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UN rights chief lowers expectations for heavily scrutinized visit to Xinjiang

Editor3 years ago013 mins

The United Nations’ human rights chief flew into China Monday to the dismay and anger of human rights groups and Uyghur activists as she told diplomats her trip to Xinjiang this week wouldn’t be an “investigation” in what was seen as effort to lower expectations. United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet arrived in China and told a video call with some 100 participants, mostly Beijing-based diplomats, that setting high expectations would lead to disappointment, according Bloomberg News Agency, which quoted participants without naming them. The trip by Bachelet, a former Chilean president who is the first rights chief to visit China since 2005, has sparked concerns that it will be used by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to whitewash and legitimize its rights record. “Michelle Bachelet’s long-delayed visit to Xinjiang is a critical opportunity to address human rights violations in the region, but it will also be a running battle against Chinese government efforts to cover up the truth,” said Amnesty International Secretary General Agnes Callamard. “The UN must take steps to mitigate against this and resist being used to support blatant propaganda,” she added in a statement. “To turn this landmark visit to China into a promotional tour would be a mistake that tarnishes the reputation of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and leaves the Uyghurs facing genocide at the hands of China to struggle alone,” said the Washington-based Campaign for Uyghurs. Chinese Foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said Bachelet will travel in a “closed loop,” ostensibly to minimize COVID-19 transmission risk, which will mean she won’t be able to meet anyone outside of the list of contacts pre-arranged by Chinese officials. No journalists will be able to travel with her either, during the May 23-28 trip, Wang said. “Of course #China govt, intolerant of free speech and press, didn’t want journalists traveling with @UNHumanRights @mbachelet. But did UN try to argue for it? No one representing #humanrights, #democracy should make this mistake,” tweeted Sophie Richardson, China director at Human Rights Watch. Rights activist have long warned that Bachelet will be kept by Chinese minders from seeing the true picture of what is taking place in the region, including reports of Uyghurs being held in a network of detention camps and being used as forced labor at Chinese factories. Uyghurs demonstrate against China outside of the United Nation offices during the Universal Periodic Review of China by the U.N. Human Rights Council, on Nov. 6, 2018 in Geneva, Switzerland. Credit: AFP. ‘Symbolic visit’ During her May 23-28 visit, she will meet with high-level government levels, academics, and representatives from civil society groups and businesses during stops in the southern city of Guangzhou and in the Xinjiang cities of Urumqi (in Chinese, Wulumuqi) and Kashgar (Kashi), the U.N. said last week. “We are deeply disappointed to learn that U.N. Human Rights High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet is not going to investigate the genocide against the Uyghur people in East Turkestan but rather make a symbolic visit just as China wished,” said Dolkun Isa, president of the World Uyghur Congress (WUC). East Turkestan is the Uyghurs preferred name for Xinjiang. “We have repeatedly cautioned High Commissioner Bachelet that such visit would be highly damaging to the U.N. credibility and play right into the hands of the Chinese government to manipulate this trip to whitewash the genocide,” the Germany-based Isa, told RFA. China angrily rejects all genocide and forced labor claims as politically motivated attacks on its security and development policies in the vast western region. Beijing has calling for a “friendly” visit by Bachelet. Uyghurs have been pressing for the release of a report on the rights situation in Xinjiang by the OHCHR, Bachelet’s office in Geneva, which has been delayed since September. Ordinary Chinese have also pressed the U.S. rights chief to take up the cases of jailed loved ones. The mother of a man jailed and reportedly tortured after someone posted a photo of ruling CCP leader Xi Jinping’s daughter to a website he ran said she has written to Bachelet, calling on her to ask authorities in the southern province of Guangdong about his case. “I heard Ms. Bachelet was going to be Guangzhou this week, and the miscarriage of justice involving [my son] Niu Tengyu and 24 other young people also took place here in Guangdong,” Niu’s mother Coco told RFA. “I hope that Ms. Bachelet can call on the Guangdong authorities to revoke these miscarriages of justice and release Niu Tengyu, and all the other young people.” “I hope she will bring this case up with the country’s leaders and urge Guangdong to right this wrong,” she said. Beijing-based rights lawyer Yu Wensheng tweeted that he was looking forward to briefing her about the human rights situation in China, although he is highly unlikely to have access. Fellow rights attorney Wang Yu called on Bachelet to meet with some of China’s human rights lawyers, and inquire after jailed lawyers Li Yuhan, Chang Weiping, Ding Jiaxi and Qin Yongpei. Controlling the narrative Pema Dolma, a London-based campaign director of the activist group Students for Free Tibet, said the lack of transparency rendered the entire visit suspect, however. “If there is any indication that this visit is subject to restrictions [by the Chinese government], will the High Commissioner immediately end her visit?” she said. “I think it is safe to say that the answer is no.” Bachelet traveled this week in spite of calls from 220 human rights organizations, who called in a joint statement earlier this month for her to cancel her trip. The statement received no response. “Having an opaque visit to China and writing a report that highlights the concerns of the Chinese government rather than those of civil society is actually part of what Xi Jinping wants,” Pema Dolma said. “[He wants] to be able to control the human rights narrative.” Bachelet also arrives just ahead of the politically sensitive anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre, an overseas-based rights group said….

