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Category: South Asia

Vietnam should ask Cambodia to delay canal project: experts

Editor09 mins

Participants at a Vietnamese-sponsored consultation have suggested that Hanoi should ask Phnom Penh to delay a proposed  canal project for further discussions, amid Vietnamese worries about the project’s environmental and economic impact. Construction of the 180 km (112 mile) Funan Techo canal, connecting the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, with the Gulf of Thailand, is planned to begin later this year and to be completed within four years. The proposed canal will include a section of the Mekong River, raising concern in Vietnam about the impact downstream, especially in Vietnam’s rice-growing Mekong Delta. The canal could “reduce the flow of the river by up to 50% by the time it comes to Vietnam,” said Le Anh Tuan, a prominent Vietnamese scientist.  Vietnam needs more time for consultation in order to protect the river’s delta, home to 17.4 million people, Tuan told the meeting in the town delta of Can Tho. Another expert, Dang Thanh Lam from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, said Vietnam must ask for an environment impact report from Cambodia. The U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh also called for more information, saying that the Cambodian people as well as people in neighboring countries “would benefit from transparency on any major undertaking with potential implications for regional water and agricultural sustainability.” “We urge authorities to coordinate closely with the Mekong River Commission (MRC) to provide additional project details and to participate fully in any appropriate environmental impact studies to help the MRC and member countries fully understand, assess, and prepare for any possible impacts of the project,” an embassy spokesperson said. Ly Van Bon, the owner of the Bay Bon fish pond located on the Mekong river which was affected by sediment, shows redtail catfish inside his fish pond in Mekong’s regional capital Can Tho, Vietnam, May 25, 2022. (Reuters/Athit Perawongmetha) For its part, Cambodia said it had secured endorsement for the project from the MRC chairman – Lao President Thongloun Sisoulith. Sisoulith has just visited Phnom Penh and, during a meeting with Cambodian Senate leader and former prime minister Hun Sen, he was asked to show his support for the canal.  “In response, the Laotian president, without hesitation, announced his support,” Cambodia’s Fresh News media outlet, which is supportive of the government, reported. No obligation  Laos and Cambodia are both long-term allies of Vietnam but both have in recent years leaned more towards China. Vietnam has repeatedly expressed concerns about the possible environmental and economic impacts of the project. This month, a Vietnamese foreign ministry spokesperson urged Cambodia to provide information and an impact assessment on the water resources and ecological balance of the delta region. In response, a senior Cambodian official said that Phnom Penh was not obliged to do so. Cambodia’s Minister Delegate attached to the Prime Minister in charge of ASEAN affairs, So Naro, told the Khmer Times that Cambodia was not legally required to submit any document to Vietnam  regarding the studies and construction of the Funan Techo canal. Cambodia had submitted “all documents of the studies on the canal related to the impacts on the environment and the water resources” to the MRC, So Naro said. The MRC is an intergovernmental organisation in charge of the sustainable management of the Mekong basin. “The Vietnamese authorities can request access to those files,” So Naro said. Cambodia has insisted that the canal  would not disrupt the flow of the Mekong.  The projected Funan Techo canal (in blue). (Google Maps/ RFA) Officially known as the Tonle Bassac Navigation Road and Logistics System Project, the Funan Techo canal will be developed by a Chinese company at a cost of US$1.7 billion. It will mean that more trade can flow directly to Cambodian  ports, bypassing Vietnam. The Cambodian government said it would cut the transport costs and reduce dependence on Vietnamese ports. It also said that the project will bring great social and economic benefits to 1.6 million Cambodians living along the canal. Security questions Besides the environment and economic impacts, analysts say Vietnam is also worried about the security implications of the canal. There have been suggestions that the canal could allow Chinese navy ships to travel upstream from the Gulf of Thailand and the Chinese-developed Ream naval base on the Cambodian coast close to the border with Vietnam.  Cambodia has rejected such speculation with Hun Sen insisting that Cambodia and Vietnam “are good neighbors and have good cooperation in all fields.” But Vietnam has been in dispute with China over some island chains in the South China Sea and it eyes China’s involvement in the region with suspicion. Vietnam shares a long land border with Cambodia. Between 1977-1978 there was fighting between Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge and Vietnamese troops during the so-called southwest border war, which led to a Vietnamese invasion and the establishment of a pro-Hanoi government in Cambodia. The situation on Vietnam’s western border should get more attention because of “threats of untraditional security challenges, mostly over the Mekong delta,” said Nguyen The Phuong, a Vietnamese political scientist at the University of New South Wales in Australia. “A loss of the Mekong’s ability to sustain large scale food production will have tremendous impact on Vietnam’s security in the south,” Phuong said. “From my point of view, the western front is becoming more critical day by day but Vietnam is too distracted by maritime issues at the eastern front, or the South China Sea.” Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.

