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Category: World

Chutzpah in China

Editor01 mins

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet began a visit to China with a photo op with Beijing’s top diplomat that appeared to confirm the human rights community’s fears that the Chinese government will use the May 23-28 tour for propaganda and keep Bachelet from seeing the reality on the ground in troubled Xinjiang and other areas. With cameras clicking, Foreign Minister Wang Yi gave Bachelet “Excerpts from Xi Jinping on Respecting and Protecting Human Rights,” a book by China’s paramount leader, who has tightened Communist Party control and restricted speech and other freedoms to a degree not seen in decades.

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Interview: ‘It was hard to breathe, let alone sleep’ in Shanghai lockdown

Editor011 mins

A Shanghai resident who gave only the surname Cao recently spoke to RFA’s Mandarin Service about her experiences under weeks of COVID-19 lockdown, during which the city’s 26 million residents submitted on a daily basis to confinement at home, food scarcity and mass compulsory PCR testing, along with the ever-present possibility of being bundled into a bus and sent to an isolation camp. Cao and her family were sick with COVID-19 during the lockdown, then had a nasty surprise awaiting after they recovered: Cao: I had been feeling unwell since I tested positive, and I got really super-anxious when the baby started to run a fever, although I tried to keep quiet about it for fear we would be sent to an isolation camp. But I knew I would have to see a doctor if the fever persisted, so I was under a lot of psychological pressure. We stayed at home and kept a low profile until the entire family was testing negative. Then we thought we had gotten through it. RFA: Then your neighbors informed on you, right? Cao: Yes, but then we heard nothing, and it seemed that they wouldn’t be forcing me to go to the isolation facility, until there were suddenly five more confirmed cases in my courtyard. Everyone was in groups, allocated a volunteer to distribute food and supplies, and [our volunteer] just straight up told them that our family [was infected with COVID-19]. The neighbors were terrified and started spreading rumors, saying I’d opened the windows, or that I’d been downstairs to pick up a package, but I hadn’t stepped outside that whole time. Some neighbors attacked our family, and some were outrageous and aggressive despite my trying to reason with them. Because I had eventually decided to report it in the [neighborhood WeChat group] which includes the neighborhood committee, disease control and prevention, the police, all of them. RFA: What did the neighbors say? Cao: It was a very exaggerated reaction, and nonsensical. They said they wouldn’t give us food or help us with any packages, and wanted to force us to go into isolation. I don’t know if they’d been driven crazy by the lockdown, but they weren’t all like that. Some of them were kinder in private. But there was this one terrible person who was the loudest in the group, and dominated discussions. She would attack any of the nicer neighbors who tried to speak out and take our side, so after that, nobody dared speak out again. RFA: So, you were taken off to an isolation camp on May 3, a month after you were diagnosed with mild symptoms? And you had already tested negative many times at home? Cao: Yes. [They] told me on the phone that the policy was set in stone and there was nothing they could do about it, and that a lot of people are already testing negative by the time they get there. They said they were just implementing the policy, but were helpless to make any changes to it. RFA: What was the isolation camp like? Cao: It was in an extremely remote location, about two and a half hours by bus from Jing’an district, faraway and desolate. There were thousands of beds in the area I was staying in, which was really scary. Some people there were testing positive, others negative, and they were all mixed in together, even whole families, so it was very high-risk. I was so scared when I first got there that I would test positive again, despite my negative test. I was dumbfounded when I saw the bed; it was made of iron, and parts of it were sagging and bent out of shape. If I shifted my weight slightly, the whole bed would tilt and flip upwards, so I had to lie there without moving, balancing. I was devastated, and cried several times a day. The lights were on 24 hours a day … and we had to wear a mask and goggles. It was hard to breathe, let alone sleep. I copied some of the other people, and made a little tent for myself out of a sheet to block the lights out at least a little. RFA: What kind of care did they provide? Cao: The isolation facilities are supposed to be places for patients to rest and recover, but it was very uncomfortable. I couldn’t sleep properly, so I was in a poor state, and there was no proper medical attention, just a bunch of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) distributed around the building. RFA: How do people get out of these places? Cao: You can leave after two negative tests, so I was in a hurry as soon as I entered, and kept asking me when I could get my next PCR. They told me I couldn’t on the same day I arrived, and that I would have to weight two more days. I heard from the person next to me that they do a PCR on the third and fourth day, but even if they were both negative, we couldn’t leave on the next day, because we had to wait for the results, so the quickest anyone could get out was on the sixth day after arriving. I ran into people who had been there two weeks, some even more than a month. Everyone who came back from isolation camps was traumatized, and very anxious, and reluctant to do another PCR test. There is no information transparency in the camps. Everyone is woken at 5.00 a.m. to do PCR tests, but you don’t get the results. You can ask the staff, but they won’t tell you. They’re waiting from orders from higher up, who issue a list of names of people who need PCR tests, and those allowed to leave, and they’re just doing as they’re told. RFA: Have you and your husband changed your opinion of Shanghai at all? Cao: We have both lived in Shanghai for seven or eight…

