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Category: World

Could China’s zero-COVID policy spur a mass protest movement?

Editor017 mins

As the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) continues with large-scale and long-term lockdowns on major cities, mass incarceration in quarantine camps and on university and college campuses, coupled with blanket digital surveillance and control over people’s movements, some signs of mass discontent have begun to emerge. Shanghai entrepreneurs called in a May 30 open letter for the release of all political prisoners and for the CCP to begin a process of political reform at the 20th Party Congress later in the year, warning of mass capital flight and a widespread loss of public confidence in Xi Jinping’s leadership. The letter also called on the government to overturn the guilty verdicts against entrepreneurs Ren Zhiqiang and Sun Dawu, as well as punishing officials responsible for “violating the law and disregarding public opinion” as part of the zero-COVID policy and loosening CCP controls on the media. Public anger at the policy was glimpsed during the Shanghai lockdown, as residents clattered pots and pans from the relative safety of high-rise balconies, sang protest songs composed for the occasion, or yelled anonymous protests into the night air. A Shanghai resident who gave only the nickname Ceausescu said the lockdown had likely forced a lot of people to think about politics. “Most people were locked up at home, and they couldn’t even buy food for a while at first, so they had to think about it three times a day,” he said. “Normally, people from Shanghai, people in the middle classes, wouldn’t have to think about such things … they would definitely have felt that their rights had been violated.” The deprivation of personal freedom, loss of control over economic activity, and no guarantee even of basic subsistence would have caused many people to start thinking more about politics, even those who were previously uninterested in the topic, Ceausescu said. “I think if young people are unable to go about their lives in peace, they will definitely stand up,” he said. Some have wondered whether the feisty attitudes of sophisticated Shanghainese with their keenly developed sense of middle-class entitlement translate readily to other parts of the country. Protests involving hundreds of students have sprung up at university campuses in Beijing and Tianjin following months of draconian COVID-19 restrictions imposed on higher education institutions. The scenes at Tianjin University, Beijing International Studies University and Beijing Normal University were eerily reminiscent of the early stages of the 1989 student movement, which later took over Beijing’s Tiananmen Square for weeks on end with demands for democratic reforms and the rule of law. Similar protests had sprung up at the Wuhan University of Science and Technology and Sichuan University in March. But, possibly due to the proximity of the sensitive June 4 anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre that ended the nationwide pro-democracy movement, the authorities appear to have largely given the students what they wanted: the right to take online classes at home, and to return to campus only to sit exams. University protests, clockwise from top left: Beijing International Studies University, May 8, 2022; Peking University, May 14-15; Beijing Normal University, May 24; and Tianjin University, May 26. RFA collage. Xi taking China backwards A Shanghai resident born in the year of the Tiananmen Square protest movement, who gave only the pseudonym Li Bing, said the students had clearly decided to take their fate into their own hands. “I think they chose to protest on campus because it had become very clear to them that you have to fight for your rights; that nobody is going to just hand them to you,” Li told RFA. But he said he wasn’t sure if he would join a similar protest, despite the privations of lockdown in Shanghai’s Pudong district. “Of course I want to resist, but when the call came, I am pretty sure [I wouldn’t].” Li is no stranger to public dissent. He once reposted a list of the victims of the Tiananmen massacre issued by the Tiananmen Mothers victims group. The move brought him a slew of threatening phone calls from local officials, imprinting the shadow of fear firmly on his mind. A Henan resident who graduated from college just a year ago, and who gave the pseudonym Zhou Xiao, had no hesitation, however. He expects some form of mass popular uprising against the CCP in the next few years, largely spurred by zero-COVID and the government’s program of forced vaccinations. “Vaccines have been administered on a large scale in the past two years,” Zhou said. “Anyone who reported side effects had their posts deleted and their accounts blocked.” “Nobody really knows what side-effects there could be from the vaccine … I was forced into getting vaccinated because of my work,” he said. According to Zhou, the CCP under Xi had already been going backwards in terms of freedom of expression even before the pandemic emerged in Wuhan in 2020. “I’m totally disappointed,” he said. “Most obviously, the suppression of speech is getting worse.” Zhou expects public anger to translate into action at some point in the next few years. “The big one is coming, and I feel that this regime will face huge problems within the next 10 years, due to various factors causing a chain reaction,” he said, citing the economic hardship caused by the government’s response to the pandemic. People stand in line at a COVID-19 testing site in Beijing on June 9, 2022. Thousands of testing booths have popped up on sidewalks across Beijing and other Chinese cities in the latest twist to the country’s “zero-COVID” strategy. Credit: AP Indifference Wang Juntao, U.S.-based chairman of the China Democracy Party (CDP), which is banned in China, said now is the likely time for protests to emerge, however. “From my experience of the student movements of the 1980s, they were all sparked by particular real-life problems,” Wang said. “They started slowly, in dribs and drabs.” “It was hard at first, but then the students started to see their own strength, and it got easier and easier as more students joined them,”…

