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Category: South Asia

Tibetan convention calls on governments to help resolve Tibet issue with China

Editor07 mins

Participants at an international meeting on Tibet called on governments to do more to advance the rights of Tibetans who face repression at the hands of the Chinese government. More than 100 participants from 26 countries attended the 8th World Parliamentarians’ Convention on Tibet on June 22-23 in Washington, D.C., to discuss the resumption of the Sino-Tibet dialogue and other key objectives. The meeting was organized by the Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile based in Dharamsala, India, which sent 10 representatives to the meeting. Attendees agreed to collaborate more fully on matters related to Tibet. They also declared that the International Network of Parliamentarians on Tibet would be revived and to work to establish groups of lawmakers focused on Tibetan issues in countries where they do not yet exist.  “Substantively what the parliamentarians are willing to do now is a step up from the past,” said Michael van Walt van Praag, the executive president of Kreddha, a nonprofit organization dedicated to resolving intrastate conflicts and promoting peace. “[T]his is bringing home very clearly how important it is to defend the values of freedom, self-determination but also to uphold international law and to stop large countries from invading their small neighbors,” he said. The Central Tibetan Administration, the formal name of the Tibetan government-in-exile, and the Dalai Lama have adopted an approach called the Middle Way, which accepts Tibet’s present status as a part of China but urges greater cultural and religious freedom, including strengthened language rights, for Tibetans living under Beijing’s rule. “Despite having a thousand years of history of being an independent country, we are sincere and committed to the Middle Way policy to resolve the conflict between Tibet and China through a mutually beneficial way,” Khenpo Sonam Tenphel, speaker of the 17th Tibetan Parliament in Exile, said in introductory remarks. The participants also called on parliaments to take coordinated actions to reach a resolution to the Sino-Tibetan conflict through talks and negotiations between the parties, without preconditions. “Tibetans can find a resolution in discussions with China somewhere in the middle between Tibet’s independence and integration with the PRC (People’s Republic of China),” said van Walt. ‘Dangerous assault’ on human rights The participants said China should allow Tibetan Buddhists to appoint the next Dalai Lama and other senior Lamas, which Chinese authorities have said would be a violation of religious freedom. The question of who will replace the current 86-year-old Tibetan spiritual leader, the 14th Dalai Lama, has become more pressing. Senior Buddhist monks have traditionally identified successors based on spiritual signs and visions, but the Chinese government in 2011 declared that only Beijing can appoint his successor. “Politically we are not seeking independence for Tibet,” said the Dalai Lama in a video message to the delegates. “I have made this clear over the years. What most concerns us is the importance of preserving and safeguarding our culture and language.” In their declaration, the participants also asked governments to prohibit corporations from benefiting from forced labor and the exploitation of the natural environment of the Tibetan plateau. U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat who spoke at the meeting, said that China has “waged a dangerous assault on human rights in Tibet” for decades. “The Chinese government has clearly shown that it has no regard for Tibetan autonomy or identity or faith,” she said. “This aggression has not only accelerated in recent years, with new actions to impose mandatory political education, cruelly restrict religious freedom, expand its mass surveillance regime and further close off Tibet to global visitors.” Pelosi also said that U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern, chairman of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC), would introduce bipartisan legislation to update the Tibet China Conflict Act, which would clearly state the history of Tibet and encourage a peaceful resolution to the ultimate status of Tibet. During the CECC hearing on Tibet on June 23, McGovern said that the U.S. and the world community were not doing enough to help resolve the Tibet issue. “Tibet’s true representatives are His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government-in-exile as recognized by the Tibetan people, so any solution and way forward has to be what Tibetans want and cannot be imposed by anyone who is not part of Tibetan community,” he said. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

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Vietnam Communist Party head says officials in bribery scandal apologized