Tibetan monks told to take blame for statue demolitions

Editor3 years ago04 mins

Authorities in western China’s Sichuan province are forcing Tibetan monks to take the blame for the destruction of sacred statues torn down by China, ordering them to sign affidavits claiming responsibility, RFA has learned. The move follows widespread condemnation of the demolitions in Drago (in Chinese, Luhuo) county in the Kardze (Gandzi) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture that were reported by RFA’s Tibetan Service in January. “After reports of these demolitions in Drago county reached the international community, the Chinese government is now accusing Tibetan monks in Drago of destroying the Buddhist statues, and is coercing them into signing documents to take the blame,” a Tibetan living in exile said, citing contacts in the region. “But due to tight restrictions in the area right now, it is difficult to gather information on what punishment the monks will receive if they refuse to sign these documents,” RFA’s source said, speaking on condition of anonymity to protect his contacts. “Most of the local Tibetans and monks who were arrested for sharing news of the Buddha statues’ destruction have now been released, but they are constantly being harassed and are closely watched by the Chinese authorities,” the source added. A 99-foot-tall Buddha statue that stood in Drago was targeted for demolition in December by officials who said it had been built too high. Monks from a local monastery and other Tibetan residents were forced to witness the destruction, an action experts called part of an ongoing campaign to eradicate Tibet’s distinct national culture and religion. Destroyed along with the statue were 45 traditional prayer wheels set up for use by Tibetan pilgrims and other worshippers, sources said. Drago county chief Wang Dongsheng, director of the demolition, had earlier overseen a campaign of destruction at Sichuan’s sprawling Larung Gar Buddhist Academy. Eleven monks from a nearby monastery were then arrested by Chinese authorities on suspicion of sending news and photos of the statue’s destruction, first reported exclusively by RFA, to contacts outside the region. Using commercial satellite imagery, RFA later verified the destruction at the same time of a three-story statue of Maitreya Buddha, believed by Tibetan Buddhists to be a Buddha appearing in a future age, at Gaden Namgyal Ling monastery in Drago. Communications clampdowns and other security measures meanwhile remain in place in Drago county, said Pema Gyal, a researcher at London-based Tibet Watch. “Chinese authorities continue to impose restrictions on Drago county, and those released from prison are kept under scrutiny all the time,” Gyal said. Translated by Tenzin Dickyi for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Written in English by Richard Finney.

