China warned India on Friday against interfering in Tibet-related matters after an Indian minister supported the Dalai Lama’s statement that his successor should be chosen by a Tibetan nonprofit group, rejecting moves by China to steer his succession.
Video: China warns India against interfering in Tibet-related matters
“No one has the right to interfere or decide who the successor of His Holiness the Dalai Lama will be,” said Kiren Rijiju, India’s minister for minority affairs.
China’s foreign ministry urged India to be prudent in its words and actions.
“We hope the Indian side will fully understand the highly sensitive nature of Tibet-related issues, recognize the anti-China separatist nature of the 14th Dalai Lama,” said spokesperson Mao Ning.
India’s foreign ministry later on Friday released a statement on its website saying, “Government of India does not take any position or speak on matters concerning beliefs and practices of faith and religion.”
Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama meets with religious leaders at the end of a three-day conference in Dharamsala, India, July 4, 2025.(OHHDL)
The Dalai Lama, who fled to India in 1959, stated on Wednesday that upon his death, he would be reincarnated as the next spiritual leader and that only the Gaden Phodrang Trust would be authorized to identify his successor.
Beijing maintains it has the right to approve the Dalai Lama’s successor.
The Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) said in a statement: “The process of reincarnation for Tibetan Buddhists is a sacred tradition. Any attempt by the CCP to interfere in this spiritual matter is an unacceptable violation of religious liberty and must be swiftly condemned by the international community.”
Penpa Tsering, president of the Tibetan government in exile, spoke to reporters in Dharamsala at the end of the three-day conference of Tibetan religious leaders, where the Dalai Lama affirmed his succession plans.
“If China tries to use this in any way, in any means, we will not recognize it. In the future also we will not accept any of China’s choices.”
Reporting by Dawa Dolma and Tenzin Woser in Dharamsala; additional reporting from Reuters; edited by Charlie Dharapak
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Staff.
The Global South-led organization BRICS continues to expand.
While the United States and Israel were busy waging war on Iran in June, BRICS quietly announced that Vietnam had accepted the group’s invitation to join as a partner country.
With the addition of Vietnam, the extended BRICS+ has 20 members and partners, as of July 2025.
The 10 BRICS members are Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates.
The 10 BRICS partners are Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Nigeria, Thailand, Uganda, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam.
US Senator Tom Cotton recently published a book titled Seven Things You Can’t Say About China. I decided to put myself through the aggravated torture of reading it, just to see what he had to say, and now mourn hours of life that I’ll never get back.
Simply put, the book’s existence is a crime against quality academic literature.
I had no expectations of strong, intellectual debate, because Cotton isn’t known for backing any of his claims with evidence (it only took me one page in to find that admittance: “I used simple common sense, not scientific knowledge or classified intelligence”), so I wasn’t disappointed by his complete lack of depth and historical accuracy.
More than anything, I was impressed that such an absurd, conspiratorial text could reach a publisher’s desk and be checked off on. It’s really not a book at all—it’s a manifesto of paranoia. The kind you expect to find written in messy, hand-scrawled letters and hidden beneath the desk of a serial killer whose crimes you are trying to piece together.
Well, Cotton’s crimes are many. This book is just one more venture in his career, full of asking, I wonder how much I can get away with?
While Tom Cotton has always been one of war’s #1 fans, his favorite of all is one still yet to happen—the one he’s trying to justify in his book. His “brave truth-telling” is nothing less than imperialist propaganda feverishly trying to manufacture an enemy and send us headlong into that war.
He starts by trying to convince us that China is the manifestation of all evil and wrongdoing, the harbinger of doom, and the pioneer of global villainy:
“China is waging economic world war.”
“Communist China is the focus of evil in the modern world.”
“China is coming for our children.”
As bewildering as these statements are, what stood out to me the most is that Tom Cotton has clearly never studied China in any real capacity. I can’t forgive him for his ignorance, because it’s undoubtedly followed closely by deep, soul-crushing racism, but I can teach him a few things he never learned in military boot camp.
Tom Cotton, here are seven things you need to learn about China.
1. China’s rise has nothing to do with the US.
Tom Cotton situates everything China has done over the past century as a calculated maneuver to outwit and conquer the United States. It’s a classic case of main-characterism, in which a subject assumes everyone’s actions revolve entirely around them.
The truth is, China’s rise has nothing to do with the US. Really, it’s none of our business. China developed because the modern era called for it. China sought economic prosperity because it had 1.4 billion citizens to provide for. China became powerful because that’s a side effect of having one of the largest economies in the world.
China’s success is its own achievement. The fact that the US considers another country’s growing prosperity to be a direct threat against it says far more about the US. Instead of buying into the existential threat narratives, we need to ask why they exist.
Why is China’s economic prosperity so terrifying to the Washington elite? Well, Tom Cotton says it loud and clear:
“Most of us take American global dominance for granted, without thinking much about it; since at least World War I, that’s just the way it’s been. World trade is conducted in dollars. English is the unofficial global language of business and politics. (…) For more than a century, Americans have reaped enormous economic and security benefits from this state of affairs.”
How dare another country become prosperous despite decades of foreign occupation, intervention, and coercion meant to reaffirm global inequality and protect US dominance?
2. China is 5,000 years old.
In 1949, when the PRC was established under the Communist Party, the US proclaimed that it had “lost China.”
Let’s get this straight: a 175-year-old country was proclaiming to have “lost” a 5,000-year-old civilization state. Isn’t that absurd? China was never ours to have or to lose, or to do anything with at all.
At the time, the US government even considered preemptively striking China to ensure it never obtained nuclear weapons. Those considerations never disappeared entirely.
We really have to consider the differences between the two states with vastly opposing backgrounds, because you can’t understand China through a Western lens. The US is a relatively young nation born out of settler colonization and genocide of the native people. Our wealth was amassed through resource extraction, exploitation, and slavery. What precedent does that set? In comparison, China has undergone thousands of years of dynastic empires rising and falling. It has a strong cultural continuity and shared historical experience that informs how it conducts itself in the global theater. Its wealth was amassed internally, not through imperialist behavior or the exploitation of another. It’s an ancient civilization with deep roots, and a unique vision of the world informed by a long philosophical tradition and an anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist framework.
Additionally, China was one of the world’s largest economies for over 2,000 years, accounting for around 25-30% of global GDP. It wasn’t until the colonial period of the 1800s that colonial violence and occupation by Japan and the British Empire drove China into poverty. In the 1970s, it was one of the world’s poorest nations. The fact that China was able to return to its former prosperity despite decades of foreign intervention is nothing less than a miracle.
Tom Cotton has no understanding of these complexities. He sees China through the narrow, ultra-patriotic, super-imperialist, America-is-the-center-of-the-world-and-nobody-else-matters mindset. It doesn’t work, and it comes off incredibly cliche and small-minded.
3. You have to travel to China to understand China.
Which Cotton can’t do because he’s sanctioned from visiting. I really can’t blame China at all for that. I wouldn’t want Tom Cotton in my country either.
Regardless, I know this to be true: you have to see China for yourself to develop any real understanding of it. The fact that Tom Cotton has never been to China and will never go only proves that he has absolutely no authority, and never will, over writing a book about China’s actions and intentions.
It should be a prerequisite for any individual with any degree of political power to spend time in the country they claim to know so much about. They should be required to visit cities and towns, to learn the country’s version of its history, and to talk with local people about their unique perspectives.
Tom Cotton has not, will not, and therefore, his opinion should not be accepted or respected.
