Shares of Chinese soft drink maker Nongfu Spring have dropped after some consumers said they were boycotting their products due to a perceived lack of patriotism, and posted videos of themselves on social media dumping out their contents.
Hong Kong-listed shares in Hangzhou-based Nongfu Spring slid 7.7% from HK$44.60 on Feb. 29 to HK$41.20 on March 5, as online nationalists launched a boycott at the start of the annual National People’s Congress, which ended Monday.
Users shared photos of labels on some of the company’s spring water bottles, complaining that it depicted a Japanese temple. Others likened a Greek letter on the company’s bottled jasmine tea to the shape of Tokyo’s Yasukuni Shrine, where the Japanese war dead are remembered.
Others targeted the company’s founder and China’s richest man Zhong Shanshan, calling him a profiteer, and pointing out that his son Zhong Shuzi is an American citizen, citing the company’s 2020 prospectus.
Still others said the red bottle cap used on Nongfu Spring water bottles recalled the red sun emblem in the Japanese national flag.
Zhong Shanshan, chairman of Nongfu Spring, gestures during a speech at a press conference in Beijing, May 6, 2013. (CNS via/ AFP)
Nongfu Spring responded on March 8, saying that the labels on its Oriental Leaf Green Tea bottles are based on a Chinese temple, and pointing to text on the label which mentions that the Japanese art of tea-drinking originated in China.
“The content is not only authentic but also meticulously sourced, with the intention of highlighting the profound impact of Chinese tea and tea culture on a global scale, thereby showcasing a strong sense of national pride and confidence,” the company said in comments reported in the nationalistic Global Times newspaper.
Targets of wrath
The statement appears to have done little to mollify the “little pinks,” a nickname for zealously patriotic supporters of the ruling Chinese Communist Party.
On Sunday, two branches of 7-Eleven in the eastern province of Jiangsu said they had pulled all Nongfu Spring products from the shelves, saying that they won’t sell products that “adulate Japan,” the paper reported.
Nongfu Spring hasn’t been the only target of nationalists’ ire in recent days, either.
They have also gone after Nobel literature laureate Mo Yan for hurting their feelings by “insulting the People’s Liberation Army, late Chairman Mao Zedong, and the Chinese people.”
Mo’s work “Red Sorghum,” which was made into a 1987 film starring Gong Li, “vilified the Eighth Route Army” and “insulted revolutionary martyrs,” according to some comments, while others demanded compensation for hurt feelings and “reputational damage.”
Chinese Literature Nobel Prize winner Mo Yan, center, leaves following a panel discussion at the Beijing International Book Fair in Beijing, Aug. 23, 2017. (Mark Schiefelbein/AP)
Netizens also took aim at Beijing’s Tsinghua University for being the only top university that hasn’t been targeted for U.S. sanctions.
Its lawmakers are also considering a law criminalizing “hurting the feelings of the Chinese people,” a stock phrase frequently used by Chinese officials and state media to criticize speech or actions by outsiders that Beijing disapproves of.
Under a proposed amendment to the Public Security Administration Law, wearing the wrong T-shirt or complaining about China online could lead to a fine of up to 5,000 yuan (US$680) or 15 days in jail.
The law doesn’t specify what kind of acts might do such a thing, but does warn that “denying the deeds” of revolutionary heroes and martyrs or defacing their public memorials would count.
“Sometimes it’s directly organized by the government, and sometimes it’s not — it’s just people jumping on the bandwagon,” political commentator Ji Feng said.
He said the hate campaign against Mo Yan recalled the public denunciations of the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution, and the Anti-Rightist Movement of the 1950s.
If such denunciations continue, Ji warned that they will eventually target people who say nothing at all, and eventually move on to include those who don’t sing the praises of the Communist Party or its leaders loudly enough, “layer by layer.”
Hard-wired
U.S.-based political commentator Hu Ping said both Mo Yan and Nongfu Spring were once considered to be firmly inside the Chinese political establishment, and they are now next in line because public figures who supported democracy have long since been dealt with.
“[Their targets] are getting more and more left-wing, because there’s nobody left on the other side of the political spectrum,” Hu said. “So they just find the most liberal-minded person and attack them, which we all think is pretty ridiculous.”
Members of security look on after the opening session of the National People’s Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on March 5, 2024. (Pedro Pardo/AFP)
Independent political scholar Chen Daoyin said patriotism has become hard-wired into China’s legislation, administrative regulations and throughout law enforcement under the leadership of Xi Jinping.
“Anyone deploying this kind of patriotic [attack] is protected by these structures, so internet censors wouldn’t dare to stop them, or they might get burned themselves,” Chen said.
He said nationalistic witch hunts drive huge amounts of traffic on Chinese social media platforms, suggesting that the latest wave of “little pink” activity wasn’t driven by any government order. “It was a spontaneous thing, and purely driven by economic motives.”
Mo, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2012, has yet to respond publicly to the criticisms of his work.
British-Chinese writer Ma Jian said totalitarian regimes lend themselves to such dramas in the absence of freely available information.
“When a totalitarian country has eliminated true patriots, and anyone with a sense of morality or justice … then when the mob starts to bite there is nowhere they won’t go once they take the opportunity,” Ma said.
“We will continue to see stories like this, and the most extreme kind of absurdities — it won’t just be Mo Yan and Tsinghua University,” he said. “And nobody will even think it’s strange any more.”
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Yitong Wu and Chingman for RFA Cantonese, Chen Zifei for RFA Mandarin.
The International Monetary Fund has reestablished a resident mission in Papua New Guinea, ending a more than two-decade absence from a Pacific island country with which it had a stormy relationship.
Prime Minister James Marape said the IMF, which is often a lender of last resort to developing nations, had been invited back and would help ensure an independent and transparent assessment of Papua New Guinea’s economic policies and performance.
“We told the IMF to come and assist, assess, look and advise us,” Marape said in a statement on Sunday. The presence of the IMF alongside institutions such as the World Bank and Asian Development Bank “signifies a comprehensive support system for PNG’s economic development,” he said.
The fund’s office in Papua New Guinea was closed in the early 2000s after a backlash against policies, such as registration of customary land and the sale of state-owned companies, it attempted to impose on the country in return for providing a financial lifeline.
According to civil society organizations and media reports, three student protestors were killed and 17 wounded when police opened fire on a protest in June 2001 against the IMF and World Bank in Port Moresby. The incident followed more than a decade of social convulsions and conflict between the IMF and Papua New Guinea’s government over the fund’s so-called structural adjustment policies.
At a ceremony on Thursday, Marape and IMF deputy managing director Bo Li cut a red ribbon and a cake to mark the official opening of the fund’s new office in Port Moresby and the first visit by a top-level IMF official in recent memory.
The IMF’s involvement with Papua New Guinea stepped up significantly last year when the fund approved a U.S.$918 loan to help the country’s recovery from repeated economic shocks in the past decade, including the COVID-19 pandemic.
Stability for Papua New Guinea, which gained its independence from Australia in 1975, has remained elusive as it grapples with tribal violence and challenges such as corruption and lack of roads and basic healthcare in many regions.
The International Monetary Fund’s deputy managing director, Bo Li (left), and Papua New Guinea’s Prime Minister James Marape are pictured at a press conference in Port Moresby on Feb. 29, 2024. (Harlyne Joku/BenarNews)
The country, which is by far the most populous Pacific island nation with an estimated 12 million people, also has been a focus of the intensifying China-U.S. rivalry in the Pacific.
Li said he was saddened by loss of life and damage to businesses in Port Moresby in January when the capital was hit by riots and looting. At least 16 died in the Jan. 10 chaos that erupted after police walked off the job in protest at a pay cut the government later said was caused by a payroll system glitch.
The economic impact of the riots is not yet factored into the IMF’s near-term forecasts for Papua New Guinea “but we still see a positive sign on the overall economy,” said Li.
“As Papua New Guinea continues to build a stronger and more resilient economy, the IMF is here to support you,” Li said. “Papua New Guinea’s new [economic policy] program, supported by the IMF, supports a structural reform agenda on which the authorities are already making remarkable progress,” he said.
According to the IMF’s summary of the loan it approved last year, Papua New Guinea needs to make its government leaner without sacrificing social spending and strengthen anti-corruption efforts so it can attract more investment.
To reduce foreign exchange shortages – that contribute to nationwide disruptions such as fuel rationing – Papua New Guinea needs to strengthen its central bank and gradually move to a market-decided exchange rate for its currency, the summary said.
At the ceremony, Marape and Treasurer Ian Ling-Stuckey were at pains to emphasize the IMF was not dictating policy to the government.
“I want to inform the country that the reforms were not imposed on us. It was something that we knew we had to do,” Marape said.
BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Harlyne Joku for BenarNews.
Russia is increasing its cooperation with China in 5G and satellite technology and this could facilitate Moscow’s military aggression against Ukraine, a report by the London-based Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) security think tank warns.
The report, published on March 1, says that although battlefield integration of 5G networks may face domestic hurdles in Russia, infrastructure for Chinese aid to Russian satellite systems already exists and can “facilitate Russian military action in Ukraine.”