More than a dozen Rohingya die when boat capsizes off Myanmar coast

Editor3 years ago09 mins

More than a dozen people, including women and children, died on Saturday when a boat carrying at least 90 Rohingya from western Myanmar’s Rakhine state to Malaysia capsized and sank in the Bay of Bengal during a storm, Myanmar residents and rescue workers said. The passengers, refugees from deadly crackdowns on Rohingya Muslims by Myanmar troops that have driven nearly a million people into camps in Rakhine and neighboring Bangladesh, had paid U.S. $1,500-2,500 each to traffickers to take them to Malaysia, where they hoped to find employment, some of the Rohingya survivors told RFA. More than 50 other passengers remain missing, and more than 20 survivors, mostly men, have been detained by local authorities at the Shwe Thaung Yan township police station in Pathein district of Ayeyarwady region, the sources said. “Ninety people were said to be on the boat, 23 were arrested, and 14 dead bodies have been found so far, most of them children around 11 or 12 years of age,” said a Shwe Thaung Yan resident who declined to be named for safety reasons. RFA has not been able to independently confirm the figures. Seven bodies were recovered after they washed ashore Sunday near the popular Shwe Thaung Yan beach, local rescue workers said. Six others were found earlier in the afternoon in the Wetlet area, and another body washed up on the shore in Shwe Thaung Yan’s ward No. 1. The bodies were not found on the resort side of the beach, one local said. One rescue worker said the bodies were buried Sunday night with the help of Muslim religious leaders from Pathein. “The bodies were buried yesterday,” he said. “The leaders of their religious group came and buried them. We found another dead body in Shwe Thaung Yan No. 1 ward at about 5.30 p.m. The Muslim leaders buried it too. They came from Pathein.” The passengers were trying to reach Malaysia from displacement camps in Rakhine’s Sittwe, Buthidaung and Maungdaw townships, locals said. The ward administrator said that the traffickers and some people about 20 years of age were found alive. “The single body found in our ward was that of a 10-year-old girl,” he said. He speculated that the boat may have been sunk in a cyclone. “The sea around here is very scary. Storms come unannounced sometimes,” he said. Traffickers apprehended Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, spokesman for Myanmar’s ruling junta, said that the boat capsized about five nautical miles west of Thapyay Hmaw Island near Shwe Thaung Yan. “A search was carried out and found 14 Bengalis dead. The rest will be deported as usual,” he said. Authorities captured five “suspects” in Shwe Thaung Yan’s Thae Gone village at about 2:30 p.m. on Saturday, Zaw Min Tun said. “We checked them and found them to be human traffickers. They were bringing these Bengalis from [Rakhine’s] Rathedaung [township] by boat to go to Yangon and then to Malaysia,” he said, using a derogatory term for Rohingya, who in Myanmar are considered illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. In addition to tens of thousands of Muslim refugees in Rakhine, more than 740,000 Rohingya have been sheltering since a 2017 crackdown at refugee camps in southeastern Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar, where they are fenced in and not allowed to work outside their confines. Rohingya in the camps and those still in western Myanmar pay traffickers to transport them to Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand to find work and a better life. Groups of Rohingya have also packed into boats and sailed off in search of asylum in other countries, often only to be denied entry. Tin Hlaing from the Rohingya displacement camp in Thetkeibyin village, Sittwe township, said many have tried to leave Myanmar with the help of traffickers, which in most cases has not ended well. “They left because there are a lot of difficulties in the refugee camps here,” he said. “About 90% of them had financial problems. Jobs are scarce. In some cases, children have grown up. … That’s why they leave.” The Rohingya often ignore warnings of camp administrators about the risks of paying traffickers to transport them, Tin Hlaing said. “About 35 out of 100 people make it,” he said. “They have to pay a lot of money to the traffickers and now they are losing their lives.” “The latest tragedy shows once again the sense of desperation being felt by Rohingya in Myanmar and in the region,” Indrika Ratwatte, director of the regional bureau for Asia and the Pacific at the U.N.’s refugee agency (UNHCR), said in a statement issued Monday. “It is shocking to see increasing numbers of children, women and men embarking on these dangerous journeys and eventually losing their lives.” At least 1,000 Rohingya have left internal displacement camps in Rakhine’s Buthidaung, Maungdaw and Sittwe township s every year in an effort to eke out a living elsewhere. They usually must pay traffickers 3 million-5 million kyats (U.S. $1,600-2,700) per person to be smuggled. Nay San Lwin, co-founder of the Rohingya Liberation Coalition, said Rohingya hoping for a better future in Malaysia have been repeatedly deceived by traffickers “People are not allowed to travel, [and] their working rights are restricted, so they try to flee, thinking that if they go to Malaysia, they will find a brighter future,” he said. RFA could not reach Maung Maung Than, social affairs minister of Ayeyarwady region, for comment. Myanmar police arrested 41 Rohingya in Shwe Taung Yan’s Nwe Nyo Chaung village on March 22 after their boat broke down and was stranded on the beach. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane for RFA’s Myanmar Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

Xinjiang goldsmith’s death after release from prison is followed by son’s demise

Editor3 years ago08 mins

A Uyghur goldsmith died 20 days after being released from prison and his 20-year-old son died the next day at his funeral in northwestern China’s Xinjiang region, Chinese government officials said. Yaqup Hesen, 43, was released from prison in Ghulja (in Chinese, Yining) in April and died on May 1, the eve of the Eid al-Fitr holiday that marked the end of the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan. Bilal Yaqup, his son, died the following day, the sources said, confirming news about the pair that had circulated on social media. Despite China’s severe restrictions on online information, reports of the deaths of Uyghurs detained in prisons and internment camps in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) have continued to circulate on Facebook and other platforms. Many of the videos and photos posted are of deceased Uyghurs who are under the age of 50 and had lost a significant amount of weight while incarcerated. A Facebook post about the father and son said Bilal collapsed and died while carrying his father’s casket at the businessman’s funeral. A resident from the neighborhood committee in the area of Ghulja where Hesen lived said many Uyghurs have died after being released from area prisons and camps, but she did not disclose their names. “There are many. I don’t know all their detailed identities,” she said. A neighborhood committee official where Hesen lived told RFA that he had been jailed for praying. He spent three years in prison and left unable to walk. “He lived in our neighborhood,” she said. “It’s been three years since he was sentenced to prison.” The committee official also confirmed that Bilal died the day after his father passed away. “I don’t know the reason for his death,” she said. Tursunjan, a Uyghur from Ghulja who now lives in Turkey and who knew Hesen, told RFA that he called people in the city after he had seen a social media post about the man’s death to find out if the information was accurate. His sources in Ghulja confirmed to him through gestures on a video call that the information about the father’s and son’s deaths was correct, he said. Tursunjan said he learned that Hesen was taken away in 2018 and was sentenced to prison a year later. He was released in critical condition in April about two to three weeks before Eid al-Fitr. “He was sentenced to prison three years ago. That’s what I heard,” he said. “After his death, I heard that he had been actually released from prison,” Tursunjan said. “He was pronounced dead on the eve of Eid.” Hesen’s and Bilal’s deaths spoiled a typically festive mood in the city during the Eid al-Fitr holiday, Tursunjan said. “He had a very good reputation in the city as an ethical and pious person,” said Tursunjan, who said he knows at least 40 people from Ghulja who are still in prison. Hospital treatment Another Uyghur from Ghulja who now lives abroad but requested anonymity for safety reasons, said municipal police, state security forces and a group of Chinese government officials from the XUAR attended Hesen’s funeral. One of the members of the group told RFA that Hesen died due to ineffective treatment for an illness and confirmed that Bilal passed away the day after Hesen died. “We heard he died, so we went [to the funeral],” the government official said. “We didn’t know what the cause of his death was.” Hesen’s family took him to hospitals in Ghulja and Urumqi (Wulumuqi), the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) capital for treatment, the Uyghur in exile who requested anonymity said. “The family tried hard to treat him in hospitals both in Ghulja and Urumqi, but all were ineffective,” he said. “His son fainted and died because of deep mourning about his father’s passing.” Chinese authorities have targeted and arrested numerous Uyghur businessmen, intellectuals, and cultural and religious figures in the XUAR for years as part of a campaign to monitor, control and assimilate members of the minority group purportedly to prevent religious extremism and terrorist activities. Many of them have been among the 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities believed to be held in a network of detention camps in Xinjiang since 2017. Beijing has said that the camps are vocational training centers and has denied widespread and documented allegations that it has mistreated Muslims living in Xinjiang. The United States and the legislatures in several Western countries have deemed the treatment of Uyghurs and others in the XUAR as constituting genocide and crimes against humanity. Translated by RFA’s Uyghur Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