4. China does NOT want his kids.
In Chapter 6, Tom Cotton says, “China is coming for our kids.” It’s a bold statement, and he doesn’t give us much follow-up to reinforce such extremism. You’d expect something a bit more villainous, like a government-backed kidnapping ring or 5G mind control. But alas, what Cotton refers to is the growing prevalence of the social media app TikTok.
TikTok, he says, is a Chinese plot to take over the minds of the American youth.
You may recall Cotton’s viral moment when he repeatedly asked Singaporean TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew if he was Chinese. The conversation went like this:
“Of what nation are you a citizen?”
“Singapore, sir.”
“Are you a citizen of any other nation?”
“No senator.”
“Have you ever applied for Chinese citizenship?”
“Senator, I served my nation in Singapore. No, I did not.”
“Do you have a Singaporean passport?
“Yes, and I served my military for two and a half years in Singapore.”
“Do you have any other passports from any other nations?”
“No senator.”
“Have you ever been a member of the Chinese Communist Party?”
“Senator, I’m Singaporean. No.”
“Have you ever been associated or affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party?”
“No, Senator. Again, I’m Singaporean!”
It goes without saying that the TikTok ban was dead in the water until pro-Palestinian content began proliferating. According to Congressman Mike Gallagher, “The bill was still dead until October 7th. And people started to see a bunch of antisemitic content on the platform, and our bill had legs again.”
In truth, the TikTok ban was never about China, but about shielding young minds from learning about Israel’s atrocities against the Palestinian people and the ongoing complicity of the United States. The ban now walks hand in hand with the new education reforms that seek to dispose of “anti-patriotic” fields of study like critical race theory and threatens open discussion about the genocide in Gaza by automatically deeming it antisemitic. Yes, we are watching radical censorship in action.
Anyway, Tom Cotton, China is not coming for your kids or anyone else’s, and making that claim without evidence is lazy and hysterical. This type of rhetoric serves one purpose only: to fuel fear and drive war.
5. China didn’t ruin our economy—we did.
It’s a real irony that those with all the power and money never take responsibility for their failings, but blame everyone else. And a lot of the time, people don’t see it. For instance, the elites who have crippled the US economy continue to point their fingers at those with no power at all—the impoverished, the starving, the homeless, the immigrants—and scream, it’s their fault! They did it! And the general populace turns on them with all the blame and rage of their wearisome existence. But who are the ones making all the decisions? Hoarding all the wealth? Throwing out tax breaks to billionaire friends and cutting the few life-saving programs that help regular folks get off the ground?
It’s the elites. The politicians. The CEOs.
We can’t blame China for developing. That’s its responsibility to its people. They didn’t steal our jobs. The thievery happened at home, on US soil, right under our noses. The corporate elite decided to take advantage of global inequality and save a few extra bucks by exporting industries abroad, where they could take advantage of cheap labor and exploit the resources of poorer nations.
Tom Cotton spends quite a lot of time talking about China’s “economic world war.” First of all, using war language to describe economic competition sets a dangerous precedent. Competition is natural within our economic systems, and shouting “war! “ when the US isn’t constantly on top is militant imperialist behavior (Sidenote: we must rid ourselves of the notion that there are limited resources and limited wealth. There’s plenty for everyone—the problem is the majority of wealth is hoarded by 1% of the global population.)
And secondly, I can’t help but wonder at the flips and tricks the human mind must do to accuse another nation of such an action, when the US has forever used sanctions, tariffs, and economic coercion as weapons to hurt and topple other nations, to corner them into loans and structural adjustments, and to strangulate, pressure, and punish. It makes Cotton’s particularly brief section on “economic imperialism” sound even more ridiculous.
6. China is more logical than Cotton will ever be.
My favorite section of Tom Cotton’s book began with the title, “Green is the new red.” I know it’s meant to be scary, but it reads more like one of those comedy-horrors that make you cringe, but you just can’t look away. I was particularly impressed with the impossible flexibility it takes to convince people a country is evil because it’s invested so much in… renewable energy!
Terrifying!
The mental gymnastics of this section might just be Cotton’s greatest feat ever.
One thing is for certain. There’s no logic to be found here. But there’s also no logic to be found in much of the US policy on climate change. If I had to put a symbol to it, I’d choose an ostrich sticking its head in the ground—if you don’t look, it’s not there!
Tom Cotton laments that as a result of heavy investment in solar panels, “China has devastated yet another American industry.” Those poor corporations. Those poor CEOs. How will they fare without their megayachts while the world burns?
It is an unfortunate side effect of capitalism that our system prioritizes wealth over protecting the planet. It’s a fortunate side effect of China’s socialist characteristics that they don’t. As Brazilian activist Chico Mendes said, “Environmentalism without class struggle is just gardening.”
7. China doesn’t want to go to war.
We can’t define China by what-ifs. What if China wants to conquer the Pacific? What if China invades Poland? What if China hacks into my coffee pot and deciphers my favorite brew? What if what if what if? It’s nonsensical. We can only define China by what it’s said and what it’s done.
If there’s one thing Tom Cotton needs to learn, it’s that China has no desire for war. Literally none. China has not been involved in any overseas conflict for fifty years. Compare that to the 251 foreign military interventions the US has conducted since just 1991. Really, just think about that. Don’t you think that if China had hegemonic ambitions, it would build a foreign military base in every country… or multiple? Or maybe over 900+ like the US? But no, China has just one in Djibouti. Tom Cotton thinks that the Djibouti base is suspicious and signals China’s malign ambitions. In reality, many nations have a military presence there to prevent piracy and smuggling in one of the world’s most crucial shipping lanes, the US included. Clearly, Tom Cotton lives in a different reality of his own paranoid design.
Additionally, Chinese officials have repeated—over and over and over—that they have no desire for war. I think we can take them at their word, considering their lack of war historically, and their foundational policy of “peaceful coexistence.” In Cotton’s entire book, he never once refers to China’s foreign policy principles that guide every decision made. Chinese officials have never talked about a world in which China “dominates” other countries. They have only ever talked about visions of a world built on mutual respect, sovereignty, non-aggression, non-interference, cooperation, and peaceful coexistence.
Tom Cotton needs to do some more reading on Chinese political theory, but it seems like he spends most of his learning hours thinking about war: “As a senator, I regularly review war games between China and the United States—exercises where military experts play out what would happen in a war between the two nations. I’ve never seen happy results.”
You don’t need a war game to tell you that the results of war would be unhappy. Anyone could tell you that. I’m sure if Tom Cotton thought hard enough, he could even come up with that prediction all on his own.
And war between the US and China wouldn’t just be unhappy, it would be devastating. Which is why our Congress members should be doing everything they can to prevent it, not ramping up the possibility by writing tedious, hysterical conspiracies about the evilness of other nations and the inevitability of conflict.
Tom Cotton has a lot to learn about China, a lot more to learn about being a good politician, and the absolute most to learn about being a good person. But he can start with learning about China and switching his political tools to fostering dialogue, cooperation, and understanding, rather than the war-driving dribble he regularly spews.
Unfortunately, the book was published. So if you see it at your local bookstore, do us all a favor and move it to the fantasy section, where it belongs. Or, if you’re feeling extra whimsical, you can add some Tom Cotton war criminal bookmarks to surprise the next person who picks it up. Meanwhile, we’ll be putting publisher HarperCollins on notice that it needs a much better fact-checking department.