China, which maintains close ties with Moscow, has refused to condemn Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and offered economic support to Russia that has helped the Kremlin survive waves of sweeping Western sanctions.
Beijing has said that it does not sell lethal weapons to Russia for its war against Ukraine, but Western governments have repeatedly accused China of aiding in the flow of technology to Russia’s war effort despite Western sanctions.
The RUSI report details how the cooperation between Russia and China in 5G and satellite technology can also help Russia on the battlefield in Ukraine.
“Extensive deployment of drones and advanced telecommunications equipment have been crucial on all fronts in Ukraine, from intelligence collection to air-strike campaigns,” the report says.
“These technologies, though critical, require steady connectivity and geospatial support, making cooperation with China a potential solution to Moscow’s desire for a military breakthrough.”
According to the report, 5G network development has gained particular significance in Russo-Chinese strategic relations in recent years, resulting in a sequence of agreements between Chinese technology giant Huawei and Russian companies MTS and Beeline, both under sanctions by Canada for being linked to Russia’s military-industrial complex.
5G is a technology standard for cellular networks, which allows a higher speed of data transfer than its predecessor, 4G. According to the RUSI’s report, 5G “has the potential to reshape the battlefield” through enhanced tracking of military objects, faster transferring and real-time processing of large sensor datasets and enhanced communications.
These are “precisely the features that could render Russo-Chinese 5G cooperation extremely useful in a wartime context — and therefore create a heightened risk for Ukraine,” the report adds.
Although the report says that there are currently “operational and institutional constraints” to Russia’s battlefield integration of 5G technology, it has advantages which make it an “appealing priority” for Moscow, Jack Crawford, a research analyst at RUSI and one of the authors of the report, said.
“As Russia continues to seek battlefield advantages over Ukraine, recent improvements in 5G against jamming technologies make 5G communications — both on the ground and with aerial weapons and vehicles — an even more appealing priority,” Crawford told RFE/RL in an e-mailed response.
Satellite technology, however, is already the focus of the collaboration between China and Russia, the report says, pointing to recent major developments in the collaboration between the Russian satellite navigation system GLONASS and its Chinese equivalent, Beidou.
In 2018, Russia and China agreed on the joint application of GLONASS/Beidou and in 2022 decided to build three Russian monitoring stations in China and three Chinese stations in Russia — in the city of Obninsk, about 100 kilometers southwest of Moscow, the Siberian city of Irkutsk, and Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky in Russia’s Far East.
Satellite technology can collect imagery, weather and terrain data, improve logistics management, track troop movements, and enhance precision in the identification and elimination of ground targets.
According to the report, GLONASS has already enabled Russian missile and drone strikes in Ukraine through satellite correction and supported communications between Russian troops.
The anticipated construction of Beidou’s Obninsk monitoring station, the closest of the three Chinese stations to Ukraine, would allow Russia to increasingly leverage satellite cooperation with China against Ukraine, the report warns.
In 2022, the Russian company Racurs, which provides software solutions for photogrammetry, GIS, and remote sensing, signed satellite data-sharing agreements with two Chinese companies. The deals were aimed at replacing contracts with Western satellite companies that suspended data supply in Russia following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The two companies — HEAD Aerospace and Spacety — are both under sanctions by the United States for supplying satellite imagery of locations in Ukraine to entities affiliated with the Wagner mercenary group.
“For the time being, we cannot trace how exactly these shared data have informed specific decisions on the front line,” Roman Kolodii, a security expert at Charles University in Prague and one of the authors of the report, told RFE/RL.
“However, since Racurs is a partner of the Russian Ministry of Defense, it is highly likely that such data might end up strengthening Russia’s geospatial capabilities in the military domain, too.”
“Ultimately, such dynamic interactions with Chinese companies may improve Russian military logistics, reconnaissance capabilities, geospatial intelligence, and drone deployment in Ukraine,” the report says.
The report comes as Western governments are stepping up efforts to counter Russia’s attempt to evade sanctions imposed as a response to its military aggression against Ukraine.
On February 23, on the eve of the second anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion, the United States imposed sanctions on nearly 100 entities that are helping Russia evade trade sanctions and “providing backdoor support for Russia’s war machine.”
The list includes Chinese companies, accused of supporting “Russia’s military-industrial base.”
Junta shelling of a crowded market killed 12 people and critically injured 18 more on Thursday morning, rescue workers told Radio Free Asia.
A junta battalion on a nearby road fired indiscriminately into a marketplace in Rakhine state’s capital of Sittwe during the busiest time of day, locals said.
Sittwe has become a disputed territory since a rebel group, the Arakan Army, captured surrounding junta camps and seized six townships across Rakhine state. In early February, the Arakan Army demanded junta troops in Sittwe surrender before their arrival in the capital.
The junta army’s grasp on the area has been tenuous after losing territories, but troops have attempted control by placing restrictions on the capital and making large-scale arrests. On Feb. 19, regime forces detained 500 people who landed in Sittwe off a flight arriving from Yangon.
A rescue volunteer who wished to remain anonymous for security reasons told RFA the dead have been sent to Sittwe Hospital’s mortuary, and the injured are being treated there
“Those 18 were critically injured and their injuries are life-threatening,” he said. “Some people died on the spot and others after arriving at the hospital. All of them are vendors and shoppers.”
The names and ages of the deceased could not be confirmed. However, most of them were women, children and the elderly, the volunteer added.
The shell was fired by a battalion near Shu Khin Thar road, residents said.
RFA contacted Rakhine state’s junta spokesperson Hla Thein for further details about the attack, but he did not reply.
The Arakan Army ended a humanitarian-based year-long ceasefire on Nov. 13 with the junta when they began to attack border outposts and convoys across Minbya and Rathedaung townships.
The Arakan Army released a statement on Tuesday saying that 111 civilians have been killed and 357 have been injured by small and heavy artillery fired by the junta from the ceasefire to Feb. 18, 2024.
Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Burmese.
New York, February 26, 2024—Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency arrested independent journalist Asad Ali Toor on Monday after he was ordered to appear for questioning in connection to an alleged “explicit and malicious” campaign against Supreme Court judges, according to newsreports and the journalist’s lawyer, Imaan Mazari-Hazir, who spoke to CPJ. Toor operates Asad Toor Uncensored, a YouTube channel where he covers political affairs with over 160,000 subscribers.
The Committee to Protect Journalists called on authorities to immediately and unconditionally release Toor, and to cease harassing him for his journalistic work. Toor was arrested in the capital, Islamabad, at the FIA’s cybercrime wing.
The FIA refused to allow Mazari-Hazir or Toor’s two other lawyers to accompany the journalist for questioning, Mazari-Hazir said, adding that the agency subsequently locked its entrance door and turned off the lights of the building. Then, an FIA official emerged from the building and informed the lawyers of the journalist’s arrest.
An FIA guard provided Toor’s lawyers with a handwritten note from the journalist, reviewed by CPJ, asking for his 78-year-old mother to be taken to a relative’s home.
As of Tuesday morning, Toor’s lawyers had not received a copy of a first information report opening an investigation into the journalist, according to Mazari-Hazir.
On Friday, authorities detained and questioned Toor without access to legal representation at the FIA cybercrime wing headquarters, according to news reports, Mazari-Hazir, and the journalist, who spoke to CPJ before his arrest. Toor was released around eight hours later and received a notice shortly thereafter to appear for questioning on Monday.
Toor filed a petition, reviewed by CPJ, on Monday asking the Islamabad High Court to declare the FIA notices in relation to both summons for questioning as unlawful, order the agency to provide a list of allegations against the journalist, and not to harass or unlawfully detain him.
The Chief Justice’s order in response on Monday, reviewed by CPJ, stated that Toor should join the inquiry proceedings but “shall not be harassed.”
“We are appalled by the arrest of Pakistani journalist Asad Ali Toor in apparent violation of an order by the Islamabad High Court,” said CPJ Program Director Carlos Martinez de la Serna. “Pakistani authorities must immediately and unconditionally release Toor and ensure that journalists do not face retaliation for their critical reporting on institutions, including the judiciary.”
Mazari-Hazir told CPJ that Toor’s legal team will file a petition on Tuesday morning challenging his arrest at the Islamabad High Court.
Toor and Mazari-Hazir said the journalist found out about the summons for the February 23 interrogation the day before through social media because the notice was sent to a prior address.
Six plainclothes men were present during the February 23 questioning, but Toor was not sure what agency they were from, he told CPJ, adding that the men refused to identify themselves when Toor requested.
The men did not provide a list of allegations or a copy of any complaint against the journalist when asked, Toor told CPJ, adding that the men questioned him about why he criticized the chief justice of the Supreme Court, where he received information for his reporting, and information about his journalistic sources. They also threatened Toor with raiding his home, detaining him, and confiscating his devices, the journalist told CPJ.
In January, the FIA cybercrime wing summoneddozens of journalists, including Toor, in relation to the alleged campaign against Supreme Court judges following an order upholding an electoral commission decision barring the party of former Prime Minister Imran Khan from using its cricket bat symbol to identify candidates for the February 8 election.
