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Category: World

Former Chinese central bank chief calls for end to ‘hukou’ red tape

Editor010 mins

A former governor of China’s central bank has called on the country’s leaders to relax “hukou” household registration rules to allow people to move into cities as the leaders struggle to boost a flagging property market and stimulate domestic consumption. Former People’s Bank of China Gov. Yi Gang called in a Sept. 19 article published by a national political advisory body for policy measures to boost consumption, including pressing ahead with ongoing urbanization plans by cutting through the red tape that prevents people from easily moving to live and work in other cities. Noting that the post-zero-COVID recovery in China remains lackluster, Yi called for “city-specific policies” to boost demand for housing, including easier loan terms for residential landlords, and financial subsidies to cash-strapped local governments to enable them to buy up empty housing stock as affordable rented housing. “Some scholars have estimated that reform of the household registration system can boost consumption among migrant workers and new arrivals to a city by 23%,” Yi wrote, in a reference to the “hukou” system that limits access to services like healthcare and schooling, as well as the right to buy property, to natives of a given area. Yi Gang, former People’s Bank of China governor, called in an article this month for policy measures to boost consumption. Credit: Lintao Zhang/Getty Images file photo The authorities have rolled out limited reforms to the system, which makes it hard for people to put down roots anywhere other than their hometown. In recent years, they have removed registration restrictions from all locations in the eastern province of Zhejiang except the provincial capital in July, and lifted hukou restrictions across the whole of Jiangxi and Shandong provinces in 2021. Abolishing barriers But other prominent commentators have taken it further. Beijing University of Science and Technology professor Hu Xingdou called in 2017 for an end to the hukou system, as the biggest, “first-tier” cities like Beijing and Shanghai attract far more wealth and resources than other areas, increasing inter-regional inequality. Yi, who still sits on the standing committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference that advises the government, appeared in his article to be cautiously agreeing with this approach, suggesting that many minds in the government system think that Beijing needs to do more to inject life into the economy. “It will be necessary to provide better protection for migrant workers in housing, medical care, children’s education, social security and other aspects while working in cities,” he wrote. “At the same time, we also need to pay attention to maintaining a certain degree of mobility of labor between urban and rural areas, between different cities, and between the east and west,” he said, adding: “This is also a way to bake stability into the Chinese economy.” China’s household registration system limits access to services like healthcare and schooling, as well as the right to buy property, to natives of a given area. Credit: Public domain Ren Liqian, who manages China investments at U.S.-based WisdomTree Asset Management, said via X that while she agrees with hukou reform, she was less sure whether it would boost consumption. “While the current reforms to the household registration system will have some economic benefits, they definitely won’t pay huge economic dividends,” Ren wrote. “This may not be good to hear, but I can afford to be honest because I’m not in charge.” Beijing is under huge pressure to find ways to improve economic performance, U.S.-based economist Li Hengqing said. “Everyone from the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee to the State Council is feeling the pressure,” Li said. “With the exception of [party leader] Xi Jinping, they all feel that poor economic performance is responsible for social unrest and growing public dissatisfaction.” While the government wants to launch an all-out effort to boost the economy, it can no longer turn to massive spending on local infrastructure as a way to do this. “The central government’s credit is very low right now, and there are a number of debts it is finding hard to repay both principal and interest on by maturity, so eventually bad debts will appear,” Li said. “So that means that the cost of financing [a stimulus package] would be very high.” Wider dissatisfaction? U.S.-based economist Zheng Xuguang said Yi’s article hints at wider dissatisfaction with Xi Jinping’s current policies among party elders. But he said Yi’s suggestion was unlikely to have much of an impact in the face of dwindling exports and plummeting foreign business confidence. “Investors have been pessimistic about China’s political situation and Sino-U.S. relations for a long time, which means there is no hope of a rebound in investor confidence or in consumption,” Zheng said.  A worker pulls a cart of elevator parts at a factory in Haian city, in eastern China’s Jiangsu province on Sept. 5, 2023. Credit: AFP “I think the party elders are likely unhappy, but Xi Jinping doesn’t care very much … they feel that they have to raise it, but party elders no longer have much of a say in politics,” he said. Cong Liang, deputy director of China’s National Development and Reform Commission, was resolutely upbeat during a news conference in Beijing on Wednesday, saying China has already survived two financial crises, and will bounce back again. “Positive factors in China’s economy are accumulating, and naysayers will be disappointed yet again,” Cong said in comments paraphrased by state news agency Xinhua.  However, Cong also acknowledged that China’s economy faces “a lot of difficulties and challenges.” Li said the upbeat news conference would only widen the disconnect between what the government says and what people hear. “What [Cong] said flew in the face of people’s actual experience, which means the government loses even more credibility,” Li said. “After time, people will regard them negatively – so that if they say go east, then everyone else will look to the West.” “Even if the government told the truth, people would still assume the opposite was true,” he said. Translated with…

