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U.S. and Taiwan say China is planning invasion, not holding military drills

Editor2 years ago09 mins

U.S. defense policy makers do not think China could take over Taiwan militarily in the next two years but Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl said China is trying to “salami slice their way into a new status quo” in the region instead. China is continuing its military pressure on Taiwan with more air and naval drills off the back of the major four-day exercise conducted in response to U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to the island. On Tuesday, the Eastern Theater Command of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) “continued to organize practical joint exercises in the sea and airspace around Taiwan Island, focusing on joint blockades and joint resupply logistics,” the Ministry of Defense in Beijing said in a statement. The PLA carried out anti-submarine and sea assault drills in waters around Taiwan on Monday, sending 13 warships, and 39 aircraft, around half of which crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait. Beijing also announced a new series of military drills in the South China Sea, Yellow Sea and Bohai Sea that will continue until next month. “Clearly the PRC is trying to coerce Taiwan, clearly they’re trying to coerce the international community, and all I’ll say is we’re not going to take the bait and it’s not going to work,” Kahl told a press conference at the Pentagon on Monday, referring to China by its official name the People’s Republic of China. “What we’ll do instead is to continue to fly, to sail and to operate wherever international law allows us to do so, and that includes in the Taiwan Strait,” the undersecretary said, adding that he thinks “there’s a lot of confidence in that U.S. commitment.” That means the U.S. military is set to continue transiting the Taiwan Strait, which it considers international waters, as well as conducting freedom of navigation operations in the South China and East China Seas. President Joe Biden on Monday said he was “not worried” about China’s military exercises around Taiwan but was “concerned that they’re moving as much as they are.” “But I don’t think they’re going to do anything more [than] they are,” he told reporters at the Delaware Air National Guard Base The Eastern Theater Command of China’s PLA conducts a long-range live-fire drill into the Taiwan Strait, from an undisclosed location, Aug. 4, 2022. CREDIT: PLA Eastern Theater Command Handout via REUTERS U.S. keeping watch Kahl also explained the reason behind the Pentagon’s initial hesitance about Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan last week. President Biden told reporters ten days before the trip that U.S. military officials believed “it’s not a good idea, for now.” “We’re at a moment of profound international tension… I think there was a sense that… the world didn’t require another instance of rising tensions but it is what it is and the speaker had every right to go and when she made the final decision we were fully supportive,” he said. Beijing reacted angrily to the visit, threatening the “strongest countermeasures” and announcing unprecedented military drills around Taiwan. For the first time, the PLA reportedly fired missiles over Taiwan’s main island, some of which landed in Japan’s exclusive economic zone within 200 nautical miles (370 kilometers) from its shores. The U.S. military responded by deploying warships and aircraft in the area. U.S. Navy’s only forward-deployed aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan and its strike group has been in northern Philippine Sea after being ordered by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to “remain on station in the general area to monitor the situation.” A big deck amphibious assault ship, the USS Tripoli, is also currently in the Philippine Sea, according to the U.S. Naval Institute. Maps showing the USS Howard O. Lorenzen’s position and path. CREDIT: Marine Traffic Data provided by the ship tracking website Marine Traffic show that the missile-tracking vessel USNS Howard O. Lorenzen has been operating in the waters east of Taiwan for several days. Equipped with a sophisticated radar system, “its purpose is to track airborne missiles,” said Gordon Arthur, a military analyst and Asia-Pacific editor of Shephard Media, a defense news portal. “Given its proximity to Taiwan, I’d say that’s exactly what it’s been doing,” Arthur told RFA. Visiting US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi waves to journalists during her arrival at the Parliament in Taipei on August 3, 2022. CREDIT: AFP ‘Prepare for invasion’ “China’s reaction was completely unnecessary,” said U.S. Undersecretary of Defense Colin Kahl, blaming Beijing for “manufacturing” the current crisis across the Taiwan Strait. “We continue to have a One China policy and we continue to object to any unilateral change in the status quo, whether that be from the PRC or from Taiwan,” he emphasized. Taipei said China used Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan as a pretext for pursuing bigger ambitions. Taiwan’s Foreign Minister Joseph Wu called a press briefing on Tuesday morning to lay out his government’s position on China’s latest military exercises. “China has used the drills in its military play-book to prepare for the invasion of Taiwan,” Wu said. “China’s real intention behind these military exercises is to alter the status quo in the Taiwan Strait and the entire region,” the minister said, warning that Beijing’s behavior towards Taiwan is “merely a pretext” and “its ambitions and impact is extending far beyond Taiwan.”

