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Category: South Asia

China announces three exercises in S. China Sea as Taiwan issue raises tensions

Editor08 mins

In a regional show of strength China announced three almost-simultaneous military exercises in the South China Sea between July 27 and 31, just as reports emerged that the U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi may embark on her Asia-Pacific tour on July 29. The Guangdong Maritime Safety Administration (MSA) issued three navigation warnings GD70/22, GD71/22, GD73/22 advising ships against entering three designated areas in the South China Sea during time slots starting July 27 and finishing July 31. A navigation warning is a public advisory notice to mariners about changes to navigational aids and current marine activities or hazards including military exercises. Coordinates provided by the Guangdong MSA show three areas close to China’s mainland but one of them lies only some 240km from Pratas Island, claimed by both the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan but controlled by Taipei. Prior to these drills, the Chinese military held two exercises back to back from July 16-20 and July 20-22, also in the South China Sea. One of them covered an area of nearly 100,000 square kilometers (38,610 square miles). China often holds military exercises at short notice as a form of protest in response to U.S. naval activities and political developments that Beijing deems “hostile.” The unusually high frequency of drills this month shows China-U.S. tensions have been raised by Pelosi’s reported Taiwan visit and the presence of the Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group in the South China Sea. Six warnings China has responded strongly against the rumored trip which, if confirmed, would be the first visit by a U.S. House Speaker to Taiwan since 1997. In his telephone conversation with U.S. President Joe Biden on Thursday Chinese President Xi Jinping warned Washington against “playing with fire” over Taiwan. “Playing with fire will only get you burnt. I hope the U.S. is clear on this,” state news agency Xinhua quoted Xi as saying during the phone call. Before the Xi-Biden meeting, different Chinese government agencies had already issued at least six official warnings against the visit, with the Defense Ministry on Thursday threatening that “actions are the best answer.” Countries in the region are watching these latest developments closely, said Shahriman Lockman, Director of Malaysia’s Institute of Strategic and International Studies (ISIS). “The concern here is how China would seek to retaliate if Pelosi were to visit Taiwan,” Lockman said. “If that retaliation took place in the South China Sea, perhaps in the form of a deployment of combat aircraft to the Spratlys [a disputed island chain], it would underscore to other countries the growing risks of US-China rivalry,” he said. U.S. media reported that Nancy Pelosi, the third most senior figure in the American political system, would depart for an Asia-Pacific tour on Friday.  Both Bloomberg and NBC quoted anonymous sources as saying that the tour would take Pelosi to some U.S. allies in the region, including Japan and Singapore, but whether she would make a stop in Taiwan remained “unclear.” Some leading American China experts have called on the U.S. House Speaker to postpone any Taiwan visit. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi speaks at the Capitol in Washington on July 21, 2022. U.S. officials say they have little fear that China would attack Pelosi’s plane if she flies to Taiwan. CREDIT: AP Avoid confrontation Bonnie Glaser, Director of the Asia program at the German Marshall Fund of the United States and Zack Cooper, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, wrote in the New York Times that the event would be seen by Beijing as “a serious provocation.” “Chinese leaders might be willing to risk an escalation such as challenging Ms. Pelosi’s plane or flying military aircraft directly over Taiwan for the first time,” they said. “Leaders on all sides must wake up and find off-ramps to avoid a dangerous confrontation that neither side wants,” the two analysts said, arguing that a crisis in the Taiwan Strait would put the island in a very difficult situation. Shahriman Lockman from Malaysia’s ISIS suggested that, should Pelosi decide to skip Taiwan, the Americans “could attempt to present this as a demonstration of restraint and maturity.” “I think there is a good middle ground here which is for Pelosi to telephone Tsai Ing-wen from Japan so she won’t need to visit Taiwan but at the same time, be able to show her support,” Lockman said. The U.S. does not have diplomatic relations with Taiwan, which Beijing considers a Chinese province, but it is obligated by law to provide the island with defense capabilities. During his conversation with the Chinese leader on Thursday Biden made clear that Washington “strongly opposes unilateral efforts to change the status quo or undermine peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait,” according to a White House press release. The office of Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen on Friday thanked Biden for his continuous support, the official Central News Agency reported. “The Presidential Palace expresses its gratitude … and looks forward to China’s shared responsibility” in maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait,” the report said. 