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Leaders of least-developed Cambodia, Laos play down concerns of a China debt trap

Editor08 mins

UPDATED at 1:10 p.m. EDT on 2022-05-27 Leaders of two of the least developed countries in Southeast Asia, Laos and Cambodia, denied Friday they have fallen into a Chinese debt trap despite owing billions of dollars to their giant neighbor. Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen and Laos President Thongloun Sisoulith both spoke at the 27th Future of Asia conference in Tokyo on Friday via video link. Hun Sen, who has been ruling Cambodia for almost four decades, claimed that Cambodia’s borrowing rate was at 23 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP), well below its legislated ceiling of 40 percent. He said, “we don’t just borrow without looking at our situation.” Cambodia’s external public debt stood at around US$8.8 billion in 2020, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Bilateral debt continues to account for 69 percent of total external debt, with more than half of it owed to China, the IMF said. The prime minister told the conference that Cambodia borrows from a number of countries including Japan and South Korea, as well as international institutions such as the Asian Development Bank and World Bank. The loans are needed for infrastructure development, he said, adding: “We don’t put ourselves into anybody’s trap.” “If we don’t have investment from China, what source of electricity can we have?” Hun Sen said, repeating the question he asked at the 26th Future of Asia conference last year.   The annual conference is organized by Nikkei Inc. and provides a forum for Asian political leaders and academics to discuss regional issues. One year ago, Hun Sen told the conference: “If I don’t rely on China, who will I rely on? If I don’t ask China, who am I to ask?”  A file photo showing Laos’ President Thongloun Sisoulith at the Japan-Mekong Summit Meeting in Tokyo, Japan, Oct. 9, 2018. At the time he was prime minister of Laos. Credit: Reuters Landlocked economy Cambodia’s neighbor Laos also said China is not the only source of loans. “Relying on only one country’s resources is not enough. We have connected with different countries and international organizations for help with our infrastructure development,” said President Thongloun, who served as Lao prime minister between 2016-2021. “We’re engaged in discussions and negotiations not only with China but also Vietnam, Japan, Asia Development Bank, World Bank and other countries that offer loans and support the Lao People’s Democratic Republic,” he said. Laos is a landlocked country with no access to the sea, the president said, and it desperately needs to develop connectivity with other countries around it. “We’re trying to repay our debts according to our ability and system and the need of our current situation.” “I would say that we’re not in a debt trap at the moment,” Thongloun said. The World Bank reported in August 2021 that Laos’ public debt has climbed to U.S. $13.3 billion, or 72 percent of its GDP. Most of the debt was incurred by the energy sector – as Laos builds dozens of hydropower dams in a push to become the ‘battery of Asia’.  International credit rating agency Fitch said in an August 2021 report that almost half of Laos’ external debt over the next few years must be paid to China – which has also built a $6 billion dollar, high-speed railway, which opened late last year. The government will have to pay $414 million a year in interest alone, according to Lao Finance Minister Bounchom Oubonpaseuth. Cambodia’s leadership succession  Also at the Future of Asia conference, Prime Minister Hun Sen rejected criticism about his plans to pass power to his eldest son, Hun Manet, who is currently the commander of the Royal Cambodian Army. The ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) at its Congress in December voted unanimously for 44-year-old Hun Manet, the oldest of Hun Sen’s six children, to succeed his father. The CPP holds every seat in the nation’s parliament. When asked about it at the conference, Hun Sen declined to talk about a transition plan but said that all his three sons “are capable of becoming prime minister.” Cambodia is set to hold commune elections on June 5 – a prelude to general elections in July 2023 to elect members of the National Assembly, or the lower house of the Parliament. “If people continue to vote for the CPP with Hun Sen as the prime minister candidate and Hun Manet as the future candidate for prime minister, that means the people are in agreement with the CPP continuing to lead the country, led by Hun Sen and then by Hun Manet after that,” Hun Sen said. This story has been updated to edit the quote below the headline.

