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Xi steals the limelight at APEC, showcasing China’s regional clout

Editor4 years ago012 mins

UPDATED at 5:45 a.m. EST on 11-19-2022. Even as host Thailand passes the APEC baton to its successor the United States, Chinese President Xi Jinping has been busy using the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum to highlight China’s growing clout and push back against U.S. influence in the region. Having secured an unprecedented third term as leader at the Chinese Communist Party’s Congress last month, Xi embarked on his first major foreign tour since the pandemic struck nearly three years ago – to the Group of 20 Summit in Bali, then the APEC Summit in Bangkok that ended Saturday. The APEC summit was the third and final gathering of world leaders in Asia in the space of nine days. With U.S. President Joe Biden and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin both absent from APEC, the Chinese president virtually had the stage to himself. During his tour, Xi has for the most part struck a conciliatory tone during his encounters with other heads of states – including U.S. president. The Biden-Xi meeting on the sidelines of the G-20 went some way to tamping down months of rising U.S.-China tensions. “It certainly appears that Xi Jinping and China’s propaganda enterprise are trying to set a softer tone and appear less overtly antagonistic during the G-20 and APEC summits,” said Drew Thompson, visiting senior research fellow at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore. While in the Thai capital, Xi met with a host of regional leaders including key U.S. allies. He held bilateral talks with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, Singaporean Premier Lee Hsien Loong and Philippine President Ferdinand Romualdez Marcos Jr. on a wide range of issues including economic cooperation and security. Xi also met with Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha — although their initial photo op went viral on social media for the wrong reasons because of the appearance that Xi had snubbed Prayuth’s offer of a handshake. “President Xi certainly wants to be a major player,” said Ja Ian Chong, a political scientist at the National University of Singapore, noting the Chinese leader’s confidence in having unscripted interactions with other leaders – like when he chastised Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau over alleged leaks of diplomatic conversations at the G-20. But Thompson observed: “The underlying differences between China and its neighbors and trading partners remain deeply entrenched and there are no signs that China is adapting its foreign policy approach and how it pursues its interests.” Chinese leadership Gao Zhikai, vice president of the Beijing-based Center for China and Globalization, said Xi’s attendance at APEC accentuated China’s growing leadership role in stark contrast with the U.S.’s “diminishing relevance.” Biden did in fact attend the G-20 Summit in Bali, Indonesia, and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in Cambodia that preceded it – a meeting Xi skipped – in an effort to signal U.S. commitment to the region. But when it came to APEC, which focuses on economic cooperation – an area of Asia policy in which Washington is generally perceived as trailing China – Biden had returned home for a family event. “The fact that Biden is not at the meeting shows that the U.S. doesn’t care much about APEC,” Gao told RFA. “Of course, the whole world is aware that his granddaughter is getting married,” said the academic who served as a translator for late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping and sometimes acts as de-facto media spokesman for the Chinese Communist Party. “But if there was interest, the U.S. would know how to show it,” he added. ‘Proud Pacific power’ That’s obviously not the narrative conveyed by Washington, which now takes over the rotating chair of the 21-member APEC bloc, which was set up in 1989 to promote free trade. U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, who was in Bangkok in Biden’s place, told the summit that her country is “a proud Pacific power” and that “the United States is here to stay.” Harris had a brief meeting with Xi in which she urged the Chinese leadership to “maintain open lines of communication to responsibly manage the competition between our countries.” U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris greets China’s President Xi Jinping before the APEC Leaders’ Retreat in Bangkok, Thailand Nov. 19, 2022. (The White House/Handout via REUTERS) On the theme of economic cooperation, Harris said the Indo-Pacific serves as the market for almost 30 percent of American exports and U.S. companies invest $1 trillion a year in the region. She vowed that the U.S. “will uphold the rules of the road” and “will help build prosperity for everyone.” Her statement clearly struck a chord with some participating nations which want to avoid being caught up in big-power competition between China and the United States. Vietnamese President Nguyen Xuan Phuc said his country supports “all regional and multilateral cooperation frameworks which are based on international principles and regulations.” Harris appeared to draw a contrast between the U.S. initiative and China’s Belt and Road Initiative that has invested large sums of money in infrastructure across the world, but which critics say can leave recipient countries in heavy debt to Beijing. Xi said that China is considering holding the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in 2023. Reinvigorating APEC Gao contended that Harris’ main purpose at APEC was actually to promote the U.S.-led Indo-Pacific Economic Framework. The Biden administration launched the IPEF in May as the center of its economic strategy for the region, and the U.S. vice president said the grouping now represents some 40 per cent of the global gross domestic product and is “dedicated to equitable growth and high environmental and labor standards.” It does not include either Russia or China. Gao said he suspects “the U.S. is hollowing out APEC for the benefit of IPEF,” which he described as an “artificial, ill-designed” grouping. “But APEC will remain APEC, a natural, coherent forum of cooperation for all countries in the region,” he said. Ja Ian Chong at the National University of Singapore said “China…