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Uyghur butcher served 7 years in jail for urging friends not to drink alcohol or smoke

Editor05 mins

A Uyghur butcher serving a seven-year prison sentence in southern Xinjiang for advising friends not to drink alcohol or smoke at a gathering has been released alive and returned to his family, sources with knowledge of the situation said. It marks the first time that one of the roughly 100 jailed Uyghur residents from Xaneriq village had been released alive, said an Uyghur from the area who now lives abroad, but who did not give his name for fear of retribution. Authorities freed Mahmudjan Muqeddem, 46, who hails from the Tawaqchi community of Xaneriq village, on April 11, he said. The village lies in Kashgar Yengisheher county in Kashgar prefecture.  Police officers salute at the outer entrance of the Urumqi No. 3 Detention Center in Dabancheng in northwestern China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, April 23, 2021. A police officer from the Yenitam community in Xaneriq confirmed that Muqeddem, a butcher and farmer, had served seven years in a prison in Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and was released on April 11.  The officer’s colleagues told him that Muqeddem was arrested on suspicion of religious radicalization for advising his friends not to drink or smoke at an event prior to 2016. Initially, he was “educated” in a camp for two years, but in 2019, he was sentenced and transferred to prison, they said.  “The reason for arrest is that he stopped others from smoking and drinking,” said the officer. “He is not a religious figure.” Extremist behaviors Abstaining from alcohol is one of 75 different activities and behaviors identified by the Chinese government as a sign of potential religious extremism. It is listed in brochures distributed in some parts of Xinjiang to educate the public on how to identify extreme religious activities. It is also a cause for jailing Uyghurs, who as Muslims abstain from drinking alcohol, as part of a larger effort by Beijing to eradicate Uyghur culture and religion.  A person stands in a tower on the perimeter of the Number 3 Detention Center in Dabancheng in northwestern China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, April 23, 2021. (Mark Schiefelbein/AP) Xaneriq village consists of 23 smaller communities with a total population of 31,000 people, averaging around 1,400 people in each community.  About 800 people live in Tawaqchi community, of which more than 100 were in prison, with some serving indefinite sentences in internment camps, the Uyghur expatriate said. Since 2017, six others imprisoned were released dead, he said, though RFA could not independently confirm this. Muqeddem’s release has offered some hope to others from the village’s Tawaqchi community worried out the fate of their imprisoned relatives, the expat said.  But because the butcher was considered to have committed one of the mildest “crimes” among those arrested, his release also caused concern about the fate of those serving sentences for more serious offenses, he added. Translated by RFA Uyghur. 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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Religious leader faces new charge in case that brought 5-year sentence