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Vietnam executes death row prisoner Le Van Manh

Editor04 mins

Death row prisoner Le Van Manh was executed on Friday morning, lawyer Le Van Luan posted on Facebook, in a case with evidence which lawyers said was not clear enough to convict. “News and official documents said that defendant Le Van Manh was executed on the morning of September 22, 2023,” said Luan. A death notice dated September 22, 2023 from the People’s Committee of Thu Phong commune, Cao Phong district, Hoa Binh province, posted widely on social media said that death row prisoner Le Van Manh, born in 1982, died at 8:45 a.m. on September 22, 2023 at a Hoa Binh Provincial Police execution facility. Upon receiving news of the imminent execution last week, Manh’s family said they did not accept the verdict because it was an unjust sentence. They said they would continue to protest his innocence to authorities in Hanoi. In 2005, when he was 23 years old, Le Van Manh was sentenced to death for allegedly raping and killing a female student in the same village earlier that year. The case occurred on March 21, 2005, but it was not until April 20 that police arrested Manh on a robbery charge in another case. After four days of detention Manh was prosecuted for murder and child rape. Manh’s mother Nguyen Thi Viet told Radio Free Asia her son said that he had been tortured to force him to confess. During the trial lawyers requested an examination of the defendant’s body to determine whether he had been tortured, but the court refused. A day before the execution – September 21 – the European Union delegation along with the embassies of Canada, the United Kingdom and Norway in Vietnam issued a joint statement calling on Hanoi to stay execution of the sentence. “We strongly oppose the use of capital punishment at all times and in all circumstances, which is a cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment and can never be justified, and advocate for Vietnam to adopt a moratorium on all executions,” said the statement posted on the EU delegation’s Facebook page. This is the second joint statement by the EU and the UK, Norway and Canada on the death penalty in Vietnam in the last two months. Late last month, they issued a statement calling on Vietnamese authorities to stay the execution of Nguyen Van Chuong, who was convicted of murder in Hai Phong in 2007. Translated by RFA Vietnamese. Edited by Mike Firn and Elaine Chan.

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Hun Manet tells UN Cambodia’s elections were fair