China uses carrots and sticks to boost Uyghur-Han intermarriage-report

Editor4 years ago07 mins

China mixes financial, education and career incentives with coercive measures such as threats to families under state policies to promote intermarriage between majority Han Chinese and ethnic minority Uyghurs in the restive Xinjiang region, a new report by a Uyghur rights group has found. The Uyghur Human Rights Project analyzed Chinese state media, policy documents, government sanctioned marriage testimonials, as well as accounts from women in the Uyghur diaspora, that government incentivizes and coercion to boost interethnic marriages has increased since 2014. “The Chinese Party-State is actively involved in carrying out a campaign of forcefully assimilating Uyghurs into Han Chinese society by means of mixed marriages,” said the report. The findings on forced marriage by Washington, DC-based NGO come as Western governments and the United Nations have recognized that Chinese policies in Xinjiang amount to or may amount to genocide or crimes against humanity. Forced labor, incarceration camps and other aspects of China’s rule in Xinjiang have drawn sanctions from Britain, Canada, the European Union and the United States. The study, “Forced Marriage of Uyghur Women: State Policies for Interethnic Marriage in East Turkistan,” draws on state media propaganda films, state-approved online accounts of interethnic marriages and weddings, state-approved personal online testimonials from individuals in interethnic marriages, as well as government statements and policy directives. “The Party-State has actively encouraged and incentivized ‘interethnic’ Uyghur-Han intermarriage since at least May 2014,” the Uyghur Human Rights Project says in the report, released on Nov. 16. Interethnic marriage policies gained momentum after Chinese President Xi Jinping announced a “new era” at the Xinjiang Work Forum in 2014, touting a policy of strengthening interethnic “contact, exchange, and mingling,” the report said. “Uyghur-Han intermarriage has been increasing over the past several years since the Chinese state has been actively promoting intermarriage,” said Nuzigum Setiwaldi a co-author of the report. “The Chinese government always talks about how interethnic marriages promote ‘ethnic unity’ and ‘social stability,’ but these actually are euphemisms for assimilation,” she told RFA Uyghur. “The Chinese government is incentivizing and promoting intermarriage as a way to assimilate Uyghurs into Han society and culture. Carrots include cash payments, help with housing, medical care, government jobs, and tuition waivers. When it comes to sticks, “young Uyghur women and/or their parents face an ever-present threat of punishment if the women decline to marry a Han ‘suitor,’” the report said, citing experiences of Uyghur women now living in exile. “Videos and testimonies have also raised concerns that Uyghur women are being pressured and forced into marrying Han men,” said Setiwaldi. The report cites an informal marriage guide for male Han party officials published in 2019, titled “How to Win the Heart of a Uyghur Girl.” Han men who want to marry Uyghur women are told that the woman they love “must love the Motherland, love the Party, and she must have unrivaled passion for socialist Xinjiang,” it said. Commenting on the report, scholar Adrian Zenz said the Chinese Communist Party’s “policy of incentivizing Han and coercing Uyghurs into interethnic marriages is part of a strategy of breaking down and dismantling Uyghur culture.” Zenz, a senior fellow in China Studies at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation in Washington, D.C., was the first outside expert to document the network of mass internment camp for Uyghurs launched in Xinjiang in 2017 and he has analyzed China’s Uyghur population policies. The intermarriage strategy serves the goal of “optimizing the ethnic population structure, breaking the ‘dominance’ of concentrated Uyghur populations in southern Xinjiang as part of a slowly unfolding genocidal policy,” he told RFA. “It’s important that people pay attention to the different forms of human rights abuses that are taking place in the Uyghur region, particularly those that are underreported, like forced marriages,” said Setiwaldi. “People can raise awareness and push their governments to hold the Chinese government accountable.” China had no immediate comment on the report. Last month, a Chinese Foreign Ministry statement dismissed U.S. efforts to debate the U.N. report, saying, “the human rights of people of all ethnic backgrounds in Xinjiang are protected like never before” and “the ultimate motive of the U.S. and some other Western countries behind their Xinjiang narrative is to contain China.” Written by Paul Eckert for RFA.