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China, Australia vie for influence, as Beijing touts vision for the Pacific

Editor09 mins

As China launched a high-level diplomatic mission to build its influence in the Pacific islands, Australia’s new government responded with one of its own, promising to bring “more energy and resources” to the remote region. China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi arrived Thursday in the Solomon Islands, kicking off a 10-day Pacific tour that will include Kiribati, Samoa, Fiji, Tonga, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea and Timor-Leste.  Wang is hoping to strike a deal with 10 small nations. A draft copy of a so-called Common Development Vision seen by Reuters and the Associated Press covers multiple sectors from security to data communication to fisheries. China plans to reach some agreement on it at a meeting between Wang and his Pacific counterparts in Fiji on May 30. Richard McGregor, senior fellow at the Lowy Institute, an Australia-based think tank, wrote in The Guardian that Wang’s itinerary “is an emphatic statement by Beijing that it intends to entrench itself in the region, where it has been building influence for more than a decade.” Underscoring the growing strategic competition for influence in the Pacific – where the U.S. sent its own high-level diplomatic mission a month ago – Canberra’s new top diplomat Penny Wong arrived in Fiji on Thursday. She landed hours ahead of Wang’s arrival in the Solomons, promising to “put more energy and resources” into the Pacific. Wang Yi holding talks with Solomon Islands Foreign Minister Jeremiah Manele. Credit: Xinhua News Agency Western allies concerns International attention on the Pacific islands has built since April, when China and the Solomon Islands confirmed that they’d signed a security pact without divulging its contents. The deal sparked concerns about China’s growing presence and influence, especially as a leaked document suggested that it would allow Beijing to set up military bases and deploy troops in the Pacific island nation. On Thursday, Foreign Minister Wang sought to calm critics by saying that “the security cooperation between China and the Solomon Islands does not target any third party and China has no intention of building a military base there.” The deal is aimed at helping the island nation to improve its law enforcement capabilities to maintain public order while protecting the safety of Chinese citizens and organizations there, Wang was quoted as saying by state-run Xinhua news agency. The Chinese Foreign Ministry said that the two sides “agreed to jointly build major landmark projects under the Belt and Road Initiative, make good use of the zero-tariff preferential policy for products exported to China” as well as to expand bilateral cooperation to cover a wide range of fields including response to climate change and multilateral affairs. China will also help the Solomon Islands to prepare facilities for the upcoming Pacific Games 2023.  Wang said that China respects Solomon Islands’ ties with other countries, opposes all forms of power politics and bullying, and in Beijing the Solomon Islands have “one more good friend and one more sincere and reliable partner.” Australia’s Foreign Minister Senator Penny Wong speaks in Suva, Fiji, Thursday, May 26, 2022. Wong says it was up to each island nation to decide what partnerships they formed and what agreements they signed, but urged them to consider the benefits of sticking with Australia. Credit: Fiji Sun via AP. ‘Engagement rather than lecturing’ Similar words were employed by the new Australian foreign minister after she arrived in Suva, Fiji, which lies about 1,300 miles (2,100 kilometers) to the southeast of the Solomons’ capital, Honiara.  Wong, a senator, said Australia has “a strong desire to play our part in the Pacific family and build stronger relationships,” according to the Australian broadcaster ABC.  Australia respects the Pacific nations’ choice of friends and partners, she said, adding that her country wants to “be a partner of choice and demonstrate to your nation and other nations in the region that we are a partner who can be trusted and [is] reliable, and historically we have been.” Wong said the new Labor government in Australia, formed on Monday after the general election, will renew the focus on climate change and continued economic support for the region. In a speech to the Pacific Islands Forum secretariat in Fiji, the foreign minister said Australia “will be a partner that doesn’t come with strings attached nor imposing unsustainable financial burdens,” apparently drawing a contrast with China’s policies. Wong said she acknowledged that the previous Australian government “neglected its responsibility to act on climate, ignoring the calls of our Pacific family” and showed disrespect to Pacific nations. As Wong urged Pacific leaders to consider long-term and “think about where you might be in a decade” after reaching deals with China, a former Australian prime minister, Kevin Rudd, said Australia and allies should offer better proposals rather than deliver “a moral lecture.” Speaking Friday at the Future of Asia conference in Tokyo via video link, Rudd said China is showing “a much more assertive leadership style and intends therefore to change the status quo by adopting a more assertive foreign security policy in the region and the world.” “The way forward for Western allies like Australia, New Zealand and the U.S. is … to offer different, better, development-friendly proposals,” said Rudd, who is now president of the Asia Society Policy Institute in New York. New Zealand meanwhile said it would extend the New Zealand Defense Force’s deployment to the Solomon Islands until at least May next year.  Wellington deployed troops there at the request of the local government in December 2021 after riots broke out in Honiara after anti-government protests.

