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Category: World

‘The whole trip was a complete shock and surprise.’

Editor019 mins

Ilya Voskresensky is a travel blogger from St. Petersburg, Russia, who last week joined the first foreign tour group to visit North Korea in four years. In January 2020, North Korea closed its border with Russia and China, and suspended all trade, fearful that the coronavirus would wreak havoc over the country. Tourism and the foreign cash generated by the industry came to a screeching halt.  The cash-strapped North Korean government has been itching to restart tourism and actively recruited the first foreign tour group that would visit the country since before the pandemic. The 97 Russians arrived on Feb. 9 and spent four days and three nights in the capital Pyongyang and at the Masikryong ski-resort in the eastern province of Kangwon. Following the visit, RFA Korean’s Jamin Anderson interviewed Voskresensky, who said that the North Korean authorities closely watched him and tried to limit his freedom to film from the moment he boarded the Pyongyang-bound Air Koryo plane in the Russian Far Eastern city of Vladivostok. The interview has been edited for length and clarity. RFA: How did you decide to take this trip? Were there any concerns about the dangers involved? Who did you travel with? Voskresensky: I decided to go on a trip as soon as I heard that North Korea was opening and there would be a tour for Russian citizens there, and I like making films about my travels for my YouTube channel.  So I realized that this was an ideal opportunity to shoot something interesting and unique, something that I had never seen or felt before in my life. I wanted to see this kind of closed country, and to have a look at how that isolation and [North Korea’s] conservative culture affects tourism, the people, and the country in general. Of course, I had concerns because I read a lot of stories, watched films about the DPRK and understood that many different things could happen to me there. Furthermore, they really don’t like those who’re constantly filming, and I was going there just to film. But we did it anyway. There were still concerns. I went there with a friend of mine. He’s my cameraman, and the two of us were there together. A magazine displayed on the Korean Air flight. Ilya Voskresensky mentioned that the first 13 pages were all about Kim Jong Un, and he felt that North Korea was a country of “the cult of personality.” (Courtesy Ilya Voskresensky) RFA: Did you encounter any unique experiences or any kind of cultural shock during your trip? Voskresensky: The whole trip was a complete shock and surprise. The fact that in Pyongyang, a large city where 3 million people live, there are very few people on the streets and there are practically no cars at peak hours – not at 17:30 in the evening nor at 7:30 in the morning. You go through the streets, and they are empty and it’s shocking. It’s also shocking how the cult of personality has simply surpassed all levels. When you open a publication, like the flight magazine on the airplane, the first 13 pages had only the face of one person [Kim Jong Un] and this is also shocking. I didn’t see anything culturally unusual, but I soon saw the oddities of the regime, the way it changes the country. The closedness of this country, which absolutely preserves its ideology. It was like being teleported to the past.  Sometimes you look at pictures and there are people driving past or some kind of construction site and you have the feeling that this is all AI-generated around propaganda slogans, posters, and portraits of leaders, and it is simply astounding. Ilya Voskresensky snowboards at Masikryong Ski Resort in North Korea. Voskresensky said that filming and shooting at the resort was completely unrestricted, allowing him to document his snowboarding adventures. (Courtesy Ilya Voskresensky) RFA: What freedoms and restrictions did you experience during the trip? When they imposed restrictions, what reasons were given? Voskresensky: We encountered restrictions literally immediately on the plane. I took my camera to film how I entered the plane and I was immediately told off.  When we took our seats a man was there sitting with us. He was just sitting doing something on his phone, taking pictures of the porthole.  We hadn’t even left Russia yet. A member of the cabin crew came up, it was a North Korean airline, so the flight attendant just came, took the man’s phone and started looking through his photos. He looked and deleted what he didn’t like. This was the first impression we got, and we hadn’t even left the country. We were still in Russia, but sitting in a DPRK airplane. [Once we were in North Korea] we were banned from filming construction sites as well as shabby-looking buildings. [Our guide] said that these houses are being demolished and there would be new houses, but it was obvious that there were people still living in them.  They only allowed us to shoot picturesque, beautiful scenes. For example, at the ski resort where we were, there were no restrictions on filming at all, and we filmed absolutely everything. We were also banned from filming military sites, but that’s something I understand, and I didn’t even ask why it’s not allowed.  There was a ban on walking around the city on your own, meaning you couldn’t leave the hotel and go for a walk around the city. I asked why. I wanted to go for a walk, but I was told, ‘You don’t know the Korean language and you will have problems.’ You couldn’t film construction sites, because they supposedly look ugly, and they want to show their country as a beautiful place. It was impossible to film, as I already said, building compounds where people live. But when they brought us to certain city squares, on the contrary, they happily wanted us to take photographs.  And as I said before, when we flew to the…

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Airstrikes kill 6, including children, in Myanmar’s Kachin state