In May 2021, three unidentified men—one of whom Toor said identified himself as an agent with Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency—beat, bound, and gagged the journalist inside his Islamabad apartment. Toor recalled the incident in a BBC documentary released on February 16, 2024.
CPJ called and messaged Pakistan Information Minister Murtaza Solangi for comment but did not immediately receive a response.
Junta troops arrested around 600 civilians after their flights from Yangon landed at two airports in western Myanmar’s Rakhine state, according to family members and sources with knowledge of the situation, who said the military is holding them on suspicion of attempting to join the armed resistance.
The arrests come amid the enactment of a conscription law that has sent draft-eligible civilians fleeing from Myanmar’s cities, saying they would rather leave the country or join anti-junta forces in remote border areas than fight for the military, which seized power in a February 2021 coup d’etat.
On Monday, junta soldiers detained nearly 500 passengers after they arrived at the airport in Rakhine’s capital Sittwe from Yangon. They were transferred to a military camp at the Lawkananda pagoda, their relatives told RFA Burmese.
The same day, more than 60 passengers from Yangon were similarly arrested after landing at the airport in Kyaukphyu city and taken to Rammawati City Hall, family members said.
Pregnant women, children, and the elderly among the passengers were released the same day, they said, although the exact number was not immediately clear.
The family member of a detainee at the Sittwe airport told RFA that there is no way to contact those being held.
“We only knew that all the passengers from the Yangon-Sittwe flight were taken by car to Lawkanada pagoda for inspection as soon as they landed at the airport,” said the family member who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on condition of anonymity due to security concerns. “It was discovered that many passengers – around 500 – are being held. We don’t know what they are being inspected for.”
The military has also cut off phone and internet connections in the area, and troops stationed at the Lawkananda pagoda do not allow civilians to enter the compound, sources told RFA.
The passengers who landed at Kyaukphyu airport were arrested and “immediately taken by car to Rammawati City Hall,” where they are being held for “interrogation,” said a resident of the city.
“Some of them who have residential documents or were on household lists were released,” the resident said. “The people from other areas have not been released,” he added, noting that one resident of Ramree township “was handcuffed and taken to the military camp.”
Rakhine youth returning
Armed clashes broke out in Rakhine state after the ethnic Arakan Army, or AA, ended a ceasefire in November that had been in place since the coup. Since then, the military has controlled routes in and out of the region by land and water, forcing people to rely on air travel.
After the junta announced the enforcement of the People’s Military Service Law on Feb. 10, Rakhine youth working and studying in Yangon were barred from registering for temporary residency in the city. Fearing arrest, a growing number of them have returned home, according to sources in Yangon.
A resident of Yangon told RFA that troops at the two airports in Rakhine arrested the passengers on suspicion of planning to join anti-junta armed groups in the state.
“The Rakhine people in Yangon were forced to return home [after they were barred from registering for residency],” he said. “They were told to go back home for military service, even though they were studying and working … Although the passengers produced their IDs, they were arrested on suspicion of planning to join the Arakan Army.”
Kyaukphyu airport in Rakhine state is seen in this undated photo. (Winnet Myanmar)
RFA has also received reports of junta troops arresting youths on the Yangon-Mandalay Expressway, Mandalay–Myitkyina Highway, and on their way to Kayin and Chin states.
Sources were unable to provide the exact number of detainees and RFA was unable to independently verify their claims.
Attempts by RFA to contact Rakhine State Attorney General Hla Thein, the junta’s spokesperson in the region, for comment on the arrests and investigation went unanswered Tuesday.
During three months of fighting in Rakhine, the AA has captured Pauktaw, Minbya, Mrauk-U, Kyauktaw, Myay Pon and Taung Pyo townships in the state, as well as Paletwa township in neighboring Chin state.
The conflict in Rakhine is escalating amid AA offensives on the junta-controlled townships of Maungdaw, Buthidaung, Rathedaung and Ramree.
Maungdaw camp captured
On Monday, the AA captured a military outpost in Maungdaw’s Pe Yang Taung area after a nine-hour battle, according to a statement released by the Three Brotherhood Alliance of ethnic armies, which includes the AA.
AA fighters recovered “more than 10 bodies of junta soldiers,” as well as weapons and ammunition from the camp, the statement said.
The Three Brotherhood Alliance said that over the course of the fighting, which took place from around 7 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., the military launched three airstrikes from fighter jets.
The seizure of the outpost in Pe Yang Taung comes days after the AA captured two junta-affiliated Border Guard Force outposts in Bodhigone and Narula, near Maungdaw, on Feb. 16.
The military has not released any information about the fighting, and Hla Thein was unavailable for comment.
Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Matt Reed.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Burmese.
Two individuals allegedly knocked over KITX’s FM radio tower and stole a section of the structure on Jan. 15, 2024, forcing the Hugo, Oklahoma, station off the air for 10 days, according to the broadcaster.
Will Payne, president of Payne Media Group, which owns the station and the tower, told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that the top half of the nearly 500-foot tower fell after the two suspects cut the guy-wires supporting it. Payne said he believes the suspects cut the bottom half into pieces and carried them into a vehicle. The theft caused more than $500,000 in damage, he added.
“We’re hunting down somebody that brought down a tower in order to get a little hundred-dollar fix of copper,” Payne was reported to have said at the time of the theft. “Seriously, that’s about all it’s going to be worth to them.”
The Choctaw County Sheriff’s Office arrested two suspects on Jan. 18, according to the station’s Facebook page, after they sold copper from the tower to a nearby junkyard the day after the theft. One suspect is currently being held on a $500,000 bond, while the other has since been released, Payne told the Tracker.
Payne said that when he first saw the red and white tower on the ground, he assumed it was brought down by ice or inclement weather. But once he saw the open door to the transmitter building, he knew something was seriously wrong.
“I had never heard of this as a criminal act. It’s always weather related,” Payne told the Tracker. “To be honest, … that’s why we have insurance.”
The country music station was able to get back on the air at half power just 10 days after the theft, thanks to community and industry support, Payne said.
“(Tower builders) were able to build four 20-foot sections of tower in four days, which is unheard of,” he said. “That’s a very, very aggressive timeline to get back on the air. We’re half the tower, half the power.”
Payne said some listeners may have more difficulty accessing the radio station because of the weaker signal. He added that he hopes that the station will be able to operate at full power again in the next 90 days.
KITX is not the only radio station that has recently seen its tower stolen and damaged. In early February, an AM radio tower in Alabama mysteriously vanished. That station is still unable to broadcast and is unsure whether it will be able to rebuild its radio tower because it was uninsured.
Since going public, Payne said he had heard similar stories from a number of internet service providers of their towers being destroyed or vandalized.
A 200-foot AM radio tower for Jasper, Alabama, broadcaster WJLX was stolen “without a trace” on Feb. 2, 2024, according to the station.
“I’ve been around the business my whole life, I’ve been in it professionally for 26 years and I’ve never heard of an entire tower being stolen,” WJLX General Manager Brett Elmore told Birmingham television station WABM.
WJLX, which is now unable to broadcast on its AM frequency, said it has since had to shut down its broadcast operations entirely, including its FM station. The Federal Communications Commission told WJLX on Feb. 8 that it could not operate its FM transmitter while the AM station is off the air. It will continue to stream its programming only via the internet and its apps, it said.
Elmore has also filed a request with the FCC for WJLX to remain silent for now without losing its license, The Washington Post reported. The paper said if stations remain silent for more than one year, the FCC considers them expired.
The station’s absence was a cause for worry for Sharon Tinely, president of the Alabama Broadcasters Association, who told WABM, “What if there were a crisis going on right now that the community needs to hear information from local sources on a local radio station and they can’t.”
“This is a huge loss,” Elmore told the Guardian. “People have reached out and asked how they can help, but I don’t know how you can help unless you have a 200ft tower and an AM transmitter.”
The tower was uninsured, according to Elmore, and replacing it could cost $60,000-plus. WJLX has set up a GoFundMe account and so far raised over $8,000.
That station said it was alerted to the theft when a landscaping cleanup crew arrived at the tower site to clean up the property, only to find it completely cleared out by the thieves. “I couldn’t believe it,” Elmore recalled.” I asked him [the landscaper] if he was sure he was at the right place. He responded, ‘the tower is gone. Wires are scattered everywhere.’”
The radio tower was located in a wooded area, behind a local poultry plant, The Guardian reported. Elmore told the paper that thieves had cut the tower’s wires and somehow removed it, while also taking the station’s AM transmitter from a nearby building.
Elmore said he believes the thieves may have targeted the tower to sell the metal and also told The Guardian that about six months ago, a nearby radio station had its air conditioning unit, copper pipes and other materials stolen.
The station has filed charges with the Jasper Police Department and the case is currently under investigation.
“This is a federal crime and whoever did this it’s not worth your time, effort or energy,” Elmore told WABM. “Because when we find you, you are going to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
A 200-foot AM radio tower for Jasper, Alabama, broadcaster WJLX was stolen “without a trace” on Feb. 2, 2024, according to the station.