The United States has lifted restrictions on exports to China for chip design software developers and ethane producers, a further sign of de-escalating US-Sino trade tensions including concessions from Beijing over rare earths. Synopsys, Cadence Design Systems and Siemens, three of the world’s largest electronic design automation (EDA) software developers, said on Wednesday (Thursday AEST)…
An 8th grader from Hunan province was “extremely stressed” — for good reason. His top-ranking middle school demanded he study 85 hours a week, with just two days off a month. “Teachers threatened us that if we reported it, we would be expelled from school,” the student wrote.
His story and more than 4,000 like it have been submitted anonymously to a crowd-sourcing website that is shining a light on overworked Chinese students who are nervous about speaking about their plight to authorities.
Students study in the evening ahead of the annual national college entrance examination at a high school in Handan, Hebei province, China May 23, 2018.(China Stringer Network via Reuters)
The site is called 611Study.ICU. The creator says that is a dark reference to the brutal schedule common at Chinese middle and high schools: classes from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. which leaves students “sick in ICU” – or “intensive care unit.”
And while it’s not state-sanctioned, the site appears to be having an impact. Within two months of its launch, many Chinese schools have announced a return to regular class schedules.
611Study.ICU is the brainchild of an exiled Chinese pro-democracy activist, Li Ying, better known by his handle on the social media platform X, “Teacher Li is not your teacher.”
Li, 32, is a former artist turned dissident influencer. He has become one of the most prominent voices challenging Beijing’s censorship. He’s best known for reposting online content that is too sensitive for China’s social media platforms, such as public protests.
The X account of @whyyoutouzhele, also known as ‘Mr Li is not your teacher.’(RFA)
Li innovates not just in promoting the free flow of information but also in funding it. In December 2024, he launched a meme coin, or form of cryptocurrency, called $Li. With the proceeds from coin sales, Li says he wants to build a decentralized youth community that promotes democracy, free speech and positive change in China.
The $Li community has also focused on the plight of China’s overworked labor force, but the biggest impact to date has been with 611Study.ICU.
Climb over the firewall
Li said he did not expect so many Chinese students to be willing to “climb over the firewall” and report to him on X, which is banned in China. Mainlanders need to use virtual private networks, or VPNs, to access and comment on his posts.
Li, who is based in Italy, has more than 2 million followers on X and is one of the most influential young Chinese dissidents overseas. During the pandemic, when many citizens chafed against authorities’ ‘zero’ tolerance of social interactions, people sent him videos and photos of protests against Chinese policies.
A high school teacher helps a student ahead of the college entrance examinations in China’s northern Hebei province, May 23, 2018.(AFP)
At first, he reposted them on Chinese microblogging platform Weibo, but after his Weibo accounts were deleted by Chinese authorities multiple times, Li migrated to X. Since then, he’s served as a hub for sensitive news about China, putting him firmly in the crosshairs of Beijing.
Li recounted to Radio Free Asia his epiphany in how he could help publicize the concerns of citizens that go unaddressed by authorities.
He received a video showing petitioners lining up outside the State Bureau for Letters and Calls in Beijing at midnight, where they hoped to submit their grievances when the office opened the next day. He said he was struck by how difficult and exhausting the petitioners’ journey must have been.
“Many people jokingly say that petitioning inside China doesn’t solve their problems, and it’s only after I post about them that things actually get resolved,” Li said.
Parents wait near a school during the first day of China’s national college entrance examinations in Beijing, June 7, 2023.(Andy Wong/AP)
This inspired him and his team to develop the concept of a “China Overseas Petition Bureau” — a virtual platform where people wouldn’t have to queue, and one that operated beyond the reach of China’s censorship. The goal was to present Chinese citizens’ appeals in full, without filters or restrictions.
In January, after receiving several messages from high schoolers complaining that they were being forced to return to school too soon after the winter break and were feeling overwhelmed — Li decided to first apply the “China Overseas Petition Bureau” concept to students, which led to 611Study.ICU.
People can anonymously fill out data through the website, including daily and weekly school hours, days off each month, reports of suicides, and other information about their school – such as extra costs for after-hours classes. These submissions are then reviewed multiple times by content moderators who flag suspicious entries.
Data entered by users of the 611Study.ICU website.(RFA Mandarin)
The website also provides data analysis based on the submissions. It shows that 56% of students reported spending 60 to 100 hours at school per week, and 35% reported studying more than 100 hours per week. Sixty percent reported that their classes start before 8 a.m., which violates regulations from the Chinese Education Bureau that prohibit middle and high schools from starting classes before 8 a.m.
On Feb. 1, shortly after 611Study.ICU went online, information began to circulate on Chinese social media platforms indicating that schools listed on the site were delaying the start of the spring semester.
In mid-March, Li posted two photos on his X account that purportedly showed Beihai middle school principal Wang Jiangang publicly denouncing him during a school assembly. In a message on a large screen, Wang alleged that students unwilling to study were “being brainwashed into feeding information” to Li. The school had restored a two-day weekend after winter break, and according to the message, the principal said this was due to the impact from Li.
High school students go through exam papers ahead of the National College Entrance Examination in China’s northern Hebei province, May 17, 2023.(AFP)
Li’s opponents downplay his impact in this instance and say the photos of the school principal’s message were doctored. They also say that education bureaus across China already had plans to reduce students’ workload, and that the emergence of 611Study.ICU around the same time was just a coincidence.
Alang, a staff member of 611Study.ICU who is being identified by a pseudonym for security reasons, disputed that version of events – as do other supporters of Li, who hope that ordinary citizens might be able to push the Chinese government to make policy changes through collective action.
“I’m not saying the two-day weekend policy was entirely pushed by Li,” Alang told RFA. “But I do think Teacher Li played a certain role in it.”
Breaking through China’s information blockade
611Study.ICU team includes a dozen young Mandarin speakers scattered across the globe, including in mainland China.
The project coordinator, identified using the pseudonym Jiangbu due to safety concerns, knows only the time zones and internet identities of the interviewees. To ensure team safety, applicants must pass security tests, including proficiency in using Telegram groups and in using two-factor authentication for their email accounts.
Students throw out used exam papers and other study materials at a pressure release activity before the upcoming China college entrance exam at a high school in Fujian province on May 20, 2016. (China Stringer Network via Reuters)
Raised in Hong Kong, Alang, a design college student responsible for creating graphics for 611Study.ICU, was always curious when his relatives in mainland China talked about the intense academic pressure there. Alang says his family members remain unaware of his association with Li.
Despite security measures, Jiangbu revealed that some team members, including himself, have had their identities exposed. Their parents in China were questioned by authorities in China, who labeled them as “foreign anti-China forces.”
According to Li, the 611Study.ICU website faced serious cyber attacks in May, with “dozens of AI-generated deepfake submissions flooding the site every second.”
Despite the intense pressures, the team members said they’re committed to what they are doing and to combating what Jiang calls “this greatest and most authoritarian empire.”
“Everyone knows about the problem of overtime studying in China,” a staff member using the pseudonym Aaron Zhang for security reasons said. “But there was no way to understand how severe it really is, or its regional distribution.”
Students study in their classrooms at night at a school in China’s eastern Jiangsu province on May 31, 2017.(AFP)
For Zhang, the far-reaching significance of the ICU project lies in overcoming China’s control of official data, to which the public has gradually lost access. At the same time, the Chinese government has tightened restrictions on third-party data providers working with foreign entities. Researchers warn that these moves will make it increasingly challenging for companies, governments and academics to assess China’s future developments in key sectors.
Li’s projects attempt to overcome the information blockade by prompting citizens to submit data voluntarily, although there is a downside. When data is submitted anonymously it’s hard to verify its authenticity.
Not long after the overworking student project took off, Li and his team launched another initiative: Niuma.ICU, a crowdsourcing project targeting workplace overtime in China.