Editor06 mins

An onslaught of airstrikes in northern Myanmar killed six civilians and injured 13 more, rescue workers told Radio Free Asia on Monday.  Junta troops retaliated after joint resistance forces attacked a regime base in Kachin state on Friday.  After the Kachin Independence Army and Arakan Army, two allied ethnic armed organizations, fired on Mansi township’s “strategic hill,” the junta base turned its guns on nearby Si Hkam Gyi village. Mansi township, which borders China, has been a site of previous conflict in late January. The Kachin Independence Army claimed the capture of 30 junta troops on Jan. 22 and 57 more soldiers escaped attacks by crossing the Chinese border.  Regime soldiers bombarded the village by air in a two-day attack on Saturday and Sunday, when roughly 1,000 residents fled the area, locals said.  On Saturday alone, troops dropped 20 bombs on four villages, they added. A rescue worker with Myitta Shin Charity Group, who wished to remain anonymous for security reasons, said civilians and victims are being moved to safety. “Hundreds of local people are trapped in the villages, including Si Hkam Gyi village. We plan to evacuate these people first and we are waiting to pick up the evacuees coming out of the villages today,” he told RFA on Monday.  “The bodies haven’t been picked up yet because they died in the bomb shelters. We haven’t been able to get inside.” The blasts killed two girls aged two and six. The airstrikes also killed four men in their 40s. The injured, mostly women, were sent to nearby Bhamo Hospital.  Many of the displaced were sent to Man Thar village monastery and are being provided with medicine and food, he added. A resident of nearby Si Kaw village who wished to remain anonymous for security reasons told RFA he was forced to flee in the middle of Saturday night, during the blasts. “We left the village at 2 a.m. There was no difficulty on the way and I came with my own motorbike. I am staying in the hall next to Man Thar Monastery,” he said. “The communities in Man Thar village provided food as soon as we arrived and the Myitta Shin Charity Group’s rescue team is picking up all the people who want to take refuge and helping them.” Kachin Independence Army spokesperson Col. Naw Bu said on Sunday that people needed to live in a safe place and protect themselves from the junta airstrikes. “There is fighting on the side of Si Hkam Gyi village. The military junta fires airstrikes all day long. The fighting continues there, like it did before,” he said. “They mainly do not attack on the ground and depend on heavy artillery and airstrikes, so people must flee for their safety as much as possible.” The junta’s Northern Region Military Command Infantry Battalions 121, 276, 123 and 15 are stationed just 48 kilometers (30 miles) away from Strategic Hill. Mansi township is one of the main supply routes to junta troops in nearby Bhamo city, which is why their attacks have been so fierce, said Col. Naw Bu. RFA contacted Kachin state’s junta spokesperson Moe Min Thein on Sunday for comment on the accusations of indiscriminate firing and civilian deaths, but he did not answer at the time of publication.  According to data compiled by RFA, junta airstrikes have killed 1,429 civilians and injured 2,641 more from the day of the coup on Feb. 1, 2021 to Jan. 31, 2024. Over 2.6 million people had been displaced due to war by the end of 2023, according to a report from the United Nations Office of Humanitarian Affairs. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.

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For Uyghur family, a legacy of rootlessness