Editor06 mins

Nguyen Phu Trong, general secretary of the Vietnam Communist Party, has said that two senior officials caught in a recent bribery scandal apologized to him for their actions but still needed to be punished as a warning to others, state media reported. Trong, who is also a member of the National Assembly for Hanoi, made the comment in a meeting in the capital Hanoi on Thursday, the reports said. But online critics of the government expressed continued frustration with Vietnam’s leadership for not doing more to root out graft in the government and mismanaging the country’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Trong, 78, has been general secretary of the Vietnam Communist Party (VCP) — the highest position in Vietnam — since 2011, and served as the country’s president from 2018 to 2021. As head of the Politburo, Vietnam’s highest decision-making body, he is the most powerful leader in the country. On June 6, the VCP announced it had expelled Hanoi Mayor Chu Ngoc Anh and Health Minister Nguyen Thanh Long from the party following accusations that they were involved in a U.S. $172 million scandal. They were paid by Viet A Technologies Company to provide overpriced coronavirus test kits to hospitals. It is not unusual for senior government officials to apologize to the head of the VCP when they face high-profile corruption charges. Oil executive Trinh Xuan Thanh, who was convicted of embezzling assets from units of Vietnam’s state-owned oil company, and Nguyen Bac Son, a former minister of information and communications imprisoned for accepting a U.S. $3 million bribe, both expressed remorse for their actions. Musician Tuan Khanh from Ho Chi Minh City told RFA that the Trong’s response to the Viet A Technologies scandal has been insufficient. “He merely performed a simple act of expressing anguish and regret when the party members and those in top positions were penalized and dismissed from the party,” he said. “That shows Trong is a figure of the party circle with no vision to lead the nation forward but to nowhere.” Hanoi resident Nguyen Son noted that party leaders never apologize to Vietnamese citizens after they are convicted of wrongdoing. “The fact that so far the governing party has disrespected the common people is not new,” he told RFA. “They are afraid that if they apologize or take responsibility for the wrongdoing, it would mean that their power has been diminished. “They never publicly apologize to the people in the media,” he said. “Such a government cannot be said to be of the people, by the people and for the people. It is a government that grasps all power in its hands, so whether they apology or not, nothing can be done about it.” Lawyer and democracy activist Nguyen Van Dai was even more critical of Trong, who he said should accept more responsibility for the actions of officials in his government. “I cannot imagine why as a human he can lose all sense of decency,” he said. “The fact that he thinks all wrongdoing by the officials under him does not at all relate to him is unacceptable.” Dai said their remains a disconnect between the government and the people because under the one-party communist system leaders do not need to face the voters in open elections. Vietnam ranked in 87th place out of 180 countries on Transparency International’s 2021 Corruption Perception Index, with a higher ranking corresponding to a widespread perception of corruption in the public sector. Translated by RFA Vietnamese. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

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Arrests in Rakhine raise fears of renewed conflict between military, Arakan Army

Editor011 mins

Residents in western Myanmar’s Rakhine state are increasingly on edge, worried that fighting between the military and the Arakan Army (AA) will soon erupt once again as arrests of personnel from both sides escalate. The national military fought an increasingly bitter war with the AA, which says it is fighting for autonomy for ethnic minority Rakhine people, from December 2018 until a truce was reached in November 2020, months before the army seized power in a February 2021 coup. The coastal state was awash with refugees from that fighting, but stayed relatively quiet for many months while anti-coup protests and fighting by local militias raged across much of Myanmar but tensions started rising in recent months. The military this week detained people who it suspected of having links with the AA in the state capital Sittwe, and Mrauk-U, Ponnagyun and Kyauktaw townships, in response to the AA’s recent arrests of junta soldiers. Since Thursday, the military has been blocking the city gates of Sittwe, after the AA arrested a naval lieutenant and a sailor there. It also shut down waterways from Sittwe to various towns in the state, which borders the Bay of Bengal and Bangladesh.  Police and soldiers are checking hotels, guest houses and residences all over Sittwe looking for suspected AA members. Residents told RFA that at least seven civilians were arrested on Thursday evening. Three civilians, including 46-year-old Oo San Maung, were arrested by 30 soldiers in the Mingan Block 9 area of the city, his son Myo Kyaw Hlaing told RFA’s Burmese Service. “They came to search our house. My father went out to the front of the house and said no one was there,” said Myo Kyaw Hlaing. “They just arrested him without saying a word. Not only my father, two other youths in our ward were arrested.  We have no contact with those arrested yet.” Residents told RFA that three minors and Soe Thiha, a visitor from Taunggup, were arrested in Sittwe on Friday Morning. There have been reports of more civilian arrests but RFA has not been able to confirm this independently. At about 9 p.m. Thursday night, soldiers fired shots at a group of people as they returned to a guest house in the same part of Sittwe, a person in the group told RFA on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “One of my friends and I were going back to our guesthouse on a motorbike. Three other guys were on another. The soldiers blocked our path and shouted at us to stop. When we didn’t stop, they fired four or five shots at us,” he said. “The guys on the other motorbike left it and ran away. I was lucky I didn’t lose mine,” said the man, who said he was not hurt in the gunfire. The military arrested more than 20 civilians in Mrauk-U township on Wednesday after the AA arrested three military personnel on Tuesday. “Aa far as we know, some of the civilians they arrested were released that day,” a resident of Mrauk-U told RFA. “We heard that six people were released, and I think there are still more than 10 people detained,” the resident said on condition of anonymity for safety reasons. The AA arrested a soldier and three policemen in Ponnagyun and Kyauktaw townships between June 16 and 22. In response the army arrested 30 civilians, according to local reports. Among the civilians, sources told RFA that four women were said to have been released, but the rest were still in detention. Other reports said that the AA has arrested more than a dozen members of the police and military in Mrauk-U and Kyauktaw townships, and the military has detained at least 50 civilians over the past few days in retaliation. RFA tried to contact the junta’s spokesman, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, by telephone for comment, but he did not respond. Zaw Min Tun, however, warned the AA at a press conference on May 19 that it would be responsible for the consequences of detaining soldiers. “What we are doing at the moment, the reason we are detaining the Rakhine people, is for their own good. We do not want them to get into trouble,” he told reporters. “I would like to repeat that we are detaining the Rakhine people so that they will not get into trouble. We are patiently working for peace within the union. If anything happens regarding this, don’t blame the military for the consequences,” Zaw Min Tun said. The AA’s spokesman, Khine Thukha, told a news conference on June 14 that AA members were only retaliating against the military for its abuses. “The reason for the arrests is that the Myanmar army raided houses of our ULA/AA members at night time,” he said. The ULA refers to the United League of Arakan, which is the political wing of the Arakan Army. “Some of our troops were detained by the military during last month and this month. That’s why we have arrested their troops. If they keep on doing that, we will retaliate,” he said. He said if the military releases the AA members, the AA would release the soldiers they arrested, but he would not disclose how many each side had arrested. Pe Than, a former member of the state parliament, said the situation in Rakhine was volatile. “It depends a lot on how many more people are going to be arrested in future and how much trouble there will be,” said Pe Than. “If both sides keep on doing this, the number of detainees, which is just a few at present, will become a lot. The arrests might be in groups instead of one or two. And then, as the situation worsens, there could be some clashes that could blow up into renewed fighting,” he said. Pe Than said the military and the AA should negotiate a peaceful resolution before the violence escalates. But tensions between the junta and the AA have been high since early May, with locals and Rakhine politicians concerned…