Former RFA blogger in failing health in Vietnam jail

Editor3 years ago07 mins

A Vietnamese journalist jailed for writing articles that criticized Vietnam’s one-party communist government is in failing health, with prison authorities refusing family requests to send him outside the facility for medical treatment, RFA has learned. Nguyen Truong Thuy, a former vice president of the Vietnam Independent Journalists Association (IJAVN), is serving an 11-year sentence at the An Phuoc detention center in southern Vietnam’s Binh Duong province on a charge of “propagandizing against the state.” He had blogged on civil rights and freedom of speech issues for RFA’s Vietnamese Service for six years and visited the United States in 2014 to testify before the House of Representatives on media freedom in Vietnam. Thuy, 72, is now suffering in custody from back pain, high blood pressure, scabies and inflammatory bowel disease, Thuy’s wife, Pham Thi Lan, told RFA in a recent interview. “I visited him on May 14, and he told me that he now has less back pain but still has to take medicine to treat the problem with his large intestine. And he still has problems with scabies, as the treatment he has been given for this so far has been unsuccessful,” Lan said. Detention center authorities have rejected requests to send Thuy to a medical center outside the jail for better treatment and have downplayed the severity of his condition, Lan added. “In a letter he sent home in March, my husband wrote that he sometimes had to urinate in his cell and seek medical help every week because of issues with his health, and because of this, I made a request that he be sent to another facility for treatment,” Lan said. “But the center said his health was not that bad, and they told me to correct the information in my report.” A former officer in the Vietnam People’s Army, Thuy worked at a construction company after being discharged and then retired with a pension of more than 6 million VND ($260) per month. But payments were stopped in March after an authorization letter allowing his family to receive his pension on his behalf expired. Thuy’s harsh treatment behind bars may be due to his refusal to plead guilty to the charges filed against him or to recognize the court’s verdict in his trial, Lan said. She called on the international community to pressure Vietnam’s government to allow him to seek medical care. Calls by RFA seeking comment from the An Phuoc detention center were unanswered. Truong Van Dung is shown with his arrest warrant issued by Hanoi Police on May 21, 2022. Police in Vietnam’s capital in a separate case on May 21 arrested Hanoi resident and human rights activist Truong Van Dung, charging him under Article 88 of Vietnam’s 1999 Penal Code with “conducting propaganda against the State,” Dung’s wife Nghiem Thi Hop told RFA the same day. Dung, who was born in 1958, was taken into custody at around 7 a.m. at the couple’s home, Hop said. “While I was out shopping, I received a phone call from a neighbor telling me he had been arrested, and I came back at 7:30 but they had already taken him away.” Police in plain clothes then arrived and read out an order to search the house, taking away books, notebooks, laptop computers and protest banners, she added. Dung had participated in protests in Hanoi including demonstrations against China’s occupation of the Paracel Islands — an island group in the South China Sea also claimed by Vietnam — and protests against the Taiwan-owned Formosa Company for polluting the coastline of four central Vietnamese provinces of Vietnam in 2016. Public protests even over perceived harm to Vietnam’s interests are considered threats to its political stability and are routinely suppressed by the police. Dung’s arrest under Article 88 of Vietnam’s Penal Code is the second arrest on national security charges reported since Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh’s May 12-17 visit to the U.S. Cao Thi Cue, owner of the Peng Lai Temple in southern Vietnam’s Long An province, was arrested on charges of “abusing the rights to freedom and democracy” under Article 331 of the 2015 Penal Code. Both laws have been criticized by rights groups as tools used to stifle voices of dissent in the one-party communist state. Translated by Anna Vu for RFA’s Vietnamese Service. Written in English by Richard Finney.