Editor011 mins

Tursun Muhammad was thirteen when political persecution forced his family to leave their prosperous farm in Yarkant, Xinjiang, and flee over the Pamir Mountains. Tursun’s father was targeted during the Cultural Revolution for his wealth and the fact that he was a landlord, Tursun told RFA. After attending Friday prayer at the local mosque he was locked up for three days. So, he packed up his family and left Yarkant to journey into Afghanistan.  It took 45 days to reach Kabul. So high are the Pamir ranges that they are known as the “roof of the world.” The family sheltered in caves on the route. Once, Tursun passed out from lack of oxygen. An older sister died along the way.  “Her body is left on the mountain, buried in stones,” he said.  In Afghanistan, the formerly prosperous farmer sold vegetables from a cart to feed his family. Tursun learned to be a tailor, and as a young man started a family of his own with another Uyghur refugee, until fighting in the country forced the Muhammads to move again, this time to Pakistan. About 15 years later, the Muhammads were forced to flee again, leaving Afghanistan due to conflict and eventually settling in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. (Illustration by Rebel Pepper) Now, decades later, the family’s legacy of rootlessness may soon pass to Tursun’s son, Turghunjan, who along with his wife and their three children are part of a small ethnic Uyghur community of Afghan refugees in Rawalpindi, Pakistan’s fourth largest city. The Muhammad family has built a modest, if limited, life there, but they remain undocumented and could be forced to leave their home as the government moves to deport Afghan refugees due to a claimed fear over terrorism.  “When we left Yarkant, our parents left everything in Yarkant,” Tursun told RFA. “When we moved from Afghanistan, we left everything in Afghanistan, only thinking about staying alive. Now we are hearing the same thing again.” Fears of deportation  Hundreds of other Afghans have already been kicked out of Pakistan. With the help of human rights groups and the U.N. refugee agency, the Uyghurs have for now been allowed to stay, but it isn’t clear how long the reprieve will last.  The family’s main worry remains being sent back to Afghanistan, a place they left decades ago.  But they have heard about China’s persecution of Uyghurs. Could the Taliban, as it cozies up the Chinese Communist Party, force the Uyghurs to return to China in some sort of gesture of goodwill? “The future is dark,” Turghunjan said. “It’s dark in Afghanistan, and even now, living in Pakistan, it is dark too.” Turghunjan Muhammad grew up in Pakistan, but as an undocumented immigrant he had few opportunities. He dreamed of becoming an engineer. Without a national ID, however, he couldn’t attend school. (Illustration by Rebel Pepper) Bradley Jardine, managing director of the Oxus Society for Central Asian Affairs, a Washington, DC-based group that promotes scholarship about the region, said it is “not beyond the realms of possibility” that the Uyghur families could be sent back to China. “Such incidents have occurred in the past when Uyghur passports have expired” to exiles who have caught the attention of Chinese officials, he said. From 1997 through January 2022, 424 Uyghurs were deported to China and another 1,150 were detained in 22 countries, according to a database maintained by the Oxus Society.  Tenuous existence In some ways the Muhammads’ story is unique. There are thought to be only about 20 families in a similar situation. Their feeling of precarity, though, is one that many Uyghur families outside of China can relate to.  Beyond the anxiety of deportation are also the limits placed on Uyghur refugees in host countries that may be reluctant to grant them the full rights of citizenship. Sometimes, it is for fear of upsetting an important international partner. Other times, it is simply because of their own restrictive immigration policies.  Turghunjan learned to be a tailor from his father, making traditional Pakistani shalwar kameez. His small salary supports his family, which includes his wife and three children. (Illustration by Rebel Pepper) As a refugee, Turghunjan couldn’t attend school. So, instead of becoming an engineer, an early aspiration, he learned to be a tailor from his father, stitching traditional Pakistani shalwar kameez. When his daughter was born, he could not even pick her up from the hospital because he lacked a national ID card. He had to enlist the help of a friend to convince hospital authorities to release her.   Though his children, now aged 17, 12 and 8, go to private schools, they will be unable to attend a university in Pakistan. “Sometimes my daughter says that if we had an ID, she would go to college and study computer engineering,” Turghunjan said. “The conditions are not letting us grow.” Dreaming of the west Despite the challenges, Tursun said he has tried to keep alive their Uyghur culture within his family.  His father has died, but Tursun has kept his almond doppa, a skull cap Uyghurs wear, and his prayer beads, along with his mother’s prayer mat. The family speaks to each other in the Uyghur language. “We follow the Uyghur culture,” Tursun said. “We are Uyghur, so even if we go back to Afghanistan there is nothing for us.” Now the family worries they could be sent back to Afghanistan or even China. Pakistan has threatened to deport Afghan refugees, including the small community of ethnic Uyghurs in Rawalpindi. (Illustration by Rebel Pepper) Like other Uyghur emigres, the Muhammads’ hope now is to reach a Western country better able to resist pressure from China and offer a greater chance for permanence.  Canada’s promise to take in 10,000 Uyghurs refugees – about the number of ethnic Uyghurs now thought to live in the United States – is particularly seen as a potential solution. But even in Western countries the process to citizenship is slow and cumbersome. In a report last year, the…

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‘I am devastated.’ Burmese parents’ horror at burning death of sons