Vietnamese minority activist to appeal four-year sentence on Aug. 16

Editor2 years ago07 mins

The People’s Court of Vietnam’s Dak Lak province will hold an appeal hearing on the case of local religious freedom activist Y Wo Nie (also known as Ama Quynh) on August 16. The 52-year-old, from the Ede ethnic minority, was a deacon of the Evangelical Church of Vietnam. He was sentenced to four years in prison by the People’s Court of Cu Kuin district on May 20 this year. Nie was charged with “abusing freedoms and democracy to infringe upon the interests of the state, the lawful rights and interests of organizations and individuals,” as stated in Clause 2, Article 331 of the Criminal Code. He is alleged to have taken pictures of three handwritten human rights reports and sent them to international organizations and also met with U.S. diplomats. Nie did not have a defense lawyer at his trial but in the upcoming appeal session, Nguyen Van Mieng will defend him. Mieng wrote on his Facebook page that Dak Lak province’s Department of Information & Communication made the initial assessment on Y Wo Nie, despite Vietnam’s commitment to international conventions on human rights. “Contacting him at the Dak Lak provincial Police Department’s Detention Center, he was always cheerful,” Mieng said. “He always prayed day and night for the peace of the Church and his family. He extended his thanks to all the diplomatic missions, organizations and individuals concerned with his case.” The indictment against Nie states that he wrote three reports, took pictures and sent them via WhatsApp to a number of overseas organizations. The first report was on the religious and human rights situation of the Ede ethnic people in the Central Highlands and the second concerned violations of the right to religious freedom, which he sent to the U.N. Human Rights Committee and the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). The third report was titled “On the situation of religious freedom in general and in particular for ethnic people in the Central Highlands.” The indictment also shows that Nie met with representatives of Ho Chi Minh City’s U.S. Embassy and Consulate in Gia Lai province in June 2020. Dak Lak-based human rights activist Vo Ngoc Luc, who monitored the original trial, told RFA: “In my opinion, legally, all of these things are not wrong and do not violate the law. It is normal for some activists here to meet with consular offices.” “As for taking human rights classes online, any form of learning is good. When people learn to know more about the law, that’s a good thing, not a crime.” “As for the accusation of sending pictures, if the information is said to be distorted, there must be an evaluation to prove that they are fake images to slander and misrepresent. On the other hand, there was no conclusion and that proves the pictures he gave are real, all of which shows that he did nothing wrong.” Talking about the upcoming appeal, Luc said that in political cases it is very rare to have sentences reduced. However, he said that if the verdict is upheld, it would adversely affect diplomatic relations between Vietnam and the United States. RFA has emailed the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi and the USCIRF to request comment on the case but has yet to receive responses. Nie was arrested in September 2021 and his actions were alleged to have “affected the political security situation, social order and safety, and the normal operation of state administrative agencies, and reduced the public’s confidence in the regime, and affected the image of the State of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam as well as the prestige of the Communist Party of Vietnam in international diplomatic relations.” Nie was previously sentenced to nine years in prison for “undermining the unity policy,” a ruling often used to imprison religious freedom activists among the many ethnic minorities in Vietnam’s Central Highlands and northern mountainous areas. Around two hundred thousand Ede Montagnard live in the Central Highlands, according to the non-profit organization The Peoples of the World Foundation, living mainly in Dak Lak province. Most Ede are Protestant Christians. Montagnard is a collective term for the ethnic minorities living in the mountainous region. A recent report on religious freedom from the USCIRF criticized the Vietnamese government’s crackdown on Montagnard religious groups in the Central Highlands.

Myanmar opposition marks ‘8888’ anniversary with protests, vow to fight on

Editor2 years ago010 mins

Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG) and activists marked the anniversary of the uprising against former Gen. Ne Win on Monday with protests calling for an end to junta rule and a vow to fight until their goal of a federal democracy is achieved. The “People Power Uprising,” also known as the “8888 Uprising,” was a series of nationwide protests, marches, and riots led by university students against the Ne Win regime, key events of which took place on Aug. 8, 1988. Authorities crushed the movement in mid-September that year. On Monday, the NUG observed the anniversary of the uprising in a ceremony hosted online in which shadow Prime Minister Mahn Win Khaing Than condemned Myanmar’s successive military dictators for their brutal oppression of the country’s democracy activists. He vowed to channel “the spirit of the ‘4-Eights’” in supporting the people’s fight against the current regime, which seized power in a Feb. 1, 2021 coup, and to form a federal union in Myanmar based on democracy and the protection of human rights. This year’s anniversary held special significance for the opposition as it came just weeks after the junta put to death 8888 Uprising leader Ko Jimmy and three other democracy activists in the country’s first judicial executions in more than 30 years. The executions prompted protests in Myanmar and condemnation abroad. In addition to the NUG ceremony, activists held protests in Myanmar’s commercial capital Yangon, the embattled region of Sagaing, and in Laiza, the “capital” of the ethnic Kachin Independence Organization-controlled territory in Kachin state. Anti-junta groups in Yangon held anti-junta flash protests in the morning and carried out pot-banging activities in the evening, sources told RFA Burmese. Nang Lin, a member of the Yangon Anti-Dictatorship Force, described the 8888 Uprising as “a powerful movement … that involved people from all walks of life working together to bring down [a] terrible one-party dictatorship and allowed democracy to flourish.” “Now, we will continue to carry the banner of this uprising,” he said. “We will hold the spirit of that uprising and carry on its work, with determination, to achieve federal democracy, which is the goal of successive revolutions and the goal of this ongoing spring revolution.” Jewel, a member of the Pazundaung and Botahtaung Townships Young People’s Strike Committee in Yangon, told RFA that she and her comrades would continue to carry out the unfinished task of the 8888 democracy movement and “root out” the military dictatorship. “The 4-Eights Uprising was over a long time ago. However, as members of a younger generation, we’ll continue its unfinished work and are determined to eradicate this military dictatorship,” she said. Sagaing and Kachin In Sagaing, the region in which the junta has encountered some of the strongest armed resistance to its rule since the coup, more than 200 residents of Yinmarbin and Salingyi townships joined together and staged a multi-village protest, carrying signs that vowed to “fight to the end to overthrow the military dictator.” Villagers in Sagaing’s Kani and Budalin townships also held protests to commemorate the 8888 Uprising. The All Burma Students Democratic Front (ABSDF), which is headquartered near Laiza, in northern Myanmar’s Kachin state, also held a 34th anniversary event on Monday. A member of the ABSDF Northern Military Region Committee who gave his name as Joshua told RFA that the people of Myanmar can expect more coups in the future unless the military dictatorship is “uprooted.” “We are holding this ceremony as a way of passing on the torch of the 8888 spirit, what the 8888 had wanted and fought for, so that all the young and old can remember why the 8888 Uprising came to be,” he said. “As long as there are military dictators, they will seize power … if they cannot get what they want. They will seize power again in the future if we cannot fight them off for good.” Joshua said that the ABSDF has been fighting successive military dictators with “whatever weapons we could lay our hands on” and that “more than 700” of its members had died in the more than three decades since 1988. In a statement to mark Monday’s anniversary, the ABSDF warned that the political, economic, education, and health sectors of Myanmar are in the midst of “serious deterioration,” while all three branches of government in the country “have collapsed.” Protesters give a three-finger salute signaling their opposition to the junta at a rally in Sagaing region, Aug. 8, 2022. Credit: Citizen journalist Impetus for success Attempts to reach junta Deputy Minister of Information Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun for comment went unanswered Monday. Myanmar political analyst Than Soe Naing told RFA that if the people of Myanmar hope to succeed in their current democratic struggle, they must not forget the 8888 Uprising. “It’s time to make up for the weaknesses of 88 and push for victory in this Spring Revolution,” he said, adding that the movement should use the movement’s goals as an “impetus for success.” Ye Naing Aung, a member of the 88 Generation group of students who led the uprising, told RFA that he believes the people of Myanmar will one day achieve the democracy they desire. “As long as people have an expectation for a better system, we can’t move backwards,” he said. “Even though the change is not here yet, it will take place at some point. I’m absolutely certain that they will enjoy a democratic system.” While authorities claim that only around 350 people were killed in the military crackdown on the 8888 Uprising, rights groups say the death toll is at least 3,000. Security forces have killed at least 2,167 people and arrested more than 15,000 since last year’s coup, mostly during peaceful anti-junta protests, according to the Bangkok-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