Flickering dreams of democracy

Editor3 years ago01 mins

Cambodia is set to open two weeks of campaigning for local Commune Council elections on June 5. Prime Minister Hun Sen has urged authorities to remain neutral during the race, but politicians are wary after months of violence and harassment directed against aspiring candidates from parties other than the strongman’s Cambodian People’s Party. Cambodians also recall the previous local elections in 2017, where a strong showing by the main opposition party prompted Hun Sen, who has ruled the country since 1985, to ban the party and arrest its leader, a move that allowed his party to sweep all seats in parliamentary voting the following year.

President Biden warns China over invasion threat, drawing parallel with Ukraine

Editor3 years ago3 years ago08 mins

U.S. President Joe Biden warned on Monday that China is ‘flirting with danger’ with its ongoing threat to annex democratic Taiwan, saying the U.S. is “committed” to defending the island in the event of a Chinese invasion. Speaking during a visit to Tokyo, Biden was asked if Washington was willing to get involved militarily to defend Taiwan, replying: “Yes. That’s the commitment we made.” Biden said such an invasion would mirror Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “We agreed with the One China policy, we signed on to it… but the idea that it can be taken by force is just not appropriate, it would dislocate the entire region and would be another action similar to Ukraine,” Biden said. Biden warned that Beijing was “flirting with danger right now by flying so close and all the maneuvers undertaken,” in a reference to repeated sorties flown by China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) jets in the island’s Air Defense Exclusion Zone (ADIZ), as well as naval exercises and other displays of strength in the Taiwan Strait. In a joint statement, Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said that their basic positions on Taiwan remained unchanged. While Washington lacks formal diplomatic ties with Taipei, it is bound under the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) to ensure the island has the means to defend itself, and to be prepared to “resist any resort to force … that would jeopardize the security, or the social or economic system, of the people on Taiwan,” the law says. Slavic people living in Taiwan display posters and a Ukraine flag during a rally at the Free Square in front of the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei, May 8, 2022. Credit: AFP. ‘No room for compromise’ The law says that the U.S. should also resist “any effort to determine the future of Taiwan by other than peaceful means, including by boycotts or embargoes.” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin hit back, warning that “no one should underestimate the firm resolve, staunch will and strong ability of the Chinese people in defending national sovereignty and territorial integrity.” “China has no room for compromise or concession,” Wang told a regular news briefing in Beijing. Taiwan foreign ministry spokeswoman Joanne Ou welcomed Biden’s comments. “The Ministry of Foreign Affairs welcomes and expresses its sincerest thanks for the reiteration by President Biden and the U.S. government of its rock-solid commitment to Taiwan,” Ou said. She said Taiwan will continue to boost its own capability to defend itself against a potential invasion, and deepen cooperation with like-minded countries like the U.S. and Japan to strengthen regional stability. Ding Shu-Fan, honorary professor at Taiwan’s National Chengchi University, said Biden’s statement was of a piece with an earlier promise from former president George W. Bush in 2001, who said Washington would do “whatever it takes” to defend Taiwan from a Chinese attack. ‘Strategic ambiguity’ Alexander Huang, international affairs director at Taiwan’s opposition Kuomintang, also welcomed Biden’s comments, but said it was unlikely they represented a departure from the “strategic ambiguity” practiced by Washington for decades in a bid to prevent either a Chinese invasion or a formal declaration of independence from Taiwan. “President Biden’s comments came as he took questions from reporters,” Huang said. “When the U.S. wants to revise its current policy of strategic ambiguity and take a publicly known stance, or change its policies on China or Taiwan, it is unlikely to do it at this kind of function.” Su Tse-yun, an associate researcher at Taiwan’s Institute for National Defense and Security Research, told this station that countries in the Asia-Pacific region have started to need more clarity, and with a greater sense of urgency, on Washington’s likely strategy in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. “In this context, Biden’s announcement is constructive, clear, and unwavering,” Su told RFA. Taiwan is a democratic country governed under the aegis of the Republic of China founded by Sun Yat-sen in 1911. Its government has controlled the islands of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu since Chiang Kai-shek’s KMT regime lost the civil war to Mao Zedong’s communists in 1949. Taiwan issues Republic of China passports to its 23 million citizens, who have never been ruled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and who have no wish to give up their democratic way of life for “unification” under Beijing’s plan, according to opinion polls in recent years. Beijing, for its part, insists that its diplomatic partners sever ties with Taipei, and has blocked the country’s membership in international organizations like the United Nations and the World Health Organization (WHO). Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