Editor011 mins

A month after he succeeded his father as Cambodia’s prime minister in the wake of the country’s latest election without an opposition, Hun Manet falsely told the U.N. General Assembly on Friday that the July 23 ballot was “free and fair” and “credible and just.”  Hun Sen handed power to his son after claiming victory in an election in which he banned the last remaining opposition party, the Candlelight Party, and threatened prison time and disenfranchisement for any Cambodians who joined the party’s efforts to boycott the vote. His ruling Cambodian People’s Party, which has been in power since 1979, won 120 of the 125 available seats – a five-seat drop from 2018, with those seats going to its longtime coalition partner Funcinpec. Speaking before the U.N. General Assembly in English, Hun Manet said it was his “great pleasure” to address the chamber “as the new prime minister of the Kingdom of Cambodia,” and lauded the election. “Over 8.2 million people cast their ballots, a turnout rate of 84.59%,” he said, pointing to the participation of 18 minor parties as evidence of fairness. “This is the highest turnout since the U.N.-supervised election in 1993, and a clear indication of our people’s greater political maturity and enthusiasm in exercising their democratic rights.” “The election has been widely assessed as free and fair, credible and just, by thousands of observers,” he said.  The United States and European Union declined to send observers due to concerns about the election’s integrity. Hun Manet also appeared to address U.S. claims and satellite imagery that appears to show China building a military base in the port city of Sihanoukville, which his father has also repeatedly denied. The new premier declined to mention the banning of the opposition and his father’s threats of imprisonment. (Eduardo Munoz/Reuters) “Cambodia shall not authorize any foreign military base on this territory, as clearly stated in its constitution,” he said. “Cambodia will continue on its present path of independence and a neutral foreign policy.” Hun Manet became Cambodia’s new premier on Aug. 22, after 38 years of rule by his father, who rose to power in 1985 under the communist regime installed by Vietnam after its ouster of Pol Pot. Hun Sen long ruled with an iron fist, banning the resurgent Cambodia National Rescue Party shortly before the 2018 election and jailing its leader after the party threatened to win even a flawed election. Some members of the CNRP then reassembled into the Candlelight Party to contest this year’s election, before that party, too, was banned.  Hun Manet’s government has appeared no more eager for friendly competition, and has refused to give the party official registration documents it would need to contest in any future elections. Change, or no change? Outside the U.N. building on Friday, Cambodian-Americans and former opposition party leaders protested Hun Manet’s appearance, calling for his government to be stripped of Cambodia’s U.N. seat. Former CNRP lawmakers including Ho Vann, Kong Saphea, Eng Chhay Eang and Mu Sochua – all of whom face lengthy prison sentences if they return to Cambodia – were in attendance, and the protesters reprised popular chants from the party’s post-2013 election mass protests, including the rhetorical “Change, or no change?” Sochua, who also served as Cambodia’s minister for women’s affairs from 1998 to 2004, told Radio Free Asia she thought Hun Manet would not be able to completely quieten the sense of shame about how he took power, unable to campaign, on his own, in a free election. “I don’t think that he sits in that seat comfortably,” Mu Sochua said of Cambodia’s U.N. seat. “Hun Manet is not a free man.” Former CNRP lawmaker Mu Sochua [right], who faces a lengthy prison sentence if she returns to Cambodia, says she believes Hun Manet would not be able to completely quieten the sense of shame about how he took power. She protested Cambodia Prime Minister Hun Manet’s appearance at the United Nations in New York City, Friday, Sept. 22, 2023. (Alex Willemyns/RFA) It was clear, she said, that Hun Sen hoped to give his regime – known for arresting opposition leaders, banning rival parties and violently attacking critics – a new coat of sheen using Hun Manet’s face. But Mu Sochua said the world should not buy what Phnom Penh was selling, and pointed to the decision to deny the opposition Candlelight Party its registration papers and the vicious beating of Ny Nak as evidence that the new prime minister was more of the same. “If he wanted to be legitimized, if he wanted to be a new generation of Cambodian leader, we would have to start with free and fair elections,” she said. “You cannot fake legitimacy. How can he show a new face for Cambodia when he is under the control of his father?” No change Others said they had traveled to New York to make sure the world knew Cambodians wanted the chance to freely choose their leaders. “I came here because Cambodia is going on the wrong path for democracy,” said Thy Doak, 63, who traveled from Boston. “This dictator passed his power to Hun Manet which goes against the Paris Agreements that [say] we should have free and fair elections.” Doak said he arrived in Cambodia as a refugee in 1984 and wanted his compatriots back home to enjoy the same freedoms he did now in the United States. He said he had no hope Hun Manet would deliver that. “He’s no different from his father. There’s no change,” he said. “I don’t want Hun Manet to be a part of this thing. Cambodia does not deserve it. We’re supposed to be a democracy, but we have a dictatorship.”  Cambodian-Americans and former opposition party leaders protest Cambodia Prime Minister Hun Manet’s appearance at the United Nations in New York City, Friday, Sept. 22, 2023. (Alex Willemyns/RFA) Susie Chhoun, 45, who was born in the Khao-I-Dang refugee camp along the Cambodian-Thailand before her parents were given asylum in the…

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Troops arrest more than 100 villagers in Myanmar’s Magway region