Junta troops burn 500 homes, displace thousands in Sagaing

Editor2 years ago06 mins

Junta forces stepped up their attacks in Myanmar’s hard-hit Sagaing region in the first week of August, torching nearly 500 homes in 10 villages and causing at least 5,000 people to flee, local sources said. The attacks in Sagaing’s Tabayin and Ayadaw townships included air raids and ground assaults and appeared especially to target large and well-built homes, but houses were burned in every village through which troops passed, one source said. Around 180 out of nearly 200 homes were destroyed on Aug. 4 in Tabayin’s Kaing Kan village alone, one resident told RFA on Saturday, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “Troops entered the village at 9:00 am, burning down the bigger and nicer houses as they came in. But houses have been burned down in every village that they entered,” RFA’s source said. “They think that anti-junta resistance will stop when the people are repressed and have to struggle for their living instead of engaging in opposition activities. I believe that this repression will fail, though,” he added. Locals said that four bodies, including the body of a woman, were discovered near a drain outside Kaing Kan village following the attack but had not yet been identified. In Ayadaw township’s Min Ywa Gyi village, heavy shelling by junta forces preceded the burning of homes during weekend attacks, one village resident said on Monday, also declining to be named because of safety concerns. “The [ruling] Military Council set fire to the houses. This is their usual tactic,” he said. “The troops came by helicopter, shelled the village with heavy artillery and then burned the houses. “As far as I could see yesterday, no fewer than 200 houses had been burned down,” he added. Myanmar military forces are at war with People’s Defense Force (PDF) units created to oppose junta rule, “but instead they are destroying civilians’ lives and homes, which isn’t fair,” he said. Bags and books are shown left behind by schoolchildren fleeing a helicopter attack by junta troops in Sagaing’s Myinmu township, Aug. 1, 2022. Photo: Myinmu Civil Revolution Force Woman burned to death Local sources said that Daw Shin, an 80-year-old woman, was found burned to death in Min Yaw Gyi after failing to escape the military raid and that local defense groups were busy Sunday clearing landmines left behind by junta troops, with those displaced by the fighting seeking shelter in a nearby monastery and with charity associations. Calls seeking comment from a Military Council spokesman rang unanswered Monday. But a member of Tapayin township’s People’s Defense Force told RFA that the more junta forces repress the local people, the more the people will fight against junta rule. “We are not scared by these brutalities,” he said. “If there were 100 people resisting before, 300 people will come out now, and the more violent the junta troops become, the more the people will rise up against them.” Also speaking to RFA, Nay Zin Lat—a regional MP from Kanbalu township for the National League for Democracy, which was overthrown in a Feb. 1, 2021 military coup—said that military leaders are trying to rule Myanmar’s people through fear. “They are limited in their ability to attack the PDF forces on the ground, so when they find they can’t do it, they just torture the local civilians, who have nothing to do with the PDFs. “By doing this, they are trying to cut local contacts with the PDFs and spread fear among the people so that they will end their support for the fighters. This is the cruelest treatment imaginable,” he said. Translated by RFA Burmese. Written in English by Richard Finney.