Leaked documents reveal Myanmar junta’s plans to strike in Chin state

Editor4 years ago03 mins

The Myanmar junta is preparing to launch airstrikes against the Chin National Front in the country’s western Chin state, a spokesperson for the ethnic armed organization told Radio Free Asia, citing leaked internal military documents. According to the documents, which the Chin National Front, or CNF, acquired earlier this month, the airstrike is intended to target the organization’s headquarters on Mt. Victoria, in Thantlang township. “We cannot reveal where we got this intelligence information, but we are preparing the best we can for the defense against this airstrike,” CNF spokesperson Salai Htet Ni told RFA’s Burmese Service. He said the documents revealed that churches, hospitals, clinics and schools are also on the list of possible targets. News of the plans frightened people living in the area, a civilian living near Mt. Victoria told RFA. “We are the only village near that mountain,” he said. “If they also target the village, we could be hit hard.” Thant Zin, the junta’s spokesperson for Chin state, has not responded to the CNF’s claims that the military is preparing to launch airstrikes in region. The military only launches airstrikes when absolutely necessary, said Thein Tun Oo, executive director of Thaenaga Institute for Strategic Studies, a pro-military think tank formed with former military officers. “The position is the same for all armed organizations in the country. If they view something as detrimental for their security, they take military action. This is a very normal path,” he said. “But I am suspicious that such an important decision to launch an airstrike has been leaked to the outside. It is hard to say whether their information is right or wrong.” Junta forces last month killed 63 people in Kachin state, many of them members of the Kachin Independence Organization, when they bombed a concert in what is believed to be the bloodiest single airstrike in Myanmar since last year’s military coup. Translated by Ye K.M. Maung. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

China sentences mother of Uyghur Dutch airman to 15 years for visiting him abroad

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Chinese authorities have sentenced the mother and sister-in-law of an Uyghur member of the Dutch air force to 15 years in prison on charges of supporting terrorism and revealing state secrets. The cases are another example of Beijing severely punishing members of the ethnic minority for visiting or contacting relatives abroad. Capt. MUN (pseudo name for security concerns), now a Dutch citizen, has been living in the Netherlands since 2006. His mother came to visit him in 2014 to attend his wedding, he told IJ-Reportika. In 2016, the same year he joined the Royal Netherlands Air Force, he lost contact with his mother, Imanem Nesrulla, and his sister-in-law, Ayhan Memet, he said. In 2018, while he was stationed in the United States of America, his sister-in-law was able to initiate contact with him for the first time in two years, using the WeChat messaging platform. She told him that Chinese authorities arrested his mother and sent her to a concentration camp, MUN said. Then in 2019, he heard that his sister-in-law was arrested for telling him about his mother’s arrest. MUN made several appeals to the Dutch government to find out more information about both cases, but it wasn’t until he returned to the Netherlands in 2020 that his inquiries made any headway. The Dutch foreign ministry contacted the Chinese Embassy, and in July 2021 he received news that his mother and sister-in-law had both been sentenced to 15 years in prison. “[Ayhan] had told me of my mother’s situation, hoping I would get my mother released since I was living in Europe and working in the military. Just for this information, the authorities sentenced her to 15 years in jail.” MUN said. Enemy force According to the written response he received from the ministry, Imanem was charged with “supporting terrorist activities and inciting ethnicity [sic] hatred and discrimination,” and Ayhan for “illegally providing national intelligence to foreign forces.” In China’s view, MUN said he is considered part of an “enemy force.” MUN said he was very disappointed that the Dutch foreign ministry could do nothing to help him after they were able to reveal his family members’ fates. “It seems this will hurt their big interests,” he said. “I wrote to my prime minister twice but did not receive any response.” MUN said that both his mother and sister-in-law lived and worked in Qumul (in Chinese Hami), about 370 miles east of Urumqi in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Due to his professional responsibilities, MUN has refrained from any involvement with political activities, but he expressed that he can remain silent no more, and he is now doing as much as he can for his mother and sister-in-law. “[Previously] I was not willing to speak to the media as a complainer and a victim because of my position,” he said. But now, “I have to do this for my mother and sister-in-law, who are in prison because of me.”