Editor06 mins

Investigators in southern Vietnam charged the 92-year-old leader of a Buddhist community with incest on Friday after gathering evidence – including blood samples – from members of the church, state media reported. Le Tung Van of the the Peng Lei House Buddhist Church in Long An province has previously been at the center of allegations of incest, fraud and abusing freedoms. In 2022, he was sentenced to five years in prison for “abusing democratic freedoms.”  The provincial Security Investigation Agency said it launched the new case after receiving reports of Van’s alleged incestuous behavior, according to the Vietnam News Agency. The new charge also comes a week after two of his defense lawyers were stripped of their membership in the Ho Chi Minh Bar Association – a decision they warned could precede new action against Van. An attorney who spoke anonymously to Radio Free Asia for security reasons said Van hasn’t been required to serve the 2022 prison sentence due to his old age and frail health. The attorney added that the new charges announced on Friday were “vague” and appeared to use old evidence. Police forcibly collected DNA samples from members residing in the Peng Lei Buddhist House Church at least three times in 2021 and 2022, including one occasion where they obtained blood samples in the name of COVID-19 testing. Days after the church was searched in January 2022, authorities announced the “abusing democratic freedoms” charge against Van. He was accused of taking advantage of religion and philanthropy for their own personal benefit, according to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. Van was also charged with incest and fraud, but these charges were later dropped.   The complaint was reportedly made by the government-recognized Vietnam Buddhist Sangha, the state-backed religious entity, and a member of the Sangha’s board of directors, according to the commission. Vietnam maintains strict laws on religious activity that require groups to be supervised by government-controlled management boards. The Peng Lei Buddhist House Church is an independent Buddhist community. Defense lawyers seek asylum Van was indicted in June 2022 after authorities accused him of directing other defendants to create videos and write an article that insulted Duc Hoa District Police and the Vietnam Buddhist Sangha, according to the commission. The five-year sentence was issued the following month. Van has appealed his conviction and sentencing, and he’s been under house arrest since then. Authorities have continued to investigate the incest allegations. In October 2022, one of Van’s defense attorneys, Dang Dinh Manh, criticized the way that blood samples were taken from Van and his family members.  Samples should adhere to criminal procedural regulations and medical standards and the consent of the individuals or their legal guardians should be obtained, he said. Van’s lawyers have also criticized authorities for preventing them from meeting with Van and other accused church members. Last year, Dang Dinh Manh and two other defense attorneys for the church – Nguyen Van Mieng and Dao Kim Lan – sought political asylum in the United States after they received a police summons related to accusations of “abusing democratic freedoms” during their legal defense of Van and the church. Last week, the Ho Chi Minh Bar Association announced its decision to revoke the membership of Dang Dinh Manh and Nguyen Van Mieng for not paying fees.  Both lawyers told RFA last week that the decision could pave the way for authorities to take new action in their investigation of the members of Peng Lei Buddhist House Church.  RFA’s attempts to contact Long An Police at the provided phone number went unanswered on Friday.  Additionally, RFA was unable to reach anyone from the Peng Lei Buddhist House Church to verify Friday’s state media reports. Translated by Anna Vu. Edited by Matt Reed.

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Report: China is exporting digital control methods