World

Uyghur who studied in Turkey arrested by police in Xinjiang, sources say

Editor2 years ago07 mins

A Uyghur scholar who studied in Turkey and worked for an international company in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou was arrested by authorities from his hometown Urumqi, a local police officer and Uyghurs with knowledge of the situation said. Subi Tursun, now 29, went to Turkey in 2010 to attend college and stayed there for work after completing his studies, a Uyghur from Urumqi who now lives in exile in Turkey and is friends with the man’s father told RFA. In autumn 2021, Tursun, who had not become a Turkish citizen, was transferred to the company’s branch in Guangzhou, said the source, who declined to be identified for safety reasons. The source said he received news that Tursun had been abducted by police in Urumqi on July 1 as one of the “suspects who fell out of the net.” “My close friend’s son was arrested on July 1 this year,” he told RFA, adding that Tursun was one of three young Uyghur men who has been arrested by the Chinese in recent weeks. “Subi Tursun did not become a Turkish citizen. He used to live with a resident permit in Turkey,” the source said. The police officer, who did not provide his name, did not give a clear account of whether police from the Ghalibiyet (in Chinese, Shengli) Police Station arrested Tursun in Guangzhou or when he had arrived in Urumqi (Wulumuqi) to visit his family. He also did not give the reason for his arrest. “I can’t give you these details on the phone, you know,” the police officer told RFA. “If you want to know more details about this case, you should try to come to the police station and do it through the right channels.” Chinese authorities have targeted and arrested Uyghur scholars, intellectuals, businessmen, and cultural and religious figures in Xinjiang for years as part of a campaign to monitor, control and assimilate members of the predominantly Muslim minority group. Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in Xinjiang have been subjected to severe human rights abuses, torture and forced labor, as well as the eradication of their linguistic, cultural and religious traditions in what the United States and several Western parliaments have called genocide and crimes against humanity. As many as 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities are believed to have been held in a network of detention camps in Xinjiang since 2017. Beijing has said that the camps are vocational training centers and has denied widespread and documented allegations that it has mistreated Muslims living in Xinjiang. Uyghurs who live in exile have reported to RFA on relatives and former neighbors in Xinjiang who continue to be taken away by police in nighttime raids. Norway-based Uyghur Hjelp, a rights organization that tracks arrested Uyghurs in Xinjiang, also recounted the same basic details of Tursun’s arrest. Abduweli Ayup, the organization’s founder, said Tursun went to Turkey in 2010 to attend college and graduated in 2016 from a university in the capital Istanbul. He then went to work for an international company there. Turkey is one of 26 countries that Chinese authorities monitor to determine if any Uyghurs have traveled there, according to Chinese sources. In the past, RFA reported that not only Uyghurs of Chinese citizenship who returned from Turkey but also Uyghurs with Turkish citizenship have been arrested and sentenced to prison in Xinjiang. Tursun was transferred to Guangzhou in autumn 2021 and later ended up in the Pulmonary Hospital in Urumqi, where police arrested him, Abduweli Ayup said. “Almost a year later, this July, he was arrested at his residence in Urumqi by the Chinese police,” he said, adding that it is not clear whether Tursun went to Urumqi on his own or if he was given a security guarantee by his company to go there. Sources in Xinjiang informed Abduweli Ayup that officers from the Ghalibiyet Police Station in Urumqi had arrested Tursun. Subi Tursun was a college roommate of Zulyar Yasin, a student at the Fujian Forestry University, when they both were in Turkey, he said. Chinese authorities may have arrested Tursun because of his connection to Yasin, who was arrested earlier this year by police, he said. Translated by RFA Uyghur. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

North Korean soldiers sent to collective farms to relieve manpower crunch

Editor2 years ago06 mins

North Korean authorities are dispatching veterans and soldiers about to demobilize to collective farms to make up for labor shortages, raising fears among the military ranks that they will be stuck doing hard jobs in rural areas for the rest of their lives, sources inside the country said. The Ministry of Defense, formerly known as the Ministry of People’s Armed Forces, has organized a command group to dispatch veterans and select soldiers scheduled to be discharged this year and in 2023, a military-related source in North Pyongan province told RFA. The Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of North Korea issued a directive for the project to send veterans to collective farms in rural areas throughout the country, he said. “The intensive deployment of veterans to collective farms is occurring because the aging rural workforce is getting older, and young people are leaving the countryside to engage in other livelihoods,” he said. “This is causing setbacks in farming.” The General Political Bureau instructed the veterans to be sent to the farming collectives this year to join the Korean Workers’ Party, the country’s sole ruling party, by mid-November, said the source who declined to be named so as to speak freely. The soldiers about to be discharged hope they won’t be included on the deployment list, fearing that if they are sent to rural areas, they will have to farm for the rest of their lives, he said. “The soldiers who are about to be discharged this year can’t sleep at night because of their anxiety that they might be included on the list for this year’s group mobilization into the countryside,” he said. North Korean authorities also have extended the directive to other groups. The children of parents who work in city factories and in business enterprises are also being selected to supplement the planned rural manpower, the source said. North Korea has approximately 1.14 million active troops, including 950,000 in the army, 120,000 in the air force, 60,000 in the navy, 10,000 soldiers in strategic missile forces, and an estimated 200,000 internal security forces as of 2021, according to the CIA’s World Factbook. Military service is mandatory for North Koreans, with seven to eight years for men, and five years for women, according to the Korean National Intelligence Service in 2021. Morale is low The General Political Bureau held a meeting for each military unit and instructed the soldiers that they should recommend colleagues leaving the service for collective farm work, said a military-related source in North Hamgyong province. “The soldiers sent to the countryside were told to be ideologically well equipped so that they could play a key role in strengthening rural farming,” he said. “However, the morale of the veterans who are caught in the deployment list has fallen so badly, so what is the use of ideological selection?” Soldiers scheduled for discharge in 2023 have no way of avoiding deployment to the countryside, he said. “Of course, the morale of the units is low, and the atmosphere is chaotic,” the source, who declined to be named so as to speak freely, told RFA. “Some soldiers are blatantly negligent in their duties, saying that if they are discharged from the military in the future, they will be forced to advance into rural groups anyway,” he added. “Then they will join the Korean Workers’ Party regardless of how much effort is put into their military service time.” North Korea grants party membership as a carrot to discharged soldiers who are going to be assigned to undesirable rural areas. The soon-to-be-discharged soldiers are fearful of being sent to the countryside to work in hard jobs at farms, coal mines and construction sites, the source said. Translated by Claire Shinyoung Oh Lee. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