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Attackers in Cambodia topple motorbike, injure local election opposition candidate

Editor08 mins

Two attackers on Thursday injured an opposition candidate for a local council in Cambodia’s upcoming commune elections, an incident she and members of her party said is another example of intimidation and harassment that they have faced in the run-up to the June 5 vote. Sorn Chanthorn is running for a seat on the Tra Paing Prasat Commune council in the northwestern province of Oddar Meanchey, representing the opposition Candlelight Party. While she was driving to a campaign function, she said the attackers kicked her motorbike, causing her to crash. She believes the attackers wanted her to withdraw her candidacy. “I think it was a politically motivated case because I never had any problems like this in the past,” she said, adding that she would not file a complaint because she has no confidence that the police will help her. Tra Paing Prasat district Police Chief Ouch Mao said he hasn’t received any information about the incident. Nevertheless, he said that he doesn’t believe the attack was politically motivated. He said it was sad to hear that Sorn Chanthorn doesn’t have confidence in his department. “So far, I resolved complaints without any political discrimination,” he said. Candlelight Party officials have complained for weeks about incidents of violence and bullying by local officials representing Prime Minister Hun Sen’s ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP). Election monitors have also been harassed, causing several to resign, they said. “The authorities don’t have any measures to prevent intimidation,” Thatch Setha, one of the Candlelight Party’s two vice presidents, told RFA’s Khmer Service Thursday. “They destroy our party’s signs and assault our supporters,” he said, adding that authorities do nothing to stop it. Every five years, voters in the nation of 16 million people elect councils to represent rural precincts know as communes and urban districts called sangkat. This year some 86,000 candidates from 17 political parties are competing for 11,622 seats in 1,652 precincts nationwide. While the councils hold relatively little power, the June 5 election will test the dominance of the CPP and the limits of political freedom for opponents five years into Hun Sen’s crackdown on civil society, media and the internet. CPP spokesman Sok Ey San dismissed the Candlelight Party’s complaints as exaggerations designed to muddy the election environment. He urged it to file complaints with the National Election Committee (NEC), set up to be an independent organization, but that has in the past been criticized for corruption and close ties to the CPP. “It is merely allegation,” Sok Ey San said. “No one dares to threaten [the Candlelight Party].” Kang Savang, an election monitor with the independent Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia NGO, told RFA he has not received any definitive reports of political intimidation, but he urged victims to report election violations to the NEC. “The victims should, however, not simply make verbal complaints. They should make notes and file complaints if it is important,” he said.   Party violations Cambodia’s Minister of Interior Sar Kheng on Wednesday said the Candlelight Party violated its statute by appointing Son Chhay as a vice president earlier in the year. Son Chhay was banned from politics for his affiliation with the opposition Cambodia National People’s Party, which was dissolved by Cambodia’s Supreme Court in 2017, a move that allowed Hun Sen’s CPP to win all 125 parliamentary seats the following year. Son Chhay, who requested amnesty and joined the Candlelight Party in March, said he will work to clear up any of the ministry’s concerns. “It is a clerical issue,” he said. “I will prepare my biography and send it to the ministry.” Meanwhile, an appeals court rejected the bail request for Seam Pluk, the founder of a smaller opposition party called the Cambodia National Heart Party, citing concerns over flight risk. Authorities arrested Seam Pluk in late April on charges of forging documents for his party to compete in the local elections. Seam Pluk was on the run for about a week before his arrest. Am Sam Ath of the Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights said the decision gives the country’s political system a bad look. “He should have been released on bail because the international community is monitoring the election, especially our political environment,” said Am Sam Ath. Cambodian Human Rights Action Committee President Ros Sotha said Seam Pluk’s arrest violated election laws. He said that Seam Pluk did not provoke any social unrest. “[The government] should have asked him to make corrections and shouldn’t have arrested him. It is a violation his political rights. It is a concern,” he said. Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

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Top US diplomat lays out ‘invest, align, compete’ strategy to meet China challenge