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Academic under house arrest after writing about improving Vietnam’s Communist Party

Editor06 mins

The former director of the SENA (Southeast and North Asia) Institute of Technology Research and Development has been placed under house arrest and banned from leaving Vietnam amid a probe into allegations of ‘abusing democratic freedoms’ for submitting a series of recommendations on improving the ruling Communist Party of Vietnam. On Wednesday the Ministry of Public Security said the Investigation Security Agency had decided to probe Nguyen Son Lo, 74, under Article 331 of the Criminal Code. The ministry did not explain why the investigation had been launched, saying the Investigation Security Agency was “focusing on investigating, collecting documents, and consolidating evidence on the criminal acts of the accused and related individuals … according to the provisions of law.” Lo’s close friend Nguyen Khac Mai, director of the Hanoi-based Minh Triet Cultural Research Center, said his colleague was a highly-decorated war hero who turned to study and offered his insights on the situation of the country and ways to improve people’s lives. “Recently he founded a think-tank on cultural research and development,” said Mai. “He told us ‘the issue of culture has become a huge issue these days for the nation’ so he wanted to contribute to this field.” He said his friend had written a number of books to advise the country’s leaders, offering recommendations on Vietnam’s economy and culture. “The Central Inspection Commission [of the ruling Communist Party of Vietnam] came to SENA to work with him and confirmed they had not forbidden him from expressing his opinions or making recommendations. They just asked him not to spread them widely,” Mai said. Lo was advised not to send his books to provincial Party secretaries or National Assembly deputies. He was told to send them internally to bodies such as the Central Organizing Commission, the Central Inspection Commission, the Central Commission on Propaganda and Education, the Secretariat and the Politburo of the party’s Central Committee. According to Mai, Lo agreed to send his comments only to responsible officials but did not understand why he was being investigated. Last year, Bach Thong district police in Bac Kan province, published an article titled “Suggestions to build the Party or act against the Party.” The article referred to the SENA Institute and claimed it had written an open letter about the 13th National Congress of the Party expressing incorrect and distorted views on Party and State. Mai said his colleague was not acting against the party. “He only has a constructive mind. He wants to contribute, correct mistakes, improve, make this Party and government more civilized and cultured, more humane, more popular, and kinder.” “That’s his aspiration and I think 90 to 100 million people also want the same. No one wants to overthrow the regime, they just want it to be better.” “Less corruption, more humanity, less immoral behavior, no land grabbing but negotiation and proper compensation. That is his wish like mine and others,” said Mai. On July 4, the Vietnam Union of Science and Technology Associations issued a decision to suspend the operations of the institute and take steps to abolish it, saying its establishment and operations violated regulations. According to Mai, SENA is a civil society organization, legally registered with the state and its members are former high-ranking cadres such as Nguyen Manh Can, former deputy head of the Central Organizing Commission of the Communist Party of Vietnam.

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UN Security Council joins condemnation of Myanmar junta’s execution of 4 activists