China steps up cyberattacks, disinformation campaigns targeting Taiwan

Editor2 years ago2 years ago012 mins

Cyber attacks and a Chinese disinformation campaign targeting the democratic island of Taiwan throw the spotlight on Beijing’s use of hybrid warfare in the wake of Pelosi’s visit, a Taiwanese military official said on Monday. Maj. Gen. Chen Yu-lin, deputy director of the Political and War Bureau of Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense told journalists on Monday that the current wave of “cognitive operations” started before the military exercises were announced. Chen said the hybrid warfare campaign sought to create an atmosphere suggesting China might be invading Taiwan, to attack the public image of the government, and to disrupt civilian and military morale. “The CCP’s military exercises began on Aug. 4, when the number of cognitive warfare-related posts targeting Taiwan skyrocketed to 73, peaking at 87 on Aug. 5,” Chen. “[But] official media posted a total of 87 messages on Aug. 2, before the military exercises started.” “We immediately issued a press release to … inform the public that these messages weren’t true,” Chen said, citing one message claiming the PLA had shot down a Taiwanese fighter jet accompanying Pelosi’s plane. “We immediately clarified that this was fake news,” Chen said. Hybrid warfare denotes a combination of conventional military action on the ground and hacks or disinformation campaigns designed to attack public morale and sow confusion. Chen Hui-min, editor-in-chief of the Taiwan FactCheck Center, said his organization had detected a 30-40 increase in fake reports online since Pelosi’s visit. “The biggest difference [from the past] is that it seems to be spreading from English-language Twitter,” Chen told RFA. “There is also a lot of fake information on China’s [social media platform] Weibo, some of which has made its way onto social media platforms used in Taiwan, including LINE and Facebook.” “It used to be pretty rare to see such posts in the English Twittersphere,” Chen said. “Accounts that once focused on the war in Ukraine suddenly started spreading fake news about Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan.” National Taiwan University was hacked, with the words “there is only one China in this world” appearing on its official website. Meanwhile, the National Palace Museum issued a statement denying online rumors that the government was preparing to send tens of thousands of rare artifacts overseas for safekeeping. Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying tweeted on Sunday that the maps showed Shandong dumpling restaurants and Shanxi noodle restaurants in Taipei, saying the presence of the restaurants means that Taiwan has always been a part of China. “Palates don’t cheat,” Hua wrote, adding: “The long lost child will eventually return home.” Outdated photos According to Chen Hui-min, some of the images used by the disinformation posts used military images from two years earlier to suggest the PLA had fired rockets across the island. “It’s incorrect to say that the CCP’s long-range rockets have flown across Taiwan. Even the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and official Chinese media have reported that they landed in the Taiwan Strait, stopping short of crossing Taiwan,” Chen said. “Another annotated photo said the Chinese army was assembling on the coast, using edited photos of North Korean military exercises that took place in 2017.” Another report cited China’s state broadcaster CCTV as saying that China was expelling Taiwanese nationals before Aug. 8, also untrue. Last week, several convenience store branches and government facilities across Taiwan saw their digital signage hacked with messages slandering visiting U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi during her recent visit to Taiwan, which sparked days of military exercises and missile launches near Taiwan by China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA). As Pelosi visited Taiwan and met with president Tsai Ing-wen on Aug. 3, messages started popping up on digital signage in 7-Eleven convenience stores across the country that read: “Warmonger Pelosi, get out of Taiwan!” Digital signage at a railway station in the southern port city of Kaohsiung and at a government office in Nantou county also displayed a message calling Pelosi “an old witch.” Investigators said the attacks originated from an unknown IP address, the island’s Central News Agency (CNA) reported at the time. The hacks came after the official website of Tsai’s Presidential Office was taken down for around 20 minutes by a cyberattack, after which full service was restored, CNA reported. Mainland Chinese website Baidu joined in the cognitive warfare, releasing maps of Taiwan for the first time, which went viral after social media users noticed that many streets in Taiwan’s cities are named for cities in mainland China. Chinese officials and pro-CCP commentators have launched a global media offensive around Pelosi’s Taiwan visit, claiming that the island, which has never been ruled by the CCP nor formed part of the 72-year-old People’s Republic of China, is an “inseparable” part of Chinese territory. CCP leader Xi Jinping has repeatedly said that Taiwan must be “unified” with China, and refused to rule out the use of military force to annex the island. But Taiwan president Tsai Ing-wen, who was re-elected in a 2020 landslide after vowing to stand up to China on the issue, has said that Taiwan’s 23 million population have no wish to give up their sovereignty, a view that is borne out by repeated opinion polls. Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying tweeted on Sunday that the maps showed Shandong dumpling restaurants and Shanxi noodle restaurants in Taipei, saying the presence of the restaurants means that Taiwan has always been a part of China. “Palates don’t cheat,” Hua wrote, adding: “The long lost child will eventually return home.” Hua Chunying Twitter users responded with parodies of the tweet, citing the ubiquitous presence of American fast-food chains KFC and McDonalds in China, and claiming China as “part of Kentucky.” Taiwan cookery expert Clarissa Wei said many of the restaurants had already altered their dishes to suit the local palate, however, drawing parallels with the evolution of Chinese dishes in the United States to suit local tastes. Feminist writer Shangguan Luan said China’s CCP-supporting Little Pinks could be forgiven for their ignorance, given that they…