Editor06 mins

China’s government has turned the country’s tech companies like Huawei and ZTE into its “proxies” and uses their dominant market share in developing countries around the Indo-Pacific region to export its authoritarian model of the internet, according to a new report. In countries such as Cambodia, Malaysia, Nepal and Thailand, the dominance of the Chinese companies in building digital infrastructure has meant Beijing’s controlled version of the internet is expanding, leading to a fragmentation with the West’s open web, it says. The report is titled The Digital Silk Road: China and the Rise of Digital Repression in the Indo-Pacific and was released Wednesday by Article 19, a London-based internet-freedom advocacy organization. The group says the cut-price internet infrastructure being offered by companies beholden to the Chinese Communist Party “has benefited” countries that otherwise would be stuck with outdated infrastructure.  But that assistance comes with a catch, it says. “China has packaged its model as the prevailing best practice, often masked as support for innovation centers, exchanges or broader digital diplomacy initiatives, especially on issues relating to cybersecurity,” the report says, adding that the result is further “digital repression.” “This is intended to tip the scales in global adoption to influence more states to employ Chinese norms, accelerating internet fragmentation.” Cambodia’s ‘Great Firewall’ The report points to Cambodia, where it says “China is present at virtually every layer of the digital ecosystem,” which it says has been marked by a “shift towards China-style digital authoritarianism.” Firms like Huawei and ZTE have played “a leading role” in laying out infrastructure, it says, to the point where Cambodian telecoms companies only offer the two companies’ internet routers.  Hip-hop artist Kea Sokun listens to one of his songs online at a cafe in Phnom Penh, Cambodia January 29, 2022. (Tang Chhin Sothy/AFP) Huawei is also Cambodia’s only authorized cloud service provider and is responsible for much of the country’s 5G network, it notes, as well as its terrestrial and submarine internet lines and data centers. But it says China’s influence extends beyond infrastructure. “Alongside infrastructure-level cooperation, the shadow influence of China’s internet governance model has loomed large over Cambodia’s embrace of digital authoritarianism,” the report says, terming China’s influence on internet norms a form of “digital diplomacy.” In some areas, that has improved network engineering, the report says, but it also includes provision of “the technical knowhow for Cambodia to better emulate China’s digital authoritarian model.” The report blames such digital diplomacy for Cambodia’s National Internet Gateway, a system akin to China’s “Great Firewall” that allows the government to monitor and control all internet traffic. Phnom Penh has not said who is building the system, “but experts in Cambodian civil society believe it is Huawei or ZTE,” the report says. China alternatives The report recommends Western governments seek to work further with Taiwan and its technology sector to develop the self-ruling island further as a “counterweight” to China’s digital influence. A technician stands at the entrance to a Huawei 5G data server center at the Guangdong Second Provincial General Hospital in Guangzhou, in southern China’s Guangdong province on Sept. 26, 2021. (Ng Han Guan/AP) Taiwanese companies could help export infrastructure more friendly to the open web, it says, and countries like the United States could provide “greater financial resources” to civil society groups in the affected countries to push back against digital authoritarianism.  But it warns against casting too wide of a net in searching for alternatives to Chinese-built infrastructure and internet norms. Specifically, “while greater regional cooperation is necessary,” it says, “uncritically embracing countries with their own records of digital dictatorship, such as Vietnam, will ultimately be counterproductive.” Edited by Malcolm Foster.

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Myanmar junta releases thousands of prisoners in New Year amnesty

Editor05 mins

Myanmar prisons nationwide released over 3,000 prisoners on Wednesday, according to junta-controlled media. Since the country’s 2021 coup, thousands of civilians have been arrested for donating to groups opposing the junta, protesting and speaking out against the military regime’s leaders.  According to the junta’s media statement, reduced sentences were given “for the peace of mind of the people” and “social leniency” during the Burmese New Year Commemoration. Prisoners were released under the condition that if they commit another crime, they will serve the remainder of their previous sentence as well as the sentence for their most recent crime, in accordance with the country’s Criminal Procedure Law, military-supported channels like MRTV continued.  Prisoners’ family members have been waiting in front of Yangon region’s infamous Insein Prison since early on Wednesday morning, residents said.  Family members waiting in front of Insein Prison in Yangon region on April 17, 2024. (RFA) The mother of a political prisoner waiting by Insein Prison on Wednesday said she hopes to see her son, who has been in prison for three years for defamation. “The people in the prison said that prisoners like my son with a prison term of less than three years would be released, while prisoners with a long sentence would get a reduced prison term,” she said, declining to be named for security reasons.  “That’s why I am waiting for my son. He was arrested and jailed when [junta forces] found revolutionary messages on his phone while checking the [ward’s] guest list that night,” she continued, referencing a housing registration system that has intensified since the junta took power. However, like previous amnesties, which have been criticized as a false show of humanity from the junta in the past, only a small number of political prisoners will likely be released, said Thaik Tun Oo, a member of Political Prisoner Network-Myanmar. “Even if there are political prisoners among the released, there will be a few well-known figures, a few political prisoners and there will be a lot of other people with criminal charges, just like the [junta] has done throughout the post-coup period,” he said “As far as we have found out, we have even heard that there are no political prisoners released in some prisons. I think they may have difficulty releasing political prisoners after the recent military defeats,” he said, referring to military victories since last October by the Three Brotherhood Alliance and the Karen National Liberation Army. In addition to the more than 3,303 prisoners, eight foreign prisoners who were jailed locally were released and deported, according to the military’s announcement. Prior to Wednesday’s amnesty, the junta administration also released 9,652 prisoners on Jan. 4, 2024 for Burmese Independence Day, but few political prisoners were among them, according to advocates for those jailed under the military regime.  According to the statements released by the junta, only 15 pardons were granted and a total of 95,000 prisoners have been released in more than three years since the coup.  Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn.  