At the time of publication, it has collected data from 4,962 entities across China, including responses from state-owned enterprises and government departments. The statistics show that 79% of respondent entities work six to seven days a week. Nearly 40% reported working more than 12 hours per day.
In a flagging Chinese economy, Niuma.ICU has not created the kind of stir that 611Study.ICU has. Li attributes that to the benefit that the government derives from the status quo where few workers enjoy a two-day weekend.
“The more intensely factories exploit workers, the more profit the [Chinese] government can extract from it,” he said.
Edited by Mat Pennington.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Baili Liu for RFA Mandarin.
DHARAMSALA, India — The Dalai Lama on Wednesday affirmed that he should have a successor and said the next Dalai Lama should be chosen by the Gaden Phodrang Trust, a non-profit group that he set up — rejecting moves by China to steer his succession.
The decision, he said in a statement that he read aloud during the opening day of a three-day conference of spiritual leaders in Dharamsala, came after years of appeals from Tibetan religious and secular leaders, as well as people and organizations from around the world.
“In particular, I have received messages through various channels from Tibetans in Tibet making the same appeal,” he said. “In accordance with all these requests, I am affirming that the institution of the Dalai Lama will continue.”
His statement did not mention China by name, but it said that selecting the next Dalai Lama should be carried out “in accordance with past tradition.”
“No one else has any such authority to interfere in this matter,” he said.
The Chinese foreign ministry reiterated on Wednesday that the selection of a new Dalai Lama must follow Chinese law and that it had to take place in China.
Attendees at the opening of the 15th Tibetan Religious Conference in Dharamsala, India, July 2, 2025.(Tenzin Woser/RFA Tibetan)
Tibetan Buddhists believe that when the Dalai Lama dies, his spirit will reincarnate in a new body. A search committee traditionally composed of high-ranking monks and lamas is formed to find a child born within a year of the Dalai Lama’s death who exhibits exceptional qualities and behaviors similar to his predecessor. The current Dalai Lama was two years old when he was identified.
In a book written earlier this year, the Dalai Lama said that his successor would be born in the “free world,” which he described as outside of China.
DHARAMSALA, India — The Dalai Lama on Wednesday affirmed that he should have a successor and said the next Dalai Lama should be chosen by the Gaden Phodrang Trust, a non-profit group that he set up — rejecting moves by China to steer his succession.
The decision, he said in a statement that he read aloud during the opening day of a three-day conference of spiritual leaders in Dharamsala, came after years of appeals from Tibetan religious and secular leaders, as well as people and organizations from around the world.
“In particular, I have received messages through various channels from Tibetans in Tibet making the same appeal,” he said. “In accordance with all these requests, I am affirming that the institution of the Dalai Lama will continue.”
His statement did not mention China by name, but it said that selecting the next Dalai Lama should be carried out “in accordance with past tradition.”
“No one else has any such authority to interfere in this matter,” he said.
The Chinese foreign ministry reiterated on Wednesday that the selection of a new Dalai Lama must follow Chinese law and that it had to take place in China.
Attendees at the opening of the 15th Tibetan Religious Conference in Dharamsala, India, July 2, 2025.(Tenzin Woser/RFA Tibetan)
Tibetan Buddhists believe that when the Dalai Lama dies, his spirit will reincarnate in a new body. A search committee traditionally composed of high-ranking monks and lamas is formed to find a child born within a year of the Dalai Lama’s death who exhibits exceptional qualities and behaviors similar to his predecessor. The current Dalai Lama was two years old when he was identified.
In a book written earlier this year, the Dalai Lama said that his successor would be born in the “free world,” which he described as outside of China.
In March, The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, began receiving top secret messages from national security officials in the Trump administration after he’d been inadvertently added to an internal Signal chat. Many of those same officials oversaw recent military strikes against Iran. On this week’s More To The Story, host Al Letson sits down with Goldberg to discuss what “Signalgate” taught him about the Trump White House and his concerns for the future of American democracy.
Producer: Josh Sanburn, with help from Steven Rascón, Artis Curiskis, and Julia Haney | Editor: Kara McGuirk-Allison | Theme music: Fernando Arruda and Jim Briggs | Digital producer: Nikki Frick | Interim executive producers: Brett Myers and Taki Telonidis | Executive editor: James West | Host: Al Letson
By the end of the annual meeting of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in The Hague in June 2025, it became clear that everything was about money. In fact, the final communiqué was perhaps the shortest of any NATO meeting – only five points, two about money and one to thank the Netherlands for hosting the summit. The Hague Declaration was only 427 words, whereas in the previous year, the Washington Declaration was 5,400 words and ran to 44 paragraphs. This time, there was not the granular detail about this or that threat, nor the long and detailed assessments of the war in Ukraine and how NATO supports that war without limit (“Ukraine’s future is in NATO”, the alliance said in 2024, a position no longer repeated in the brief statement of 2025).
Setting aside any thoughts I may have about theocratic rulers (whether they be in Tel Aviv or Tehran), I am personally glad that Iran was able to hold out against the US-Israeli attacks this month.
The ceasefire, however, will only be a pause in the long-running campaign to destabilise, weaken and isolate Iran. Regime change or pariah status are both acceptable outcomes for the US-Israeli dyad.
The good news for my region is that Iran’s resilience pushes back what could be a looming calamity: the US pivot to Asia and a heightened risk of a war on China.
There are three major pillars to the Eurasian order that is going through a slow, painful and violent birth. Iran is the weakest. If Iran falls, war in our region — intended or unintended – becomes vastly more likely.
Mainstream New Zealanders and Australians suffer from an understandable complacency: war is what happens to other, mainly darker people or Slavs.
“Tomorrow”, people in this part of the world naively think, “will always be like yesterday”.
That could change, particularly for the Australians, in the kind of unfamiliar flash-boom Israelis experienced this month following their attack on Iran. And here’s why.
US chooses war to re-shape Middle East Back in 2001, as many will recall, retired General Wesley Clark, former Supreme Commander of NATO forces in Europe, was visiting buddies in the Pentagon. He learnt something he wasn’t supposed to: the Bush administration had made plans in the febrile post 9/11 environment to attack seven Muslim countries.
In the firing line were: Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, the Assad regime in Syria, Hezbollah-dominated Lebanon, Gaddafi’s Libya, Somalia, Sudan and the biggest prize of all — the Islamic Republic of Iran.
One would have to say that the project, pursued by successive presidents, both Democrat and Republican, has been a great success — if you discount the fact that a couple of million human beings, most of them civilians, many of them women and children, nearly all of them innocents, were slaughtered, starved to death or otherwise disposed of.
With the exception of Iran, those countries have endured chaos and civil strife for long painful years. A triumph of American bomb-based statecraft.
Now — with Muammar Gaddafi raped and murdered (“We came, we saw, he died”, Hillary Clinton chuckled on camera the same day), Saddam Hussein hanged, Hezbollah decapitated, Assad in Moscow, the genocide in full swing in Palestine — the US and Israel were finally able to turn their guns — or, rather, bombs — on the great prize: Iran.
Iran’s missiles have checked US-Israel for time being Things did not go to plan. Former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia Chas Freeman pointed out this week that for the first time Israel got a taste of the medicine it likes to dispense to its neighbours.
Iran’s missiles successfully turned the much-vaunted Iron Dome into an Iron Sieve and, perhaps momentarily, has achieved deterrence. If Iran falls, the US will be able to do what Barack Obama and Joe Biden only salivated over — a serious pivot to Asia.