Editor02 mins

Junta troops arrested and interrogated more than 100 villagers in Magway region’s Gangaw township after anti-junta militias captured weapons in a raid on an arms depot, local People’s Defense Forces said this week. The roundup began on Monday in Kant That village, where villagers had been armed and told to defend the depot. Earlier in the day, combined People’s Defense Forces (PDFs) attacked the arms depot, according to a statement Thursday by the Yaw National Revolution Force. They fought a 20-minute battle with junta troops and affiliated Pyu Saw Htee soldiers. The statement said that three members of the combined junta forces were killed and the rest of the troops fled their camp.  A PDF official who didn’t want to be named for security reasons said the defense forces were able to seize a lot of guns and bullets because the villagers who had been told to guard the depot didn’t put up a fight, prompting an angry response from junta troops. “The entire village was arrested and interrogated because they broke the security line,” he said. “Some villagers had no experience and ran away without shooting.” RFA phoned Than Swe Win, the junta spokesperson for Magway region, to get comment on the arrests but nobody answered. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn and Elaine Chan.

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Myanmar junta sacks general for alleged bribery and corruption

Editor09 mins

Myanmar’s junta said it has sacked a high-ranking general for alleged bribery and corruption.  Lt. Gen. Moe Myint Tun, 55, was the seventh-highest leader in the State Administration Council, the governing junta. He had been sanctioned by the United States and other nations. He was abruptly removed from his positions as chairman of the Myanmar Investment Commission, Foreign Exchange Supervisory Committee, and Central Committee on Ensuring the Smooth Flow of Trade and Goods, the regime said in a statement issued Monday.  Earlier this month, authorities arrested Moe Myint Tun, said to have accepted millions of dollars in bribes from businesspeople during the past two years, but it wasn’t clear if he would be tried.  He is under house arrest and being interrogatad in the capital Naypyitaw, according to businesspeople who declined to be named for safety reasons. His removal is part of a crackdown on trade and finance officials, businesspeople and exporters amid economic turmoil and sanctions as the junta struggles to accumulate foreign revenue and soaring commodity prices, sources say. Lawyer Kyee Myint said that even if the top military generals were found to be corrupt, the junta’s top leader Snr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing would not put them on trial, but only remove them from their positions. “They will never admit that their members are corrupt,” he said. “That’s why their case will never get to the court. I don’t think they will be charged under any article of the law but just removed from their positions. They will remove these officials to make it appear that only a few of them were corrupt.” Easy to exploit power His chairman positions were given to Gen. Mya Tun Oo, another member of the State Administration Council. Moe Myint Tun had been appointed to those posts on Feb. 2, 2021, a day after the military seized control of the elected government in a coup d’état. Legal experts and political analysts said the scandal shows that high-ranking military officers can easily exploit their posts, and that effective action should be taken against Moe Myint Tun if he is found guilty of bribery and corruption.  Gen. Yan Naung Soe is seen in Myanmar in an undated photo. Credit: MDN A retired brigadier general, who also spoke on condition of anonymity for safety reasons, said authorities should prosecute Moe Myint Tun according to military regulations if the allegations are true.  “Corruption should not occur at any level,” he said. “Since it is customary in our country for people to give gifts to show respect, it encourages corruption. They don’t happen to notice that they are committing corruption while showing respect like that.” Several governments, including the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and the European Union have imposed sanctions on Moe Myint Tun for his role in the military coup, the subsequent military and police repression of peaceful demonstrators, the killing of civilians, and the gravity of Myanmar’s human rights’ abuses. The sanctions include the freezing of any assets in these countries, a ban on transactions with their citizens, and travel bans.  Another recent case Earlier this month, the junta arrested another high-ranking military official — Gen. Yan Naung Soe, joint secretary of the Central Committee on Ensuring the Smooth Flow of Trade and Goods — amid the crackdown and an investigation of Commerce Ministry officials, the online news outlet Myanmar Now reported.  The committee is responsible for procuring U.S. dollars for trade licensing purposes and other commercial transactions.  Authorities arrested and interrogated him before Moe Myint Tun was fired. Afterwards, the junta summoned businesspeople from various sectors for questioning in Naypyitaw, said an import and export entrepreneur, who requested anonymity for security reasons. The lieutenant general was sacked based on their testimony, he said. Authorities also summoned former Interior Minister Lt. Gen. Soe Htut and Deputy Commerce Minister Nyunt Aung, according to Yangon-based businesspeople. RFA has yet to confirm this information. Moe Myint Tun, Yan Naung Soe and Nyunt Aung have allegedly made millions of dollars from their  dealings with traders and by benefiting from the disparity between Myanmar’s official exchange rate of 2,100 kyats to the U.S. dollar and the market rate amid a steep decline in the kyat’s value, Myanmar now reported on Thursday. Worsening corruption Nay Phone Latt, spokesman for the Prime Minister’s Office of shadow National Unity Government – made up of former civilian leaders and anti-junta activists – said corruption among top military officials has been common for decades and has grown worse under the ruling junta. “Military rulers in our country have always worked for their own self-interest and the interest of their families, causing public poverty,” he said. “Lately, we’ve seen such corruption becoming worse.” Junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun did not respond to calls for comment. Thein Tun Oo, executive director of the pro-military Thayninga Institute for Strategic Studies, said he did not know the reason for Moe Myint Tun’s removal, and that there was a lot of speculation concerning frequent position changes of top military leaders. There were only two or three changes in the positions of top military leaders under the State Law and Order Restoration Council (1988-97) or the State Peace and Development Council (1997-2011), two previous military juntas that ruled Myanmar, he said. Translated by Myo Min Aung for RFA Burmese. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.

