I just talk about daily life here, how much groceries costs, the price of seafood or beef. I think I report a lot less actual news than the media does. I’m just trying to get people to see…
To prevent escapes, North Korea confiscates passports of officials sent abroad
North Korea is now confiscating the passports of both managers and workers stationed abroad to prevent them from escaping, sources in China and Russia told RFA. Pyongyang dispatches legions of workers to both Russia and China to work in factories and on construction sites to earn foreign cash for the state. The workers give the lion’s share of their salaries to their North Korean handlers, who forward it to the central government, but the remainder is still more than the workers could ever hope to earn in their home country. It is standard procedure to confiscate the workers’ passports to make it harder for them to flee to a third country. But now even the workers’ managers have to turn their passports over to their local North Korean embassy or consulate, indicating that Pyongyang may fear that they too might try to escape. “In February of this year, the North Korean embassy and consulates in China recovered all passports from company officials and representatives in the region,” a Chinese citizen of Korean descent told RFA’s Korean Service April 9 on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “They retrieved the officials’ passports because during the pandemic, the companies are earning less. … It is a special measure that acknowledges the possibility that some officials may want to escape, especially as many are under heavy pressure to pay their assigned quota, despite the company’s reduced earnings,” he said. RFA reported last month that 20 workers and their manager, who were stationed in Shanghai, went missing in mid-February. Sources in that report said the group had left their dormitory to escape to a third country, but RFA was unable to confirm that they attempted to escape. “The presidents and trade representatives of North Korean companies do not have passports, so they cannot travel wherever they want to go,” he said. “They used to be allowed to keep their passports. “The order to collect their passports came directly from Pyongyang. The North Korean officials are resentful that their government trusts them enough to send them overseas to work hard for the country, but does not trust that they will not run away,” he said. In Vladivostok, the confiscation of passports means that North Koreans aren’t even allowed to take a single step outside of their workplace, a Russian citizen of Korean descent told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “After several incidents where North Korean workers dispatched here to Russia escaped, they confiscated everyone’s passports,” he said. “But even company officials and state security agents, who are supposed to monitor and prevent workers from escaping, have now had their passports collected. Workers who came to Russia through a one-year education or training visa, however, may have their passports in their hands for a short time while re-registering their residence every year,” the second source said. The new regulations have changed the balance of power between the workers and their watchers. “Russian company officials and the dispatched North Korean workers now scoff at the North Korean officials and state security agents who boldly lorded over the workers.” Meanwhile, a local source told RFA last month that the number of North Korean workers in the three northeastern Chinese provinces is estimated to be between 80,000 and 100,000 as of January this year, with the bulk of the workers in Dandong, just across the border from North Korea’s Sinuiju. The same source estimated there were 20,000 in and around Vladivostok in Russia. Translated by Claire Lee and Leejin Jun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
Banned Hong Kong statues to find new refuge in democratic Taiwan: rights activists
A bronze statue of late Nobel peace laureate Liu Xiaobo that was removed from public display in Hong Kong amid a citywide crackdown on dissent could find a new home on the democratic island of Taiwan. The statue of a smoking, bespectacled, seated Liu, who died of late-stage liver cancer in 2017 while serving an 11-year jail term for “subversion,” was once on display in Hong Kong’s Times Square shopping plaza in Causeway Bay. It later reappeared in the Tin Hau branch of the children’s clothing chain Chickeeduck, which has been a vocal supporter of the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong, particularly during the 2019 protests. The statue was in the keeping of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Democratic Patriotic Movements of China, a civil society organization that was forced to disband after being investigated under a draconian national security law imposed on Hong Kong by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from July 1, 2020. Now, it appears Liu’s effigy may have found a new home in Taiwan, a democratic country that has never been ruled by Beijing, and whose 23 million people have no wish to lose their democratic rights and freedoms, or the rule of law. “He has no other place to go, so we will keep him permanently in Taiwan,” Tzeng Chien-yuan, who chairs Taiwan’s New School for Democracy, told RFA. “We plan to set up a museum to tell the world about human rights issues in China under CCP rule.” Tzeng said the statue will be put on public display in Taiwan in the run-up to the 33rd anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre on June 4. “We are coming at this from the perspective of universal values,” Tzeng told RFA. “Even if the vast majority of Taiwanese want independence, they still affirm Liu Xiaobo’s value, because they espouse universal values.” He said the Charter 08 document calling for sweeping political change in China that landed Liu in jail didn’t specifically mention Taiwan. But he said Liu had never subscribed to Beijing’s insistence on claiming the island as its territory, nor its threat to annex Taiwan by military force if necessary. “He said Taiwan’s future should be decided by its people,” Tzeng said. Pillar of shame statue The New School for Democracy will also play host to another banned Hong Kong monument — the “Pillar of Shame” marking the 1989 Tiananmen massacre. The statue was first unveiled at a now-banned candlelight vigil commemorating the victims at Victoria Park on June 4, 1997, weeks before the city was handed back to China, and was on display at the University of Hong Kong until last year, when it was dismantled and removed despite protests from its creator, Danish sculptor Jens Galschiøt. Tzeng says he has no fears for his personal safety. “We have our national sovereignty and our national armed forces to protect us,” he said. “We’re not worried.” “The only concern is the shipment of the exhibits out of Hong Kong, and the safety of people there who are doing that.” Taiwanese rights activist Yang Sen-hong said the image of Liu Xiaobo is anathema to the CCP, but that at least he could become a “refugee” in Taiwan. “Liu Xiaobo has to be a refugee, even in statue form,” Yang said. “Naturally, Taiwan is willing to offer his statue a place of refuge.” “Taiwan is not China, nor Hong Kong: we are a single country on our own side,” he said. Shih Yi-hsiang of the Taiwan Association for Human Rights said Taiwanese rights activists are keen to support movements against oppression around the world, including Hong Kong and China. “Taiwan is involved in other action against oppression, not just in being concerned about the situation in Hong Kong,” Shih said. “I think we have an obligation to … show solidarity, whether it’s with Ukraine, Xinjiang or Tibet.” Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
Taiwan issues ‘survival handbook’ to prep for possible Chinese invasion
Taiwan has issued for the first time a “survival handbook” to guide its citizens in the preparation for a possible Chinese invasion in the future. The 28-page National Defense Handbook is where the general public can find “an emergency response guideline in a military crisis or natural disaster,” said the defense ministry, which is responsible for compiling and releasing the material. The raging war in Ukraine has heightened concerns that China would seize the opportunity when the world’s focus is on Europe to wage an attack against the island. Survival guidelines “I was surprised to hear about the survival handbook,” said 35-year-old Cathy Hsieh, a bank clerk. “I’ve never thought we’d need something like that but it’s good that they [the government] have made such precaution,” she said. The handbook is drawn from similar publications issued in Japan and Sweden, and contains illustrated guidelines on how to find shelters in the case of bombing and what to do in emergencies such as fires, air raids or natural disasters. It even teaches people how to differentiate warning sirens. One guideline tells citizens to not open the fridge door too often during a power outage to keep the contents cold. The handbook provides a set of QR codes for citizens to scan using their mobile phones to access needed information as well as a list of emergency numbers. Yet some Taiwanese say the handbook, albeit a nice initiative, is impractical. “When all the hell breaks loose, I don’t think people would want to rely on QR codes and mobile networks which for sure won’t be working,” said George Cai, a 28-year-old resident of Taipei. He said there should be rehearsals on how to use the handbook. Lien Hsiang joint exercise On Tuesday, the Taiwanese military also held a large-scale exercise “to rehearse the rapid response to a simulated attack by Chinese warplanes.” F-16 fighters, Indigenous Defense Fighters (IDFs), Apache helicopters, and other aircraft were dispatched as part of an effort to “strengthen the protection of important assets and counter airstrikes.” “The exercise is an important part of training to counter an attack by the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF),” said Col. Sun Li-fang, Taiwan’s Ministry of Defense spokesman, at a press conference. A Chinese military expert was quoted by Chinese media as saying that both the drills and the handbook are “futile in resisting reunification.” Taiwanese people consider themselves citizens of an independent, democratic country but China claims the island is a breakaway province of China and vows to reunite it with the mainland, by force if necessary. The Lien Hsiang joint exercise has been held annually since 2016 and involves the air force, army and the navy. The air force however took the center stage as Taiwan is seeing almost daily incursions by Chinese aircraft into its air identification zone (ADIZ). Since the beginning of April, 25 Chinese military aircraft including 16 fighter jets, six spotter planes, and three helicopters have been tracked in Taiwan’s ADIZ, according to the Ministry of Defense. An ADIZ is not a country’s sovereign airspace, but the extended area around it, and is closely monitored in case of illegal encroachment.