Could great power rivalry turn Asia-Pacific into powderkeg? For us in Asia-Pacific a major US pivot to Asia will mean soaring defence budgets to support militarisation, aggressive containment of China, provocative naval deployments, more sanctions, muscling smaller states, increased numbers of bases, new missile systems, info wars, threats and the ratcheting up rhetoric — all of which will bring us ever-closer to the powderkeg.
Sounds utterly mad? Sounds devoid of rationality? Lacking commonsense? Welcome to our world — bellum Americanum — as we gormlessly march flame in hand towards the tinderbox. War is not written in the stars, we can change tack and rediscover diplomacy, restraint, and peaceful coexistence. Or is that too much to ask?
Back in the days of George W Bush, radical American thinkers like Robert Kagan, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld created the Project for a New American Century and developed the policy, adopted by succeeding presidents, that promotes “the belief that America should seek to preserve and extend its position of global leadership by maintaining the preeminence of US military forces”.
It reconfirmed the neoconservative American dogma that no power should be allowed to rise in any region to become a regional hegemon; anything and everything necessary should be done to ensure continued American primacy, including the resort to war.
What has changed since those days are two crucial, epoch-making events: the re-emergence of Russia as a great power, albeit the weakest of the three, and the emergence of China as a genuine peer competitor to the USA. Professor John Mearsheimer’s insights are well worth studying on this topic.
The three pillars of multipolarity A new world order really is being born. As geopolitical thinkers like Professor Glenn Diesen point out, it will, if it is not killed in the cradle, replace the US unipolar world order that has existed since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Many countries are involved in its birthing, including major players like India and Brazil and all the countries that are part of BRICS. Three countries, however, are central to the project: Iran, Russia and, most importantly, China. All three are in the crosshairs of the Western empire.
If Iran, Russia and China survive as independent entities, they will partially fulfill Halford MacKinder’s early 20th century heartland theory that whoever dominates Eurasia will rule the world. I don’t think MacKinder, however, foresaw cooperative multipolarity on the Eurasian landmass — which is one of the goals of the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organisation) – as an option.
That, increasingly, appears to be the most likely trajectory with multiple powerful states that will not accept domination, be that from China or the US. That alone should give us cause for hope.
Drunk on power since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US has launched war after war and brought us to the current abandonment of economic sanity (the sanctions-and-tariff global pandemic) and diplomatic normalcy (kill any peace negotiators you see) — and an anything-goes foreign policy (including massive crimes against humanity).
We have also reached — thanks in large part to these same policies — what a former US national security advisor warned must be avoided at all costs. Back in the 1990s, Zbigniew Brzezinski said, “The most dangerous scenario would be a grand coalition of China, Russia, and perhaps Iran.”
Belligerent and devoid of sound strategy, the Biden and Trump administrations have achieved just that.
Can Asia-Pacific avoid being dragged into an American war on China? Turning to our region, New Zealand and Australia’s governments cleave to yesterday: a white-dominated world led by the USA. We have shown ourselves indifferent to massacres, ethnic cleansing and wars of aggression launched by our team.
To avoid war — or a permanent fear of looming war — in our own backyards, we need to encourage sanity and diplomacy; we need to stay close to the US but step away from the military alliances they are forming, such as AUKUS which is aimed squarely at China.
Above all, our defence and foreign affairs elites need to grow new neural pathways and start to think with vision and not place ourselves on the losing side of history. Independent foreign policy settings based around peace, defence not aggression, diplomacy not militarisation, would take us in the right direction.
Personally I look forward to the day the US and its increasingly belligerent vassals are pushed back into the ranks of ordinary humanity. I fear the US far more than I do China.
Despite the reflexive adherence to the US that our leaders are stuck on, we should not, if we value our lives and our cultures, allow ourselves to be part of this mad, doomed project.
The US empire is heading into a blood-drenched sunset; their project will fail and the 500-year empire of the White West will end — starting and finishing with genocide.
Every day I atheistically pray that leaders or a movement will emerge to guide our antipodean countries out of the clutches of a violent and increasingly incoherent USA.
America is not our friend. China is not our enemy. Tomorrow gives birth to a world that we should look forward to and do the little we can to help shape.
Eugene Doyle is a writer based in Wellington. He has written extensively on the Middle East, as well as peace and security issues in the Asia Pacific region. He contributes to Asia Pacific Report and Café Pacific, and hosts the public policy platform solidarity.co.nz
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
The BRICS, the influential bloc of emerging geopolitical powers, demanded an immediate end to the cycle of violence in West Asia following the recent attacks against Iran. The group also pushed for the establishment of a zone free of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction in the region as a whole, a crucial measure to ensure long-term stability,
The Brazilian government, the current president of the bloc, issued the forceful statement on Tuesday, June 24. The statement responds directly to the recent United States and Israeli military attacks against Iran, events that have dangerously escalated regional tensions.
The League of Social Democrats, a pro-democracy party with a 19-year history, has announced it will hold a press conference Sunday to announce its disbandment, signaling the disappearance of pro-democracy parties from Hong Kong’s political landscape.
“Next year would have marked the 20th anniversary of our founding, but we will not make it to that day,” LSD said in a media notice on Friday. “We are announcing our dissolution.”
A source told RFA Cantonese that LSD was warned several times, beginning in April, that it must dissolve before July 1 or risk being forcibly disbanded.
Incumbent LSD chairperson Chan Po-ying has previously declined to comment. On Friday, she again said she would not respond before the press conference.
“No Resistance, No Change”
Founded in 2006, LSD’s slogan was “No resistance, no change.” The party made headlines in 2008 when it secured three seats in the Legislative Council with Wong Yuk-man, Leung Kwok-hung, and Albert Chan, becoming the third-largest pro-democracy party. Known for its confrontational style, LSD lawmakers famously threw bananas at then-Chief Executive Donald Tsang during a LegCo session, becoming a symbol of the city’s radical democrats. Outside the legislature, LSD organized and participated in numerous protests and civil disobedience campaigns.
In 2009, LSD and the Civic Party launched the “Five Constituencies Referendum” campaign, in which five lawmakers resigned and re-contested their seats to demand universal suffrage. All five, including LSD’s Leung Kwok-hung, Wong Yuk-man, and Albert Chan, and Civic Party’s Alan Leong and Tanya Chan, were re-elected in the May 2010 by-election.
Pro-democracy activists Chung Yiu-wa, Cheung Say-yin, former Democratic Party lawmaker Lee Wing-tat, baptist minister Chu Yiu-ming, 74, law professor Benny Tai, 54, sociology professor Chan Kin-man, 59, lawmakers Tanya Chan and Shiu Ka-chun, and League of Social Democrats vice-chairman Raphael Wong, chant before entering the West Kowloon Magistrates Court in Hong Kong on Nov. 19, 2018. (Anthony Wallace/AFP)
Legislative filibusters and internal splits
In 2011, LSD launched a “vote repayment” campaign targeting the Democratic Party for its role in pushing forward Beijing-approved electoral reforms. Internal disagreements over strategy led to a split, with Wong Yuk-man and Albert Chan forming People Power. Leung Kwok-hung then took over as LSD chair. The party retained only one LegCo seat in the 2012 and 2016 elections but continued legislative filibusters and budget protest actions alongside People Power.
In 2016, Leung Kwok-hung was disqualified from LegCo for holding a yellow umbrella and tearing up a copy of the NPC’s “831” decision during his oath-taking. Since then, LSD has had no seats in the legislature but continued grassroots activism and protest actions.