Editor016 mins

Earlier this month, a video of the burning deaths of two anti-junta fighters was widely viewed by Burmese people on social media. Phoe Tay, 23, and Thar Htaung, 22, were captured Nov. 7, 2023, in fighting between pro-junta forces and resistance fighters at Myauk Khin Yan village in Magway region’s Gangaw township.   The video showed them in shackles as they were interrogated by armed men. They were then dragged to a nearby tree where they were suspended as a fire was set underneath them. The two young men screamed as flames rose up and engulfed them. The video was taken by a villager who fled the area in December, according to a local official from the administration of the shadow National Unity Government. It’s unclear who first posted the video that began circulating in early February. Phoe Tay’s father, Myint Zaw, told Radio Free Asia last week that he was aware of his son’s death but had not seen the video. Edited transcripts of RFA’s interviews with Myint Zaw and the parents of Thar Htaung – Ye San and Soe Linn – are below. Interview with Myint Zaw RFA: We watched the video of the burning alive of two youth People’s Defense Force fighters – Phoe Tay and Thar Htaung. Myint Zaw, what would you like to say first? Myint Zaw: When Phoe Tay died in action, it was immediately posted online. Yes, it is Phoe Tay, my son. He is gone. His life as a human is over.  I learned that he was beaten on the head, beaten on the knees. In one photo, he was on his knees. That image is still springing to my mind. The image is still in my phone.  After that, I didn’t know how he was killed. We could not retrieve the body. Nobody could go there because Myauk Khin Yan is a stronghold village of the pro-junta Pyu Saw Htee militias.  Phoe Tay’s father says his son joined the resistance after the 2021 coup. (Provided by family) RFA: You saw photos from just before the burning. Did you watch the video of them being burned alive? What did you hear about this video? Myint Zaw: I haven’t watched it. But there are reports about it, and many people are talking about it. My phone is not available for such things because of poor internet connections.  His friends in the village are horrified by it. “Is it true? They really did that?” People are deeply hurt. They cannot accept such an act. Many people are talking about it.  I heard that they dragged him by tying a rope around his neck and that they burned him alive. So, I’ll never forgive the perpetrators. RFA: Please tell us about Phoe Tay. What was his education?     Myint Zaw: My son, Phoe Tay, is also known as Myo Htet Aung – that was his school registration name. Before the coup, under the National League for Democracy government, he sat for the matriculation exam. Two months after the 2021 coup, when the exam results were announced, he passed with two distinctions. RFA: We learned that he joined the Yaw Defense Force. Why did he join the YDF?     Myint Zaw: When the 2021 coup d’état took place, he was in a jade mine in Hkamti, where he was learning to drive a backhoe. My nephew, his cousin, was driving a backhoe there. He brought my son there.  Then some friends called him and asked him what he was doing. With politics in his mind, he immediately returned home. Then he joined the YDF. RFA: Did he seek permission from you to join the YDF? Myint Zaw: I told my son that if I was your age, I would have already joined the resistance. My son and I had the same opinion. But he did ask for my permission. RFA: Did you talk to him at all after he joined the armed group? Myint Zaw: I still have to take care of his younger brother. After the Thadingyut festival (to celebrate the harvest moon) in October, (Phoe Tay) said we had to initiate the brother as a Buddhist novice.  He said, “Father, I can look after you only when the revolution is over. Please try hard now. We have to initiate my brother as a Buddhist novice monk. I can help you only after the revolution.” I told him not to worry about us. “I’m proud that my son sacrificed for the people and the country. But I feel sad … I am devastated,” says Phoe Tay’s father. (Provided by family) RFA: What do you do to make a living? Myint Zaw: I’m a farmer. There is a land plot given by my mother in Maw Lel village of Gangaw township. I make a living with a rice milling machine. I have a tricycle to transport sand and stones to nearby villages. RFA: On Nov. 7, when Phoe Tay was killed, did the Yaw PDF inform you? How did they inform you? Myint Zaw: They arrived one-and-a-half days later, because they had to come on foot. His comrades looked glum. They came and told us that he was killed and asked us what they should do. RFA: Did the YDF provide your family with cash? Myint Zaw: Yes, they gave us cash. They provided 2 million kyats (about US$950) for Thar Htaung and the same amount for Phoe Tay. RFA: How do you and your family feel about your son being burned alive, killed brutally and inhumanely? Myint Zaw: I’m proud that my son sacrificed for the people and the country. But I feel sad. I don’t want to talk about it. And I don’t know what to say. I am devastated. RFA: Phoe Tay might have been the smartest in the village. He passed his exam with two distinctions. What were his goals? Did he tell you about what he wanted to be? Myint Zaw: He didn’t say exactly. What he used to say was that he…

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300 Myanmar junta troops who fled attack return from Bangladesh