Biden unveils US Info-Pacific economic plan after summits in Japan, South Korea

Editor3 years ago09 mins

U.S. President Joe Biden wound up his visit to South Korea and Japan Monday with the announcement of the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF), drawing more Southeast Asian involvement than previously anticipated. A statement by the White House said the U.S.-led regional economic initiative includes a dozen initial partners: Australia, Brunei, India, Indonesia, Japan, Republic of Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam; together representing 40% of the world’s GDP. Earlier this month, diplomatic sources said that only two of the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) – Singapore and the Philippines – were expected to be among the initial countries joining negotiations under IPEF. One of the reasons for hesitancy is the U.S. Indo-Pacific plans are considered to be designed to counter China’s rising influence in the region, and ASEAN countries, especially small- and medium-sized, may wish to stay neutral. It appears that the situation has changed after the special U.S.-ASEAN summit in Washington in mid-May, with Brunei, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam also signing up. “The U.S. is finally re-engaging economically in the Indo-Pacific region,” said Norah Huang, associate research fellow at Prospect Foundation, a Taiwanese think tank. “The delay says there have been difficulties of the political climate back home and in this part of the world,” she said. Indo-Pacific economic power Details remain vague but it is understood that IPEF is not a free-trade agreement, but an economic cooperation seeking to establish trade rules across “four pillars” – trade resiliency, infrastructure, decarbonization and anti-corruption. The White House said it will “enable the United States and our allies to decide on rules of the road that ensure American workers, small businesses, and ranchers can compete in the Indo-Pacific.” With U.S. direct investment in the region totaled more than U.S. $969 billion in 2020, the U.S. “is an Indo-Pacific economic power, and expanding U.S. economic leadership in the region is good for American workers and businesses — as well as for the people of the region.” China has been critical of the U.S. involvement in the region. On Sunday, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said “the so-called ‘Indo-Pacific Strategy’ is bound to fail.” Speaking in Guangzhou after talks with visiting Pakistani Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari. Wang said the strategy “is causing more and more vigilance and concern” because it is “attempting to erase the name “Asia-Pacific” and the effective regional cooperation architecture in the region.” IPEF “should promote openness and cooperation instead of creating geopolitical confrontation,” Wang said. The U.S. is “politicizing, weaponizing and ideologizing economic issues and using economic means to coerce regional countries to choose sides between China and the United States,” according to the Chinese Foreign Minister. Regional reaction Regional economic powers Singapore and Malaysia were the first to welcome the IPEF. Malaysian International Trade and Industry Minister Mohamed Azmin Ali tweeted on Monday that IPEF “serves as an impetus for economic diplomacy between USA and the Indo-Pacific region.” “I am optimistic that this cooperation acknowledges that our economic policy interests in the region are intertwined, and deepening economic engagement among partners is crucial for continued growth, peace, and prosperity.” Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong last week said that he encouraged more ASEAN participation in the IPEF which he said “needs to be inclusive and provide tangible benefits.” “To get India and Indonesia signed up will be important to up the game and could serve as catalyst for hesitant actors to come off fence,” said Norah Huang from the Taiwanese Prospect Foundation. Staunch U.S. allies South Korea and Japan, which President Biden has visited since Saturday, both supported the IPEF as “they clearly support any U.S. engagement within the region,” said Stephen Nagy, senior associate professor at the Department of Politics and International Studies, International Christian University in Tokyo. Before the IPEF launch, Biden held a meeting with the Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, their first formal face-to-face. Quad meeting On Tuesday, the U.S. President will attend a summit of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or Quad, with leaders of Japan, India and Australia. The meeting will “focus on a rules-based order, enhancing infrastructure and connectivity in the region and in general, providing public goods to the broader region,” said Nagy. “The leaders will also discuss security in the maritime environment, primarily secured through cooperation within the Quad, as well as peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait,” the analyst said. Taiwan has not been invited to IPEF, a decision called “regrettable” by Taipei. “As an important economy that plays a crucial role in the global supply chain, Taiwan is definitely qualified for inclusion in the IPEF,” the Taiwanese Foreign Ministry said in a statement. In Tokyo on Monday, however, President Biden said he would be willing to use force to defend Taiwan in the case of a Chinese attack. “We agree with a one-China policy. We’ve signed on to it and all the intended agreements made from there. But the idea that, that it can be taken by force, just taken by force, is just not, is just not appropriate,” Biden said in Tokyo, adding that it was his expectation that such an event would not happen or be attempted, Reuters news agency reported. China swiftly expressed its “strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition” in comments by Wang Wenbin, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry. “On issues concerning China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and other core interests, there is no room for compromise,” Wang told a daily briefing in Beijing.