Editor08 mins

Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday said the United States would employ a threefold strategy of investing at home, aligning efforts allies and partners, and competing with China to counter Beijing’s drive to change the existing rules-based world order. “To succeed in this decisive decade, the Biden Administration’s strategy can be summed up in three words — invest, align, compete,” Blinken said. “The foundations of the international order are under serious and sustained challenge,” he told an audience at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., citing Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine posing a “clear and present threat, and China as a long-term challenge. “Even as President Putin’s war continues, we remain focused on the most serious long-term challenge to the international order, and that’s posed by the People’s Republic of China,” he said. “China is the only country with the intent to reshape the international order and increasingly the economic, diplomatic, military and technological power to do it, Blinken said. “Beijing’s vision would move us away from the universal values that have sustained so much of the world’s progress over the past 75 years” since the end of World War II, he said. IPEF & Quad Blinken’s speech came several days after President Joe Biden returned from his first visit to Asia since taking office in January 2021. Biden visited U.S. allies South Korea and later Japan, where he unveiled the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF) which 13 other nations signed up to with hopes that it will lead to a free trade agreement in the future. Biden also attended a summit of the Quad, an Indo-Pacific security grouping of the Australia, India, Japan and the U.S. that is widely seen as countering China’s rising influence and assertiveness in the region. Blinken noted that cooperation with China is necessary for the global economy and solving issues such as climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic and said the U.S. was not looking for conflict or a new Cold War. “To the contrary, we are determined to avoid both,” he said, adding that the U.S. is not seeking to block China or any other nation from growing economically or advancing the interest of their people. “But we will  defend and strengthen international law, agreements, principals and institutions that maintain peace and security, protect the rights of individuals and sovereign nations, and make it possible for all countries, including the United States and China, to coexist and cooperate,” said Blinken. Though China’s rise was possible because of the stability and opportunity that the international order provides, the country is now seeking to undermine those rules, he said. In his 40-minute talk, Blinken touched on hot-button issues like the South China Sea and China’s treatment of the Uyghur ethnic minority in Xinjiang, where Beijing’s heavy-handed policies have been branded genocide by the U.S. and other Western nations. “Under Xi Jinping, the ruling Chinese Communist Party have become more repressive at home and more aggressive abroad,” he said. “We’ll continue to oppose Beijing’s aggressive and unlawful activities in the South and East China Seas,” he said, noting a 2016 international court ruling that found Beijing’s expansive claims in those waters “have no basis in international law.” Uyghur genocide Human rights was another “area of alignment we share with our allies and partners,” said Blinken, who raised Chinese crackdowns on Uyghurs, Tibetans and repression in Hong Kong. “The United States stands with countries and people around the world against the genocide and crimes against humanity happening in the Xinjiang region, where more than a million people have been placed in detention camps because of their ethnic and religious identity,” he said. A leading Uyghur-American official welcomed his remarks, which came as the top United Nations official for human rights was poised to visit Xinjiang, amid expectations that Beijing will so tightly manage the itinerary that the official, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet, will not get an accurate view of conditions there. “I was encouraged to hear Secretary’s commitment to align with US allies and partners to respond and stop the ongoing Uyghur genocide and crimes against humanity in the Uyghur homeland,” said Nury Turkel, vice chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. “We stand together on Tibet, where the authorities continue to wage a brutal campaign against Tibetans and their culture, language, and religious traditions, and in Hong Kong, where the Chinese Communist Party has imposed harsh anti-democratic measures under the guise of national security,” Blinken added. “We’ll continue to raise these issues and call for change – not to stand against China, but to stand up for peace, security, and human dignity.” Additional reporting by Alim Seytoff in Munich, Germany.

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Narcotics use on the rise among youth in Myanmar’s Kachin state following coup

Editor08 mins

The sale and usage of illegal narcotics by young people have increased significantly in northern Myanmar’s Kachin state in the nearly 16 months since a military coup toppled the elected government, residents and antidrug activists said. At least two of every five men in all 18 townships of the state of about 1.7 million people (as of the last national census in 2014) consume illicit drugs, mainly heroin from opium, the activists said. Myanmar’s opium production is mainly concentrated in Kachin and Shan states. There were 11 cases of drug trafficking in Kachin in March, and drugs worth 900 million kyats ($477,000) were seized, according to the most recent figures from the Myanmar Police Force’s Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control.   Though technically illegal in Myanmar, opium cultivation for the manufacture of heroin has been tolerated and even taxed by corrupt officials in the Myanmar military, the Myanmar Police Force and rebel ethnic armies. A resident of Myitkyina district said the number of drug users in his village, which he did not want named for safety reasons, has doubled. “Following the coup, drugs became available more than ever in Myitkyina,” he said. “Cases have now more than doubled in our village.” A resident of the town of Mohnyin said that many young people lost their jobs after the February 2021 coup and turned to drugs to compensate. “If the situation in the country goes on like this, the future will be very bleak,” said the resident who declined to be named. “The situation worsens when there is no law.”  In 2021, an estimated 30,200 hectares were under opium poppy cultivation in Myanmar, a 2% increase from 2020, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Higher increases in opium yields were observed in Kachin and eastern Shan states, at 17% and 12%, respectively, the UNODC’s 2021 “Myanmar Opium Survey” said. The situation in Myitkyina, the Kachin state capital, is particularly worrisome. “Drugs are now widespread in Kachin state because they are so easily available,” said an official with a Myitkyina-based civil society group who requested anonymity. “It will be very difficult to control. At present, there are few public activities unlike in the past because traveling from one place to another is difficult. People are worried they might get arrested on suspicion alone.”   Youths under the age of 18 are now using drugs, and most of them are addicted to heroin, leading to an uptick in crime in Myitkyina, he said. In the past, community-based antidrug groups set up operations in all parts of the state to track down drug users and traffickers in villages and send them to detention centers or to rehabilitation facilities, according to the official. About 30 self-help antidrug training facilities run by Christian and private groups operate in Myitkyina, and each one is looking after nearly 100 addicts, he said. ‘More and more drugs’ A spokesman from an antidrug group based in Putao said that the town, previously classified as a white zone because there were no drug users, is now off the list. “Every village around here has more and more drugs,” he told RFA. “Drug use has risen in the past two or three months, and the crime rate is going up. Religious teachers and village elders are stepping in to take control of the situation now. We cannot even go to church in peace here. Someone has to stay behind to guard the houses.”  About 1,000 drug addicts live in Putao, about half of them women, he added. Drug trafficking is also on the rise with dealers contacting various homes in the area for sales and others openly selling narcotics on the street. Win Ye Tun, a spokesman for the Kachin State Military Council, said the junta regime was working on drug prevention and rehabilitation. “We are trying to stop drug trafficking,” he said. “We make arrests and take action against them [users]. We also have another program to educate these people not to use drugs again. We have opened training camps and drug eradication camps. We did that all along. The government is always behind it.” Tan Raw, who runs an antidrug youth training school in Myitkyina, said the lives of most young people in Kachin have been ruined by the military coup and its bloody aftermath. “Right now, the authorities cannot think of this drug trafficking as an issue,” he said. “That makes it worse. As a consequence, crime rates are rising, too.“ “Most importantly, we have lost the country’s valuable human resources,” said Tan Raw. “Therefore, I think it would be very difficult for us to rebuild our country, even if the political [situation] stabilized.” Translated by Khin Maung Nyane for RFA Burmese. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