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ASEAN states unlikely to choose sides between US and China, say officials and experts

Editor012 mins

When Cambodia’s Minister of National Defense General Tea Banh was seen taking a leisurely dip in the Gulf of Thailand with Chinese Ambassador Wang Wentian after a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a Cambodian naval base being built with China’s help earlier this month, no one in the region batted an eyelid.  As U.S.-China friction is getting more intense, Phnom Penh seems to have tilted towards its big neighbour, which has been offering cash and assistance to not only Cambodia but other nations in Southeast Asia. “Cambodia and China aren’t good at hiding their relationship,” said Virak Ou, President of Future Forum, a Cambodian think tank. “It’s obvious that we are choosing sides,” he said. Yet most countries in the region so far remain reluctant to pick sides, and analysts say it is crucial that Washington realize the need to engage Southeast Asian nations in its Indo-Pacific strategy, or risk losing out to Beijing. Cambodian Minister of Defense Tea Banh and Chinese Ambassador Wang Wentian are seen swimming following Ream Base groundbreaking ceremony in Sihanoukville. Credit: Tea Banh’s Facebook page. Right to decide own destiny At the Shangri-La Dialogue security forum in Singapore, Tea Banh lashed out at what he called “baseless and problematic accusations” against the Cambodian government in relation to a naval base that Phnom Penh is developing in Ream, Sihanouk Province, with help from Beijing. The Ream Naval Base provoked much controversy after the U.S. media reported that Hun Sen’s government was prepared to give China exclusive use of part of the base. It would be China’s first naval facility in mainland Southeast Asia and would allow the Chinese military to expand patrols across the region. “Unfortunately, Cambodia is constantly accused of giving an exclusive right to a foreign country to use the base,” the minister said, adding that this is “a complete insult” to his country. Cambodia, he said, is a state that is “independent, sovereign, and has the full right to decide its destiny.” As usual, the Cambodian defense chief refrained from naming countries involved but it is clear that both the U.S. and China are vying for influence over the ten-nation Southeast Asian grouping. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in his remarks at the Shangri-La forum stated that “the Indo-Pacific is our center of strategic gravity” and “our priority theater of operations.” But questions remain on where smaller Southeast Asian nations feature in that grand strategy of the United States. US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin (L) stands with Vietnam’s Defense Minister Phan Van Giang during a bilateral meeting ahead of the Shangri-La Dialogue summit in Singapore, June 10, 2022. Credit: AFP Lopsided cooperation The region, noted Indonesia’s Minister of Defense Prabowo Subianto, “has been for many centuries the crossroad of imperialism, big power domination and exploitation.” “We understand the rivalry between the established world power and the rising world power,” he said, implying the United States and China. Prabowo, who joined the military in the thick of the Vietnam War and retired at the rank of Lieutenant General, told the audience at the Shangri-La Dialogue that Southeast Asian countries are “the most affected by big powers’ competition.” Despite divisions and differences between member countries, “we’ve come to our own ASEAN way of resolving challenges,” he said. It may seem that “we’re sitting on the fence,” Prabowo said, but this seeming inaction reflects an effort of preserving neutrality by ASEAN countries.  “Indonesia opted to be not engaged in any military alliance,” the minister said.  The same stance has been adopted by another ASEAN player – Vietnam– whose White Paper on defense policy stated “three nos” including no military alliances, no basing of foreign troops in the country and no explicit alliances with one country against another. Yet it’s unlikely that Hanoi, often seen as anti-China as Vietnam has experienced Chinese aggression at many occasions in history, will embrace the U.S. to counter Beijing.  “It’s better to nurture a relationship with a close neighbor rather than relying on a distant sibling,” Vietnamese Defense Minister Phan Van Giang explained, quoting a Vietnamese proverb. Two of ten ASEAN nations – the Philippines and Thailand – are U.S. treaty allies. But even in Manila and Bangkok, there have been signs of expanded cooperation with China. “Southeast Asia and China are neighbors thanks to the geography, and their cooperation is natural,” said Collin Koh, Research Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore. Koh suggested that in order to maintain the foothold in the region, “the U.S. need to embrace and appreciate local cultures and not try to force regime changes.” “The cooperation between the U.S. and the region has been too one-dimensional and lopsided, too security focused, and needs to expand,” he said. China’s Defence Minister Wei Fenghe attends the opening reception at the Shangri-La Dialogue summit in Singapore, June 10, 2022. Credit: AFP Limited leverage “Southeast Asia is a difficult region for the U.S. to grasp,” said Blake Herzinger, a Singapore-based defense policy specialist. “The region needs to foster ties with China and Washington needs to accept and work with that,” Herzinger said, adding that it’s time to recognize that “U.S. leverage is limited in a competitive region where the opposite number is China.” According to Southeast Asia analyst Koh, “it’s not too late for the U.S. to adjust its policy towards Southeast Asia.” “There are still demands for an American presence here and a reservoir of goodwill that the U.S. has built over the past,” Koh said, but warned that “this may risk running dry if Washington doesn’t truly recognize the importance of engagement in the region.” The U.S. and allies should also bear in mind regional geopolitical calculations, he said. “Southeast Asian countries don’t want to pick sides but they find themselves being sucked into the super power competition and being pragmatic as they are, some of them are making efforts to try to benefit from it,” Koh said. “I think the Biden administration has done a good job in relation to Southeast Asia…