North Korean censors destroy more than half of soldiers’ Mother’s Day letters

Editor4 years ago05 mins

North Korea’s military ordered soldiers to write letters to their mothers ahead of the country’s Mother’s Day, which was on Wednesday, but military censors destroyed more than half of them for ideological reasons, sources in the country told Radio Free Asia. To make matters worse, the censors even used the contents of some letters to identify and punish problematic soldiers, sources said. “The letters from soldiers of each unit … are opened before they arrive at the regimental postal office, and the ones that contain complaints about the difficulties of military service are sorted out and destroyed,” a source from the northwestern province of North Pyongan told RFA’s Korean Service on condition of anonymity for safety reasons. The number of mothers who aren’t receiving letters is likely in the hundreds of thousands. Every able-bodied North Korean must serve in the military. Until recently, male soldiers spent 10 years in the service, but since 2020, men serve eight years and women five as part of a fighting force estimated by the CIA World Factbook to be 1.15 million strong. From the letters sorted out, the censors made a list of soldiers with “weak ideological wills” – in other words, those who complained about hunger or fatigue, the source said. Those soldiers will be sent to ideological training. Letters written by a unit of soldiers guarding the border with China in the northeastern province of North Hamgyong had to pass through two rounds of censors, a source there told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “The letters were first opened and censored by the company security officers, then they were all collected at the regiment and the military’s security authorities inspected them again,” the second source said. Some of the soldiers on the weak ideology list did not even complain. Instead they made the mistake of asking about their mothers’ wellbeing, the second source said. “A soldier sent his regards to his mother and asked her if the house had not collapsed in a recent flood and if the farming was going well,” the second source said. “However, the military security department pointed out that this shows that the soldier … does not trust the Party and speaks weakly instead of trusting that the Party takes care of the lives of all citizens.” Because so many soldiers are now going to be sent to ideological reeducation, they are griping about the authorities’ duplicitous behavior, because they are the ones that ordered them to write the letters in the first place, the second source said. Though Mother’s Day is most commonly celebrated around the world on the second Sunday in May, it falls on other dates in many countries. It is a relatively new holiday in North Korea, introduced in 2012 during the first year of Kim Jong Un’s reign, and became a public holiday in 2015. Authorities chose Nov. 16 in remembrance of an iconic speech about mothers delivered on that day in 1961 by Kim’s grandfather, national founder Kim Il Sung. Translated by Claire Shinyoung Oh Lee and Leejin J. Chung. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