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Disabled man’s burned body found near Myanmar’s Ayeyarwady River

Editor03 mins

Residents of Kachin state’s Shwegu township found the mutilated, burned body of a disabled man on the banks of the Ayeyarwady river, they told Radio Free Asia on Thursday. They said 30-year-old Ko Saw was a gold miner from Yae Le village. Junta troops arrested him on Monday, after they arrived in the village in a fleet of warships. One local said the man had a damaged leg and arm, injured in the gold mine, and bad eyesight. He said the man was unable to run away and thought the troops wouldn’t arrest him because he was disabled.  “When the soldiers found him, they searched his home and found the People’s Defense Force uniform of his brother-in-law in a box. He didn’t even know he had that suit,” said the local, who didn’t want to be named for safety reasons. “The troops immediately arrested him and stabbed him. His legs were beaten and crushed. Then he was burnt to death.” Another resident said troops tied the man’s hands behind his back and beat him before taking him away. The six warships that arrived Monday were attacked by a local People’s Defense Force the previous day, residents said. On Sunday, the vessels moored at Toke Gyi and around 200 soldiers raided the village, shooting dead seven residents and burning down 45 homes. The next day, troops torched around 10 rafts and several boats at Yae Le, used to prospect for gold in the river. They accused locals of harboring People’s Defense Forces and ethnic Kachin Independence Army fighters. More than 1,000 residents of Yae Le fled their homes ahead of the raid. When RFA called the junta spokesperson for Kachin State, Win Ye Tun, seeking comment on the killings, he said security issues were not related to him. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.

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90 feared dead after Myanmar junta boat sinks in rough river waters

Editor06 mins

About 90 people, including students and teachers, were missing after a military junta supply boat sank in the Chindwin River in the northern Sagaing region after hitting a rock in the river, local residents told Radio Free Asia.  A total of 13 vessels were traveling down the river when one of the larger boats overturned in a rough area near Mingin township on Tuesday, the residents said. It was loaded with goods and civilians and was being towed by a tugboat. Many of those on board were university students heading to their school in Sagaing’s largest city, Monywa. Also on the boat were military junta departmental staff, family members of the pro-junta Pyu Saw Htee militia and some junta soldiers who were providing security for the vessel, local residents said.  The sinking happened between Shea and Pan Set villages in a risky area called Shae Nat Taung slope, according to a Mingin township resident who refused to be named due to security reasons. “It’s where the water is really rough, with a big rocky horn,” the resident told RFA. “The boat hit it and sank immediately.” Six people are known to have survived; many passengers were below deck when the boat sank, the resident said. Local media reported on Wednesday that about 20 survivors were rescued and 10 bodies had been collected. Rescue operations were halted on Wednesday because of the river’s strong current. The boat was submerged in deep water, the resident said.  A Myanmar military vessel is seen on the Chindwin River in this undated photo. Credit: Anyar Pyitaingdaungs Recovery preparations Locals and defense forces said that most of the villages on both sides of the river are controlled by Pyu Saw Htee militia. The military shouldn’t have any security issues if it conducts a recovery operation, a local defense group leader said. “Most of the people who were onboard the sunken vessel were those dealing with the military from Pyu villages along this waterway,” the leader said.” It depends on their willingness. It’s not a very difficult thing to do. But it doesn’t seem like they will do it.” The remaining 12 vessels continued to travel downstream on Wednesday morning. Some junta soldiers were stationed near the site, according to another local resident who also refused to be named for security reasons. “I can’t say exactly how many died and survived at the moment,” the second resident said. “We local people don’t dare to go near there.” RFA contacted Tin Than Win, the junta’s minister of natural resources and Sagaing region spokesman, to ask about rescue operations. But he refused to talk, saying that he was in a meeting. The military’s media team told reporters on Wednesday that one of the vessels that had left the town of Hkamti sank in a whirlpool near Mingin township, and they were still investigating details of the incident. Local residents told RFA that another warship and an empty boat were already moving downriver toward the accident site. The two vessels arrived at the town of Kalewa in Mingin township on Wednesday and seemed to be preparing to recover the sunken vessel, the residents said.  In October 2016, a passenger boat traveling downriver from Homalin to Monywa sank near Kani township’s Mi Kyaung Twin village, adjacent to Mingin township, killing at least 70 people, according to local residents. Translated by Myo Min Aung. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.