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China steps up anti-NATO rhetoric ahead of Madrid summit, citing ‘Cold War’ ethos

Editor09 mins

China is stepping up anti-NATO rhetoric ahead of the military alliance’s summit next week, calling it a “product of the Cold War” dominated by the United States, while an envoy of leader Xi Jinping is hoping to convince European leaders the country doesn’t back the Russian invasion of Ukraine, analysts said. “NATO is a product of the Cold War and the world’s biggest military alliance dominated by the U.S.,” foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told journalists in Beijing on June 23, three days ahead of the summit in Madrid. “It is a tool for the US to maintain its hegemony and influence Europe’s security landscape [which] is clearly against the trend of our times,” he said in comments reported in the English edition of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) newspaper, the People’s Daily. Wang cast doubt on NATO’s core purpose as a defensive organization, saying it had “willfully waged wars against sovereign countries that left a large number of civilians dead and tens of millions displaced.” “NATO has already disrupted stability in Europe. It should not try to do the same to the Asia-Pacific and the whole world,” Wang said. Wang’s comments came after Zhang Heqing, cultural counselor at the Chinese embassy in Pakistan, commented on a video of tens of thousands of people demonstrating in Brussels against the cost-of-living crisis on June 20, claiming it was a protest against NATO. “Tens of thousands of protesters marched in #Brussels chanting “Stop #NATO” on June 20, expressing anger at the rising living costs & condemning NATO countries’ rush to arm #Ukraine,” Zhang wrote, quote-tweeting the nationalistic Global Times newspaper. ‘Political warfare’ and ‘disinformation’ Teresa Fallon, director of Belgium’s Center for Russian, Europe and Asian Studies, said the march had had nothing to do with NATO. “The protests had nothing at all to do with NATO, but Beijing is using this form of political warfare or disinformation in the run-up to the NATO summit which takes place next week,” Fallon told RFA. “This type of clunky propaganda nevertheless may be believed by some people,” she said, adding that China shares its view of NATO with its ally Russia. The stepped-up rhetoric appears somewhat at odds with apparent attempts by the CCP under Xi Jinping to mollify European leaders, sending special envoy Wu Hongbo to meet with key figures ahead of the NATO summit. “Dispatching his special envoy to Europe for a three-week charm tour was just one of many acts of high-stakes damage control ahead of the 20th CCP Congress this autumn,” Atlantic Council president Frederick Kempe wrote in a commentary for CNBC ahead of the summit. “Xi’s economy is dangerously slowing, financing for his Belt and Road Initiative has tanked, his zero-Covid policy is flailing, and his continued support of Russian President Vladimir Putin hangs like a cloud over his claim of being the world’s premier national-sovereignty champion as Russia’s war on Ukraine grinds on,” Kempe wrote. “Xi’s taking no chances ahead of one of his party’s most important gatherings, a meeting designed to assure his continued rule and his place in history,” the article said, citing recent meetings between Wu and European business leaders as evidence of a more conciliatory approach by Xi. Fallon agreed. “I would say that there is a disillusionment across the board with China,” she said. “Beijing is attempting a diplomatic dance where they try to convince Europeans that they really aren’t supporting Russia.” “In reality, they are talking out of both sides of their mouth, trying to tell the Europeans one thing, while at the same time supporting Russia,” she said, adding that Beijing is the biggest customer for Russian energy, and those sales contribute to Russian president Vladimir Putin’s war coffers. Problems at home Craig Singleton, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington, said Beijing’s current foreign policy is largely driven by pressing problems at home. “Global public opinion of China sits at record lows and Chinese leader Xi Jinping refuses to leave the country to meet with other world leaders,” Singleton told RFA. “Making matters worse is that China’s economy, long in decline, is really now in freefall on account of Xi’s financial mismanagement.” “This most recent outreach to EU capitals is reflective of growing recognition in Beijing that its wolf-warrior tactics have undermined China’s economic position with Europe, one of China’s most important trading partners, and that China needs the European market and European consumers to help get itself out of its current economic mess,” he said. While Germany’s current government had sent a number of “mixed signals” about its views on China since taking office, Berlin would likely ultimately rethink its relationship with Beijing, as it has already done with Moscow since the invasion of Ukraine, Singleton said. “China’s attempts to reset its relationship will be seen in Europe as insincere and likely leading to a continued erosion of the relationship,” he added. “Making matters worse is that European frustrations with China’s equivocations on Russia and Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, [so] anger is growing against China from lots of European capitals, and there is no indication that China is rethinking its support for Russia’s invasion,” he said. Singleton said the growing willingness of European countries to enhance trade and investment ties with democratic Taiwan in recent months “will almost certainly irritate Beijing,” and lead it to lash out in ways that were inimical to its own foreign policy goals in Europe. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