Chinese secret police warned exiled Hong Kong businessman over parliament plan

Editor2 years ago08 mins

China’s state security police threatened an overseas Hong Kong businessman who recently announced plans to set up a parliament-in-exile with repercussions for his family members who remain in the city, RFA has learned. Hong Kong’s national security police said last week they are investigating former pro-democracy lawmaker-elect Baggio Leung, overseas businessman Elmer Yuen and journalist Victor Ho for “subversion of state power” under a draconian national security law after they announced plans to set up the overseas parliament. “They warned me in advance [not to go ahead with the plan], but I ignored them,” Yuen told RFA in a recent interview, saying he had been contacted by state security police in Beijing, not the national security unit of Hong Kong’s police force. “They gave me a number of warnings, [including] saying I still have family members in Hong Kong,” he said, adding that there “no point” in worrying about it. Yuen’s comments came as his daughter-in-law Eunice Yeung, a New People’s Party member of the current Legislative Council (LegCo) whose members were all pre-approved by Beijing ahead of the last election, took out an advertisement in Hong Kong’s Oriental Daily News, publicly severing ties with her father-in-law. “I Eunice Yung, a Chinese person with the blood of our mighty motherland running in my veins … hereby declare that I am cutting off Elmer Yuen as my father-in-law, following his investigation under the national security law for suspected incitement to subvert state power,” the ad, signed by Yung and dated Aug. 5, said. Yuen said he still plans to go ahead with the Hong Kong Parliament, which will offer a fully democratic vote to all Hongkongers, regardless of location. “This definitely is a touchy subject for [the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP)] right now because nobody who lives in Hong Kong or mainland China is legitimately represented in government,” he said, drawing parallels with Yung’s actions and the political divisions sown within families during the public denunciations, ‘struggle sessions’ and kangaroo courts of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). “Stuff like this never used to happen in Hong Kong, but now that the CCP has enacted the national security law, they have forced [Yung] to draw a clear line between her and me,” he said. “This used to happen in mainland China during the Cultural Revolution, when they would get family members of somebody they planned to denounce to cut them off,” he said. “Personally, I don’t think it’s a big deal, but you have to understand that this is the CCP, something that we Hongkongers have never experienced before, so we think it’s a big thing.” “First of all, [Yung] wants to keep her seat in LegCo … she wants to protect her family; she has a husband and two kids,” he said. Former Beijing adviser Lew Mon-hung said Yung’s move likely didn’t go far enough. “I think she should draw an ideological and political line, not just talk in terms of … family ethics and relationships, which isn’t very specific, and is cultural [rather than political],” Lew told RFA. “She is just trying to politically correct, but lacks political wisdom.” Lew said Yung should give media interviews illustrating the political reasons for her split with Yeung, or write an article backing up her position in terms of the national security law and Hong Kong’s Basic Law. Chinese political commentator Lin Feng said the comparisons being drawn with the Cultural Revolution are apt. “During the Cultural Revolution … those being cut off were generally intellectuals or officials who had just lost their social status, and reduced from being intellectuals or officials to the status of ordinary people,” Lin told RFA. “But for Hong Kong people, what is really unbearable is the freezing and confiscation of their assets under the national security law.” “It’s hard for them to cope with the slightest change in social status, which makes the middle class very vulnerable.” Forty-seven former opposition lawmakers and democracy activists are currently behind bars awaiting trial on the same “incitement to subversion” charge for their involvement in a 2020 democratic primary election aimed at maximizing the number of opposition seats in LegCo. Soon after the primary, the government postponed the LegCo elections and rewrote the rules to force candidates to undergo vetting by a committee overseen by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and national security police, effectively barring any pro-democracy candidates from running. “The Security Bureau appeals to the public to dissociate themselves from individuals contravening the Hong Kong National Security Law, and the illegal activities those individuals organized, so as to avoid bearing any unnecessary legal risks,” a spokesman said in a statement. Yuan, Ho and Leung are part of a group that announced the parliament-in-exile plan in Canada on July 27, along with plans to hold the first election under universal suffrage in late 2023. Leung, who is also known by the English names Baggio and Sixtus, was expelled along with five other newly elected Legislative Council (LegCo) members after China’s National People’s Congress ruled their oaths of allegiance invalid in 2016. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