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U.S. attempting to ‘hijack countries in our region’ to target China, Wei Fenghe says

Editor07 mins

China’s Defense Minister Wei Fenghe delivered scathing remarks about the U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy in a speech in Singapore on Sunday, calling it an attempt to form a clique to contain China.  In his speech on ‘China’s vision for regional order’ at the Shangri-La Dialogue security forum he hit back at U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s remarks a day earlier, saying China firmly rejects America’s accusations and threats. In his keynote speech on Saturday, Austin said that China had adopted a “more coercive and aggressive approach to territorial claims” and that Beijing’s moves “threaten to undermine security, stability and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific.” In his remarks Wei said that “to us, the Indo-Pacific strategy is an attempt to build an exclusive small group to hijack countries in our region” to target one specific country – China. “It is a strategy to create conflict and confrontation to contain and encircle others,” said the minister, who is also a general in China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA). This is the second time Wei has attended the major regional security forum, hosted by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). This year’s conference, which resumed after a two-year suspension due to COVID, is taking place amid the war in Ukraine, increased tensions around Taiwan and in the East and South China Sea. ‘Say no to bullying’ The forum once again highlights U.S.-China rivalry in the Indo-Pacific, with both sides trading criticisms, while at the same time calling for the rule of law to be upheld.  “We should respect each other and treat each other as equals and reject a zero-sum game in which the winner takes all,” General Wei said. “We should seek peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation rather than hegemony and power politics.” ‘Hegemony’ seems to be the word of choice when Chinese officials talk about the United States and its foreign policy. As the U.S. defense secretary insisted that his country’s military “will fly, sail and operate wherever international law allows,” the Chinese minister called the U.S. freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea a “navigation hegemony.” Wei said the U.S.-China relationship is at a “critical and crucial juncture” but to improve it depends on Washington’s efforts. “We require the U.S. side to stop smearing and containing China, stop interfering in China’s internal affairs and stop harming China’s interests,” Wei said. “The bilateral relationship cannot improve unless the U.S. side can do that,” he said, adding: “If you want to talk, we should talk with mutual respect … if you want confrontation, we will fight to the very end.” At the same time, the Chinese minister called on regional countries to “say ‘no’ to bullying.” “Only the one who wears the shoes knows if they fit or not,” he said, implying that countries should pick their own paths and resist what he called “interference” from outsiders. Two Su-35 fighter jets and a H-6K bomber from the People’s Liberation Army air force fly in formation during a patrol near Taiwan on May 11, 2018. CREDIT: Xinhua via AP China’s only choice The Chinese defense minister resorted to forceful words when speaking about Taiwan, insisting: “Taiwan is first and foremost China’s Taiwan.” Reiterating that Taiwan is a province of China, Wei said the island’s reunification with the mainland “is a historical trend that no one, no force, can stop.” “This is the only choice for China,” he said. The minister accused Washington of violating its promise on the ‘One China principle’ by supporting the “separatist forces” in Taiwan and playing the Taiwan card against China. “China is firmly opposed to such acts… the pursuit of Taiwan’s independence is a dead end,” Wei said, adding “we will not hesitate to fight” to defend China’s core interests. This year the PLA celebrates the 95th anniversary of its foundation and the Chinese defense minister dedicated a segment of his remarks to speak about the PLA which he called a “force of peace.” “We have never proactively started a war against others or occupied one inch of other’s land,” Wei said.  The Chinese defense minister said those who question the factual truth behind this statement “should re-read history.”

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‘We must stop Russia,’ Ukraine’s leader urges Singapore security forum