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Myanmar’s central bank revokes 123 forex licenses

Editor03 mins

Myanmar’s junta-controlled central bank has revoked the forex licenses of 123 companies, it announced this week. Tuesday’s decision means that 167 companies have been barred from trading dollars in the past nine months. The companies include forex firms, travel agencies, airlines, hotels, construction companies, gem traders, financial and trading companies. They include Yangon’s famous Sedona Hotel and Myanmar National Airlines. Radio Free Asia phoned the director general of the central bank’s Foreign Exchange Management Department, Nwe Ni Tun, to get details of the latest move but nobody answered. A source close to the central bank, who declined to be named for security reasons, said the licenses were canceled because companies did not observe the bank’s reference exchange rate. The central bank’s reference price is 2,100 kyats per U.S. dollar, which has been in force since April last year. In the external market one U.S. dollar trades for between 3,300 and 3,500 kyats, said a businessman who also requested anonymity. “When the government set the reference price in April 2022 no one could trade at those prices anymore,” he said. “Companies had to send reports every day to the central bank. “After more than a year of not being able to send accurate reports the central bank shut down these companies’ [forex operations].” One of the travel companies whose license was revoked said that it stopped trading foreign currency since the beginning of the COVID pandemic. “We haven’t done foreign currency exchange for a long time since the COVID-19 period,” said the owner who also declined to be named. “I think our license was revoked because we haven’t used it for a long time. “There is no problem because we only do ticketing for airlines.” Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn and Elaine Chan.

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Uyghur event in NY goes ahead despite Beijing’s warning