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North Korea gives Chinese vaccines to soldiers working as construction labor

Editor010 mins

North Korea has begun promoting a vaccination campaign for soldiers working on a high-priority construction project in the capital Pyongyang, marking the first time the government has administered vaccines in large numbers, sources in the country told RFA. The country’s leader, Kim Jong Un, promised to build 50,000 new homes for the residents of Pyongyang by the end of 2025, and tens of thousands of soldiers have been mobilized to help with the project. “They play loud political propaganda messages as the soldiers get injected with the vaccines from China,” a city government official told RFA on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “They are calling it a ‘vaccination of love from the Highest Dignity,’” he said, using an honorific term for Kim Jong Un. Each brigade of soldiers has set up a field sanitation center. On the morning of May 18th, broadcast vehicles began documenting army doctors dressed in protective gear inoculating the soldiers, according to the source. “It was like it was a national political event. All of the officials of the construction command came out to the site, and the atmosphere was all serious,” he said. “The broadcasting car played loudspeaker messages saying, ‘The general secretary has decided to import COVID-19 vaccines in the midst of our nation’s difficult situation. It was repeatedly emphasizing that the vaccines were a gracious gift given to the people from Kim Jong Un,” he said. North Korea is in a state of “maximum emergency” after acknowledging this month that the virus had begun to spread among participants of a large-scale military parade in late April. Prior to that, Pyongyang had denied that anyone in the country had contracted COVID-19, even rejecting 3 million doses of China’s Sinovac vaccine last September, saying that other countries needed them more. ‘Long live Kim Jong Un’ Sources have told RFA that doses for elite members of society have made their way to Pyongyang in small amounts, and that a limited number of soldiers stationed at the Chinese border had also been inoculated. The soldiers in Pyongyang were relieved to learn they would be receiving the vaccine after they heard news that COVID-19 was spreading rapidly in the capital, the source said. “Some of the soldiers were seen raising their hands and giving praise to Kim Jong Un, shedding tears and shouting ‘Manse!,’” said the source, using a Korean phrase usually said during times of overwhelming emotion that directly translates into English as “10,000 years” but effectively means “long live Kim Jong Un” in this context.   “The vaccination campaign conducted that day was only for the soldiers, even though others are helping with the 10,000 homes project. Members of the Korean Socialist Women’s League or local residents who ‘volunteered’ for construction were excluded,” he said. The original plan called for the completion of 10,000 homes in 2021, but the home-building project in the capital fell behind schedule. The government now hopes to meet the target sometime this year and construct an additional 10,000 by the end of the year.  The rapid spread of the coronavirus could upend those plans. Over the past month the virus’s spread has forced the government to shut down entire cities, including the capital. But for now projects like the one in Pyongyang continue. Soldiers mobilized for construction in other parts of the country are also in the government’s vaccination plans, a resident of South Hamgyong province, north of Pyongyang, told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely. “Last week I heard from a friend who works in the medical field that the soldiers who are working on the Ryonpho Greenhouse Farm in Hamju County have received COVID-19 vaccines,” she told RFA Tuesday. “The government is prioritizing soldiers working on national construction projects. “The greenhouse farm is a national construction project which Kim Jong Un ordered to be completed by Oct. 10… The general secretary attended a groundbreaking ceremony there on February 18th. The soldiers who are fighting the construction battle night and day were prioritized for vaccination against COVID-19 with vaccines imported from China,” she said, using militaristic language that North Korea uses to describe communal work projects and public campaigns. ‘Immortal Potion of Love.’ People are angry that the government is not rolling out the vaccine for them, however. “They are saying that the government’s behavior is ridiculous. They are only vaccinating soldiers, and they are using images of these soldiers, saying how thrilled they are that the Highest Dignity is giving them a special consideration, as propaganda,” said the second source. “A broadcast vehicle that appeared at the vaccination site loudly proclaimed the greatness of the general secretary, who prepared for them the ‘Immortal Potion of Love.’ People saw the scenes of the emotional soldiers, singing, weeping and shouting ‘Manse!’ but they looked on emotionless.” Though North Korea has acknowledged that the virus is spreading inside the country, it has only reported a handful of confirmed COVID-19 cases, which 38 North, a site that provides analysis on the country and is run by the U.S.-based Stimson Center think tank, attributed to insufficient testing capabilities. Data published on the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center showed North Korea with only one confirmed COVID-19 case and six deaths as of Thursday evening. The country is, however, keeping track of numbers of people who exhibit symptoms of COVID-19. About 3.1 million people have been hit by outbreaks of fever, 68 of whom have died, according to data based on the most recent reports from North Korean state media published by 38 North. Around 2.7 million are reported to have made recoveries, while 323,300 are undergoing treatment. Washington has offered to give vaccines to North Korea and China, U.S. President Joe Biden announced during a recent visit to Seoul. Neither country has responded to the offer. North Korea has also ignored a South Korean proposal to cooperate in efforts to combat the pandemic. Observers say Pyongyang is unlikely to accept humanitarian aid from the international community because it would be an admission…