Editor011 mins

The U.N. Security Council condemned the Myanmar military’s execution of four democracy activists over the weekend but stopped short of calling for new sanctions against the junta as its forces continued attacks in the country’s Sagaing region. A statement issued on Wednesday by the 15 members of the council echoed one issued on Monday by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) denouncing the killings of the activists despite numerous appeals that their death sentences be reconsidered.  The Myanmar military, which overthrew the elected government in a February 2021 coup, said on Monday that it had executed the activists for aiding acts of terror as part of the civilian opposition and resistance to the regime. The Security Council response “noted ASEAN’s call for utmost restraint, patience and efforts to avoid escalating the situation, and for all parties concerned to desist from taking actions that would only further aggravate the crisis.”  The statement also called for the full implementation of the five-point consensus agreed to in April 2021 to end to violence in post-coup Myanmar and put the country back on the path to democracy. And it called for the immediate release of deposed leaders President Win Myint and State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi. Security Council members also called for “an immediate halt to attacks on infrastructure, health and education facilities, for full respect for human rights and the rule of law, and for full, safe and unimpeded humanitarian access to all those in need.” But Justice for Myanmar, a group of activists campaigning for justice and accountability for the people of Myanmar, criticized the U.N. council’s response as insufficient.  “Yet, no sanctions, no referral to the Int’l Criminal Court + members #China, #India & #Russia continue to arm the Myanmar military. Time UN Security Council ends its shameful inaction!” the group tweeted. The Group of Seven (G7) foreign ministers of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States, and the High Representative of the European Union also condemned the executions. “These executions, the first in Myanmar in over thirty years, and the absence of fair trials show the junta’s contempt for the unwavering democratic aspirations of the people of Myanmar,” they said in a statement issued Thursday.   “We continue to condemn in the strongest terms the military coup in Myanmar and express deep concern about the political, economic, social, humanitarian and human rights situation in the country,” they said. Thousands flee homes in Sagaing The criticism by the U.N. and G7 came as at least 10 civilians, including two teenagers, were killed in Sagaing’s Khin-U township and more than 10,000 others from 17 villages fled their homes amid clearance operations by junta forces that began last week, local sources told RFA on Thursday. Northwestern Myanmar’s Sagaing region has the largest number of participants in the anti-junta Civil Disobedience Movement, a strike of professionals like doctors and teachers to resist military rule, and the strongest armed resistance to the junta.  Among the dead in Khin-U township are Khant Nyein, 13, from Myin Daung village; National League for Democracy township organizer Aung Naing Win, 35, from Shin Min Dway village; Aung Hman, 66, from In Daing Gyi village; Htay, 52, from Myin Daung village; Si, 89, and Ohn Thee, 35, from Letpanhla village; and Pho Khoo, 18 from Laung Shey village, the sources said.  RFA does not yet know the identities of the others killed. A township resident, who found the charred body of Aung Naing Win, said the army brutally killed ordinary civilians. “The military has been attacking villages in the area in four columns in the past 10 days,” he said, adding that soldiers burned about 50 houses and mostly slit the throats of those who were killed. The elderly woman named Si died on Wednesday when her house in Letpanhla village was set on fire, another local said. “The woman died in a fire that burned 11 houses,” said the local who declined to be identified for safety reasons. “They set fire to the house knowing that she was inside.” Another township resident said more than 10,000 people from 17 villages were forced to leave their homes and around 50 homes were destroyed by fire due to the military raids in the area. “There are about 12 villages in the surrounding area, and there must be about 12,000 to 13,000 people [who have fled their homes], the person said, adding that residents usually ran to nearby communities about two or three miles away. A resident of Moung Kyauk Taw village, who did not want to be named for safety reasons, said he saw the soldiers set fire to the village, destroying more than 20 houses. “It wasn’t an accidental fire. It was arson. We have witnesses,” the person said, adding that he and others watched soldiers enter the community and saw three or four of them set fire to the houses.  “We lost everything, and we have no place to live. We can’t buy any palm leaves [for roofing], and we don’t have money. We are now living under bullock carts,” he said. Locals said they did not know which battalion the soldiers who raided the villages were from. RFA could not reach military spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun or Sagaing military council spokesman Aye Hlaing for comment. Myo Aung, an official from the township’s Letpanhla village, said the actions of Myanmar’s junta were “cruel and inhumane.” Rural areas bear brunt The latest killings came despite claims by the shadow National Unity Government (NUG) that public administrations under its direction control around 80% of the region’s rural areas in 36 townships where the military has not been able to exert its influence. “People’s police forces have also started to be established to ensure the rule of law in areas where the public administrations have begun to operate,” said NUG spokesman Kyaw Zaw. Public administration officials said the NUG hands down its policy and agenda to public administration groups at the township level…

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Prominent Chinese rights activist ‘paralyzed’ while awaiting trial in Jiangsu