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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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Water festival attacks kill 3 during Myanmar coup leader’s holiday

Editor04 mins

Missile attacks on two universities in a holiday town in Myanmar killed three and injured eight, residents told Radio Free Asia on Monday.  During coup leader Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing’s Thingyn – or water festival – visit to Mandalay division’s Pyinoolwin city on Sunday, an unknown group fired more than 15 missiles at two military universities. The blasts, which hit the Defense Services Academy and Defense Services Technology Academy, also damaged a department of a nearby hospital and Aung Myay Zaya monastery.  The missiles injured five civilians when they landed on Pyinoolwin Hospital’s orthopedics department, said one Pyinoolwin resident, declining to be named for security reasons.  “The two monks who died were people who wore robes during the Thingyn period. They died when the explosion happened near them,” he said, describing civilians who temporarily become monks to observe Myanmar’s new year water festival. “The last man who died on the spot was in Ward No. 8. Another three people were injured in this neighborhood alone.” Following the attack, tourists who came for the holiday and some permanent residents fled the city, he added.  From 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Sunday evening, about 40 shots and explosions could be heard, said one Pyinoolwin resident who was near the site of the attack.  “After the sound of the missiles, Defense Services Academy and Defense Services Technology Academy troops cut the power. The military and social aid vehicles were busy,” he said, declining to be named for fear of reprisals. “I knew they fell in the area of the Defense Services Academy.” Staff at Pyinoolwin Hospital are preparing to move patients to Mandalay Hospital, while junta soldiers are conducting security checks around the city, residents said.  No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks yet, but residents told RFA that they were likely carried out from a hill behind the university campuses.  The junta has not issued any statements about the attacks. RFA called Mandalay division’s junta spokesperson Thein Htay for more information on the attacks, but he did not respond.   Residents told RFA they believe the attack was carried out because of Min Aung Hlaing’s visit. On Sunday, a bomb exploded near a pavilion in Mandalay city, injuring 12 people.  Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by Mike Firn.

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Biden: US will defend Philippines if vessels are attacked