“The results may be unpredictable”, said Xi schooling Trudeau over media leaks

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Chinese leader Xi Jinping schooled Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit on Wednesday over leaks about their one-on-one meeting, according to a video of the incident. The encounter was apparently sparked after Reuters quoted Canadian government sources as saying that Trudeau had held a side meeting with Xi on Tuesday, their first in more than three years. During it, Trudeau reportedly expressed concerns about Chinese interference in Canadian elections. “Everything we’ve discussed has been leaked to the papers, and this isn’t appropriate,” Xi says while seeming to force a smile in comments translated by an interpreter. “That was not the way the conversation was conducted.” “This isn’t how we go about it, right? If there is sincerity on your part, then we shall conduct our discussions with mutual respect,” Xi said in footage from a break at the G20 obtained by CTV News Channel’s Annie Bergeron-Oliver, a reporter accompanying Trudeau. The Chinese interpreter failed to fully translate the entirety of Xi’s Chinese into English. After Xi said “this is inappropriate” while shaking his head in seeming disapproval, he gave Trudeau one last look, spread both hands and shook his head again while uttering, “otherwise the results may be unpredictable.” Between Xi’s two utterances, Trudeau tried to emphasize the importance of open communication between leaders. “In Canada we believe in free and open and frank dialogue and that is what we will continue to have,” he said. “We will continue to look to work constructively together but there will be things we disagree on.” Halfway through listening to his interpreter’s translation of Trudeau’s speech however, Xi noticed the nearby cameras. Xi then repeated the phrase, “Let’s create the conditions” twice, shook hands with Trudeau and quickly left. A report from Reuters on Tuesday revealed that Trudeau and Xi’s meeting had been preceded by the arrest of an employee from Canada’s largest power company. The man was charged with stealing trade secrets for China. At a routine press conference, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Mao Ning declined to comment on the incident.