Editor06 mins

Xu Qin, a key figure in the China Rights Observer group founded by jailed veteran dissident Qin Yongmin, is now using a wheelchair while in a police-run detention center in the eastern Chinese province of Jiangsu, RFA has learned. Xu, 60, is currently being held at the Yangmiao Detention Center in Yangzhou City, where she has been on hunger strike in protest at the loss of letter-writing and receiving privileges, and a months-long ban on meetings with her lawyer. Her lawyer Ji Zhongjiu was finally allowed to meet with her on June 10, when Xu could walk, and again on Wednesday, when she was brought to meet with him in a wheelchair. “When Xu Qin met with lawyer Ji Zhongjiu, they pushed her out for the meeting in a wheelchair,” Xu’s husband Tang Zhi told RFA. “The previous meeting with the lawyer was on June 10; Xu Qin became paralyzed on June 27,” Tang said. “Today, when Ji Zhongjiu saw her, she was in a wheelchair.” Tang said Xu’s blood pressure has been unstable, and her eyesight and hearing have deteriorated in detention. But he has been unable to get confirmation of her medical diagnoses from the authorities. “They refused to talk about it,” he said. “I called the state security police today, and he told me I was talking nonsense.” “He said he called yesterday to ask about her and they told him she was in good health.” Repeated calls to Ji rang unanswered on Wednesday. Refusal to ‘confess’ Xu is being held on suspicion of “picking quarrels and stirring up trouble,” a public order charge typically used in the initial detention of activists and peaceful critics of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP). A vocal supporter of a number of high-profile human rights cases, including that of detained human rights lawyer Yu Wensheng, she was detained under “residential surveillance at a designated location,” a form of incommunicado detention rights groups say puts detainees at greater risk of torture and mistreatment. Xu’s trial was suspended by the Yangzhou Intermediate People’s Court in an April 22 ruling that cited “unavoidable circumstances,” but gave no further details. Tang said her lawyer had told him that the trial had been suspended for the sixth time at the behest of state security police, which he believes was the result of Xu’s refusal to plead guilty or “confess” to the charges against her. The overseas-based Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) network tweeted about the meeting between Xu and Ji on Wednesday: “Xu was sitting in a wheelchair, looking exhausted, and with poor physical health.” “But even in light of her other physical conditions (heart disease, high blood pressure, & having suffered a stroke), and even after being detained in total for nearly two years cumulatively, the authorities still have not been able to shake her determination to plead not guilty!” the group said. Xu was detained on Feb. 9, 2018 at her home in Jiangsu’s Gaoyou city, and placed under criminal detention the next day on suspicion of “picking quarrels and stirring up trouble.” She was transferred into “residential surveillance at a designated location” a few weeks later, and the charges changed to the more serious “incitement to subvert state power.” She was released, apparently on bail, then re-detained by police on Nov. 5, 2021, and has been awaiting trial since then, CHRD said. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

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Tibetan arrested for creating ‘unlawful’ WeChat group

Editor04 mins

Chinese officials in a Tibetan-populated region of Sichuan this month arrested a Tibetan man accused of setting up a group honoring Tibetan religious leaders on the popular social media platform WeChat, Tibetan sources said. Lotse, 57 and a resident of Sichuan’s Sershul (in Chinese, Shiqu) county in the Kardze (Ganzi) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, was taken into custody in July for creating the chat group, which was set up to celebrate the birthdays of revered Tibetan lamas, a Tibetan living in exile told RFA this week. “The group has around 100 members who come from all parts of Tibet,” RFA’s source said, citing local contacts and speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons. Chinese authorities called Lotse’s creation of the group “unlawful,” the source added. Lotse, a single father of two sons, is now believed to be detained by authorities somewhere in Sershul, and local Tibetans were questioned about him and pressured by police in the period leading up to his arrest, the source said. “Chinese police also visited Lotse at his home before his arrest and threatened him for creating such a group without the government’s permission,” he added. Banned birthday celebration Sichuan authorities arrested two Tibetans in 2021 for celebrating the 86th birthday on July 6 of exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, sources told RFA in earlier reports. The pair, a man named Kunchok Tashi and a woman named Dzapo, both in their 40s, were taken into custody in Kardze’s Kyaglung town on suspicion of being part of a social media group that shared images and documents and encouraged the reciting of Tibetan prayers on the Dalai Lama’s birthday. The Dalai Lama fled Tibet into exile in India in the midst of a failed 1959 Tibetan national uprising against rule by China, which marched into the formerly independent Himalayan country in 1950. Displays by Tibetans of the Dalai Lama’s photo, public celebrations of his birthday and the sharing of his teachings on mobile phones or other social media are often harshly punished. Chinese authorities maintain a tight grip on Tibetan-populated regions of western China, restricting Tibetans’ political activities and peaceful expression of cultural and religious identity, and subjecting Tibetans to imprisonment, torture and extrajudicial killings. Translated by Tenzin Dickyi for RFA Tibetan. Written in English by Richard Finney.