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Uyghur sports trainer confirmed arrested by Chinese authorities in Xinjiang

Editor07 mins

A Uyghur athletic trainer who worked at a university in northwestern China’s Xinjiang region was arrested by Chinese authorities in 2017, said Uyghur sources with knowledge of the situation and officials in the region. Behtiyar Abduweli worked at Ili Pedagogical University, also known as Yili Normal University, in the city of Ghulja (in Chinese, Yining). He is the son of the late Abduweli Jarullayov, a Uyghur singer and playwright. Behtiyar Abduweli is one of more than 20 educators at the university that an earlier RFA report said have been detained. Not all of the names of the educators have been publicly released. A disciplinary committee officer at the university and a Uyghur who lives in Ghulja but did not want to be named for safety reasons said authorities detained the sports trainer in 2017. “I heard that Behtiyar was also taken. You know, the PE teacher Behtiyar,” said the Uyghur source. A Chinese government official in Ghulja confirmed that Abduweli was arrested five years ago because of his leading role in Uyghur society. Since 2017, Chinese authorities have targeted Uyghur intellectuals, businessmen, and cultural and religious figures, imprisoning many of them in a vast network of internment camps in what Beijing says is an effort to prevent religious extremism and terrorist activities.  The U.S. and the parliaments of other Western countries, however, have declared that such actions constitute a genocide and crimes against humanity. The university meshrep Uyghur educators at Ili Pedagogical University have long influenced Uyghur society through their academic research and teaching, as well as their adherence to Uyghur traditions and customs. More than 30 Uyghur teachers at the university organized a meshrep, a social gathering that celebrates Uyghur culture and traditions, in the 1990s and early 2000s. The events typically include poetry, music, dance and conversation, the Uyghur source said. The gatherings were organized by Abduweli and Abdullah Ismail, the Chinese Communist Party secretary of the school’s Marxism Institute who also is being detained. Their meshrep encouraged more Uyghurs in Ghulja to appreciate Uyghur customs but caused concern among Chinese officials who believed the gatherings were not in line with Chinese Communist Party policy. But the government did not explicitly ban the educators from holding the gatherings because there were no clear government rules or regulations prohibiting the meshrep. In 2017, as Chinese authorities ramped up their repression of Uyghurs, they officially declared that the meshrep is an indication of “religious extremism” and a “propaganda platform of ethnic separatism.” As a result, authorities began investigating the university teachers who participated in the gatherings, and Abduweli was the first to be detained, the Uyghur source said. An official from the Education Department at Ili Pedagogical University declined to comment on Abduweli’s arrest. A former Ghulja educator named Yasinjan, who now lives in Turkey, told RFA that Abduweli and Ismail, along with two other educators — Nijat Sopi and Dilmurat Awut — were all active members of the university meshrep. Abduweli criticized Chinese authorities for flooding the stadium where the members of the university meshrep played soccer matches in 1997, saying the action would affect the community’s social harmony, Yasinjan said. Abduweli’s outspokenness 25 years ago was defined in 2017 by Chinese authorities as “opposing the Chinese government” and “inciting ethnic tensions in the society,” he added. “Behtiyar Abduweli was the leading man in the meshrep gathering of the schoolteachers,” Yasinjan said. “He was the national-level referee in sports games. He was highly respected among his peers both in school and in Uyghur society.” Abduweli also ran a private canteen on campus and gave free food to some students with disabilities. Abdureshid Hamit, another detained educator from the university, also worked with Abduweli in the canteen, Yasinjan said. Another reason that authorities detained Abduweli was because he collected and saved his father’s writings, he added. Abdulweli’s “crimes” also included “encouraging other students who possess ethnic separatist ideas,” said the same Uyghur source who declined to be named.  A staff member of the university’s Political Science Department initially tried to answer questions posed by RFA, but when he heard Abduweli’s name, he anxiously said that he did not know about his case. The staffer suggested contacting local law enforcement for details. Translated by RFA Uyghur. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