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Former journalists for Hong Kong’s folded Apple Daily take reporting to social media

Editor09 mins

One year after the paper was forced to shut down and several senior editors arrested by national security police, former reporters at Hong Kong’s pro-democracy Apple Daily newspaper are still writing the stories the paper might have run, and posting them to social media. Journalist Alvin Chan, who uses the hashtags #AppleDaily and #keeponreporting on his Facebook page, posted a report showing a small group of people gathered outside the now-empty headquarters of Jimmy Lai’s Next Digital media empire late on Thursday night. “A group of former Apple Daily reporters happened to show up at the same time outside the … empty Next Digital building tonight … and took photos,” Chan wrote. “Then, suddenly, several police vehicles arrived at the scene, sirens blaring, so they left, leaving other journalists there still reporting.” Chan isn’t the only former Apple Daily staffer reporting on news that would be considered in breach of a draconian national security law imposed on the city by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from July 1, 2020. Former colleague Leung Ka Lai has started a Patreon page, and continues to post reports to her Facebook page, including interviews with leaders of the 2019 protest movement that prompted Beijing to tighten its grip on the former British colony. “I’m not reconciled to this, no,” Leung told RFA. “How can they just use such violent methods to eliminate a media organization?” “The Apple Daily shouldn’t be allowed to just disappear like this,” she said. “I figured there had to be some work I can keep on doing.” Employees, executive editor in chief Lam Man-Chung (L) and deputy chief editor Chan Pui-Man (C) cheer each other in the Apple Daily newspaper office after completing editing of the final edition in Hong Kong, June 23, 2021. Credit: AFP ‘The spirit of those times’ Leung has published around 40 reports on her page since the paper closed, most of them about the aftermath of the 2019 protest movement, many of them based on interviews with arrestees and protest leaders. “They say the protesters are a forgotten group, but their experiences are actually representative of the spirit of those times,” Leung said. “My specialty is doing in-depth profiles … I think it’s very important to write down what happened to them, and preserve their thoughts and experiences.” “It feels more like a record, like the role of a storyteller, writing down their stories,” she said. Leung said she is trying to put into practice the ethos of the protest movement, summarized as a quote from late martial arts legend Bruce Lee, “be water.” “To be a human being, you need principles, and lines beyond which you won’t go,” Leung said. “If the biggest lesson Hong Kong people took from 2019 was to be water, then this needs to be integrated into everyday life, not just be a slogan.” Chan has dedicated his page to reporting on the progress of thousands of cases from the 2019 protest movement through the Hong Kong judicial system. “I like being a reporter, so I think that by reporting on cases from the public gallery, I can offer something like a glimmer of light that lets each other know we exist,” Chan said. “I don’t know if you can call it a sense of mission; it’s more the method I have chosen to use,” he said. Sensitive topics bring personal risk Chan, who remains in Hong Kong, said he still needs to consider his personal risk under the national security law. “I need to think about the dangers and risks behind some reports, and won’t touch any of the more controversial or sensitive topics,” he said. “I hesitate and struggle over whether to report certain Hong Kong-related events in foreign countries,” he said. “It’s a tough, rugged and difficult road to travel, that of an independent journalist.” “It means more risks at a time when there is little room for 100 flowers to bloom,” Chan said, in a reference to the criminalization of public dissent under the national security law. “But it makes what we are doing as reporters more meaningful,” he said. “Journalists write the history of a particular time, so I want to preserve the truth for the next generation, including my own.” According to a June 22 report from the Human Rights Measurement Initiative (HRMI), Hong Kong’s rating under three measures of civil and political rights has plummeted since the survey began in 2019. Hong Kong’s score for the “right to assembly and association” fell from 4.5 in 2019 to 3.1 in 2020, and then to 2.5 in 2021. The city’s rating for the “right to hold and express opinions” and “right to participate in politics” fell by 2.7 and 2.4 respectively in 2021, putting all three indicators in the “very poor” category. The draconian national security law imposed by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on Hong Kong from July 1, 2020 has sparked a crackdown on pro-democracy media organizations. After Lai’s Next Digital media empire was forced to close, the crackdown has also led to the closure of Stand News and Citizen News, as well as the “rectification” of iCable news and government broadcaster RTHK to bring them closer to Beijing’s official line. Hong Kong recently plummeted from 80th to 148th in the 2022 Reporters Without Border (RSF) press freedom index, with the closures of Apple Daily and Stand News cited as one of the main factors. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