China keeps up war games with anti-sub, sea assault practice near Taiwan

Editor2 years ago010 mins

The Chinese military carried out anti-submarine and sea assault drills in waters around Taiwan on Monday, keeping up the pressure after major four-day drills an angry Beijing staged response to the U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit last week, military sources said. China also announced a series of new military drills in the South China Sea and in the Yellow Sea and Bohai Sea, waters that lie between the Chinese mainland and the Korean peninsula. The Eastern Theater Command of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) said on its official WeChat account that the Command’s forces “continued to conduct practical joint exercises in the sea and airspace around Taiwan Island, focusing on organizing joint anti-submarine and sea assault operations” on Aug. 8. On Sunday, the last day of the scheduled military exercise announced on Aug. 3, the PLA sent 14 warships and 66 aircraft to areas surrounding Taiwan in attack simulation drills, the Taiwanese Ministry of National Defense said, adding that 22 of the airplanes crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait. The ministry “monitored the situation and responded to these activities with aircraft in CAP (Combat Air Patrol), naval vessels, and land-based missile systems,” it said in a statement. Taiwan military’s Fourth Combat Zone will also hold two large-scale, live-fire artillery drills in Pingtung in southern Taiwan on Tuesday and Thursday this week to test its combat readiness. The drills will include the artillery command, infantry troops and the coastguard, the military said. Eastern Theatre Command of China’s PLA conducts a long-range live-fire drill into the Taiwan Strait, from an undisclosed location, Aug. 4, 2022. Credit: PLA Eastern Theater Command Handout via REUTERS Numerous new exercises On Saturday, China announced a new series of military drills including a month-long operation in Bohai Sea. China’s Maritime Safety Administration released navigation warnings saying live-fire exercises will be held from Aug. 6 to Aug. 15 in the southern part of the Yellow Sea between China and South Korea, and gunnery drills from Aug. 8 to Aug. 9 and Aug. 9 to Aug.11 in the South China Sea. A navigation warning is a public advisory notice to mariners about changes to navigational aids and current marine activities or hazards including fishing zones and military exercises. A separate military exercise was conducted in the northern part of the Bohai Sea on Friday and Saturday. Local Taiwanese media reported that a month-long military operation will take place in Bohai Sea starting Aug. 8 until Sept. 8. “I think the military exercises aren’t really going to stop,” said Mark Harrison, a senior lecturer in Chinese studies at the University of Tasmania in Australia. “Beijing has used Pelosi’s visit as a pretext to create a “new normal” in the Taiwan Strait,” Harrison added. Nancy Pelosi became the most senior U.S. official to visit Taiwan in the last 25 years last week and Beijing repeatedly warned against the visit, threatening “strongest countermeasures.” Chinese media quoted several analysts as saying that military drills near Taiwan will become routine if “external interference” continues. “The military exercises around Taiwan, although having been quite restrained, are meant to show that Beijing is by no means a ‘paper tiger’,” said Sonny Lo, a veteran political commentator in Hong Kong. “Most importantly, Chinese military exercises near Taiwan are becoming a normal phenomenon, raising the specter of a possible military conflict or accident between the two sides,” Lo said. On Saturday and Sunday, Chinese forces staged what could be seen as simulated attacks on Taiwan. “The focus on Sunday was set on testing the capabilities of using joint fire to strike land targets and striking long-range air targets,” reported the PLA Daily. “Supported by naval and air combat systems, the air strike forces, together with long-range multiple launch rocket systems and conventional missile troops, conducted drills of joint precision strikes on targets,” the paper reported. U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi attends a meeting with Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen at the presidential office in Taipei, Aug. 3, 2022. Credit: Taiwan Presidential Office Handout via REUTERS What’s next? This “largest ever PLA air-missile-maritime exercise ever conducted” has provided some insights into China’s potential courses of action and preferences in a China-Taiwan conflict, said Carl Schuster, a retired U.S. Navy captain turned military analyst. “It suggests Beijing would first isolate Taiwan and resort to air and missile strikes in hopes of breaking Taipei’s political will. A costly invasion probably is a last resort,” said Schuster, who also served as a director of operations at the U.S. Pacific Command’s Joint Intelligence Center. “The exercise demonstrated that blockade in a conflict need not require a constant naval presence offshore, but rather, shipping and air traffic can be deterred by air and missile threats in support of a maritime blockade,” the analyst said, adding that it “also reflected the PLA’s improving capacity for joint operations.” During the four days of Chinese military drills, Taiwan saw up to a thousand international flights being affected and the Taiwanese aviation administration had to discuss alternative routes with Japan and the Philippines. A full military blockade would “paralyze Taiwan’s economy and seriously diminish the society’s confidence,” said commentator Sonny Lo in Hong Kong. “However China usually focuses on the “core enemies” such as the leaders of Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, rather than the whole Taiwanese population,” Lo said, predicting that the cross-strait relations will stay tense until at least the next Taiwan presidential election in early 2024. “Taiwan needs to quickly strengthen its international relations and its military capacity,” said Mark Harrison from the University of Tasmania, who argued that Beijing “will wipe out a vibrant democracy if it seizes control of Taiwan.” The Taiwanese government needs to focus on expanding defense resources and to enact smart and effective defense strategies, according to Drew Thompson, a former U.S. defense official and senior visiting fellow at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore. “Smaller countries that have great disadvantages have had tremendous success in the…