Nearly 1.7 million new refugees of conflict in Myanmar since coup

Editor4 years ago010 mins

Nearly 1.7 million people have been displaced by conflict in Myanmar since last year’s military coup, bringing the total number of refugees who have fled fighting in the country to more than 3 million and putting a heavy strain on aid resources in the Southeast Asian nation. The Institute for Strategy and Policy, an independent research group, said in a report earlier this month that as of Nov. 2, at least 1,650,661 people had been forced to escape conflict in regions that include Sagaing, Magway, Bago, Chin and Kayah in the more than 21 months since the military took power in Myanmar. The new refugees join an estimated 497,200 internally displaced persons who fled conflict before the Feb. 21, 2021 coup and at least 1,019,190 who have crossed Myanmar’s borders into the neighboring countries of Thailand, India and Bangladesh due to fighting both prior to and after the putsch, the group said. The new total of 3,167,051 represents roughly six percent of the country’s population of 54.4 million. As the number of refugees continues to swell, amidst a protracted conflict in Myanmar’s remote border regions between the military and anti-coup paramilitary groups and ethnic armies, local and international aid groups say the junta has barred them from accessing those in need or hampered efforts to deliver crucial supplies to camps for the displaced. Speaking to RFA Burmese on Wednesday, a refugee in Chin state’s war-torn Kanpetlet township said medicine and food resources at their camp have nearly dried up, putting an already vulnerable population at greater risk. “We are in a very difficult situation,” said the refugee, who spoke on condition of anonymity citing fear of reprisal by the military. “We are in desperate need of medicine for the elderly, pregnant women, breast-feeding mothers, and children under the age of five.” According to ethnic Chin human rights groups, conflict since the military coup has created more than 110,000 new refugees in Chin state, more than 60,000 of whom fled to other regions of Myanmar and more than 50,000 of whom crossed into India’s Mizoram state to escape the fighting. In Kayin state, the ethnic Karen National Union said that daily battles between the military and its armed wing, the Karen National Liberation Army, had caused at least 186,471 people to flee their homes in the Karen-controlled townships of Hpapun, Kawkareik, Kyainseikgyi, and Myawaddy as of Aug. 16. Meanwhile, more than 130,000 ethnic Rohingya refugees who fled violence in Rakhine state in 2012 and 2017 remain in more than 10 camps for the displaced in Sittwe township, aid workers say. Aid undelivered The scale of the humanitarian crisis in Myanmar prompted an agreement between the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the junta to facilitate the immediate distribution of aid to refugees in the country through the military regime’s Ministry of International Cooperation at a May 6 meeting in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh. Nonetheless, aid groups – including U.N. agencies and NGOs – say they have been blocked from doing so or that the supplies they have handed over to the junta remain undelivered under the pretense of security risks. Attempts by RFA to contact the ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on disaster management via email for comment on why aid has largely been withheld from Myanmar’s refugees went unanswered Wednesday, as did requests for comment to Ko Ko Hlaing, the junta’s Union Minister for International Cooperation. Banyar, the director of the Karenni Human Rights Group, said that junta restrictions have made the distribution of relief impossible in the country, and advised that aid groups “leave Myanmar officially.” “Providing humanitarian aid through the countries bordering Myanmar will be more effective,” he told RFA. Other groups have suggested that ASEAN’s relief agency had overestimated its ability to deliver. In a statement on Nov. 1, the Thailand-based Border Consortium, which has assisted refugees along the Thai-Myanmar border since 1984, said the agency “lacks experience” in responding to emergency situations and claimed that efforts to distribute aid to rural Myanmar would remain fruitless without the military’s blessing. Rohingya migrants are escorted after their boat carrying 119 people landed on the coast of Bluka Teubai, North Aceh, Indonesia, on November 16, 2022, after surviving a five week journey at sea. Credit: AFP Rohingya refugee arrests The new figures for refugees of conflict in Myanmar came as reporting by RFA found that authorities had arrested at least 388 Rohingyas who tried to flee refugee camps in Rakhine state and neighboring Bangladesh for Malaysia between Oct. 17 and Nov. 11. Authorities in Myanmar do not recognize Rohingyas as citizens of the country, despite members of their ethnic group having a long history in Rakhine state, and subject them to discrimination and movement restrictions. Among those arrested in the three weeks ending Nov. 11 were 60 members of a group of 80 Rohingyas, including 45 children, whose boat sank near Ayeyarwaddy region’s Bogale township as it made its way to the Andaman Sea on Oct. 30, leaving 20 people missing. A Bogale resident who is helping the detained Rohingyas told RFA that the 60 Rohingya are being detained at the township’s police station on immigration charges. On Oct. 20, authorities arrested 117 Rohingyas who they said were trying to leave Myanmar for Malaysia at a house in Yangon region, and 54 Rohingyas – including a pregnant woman – who planned to the same destination near Ayeyarwady region’s Maubin township two days later. On Nov. 2, authorities in Kayin state’s Kawkareik township arrested 101 Rohingyas attempting to flee to Thailand from Rakhine state’s Buthidaung township, sources said. According to data collected by RFA, authorities in Myanmar have arrested at least 992 Rohingyas who tried to flee their homes between December 2021 and mid-October 2022. Among them, 223 have been sentenced to between two and five years in prison under Myanmar’s immigration laws. Translated by Myo Min Aung. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