Editor011 mins

The Chinese government is increasingly moving Uyghurs from internment camps to the regular penal system while claiming it is closing the camps, experts and foreign diplomats told a forum on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York on Tuesday. Chinese diplomats over the weekend tried to hamstring the event by sending out a letter to foreign missions to the United Nations warning them against attending. The panel of diplomats and human rights experts slammed Beijing’s attempted interference. “Thank you also for being here, notwithstanding the PRC’s continued attempts to intimidate and to silence those speaking out on human rights,” said Beth Van Schaack, the U.S. ambassador-at-large for global criminal justice, using an acronym for China’s government. She described the Chinese U.N. mission’s letter as “yet another example of a global campaign of transnational repression” against the Muslim minority, most of whom live in China’s far-west Xinjiang region. “I’m also pleased to see that their efforts have only increased international scrutiny on the situation within Xinjiang, and particularly the atrocities against the Uyghur people,” Van Schaack said. A detention facility in Jiashi County in Kashgar Prefecture in China’s northwestern Xinjiang region in July 2023. The Chinese government is increasingly moving Uyghurs from internment camps to the regular penal system while claiming it is closing the camps, experts and foreign diplomats told a forum on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York on Tuesday. (Pedro Pardo/AFP) Sophie Richardson, the China director for Human Rights Watch, brandished a copy of the letter, which was first obtained by National Review, and said the “strong recommendation” from China that nobody attend the event made it more important that the room was full. “Any government that’s going to go out of its way to bother doing this, first of all, has no business sitting on the U.N. Human Rights Council, but also it’s essentially confirming that it’s got a lot to hide and it knows it,” Richardson said, defending the event as a moral imperative. The panel’s job was “to talk about the facts,” she said, “because we can, and because they don’t want us to, and because Uyghurs can’t.” Radio Free Asia contacted the Chinese Embassy in Washington, which said questions should be directed to China’s permanent mission to the United Nations. But Chinese diplomats at the U.N. mission could not be reached by phone and did not respond to an emailed request for comments. Diplomatic pushback Two European diplomats also spoke during the event. Peter Loeffelhardt, the German Foreign Office’s director for Asia and the Pacific, referred to China’s warning letter, which accused the panel of “plotting to use human rights issues as a political tool to undermine Xinjiang’s stability and disrupt China’s peaceful development.” “It is a false and dangerous narrative to say that human rights are an obstacle to development,” he said. “Human rights always need to be part of the discussion. When we address human rights violations, bilaterally and multilaterally, it is not an interference in internal affairs.” Belén Martinez Carbonell, managing director for multilateral affairs at the European Union’s foreign relations arm, said Europe believed the repression of the Uyghurs was “a very important topic that we would not like to be missed” among all the issues at the General Assembly. “In the European Union, we are concerned for many issues, such as political reeducation camps, mass arbitrary detentions, widespread surveillance, trafficking and control measures, systemic and severe restriction of the exercise of fundamental freedoms,” she said. Those included “the use of forced labor, torture, forced abortion and sterilization, birth control, and family separation policies and sexual and gender based violence.” “What a long list,” she said. Martinez Carbonell also said the European Parliament was working on Europe’s own version of the U.S. Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which bans the import of any product that was made even partially using forced labor of Uyghurs interned in Chinese camps. Shifting repression Gady Epstein, a senior editor at The Economist magazine and the forum’s moderator, noted that “stories about Xinjiang have faded a little from the headlines or from the front pages” in recent times, being replaced by some about the closure of certain internment camps. Uyghurs living in Turkey protest in Istanbul in March 2021 against China’s treatment of Uyghurs in Turkey. (Emrah Gurel/AP) Amnesty International Secretary-General Agnès Callamard said the decrease in attention was not due to any changes on the ground. “The situation has not changed in its essence,” Callamard said. “It may have shifted a little bit in the forms that certain violations have taken, but it has certainly not shifted in the essence of the violations.” Callamard said Uyghurs still enjoyed no freedom of movement, or religion or culture, or to “equality and non-discrimination.” She added that even the claims of camp closures were disingenuous. “It is a fact that we are witnessing more and more arbitrary detention [and] the shifting of individuals into formal prisons,” Callamard said. It was a concern mirrored by Van Schaak, the U.S. official. “We are now particularly concerned about the dramatic increase in prosecutions with long-term sentences in Xinjiang, including the reported transfer of some detainees from so-called re-education or vocational training centers into more formal penal prisons,” she said. “Of the more than 15,000 Xinjiang residents whose sentences are known, more than 95% of those convicted – often under very vague charges, like separatism or endangering state security – have received sentences of 5 to 20 years, and in some cases of life.” Bittersweetness Rayhan Asat, a Uyghur human rights lawyer and a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, which organized the panel, told the panel that another enduring part of Beijing’s repression campaign was the cruel methods it often used to silence Uyghurs living outside China. “Uyghur-Americans living in America are still subject to China’s long-arm reach,” Asat said. “What they are using is our families, our loved ones, their lives. They are literally keeping them hostage.” She explained that…

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South Korea Presidents clash over North Korea policy