Editor06 mins

Some 300 members of a junta military unit and a border police force who fled to Bangladesh during an attack by the rebel Arakan Army have been repatriated to Myanmar, according to several Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. They were returned by sea on Thursday following a handover ceremony in Cox’s Bazar that was attended by five Myanmar junta officials and Myanmar’s ambassador to Bangladesh, a Rohingya refugee told Radio Free Asia. “We learned that five representatives, including a police colonel of the Border Guard Police, came,” the Rohingya refugee said. “Also, we learned that Amb. Aung Kyaw Moe met with the chief of Border Guard Bangladesh and handed them over.” Video showed uniformed Bangladesh guards escorting the junta troops and officers – some of them wounded – onto a ship.  Cox’s Bazar is located on southeast Bangladesh’s coast near Myanmar’s western Rakhine state. Over the last decade, almost 1 million Rohingya refugees have fled from Myanmar to the Cox’s Bazar area, which has become the world’s largest refugee camp.  The junta border guards who crossed over to Bangladesh were retreating from an attack by the ethnic Arakan Army on the Taung Pyo Let Yar outpost and a nearby strategic hill in Rakhine’s Maungdaw township on Feb. 4. AA takes control of Myebon The attack marked the latest blow to Myanmar’s military junta in Rakhine state, where the Arakan Army, or AA, ended a ceasefire in November that had been in place since the junta assumed power in a Feb. 1, 2021, coup d’etat. A total of 330 people crossed over to Bangladesh in early February, including Lt. Col. Kyaw Naing Soe, the commander of the junta’s No. 2 Border Guard Police battalion, 302 soldiers, four family members, two other military personnel, 18 immigration officers and four civilians, according to RFA sources on the Bangladesh border. Elsewhere in Rakhine, the AA said it has captured all military council camps and police stations in Myebon township. The Arakan Army said in a statement on Thursday that it now controls seven towns in the state. Myanmar nationals and Border Guard Police who crossed the Bangladesh-Myanmar border to seek shelter in Bangladesh amid recent conflicts between military forces and rebel groups, are escorted back into Myanmar at Cox’s Bazar on Feb. 15, 2024. (AFP) The AA has recently launched offensives in townships near the state capital of Sittwe, including Rathedaung and Buthidaung. There are reports that the AA has warned the junta’s regional operations command in Sittwe, the Rakhine state capital, to surrender. The junta has not released a statement about recent developments in Rakhine, and RFA’s calls to Hla Thein, junta’s spokesperson and attorney general of the Rakhine state, went unanswered on Friday. Rebel victory in Kayah state The junta has also suffered a loss to rebels in northeast Kayah state, where the Karenni Nationalities Defense Force, or KNDF, announced Friday that it had gained complete control of Shadaw city after a month-long battle. The KNDF began attacking junta outposts surrounding a strategic hill in Shadaw on Jan. 15, the group said in a statement.  On Jan. 21, they began a siege to a junta base after troops refused to surrender and the junta dropped in another 70 troops by helicopter, the KNDF said. A final attack on the base began on Monday.  More than 160 junta soldiers, including a colonel and a lieutenant colonel, were either killed or captured, the KNDF said. The junta hasn’t released a statement on the battle. RFA’s calls to junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun to seek comments on the KNDF’s claims went unanswered. Translated by Htin Aung Kyaw. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.

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Two political prisoners killed during junta escort, Myanmar resistance group claims

Editor05 mins

Myanmar junta troops shot dead two political prisoners, including one high-profile activist, a resistance group told Radio Free Asia on Friday.  Nobel Aye and Aung Ko Hein were killed while returning from a court appearance in Bago region, north of Yangon, on Feb. 8, according to Waw township People’s Defense Force citing sources close to the court and hospital. The pair were taken to Waw township’s courthouse by junta troops when they allegedly tried to escape, the resistance group said.  Nobel Aye is known for her role in protesting against police brutality in Myanmar in 1996, and again in 2007 during the Saffron Revolution’s economic and political protests. She had been arrested twice before,  following both demonstrations. The prisoners were being interrogated at the No. 901 Artillery Station Command Headquarters, an official of the Waw People’s Defense Force said.  “They appeared in Waw Court and were shot dead near the exit of Kyaik Hla village between Waw and Paya Gyi on the way back to the military interrogation,” he said, declining to be named for security reasons. “The bodies were well-packed and sent to the morgue. No one was allowed to look at the bodies and they were cremated secretly before nightfall.” Nobel Aye’s brother, Htet Myat, said his family has not heard any official confirmation from police about his sister. “We have not yet been informed of what happened and how. I am very worried. As a family, I didn’t know what to do when people who knew about this incident confirmed it,” Htet Myat said on Friday. “I felt uncontrollable. We want reliable and accurate information to be released by those responsible.” However, the junta has denied that the prisoners died in custody. Bago’s junta spokesperson Tin Oo told RFA the information was just a rumor. “That’s wrong and fake news, dissemination of false information. We are working in accordance with the law,” he said. Nobel Aye was allegedly shot dead while returning from a court appearance in Bago region on Feb. 8, 2024. (Myanmar Political Prisoners Network) Nobel Aye and Aung Ko Hein were arrested by junta soldiers after being caught with weapons on Jan. 29, sources close to her family said. Nobel Aye was also active in distributing aid during the COVID-19 pandemic and protested frequently after the country’s 2021 military coup, they said. Aung Ko Hein is a resident of Insein township, Yangon region. RFA could not confirm his personal details.  In June 2023, troops shot and killed at least 13 political prisoners in central Bago after a prison truck crashed. According to notices junta officials sent to prisoners’ families, 37 detainees attempted to escape when a prison vehicle overturned during a transfer. RFA could not confirm the whereabouts of the remaining prisoners.  According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners’ Feb. 15 statement, more than 4,500 pro-democracy activists and civilians have been killed during the coup, while over 26,000 have been arrested. Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.