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Beijing bites back over repeated rumors of Pelosi’s Taiwan visit

Editor08 mins

China ratcheted up its already strong response to U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s plans to visit Taiwan, with the Ministry of Defense in Beijing threatening military action. Ministry spokesman, Sr. Col. Tan Kefei, told a media briefing on Tuesday that, should Pelosi insist on making the visit, “the Chinese military will never sit idly by, and will certainly take strong and resolute measures” to retaliate. The U.S. “must not arrange for Pelosi to visit the Taiwan region,” he said. China considers the self-governed democratic island a breakaway province and its reunification a matter of “national sovereignty and territorial integrity.” Britain’s Financial Times first reported on the planned visit last week, saying it would be part of a tour that will also include Japan, Singapore, Indonesia, and Malaysia. Pelosi and her entourage will also make a stopover in Hawaii to visit the headquarters of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, the paper said. It would be the first time since Newt Gingrich’s 1997 trip that a U.S. House speaker has visited the island. U.S. officials have not confirmed the news but President Joe Biden indicated that the military “did not think it was a good idea right now” for Pelosi to visit Taiwan.  The much talked about trip by the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the third most senior figure in the political system, has created a huge headache for U.S. policymakers. Biden is expected to discuss it, among other issues, with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in a telephone call on Thursday. It would be the fifth such conversation since Biden became U.S. president in January 2021. ‘Fourth Taiwan crisis’ Before the defense ministry delivered its official response, the Chinese foreign ministry had already protested against the reported trip, saying the U.S. must be prepared to “assume full responsibility for any serious consequence arising.”  Analysts say with so much tension over the alleged visit, U.S.-China relations are entering a “perilous period.” Taylor Fravel, Director of the Security Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), wrote on Twitter that Pelosi’s visit seems likely “as other members of Congress cast her visit as a question of what China can or cannot ‘dictate’ to Congress.” This would “create even stronger incentives for a forceful response,” as Xi Jinping’s “policy, reputation and credibility will be seen to be at stake.” “We’re heading straight toward a Fourth Taiwan Strait crisis,” Fravel warned, referring to previous crises in the Taiwan Strait. The last one was in 1996 and ended after U.S. intervention. Some Taiwanese analysts disagree with the assessment, saying the possibility of a war is low. “This is not good timing for Xi to wage a fourth Taiwan crisis,” said Ming-Shih Shen, a senior expert at the Taiwan’s Institute for National Defense and Security Research (INDSR). There are only a few months left before the opening of China’s most important political event – the Chinese Communist Party’s Congress – where Xi is believed to be seeking an unprecedented third term. “The situation’s being exacerbated perhaps by those who oppose Xi’s leadership within the Party in order to create troubles [for him],” Shen said. To go or not to go? Despite China’s hawkish response, Pelosi should still make the visit, said the Taiwanese expert, adding that it would work for her domestically, too. Carl Schuster, a retired U.S. Navy captain and former director of operations at the U.S. Pacific Command’s Joint Intelligence Center, said that China’s coercion tactics “work only when countries allow them to do so” and the United States “should stand up to China.” “China’s economy is not in better shape than ours and China is not going to war over Pelosi’s visit,” he said. “Bowing down to Chinese bullying makes us look weak at a time when we need to appear strong. Weakness, like withdrawing our embassy and trainers, encouraged Putin to invade Ukraine. We can’t make that mistake twice,” Schuster added. “The current tensions over Speaker Pelosi’s putative visit to Taiwan puts the Biden Administration in a no-win situation,” said Carl Thayer, a veteran regional expert. “If Speaker Pelosi decides to visit Taiwan, Xi Jinping will have no recourse but to provoke a crisis to demonstrate China’s resolve. This will put further strain on U.S.-China relations and undermine efforts underway by Biden to find some common ground with China,” the Canberra-based analyst said. The Biden Administration, in his opinion, “has not yet had to respond to a major incident of Chinese bullying and also has not gone out of its way to provoke a confrontation with China.” “If Pelosi decides to go and China throws down the gauntlet, this will be the first test for President Biden to call China to account and push back against its bullying,” Thayer said.