Leung Kwok-hung still imprisoned
Many LSD members have served jail time for civil disobedience. Leung Kwok-hung, now 69, remains in prison as a defendant in the 47 democrats’ national security case. LSD vice-chair Jimmy Sham, also one of the 47, was released last month after serving his sentence.
Even after other pro-democracy parties such as the Democratic Party and Civic Party disbanded, LSD continued street actions under the National Security Law era — addressing issues like labor importation and minimum wage.
Earlier this year, the party planned a protest outside government headquarters on Budget Day but canceled due to “immense pressure.” Some LSD members also had their bank accounts frozen or closed, and several were charged for “unauthorized fundraising in public” and “unauthorized display of posters.”
Edited by Greg Barber
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Cantonese.
The Caribbean region is an important geostrategic location for the United States, not only due to regional proximity, but also due to the continued importance of securing sea routes for trade and military purposes. It is the geostrategic location of the Caribbean that has historically made the region a target for domineering empires and states. As both geopolitical site and geostrategic location, U.S. foreign policy articulations of Caribbean people and the region have been effectively contradictory, but the contradiction has allowed the U.S. to maintain its hegemonic position: Caribbean peoples in U.S. foreign policy are rendered backwards, unstable, and dangerous or targets of xenophobic harassment; while the physical region is rendered as a place where U.S. foreign policy must maintain one-sided power relations, lest these sites come under the influence of other states that the U.S. views as impinging upon its sphere of influence.
A new poll by the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union shows that almost half of respondents oppose the Cook Islands having automatic New Zealand citizenship.
Thirty percent of the 1000-person sample supported Cook Islanders retaining citizenship, 46 percent were opposed and 24 percent were unsure.
The question asked:
The Cook Islands government is pursuing closer strategic ties with China, ignoring New Zealand’s wishes and not consulting with the New Zealand government. Given this, should the Cook Islands continue to enjoy automatic access to New Zealand passports, citizenship, health care and education when its government pursues a foreign policy against the wishes of the New Zealand government?
Taxpayers’ Union head of communications Tory Relf said the framing of the question was “fair”.
“If the Cook Islands wants to continue enjoying a close relationship with New Zealand, then, of course, we will support that,” he said.
“However, if they are looking in a different direction, then I think it is entirely fair that taxpayers can have a right to say whether they want their money sent there or not.”
But New Zealand Labour Party deputy leader Carmel Sepuloni said it was a “leading question”.
‘Dead end’ assumption
“It asserts or assumes that we have hit a dead end here and that we cannot resolve the relationship issues that have unfolded between New Zealand and the Cook Islands,” Sepuloni said.
“We want a resolution. We do not want to assume or assert that it is all done and dusted and the relationship is broken.”
The two nations have been in free association since 1965.
Relf said that adding historical context of the two countries relationship would be a different question.
“We were polling on the Cook Islands current policy, asking about historic ties would introduce an emotive element that would influence the response.”
Foreign Minister Winston Peters said the decision was made because the Cook Islands failed to adequately inform his government about several agreements signed with Beijing in February.
‘An extreme response’
Sepuloni, who is also Labour’s Pacific Peoples spokesperson, said her party agreed with the government that the Cook Islands had acted outside of the free association agreement.
“[The aid pause is] an extreme response, however, in saying that we don’t have all of the information in front of us that the government have. I’m very mindful that in terms of pausing or stopping aid, the scenarios where I can recall that happening are scenarios like when Fiji was having their coup.”
In response to questions from Cook Islands News, Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown said that, while he acknowledged the concerns raised in the recent poll, he believed it was important to place the discussion within the full context of Cook Islands’ longstanding and unique relationship with New Zealand.
“The Cook Islands and New Zealand share a deep, enduring constitutional bond underpinned by shared history, family ties, and mutual responsibility,” Brown told the Rarotonga-based newspaper.
“Cook Islanders are New Zealand citizens not by privilege, but by right. A right rooted in decades of shared sacrifice, contribution, and identity.
“More than 100,000 Cook Islanders live in New Zealand, contributing to its economy, culture, and communities. In return, our people have always looked to New Zealand not just as a partner but as family.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Opponents of the war with Iran say that the war is not in American interests, seeing that Iran does not pose any visible threat to the United States.
This appeal to reason misses the neoconservative logic that has guided U.S. foreign policy for more than a half century, and which is now threatening to engulf the Middle East in the most violent war since Korea.
That logic is so aggressive, so repugnant to most people, so much in violation of the basic principles of international law, the United Nations, and the U.S. Constitution, that there is an understandable shyness in the authors of this strategy to spell out what is at stake.
On Saturday local time, the US announced that it had launched airstrikes on three nuclear facilities in Iran. This marks the first time the US has officially intervened militarily in this round of the Iran-Israel conflict, drawing widespread shock from the international community. UN Secretary-General António Guterres said on social media that the move was “a dangerous escalation in a region already on the edge – and a direct threat to international peace and security.” China’s Foreign Ministry also strongly condemned the US attacks on Iran. US action, which seriously violates the purposes and principles of the UN Charter and international law, not only heightens tensions in the Middle East but also risks triggering a wider crisis.
Attacking nuclear facilities is extremely dangerous. Due to their unique nature, damage to such sites could lead to severe nuclear leaks, potentially resulting in humanitarian disasters and posing grave risks to regional safety. The tragic past lessons of the Chernobyl and Fukushima nuclear accidents already showed that the consequences of nuclear leaks don’t pose a threat to a single country – they impact neighboring nations and the global security environment.
By using “bunker-buster” bombs to “accomplish what Israel could not,” the US has deliberately escalated the level of weaponry used, pouring fuel on the flames of war and pushing the Iran-Israel conflict closer toward an uncontrollable state.
What the US bombs have impacted is the foundation of the international security order. By attacking nuclear facilities under the safeguards of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Washington has set a dangerous precedent. This action, in essence, bypasses both the UN Security Council and the IAEA framework, attempting to unilaterally “resolve” the Iranian nuclear issue through force. This is a serious violation of the purposes and principles of the UN Charter and international law, as well as a rejection of the principled position of the international community, including China and the European Union, which has dealt with the Iranian nuclear issue through multilateral negotiations for many years. Washington’s boast of close cooperation with Israel “as a team” confirms its nature of dragging its ally against international morality and multilateralism.
For Iran, the strike is a blatant provocation. After responding that it “reserves all options to defend its sovereignty, interests and people,” Tehran on Sunday launched the powerful Kheibar Shekan missile targeting Israel for the first time. According to media reports, Ismail Kowsari, a member of the National Security Commission of the Parliament in Iran, said the country’s parliament voted to approve the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Iran’s Supreme National Security Council is expected to weigh in and make a final decision on the matter. Iran is located in the choke point of the Strait of Hormuz, which around one-fifth of the world’s total oil and gas consumption transits through. Once this channel is blocked by the war, international oil prices are bound to fluctuate dramatically, while global shipping security and economic stability will face serious challenges.
The US military’s “direct involvement” has further complicated and destabilized the Middle East situation, drawing more countries and innocent civilians into the conflict and forcing them to face a loss. Even the Associated Press called the airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities a “perilous decision,” while the New York Times warned that US military action against Iran would “bring risks at every turn.” What is also receiving a lot of attention is that due to US strike on Iran, Yemen’s Houthis announced it would resume attacks on US ships in the Red Sea. The region is already entangled in a complex web of sectarian divisions, proxy wars and external interventions. The facts show that US involvement is causing the Iran-Israel conflict to spill over. Within just one day, international investors rushed to sell off risk assets, and discussions of a “sixth Middle East war” surged across media platforms, reflecting the global community’s growing anxiety over the region’s spiraling instability.