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China’s Xi appeared ‘humble’ but now rules supreme, ambassador says

Editor012 mins

China’s Xi Jinping was once a “humble” leader who has “totally changed” since taking control of the country in the style of Mao Zedong, according to the memoir of Hideo Tarumi, a former Japanese ambassador to Beijing who left his post in December amid deteriorating bilateral ties. In the memoir published by the literary magazine Bungeishunjū just two months after he left his post, Tarumi describes meeting Xi during a visit to Japan when he was vice president under Hu Jintao in 2009. Tarumi’s job on the night was to greet each guest personally, and he noticed that Xi showed no sign of impatience while waiting to be greeted, despite the fact that Tarumi was running late, and took a while to get to him. The encounter was to leave Tarumi with the impression of a “humble” official, he wrote, adding that Xi has “totally changed” since taking power in 2012. “Xi Jinping’s aura has totally changed,” Tarumi wrote, adding that he is now surrounded by far more security guards than his predecessor Hu Jintao, making it hard to approach him. He said Xi has now steered China away from the decades of economic reform launched by late supreme leader Deng Xiaoping in 1979, and along a path that is closer to that chosen by Mao Zedong. Former Japanese ambassador Hideo Tarumi’s memoir in a recent edition of the Japanese magazine Bungeishunjū. (Chi Chun Lee /RFA) “Xi Jinping’s actions prove that he chose … to use a high degree of centralization to maintain the legitimacy of Chinese Communist Party rule,” Tarumi wrote, adding that the centralization of power in Xi’s hands now means that the formerly powerful Politburo Standing Committee is now subordinate to Xi Jinping. He said Xi had “sacrificed the economy to achieve national security goals,” or regime stability. ‘Contradictory’ But he said the amendment of the Counterespionage Law last year and the loosening of immigration controls are also tied in with economic development. “It’s a contradictory thing, and the ambassadors of Europe and the United States are also confused about it,” Tarumi wrote of the two moves. The reform era ushered in by Mao’s successor Deng Xiaoping saw people freed up to make money as fast as they liked, and the start of a burgeoning private sector and decades of export-led economic growth, while political ideology and authoritarian rule took a back seat.  In August, top Chinese economist Hu Xingdou published a 10-point plan calling for a return to those policies, and a move away from Beijing’s aggressive “Wolf Warrior” diplomacy under Xi. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying at a daily briefing in Beijing, Aug. 3, 2022. (Andy Wong/AP) Yet Xi, who is serving a third and indefinite term in office after abolishing presidential term limits in 2018, is widely seen to be moving in the opposite direction to Deng. He’s cracking down on private sector wealth and power and boosting the state-owned economy while eroding the freedoms enjoyed by the country’s middle classes. Face-off Tarumi was feted as a “China hand” by the nationalistic Global Times newspaper when he took up his post in 2020 and has since gained a reputation as a fearless challenger of Wolf Warrior diplomacy. In the book, he also describes being hauled in by foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying and lectured after then-Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe took part in a regional strategic forum on Taiwan, which China claims as its territory despite never having ruled the democratic island. Tarumi went reluctantly after instructing his staff to “ignore” Hua’s summons – and after the foreign ministry threatened to cut him off from all future meetings. Hua berated him with Japanese militarism leading to “the slaughter of many Taiwanese.” But Tarumi, who had served in Japan’s economic and trade office in Taiwan, retorted that he knew more about Taiwan than she did, and that Japan’s 50-year rule over Taiwan was due to the ceding of the island under the Treaty of Shimonoseki in the wake of the First Sino-Japanese War. Hua appeared at a loss for words at this, and replied only: “Some people say Japanese militarism started in the 19th century. These new interpretations are unacceptable,” according to Tarumi’s memoir. A few months later, Tarumi faced an even bigger problem. One of his diplomats was detained by police after having lunch with Dong Yuyu, deputy head of editorials at the Communist Party’s Guangming Daily newspaper, who was arrested for spying on Feb. 21, 2022. Hideo Tarumi, Japan’s ambassador to China, gives a speech at his residence in Beijing, March 30, 2022. Tarumi, who left his post in Dec. 2023, has published a memoir. (Embassy of Japan in China) “Foreign personnel engaged in activities inconsistent with their status in China,” Hua told a regular news briefing at the time. “The relevant Chinese authorities conducted investigations and inquiries into this matter.” According to Tarumi, the Japanese diplomat had presented his passport and work permits, informing the police that his detention had violated the Vienna Convention because it breached his diplomatic immunity. Tarumi made an immediate protest to the foreign ministry, meeting with assistant foreign minister Wu Jianghao, who told him that the meeting was “irregular.” Chinese President Xi Jinping, right, shakes hands with Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s General Secretary Toshihiro Nikai before a meeting at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on April 24, 2019. (Fred Dufour/pool photo via AFP) Tarumi replied that Wu had misrepresented the meeting and objected strongly, with the support of the ambassadors of 13 other countries, according to his account. Eventually, the Japanese diplomat was released. A Beijing-based journalist who declined to be named said China intensified its surveillance of Japanese diplomatic missions following the incident, barring them from taking part in exchange activities as they normally would, and isolating them in their embassy and consulates. Listening devices Tarumi’s memoir appears to confirm this claim, adding that a number of dinner invitations sent to prominent Chinese intellectuals were declined after the incident, while…