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Execution of 4 activists by junta puts peace in Myanmar further out of reach

Editor012 mins

The execution of former student leader Ko Jimmy and three other democracy activists by Myanmar’s junta could become a serious obstacle to resolving the country’s political crisis, analysts and observers said Tuesday. The official Global New Light of Myanmar on Monday announced the executions of Ko Jimmy, whose real name is Kyaw Min Yu, former National League for Democracy (NLD) lawmaker Phyo Zeya Thaw, and activists Hla Myo Aung and Aung Thura Zaw without reporting the date and method of killings. It is believed the men were hanged on Saturday in Yangon’s Insein Prison. The act drew widespread condemnation from Western governments, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), international rights groups and Myanmar-based democracy activists, as well as the Southeast Asian nation’s shadow National Unity Government and the People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitaries that are fighting the junta on the NUG’s behalf. On Tuesday, political analyst Kyaw Saw Han told RFA Burmese that the ASEAN-backed proposal for a dialogue that would include all of Myanmar’s stakeholders is now less likely than ever, as the executions have lessened the opposition’s interest in a peaceful resolution. “The ASEAN plan, which is being promoted by the international community, to meet with [deposed NLD leader] Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and then meet with the junta and all those involved in the conflict to find a solution, will be delayed,” he predicted. “I think it will be very difficult to have a dialogue. Right now, the public is angry. Their emotions of anger have been stirred up, so it is harder than before to accept this. We can say it will almost certainly be delayed and that the probability for such a dialogue is very low at this point.” The junta has reneged on a five-point consensus (5PC) it agreed to with ASEAN in April 2021 to put the country back on the path to democracy. The consensus called for an end to violence; dialogue among all parties; mediation by a special ASEAN envoy; ASEAN-coordinated humanitarian assistance; and a visit to Myanmar by an ASEAN delegation. Col. Khun Okkar of the Peace Process Steering Team of ethnic armies that have signed a nationwide ceasefire agreement (NCA) with the government since 2015 told RFA that his group will no longer meet with the junta if called for peace talks, as the executions show that the regime is not interested in upholding its promises. “Those who signed the NCA should not violate the points stated in the pact, namely, to respect human rights and to protect the lives and property of the people,” he said. “And so, based on that, we will not respond without consulting among ourselves to [the junta’s] calls for further discussions. We have made that decision.” Khun Okkar added that the actions of the junta could completely derail the peace process because public confidence in the process will be damaged beyond repair. Ko Ko Gyi, a leader of Myanmar Prominent 88 Generation Student Group and current People’s Party Chairman, talks to journalists during a press briefing at their 88 Generation Students Peace and Open Society Office, June 15, 2015, in Yangon, Myanmar. Credit: Associated Press Prior executions Only three people have been executed in Myanmar in the past 50 years: student leader Salai Tin Maung Oo, who helped to organize protests over the government’s refusal to grant a state funeral to former U.N. Secretary-General U Thant that resulted in a deadly crackdown in 1974; Capt. Ohn Kyaw Myint, who was found guilty of plotting an assassination of military dictator Gen. Ne Win; and Zimbo, a North Korean agent who bombed the country’s Martyrs’ Mausoleum during an attempted assassination of South Korea’s then-President Chin Doo-hwan in 1983. While Myanmar’s courts have sentenced people to death, there have been no executions carried out in the 30 years since the country’s 1988 democracy uprising and prior to the military’s Feb. 1, 2021, coup. Ko Ko Gyi, the chairman of Myanmar’s lesser known opposition People’s Party, said that the junta’s decision to carry out the death penalty after more than 30 years will certainly impact the likelihood of a peaceful resolution to the country’s crisis. “For those who are trying to find a political solution, it will be very difficult because of this,” he said. “The public’s emotions are running very high. That’s why I objected and made appeals from the beginning not to [proceed with the death penalty]. Now that it has happened, I see that there will be many difficulties ahead for a political solution.” He said that public opposition to military rule is likely to become more fierce, which authorities will respond to with greater force, lessening the likelihood of any kind of reconciliation. Myanmar-based political analyst Ye Tun said he also expects reprisals by Myanmar’s armed opposition to intensify following the executions. “This was a bit too serious. Retaliation is likely,” he said. Regional PDF groups have vowed to take revenge against junta forces for the weekend’s executions. Despite the blowback, junta Deputy Information Minister Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun told a press conference held in the capital Naypyidaw on Tuesday that the consequences of the executions had “already been considered,” but the decision was taken to “mete out justice for those who died at their hands.” “The crimes they committed deserved several more death sentences than the ones committed by those on the death row,” he said. “Therefore, the government unavoidably decided to go ahead with the punishments in accordance with the law, for the sake of innocent people and their relatives. It’d be cruel and show a lack of empathy for us to be lenient to the accused perpetrators and let them go unpunished.” The four activists had been convicted of crimes that included contacting the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw, PDF and NUG, which in September declared a nationwide state of emergency and called for open rebellion against junta rule, prompting an escalation of attacks on military targets by various allied pro-democracy militias and ethnic armed groups. Other…