China pushes the ‘Sinicization of religion’ in Xinjiang, targeting Uyghurs

Editor3 years ago024 mins

When Erkin Tuniyaz, chairman of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), visited the largest mosque in Urumqi before the Eid al-Fitr holy day marking the end of Ramadan, he used the opportunity to promote Beijing’s policy of assimilation of non-Chinese people in its far western resgions. “According to the arrangements and invitation of the autonomous region party committee, we must hold absolutely tight to the plan for Sinicizing the Islamic religion in Xinjiang and actively take the lead in fitting the Islamic religion into socialist society,” he said at the Noghay Mosque, as quoted in an April 30 article by Xinjiang Daily. Though the 19th-century mosque is technically open, the complex is cordoned off with fences and barbed wire. In recent years, Chinese authorities removed the Arabic shahada, or testament of faith from above the entrance gate to the building — the largest mosque in Urumqi (in Chinese, Wulumuqi) — also known as the Tatar Mosque. They also installed a security checkpoint next to the gate where Muslim worshippers must pass facial recognition scanners to verify their identities as uniformed guards look on. A few days before Erkin made his statement, XUAR Party Secretary Ma Xingrui commented on China’s political strategy in the region, reemphasizing the concepts of “the shared sense of belonging of the Chinese nation” and “ethnic fusion” in an April article in the People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Ma proposed strengthening assimilative policies in the XUAR along with the further tightening of the CCP’s religious policy by Sinicizing Islam. Sinification policies and debates long predate the 1949 Communist Party seized of power, said a recent study in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, which defined it as “ the process by which all non-Han or non-Sinitic people who entered the Chinese realm, no matter whether as conquerors or conquered, eventually were inevitably assimilated as Chinese.” But under the decade-long rule of CCP chief Xi Jinping, coercive assimilation has picked up pace—not only in Xinjiang, but also in Tibet< Inner Mongolia and other areas populated by minorities. The drive to erase differences among the cultures is enforced in Xinjiang by a vast high-tech mass surveillance system, heavy-handed grassroots policing and mass internment camps that have target a significant number of the 12 million Uyghurs. The Sinicization of religion in the XUAR takes aim at the Islamic aspects of the Uyghur identity—a policy whose heavy-handed imposition that some Western governments say constitutes genocide under international law. U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet will travel to Urumqi and Kashgar (Kashi), during a May 23-28 visit to China, the first by a U.N. human rights chief since 2005. Her trip has raised questions about her freedom of movement through the region, with many Uyghur groups and rights experts warning her that Beijing will put on a staged tour and use it for propaganda against its critics. Xi first put forward the concept at the Communist Party’s 19th People’s Congress on Oct. 18, 2017. At the time, Chen Quanguo, then party secretary of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, was stepping up what’s become a well-documented campaign of oppression against the Uyghurs as part of a forced assimilation effort. Chen and his successor Ma Xingrui, who was appointed XUAR party secretary in late 2021, executed state policies concerning the “Sinicization of religion” and “creating awareness of the shared sense of belonging to the Chinese nation.” During a recent inspection of the XUAR, Wang Yang, a member of the Standing Committee of the Politburo of the CCP and chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, issued a special directive regarding the “resolute advancement of the Sinicization of Islam in Xinjiang.” The Chinese government has vigorously implemented its policy not only for Muslims in Xinjiang, but also for Tibetan Buddhists, Christians, Protestants and others throughout the country, demanding that the religious groups adhere to and support the CCP’s rule and ideology. For Muslims, the policy means being forced to renounce their Islamic faith, according to testimony given by Uyghur survivors of detention camps in Xinjiang. Authorities have forced Uyghurs to eat pork, which is forbidden in Islam, have gathered and burned copies of the Quran, and have restricted the wearing of beards for men and of long clothing and headscarves for women. Uyghur names such as “Muhammad,” “Ayishe,” and “Muhajid” have been forbidden and, in cases where those names have been given to children, the authorities have implemented very strict policies to change them. Applying for passports and traveling abroad have been reasons for detention in camps, which means that Uyghurs have lost their right to go on the hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca that all Muslims are expected to make at least once during their lifetime. While China’s legal guarantee of religious freedom are touted in propaganda, and said to be composed according to Western standards, “it exists simply on paper,” said Nury Turkel, vice chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). “This is a means of deceiving people, of [China] trying to portray its own system as perfect.” A banner reading ‘Love the Party, Love the Country’ in the Chinese and Uyghur languages hangs from a mosque near Kashgar Yengisheher county, Kashgar prefecture, in northwestern China’s Xinjiang region, March 20, 2021. Credit: Associated Press ‘Eradication of Islam’ Chinese authorities have detained more than 1,000 imams and clerics for their association with religious teaching and community leadership since 2014, according to a May 2021 report titled “Islam Dispossessed: China’s Persecution of Uyghur Imams and Religious Figures” issued by the U.S.-based Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP). “The Sinicization of Islam is the eradication of Islam,” Turghanjan Alawudun, vice chair of the executive committee of the World Uyghur Congress (WUC) and a Uyghur religion scholar, said. In 2016, Chinese authorities began demolishing mosques and old cemeteries in the XUAR, with the destruction reaching a climax in 2018. Since about 2017, up to 16,000 mosques, or roughly 65%, of all mosques have…