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N Korea peddles illicit gambling sites to South’s criminal ring

Editor04 mins

A North Korean information technology group has created illegal online gambling websites and sold them to a South Korean cybercrime ring, the South’s National Intelligence Service revealed.  Gyonghung Information Technology Co., a group of 15 members based in Dandong, a Chinese border town next to the North Korean city of Sinuiju, was reportedly paid US$5,000 by an unnamed South Korean criminal organization in exchange for the development of a website and $3,000 monthly for its maintenance, the agency, known as NIS, said on Wednesday.  The company is also believed to have earned an extra $2,000 to $5,000 for increased website user traffic, involving commercial transactions via bank accounts owned by Chinese nationals and the global online payment service PayPal. “Dandong has emerged as a base for apparel production in China, with the manpower from North Korea, and North Korean IT organizations have sprouted up and blended in among the North Korean workers in the area to make money and illegally earn foreign currencies,” said the NIS, adding that thousands of North Koreans generate income abroad through similar tactics.  Since the United Nations Security Council’s 2017 sanctions against Pyongyang, North Korean citizens have been barred from working in China, a measure aimed at curtailing the North’s ability to fund its nuclear and missile development programs. But North Korean operatives have camouflaged themselves as IT workers by fabricating their identities. The spy agency said the Gyonghung group is believed to be under the so-called Bureau 39 of the North Korean ruling party, which is responsible for managing and raising secret funds for leader Kim Jong Un. Each member of the group sends the North Korean government about $500 per month.  The group is led by Kim Kwang Myong, a former official of Pyongyang’s main intelligence agency, Reconnaissance General Bureau. It also extorted personal information from users who accessed the websites it developed through the installation of malicious codes.  The amount of revenue generated by the entity from the South Korean criminal organization is not immediately known. However, the organization was also found to have generated profits in the trillions of South Korean won through the use of its websites, and an investigation is underway into the ring. Edited by Elaine Chan and Mike Firn

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Myanmar youths go into hiding to avoid getting forced into battle

Editor012 mins

With Myanmar’s junta plowing ahead toward a full-scale draft, young men say they are staying indoors to avoid getting dragooned into the army to fight in a war in which the military is losing ground and men. Most youths have no desire to fight – for the junta or the armed resistance, said a 22-year-old Mandalay resident who asked not to be identified.  “We have no choice as the junta is cornering us to join the army,” he said. “Now we don’t dare to go out – day or night. There are a lot of abductions [for forced recruitment], so I’m worried. My friends say they will join the [resistance] but I don’t know what to do, since I can’t fight.” With recent rapid advances by ethnic armies People’s Defense Force, or PDF, militias of civilians who have taken up arms against the junta, the military appears to be on the defensive as hundreds of soldiers have surrendered. Junta leader Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing announced on Feb. 10 that the People’s Military Service Law, enacted in 2010 by a previous military regime, would go into effect immediately. On Tuesday night, the junta announced the formation of a committee to oversee the conscription process. But reports suggest that the military and pro-junta militias are already rounding up as many able bodies as they can with the goal of forcing recruits to undergo simple training, putting weapons in their hands, and dumping them onto the battlefield. Eligible citizens have told RFA Burmese that they would rather join the armed resistance or flee Myanmar than fight for the junta, which seized control of the country in a Feb. 1, 2021, coup d’etat. One young resident of Yangon told RFA he would likely be killed if he is forced to join the military. “I don’t want to join and my friends feel the same, but … we can’t resist because they have weapons,” he said. “So, we have to take the training they’ll give us and if I get a chance, I will go to the liberated areas [controlled by anti-junta forces].” The ‘right’ to defend the country Junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun told military-controlled media on Tuesday that the national conscription law provides every citizen “the right” to receive military training to defend the country, and urged people not to be concerned because they wouldn’t immediately be sent to fight. “Just like us professional soldiers, you have to carry out national defense duties only after undertaking proper military training,” he said. A parade of the 78th anniversary of the Armed Forces Day which on March 27, 2023. (AFP) According to Myanmar’s compulsory military service law, men aged 18-35 and women aged 18-27 face up to five years in prison if they refuse to serve for two years. Professionals – such as doctors, engineers and technicians – aged 18-45 for men and 18-35 for women must also serve, but up to five years, given the country’s current state of emergency, extended by the junta on Feb. 1 for another six months. According to the 2019 census, there are 6.3 million men and 7.7 million women – totaling nearly 14 million people – who are eligible for military service in Myanmar, Zaw Min Tun said Tuesday. The number is equivalent to just over one-quarter of Myanmar’s population of 54 million. He added that parents “don’t need to worry” because there are more than 3,000 wards and 60,000 villages across the country, “so only one or two persons per ward need to join the military.” Zaw Min Tun’s comments did little to sooth the concerns of Yangon resident Wai Lwin Oo, whose 23-year-old son is eligible for the draft. “Parents are extremely concerned,” he said. “There are only two options and as a parent, the last thing I want to do is tell my children which path to choose … There are no parents who are amenable [to the conscription law].” Round-ups underway Residents of Yangon and Mandalay told RFA that since the military service law was announced on Feb. 10, young people are nowhere to be seen in the city after 8 p.m. Additionally, RFA received reports on Wednesday that at least 25 young people from Ngwe Than Win Ward in Yangon region’s Thanlyin township had been rounded up for conscription by joint forces of the junta and pro-junta militias conducting house-to-house inspections since Monday. The following day, at least 10 others were taken into custody from Thanlyin’s Darga ward, according to Private Sanda, an official with the local People’s Defense Force. Southwestern commander Brig. Gen. Wai Lin meets with members of militia from some townships of the Ayeyarwady region on Sept. 22, 2023. (Myanmar Military) RFA also received reports on Wednesday that the junta has been recruiting residents of five townships in Myanmar’s southwestern Ayeyarwady region for military training using a raffle drawing since January. Residents said that whoever is selected in the raffle in Kyonpyaw, Myanaung, Kyangin, Kyaiklat and Mawlamyinegyun townships and refuses to join the military is being made to pay up to 1 million kyats (US$475). A lawmaker, who declined to be named, said that the junta is targeting Ayeyarwady because the region is firmly under its control, adding that the military has a “very high demand for soldiers” because its troops are “surrendering, fleeing into other countries, and dying” on the frontlines. Attempts by RFA to reach junta officials for comment on the reported round-ups went unanswered Wednesday. ‘Human shields’ on the battlefield Zaw Min Tun, the junta spokesman, has been cited in media reports as saying that the conscription law will be put into practice after the traditional Thingyan New Year holidays in April, and 5,000 conscripts will be called up in each round. No further details have been provided. Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government, or NUG, responded to the junta’s announcement of the formation of the Central Committee for Militia Recruitment on Tuesday with a statement urging people not to comply with the conscription…