Editor09 mins

The future rules of the international order are playing out in Ukraine’s war zones, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the Shangri-La Dialogue security forum in Singapore as he rallied support for his country Saturday in its fight against Russia’s invading forces.   The Ukrainian leader appeared on a giant screen as he addressed delegates from 40 countries, who were attending Asia’s preeminent international security forum, via a video-link from an undisclosed location in the capital Kyiv.  “I am grateful for your support … but this support is not only for Ukraine, but for you as well,” said Zelenskyy, who wore a black t-shirt as he spoke to delegates dressed in formal clothes. “It is on the battlefields of Ukraine that the future rules of this world are being decided along with the boundaries of the possible.” The Russian invasion of Ukraine has divided countries in the Asia-Pacific region, with some finding themselves wedged between Sino-U.S. frictions and strategic differences over the issue. “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is what happens when oppressors trample the rules that protect us all,” U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a speech at the Singapore forum earlier in the day. “It’s a preview of a possible world of chaos and turmoil that none of us would want to live in,” he said, adding that “the rules-based international order matters just as much in the Indo-Pacific as it does in Europe.” In his late-afternoon speech to the high-level delegates gathered in Singapore, the Ukrainian president listed alleged atrocities committed by Moscow’s forces and said Russia had destroyed “all achievements of the human kind.” As Ukraine is unable to export enough food because of a Russian blockade, “the shortage of foodstuff will lead to chaos,” Zelenskyy said. “We must stop Russia. We must stop the war,” he pleaded.  Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addresses the Shangri-La Dialogue security forum in Singapore, June 11, 2022. Credit: Screenshot/BenarNews Pre-emptive measures Responding to a question that drew a parallel between Ukraine and Taiwan, the Ukrainian leader said the world “must use pre-emptive measures” and come up with diplomatic resolutions to support countries in need, not leaving them at the mercy of more powerful nations. Zelenskyy did not mention China by name, but Beijing has always insisted that “Taiwan is not another Ukraine.” Beijing considers Taiwan one of its provinces and as an inalienable part of China. So far, China has refrained from condemning Russia for its actions in Ukraine. In February Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin proclaimed a “no limits” partnership with no “forbidden” areas of cooperation.   In Southeast Asia, most countries have hesitated in denouncing  Russia or joining in international sanctions against Moscow. The ASEAN regional bloc has found it difficult to come up with a clear and united framework when dealing with the Russian war. Some members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations that experienced sanctions in the past are close to Russia and vehemently oppose them. On Saturday, Cambodian Defense Minister Tea Banh told the security forum in Singapore that “the use of sanctions in any form is not the right option to solve problems.” When it was his turn to speak, Malaysia’s defense chief pointed to how the war in Ukraine was testing regional security alliances such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. “Members of NATO have met Russia’s invasion of Ukraine with outrage, deploying thousands of troops to Eastern Europe to protect their alliance members,” Minister Hishamuddin Hussein told the forum. “Even though Ukraine is not a member of the alliance, the potential of the conflict sparking into a much larger world war exists and the fear of it becoming a reality is conceivable, as much as we want to deny it.” Indonesian Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto speaks with an aide during the second plenary session of the 19th Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, June 11, 2022. Credit: Reuters Rules-based international order The war in Ukraine has featured prominently during sessions at the Shangri-La Dialogue so far. Austin, the U.S. defense secretary, said that “Russia’s indefensible assault on a peaceful neighbor has galvanized the world.” “It’s what happens when big powers decide that their imperial appetites matter more than the rights of their peaceful neighbors,” he said in a thinly veiled reference to China. The Ukraine war highlights “the dangers of disorder,” Austin said, as he urged countries in the region to cooperate to strengthen the rules-based international order. It’s yet to be seen, though, how his calls resonate among smaller nations in Southeast Asia who, up to now, have remained reluctant to pick sides. For his part, the defense chief of Southeast Asia’s largest country indicated that Indonesia was keeping an eye on the situation in Ukraine, but throughout its history as a nation, Jakarta has pursued an “Asian way” in approaching challenges to its security amid big-power rivalries, he said. “The situation in Ukraine teaches us that we can never abandon our security and independence and never take them for granted. Therefore, we are determined to strengthen our defense. Our outlook is defensive, but we will defend our territory with all of our resources,” Indonesian Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto said in his speech Saturday to the Singapore forum. “In our experience, over the last 40 to 50 years, we have found our own way, the Asian way, to solve this challenge. We decided that our shared experience of being dominated, enslaved, and exploited, forced us to struggle and create a peaceful environment,” he said.

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Chinese research on Xinjiang mummies seen as promoting revisionist history