“I’ve been around the business my whole life, I’ve been in it professionally for 26 years and I’ve never heard of an entire tower being stolen,” WJLX General Manager Brett Elmore told Birmingham television station WABM.
WJLX, which is now unable to broadcast on its AM frequency, said it has since had to shut down its broadcast operations entirely, including its FM station. The Federal Communications Commission told WJLX on Feb. 8 that it could not operate its FM transmitter while the AM station is off the air. It will continue to stream its programming only via the internet and its apps, it said.
Elmore has also filed a request with the FCC for WJLX to remain silent for now without losing its license, The Washington Post reported. The paper said if stations remain silent for more than one year, the FCC considers them expired.
The station’s absence was a cause for worry for Sharon Tinely, president of the Alabama Broadcasters Association, who told WABM, “What if there were a crisis going on right now that the community needs to hear information from local sources on a local radio station and they can’t.”
“This is a huge loss,” Elmore told the Guardian. “People have reached out and asked how they can help, but I don’t know how you can help unless you have a 200ft tower and an AM transmitter.”
The tower was uninsured, according to Elmore, and replacing it could cost $60,000-plus. WJLX has set up a GoFundMe account and so far raised over $8,000.
That station said it was alerted to the theft when a landscaping cleanup crew arrived at the tower site to clean up the property, only to find it completely cleared out by the thieves. “I couldn’t believe it,” Elmore recalled.” I asked him [the landscaper] if he was sure he was at the right place. He responded, ‘the tower is gone. Wires are scattered everywhere.’”
The radio tower was located in a wooded area, behind a local poultry plant, The Guardian reported. Elmore told the paper that thieves had cut the tower’s wires and somehow removed it, while also taking the station’s AM transmitter from a nearby building.
Elmore said he believes the thieves may have targeted the tower to sell the metal and also told The Guardian that about six months ago, a nearby radio station had its air conditioning unit, copper pipes and other materials stolen.
The station has filed charges with the Jasper Police Department and the case is currently under investigation.
“This is a federal crime and whoever did this it’s not worth your time, effort or energy,” Elmore told WABM. “Because when we find you, you are going to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
Washington, D.C., February 13, 2024—Iranian authorities must immediately release four journalists from the FardayeEghtesad news site who have been detained since February 5, drop any charges against them, and answer for the raid on their outlet and mass detention of 30 staff, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Tuesday.
Around 2 p.m. on February 5, security forces raided the newsroom of the privately owned multimedia economic news website FardayeEghtesad in Argentina Square in the capital, Tehran, detained all 30 staff inside the building, searched the newsroom, and confiscated everyone’s cellphones and other electronic devices, such as laptops.
The families of the journalists gathered outside the building shortly after as authorities kept the journalists incommunicado. After 14 hours, the security forces released most of the staff, according to those sources, which said authorities did not provide any explanation for the detention.
Five journalists were detained in the newsroom for four days.
Ali Mirzakhani, editor-in-chief of FardayeEghtesad, was released on February 9. The other four journalists—deputy editor Behzad Bahman-Nejad and video journalists Ali Tasnimi, Mehrdad Asgari, and Nikan Khabazi—were transferred on February 9 to an undisclosed location.
As of February 13, the four journalists were detained in Shapoor Police Department in downtown Tehran, according to newsreports, which said the journalists were taken to their newsroom multiple times and were questioned for long hours while security forces repeatedly searched the newsroom.
The journalists have been denied access to legal representation, and their families have not been told the reason for their arrest, according to those reports. CPJ was unable to determine whether the journalists had been formally charged.
“Iranian authorities must free journalists Behzad Bahman-Nejad, Ali Tasnimi, Mehrdad Asgari, and Nikan Khabazi immediately and unconditionally and cease the practice of arbitrarily locking up members of the press,” said CPJ Middle East and North Africa Program Coordinator Sherif Mansour. “Such group detentions show, shamefully, that authorities do not find it necessary to disclose even a minimum of details about why these reporters have been arrested. Authorities must answer for the raid on the outlet and mass detention of 30 journalists.”
CPJ’s review of FardayeEghtesad shows that although authorities have not suspended the news website, its content hasn’t been updated since February 4.
Mohammed Emran Hossan, a correspondent for the news website Newsnow24 and Dainik Amader Shomoy newspaper, was killed in a collision with a vehicle at around 1 a.m. on December 30, in the Rangunia sub-district of southeast Chittagong district, according to newsreports and Rustam Ali Sikder, the journalist’s father, who spoke with CPJ.
A jeep hit Hossan’s motorcycle and ran over his body, according to a complaint, reviewed by CPJ, that was filed by the family at Rangunia Model Police Station on the day that Hossan died.
No arrests had been made although the police were given the driver’s name, those sources said. A journalist familiar with the case, who spoke to CPJ on condition of anonymity due to fear of reprisal, said the driver went into hiding shortly after the crash.
Chandan Kumar Chakraborty, officer-in-charge of Rangunia Model Police Station, told CPJ that officers were searching for the driver, whose vehicle was brought into police custody in early February, and the police were investigating what authorities considered to be a road accident.
The circumstances surrounding Hossan’s death were unclear, the anonymous journalist said, adding that that a witness told him that they saw Hossan’s motorcycle standing upright on the road after the crash.
Sikder and the anonymous journalist told CPJ that they suspected Hossan was targeted due to his journalistic work. Sikder said that his son tipped off a civil service official about illegal construction on government-owned land three months before his death and authorities demolished the structure on September 20.
On September 21, Hossan reported in Newsnow24 that two brothers, whom he named, were rebuilding the structure the day after the demolition. In the article, Hossan said one of the men phoned him after he visited the site and said, “I will make you a corpse. And I will see how great a journalist you are.”
On September 23, Hossan filed a complaint about the threat, reviewed by CPJ, at Rangunia Model Police Station. Chakraborty said that the police were investigating the complaint.
On Thursday, the Committee to Protect Journalists, Access Now, and the #KeepItOn coalition strongly condemned the Pakistani caretaker government’s suspension of mobile services across the country during its elections and called for full internet access to be reinstated immediately.
Sahajak Boonthanakit, a Thai actor, will never forget the day he met Chen Zhi.
“He was very much – I don’t want to make this too dramatic – but very much like a godfather. He didn’t say much, I believe, except hello,” Sahajak recalled in an interview with RFA. “He seemed so powerful.”
Chen, a Chinese émigré, is indeed one of Cambodia’s best-connected tycoons. At the time of the 2018 meeting, he held a position equal to secretary of state as an adviser to Cambodia’s Interior Ministry. He later became an adviser to then-Prime Minister Hun Sen and today holds the same position for Hun Sen’s successor and son, Prime Minister Hun Manet, according to royal decrees granting him the roles. His Prince Group conglomerate, which includes real estate, malls, banks and more across Cambodia, has raked in billions of dollars.
To Sahajak, though, the short, pale, goateed 30-year-old was just the enigmatic “money man” financing his latest film and hosting a meal at a Phnom Penh villa overlooking the Mekong river.
After luxury cars ferried the cast and crew to Chen’s home, Sahajak and his colleagues were led to a banquet hall. A large round table seating roughly 20 was laid with fine wines and delicacies, including shark-fin soup, which regularly sells for hundreds of dollars a bowl.
The film they were celebrating was Cambodia’s first attempt at a homegrown, Hollywood-style action flick. “The Prey” centers on Xin, a Chinese detective wrongly imprisoned in a remote Cambodian prison while working undercover to penetrate a violent gang engaged in unspecified but lucrative cybercrimes.
In backing Cambodia’s first big-budget action movie, Chen likely sought to establish himself as a tycoon of consequence.
But it was also a sort of Freudian slip of the checkbook. Chinese police have been investigating whether much of Chen’s wealth is drawn from illegal activities similar to those featured in the film, RFA has learned.
Chen Zhi was a backer of “The Prey,” Cambodia’s first attempt at producing its own Hollywood-style action movie. (The Prey” / Altered Vision Films – Kongchak Pictures)
Previously unreported Chinese criminal court judgments dating from 2020 to 2022 describe Chen’s Prince Group as a “notorious transnational online gambling criminal group” that has generated at least 5 billion yuan ($700 million) in illicit revenue. In May 2020, Beijing police established a special task force to investigate the Prince Group, court records show. Since then, there have been at least seven judgments from separate Chinese provincial courts convicting low-level Prince Group or Prince Group-linked employees of gambling and money laundering offenses.
The Prince Group itself and Chen so far do not appear to have become the subjects of a Chinese prosecution. A representative of Prince Group told RFA the company denies all the allegations, which it believes are the result of “impersonation by criminal elements.”
But to understand how Prince Group could draw such scrutiny, it is necessary to look at how Chen transformed from an unknown small business owner in his native China to a multibillionaire Cambodian citizen. Today, he boasts deep connections to Cambodia’s most powerful officials, which may well have protected him and other Prince Group executives — at least thus far.