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Cambodia’s Hun Sen changes birth year to align with the lucky Year of the Dragon

Editor06 mins

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen is now a year younger after he changed his official birthdate to Aug. 5, 1952, instead of April 4, 1951, a switch critics attributed to his overly superstitious nature. Hun Sen’s lawyer filed a petition with the Phnom Penh court earlier this month which stated that Hun Sen had been using the wrong date of birth, a mistake owing to the fact that Cambodia was mired in a war when he officially registered it with authorities. According to the Cambodia New Vision (CNV) website, which calls itself the official newsletter of the country’s Cabinet, Hun Sen had used the April 4, 1951, date from April 4, 1977, until June 20, 2022.  The year he officially registered was a tumultuous one for Cambodia and for Hun Sen, who had been a member of the ruling Khmer Rouge. The future prime minister fled with supporters to Vietnam in 1977 to escape a brutal political purge. He returned as one of the leaders of the Vietnamese-sponsored rebel army in 1979, becoming the country’s leader in 1985. Those who are skeptical of this version of events point to the fact that the change moves his birth from the Year of the Rabbit to the Year of the Dragon, considered auspicious by those who adhere to the Chinese zodiac. Exiled political analyst Kim Sok told RFA that Hun Sen should concern himself with bigger issues. “He is supposed to serve the interests of the people and protect the country’s territorial integrity and national honor, but he prioritizes the interests of himself and his family. It hinders the national interest,” Kim Sok said. Man Nath, the chairman of the Norway-based Cambodian Monitoring Council, said in a Facebook post that the change shows Hun Sen’s excessively superstitious nature. “His belief in superstition dominates his leadership. If he is a good leader, even in death he will become a ghost and still be worshiped for decades,” Man Nath said. Phnom Penh Municipal Court President Taing Sunlay issued a decree on June 20 adjusting the date of birth as sought by Hun Sen. Judge Taing Sunlay ordered the registrar and the authorities to change the civil status data in accordance with the prime minister’s request. Sok Eysan, spokesperson for Hun Sen’s ruling Cambodian People’s Party, told RFA it was right for Hun Sen to correct his birthdate, but he declined to comment on whether it related to superstition. “It is the responsibility of the prime minister himself to make [that decision], and there is no loss of anything to the people. The people of the country do not say anything [about it],” he said. Local media reported in early May that Hun Sen had announced the change days after the death of his older brother Hun Neng. India-based Wion News reported on May 19 that Hun Sen suspected the birthdate he had been using may have led to his brother’s death because it conflicted with the Chinese zodiac. The report also said that it is common for Cambodians older than 50 to have multiple birthdays. Official records were often lost or destroyed during the rule of the Khmer Rouge from 1975 to 1979, creating confusion about family histories. Others may have altered their birthdates to avoid military service in the 1980s when fighting continued between the government and Khmer Rouge remnants. Hun Sen’s Aug. 5, 1952, birthdate has been known publicly for at least the past 15 years. A reference to that date appeared in 2007 on Wikipedia, which cited a report by the Cambodia Daily news outlet. Subsequent edits over the next few years acknowledged one date or the other, and sometimes both. Translated by Sok Ry Sum. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

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UN expert: Member-states should engage with NUG to find Myanmar crisis solution