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Mass arrests in Myanmar spark fear over conscription laws

Editor05 mins

Junta soldiers on a two-day spree have arrested young and internally displaced people, locals in Bago region told Radio Free Asia. Since enforcing the People’s Military Service Law on Saturday, junta leader Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing announced conscription would begin immediately. Refusing to serve could result in a five-year prison sentence for young men and women across the country.   This isn’t the first time the area has faced conscription efforts. Soldiers in January made rounds across several townships, trying to gain numbers through threats, fines, and incentives.  On Monday, soldiers entered Htantabin township’s Za Yat Gyi city in eastern Bago, where locals fled conflict days before the arrests. It was the site of a battle a week ago when the Karen National Liberation Army and People’s Defense Forces fought with junta troops. Around 50 people were killed by junta artillery fire and more than 10,000 were forced to leave their homes amid heavy shelling. The city was left mostly empty, but residents who chose not to flee were abducted from their homes, locals said. Junta troops stationed at Za Yat Gyi Hospital also detained young people in Htantabin township’s surrounding villages. A local in Za Yat Gyi city who wished to remain anonymous for security reasons told RFA on Tuesday that he fled because people who have reached the age of 18 are being rounded up for military service. “At the moment, the whole village is fleeing because the junta’s army entered the village and dragged people out. We are also hiding and fleeing,” he said. “They arrest women who are around 18 and 19 years old. Men at that age are also being taken to the trucks and forced to serve in the military.” Since troops began raids, villages are nearly empty, he added. Internally displaced people from nearby villages were also targeted, although locals said they could not confirm the details of the arrests.  Regime denies mass arrests Junta forces set up blockades on roads leading from Za Yat Gyi to Htantabin city and conducted spot checks and arrests at Htantabin Bridge, according to locals.  Bago residents near the Sittaung river and Kayin state border haven’t been able to get to Taungoo city, roughly 290 kilometers (180 miles) north of Htantabin since the weekend because of blockades, they said. Bago region’s junta spokesperson Tin Oo denied people were being press-ganged into military service.  “As far as arrests are concerned, we are arresting organizations related to the People’s Defense Forces and organizations that support terrorists according to the law,” he told RFA. “We do not arrest innocent people without reason.” No mass arrests occurred, and only three or four people were taken in for interrogation, he said.   On Tuesday night, the regime-backed media announced the formation of a Central Militia Recruitment Team led by the Ministry of Defense.  Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.    

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