China isn’t yet ready to use military force against Taiwan

Editor2 years ago2 years ago019 mins

At 10.00 p.m. local time on Aug. 2, 2022, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi arrived in Taipei, the highest-ranking U.S. politician to do so for 25 years. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) angrily announced via its Xinhua news agency that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) would conduct military areas in six areas encircling Taiwan, between 12 noon on Aug. 4 to 12 noon on Aug. 7, including live-fire exercises. The PLA’s Eastern Theater Command then announced joint air and sea exercises in the Taiwan Strait and in the waters around the island, including the firing of long-range ammunition. The exercises are widely seen as a shock tactic and deterrent sparked by Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, and China styles them as a warning to supporters of “Taiwan independence.” The six areas encircled Taiwan on all sides, bringing PLA forces closer to the island than previous exercises during the 1995-1996 Taiwan Strait crisis, and even encroaching on Taiwan’s territorial waters in some places. On the morning of Aug. 3, Taiwan’s ministry of defense held an online news conference, at which it strongly condemned the exercises as a de facto air and sea blockade, a serious violation of the island’s territorial waters and as inimical to the status quo in the Taiwan Strait and in violation of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, and endangering international shipping lanes and regional security. Their initial analysis was that the CCP was using this show of force to intimidate Taiwan, and as a form of psychological warfare against its people. So the ministry announced it would prepare for war without seeking or avoiding it, and vowed not to escalate the conflict. It said the island’s military would step up vigilance and counter any aggression. Currently, Taiwan’s combat readiness training is continuing as it had been before, and there have been no recalls of officers or soldiers on leave. The United States remains on high alert, and is expected to respond to China’s large-scale military exercises and economic coercion against Taiwan. John Kirby, the National Security Council’s strategic communications coordinator, said in a regular White House media briefing on Aug. 2 that Beijing has no reason to turn this visit, which is in line with long-term U.S. policy, into some kind of crisis, or use it as an excuse for increased aggression and military activity targeting Taiwan. Sailors direct an EA-18G Growler attached to the Shadowhawks of Electronic Attack Squadron (VAQ) 141 on the flight deck of the U.S. Navy’s only forward-deployed aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) in the Philippine Sea, Aug. 2, 2022. Credit: U.S. Navy Missiles Kirby said the U.S. side expects China to continue to respond for a longer period of time [than in 1996], but gave no further details, adding that the U.S. doesn’t want a crisis and will seek to manage the situation and not fall into conflict with China. In other words, the United States has achieved its goal [with Pelosi’s visit], meaning that there is no need to irritate Beijing further, and that the situation, while tense, is generally under control. The exercises began after Pelosi left Taiwan, so as to avoid direct confrontation with the U.S. military; a kind of deterrent after the fact to save Beijing from admitting defeat, and to prevent other countries from following suit. Without it, China’s “one-China” principle [by which it claims Taiwan as its territory], could have faced unprecedented levels of challenge from the international community, opening the door for Taiwan to increase its presence on the world stage. It was a face-saving exercise by the CCP aimed at mollifying rising nationalism at home. The current situation is different from the 1995-1996 Taiwan Strait crisis, which lasted for during months, with seven waves of military exercises by the PLA, and amid plans to capture Taiwan’s outer islands of Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu. The current exercise encircles Taiwan on four sides … and is more obviously aimed at the United States, particularly the conventional missile test launches in the waters east of Taiwan. This arrangement helps prevent the U.S. military from intervening in the Taiwan Strait. The most eye-catching part of this exercise, and likely its biggest deterrent effect, lies in the test launch of conventional missiles. Some missiles were fired east of Taiwan, and passed through Japan’s Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ), before landing in Japanese economic exclusion zone. Will this trigger a chain reaction in security cooperation between the U.S. and Japan? This will be the focus of attention in the next few days. All six of the PLA’s military training zones fall within Taiwan’s ADIZ, while the areas off Keelung and Kaohsiung overlap with Taiwan’s territorial waters, meaning parts of them are less than 12 nautical miles (about 22 kilometers) off the Taiwanese coast, in a direct challenge to Taiwan’s sovereignty and in line with what the United Nations terms “national aggression.” Research indicates the PLA’s naval and air forces will conduct long-range live ammunition shooting outside the Taiwan defense zone and will not risk approaching Taiwan’s territorial waters. The incursion into Taiwan’s territorial waters seems intended as a psychological deterrent to Taiwan. It’s not out of the question that small amounts of ordinance could find their way into Taiwan’s territorial waters, and if they do, this could present new issues for Taiwan around how to respond. With the exercises taking place in Taiwan’s ADIZ, the median line of the Taiwan Strait disappears. The appearance of part of the exercise area in Taiwan’s territorial waters compresses the depth of Taiwan’s defense to its minimum range, posing fresh challenges to the island’s military. Taiwan Air Force Mirage fighter jets taxi on a runway at an airbase in Hsinchu, Taiwan, Friday, Aug. 5, 2022. China says it summoned European diplomats in the country to protest statements issued by the Group of Seven nations and the European Union criticizing threatening Chinese military exercises surrounding Taiwan. Credit: AP PLA thinking and capabilities In terms of sea and air…

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