Editor09 mins

Five years ago, when leaders of the two Koreas exchanged a historic handshake in Pyongyang, the Korean people looked on with hope, wishing that this masterpiece of diplomacy may finally put an official end to the seven-decade-long war on the peninsula.  But as time surges forward, the once-celebrated inter-Korean agreement stands vulnerable, overshadowed by North Korea’s escalating nuclear threats, and its leader, Kim Jong Un reinforcing ties with his fellow authoritarian leader Vladimir Putin of Russia. Now, South Korea grapples with a growing divide on whether to uphold that deal. The debate is set to intensify on the back of  former South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s  attendance of the commemorative event of the fifth anniversary of the September 19 Pyongyang Joint Declaration in Seoul on Tuesday.   “The [current] government and the ruling party have expressed their intentions to reconsider or possibly scrap the military agreement,” Moon said at the event. “However, it’s crucial to note that the inter-Korean military agreement has been instrumental in preventing military confrontations between the two Koreas.” Moon’s comments are largely seen as a warning against the administration of President Yoon Suk Yeol for its hardline policy on North Korea. “It would be irresponsible to remove the last safety pin in place,” Moon added. “As relations between the two Koreas deteriorate and military tensions escalate, it’s imperative for both sides to uphold the agreement.” His remarks may potentially improve  public opinion of South Korea’s progressives before the general election in April. Should that happen, it would conversely work against Yoon’s hardline policy on Pyongyang.  Under the 2018 inter-Korean military deal, the two Koreas agreed to “end hostility” and to “take substantial steps to make the Korean Peninsula a permanent peace zone.”  “Military accords should be honored and respected to the fullest extent to ensure dialogue continues and to prevent dire consequences,” Moon said.  The former president was supported by key officials from his administration – his foreign minister Kang Kyung-wha and unification minister Kim Yeon-chul at the event. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un with South Korean President Moon Jae-in inside the Peace House at the border village of Panmunjom in Demilitarized Zone, South Korea on April 27, 2018. (Credit: AP) South Korea’s progressives see consistent engagement with North Korea as a potential catalyst for altering Pyongyang’s hostile behavior and its actions of violating human rights. They believe that integrating North Korea into the international stage would foster transparency, open avenues for dialogue, and gradually shift the North’s stance towards global norms and values. Conservatives, on the other hand, have long protested against what it defined as far-fetched engagement, saying that excessive aid to North Korea despite its continued provocations would only foster its nuclear ambitions. The conversative Yoon administration is thus adopting a hawkish policy on North Korea, aimed at pressing Pyongyang to forfeit its nuclear weapons. The ongoing debate is set to gain its momentum, as Yoon’s Defense Minister nominee Shin Won-sik has opined about his inclination to scrap the inter-Korean military deal last week. Some analysts consider the deal invalid, with North Korea returning to its brinkmanship diplomacy after its high-stakes summit with the United States collapsed in Hanoi February 2019. For instance, in November 2019, North Korea fired coastal artillery near the maritime buffer around the border island of Changlin-do.  In May 2020, North Korea fired gunshots towards a South Korean guard post at the inter-Korean border, and in September 2020, a South Korean civilian was shot dead at the maritime border by the North and subsequently incinerated. Further complicating matters is North Korea’s amplified nuclear and missile threats. The threats are expected to further intensify with Putin vowing to aid North Korea in developing its satellite technology.  Rocket technology can be used for both launching satellites and missiles. For that reason, the UN bans North Korea from launching a ballistic rocket, even if it claims to be a satellite launch.  South Korea’s internal disagreement surrounding its North North Korea policy could potentially undermine that of the allies. The lack of a unified stance – be it hardline or dovish policy – risks disabling Seoul and Washington to form a coherent strategy that could be implemented in the long-term. Experts, however, noted that the main reason for this policy inconsistency is due to Kim Jong Un’s altered stance on his diplomacy after the fallout in Hanoi in 2019.  “North Korean inconsistency is what leads to South Korea having to change its policy. If Pyongyang had continued to engage post-Hanoi summit, I think that both, Moon first, and Yoon now would have probably sought to try to accommodate this. Alas, this hasn’t been the case,” said Ramon Pacheco Pardo, Professor of International Relations at King’s College London and the KF-VUB Korea Chair at the Brussels School of Governance of Vrije Universiteit Brussel. “Likewise, I think that it was domestic instability in North Korea in the late 2000s, due to Kim Jong Il’s health condition, and then the transition process to Kim Jong Un, [being] the main reason behind the end of the inter-Korean engagement. So liberals and conservatives may not fully agree on how to approach North Korea, but I actually think that Pyongyang is the main reason why Seoul changes its policy.” Edited by Elaine Chan and Taejun Kang.

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