Editor016 mins

A new Chinese study on the ancient populations of Xinjiang purports to show modern-day residents descend from a mix of ethnicities, but scientists and experts on the region cautioned the findings are being used to support  China’s forced assimilation policy toward the predominately Muslim Uyghurs. The study from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences is based on 201 ancient human genomes from 39 different archeological sites in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). Scientists analyzed the genetic composition, migration and formation of the ancient inhabitants of Xinjiang during the Bronze Age, which lasted from 5,000 to 3,000 years ago, the Iron Age, which lasted between 3,000 and 2,000 years ago, and into the Historical Era, which started about 2,000 years ago. They published their findings in the April edition of the journal Science in an article titled “Bronze and Iron Age population movements underlie Xinjiang population history.” The report states that the region’s ancestral population during the Bronze Age was linked to four different major ancestries — those of the Tarim Basin, which includes present-day Xinjian; Central Asia; and the Central and Eastern Eurasian Steppes. “Archaeological and mitochondrial studies have suggested that the BA [Bronze Age] inhabitants and cultures of Xinjiang were not derived from any indigenous Neolithic substrate but rather from a mix of West and East Eurasian people, whereas BA burial traditions suggest links with both North Eurasian Steppe cultures and the Central Asian BMAC civilization,” the report says, referring to the Central Asian Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC) in the south. Further mixtures between Middle and Late Bronze Age Steppe cultures continued during the late Bronze and Iron Ages, along with an inflow of East and Central Asian ancestry, the report says. “Historical era populations show similar admixed and diverse ancestries as those of present-day Xinjiang populations,” the report says. “These results document the influence that East and West Eurasian populations have had over time in the different regions of Xinjiang.” The study by the Chinese Academy of Sciences comes at a time when the Chinese government has stepped up its assimilation of the predominantly Muslim Uyghurs to inculcate a common identity among Uyghurs with other ethnicities in the country. The government rejects claims that the ethnic minority group has its own history, culture, language and way of life. The Beauty of Xiaohe, a mummy discovered in the Tarim Basin in northwestern China, is shown at the ‘Secrets of the Silk Road’ exhibit at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Feb. 18, 2011. Credit: Associated Press ‘We have to think carefully’ Following the beginning of the mass internment campaign targeting Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in April 2017, Chinese archaeological and anthropological research in Xinjiang entered a new phase. The XUAR’s Communist Party Committee set a political goal for archaeological research aimed at combating “separatism” and emphasized that cultural relics should serve the concept that Xinjiang has always been an inseparable part of China. On March 22, 2017, then-Party Secretary Chen Quanguo said at an archaeological work conference that “archaeological work is necessary in establishing and advancing socialist values in Xinjiang, in deepening patriotic education, and in the fight against separatist ideas.” But an expert in the genetics of ancient Central Asian populations based in the United States says the report’s findings do not significantly differ from findings on the Bronze Age published recently by a group of international researchers. Vagheesh Narasimhan, an assistant professor in the Department of Integrative Biology and the Department of Statistics and Data Sciences at the University of Texas at Austin, told RFA that the findings in the Science article are similar to those published late last year by international researchers. “A few months ago there was a report of the sequencing of certain mummies from the Tarim Basin from the Bronze Age,” he said. “In this paper [from April 1], they also added 200 genomes from various time periods from all over Xinjiang. They co-analyzed the data from the previous analysis with the analysis in this paper, and they tried to draw conclusions combining the data from the previous paper by the international team with data from this group.” Narasimhan said that the two studies found a similar genetic ancestry in Xinjiang from the Bronze Age. But he said the findings do not refute the idea that Uyghurs are a distinct ethnicity. “You can’t think two groups are the same just because they have a common ancestry; in that case, every person in the world would have a common ancestry from Africa,” he said. “We have to think carefully about which population they’re actually using as a reference.” In its analysis of the Iron Age population of Xinjiang, the Science article stresses that iron materials found during this era were related to the Saks, or the Scythians, an important nomadic culture at the time. It also notes that many archaeological finds connected to the group have been found in Xinjiang’s Ili River Valley and Tarim Basin, and that a diverse conglomeration of many nomadic tribes, including the Saks, Huns, Paziriks and Taghars, appeared around the region. The Science article also states that from among these groups, the Saks were the descendants of the Andronova, Srubnaya, and Sintashta peoples from the latter periods of the Bronze Age and that the other ancestors of the Saks are connected to the populations of the Bayqal Shamanka and Bactria-Margiana and are related to the language of Hotan, which was part of the Indo-European family. But about 2,200 years prior, the region had become a point of conflict between the Yuezhi (Yawchi or Yurchi), Huns, Hans and Turks. “Thus, Xinjiang represents a key area for studying the past confluence and coexistence of populations with dynamic cultural, linguistic and genetic backgrounds,” the report says. Members of the media view an infant mummy discovered in the Tarim Basin in northwestern China, at the ‘Secrets of the Silk Road’ exhibit at the University of Pennsylvania Museum…

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U.S. not seeking to create “Asian NATO,” defense secretary says