China has consistently opposed the threat and abuse of using force. It advocates resolving crises through political and diplomatic means. In a recent phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping put forward a “four-point proposal” regarding the Middle East situation: promoting a cease-fire and ending the hostilities is an urgent priority; ensuring the safety of civilians is of paramount importance; opening dialogue and negotiation is the fundamental way forward; and efforts by the international community to promote peace are indispensable. This proposal reflects China’s long-standing and farsighted security vision. History in the Middle East has repeatedly shown that external military intervention never brings peace – it only deepens regional hatred and trauma. The false logic behind US coercion by force runs counter to peace. Hopefully, the parties involved, especially Israel, will implement an immediate cease-fire, ensure the safety of civilians and open dialogue and negotiation to restore peace and stability in the region.
Former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark believes the Cook Islands, a realm of New Zealand, caused a crisis for itself by not consulting Wellington before signing a deal with China.
The New Zealand government has paused more than $18 million in development assistance to the Cook Islands after the latter failed to provide satisfactory answers to Aotearoa’s questions about its partnership agreement with Beijing.
The Cook Islands is in free association with New Zealand and governs its own affairs. But New Zealand provides assistance with foreign affairs (upon request), disaster relief, and defence.
Helen Clark (middle) . . . Cook Islands caused a crisis for itself by not consulting Wellington before signing a deal with China. Image: RNZ Pacific montage
The 2001 Joint Centenary Declaration signed between the two nations requires them to consult each other on defence and security, which Foreign Minister Winston Peters said had not been honoured.
Peters and Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown both have a difference of opinion on the level of consultation required between the two nations on such matters.
“There is no way that the 2001 declaration envisaged that Cook Islands would enter into a strategic partnership with a great power behind New Zealand’s back,” Clark told RNZ Pacific on Thursday.
Clark was a signatory of the 2001 agreement with the Cook Islands as New Zealand prime minister at the time.
“It is the Cook Islands government’s actions which have created this crisis,” she said.
Urgent need for dialogue
“The urgent need now is for face-to-face dialogue at a high level to mend the NZ-CI relationship.”
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has downplayed the pause in funding to the Cook Islands during his second day of his trip to China.
Brown told Parliament on Thursday (Wednesday, Cook Islands time) that his government knew the funding cut was coming.
He also suggested a double standard, pointing out that New Zealand had also entered deals with China that the Cook Islands was not “privy to or being consulted on”.
Prime Minister Mark Brown and China’s Ambassador to the Pacific Qian Bo last year. Image: RNZ Pacific/ Lydia Lewis
A Pacific law expert says that, while New Zealand has every right to withhold its aid to the Cook Islands, the way it is going about it will not endear it to Pacific nations.
Auckland University of Technology senior law lecturer and a former Pacific Islands Forum advisor Sione Tekiteki told RNZ Pacific that for Aotearoa to keep highlighting that it is “a Pacific country and yet posture like the United States gives mixed messages”.
“Obviously, Pacific nations in true Pacific fashion will not say much, but they are indeed thinking it,” Tekiteki said.
Misunderstanding of agreement
Since day dot there has been a misunderstanding on what the 2001 agreement legally required New Zealand and Cook Islands to consult on, and the word consultation has become somewhat of a sticking point.
The latest statement from the Cook Islands government confirms it is still a discrepancy both sides want to hash out.
“There has been a breakdown and difference in the interpretation of the consultation requirements committed to by the two governments in the 2001 Joint Centenary Declaration,” the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and Immigration (MFAI) said.
“An issue that the Cook Islands is determined to address as a matter of urgency”.
Tekiteki said that, unlike a treaty, the 2001 declaration was not “legally binding” per se but serves more to express the intentions, principles and commitments of the parties to work together in “recognition of the close traditional, cultural and social ties that have existed between the two countries for many hundreds of years”.
He said the declaration made it explicitly clear that Cook Islands had full conduct of its foreign affairs, capacity to enter treaties and international agreements in its own right and full competence of its defence and security.
However, he added that there was a commitment of the parties to “consult regularly”.
This, for Clark, the New Zealand leader who signed the all-important agreement more than two decades ago, is where Brown misstepped.
Clark previously labelled the Cook Islands-China deal “clandestine” which has “damaged” its relationship with New Zealand.
RNZ Pacific contacted the Cook Islands Ministry of Foreign Affairs for comment but was advised by the MFAI secretary that they are not currently accommodating interviews.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown has suggested a double standard, saying he was “not privy to or consulted on” agreements New Zealand may enter into with China.
New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters has paused $18.2 million in development assistance to the Cook Islands due to a lack of consultation regarding a partnership agreement and other deals signed with Beijing earlier this year.
The pause includes $10 million in core sector support, which Brown told parliament this week represents four percent of the country’s budget.
“[This] has been a consistent component of the Cook Islands budget as part of New Zealand’s contribution, and it is targeted, and has always been targeted, towards the sectors of health, education, and tourism.”
Brown said he was surprised by the timing of the announcement.
“Especially Mr Speaker in light of the fact our officials have been in discussions with New Zealand officials to address the areas of concern that they have over our engagements in the agreements that we signed with China.”
Peters said the Cook Islands government was informed of the funding pause on June 4. He also said it had nothing to do with Prime Minister Christopher Luxon being in China.
Ensured good outcomes
Brown said he was sure Luxon could ensure good outcomes for the people of the realm of New Zealand on the back of the Cook Islands state visit and “the goodwill that we’ve generated with the People’s Republic of China”.
“I have full trust that Prime Minister Luxon has entered into agreements with China that will pose no security threats to the people of the Cook Islands,” he said.
“Of course, not being privy to or not being consulted on any agreements that New Zealand may enter into with China.”
The Cook Islands is in free association with New Zealand and governs its own affairs. But New Zealand provides assistance with foreign affairs (upon request), disaster relief, and defence.
The 2001 Joint Centenary Declaration signed between the two nations requires them to consult each other on defence and security, which Winston Peters said had not been lived up to.
In a statement on Thursday, the Cook Islands Foreign Affairs and Immigration Ministry said there was a breakdown in the interpretation of the 2001 Joint Centenary Declaration.
The spokesperson said repairing the relationship requires dialogue where both countries are prepared to consider each other’s concerns.
‘Beg forgiveness’
Former Cook Islands deputy prime minister and prominent lawyer Norman George said Brown “should go on his knees and beg for forgiveness because you can’t rely on China”.
“[The aid pause] is absolutely a fair thing to do because our Prime Minister betrayed New Zealand and let the government and people of New Zealand down.”
But not everyone agrees. Rarotongan artist Tim Buchanan said Peters is being a bully.
“It’s like he’s taken a page out of Donald Trump’s playbook using money to coerce his friends,” Buchanan said.
“What is it exactly do you want from us Winston? What do you expect us to be doing to appease you?”
Buchanan said it had been a long road for the Cook Islands to get where it was now, and it seemed New Zealand wanted to knock the country back down.
Brown did not provide an interview to RNZ Pacific on Thursday but is expected to give an update in Parliament.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
In its war on Iran, the US empire seeks to impose hegemony in West Asia (aka the Middle East), destroy the Axis of Resistance, colonize Palestine, destabilize the revolutionary Iranian government, preserve the petrodollar system, prevent de-dollarization, divide BRICS, and break up the Iran-Russia-China partnership.
The United States and Israel are jointly waging war on Iran, but why? What are their real goals?