Weeks of COVID-19 lockdown in Shanghai takes toll on residents’ mental health

Editor3 years ago010 mins

The weeks-long COVID-19 lockdown in China has taken a huge mental health toll, with more than 40 percent of the city’s 26 million residents reporting symptoms of depression in a recent poll. Shanghai residents have been battling food shortages, barriers to medical treatment, repeated mass, compulsory PCR and antigen testing, as well as the constant threat of being sent off to an isolation camp or makeshift hospital, having their pets killed and their homes ransacked by “disinfection” teams, or being welded inside their homes by local officials keen to hit the right quotas in the service of Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s zero-COVID policy. A poll of more than 1,000 Shanghai residents conducted by the @Zhaoluming Weibo account found that more than 400 of them reported having experienced a “depressed mood” during lockdown. A resident of downtown Shanghai surnamed Wang said he believes the true number of depressed people could be much higher. “Forty percent? I would say more like 80 percent,” Wang said. “Everyone has a sense of resentment and their psychology isn’t quite normal, whole communities shut up like animals in a zoo.” Photo illustration by RFA; Reuters Qiu Jianzhen, director of the outpatient department of psychological counseling and treatment at the Shanghai Mental Health Center, said in a recent interview with state broadcaster CCTV that the number of calls to the center’s psychological hotline had nearly tripled in the past month to more than 3,000. Eighty percent of callers cited the pandemic as an issue for their mental health, Qiu said. “If you need to see a doctor or call an ambulance, the neighborhood committee needs to sign off with a certificate and a letter of commitment,” Wang told RFA. “There is a lot of anger about that, because what if it’s urgent?” “Most of the people who live in my compound are temporary workers, so if they can’t work, they get no wages,” he said. “Even if they lift the lockdown, who will compensate us for the loss of more than a month’s income?” “How can the small company bosses do that … when they are going bankrupt themselves?” Visible toll Wang lives in a low-income district of Puxi with his family, and was mostly worried about how to feed his kids when lockdown came. Photo illustration by RFA; Reuters “Adults can maybe get by on frozen food, but I was worried about the kids not having any milk or any fruit,” Wang said. “We would try to make a 950 ml bottle of milk last a few days, but then what would we do after that?” And it’s not just the economically marginalized who are suffering. Wang said the burden on working parents will likely increase now that people are gradually returning to work. “My former colleague was complaining that now they have to try to grab food, keep up with antigen and PCR testing, talk to their kids’ teachers, all while taking part in meetings via video call,” he said. “She’s going crazy.” Wang said the toll taken on people’s well-being was very visible in his neighborhood. “There were people who jumped off the top of the building in the residential neighborhood next to us, and I saw news of people jumping from buildings, not just in text, but video clips, which have a psychological impact in themselves,” Wang said. “It’s hard not to be depressed in such circumstances,” he said. A white-collar worker surnamed Li, who works for a large foreign company, said he has sought out psychological counseling during lockdown despite not having financial worries. “It’s like being incarcerated for one or two months,” Li said. “Loss of freedom over a long period of time will give rise to a lot of negative emotions, the most prominent of which is anger.” Photo illustration by RFA; Reuters ‘I totally lost control’ A resident of Jing’an district surnamed Sun said she had a mental breakdown over the authorities’ chaotic handling of mass COVID-19 tests, after she started to show symptoms on May 1, but was left without a PCR test despite requesting one. “On the night of May 6, I went totally crazy, calling the emergency services many times,” Sun said. “I totally lost control.” “If the ambulance hadn’t come, I would have run out right there … and started spreading the virus.” Eventually, Sun and her symptomatic family were taken to an isolation facility, but she suspects the delay in testing them was due to a political attempt to massage new case figures. She pointed to repeated complaints on social media that officials appeared to hand out test results and change them at will. “There were people testing positives and they said they were negative, and people testing negative who they said were positive,” Sun said. In universities students have complained of unclean food and lack of support for their mental health. A psychology lecturer surnamed Chen said one woman had to spend thousands of yuan to escape the city by private taxi after being stuck in a situation of food scarcity while suffering from anorexia nervosa. “She couldn’t eat, and her mental state was very bad,” he said. “She had a relapse [of anorexia] after being stuck inside the dorm building since early March.” Serene, an international school counselor, said many of her students have gone back to their parental homes, while mental health problems have doubled among those who remained. “It’s mostly about conflicts with parents, but since the pandemic also about difficulties with distance-learning,” she said. “There is also the lack of interaction with peers and lack of social support.” “One of my students was having difficulty with interpersonal communication, but he had bravely begun to take the first steps before the pandemic, and had formed some relationships,” she said. “But when the pandemic came … he told me he feared he would never make friends again.” Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

Category: World