Editor09 mins

The U.S. Defense Secretary emphasized partnership as the main priority for the American security strategy in the Indo-Pacific during a keynote speech on Saturday. However, Lloyd Austin stressed that the U.S. does not seek to create “an Asian NATO.” Austin spoke for half an hour at the First Plenary Session of the Shangri-La Dialogue 2022 security forum in Singapore. While reiterating that the U.S. stays “deeply invested” and committed to a free and open Indo-Pacific, the defense secretary said: “We do not seek confrontation and conflict and we do not seek a new Cold War, an Asian NATO or a region split into hostile blocs.” The United States and its allies in the Indo-Pacific have recently expressed concern over China’s increasingly assertive military posture in the region. Beijing, on its part, has been complaining about what it sees as attempts by the U.S. and its partners to form a defense alliance in the region. When leaders from the U.S., Japan, India and Australia met last month for a summit of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or Quad, China cried foul. Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Washington was “keen to gang up with ‘small circles’ and change China’s neighborhood environment,” making Asia-Pacific countries serve as “pawns” of the U.S. hegemony. “I think Secretary Austin made it very clear that there’s no appetite for an Asian NATO,” said Blake Herzinger, a Singapore-based defense analyst. “The U.S. values collective partnerships with shared visions and priorities, without the need to form a defense alliance,” he told RFA. ‘A region free from coercion and bullying’ The U.S will “continue to stand by our friends as they uphold their rights,” said Austin, adding that the commitment is “especially important as the People’s Republic of China adopts a more coercive and aggressive approach to its territorial claims.” He spoke of the Chinese air force’s almost daily incursions into Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) and an “alarming” increase in the number of unsafe and unprofessional encounters between Chinese planes and vessels with those of other countries. Most recently, U.S. ally Australia accused China of conducting a “dangerous intercept,” of one of its surveillance aircraft near the Paracel islands in the South China Sea. Austin met with his Chinese counterpart Wei Fenghe on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue on Friday. During the meeting, which lasted nearly an hour, the two sides discussed how to better manage their relationship and prevent accidents from happening but did not reach any concrete resolution. Austin used Saturday’s speech to remind Beijing that “big powers carry big responsibilities,” saying “we’ll do our part to manage these tensions responsibly — to prevent conflict, and to pursue peace and prosperity.” The Indo-Pacific is the U.S. Department of Defense’s (DOD) “priority theater,” he noted, adding that his department’s fiscal year 2023 budget request calls for one of the largest investments in history to preserve the region’s security.  This includes U.S. $6.1 billion for the Pacific Deterrence Initiative to strengthen multilateral information-sharing and support training and experimentation with partners.  The budget also seeks to encourage innovation across all domains, including space and cyberspace, “to develop new capabilities that will allow us to deter aggression even more surely,” he said. The U.S. military is expanding exercises and training programs with regional partners, the defense secretary said. Later in June, the Pentagon will host the 28th Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) naval exercise with forces from 26 countries, 38 ships and nearly 25,000 personnel. Next year a Coast Guard cutter will be deployed to Southeast Asia and Oceania, he said, “the first major U.S. Coast Guard cutter permanently stationed in the region.” An armed US-made F-16V fighter lands on the runway at an air force base in Chiayi, southern Taiwan on January 5, 2022. CREDIT: AFP Protecting Taiwan “Secretary Austin offered a compelling vision, grounded in American resolve to uphold freedom from coercion and oppose the dangerously outmoded concept of aggressively-carved spheres of influence,” said Andrew Erickson, Research Director of the China Maritime Studies Institute at the U.S. Naval War College, speaking in a personal capacity. “The key will be for Washington to match Austin’s rhetoric with requisite resolve and resources long after today’s Dialogue is over,” said Erickson.   “It is that follow-through that will determine much in what President Biden rightly calls the ‘Decisive Decade’,” he added. Last month in Tokyo Biden announced a new Indo-Pacific Partnership for Maritime Domain Awareness (IPMDA) that Austin said would provide better access to space-based, maritime domain awareness to countries across the region. The U.S. defense secretary spoke at length about his government’s policy towards Taiwan, saying “we’re determined to uphold the status quo that has served this region so well for so long.” While remaining committed to the longstanding one-China policy, the U.S. categorically opposes “any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side.” “We do not support Taiwan independence. And we stand firmly behind the principle that cross-strait differences must be resolved by peaceful means,” Austin said. The U.S. continues assisting Taiwan in maintaining self-defense capability and this week approved the sale of U.S. $120 million in spare parts and technical assistance for the Taiwanese navy.

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Chinese rubber company detains Laos farmer trying to sell crop outside province