Editor010 mins

U.S. President Joe Biden said Thursday that American military support for the Philippines was “ironclad,” and any attacks against its vessels in the South China Sea would invoke a 1951 treaty that compels each country to come to the other’s aid in the event of a conflict. The comments came ahead of an unprecedented summit between Biden and his Japanese and Philippine counterparts at the White House. A senior U.S. official said the talks were arranged because of the recent flare-up in tensions between Beijing and Manila in the South China Sea. “I want to be clear, the United States’ defense commitments to Japan and to the Philippines are ironclad,” Biden said at the opening of the meeting. “Any attack on Philippine aircraft, vessels or armed forces in the South China Sea would invoke our mutual defense treaty.” The U.S. has a mutual defense treaty with the Philippines and a military alliance with Japan, both of which were inked in 1951. Chinese coast guard vessels fire water cannons towards a Philippine resupply vessel, the Unaizah, on its way to a resupply mission at Second Thomas Shoal (Ayungin Shoal) in the South China Sea, March 5, 2024. (Adrian Portugal/Reuters) Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said that increased trilateral cooperation between the Pacific nations was borne from their shared democratic values and evidenced by joint military drills in the South China Sea last weekend. “It is a partnership born not out of convenience nor of expediency,” Marcos said, “but as a natural progression of a deepening cooperation amongst our three countries, linked by a profound respect for democracy, good governance and the rule of law.” Water cannon attacks Chinese coast guard vessels have in recent weeks fired water cannons at Philippine boats attempting to supply a deliberately sunken warship that serves as a Philippine naval outpost at the Second Thomas Shoal (Ayungin Shoal), with Beijing also warning Manila against trying to access it. The shoal lies in South China Sea waters within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone, where Manila holds sovereign rights. But Beijing claims most of the sea as its historic territory and says Manila must ask permission from Chinese authorities to access the area. People protest against the Marcos administration’s 2023 decision to grant the United States greater access to military bases in the Philippines, as they demonstrate in a park near the White House in Washington, where the leaders of the U.S., Philippines, and Japan were holding a summit, April 11, 2024. (BenarNews) Earlier on Thursday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning accused Manila of “violating China’s sovereignty” for decades due to the half-sunken BRP Sierra Madre, which was grounded at the shoal in 1999 to maintain Manila’s sovereignty but now needs repairs. Speaking at a daily press briefing, Mao said Chinese authorities were “willing to allow” Philippine vessels to freely access the increasingly dilapidated outpost – but only to “tow” it away, and not repair it.  She said Manila needed to inform Beijing of any such plans before accessing the area, and then “China will monitor the whole process.” “If the Philippines sends a large amount of construction materials to the warship and attempts to build fixed facilities and a permanent outpost, China will not accept it and will resolutely stop it in accordance with law and regulations to uphold China’s sovereignty,” Mao said. She added that China’s recent “activities” in the South China Sea, such as the water-cannoning of Philippine vessels, “are in full compliance with international law” and “there’s nothing wrong about them.” ‘Crystal clear’ A senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity prior to the summit, told reporters that Biden had been “crystal clear” about American military support for Manila, and said the flare-ups with China in the South China Sea were an impetus for Thursday’s summit. USS Mobile, JS Akebono, HMAS Warramunga, BRP Antonio Luna and BRP Valentine Diaz sail in formation during a multilateral maritime cooperative exercise between Australia, the United States, Japan and the Philippines within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone in the South China Sea, April 7, 2024. (POIS Leo Baumgartner/Royal Australian Navy) “It is one of the reasons for the meeting because we are very concerned about what we’ve been seeing,” the official said. “He has repeated many times that the U.S.-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty applies to the South China Sea, including Philippine vessels that may be underway there, including its coast guard vessels,” the official said. Another U.S. official added that Philippine and Japanese coast guard officers would be welcomed aboard U.S. Coast Guard ships during a maritime exercise later this year “to further train and synchronize our work together” in case of a future attack that sparks a conflict. Philippine activists protesting outside the U.S. Embassy in Manila on April 11, 2024, warned that a Washington summit between the leaders of the Philippines, United States and Japan could provoke an angry response from China over the South China Sea and threaten regional stability. (Gerard Carreon/BenarNews) The two officials also said the United States would help fund a major infrastructure project in the Philippines known as the Luzon corridor, as part of the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment, which is the U.S. answer to China’s high-spending Belt and Road Initiative.  The Luzon corridor, they said, would help connect Subic Bay, Clark, Manila and Batangas in the Philippines, with investments in infrastructure “including ports, rail, clean energy, semiconductor supply chains and other forms of connectivity in the Philippines.” “We stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Marcos,” one of the officials said, “ready to support and work with the Philippines at every turn.” U.S. President Joe Biden hosts Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Japan Prime Minister Fumio Kishida for a summit of the three nations’ leaders at the White House, in Washington, April 11, 2024. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters) In his final remarks before talks opened behind closed-doors Thursday, Biden said the newfound cooperation between the United States, Japan and the Philippines would be a boon…

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In China, drones, social media monitor foreign journalists: report