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Plan to bring back public loudspeakers annoys residents of Vietnam’s noisy capital

Editor03 mins

Residents of the Vietnamese capital Hanoi are opposing a controversial plan by the city to resume using public loudspeakers to make pronouncements, which many see as an archaic remnant of the Vietnam War era, sources told RFA. At the height of the war in the 1960s and 1970s, the loudspeakers played an important role in North Vietnamese wards and communes to supply people with information about battles, including warnings about approaching U.S. bombers. The loudspeakers were used on a daily basis as late as 2017, when then-Hanoi Mayor Nguyen Duc Chung declared that the speakers “completed their historical missions.”  The city then designated them for use only in emergency situations. The Hanoi People’s Committee recently approved a communication plan for 2022-2025 that would again employ the speakers for everyday announcements. The city plans to expand their use where necessary so that all residential units are within earshot of a loudspeaker by 2025. But many residents say they don’t want to hear it. “I was astonished by this news, as it took a lot of effort and time to get rid of the loudspeakers here in Hanoi,” Nguyen Son, a resident of Hanoi, told RFA. “I don’t know why they want them back.” Opponents point out that the city already has a noise pollution problem that daily loudspeaker announcements would only make worse. “The ward-operated public loudhailers have been a nightmare to many people and one source of noise pollution in urban areas. Many residents strongly oppose this form of propaganda,” Bui Quang Thang, another Hanoi resident,  told RFA. “Nowadays, people living in urban areas have many tools to get information in a variety of ways, such as through television, internet, social media and smartphones,” he said.  Reintroducing loudspeakers would be a waste of money, he said. “Many other areas such as health care, education and environmental protection need more investment and should be prioritized,” Thang said. RFA sent emails to the Hanoi People’s Committee for comment, but received no response. Translated by Anna Vu. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

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Tibetans returning from exile questioned by Chinese authorities

Editor05 mins

Tibetans returning from exile to their home regions in Tibet are being summoned for questioning by Chinese authorities watching for signs of disloyalty or separatist sentiment, Tibetan sources say. Returnees living in Golog (Chinese, Guoluo) and Ngaba (Aba) counties, Tibetan-populated regions in western China’s Qinghai province, have recently been called in by police without warning, a Tibetan living in exile told RFA this week. “They are being asked about possible involvement in political activities,” RFA’s source said, citing contacts in the region and speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “Frequent meetings are being held to tell them how to live ‘a decent life’ under Chinese government rule and to stay away from sensitive political issues, and they are also being questioned over the phone from time to time,” the source said. As part of a broadening Chinese campaign of political education, Tibetans returning from exile to their former homes have been taken on excursions to Chinese cities to show them what the authorities call evidence of progress and development under Communist Party rule, the source added. Tibetans returning from exile to Tibet’s regional capital Lhasa are kept under particular scrutiny, another source in exile said, with their cell phones regularly inspected and monitored and their movements restricted around politically sensitive dates like the July 6 birthday of exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama. Efforts by China to bring Tibetans back to Tibet have escalated in recent years, with Chinese authorities reaching out to Tibetans living in India and Nepal about their plans to return and asking them what kind of work they are currently doing, sources say. “The Chinese government tried to send me money back when India was experiencing its worst wave of COVID cases, but I wouldn’t take their money,” said a Tibetan man now living in India but formerly from Qinghai. “They called me and tried to convince me to return, and they also interrogated my parents at their homes back in Tibet,” he added. COVID status Chinese authorities in Sichuan are meanwhile demanding that local Tibetans report the COVID status of relatives living outside the country, threatening them with the loss of housing subsidies and other government support if they fail to disclose the information, sources told RFA in earlier reports. Tibetan families must also reveal the cell phone numbers and social media accounts of their relatives living outside of China, one source said. China closely tracks communications from Tibetans living in Tibetan areas of China to relatives living abroad in an effort to block news of protests and other politically sensitive information from reaching international audiences, sources say. Formerly an independent nation, Tibet was invaded and incorporated into China by force more than 70 years ago, and the Dalai Lama and thousands of his followers later fled into exile in India and countries around the world following a failed 1959 national uprising against China’s rule. Tibetans living in Tibet frequently complain of human rights abuses by Chinese authorities and policies they say are aimed at eradicating their national and cultural identity. Translated by Tenzin Dickyi for RFA Tibetan. Written in English by Richard Finney.