Editor07 mins

Employees of a Chinese-owned rubber company in rural Laos illegally stopped a local rubber tree farmer trying to sell his harvest to another buyer for a higher price, sources in the Southeast Asian country told RFA. Zhongtian Luye operates a rubber processing factory in Khua district in the northern province of Phongsaly along the border with China. The company created a contract farming system with rubber tree farmers in the area to maintain supply. It pays farmers U.S. $0.56 per kilogram ($0.25 per pound) of natural rubber. Though it has contracts with local farmers for certain quantities of their yield, nothing is stopping them from selling the rest of their crop in nearby Oudomxay province, where prices are around 25% higher. Employees of the rubber company blocked a road to prevent a car packed with raw rubber from leaving town, a villager told RFA’s Lao Service on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “They thought that the driver was shipping his output to sell in Oudomxay province [in breach of contract.] They also thought that he was trying to buy output from other villagers who have contracts with the company,” the villager said. “That is why they stopped his car and took it to their camp area. Normally if a car is stopped and there is any kind of wrongdoing, it should be taken to the district police station,” he said. Police showed up at the work camp to investigate, later ordering the company to release the driver. Zhongtian Luye did not have a contract with the man who was stopped, and the rubber was all from his own farm, the villager said. Police fined the employees for blocking the road without permission. A second villager said the company may feel justified in buying rubber at below market prices from local farmers because of the money it has invested in the area, including for road construction and to help farmers start producing rubber. There also have been cases where the farmers broke their agreements with Zhongtian Luye to try to make more money elsewhere, the second villager said. “They already signed agreements, but some farmers are not satisfied with the price set by the Chinese company,” the second source said. “The company has a concession and the right to buy from the farmers as stated in the memorandum of understanding. However, when the trees are mature for harvesting, some farmers don’t want to sell for so low.” A woman who used to do business with Zhongtian Luye told RFA that the company feels entitled to all the rubber produced in the area, even from farmers who are not under contract. “They want them to sell it to their company only, even though they can get a higher price in Oudomxay,” she said. RFA was able to contact Zhongtian Luye’s interpreter but he declined to comment on the issue. Under the most common contract farming system in Laos, referred to as “3+2 contract farming,” companies provide funding, training and marketing services to producers, in addition to buying the product, while farmers provide land and labor. The central or local government is usually responsible for ensuring that neither party is taken advantage of. An official from the Phongsaly province’s Department of Agriculture and Forests told RFA that Zhongtian Luye, the province and the farmers have signed production agreements. The company can decide to block roads to prevent the farmers from selling elsewhere, the official said. “It is to up the provincial and district level authorities to consider how to solve this kind of problem and the district deputy governor will hold a meeting to find a solution,” the official said. “But the agreement states that the rubber farmers who signed a contract-farming agreement cannot sell to other companies, but only this company,” he said, without explaining why the company has a right to prevent the farmers not under contract from selling elsewhere. The official said the company does not tell his department the prices it pays, but said the department would meet with the company to double check that the contracts are fair. Zhongtian Luye has been operating in Khua district since 2006. It is unknown how many farmers have contracts to produce rubber for the company. According to the report from the Phongsaly province People’s Assembly, there are two Chinese rubber companies in the district. Translated by Phouvong. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

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Seven Uyghur staffers from sports school in Xinjiang serving up to 5 years in prison

Editor04 mins

Authorities in northwestern China’s Xinjiang region sentenced seven Uyghur teachers at a sports school in Kashgar to jail terms of four to five years, a local police officer and a person with knowledge of the situation said. The police officer, who did not give his name, provided the names of the detained teachers at the Kashgar Sports School, which is located in the district his station patrols, but said he didn’t know the reasons for the arrests. Uyghur instructors and staff members Adil Tursun, Amir, Osmanjan and Qeyserjan were arrested in early 2017, he said. Authorities later arrested the school’s Taekwondo trainer, Abduxkur, and math teacher, Esqerjan. Another employee, Nurmemet Yasin, was the last to be detained. “I don’t know the last names of these teachers,” he said. “They were sentenced to four years or five years each for re-education. I don’t where they are now.” Uyghurs comprised about 20% of the employees among the school’s total 60-some workers. The rest were Han Chinese, according to a Uyghur source who knows about the school. “Osmanjan is around 42 or 43,” said a source familiar with the school staff, who did not want to be named. “Amir is the same age as Osmanjan. They graduated from the same class. Adil Tursun is about 45. We don’t know the reasons why they were arrested.” An earlier RFA report confirmed that authorities arrested Alimjan Mehmut, a volleyball teacher at the Kashgar Sports School who served as a torchbearer for China’s 2008 Summer Olympics. Mehmut was sentenced to eight years in a prison in Aksu (in Chinese, Akesu) for “befriending bearded men” under a deepening crackdown on Islamic practices and culture, according to information provided by the Norway-based rights organization Uyghur Hjelp, which documents missing and imprisoned Uyghurs in the XUAR. “Alimjan Mehmut was arrested before I went to work at the school,” said the source. “It’s been two years since he was arrested.” In RFA’s previous story, Aduweli Ayup, the Uyghur linguist who runs the Uyghur Hjelp website, said that Mehmut was one of at least six or seven instructors, including two volleyball coaches, from the Kashgar Sports School hauled away by authorities in past years. At the time, Ayup also named Mehmut’s colleagues, Ezizjan and Ezisqari from the Kashgar Sports School among those arrested, though their detentions have not yet been confirmed by police. Translated by RFA Uyghur. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

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Guards deny female inmates drinking water after protest in Myanmar’s Insein Prison