Editor09 mins

Chinese authorities use drones to monitor and follow foreign journalists as they report from the country, as well as detaining, harassing and threatening them with non-renewal of their work permits if they report on topics deemed sensitive by the government, according to a new report on journalists’ working conditions. Four out of five members who responded to the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China annual working conditions survey said they had experienced “interference, harassment or violence” while trying to do their jobs in China during the past year, the FCCC report found. Local governments are increasingly using technology to keep track of foreign media workers, the report found. “During a trip to Poyang Lake, where we were reporting on the status of the Yangtze River dolphin, we were followed by multiple cars with plainclothes individuals inside,” the report quoted a journalist with a European media organization as saying.  “At one point, the plainclothes individuals appeared to use a drone when a blocked sandy road prevented them from getting closer by car,” they said. A cameraman from Hong Kong Cable TV is restrained from photographing the crowd waiting to buy tickets for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, July 25, 2008, in Beijing, China. (Robert F. Bukaty/AP) Another European journalist reported similar high-tech surveillance when on a reporting trip to two provinces affected by extreme weather events linked to climate change. “We were followed by multiple carloads of plain clothes officers,” the report quoted them as saying. “Drones were sent out to follow and observe us when we got out of our vehicle to film/collect interviews. When we moved on foot to a spot, the drones would follow us.” Respondents also told the FCCC they had reason to believe the authorities had “possibly or definitely” compromised their WeChat (81%), their phone (72%), and/or placed audio recording bugs in their office or homes, the report found. ‘Endless cat-and-mouse game’ Another journalist with a European newspaper described reporting in China as “an endless cat-and-mouse game.” “Whatever strategy you try, the Chinese surveillance and security system adapts and closes the gap,” the report quoted them as saying. “Whatever strategies you use, the space for reporting keeps getting smaller and smaller.” A foreign reporter of many years’ experience in China who gave only the surname Lok for fear of reprisals told RFA Cantonese that she expects her communications apps to be monitored at all times. “I was talking about an issue with a friend here [in mainland China] … and may have mentioned it on WeChat,” Lok said. “Later, he was called in by the police to ‘drink tea’” – a euphemism for being called in for questioning. Journalists crowd a National People’s Congress press conference a day before the opening of the annual session of China’s parliament, in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People on March 4, 2019. (Greg Baker/AFP) “It turned out that the problem wasn’t him, but the conversation he had with me,” she said. “We have to be careful, because a lot of trouble has come from talking to people on WeChat.” A second Hong Kong journalist who gave only the surname Wong for fear of reprisals said it used to be easier for journalists to evade official surveillance than it is now. “The Chinese government’s digital surveillance methods are comprehensive,” Wong said. “You could describe them as a dragnet, in which every move the target makes is visible to them.” Online surveillance Huang Chao-nien, an assistant professor at the National Development Institute of Taiwan’s National Chengchi University, agreed, adding that the government has used online surveillance to target journalists for years. The government has long used an internet development model that intervenes in the market to control tech companies … forcing them to cooperate with the government in carrying out political surveillance and controls on public speech, he said. More than half of the journalists who took part in the FCCC annual survey said they had been “obstructed” at least once by police or other officials, while 45% encountered obstruction by unidentified persons, the report said. Some had been warned not to join the club as it was deemed an “illegal organization,” while others were threatened with non-renewal of their visas and work permits if they didn’t toe the line, the report said. Areas deemed particularly sensitive by Chinese officials were even harder to work in, it said, adding that 85% of journalists who tried to report from the far western region of Xinjiang in 2023 experienced problems.  “In Xinjiang we were followed the entire time,” the report quoted a European journalist as saying. “It was particularly unpleasant in Hotan, where we counted about half a dozen plainclothes following us by car or on foot.” “In Korla, we at some point had six cars following us. When we did a U-turn and then a detour over an abandoned construction site and dust road, they all faithfully followed us,” the journalist said. Chinese policemen manhandle a photographer, center, as he photographs a news event near the No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court, in Beijing Sunday, Jan. 26, 2014. (Andy Wong/AP) And the definition of “sensitive” areas appears to be expanding. “An increasing number of journalists encountered issues in regions bordering Russia (79%), Southeast Asian nations (43%) or in ethnically diverse regions like Inner Mongolia (68%),” the report said. More than 80% said potential sources and interviewees had declined to be interviewed because they didn’t have prior permission from their superiors to speak to foreign media. Fear of reprisals is even being felt among experts, pundits and commentators, the report said. “Academic sources, think tank employees and analysts either decline interviews, request anonymity, or don’t respond at all,” it quoted respondents as saying. Translated with additional reporting 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