This is the first of three stories examining how his Prince Group came to rise so rapidly, where the wealth came from and why Chinese law enforcement is looking at it so closely.
A princely rise to power
Chen was born on Dec. 16, 1987, in Fujian, which has for centuries been a hub of international trade. He was “a young business prodigy,” according to a biography posted on the website of DW Capital Holdings, the Singapore fund manager for his personal investments. Before the age of three, the biography claims, he was assisting with a family business in Shenzhen.
Chen’s first solo venture was apparently a small internet café in Fujian’s capital, Fuzhou, according to the website. In 2011, the bio noted, Chen sailed off into the “uncharted waters of real estate development in Cambodia.”
Chen’s business ventures came into sharper focus when he emigrated to Cambodia, where opportunities abound for the smart and well-connected.
His first firm was a Phnom Penh-based real estate company established the year he emigrated, according to bank records seen by RFA. In 2015, he founded Prince and it soon became an omnipresent brand on the streets of Cambodian cities.
Its real estate arm, the Prince Group, played a major role in the transformation of Sihanoukville from a quiet, if seedy, coastal resort to a Chinese casino boomtown. Having seen healthy returns on its thousands of Sihanoukville apartments and hotels, the Prince Group branched out into Phnom Penh condominiums, supermarkets and shopping malls. Within a year of its founding, they began offering banking services as a private microfinance institution. Three years later, the group received its commercial bank license.
As Chen’s businesses were growing, so too was his political capital.
Chen Zhi stands with Cambodia’s then-Prime Minister Hun Sen after Chen was made “neak oknha” on July 20, 2020. (Prince Holding Group)
On Feb. 16, 2014, Chen was naturalized as a Cambodian citizen. Naturalization – which requires an investment or government donation of about $250,000 – has become an increasingly popular route for wealthy foreigners, but few have made the personal inroads Chen has. Three years later, a royal decree declared him an adviser to the Interior Ministry. While unpaid, the role gave Chen status in Cambodia equivalent to that of an undersecretary of state.
Weeks after he received that title in 2017, Chen went into business with Sar Sokha. At the time, Sokha’s father was the powerful interior minister. In 2023, Sokha took over the position himself.
Chen and Sokha’s business – Jinbei (Cambodia) Investment Co. Ltd. – was dissolved in 2021, but it was the first of five companies with names featuring the word Jinbei established by Chen and other Prince executives, according to Cambodian business records. Together, the companies formed the Jinbei Group, whose website today boasts of $300 million invested in the Cambodian tourism sector.
Though they are separate entities, so close is the association between the companies that Chinese authorities have called Jinbei a “subsidiary” of Prince in court documents linking the two – a description Prince Group rejects.
Jinbei’s flagship is arguably a seven-story, 16,500 square meter Sihanoukville hotel and casino called the Jinbei, or Golden Shell, in Mandarin. It opened in 2017.
The resort, which boasts 43 gaming tables spread over a 2,000 square meter casino floor, and two V.I.P. saloons, was one of more than 100 casinos to open in Sihanoukville in the years leading up to 2019 – boom years that saw the city feted as a new Macau.
Speaking toMacau Businessin 2019, Jinbei’s marketing manager, Victor Chong, attributed this flourishing to the Cambodian government’s “pro-business” stance, under which he said a casino license was issued to anyone willing to pay the $40,000 annual fee.
Jinbei Casino in the southern resort city of Sihanoukville, a magnet for Chinese gamblers visiting Cambodia, is seen in this undated photo. The casino is owned by Chen Zhi’s Jinbei Group. (Jin Bei Casino via Facebook)
Online, under the table
Though the laws are not always enforced, gambling is illegal for Cambodian citizens. It was Chinese nationals who made up most of the customers in Sihanoukville’s gambling dens as well as the lion’s share of proprietors.
Throughout the mid- and late-2010s, the gamblers were joined by an influx of Chinese gangsters looking to make quick money as loan sharks and extortionists. Bodies started washing up on the beach. Prostitution, illegal in Cambodia, flourished. Cybercriminals, who had long used Sihanoukville as a base, exploded in numbers. Many scammers targeted their compatriots back in China.
A sense of impunity began to reign with brazen gangland-style shootings in the streets and at restaurants. The intended victims were invariably Chinese, although Cambodians were occasionally caught in the crossfire.
The atmosphere drew China’s ire – but what may have troubled Beijing even more than the upswing in crimes against its nationals was the business model many of the casinos used. Most were hosting online gambling websites targeting customers in China, a clear violation of Chinese law.
Citing the rising crime, and likely bowing to pressure from Beijing, Prime Minister Hun Sen in 2019 outlawed online gambling operations. The consequences for Sihanoukville were nearly instantaneous. More than 200,000 Chinese workers and entrepreneurs abandoned the city, and thousands more were stuck without funds to get home.
The pandemic, China’s tight travel restrictions and its domestic economic struggles have only compounded the problems. Four years on and Sihanoukville’s skyline is a mess. At night, the blinking lights of the few remaining casinos glimmer through skeleton frames of half-finished skyscrapers, abandoned mid-construction.
Commuters ride motorcycles along a street in Sihanoukville, Feb. 14, 2020. The city was once hailed as a new Macau, but a ban on online gambling and the COVID pandemic thwarted those dreams. (Tang Chhin Sothy/AFP)
But if there are losers here, the Prince Group isn’t one of them.
On a visit by RFA last year, Jinbei was still welcoming guests through its doors under a gigantic neon clam filled with lucky red dice. The multi-story Prince Mall, home to luxury goods stores, a videogame arcade and the Prince Supermarket, replete with lobster tanks, still beckoned the odd shopper. And at the heart of the mall’s ground floor a display stand for the group’s real estate arm showcased architects’ models for coastal and metro skyscraper apartments.
Even the Nonni II, Chen’s $24 million superyacht with an onboard home cinema and a disco bar, still could be seen docked at Sihanoukville’s ports from time to time.
What has allowed Prince to flourish while so many competitors saw their bubbles burst? The answer, according to court documents, is crime – on a massive scale.
High-tech money mules
According to court records seen by RFA, Chinese law enforcement began openly investigating the Prince Group in 2020 and, in particular, whether at least a third of its estimated $2 billion investment value came from illegal online gambling operations.
In May 2020, the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau created a group called the 5.27 Special Task Force. It was formed “to investigate and handle the case of the notorious transnational online gambling criminal group, known as the ‘Prince Group,’ in Cambodia,” according to a 2021 court judgment. Prince spokesman Gabriel Tan wrote in an email that this task force “is not related to any activities of Prince Holding Group.” In a follow-up note he said that any explicit mention of Prince within court documents is due to “ impersonation issues.”
The judgment describing the task force – from a district court in Henan – was one of several issued in different provinces against individuals linked to the Prince Group who are accused of money laundering and gambling.
Some of these individuals worked directly for the conglomerate, while others worked for Prince-linked companies, including Jinbei. One judgment describes Jinbei as “a subsidiary of the Cambodian Prince Group” that “has developed a series of gambling software and put it on the Chinese network platform.”
The Prince Group is also accused of continuing to run the type of online casinos Hun Sen banned in 2019, the court documents suggest.
Chinese citizens are allowed to move only $50,000 out of the country each year. Those capital controls would stymie the efforts of anyone trying to run illicit online casinos, such as the Prince Group has been accused of doing.
The solution Prince is alleged to have arrived at, the Chinese courts found, was employing a vast network of individuals to ferry bank cards between China and Cambodia. In all, the task force identified 458 people who had allegedly moved money in this way for the Prince Group.
One such money mule, Guo Caina, was 28 when in March 2018 she was recruited from her hometown of Luoyang to work for Prince in Cambodia, according to the court judgment against her. Her job would be a mix of customer service and bookkeeping, she had been told. Once in Cambodia, Guo handed over four Chinese bank cards in her name in exchange for 1,000 yuan ($140) per card. She quit the company after one day and went back to China but was rebuffed when she asked to have her bank cards returned. By the end of April 2018 more than 140 million yuan ($19.5 million) in gambling funds had passed through her bank accounts, according to the judgment.
Guo pled guilty to being part of a conspiracy to open a casino. She was given a suspended sentence and fined 30,000 yuan ($4,200).
Chinese law enforcement is openly investigating the Prince Group, whose headquarters in Phnom Penh are seen in this undated photo. (Google Street View)
Guo’s case is far from unique. The court judgments reviewed by RFA are littered with mules like Guo being convicted for processing gambling funds, so the Chinese believe, on behalf of the Prince Group and Jinbei.
A July 2022announcement by the Wancang County Court in Sichuan province estimated the Prince Group’s illicit profits from gambling activities since 2016 at more than 5 billion yuan ($700 million).
Multiple attempts to reach Chen were unsuccessful, but Prince spokesman Tan told RFA that the company “categorically denies any involvement with Jinbei Group and the alleged online gambling operations.”
“The references to ‘Cambodia Prince Group’ in the Chinese court documents are likely the result of impersonation by criminal elements,” Tan wrote in an email, adding that the company is “aware of multiple instances where our company’s name has been misused by unauthorized entities, individuals and criminal elements.”