Editor08 mins

Other United Nations member-states should follow Malaysia’s lead and engage with Myanmar’s parallel civilian National Unity Government in efforts to help resolve the post-coup crisis in that country, a U.N. expert said Thursday. Additionally, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations needs a new approach in dealing with the Burmese junta to ensure it puts Myanmar back on the democratic path like it agreed to more than a year ago, said U.N. Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Tom Andrews, at a press conference at the end of an eight-day visit to Malaysia. “The five-point consensus is meaningless if it sits on a piece of paper,” he said, referring to an agreement struck between ASEAN member states, including Myanmar, on how the junta should move towards restoring democracy.  “Its only chance to make a difference is to put it into a meaningful action with a strategy, with an action plan, with a time frame, precisely as the [Malaysian] foreign minister has called for,” Andrews said, referring to Saifuddin Abdullah. Malaysia, which has strongly criticized the Feb. 1, 2021 coup, has also been consistently calling for stronger action from the regional bloc to make the Burmese junta accountable to the consensus it had agreed to in April 2021, but then ignored. “ASEAN must go back to the drawing board and implement a more detailed roadmap to achieving the five-point consensus within an appropriate timeframe,” Saifuddin said at a Shangri-La Dialogue panel in Singapore earlier this month. The five-point agreement reached between ASEAN leaders and Burmese military chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing on April 24 last year included an end to violence, the provision of humanitarian assistance, an ASEAN envoy’s appointment, all-party dialogue, and mediation by the envoy. ASEAN has not succeeded in implementing any of these points, and most analysts have said the regional bloc, which famously operates by consensus, is to blame for this. Not every country in the 10-member ASEAN is in favor of piling the pressure on its fellow member, which means the bloc cannot be very effective. ‘What Malaysia did is significant’ Last October, Malaysia’s outspoken foreign minister had said Kuala Lumpur would open talks with the NUG if the Burmese junta kept stonewalling in cooperating with ASEAN’s conflict resolution efforts. In February, he met his NUG counterpart Zin Mar Aung via video conference, following that up with an in-person meeting in Washington on May 16 after the United States-ASEAN Special Summit. During an interview in May with BenarNews, Saifuddin had said that many in ASEAN were frustrated that the Myanmar military was ignoring the five-point consensus. “I think we need to be more creative and that is why, for example, we [need to] start naming the stakeholders …the NUG, … all of them,” Saifuddin told BenarNews. The U.N.’s Andrews said he believed talking with the NUG was a correct move by an ASEAN member-state such as Malaysia – one that other nations should follow. “Let’s be clear who is legitimate here and who is not legitimate,” he said. “The National Unity Government is made up of people who were elected by the people, and also people who represent ethnic communities that are critically important to the fabric and the future of Myanmar. I highly recommend – and I am glad the [Malaysian] foreign minister here has engaged with the NUG and I [am] recommending – that all countries in the United Nations…do the same.” ASEAN’s engagement with the NUG will be a good initiative, said analyst Md. Mahbubul Haque of University Sultan Zainal Abidin. “If anyone really supports the struggle for democracy and the overall human rights situation in Myanmar, it is very necessary to engage with the NUG. Currently the NUG is representing major political forces including various ethnic minorities,” he told BenarNews. “What Malaysia did is significant because it came from an ASEAN member-state. But right now, we cannot expect that all members will follow the Malaysian stand, because of [their own] geopolitical interests.” Another analyst, Aizat Khairi of Kuala Lumpur University, said that ASEAN’s engagement with the NUG would give the Burmese junta the required push it needs. “The junta will not be happy but it will provide the pressure needed to make them be more open and ready to go to the next level of negotiation with other parties in Myanmar,” he told BenarNews. The U.N. expert said in a statement issued Thursday that Saifuddin had urged ASEAN to move from a policy of “noninterference” to one of “non-indifference.”  BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news service.

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‘After the Apple Daily shut down, I couldn’t write another word’