Fed up with COVID lockdowns, migrant workers in Guangzhou break through barriers

Editor4 years ago06 mins

Migrat workers whose movements have been restricted by rolling lockdowns and compulsory COVID-19 testing under China’s strict zero-COVID policy have taken to the streets of the southern province of Guangdong in recent days, according to video clips uploaded to social media. One video clip reportedly shot in Haizhu district of the provincial capital Guangzhou on Monday night showed hundreds of people surging along a street, shoving over traffic barriers and arguing with police and disease prevention personnel in protective gear. It was the latest outpouring of resentment in China over restrictions aimed at containing the spread of the virus. In another clip posted to Twitter, people are shown smashing barriers before flinging what appear to be plastic crates at workers and officials in protective gear, while a woman exclaims from behind the camera: “Wow, that’s going too far! So scary!” Dissatisfaction with the frequent lockdowns was the main reason driving the protests, said a man who gave only his name as Xu. “They’d been locked up so long and couldn’t do business, and so they just rushed out,” he told Radio Free Asia. “Last night a ton of people broke through the quarantine barricades. Seems like special police were sent in,” he said. “I don’t know how many people were there.” Xu said people have been locked up for weeks in areas where the protests broke out. Long-term closure and inability to work, coupled with insufficient supplies, were the main reasons for people’s protests. Local authorities did not respond to requests for comment. In another video, dozens of people face off in an alleyway with dozens of disease control personnel and police across fallen traffic barriers, before the camera pans to show police holding down a man restrained by cable ties with a foot on his neck. Footage sent to Radio Free Asia showed hundreds of people running along two different streets, trampling traffic barriers and shouting, while another shot showed hundreds standing still and facing off near a COVID-19 testing station, with some people pushing over barriers. ‘Love of freedom’ And in a clip sent to RFA’s Cantonese Service, people apparently confined to apartment buildings in Guangzhou sing the anthem of the 2014 Hong Kong pro-democracy movement, “Boundless Oceans, Vast Skies,” by Hong Kong rock band Beyond, to the night sky. “Forgive me, my whole life I’ve had a love of freedom,” the crowd sings in Cantonese, the lingua franca of both Guangdong and Hong Kong. Chinese media outlet Interface News reported that the protests had prompted local leaders to hold an emergency meeting on Monday night to tweak the way the zero-COVID policies are being enforced. The Guangdong province health commission said via its official WeChat account on Tuesday that “adjustments” would be needed to local policies, slashing quarantine periods from seven days at a quarantine camp plus three days observation at home to five days in quarantine and three days at home. Local officials must arrange for the “timely release” of people once their quarantine and home isolation periods are completed and the necessary negative tests completed, the commission said. Local officials should avoid being overly rigid in enforcing restrictions, and do a good job of preventing and responding to risks, the statement said. China’s health ministry reported 17,772 new locally COVID-19 cases on Monday, including 1,621 confirmed cases and 16,151 asymptomatic infections, the biggest spike since late April. Of those, 5,633 new locally transmitted infections were in Guangdong. Two sub-districts of Haizhu district have been locked down, including Liwan and Panyu. Translated and written by Luisetta Mudie, edited by Malcolm Foster.

Lao preacher arrested previously for evangelism found dead and badly beaten

Editor4 years ago06 mins

A Lao Christian preacher who had previously been arrested for evangelism was found dead and badly beaten a few days after disappearing, villagers told Radio Free Asia. A few days before his body was found with signs of torture, two men believed to be district authorities visited Sy Seng Manee, 48, they said. His corpse was found on Oct. 23 with his motorbike in a forest near a road to Donkeo village in Khammouane province. Local residents said they believe Sy was murdered because of his religious beliefs and preaching. A villager, who is also a soldier and lives in a community north of Donkeo, told RFA that he witnessed the preacher’s abduction. He saw three men get out of a black truck with no license plates, grab Sy and violently push him into the vehicle and drive away. The villager who requested anonymity for safety reasons said at the time he believed the men were authorities arresting a drug dealer or criminal, so he went on his way. But after hearing about the preacher’s death, he realized that the man was Sy. He then informed others in his community about what he had seen, and they, in turn, told Sy’s family. Lao police said they are still investigating the death. The Law on the Evangelical Church, which took effect in December 2019, gives Christians in Laos the right to conduct services, preach throughout the country and maintain contacts with believers in other nations. But they still often face opposition from residents or local authorities in this predominantly Buddhist nation. In March, officials in Savannakhet province ordered a Christian family to remove social media posts and videos of villagers attacking a man’s coffin during his funeral in December 2021 because they opposed the family’s faith and struck mourners and pallbearers with clubs, RFA reported. The family buried the patriarch in their own rice field, but authorities and residents continued to harass them. Authorities expropriated their land in February, and other villagers torched their home, relatives and other sources said in an earlier report. Former arrest Local authorities first arrested Sy in August 2018 because he held weekly meetings in his house to preach to the villagers, locals said. Authorities tried to force him to sign a document denouncing the Christian faith and pledging that he would stop preaching, but he refused and was jailed for three days and fined. A few years after his release, Sy began preaching again until he disappeared this October and turned up dead. “His death was due to his belief in Christianity,” said a village resident who declined to be identified out of fear for his safety. The resident said he heard that authorities may have arrested Sy when they went to a gathering. “They don’t like the Christian religion, so that’s what they do,” he said. A Christian preacher in Nakai district, where Donkeo village is located, said he believes that Sy was murdered because his Christian belief displeased local residents. “Each district is different in terms of other religious beliefs,” said the preacher, who declined to be named for fear of his safety. “Some provinces are strict and some are loose when it comes to harassment.” One Christian villager said he now feared for his own safety because the same might happen to him and other believers in the village. He called on police to quickly arrest the murderers. “If the murderers are not arrested, it will strongly affect the Christian community,” he told RFA. “In the past, each time a situation like this happened, there was a related sector responsible for thoroughly investigating the case.” Translated by Sidney Khotpanya for RFA Lao. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