He similarly denied that the company had made use of Chinese employees’ bank cards to transfer online gambling funds, calling the allegations “completely unfounded with respect to the Prince Holding Group.” Jinbei could not be reached for comment.
Too connected to jail?
The prosecutions against Prince’s alleged money mules and betting agents are part of a wider war on gambling announced by the Chinese government in 2018. Beijing views online casinos as a national security threat, estimating gambling to be responsible for 1 trillion yuan ($145 billion) incapital flight each year.
In January 2023, a Macau court sentenced Alvin Chau, one of the island’s most successful gaming tycoons, to 18 years in prison on 162 charges, including heading an organized crime group, fraud and facilitating illegal online gambling.
In August, nine Chinese-born Cambodians were arrested in Singapore as part of the city state’s largest ever money-laundering investigation. Prosecutors accused them of operating illegal gambling websites targeting mainland China. Observers noted that the crackdown came one week after Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi visited Singapore, suggesting that Beijing might have been behind the charges – especially since several of the accused had outstanding arrest warrants in China.
The Prince Group may present a more complex challenge for Beijing. The Chinese police and judiciary appear intent on pursuing a case that Prince and its subsidiaries constitute a criminal group. But the names of Chen and other senior figures in the group – many of whom are his uncles and cousins – have been wholly absent from any Chinese court judgments.
Where they remain present, however, is in the political fabric of China’s most reliable regional ally.
When regional heads of state converged on Phnom Penh in November 2022 for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ biannual meeting, Hun Sen presented them with limited-edition luxury watches valued at $20,000 apiece. The face of each timepiece was emblazoned with the name of Chen’s Cambodian watchmaker, Prince Horology.
Cambodia’s then-Prime Minister Hun Sen shows one of the 25 limited-edition watches that were given as gifts after the ASEAN summit in Phnom Penh, Nov. 13, 2022. The watches bear the name of Chen Zhi’s Cambodian watchmaker, Prince Horology. (Cindy Liu/Reuters)
Further afield, in his role as Hun Sen’s personal adviser – a position he has held since 2020 – Chen has accompanied him on a diplomatic mission to Cuba and doled out aid on the government’s behalf to neighboring Laos. He is also a personal adviser to former National Assembly President Heng Samrin and former Interior Minister Sar Kheng. Shortly after Hun Manet became Cambodia’s first new prime minister in four decades, Chen was named one of his 104 advisers. Those ranks give him a rank equal to minister.
Any attempt to charge Chen directly, then, would necessarily implicate Cambodia’s top law enforcement official and embarrass both the former and current prime ministers. Beijing spent decades of diplomatic effort and billions of dollars turning the Hun dynasty into one of China’s most ardent friends.
Sok Eysan, a spokesman for the ruling Cambodian People’s Party, said he could not comment and referred RFA to Cambodian government spokesman Pen Bona, who did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Cambodian American academic Ear Sophal, who has authored books on Cambodia and China, told RFA it seems unlikely Chen will be heading to prison anytime soon.
“Clearly, someone’s untouchable,” Sophal said. “Is Chen Zhi trying to do something political in China? No. So it’s okay, it’s just money; his underlings will pay.”
Edited by Abby Seiff, Jim Snyder, Mat Pennington and Boer Deng.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Jack Adamović Davies and Mary Zhao for RFA Investigative.
Welcome back to the China In Eurasia Briefing, an RFE/RL newsletter tracking China’s resurgent influence from Eastern Europe to Central Asia.
I’m RFE/RL correspondent Reid Standish and here’s what I’m following right now.
As Huthi rebels continue their assault on commercial shipping in the Red Sea, the deepening crisis is posing a fresh test for China’s ambitions of becoming a power broker in the Middle East – and raising questions about whether Beijing can help bring the group to bay.
Finding Perspective: U.S. officials have been asking China to urge Tehran to rein in Iran-backed Huthis, but according to the Financial Times, American officials say that they have seen no signs of help.
Still, Washington keeps raising the issue. In weekend meetings with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Bangkok, U.S. national-security adviser Jake Sullivan again asked Beijing to use its “substantial leverage with Iran” to play a “constructive role” in stopping the attacks.
Reuters, citing Iranian officials, reported on January 26 that Beijing urged Tehran at recent meetings to pressure the Huthis or risk jeopardizing business cooperation with China in the future.
There are plenty of reasons to believe that China would want to bring the attacks to an end. The Huthis have disrupted global shipping, stoking fears of global inflation and even more instability in the Middle East.
This also hurts China’s bottom line. The attacks are raising transport costs and jeopardizing the tens of billions of dollars that China has invested in nearby Egyptian ports.
Why It Matters: The current crisis raises some complex questions for China’s ambitions in the Middle East.
If China decides to pressure Iran, it’s unknown how much influence Tehran actually has over Yemen’s Huthis. Iran backs the group and supplies them with weapons, but it’s unclear if they can actually control and rein them in, as U.S. officials are calling for.
But the bigger question might be whether this calculation looks the same from Beijing.
China might be reluctant to get too involved and squander its political capital with Iran on trying to get the Huthis to stop their attacks, especially after the group has announced that it won’t attack Chinese ships transiting the Red Sea.
Beijing is also unlikely to want to bring an end to something that’s hurting America’s interests arguably more than its own at the moment.
U.S. officials say they’ll continue to talk with China about helping restore trade in the Red Sea, but Beijing might decide that it has more to gain by simply stepping back.
Three More Stories From Eurasia
1. ‘New Historical Heights’ For China And Uzbekistan
Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoev made a landmark three-day visit to Beijing, where he met with Xi, engaged with Chinese business leaders, and left with an officially upgraded relationship as the Central Asian leader increasingly looks to China for his economic future.
The Details: As I reported here, Mirziyoev left Uzbekistan looking to usher in a new era and returned with upgraded diplomatic ties as an “all-weather” partner with China.
The move to elevate to an “all-weather comprehensive strategic partnership” from a “comprehensive strategic partnership” doesn’t come with any formal benefits, but it’s a clear sign from Mirziyoev and Xi on where they want to take the relationship between their two countries.
Before going to China for the January 23-25 trip, Mirziyoev signed a letter praising China’s progress in fighting poverty and saying he wanted to develop a “new long-term agenda” with Beijing that will last for “decades.”
Beyond the diplomatic upgrade, China said it was ready to expand cooperation with Uzbekistan across the new energy vehicle industry chain, as well as in major projects such as photovoltaics, wind power, and hydropower.
Xi and Mirzoyoev also spoke about the long-discussed China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway, with the Chinese leader saying that work should begin as soon as possible, athough no specifics were offered and there are reportedly still key disputes over how the megaproject will be financed.
2. The Taliban’s New Man In Beijing
In a move that could lay the groundwork for more diplomatic engagement with China, Xi received diplomatic credentials from the Taliban’s new ambassador in Beijing on January 25.
What You Need To Know: Mawlawi Asadullah Bilal Karimi was accepted as part of a ceremony that also received the credential letters of 42 new envoys. Karimi was named as the new ambassador to Beijing on November 24 but has now formally been received by Xi, which is another installment in the slow boil toward recognition that’s under way.
No country formally recognizes the Taliban administration in Afghanistan, but China – along with other countries such as Pakistan, Russia, and Turkmenistan – have appointed their own envoys to Kabul and have maintained steady diplomatic engagement with the group since it returned to power in August 2021.
Formal diplomatic recognition for the Taliban still looks to be far off, but this move highlights China’s strategy of de-facto recognition that could see other countries following its lead, paving the way for formal ties down the line.
3. China’s Tightrope With Iran and Pakistan
Air strikes and diplomatic sparring between Iran and Pakistan raised difficult questions for China and its influence in the region, as I reportedhere.
Both Islamabad and Tehran have since moved to mend fences, with their foreign ministers holding talks on January 29. But the incident put the spotlight on what China would do if two of its closest partners entered into conflict against one another.
What It Means: The tit-for-tat strikes hit militant groups operating in each other’s territory. After a tough exchange, both countries quickly cooled their rhetoric – culminating in the recent talks held in Islamabad.
And while Beijing has lots to lose in the event of a wider conflict between two of its allies, it appeared to remain quiet, with only a formal offer to mediate if needed.
Abdul Basit, an associate research fellow at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, told me this approach reflects how China “shies away from situations like this,” in part to protect its reputation in case it intervenes and then fails.
Michael Kugelman, the director of the Wilson Center’s South Asia Institute, added that, despite Beijing’s cautious approach, China has shown a willingness to mediate when opportunity strikes, pointing to the deal it helped broker between Iran and Saudi Arabia in March.
“It looks like the Pakistanis and the Iranians had enough in their relationship to ease tensions themselves,” he told me. “So [Beijing] might be relieved now, but that doesn’t mean they won’t step up if needed.”
Across The Supercontinent
China’s Odd Moment: What do the fall of the Soviet Union and China’s slowing economy have in common? The answer is more than you might think.