Editor06 mins

One year after the pro-democracy Apple Daily newspaper was forced to close amid an investigation by national security police, its former journalists are struggling to come to terms with the loss of the paper, an often sensationalist, sometimes hard-hitting daily founded by jailed media mogul Jimmy Lai. The paper’s closure came after hundreds of national security police descended on the headquarters of Next Digital in Tseung Kwan O on June 17, 2021, confiscating computers and journalistic materials police said were “evidence” of collusion with foreign forces under the national security law. Five executives were arrested, and the paper’s assets totaling around H.K.$18 million were frozen by the authorities. Chief editor Ryan Law and Next Digital CEO Cheung Kim-hung have since been charged with “collusion with foreign powers,” while three other executives have been released on bail without being charged. A former journalist who gave only the surname Leung said she still remembers the crowd of well-wishers who gathered outside the paper’s headquarters on the night that it closed, cheering and shouting encouragement. “The editors in charge came out to boost morale, with a strong sense that they were going to be martyrs,” Leung told RFA. “Everyone knew even then that the senior editors were in danger [of arrest and prosecution].” “I was hoping, as their employee, that they would leave Hong Kong that same night and go to a safe place, we also knew they were mentally prepared [for arrest],” she said. “As employees, we were sad that it had to end, but we felt it was an honorable defeat,” Leung said. Leung, a veteran newspaper reporter of 20 years’ experience who had only worked at the paper for a year when it closed, said she suffered insomnia and suffered emotionally due to the arrests of her bosses, friends and colleagues. “Some places contacted me with jobs after Apple Daily closed on June 23, but I looked at the materials for a long time, and couldn’t write a word,” she said. “My heart had died along with the Apple Daily.” Leung gave up on journalism after the paper’s demise, and moved to the democratic island of Taiwan with her family, where she was able to disconnect and heal for a while, slowly recovering from the pain of the paper’s demise. But while she longs to write to her former colleagues and friends back in Hong Kong, she hasn’t contacted them for fear that doing so would render them vulnerable to further charges from the authorities. “I have always wanted to write to them, and I want to tell them that a lot of people are still flying the flag, and I would like to thank them for giving me the opportunity to work at Apple Daily,” Leung said. “But I fear that they could have fresh charges imposed on them like collusion, if they receive [letters] with Taiwan stamps on them,” she said. A draconian national security law imposed by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on Hong Kong from July 1, 2020 has sparked a crackdown on pro-democracy media organizations. After Lai’s Next Digital media empire was forced to close, the crackdown has also led to the closure of Stand News and Citizen News, as well as the “rectification” of iCable news and government broadcaster RTHK to bring them closer to Beijing’s official line. Hong Kong recently plummeted from 80th to 148th in the 2022 Reporters Without Border (RSF) press freedom index, with the closures of Apple Daily and Stand News cited as one of the main factors. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

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Experts raise concern about implementation of US law on Uyghur forced labor

Editor011 mins

A U.S. law that bans the importation of products from Xinjiang in China in response to allegations that Uyghurs in the region are being used as forced labor took effect this week, but the tough new prohibitions could prove difficult to enforce, experts said Wednesday. The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) created what is referred to as a “rebuttable presumption” that assumes goods made in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) are produced with forced labor and thus banned under the U.S. 1930 Tariff Act. The law requires U.S. companies that import goods from the region to prove that they have not been manufactured at any stage with Uyghur forced labor. In previous U.S. investigations of imports from China, cotton used in major clothing brands, tomatoes and polysilicon for solar panels have been linked to forced labor in the XUAR. The U.S. and several Western parliaments have said that China’s action in Xinjiang constitute a genocide and crimes against humanity. China denies that it has persecuted Uyghurs or other ethnic minority groups in the region. The new forced labor law passed with overwhelming bipartisan support in Congress and was signed into law by President Biden on Dec. 23, 2021. But Douglas Barry, vice president of communications and publications for the U.S.-China Business Council, said the law is unclear about how companies can definitively prove that no forced labor was involved in the goods they import from China. Several Chinese companies are already on the U.S. government’s Entity List, which forbids American firms from doing business with them unless they obtain special licenses, Barry said. Beyond that, the UFLPA places the onus on the U.S. firms to provide evidence that no forced labor was involved in the production of imported goods. “That’s a challenge because of the lack of independent third party auditors on the ground in China,” he said. “At the end of the day our member companies are fanatical about working in their supply chains to make sure there is no forced labor involved,” he said. “We hope that when enforcement issues arise in the coming days, the government agencies will work with the business community to resolve the issue as quickly as possible adjusting enforcement of tactics as the facts on the ground require.” ‘Challenging but doable’ Jessica Rifkin, an attorney who leads the customs, trade and litigation team at Benjamin L. England & Associates, said that exporters could get around the law by shipping their products to another country before they arrive in the U.S. “[Y]ou have a good that’s subject to certain legal requirements based on its manufacture in one country, but then is shipped to another country, and then shipped through there to the U.S. in order to potentially evade those requirements,” she said. These types of transactions could still happen under the new law, although Rifkin said that U.S. customs officials have ways to identify those goods. U.S. companies could also divide their supply chains to get around the new requirement, presenting a major challenge to enforcement, said Peter Irwin, senior program officer for advocacy and communications at the Washington, D.C.-based Uyghur Human Rights Project. “You have one supply chain that is for the U.S. market to comply with the law, and then maybe they’ll bifurcate their supply chain and have another supply chain that doesn’t necessarily need to follow this law,” he told RFA. Since 2017, Chinese authorities have allegedly ramped up their repression of predominantly Muslim Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in the XUAR, detaining up to 1.8 million members of these groups in internment camps. The maltreatment also includes severe human rights abuses, torture and forced labor. Sophie Richardson, China director at New York-based Human Rights Watch, said the law’s implementation will be difficult but not impossible. “Some of the most complex challenges may be for companies that have, for example, taken a semi-finished product and sent it to the Uyghur region for finishing, and then sent it someplace else, and then sent it on into the United States,” she said. “Tracking the actual trajectory of the full supply chain is going to be challenging, but it is doable,” Richardson added. “Over time, hopefully what will happen is that companies will be do a better job of keeping records and sharing information about how things were produced and how they reached the U.S.” Holding China to account Rushan Abbas, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Campaign for Uyghurs, said called U.S. Customs and Border Protection should release data about any violations to the new law it finds. “Data should be released on the Customs and Border Protection’s website on a regular basis about the goods it holds, re-exports, excludes, and seizes, including information on the company importing the banned goods, their nature, value, and why the action was taken,” Abbas said in a statement issued on Wednesday. At a regular news conference in Beijing on Wednesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin called the allegations of forced labor in the XUAR “a huge lie made up by anti-China forces to denigrate China.” “It is the complete opposite of the reality Xinjiang, where cotton and other industries rely on large-scale mechanized production and the rights of workers of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang are duly protected,” he said.  “The U.S.’s Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act is built on a lie and designed to impose sanctions on relevant entities and individuals in Xinjiang,” said Wang. “This move is the furtherance of that lie and an escalation of U.S. suppression on China under the pretext of human rights. Moreover, the act is solid evidence of U.S.’s arbitrariness in undermining international economic and trade rules and global industrial and supply chains.” The U.S. government has taken measures to promote accountability in the XUAR, including visa restrictions, financial sanctions, export controls and import restrictions, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement on Wednesday. In July 2021, multiple U.S. agencies released an updated business advisory on Xinjiang warning of the legal risks…