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Border closures, conflict threaten ‘shipadi’ fungus trade in remote northern Myanmar

Editor08 mins

Pandemic-related border closures and travel restrictions under military rule are taking their toll on the trade of “shipadis,” a rare fungus prized in China for its alleged healing properties, according to the ethnic Rawan who hunt it in northern Myanmar’s Kachin state. The shipadi is a species of parasitic Cordyceps fungi whose spores infect caterpillars, causing them to crawl upwards before killing them. After the caterpillar dies, the fruit of the fungus grows out of its head in a bid to further spread its spores. While shipadi grow mainly in China’s Tibet Autonomous Region, where they are known as “yartsa gunbu,” the Myanmar variant is found only on the ground, trees, and glaciers of northern Kachin state’s remote Puta-O region, near Myanmar’s borders with India and China. The ethnic Rawan who inhabit the region hunt for the fungus they call “Poe Say Nwe Pin” in May and June each year, when the weather warms and the ice has thawed. The highly-coveted golden-colored shipadi is mostly found on the glaciers of Phonrin Razi, Phangram Razi, and Madwe, and can appear as infrequently as once every four years. Aung Than, a local trader, told RFA Burmese that prior to the pandemic, merchants exported the majority of their shipadi to China, where they could expect healthy profits due to their use in traditional Chinese medicine as a treatment for kidney disease. However, China closed its borders soon after the coronavirus began to spread globally in early 2020, forcing shipadi traders to find a new market for their product. “In the past, when border crossing was easy, they bought shipadi from us,” he said. “But we cannot go there anymore and they can’t come to us either. It’s been more than two years now since I lost the market in China.” Aung Than said that since the pandemic, domestic demand had grown for shipadi, but traders could no longer expect to earn the profits they once had. A shipadi pokes out of the ground in Puta-O township. Credit: RFA Danger from conflict Other Rawan shipadi traders in Kachin state told RFA that the market had been further impacted by fighting between junta troops and ethnic Kachin rebels since the military seized control of Myanmar in a coup on Feb. 1, 2021. Daw Hla, the owner of an herbal store in Puta-O, said she regularly sold to customers from Myanmar’s big cities, including Yangon and Mandalay, prior to the coup. But an increase in clashes between the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and the military since the takeover had made it more dangerous to hunt shipadi and ship it out of the region, she said. “I used to send them to Yangon, Naypyidaw and other cities, as well as all over Kachin state. I’d send them as soon as I got the orders,” she said. “The transportation was OK and sales were good in the past. But this year, I don’t have much [shipadi] to sell. There’s little product to be had this year – it’s getting very rare.” Sources told RFA that the KIA had recently seized a military camp in Puta-O’s Tsum Pi Yang village, and that fighting along the main road from Puta-O to the Kachin state capital Myitkyina had become particularly fierce since the anniversary of the coup, making it extremely dangerous to travel in the area. A collection of shibadi gathered in Puta-O township. Credit: RFA A risky journey Residents of Puta-O township form groups of five or six each year to climb the mountains and search for shipadi, and can spend months away from home during the hunt. One resident named Lan Wan Ransan told RFA that hunting shipadi has always been risky, particularly during the rainy season when flash floods are common. Other times, he said, the snow and ice may not have thawed enough, making the trek into the mountains deadly and the search for shipadi nearly impossible. “There are many difficulties along the way,” he said. Normally, a single shipadi could fetch 2,000-3,000 kyats (U.S. $1-1.50), Lan Wan Ransan said, but the price has doubled this year, due to the added danger of the conflict. Most hunters will only find around 50 shipadis this year, he added, calling it a significant decrease from years past. In addition to shipadi, the Rawan also gather herbs in the mountains of Puta-O that are rarely found elsewhere, including the roots of the Khamtauk, Machit, Taushau, and Kyauk Letwar plants, as well as ice ginseng. However, none are as highly-prized as the caterpillar fungus from the glaciers of northern Kachin state, they say. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

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