Listen to the latest episodeof the Talking China In Eurasia podcast, where we explore how China’s complicated relationship with the Soviet Union is shaping the country today.
Invite Sent. Now What? Ukraine has invited Xi to participate in a planned “peace summit” of world leaders in Switzerland, Reuters reported, in a gathering tied to the second anniversary of Russia’s invasion.
Blocked, But Why? China has suspended issuing visas to Lithuanian citizens. Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis confirmed the news and told Lithuanian journalists that “we have been informed about this. No further information has been provided.”
More Hydro Plans: Kyrgyzstan’s Ministry of Energy and the China National Electric Engineering Company signed a memorandum of cooperationon January 24 to build a cascade of power plants and a new thermal power plant.
One Thing To Watch
There’s no official word, but it’s looking like veteran diplomat Liu Jianchao is the leading contender to become China’s next foreign minister.
Wang Yi was reassigned to his old post after Qin Gang was abruptly removed as foreign minister last summer, and Wang is currently holding roles as both foreign minister and the more senior position of director of the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee Foreign Affairs Commission Office.
Liu has limited experience engaging with the West but served stints at the Communist Party’s anti-corruption watchdog and currently heads a party agency traditionally tasked with building ties with other communist states.
It also looks like he’s being groomed for the role. He recentlycompleted a U.S. tour, where he met with top officials and business leaders, and has also made visits to the Middle East.
That’s all from me for now. Don’t forget to send me any questions, comments, or tips that you might have.
Until next time,
Reid Standish
If you enjoyed this briefing and don’t want to miss the next edition, subscribe here. It will be sent to your inbox every other Wednesday.
Abuja, February 2, 2024—The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes Thursday’s release on bail of Nigerian journalist Saint Mienpamo Onitsha and calls for authorities to drop all charges against him and reform the country’s laws to ensure journalism is not criminalized.
“Saint Mienpamo Onitsha was detained for nearly four months simply for doing his job, which should never be considered a crime,” said CPJ Africa Head Angela Quintal in New York. “While we welcome Thursday’s release of Onitsha, we repeat our call for Nigerian authorities to swiftly drop all charges against him and reform the country’s laws to ensure journalists do not continue to be jailed for their reporting.”
In October 2023, police arrested Ontisha, founder of the privately owned online broadcaster NAIJA Live TV, and charged him with cyberstalking under section 24 of Nigeria’s Cybercrimes Act and defamation under the criminal code. The charge sheet cited a September report about tensions in the southern Niger Delta region.
On December 4, a court in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, heard Onitsha’s bail application and on January 25 the court granted him bail with a condition that he provides two sureties—persons willing to take responsibility for any court decisions made if Onitsha fails to meet bail obligations—with a bond of 10 million naira (US$8,372), according to copies of the court ruling, reviewed by CPJ, and Onitsha’s lawyer, Anande Terungwa, who spoke by phone with CPJ.
The court also ordered the residence of the sureties must be verified by the court registrar and that the sureties must submit documents proving they own a landed property in Abuja, as well as their recent passport photographs, according to those same sources.
Onitsha’s next court date is March 19. If convicted, he faces a 25 million naira (US$20,930) fine and/or up to 10 years in jail on the cyberstalking charges—as well as potential imprisonment for two years for charges of defamation and the publication of defamatory matter under the Criminal Code Act, according to Terungwa and a copy of the charge sheet reviewed by CPJ.
Terungwa told CPJ that the delay between Onitsha being granted bail on January 25 and his release on February 1 was due to a prolonged verification process among officials and prosecution lawyers on the conditions of Onitsha’s bail.
Onitsha appeared in CPJ’s 2023 prison census, which documented at least 67 journalists jailed across Africa as of December 1.
A pigeon, suspected of being used by China for espionage, has been released after eight months in police custody in Mumbai, according to local media reports.
The falsely-accused bird was released from the Bai Sakarbai Dinshaw Petit Hospital for Animals on Tuesday, said a police officer in India’s most populous city, as cited by the Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency on Wednesday. Its current whereabouts are unknown.
The pigeon was caught in May, 2023, at a port in the Chembur suburb of Mumbai with two rings tied to its legs featuring words that appeared to be Chinese, which led the police to suspect it was spying for China, PTI reported.
The bird was taken to the animal hospital for custody, until it emerged in January that it was actually an open-water racing pigeon from Taiwan, which had escaped and flown to India, according to the news agency.
This was not the first time a pigeon has been detained by the watchful Indian police force.
In March, 2023, two suspected spy pigeons were caught in the eastern Odisha state. The first one was found on a fishing boat with devices fitted on its leg which appear to be a camera and a microchip. The two birds are believed to still be under investigation.
Back in 2020, police in Indian-controlled Kashmir captured a bird that belonged to a Pakistani fisherman, but later found that it had simply flown across the border, admittedly without permission.
Before that, in 2016, another pigeon was captured after it was found with a note threatening Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Flying spies
Throughout history, pigeons have been used by the militaries in many countries for delivering messages and spying.
“Today, with all kinds of ways to intercept messages sent by electronic means, terrorists or enemies of a state can use ways that cannot be tapped, such as pigeons,” said Yusuf Unjhawala, an Indian defense analyst as well as a scholar at the Takshashila Institution in Bangalore
“The use of animals for military purposes is an old thing, from horses to elephants to pigeons,” said Unjhawala. “Dolphins can also be used to detect underwater mines.”
A Taiwanese defense expert, Shen Ming-Shih from the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, said racing pigeons have gained such popularity that raising them has become an industry in Taiwan.
“Taiwan also uses racing pigeons to send intelligence or deliver messages, despite the advancement of various communication technologies,” Shen told Radio Free Asia.
Edited by Taejun Kang and Elaine Chan.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Staff.
KYIV — Ukrainian officials on January 27 said Russia had intensified attacks in the past 24 hours, with a commander saying the sides had battled through “50 combat clashes” in the past day near Ukraine’s Tavria region.
Meanwhile, Kyiv and Moscow continued to dispute the circumstances surrounding the January 24 crash of a Russian military transport plane that the Kremlin claimed was carrying Ukrainian prisoners of war.
Kyiv said it has no proof POWs were aboard and has not confirmed its forces shot down the plane.
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General Oleksandr Tarnavskiy, the Ukrainian commander in the Tavria zone in the Zaporizhzhya region, said Russian forces had “significantly increased” the number of offensive and assault operations over the past two days.
“For the second day in a row, the enemy has conducted 50 combat clashes daily,” he wrote on Telegram.
“Also, the enemy has carried out 100 air strikes in the operational zone of the Tavria Joint Task Force within seven days,” he said, adding that 230 Russian-launched drones had been “neutralized or destroyed” over the past day in the area.
Battlefield claims on either side cannot immediately be confirmed.
Earlier, the Ukrainian military said 98 combat clashes took place between Ukrainian troops and the invading Russian army over the past 24 hours.
“There are dead and wounded among the civilian populations,” the Ukrianian military’s General Staff said in its daily update, but did not provide further details about the casualties.
According to the General Staff, Russian forces launched eight missile and four air strikes, and carried out 78 attacks from rocket-salvo systems on Ukrainian troop positions and populated areas. Iranian-made Shahed drones and Iskander ballistic missiles were used in the attacks, it said.
A number of “high-rise residential buildings, schools, kindergartens, a shopping center, and other civilian infrastructure were destroyed or damaged” in the latest Russian strikes, the bulletin said.
“More than 120 settlements came under artillery fire in the Chernihiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhya, Dnipropetrovsk, Kherson, and Mykolayiv regions,” according to the daily update.
The General Staff also reported that Ukrainian defenders repelled dozens of Russian assaults in eight directions, including Avdiyivka, Bakhmut, Maryinka, and Kupyansk in the eastern Donetsk region.
Meanwhile, Kyrylo Budanov, chief of Ukrainian military intelligence, said it remained unclear what happened in the crash of the Russian Il-76 that the Kremlin claimed was carrying 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war who were killed along with nine crew members.
The Kremlin said the military transport plane was shot down by a Ukrainian missile despite the fact that Russian forces had alerted Kyiv to the flight’s path.
Ukrainian military intelligence spokesman Andriy Yusov told RFE/RL that it had not received either a written or verbal request to secure the airspace where the plane went down.
The situation with the crash of the aircraft “is not yet fully understood,” Budanov said.
“It is necessary to determine what happened – unfortunately, neither side can fully answer that yet.”
Russia “of course, has taken the position of blaming Ukraine for everything, despite the fact that there are a number of facts that are inconsistent with such a position,” he added.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has insisted Ukraine shot down the plane and said an investigation was being carried out, with a report to be made in the upcoming days.
In Kyiv, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy announced the creation of a second body to assist businesses in the war-torn country.
Speaking in his nightly video address late on January 26, Zelenskiy said the All-Ukraine Economic Platform would help businesses overcome the challenges posed by Russia’s nearly two-year-old invasion.
On January 23, Zelenskiy announced the formation of a Council for the Support of Entrepreneurship, which he said sought to strengthen the country’s economy and clarify issues related to law enforcement agencies. Decrees creating both bodies were published on January 26.