“Glory to Hong Kong”, protest anthem of HongKong protests got played as China’s national anthem

Editor4 years ago4 years ago06 mins

Was it intentional or a simple mistake? In a scene that went viral on social media in Hong Kong, the unofficial anthem of Hong Kong’s 2019 pro-democracy protests was blared over the sound system before a rugby match between Hong Kong and South Korea played just outside of Seoul on Sunday. The song, “Glory to Hong Kong,” which calls for democracy and liberty, rose to prominence during the widespread protests in Hong Kong in 2019 against increasing encroachment on civil liberties by mainland Chinese authorities. Normally, China’s national anthem, which praises communism, is played whenever Hong Kong sports teams play internationally. China controlled Hong Kong’s government demanded an investigation into the incident. The song is highly symbolic to the people of Hong Kong, who have pushed back against the growing constraints on expressions of free speech and press imposed on them by the Hong Kong government, which is largely doing Beijing’s will. “The song pokes right at the sore spot of the Hong Kong government. It reminded the government of the fact that it does not truly govern Hong Kong,” said former legislative council member Ted Hui, who is in exile overseas. “The Hong Kong government is aware that it is a weak and unpopular government,” Hui said. “It fears that the pro-democracy movement will be revived, and that the momentum may grow stronger again.” This is the clip when “Glory to Hong Kong,” the protest anthem, was played at the Asian Rugby Seven Series in South Korea: https://t.co/o02abNBQ5y pic.twitter.com/kB8lr5i6CV — Kris Cheng (@krislc) November 13, 2022 Human error? The Seoul-based Korea Rugby Union said that the gaffe was a result of human error and had no political motivations, and that it had apologized to the Asia Rugby Union, and both the Hong Kong and Chinese teams participating in the tournament. But Ronny Tong, a member of Hong Kong’s Executive Council, said the incident was likely not human error and must have had Hong Kong-based accomplices. Tong said that those responsible may have violated several laws, including by committing sedition under the Crimes Ordinance, separatism or collusion with foreign forces under the National Security Law of Hong Kong, or conspiracy to contravene under the National Anthem Ordinance. Tong said that the Hong Kong government should conduct a thorough investigation in accordance with the law, rather than simply protesting and demanding an apology. But Hong Kong current affairs commentator and lawyer Sang Pu told Radio Free Asia on Monday that Tong’s legal analysis made no sense, saying it was impossible to apply Hong Kong law in South Korea. Tong had no proof of his assertion, Sang said. “[He] claimed that it was an individual in Hong Kong who plotted to have someone meddle with the Chinese national anthem. This is pure imagination. Why not consider other possibilities?” Similar anthem gaffes have occurred on many occasions over the years. In 2017 Russian gold medal winners at the biathlon world championship in Austria saw their flag raised to the tune of the Yeltsin-era Russian anthem. After a Kazakh athlete won a gold medal at an international shooting competition in Kuwait in 2012, the organizers played a fake version of the Kazakstan anthem made for the comedy movie Borat. Hong Kong won Sunday’s match against South Korea 19-12. The third leg of the Asian Rugby Seven Series is scheduled for Nov. 26-27 in Amjan, UAE. Translated by Min Eu. Written in English by Eugene Whong. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

Category: World