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Marcos: Philippines will assert maritime territorial rights under his leadership

Editor09 mins

President-elect Ferdinand Marcos Jr. vowed Thursday that, after taking office, he would assert a 2016 arbitral ruling won by the Philippines against China over the South China Sea, a sensitive issue that his predecessor failed to address adequately. In a news conference with a select few reporters, Marcos stressed there was “no wiggle room” on the issue of sovereignty – his strongest public comments yet about the territorial dispute with the Philippines’ biggest Asian neighbor.  “We will use it to continue to assert our territorial rights. It’s not a claim, it is already our territorial right and that is what the arbitral ruling can do to help us,” he said.  “Our sovereignty is sacred and we will not compromise it in any way. We are a sovereign nation with a functioning government, so we do not need to be told by anyone how to run our country.” Manila, under his leadership, will not allow its sovereignty “to be trampled upon,” he added.  The Philippines traditionally has been the United States’ biggest ally in Southeast Asia, though the alliance was tested under the leadership of outgoing President Rodrigo Duterte, who ingratiated himself to China by setting aside the 2016 ruling in favor of bilateral economic cooperation.  While Duterte changed his approach on the South China Sea issue toward the latter part of his six-year term, China has strengthened its presence in the disputed waterway and encroached on other claimant states’ exclusive economic zones.  During his press conference Marcos promised to talk to China “with a firm voice” even as he acknowledged that the Philippines was at a disadvantage militarily against Beijing. Asked about the Philippine president-elect’s statement, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said Beijing’s “position on the South China Sea arbitration case is consistent, clear and unchanged. “China and the Philippines are friendly close neighbors. We have established a bilateral consultation mechanism on issues relating to the South China Sea and maintain communication and dialogue on maritime issues,” he told reporters on Thursday. “China stands ready to continue working with the Philippines through dialogue and consultation to properly handle differences and safeguard peace and stability in the South China Sea.” ASEAN role Continuing to pursue multilateral talks with China involving fellow members of the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), as well as dealing with Beijing bilaterally, would be on top of his foreign policy agenda, Marcos said.  “In fact, this is what I mentioned when I spoke to President Xi Jinping when he called me to congratulate me on winning the election. I immediately went and I said we have to continue to talk about this. This cannot be allowed to fester and to become more severe in terms of a problem between our two countries,” he said.  Marcos was elected president in a landslide on May 9, receiving 31.6 million votes – more than twice his nearest rival, outgoing Vice President Leni Robredo. The 2016 landmark international tribunal ruling was a result of the arbitration case filed by the administration of the late President Benigno Aquino III against China and came just days after Duterte succeeded him in office. China claims nearly the entire South China Sea, including waters within the exclusive economic zones of Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Taiwan. While Indonesia does not regard itself as a party to the South China Sea dispute, Beijing claims historic rights to parts of that sea overlapping Indonesia’s EEZ as well.  Analysts had predicted that Marcos would likely echo Duterte’s stance with regard to the South China Sea dispute. His campaign rallies did not focus on foreign policy but included generic talk about unifying a highly divided country.  Meanwhile, Robredo, the opposition leader, had vowed to use the ruling to create a “coalition of nations” that would help the Philippines in the territorial dispute.   US versus China  Citing the competition between the United States and China, Marcos said the Philippines must have an independent foreign policy – similar to what Duterte originally espoused. Duterte, for his part, forged warmer ties with Beijing while criticizing the U.S. for interfering with his anti-drug campaign that has killed thousands of Filipinos.  To strike this balance, Marcos said the country’s ties with ASEAN is of “critical importance.”  “We are a small player amongst very large giants in terms of geopolitics, so we have to ply our own way. I do not subscribe to the old thinking of the Cold War where you are under the influence of the U.S., Soviet Union,” Marcos said.  “I think we just find an independent foreign policy where we are friends with everyone. It’s the only way,” he said.  Marcos, whose family has been welcoming of Beijing and has attended Chinese embassy events, said he would continue Manila’s “traditional relationship with the U.S.”  His father, the late dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos, began forging ties with China’s late chairman, Mao Zedong, in 1975, while also being one of the staunchest U.S. allies in Southeast Asia. “We define that role very simply, it comes from our traditional relationship with the U.S., which has been very strong and very advantageous to both of us for the past 100 or so years,” the president-elect said. “That’s how we define that, and so we must maintain that balance. I don’t think we are the only country that’s having to do that.” BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news service.

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