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Myanmar junta representative attends ASEAN defense meeting

Editor06 mins

A representative of Myanmar’s military regime attended the ASEAN Defense Ministers’ Meeting (ADMM) in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh on Wednesday, despite an appeal from hundreds of pro-democracy organizations in the war-ravaged country that the Southeast Asian regional bloc not engage with the junta. Myanmar Gen. Mya Tun Oo became the most senior official to represent the self-styled State Administration Council (SAC) at a ministerial meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations since the military ousted the country’s democratically elected government in February 2021. The 10 ASEAN member states have appeared divided on how to deal with the junta, with some fearing that engagement might signal acceptance or endorsement of the regime and its bloody crackdown on its opponents. Singapore, the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia have all expressed to the 2020 ASEAN chair Cambodia that the junta should be excluded until there is an indication that hostilities in Myanmar will end. “Even though there is participation from Myanmar involving a representative from the State Administrative Council in the meeting today, this does not mean that Malaysia has recognized the SAC as the legitimate Myanmar government,” a statement from Malaysia’s Defense Ministry said. “Malaysia has always stressed that SAC should expedite the enforcement of the matters which were agreed on based on the 5 Point Consensus to find a solution to the political crisis in Myanmar,” it said, referring to the agreement reached between ASEAN’s leaders and Burmese military chief Sen. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing on April 24, 2021. The agreement sought an end to violence in Myanmar, the provision of humanitarian assistance, the appointment of an ASEAN envoy, and talks among the various groups in Myanmar to be mediated by the envoy. Cambodia’s Defense Minister Tea Banh, meanwhile, said that Mya Tun Oo’s participation in the meeting showed that the regional trade bloc is unified on security issues. “This is a participation to find solutions and this accusation, that accusation, we can’t respond to all of them,” he said during a news conference, responding to criticism over including Myanmar in the meeting. Indonesian Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto told his counterparts to put aside their differences to safeguard their mutual interests. “We must not allow outside powers to divide ASEAN and drag us into their competition. The future of ASEAN and our people rests on our shoulders, and I believe we all share the same view that we want peace and not conflict, cooperation rather than competition,” he said. A coalition of 677 pro-democracy organizations in Myanmar last week co-authored an open letter to the ASEAN defense ministers, urging them not to invite a representative from the junta. The organizations said Mya Tun Oo’s representation would be inconsistent with other ASEAN decisions to exclude representation from the junta, such as at the 2021 ASEAN Summit and the 2022 Foreign Minister’s Retreat. “ADMM’s engagement with the junta, which has included military exercises, may likely amount to the aiding and abetting of the junta’s war crimes and crimes against humanity,” the letter said. “In allowing the junta to participate in ADMM, ASEAN is further risking complicity in the junta’s atrocity crimes by providing support and legitimacy to the military and emboldening a military that is waging a nationwide campaign of terror.” Cambodian state media reported that the ministers agreed in a joint declaration issued after the meeting to enhance cooperation between ASEAN defense forces for COVID-19 containment, boost support for ASEAN Women Peacekeepers, further collaborate between defense-oriented educational institutions, and share information to enhance maritime security. Additional reporting by BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service.

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