Editor05 mins

Authorities in Myanmar’s notorious Insein Prison have cut off the drinking water supply to the cells of female political prisoners who protested poor living conditions in the facility after a fellow inmate who was denied medical treatment suffered a miscarriage, sources said Friday. Sources who visited the prison on the outskirts of Myanmar’s commercial capital Yangon told RFA Burmese that dozens of prisoners have been forced to drink from the toilet after the taps were turned off more than two weeks ago, leaving them with no other source of water. “The authorities cut off the drinking water since the protest,” said one recent visitor, who spoke to RFA on condition of anonymity. “They put 60-70 female prisoners in one prison hall. I was told that all of them are now forced to drink water from the toilet.” The source said that some of the prisoners have contracted cholera and other diseases after drinking the unclean water. Last month, a 24-year-old political prisoner at Insein named Cherry Bo Kyi Naing, who is serving a three-year prison sentence for “unlawful association,” suffered an early-term miscarriage after authorities delayed sending her to the hospital for treatment. On May 23, the female political prisoners held a protest, claiming that Cherry Bo Kyi Naing’s miscarriage was avoidable and the result of negligence by the guards. Two days later, prison authorities shut down the protest and relocated all the female political prisoners to the single prison hall, before shutting off the water supply. When asked by RFA for comment on the situation at Insein, Prison Department spokesperson Khin Shwe denied reports that the women had been cut off access to drinking water. “In Insein prison, we provide adequate water supplies for both drinking and hygiene,” he said. “We don’t give such punishments for incidents that occur in the prison. We have no such thing.” Attempts by RFA to reach the International Committee of the Red Cross in Bangkok, Thailand, went unanswered Friday. The Bangkok-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) told RFA it is still making inquiries into the protest at Insein and the response by authorities and was unable to comment. Kaythi Aye, a former political prisoner in Myanmar who now lives in Norway, told RFA that female prisoners require better hygiene conditions than their male counterparts, and access to clean water is crucial. “Prisoners are in serious trouble when they don’t have access to clean water, especially during the monsoon season, when mosquitos proliferate and people suffer skin conditions,” she said. “Wet conditions cause disease to spread further. It’s inhumane to cut off clean water for the female prisoners.” According to the AAPP, security forces have arrested more than 11,000 civilians in Myanmar since the military seized power in a Feb. 1, 2021 coup. There are nearly 1,200 female prisoners across the country, around 200 of which are held in Insein Prison. Translated by Ye Kaung Myint Maung for RFA Burmese. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

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Myanmar’s junta yet to send execution orders for former lawmaker, democracy activist

Editor05 mins

Myanmar’s ruling military junta has not issued execution orders for a former lawmaker from the deposed government and a prominent democracy activist sitting on death row after convictions on terrorism charges, despite reports that the men would be hanged Friday evening local time, a Prisons Department spokesman told RFA. On June 3, the junta announced that it would proceed with the planned executions of former Member of Parliament Phyo Zeya Thaw and Ko Jimmy, a longtime democracy activist and former leader of the 88 Generation Students Group. Anti-regime opponents Aung Thura Zaw and Hla Myo Aung are also facing the death penalty. Myanmar’s military, which seized control from the democratically elected government in a February 2021 coup, has cracked down on anti-regime activists, sentencing more than 100 to death. The executions of Phyo Zeya Thaw and Ko Jimmy, whose real name is Kyaw Min Yu, would be the country’s first judicial executions since 1990. Authorities had not received execution orders from the junta for Phyo Zeya Thaw and Ko Jimmy, who are being held in Yangon’s Insein Prison, said Prisons Department spokesman Khin Shwe. “We haven’t receive anything from the superiors,” he said. “We also don’t know about the news that they will be hanged this evening and that there had been religious rites in prison for the inmates.” All four inmates are in good health and have been transferred to death row where they are wearing orange prison suits given to those facing execution, he said. Junta spokesman, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, told RFA on Tuesday that all four men would be executed under the regular procedures of the Prisons Department. Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, current chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), sent a written appeal on Friday to Sen. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, head of the State Administration Council (SAC), the formal name of the junta regime, to “reconsider the sentences and refrain from carrying out the death sentences.” “The death sentences and reported planned execution of a number of anti-SAC individuals have attracted great concern among ASEAN member states, as well as ASEAN external partners,” he wrote. If carried out, the executions “would trigger a very strong and widespread negative reaction from the international community” and hurt efforts to find a peaceful solution to the crisis in Myanmar, Hun Sen wrote. A former member of the hip-hop band Acid, Phyo Zeya Thaw served as a lawmaker from the National League for Democracy from 2012 to 2020. Following the coup and the subsequent crackdown on peaceful anti-regime protesters, he went into hiding but was arrested in November 2021. Phyo Zeya Thaw, whose real name is Maung Kyaw, and Ko Jimmy, who was arrested in October 2021, were both sentenced to death by a military tribunal this January for treason and terrorism. Activist Nilar Thein, who is the wife of Ko Jimmy, said the junta will have to take responsibility for giving her husband the death penalty. Translated by Ye Kaung Myint Maung for RFA Burmese. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

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