Ukraine’s economy has collapsed in many sectors since Russia invaded the country in February 2022. Kyiv heavily relies on international aid from its Western partnes.
The Voice of America reported that the United States vowed to promote at the international level a peace formula put forward by Zelenskiy.
VOA quoted White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby as saying that Washington “is committed to the policy of supporting initiatives emanating from the leadership of Ukraine.”
Zelenskiy last year presented his 10-point peace formula that includes the withdrawal of Russian forces and the restoration of Ukrainian territorial integrity, among other things.
Ukraine and Russia have contradicted each other over whether there had been proper notification to secure the airspace around an area where a military transport plane Moscow says was carrying 65 Ukrainian POWs crashed, killing them and nine others on board.
Russian lawmaker Andrei Kartapolov told deputies in Moscow on January 25 that Ukrainian military intelligence had been given a 15-minute warning before the Ilyushin Il-76 military transport plane entered the Belgorod region in Russia, near the border with Ukraine, and that Russia had received confirmation the message was received.
Kartapolov did not provide any evidence to back up his claim and Ukrainian military intelligence spokesman Andriy Yusov reiterated in comments to RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service that it had not received either a written or verbal request to secure the airspace where the plane went down.
Yusov said Ukraine had been using reconnaissance drones in the area and that Russia had launched attack drones. There was “no confirmed information” that Ukraine had hit any targets, he said.
“Unfortunately, we can assume various scenarios, including provocation, as well as the use of Ukrainian prisoners as a human shield for transporting ammunition and weapons for S-300 systems,” he told RFE/RL.
Live Briefing: Russia’s Invasion Of Ukraine
RFE/RL’s Live Briefinggives you all of the latest developments on Russia’s full-scale invasion, Kyiv’s counteroffensive, Western military aid, global reaction, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL’s coverage of the war in Ukraine, click here.
There has been no direct confirmation from Kyiv on Russian claims that the plane had Ukrainian POWs on board or that the aircraft was downed by a Ukrainian antiaircraft missile.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has called for an international investigation of the incident, and Yusov reiterated that call, as “there are many circumstances that require investigation and maximum study.”
The RIA Novosti news agency on January 25 reported that both black boxes had been recovered from the wreckage site in Russia’s Belgorod region near the border with Ukraine.
The Investigative Committee said it had opened a criminal case into what it said was a “terrorist attack.” The press service of the Investigative Committee said in a news release that preliminary data of the inspection of the scene of the incident, “allow us to conclude that the aircraft was attacked by an antiaircraft missile from the territory of Ukraine.”
The Investigative Committee said that “fragmented human remains” were found at the crash site, repeating that six crew members, military police officers, and Ukrainian POWs were on board the plane.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on January 25 called the downing of the Ilyushin Il-76 military transport plane a “monstrous act,” though Moscow has yet to show any evidence that it was downed by a Ukrainian missile, or that there were Ukrainian prisoners on board.
While not saying who shot down the plane, Zelenskiy said that “all clear facts must be established…our state will insist on an international investigation.”
Ukrainian officials have said that a prisoner exchange was to have taken place on January 24 and that Russia had not informed Ukraine that Ukrainian POWs would be flown on cargo planes.
Ukrainian military intelligence said it did not have “reliable and comprehensive information” on who was on board the flight but said the Russian POWs it was responsible for “were delivered in time to the conditional exchange point where they were safe.”
Dmytro Lubinets, Ukraine’s commissioner for human rights, said in a post on X, formerly Twitter, that “currently, there are no signs of the fact that there were so many people on the Il-76 plane, be they citizens of Ukraine or not.”
Aviation experts told RFE/RL that it was possible a Ukrainian antiaircraft missile downed the plane but added that a Russian antiaircraft could have been responsible.
“During the investigation, you can easily determine which system shot down the plane based on the missiles’ damaging elements,” said Roman Svitan, a Ukrainian reserve colonel and an aviation-instructor pilot.
When asked about Russian claims of dozens of POWs on board, Svitan said that from the footage released so far, he’d seen no evidence to back up the statements.
“From the footage that was there, I looked through it all, it’s not clear where there are dozens of bodies…. There’s not a single body visible at all. At one time I was a military investigator, including investigating disasters; believe me, if there were seven or eight dozen people there, the field would be strewn with corpses and remains of bodies,” Svitan added.
Russian officials said the plane was carrying 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war, six crew members, and three escorts.
A list of the six crew members who were supposed to be on the flight was obtained by RFE/RL. The deaths of three of the crew members were confirmed to RFE/RL by their relatives.
Video on social media showed a plane spiraling to the ground, followed by a loud bang and explosion that sent a ball of smoke and flames skyward.
Intense battles between junta troops, the Kachin Independence Army and joint People’s Defense Forces have killed 40 civilians, locals told Radio Free Asia on Wednesday.
Fighting in northern Myanmar has surged for four days as allied resistance forces and junta troops fight for control over Shan state’s Mongmit city. Junta airstrikes and heavy weapons are responsible for civilian deaths, residents who witnessed battles said.
Fighting began last Thursday, when the Kachin Independence Army captured Mongmit Police Station and junta camps in the city, and ended on Sunday. The military retaliated with heavy arms and indiscriminate airstrikes, burning Mongmit market and causing high civilian casualties, locals said.
Most victims were from the southern neighborhoods of Mongmit, said one resident who wished to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals.
“We can’t say the number of the people who died in the neighborhood yet. For sure, the southern neighborhood has the most deaths, including Let Hkoke Tan and Haw Nan,” he said. “I can estimate that there are almost 40 dead and they all are civilians.”
One local who fled the city on Saturday told RFA he witnessed the deaths of civilians and junta soldiers while fighting raged in the city center. He has since seen casualty lists circulated.
“I saw four dead civilians. I can confirm that one military officer and about seven junta soldiers were dead when we left the city,” he said, asking to remain anonymous to protect his identity. “I don’t know the current situation of the city because the phone lines are down now.”
At least 10 people were injured and are being treated at nearby village clinics, he added.
Continuous aerial attacks and shelling damaged and destroyed houses downtown and in the city’s south, locals said, adding that homes near the police station were burned down.
About 150 shops in the market caught fire and several monasteries were also damaged by heavy artillery, according to residents.
Calls to Shan state’s junta spokesperson Khun Thein Maung and national spokesperson Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun by RFA to learn more went unanswered Wednesday.
Kachin Independence Army spokesperson Col. Naw Bu said he could not confirm details about the battles due to phone line outages in the area. Telecommunication and internet access have been cut off in Mongmit city where fighting occurred. More than 10,000 people have fled the city, residents said.
Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Burmese.
A well-known Vietnamese human rights lawyer and his family have arrived in the United States a year after they were stopped by police from boarding a flight to New York.
Vo An Don landed at Washington’s Dulles International Airport on Thursday with his wife and three children. He told Radio Free Asia that they were able to leave Vietnam without any obstacles.
“Arriving in a country of freedom made me very happy,” he said. “Everything went very well as the International Organization for Migration supported and created favorable conditions for us.”
Don represented defendants in high-profile, politically sensitive cases, including blogger Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh, also known as Mother Mushroom, who was sentenced to 10 years in prison in June 2017 for “spreading propaganda against the state.”
Last year, he told RFA that he and his family had decided to seek asylum in the United States because they were suffering harassment by authorities in his home province of Phu Yen and economic hardship since he could no longer work as a lawyer.
The Washington-based International Organization for Migration secured funding for the family’s airfare, but authorities at Tan Son Nhat Airport in Ho Chi Minh City wouldn’t allow them to board their flight in September 2022.
Airport police told him he would need to contact immigration authorities in Phu Yen for an explanation of why he was barred from traveling overseas.
U.S. President Joe Biden’s visit last month to Hanoi paved the way for police to allow him to travel, Don posted on Facebook. Just before Biden arrived, police advised Don that the exit ban on him and his family had been lifted, he wrote.
“The truth is they wanted me to stay in Vietnam as a hostage for negotiations with the U.S. until they got what they wanted,” he wrote. “Then they let me go as a human rights gift.”
‘Traded like a type of good’
A decade ago, Don represented the wife of a criminal suspect who was beaten to death by police in 2012. He also defended four Vietnamese citizens who were jailed in 2017 after sailing to Australia in search of work.
In 2017, he was stripped of his license to practice law after he posted a comment on Facebook that said lawyers in Vietnam regularly use payoffs to win cases for their clients.
On Thursday, Don and his family flew to Charlotte, North Carolina, after arriving at Dulles. They were scheduled to board another flight to Fayetteville, Arkansas, their final destination.
On Facebook, Don cited Vietnam’s Constitution, which says “citizens have the right to freedom of movement and residence inside and outside the country without any obstruction.”
Instead, authorities treat people in Vietnam “like dirt,” he wrote.
“They’re bullied and oppressed, and when they want to leave the country, they are traded like a type of good,” he wrote. “I am a human, not a pet for them to give visitors as a gift.”
Translated by Anna Vu. Edited by Matt Reed.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Vietnamese.