What the US empire would like to accomplish is the following:
Maintain US hegemony in West Asia (aka the Middle East)
Destroy the anti-colonial Axis of Resistance, making possible the total colonization of Palestine
Prevent Iran from ever developing nuclear capabilities
Overthrow or at least weaken Iran’s independent, revolutionary government
Scare other countries in the region that may seek to move away from the US and the dollar (especially the Gulf monarchies)
The second China-Central Asian summit concluded in Astana, Kazakhstan on Tuesday with countries signing a treaty on eternal good neighborliness, friendship, and cooperation as well as a joint Astana declaration.
The summit was attended by Chinese President Xi Jinping and the five Cental Asian presidents, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev of Kazakhstan (the host country, Sadyr Japarov of Kyrgyzstan, Emomali Rahmon of Tajikistan, Serdar Berdimuhamedov of Turkmenistan, and Shavkat Mirziyoyev of Uzbekistan.
The Astana declaration, signed by all the participants, talks about enhancing cooperation in agriculture, energy, technology and transport sectors apart from intensifying cooperation on the global platforms with a common objective of upholding the basic principles of the UN charter and developing a joint stand against hegemonic politics.
A number of observant commentators have raised questions about Peoples’ China’s Belt and Road Initiative and more broadly, the foreign policy of the PRC.
Reliable left observers like Ann Garrison, writing in Black Agenda Report, have voiced concerns about Chinese investments in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, based on Siddharth Kara’s book, Cobalt Red, How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives. Kara contends that Chinese are engaged in a brutal competition to acquire a raw material essential to battery manufacturing, participating in the highly exploitative practice of artisanal cobalt mining.
More recently, Razan Shawamreh has challenged the PRC’s economic engagement with Israel. Writing in Middle East Eye. Shawamreh cites three different Chinese state-owned companies heavily invested in Israeli firms servicing or operating in illegal settlements — ChemChina, Bright Foods, Fosum Group — that own or have a majority stake in an Israeli corporation. She charges Peoples’ China of hypocritically publicly denouncing Israeli policies while quietly aiding the cause of Israeli settlers.
On May 22, Kim Petersen posted a thoughtful, well reasoned piece on Dissident Voice, entitled “Palestine and the Conscience of China.” Petersen persuasively lauds the many achievements of Peoples’ China. It is easy to forget the century of humiliation that this once proud, advanced society suffered at the hands of European imperialism. After 12 years of fighting Japanese invaders and enduring a bloody civil war costing tens of millions of casualties, China’s advance since — under the leadership of the Communist Party of China — has been truly remarkable.
As Peoples’ China celebrates meeting its goal of becoming a “moderately prosperous” society, it is important to see how far it has come from 1949. When Western apologists for the market economy brag of the aggregate economic gains that global markets have brought to the developing world, they are largely talking about China (and, more recently, Vietnam and India).
By any measure of citizen satisfaction with their government by international surveys, the PRC consistently ranks at or near the top.
At the same time, Petersen raises questions about the seeming inconsistency of the Chinese government’s vocal criticism of Israel’s genocidal policies in Gaza and Peoples’ China’s continuing economic engagement with Israel. The PRC accounts for over 20% of Israeli imports.
Petersen quotes Professor T.P. Wilkinson: “Non-interference is China’s top principle — business comes first. If there is any morality it only applies in China.” And it is precisely China’s moral conscience that Petersen finds wanting.
However, not everyone is trying — or even pretending — to distance themselves from Tel Aviv right now. The People’s Republic of China, for example, is actually seeking to strengthen its ties with Israel.
After initially siding with Palestine (and Hamas) following October 7, Beijing is now looking to rebuild ties with Israel. Just four days ago, as Israel’s Defence Forces were unleashing coordinated attacks on aid depots, China’s ambassador to Israel Xiao Junzheng discussed “deepening China-Israel economic and trade cooperation” with Israel’s Minister of Economy and Industry, Nir Barkat.
Still others ask why Peoples’ China, a self-described socialist country, has failed to replace the Soviet Union in guaranteeing the economic vitality of tiny socialist Cuba– a country starved by a US blockade and harsh sanctions upon anyone defying that blockade. It is difficult to reconcile the PRC’s modest economic aid to Cuba with China’s $19 billion dollars of annual exports to proscribed Israel.
China’s Foreign Policy in Retrospect
China’s foreign policy is a direct reflection of the political line of the Communist Party of China, a line changing often in the Party’s history. At the 10th National Congress (August, 1973) — the last before Mao’s death — Zhou Enlai delivered the main report. He affirmed that:
In the last fifty years our Party has gone through ten major struggles between the two lines… In the future, even after classes have disappeared… there will still be two-line struggles between the advanced and the backward and between the correct and the erroneous… there is the struggle between the socialist road and the capitalist road, there is the danger of capitalist restoration… The Tenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China (Documents), p. 16 [my emphasis]
Zhou explains that the opposition in the last two Congresses — led by Liu Shaoqi and Lin Biao — advocated that the main contradiction facing the party was “not the contradiction between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, but that ‘between the advanced socialist system and the backward productive forces of society’”. In short, the two lines continually challenging the Party, as explained at the tenth congress, were that of the “productionists” — those giving priority to the development of the productive forces — and that of the class warriors — those giving priority to political struggle.
The CPC’s failure to simultaneously advance the productive forces and, at the same time, carry out a consistent, comprehensive class line accounts for its often inconsistent foreign policy.
Since the “opening” — the Deng reforms, beginning in 1978 — the productionist line has held sway in the Communist Party of China.
From the time of the rebuilding of the Party based on the rural peasantry after the destruction of its urban working-class base in 1927, Mao had sided with the class warriors.
Even in the era of the united front against Japanese aggression, Mao wrote in On New Democracy (1940) of the necessity of a cultural revolution, a focus on political and cultural struggle over other forms:
A cultural revolution is the ideological reflection of the political and economic revolution and is in their service. In China there is a united front in the cultural as in the political revolution… and the cultural campaign resulted in the outbreak of the December 8th Movement of the revolutionary youth in 1935. And the common result of both was the awakening of the people of the whole country… The most amazing thing of all was that the Kuomintang’s cultural “encirclement and suppression” campaign failed completely in the Kuomintang areas as well, although the Communist Party was in an utterly defenceless position in all the cultural and educational institutions there. Why did this happen? Does it not give food for prolonged and deep thought? It was in the very midst of such campaigns of “encirclement and suppression” that Lu Hsun, who believed in communism, became the giant of China’s cultural revolution… New-democratic culture is national. It opposes imperialist oppression and upholds the dignity and independence of the Chinese nation. It belongs to our own nation and bears our own national characteristics… [my emphasis]
The centrality of cultural revolution likely comes from the class base shaping the trajectory of Chinese Communism. Because the Kuomintang wiped out the CPC’s urban working-class centers in 1927, the Party became based in the rural peasantry, as Mao freely concedes in On New Democracy:
This means that the Chinese revolution is essentially a peasant revolution…. Essentially, mass culture means raising the cultural level of the peasants… And essentially it is the peasants who provide everything that sustains the resistance to Japan and keeps us going. By “essentially” we mean basically, not ignoring the other sections of the people, as Stalin himself has explained. As every schoolboy knows, 80 per cent of China’s population are peasants. So the peasant problem becomes the basic problem of the Chinese revolution and the strength of the peasants is the main strength of the Chinese revolution. In the Chinese population the workers rank second to the peasants in number…
On New Democracy suggests that Mao places primacy of place in the struggle for the support of the peasantry, a struggle that is cultural in form and national in scope. While Mao locates the Party’s battles within the world revolutionary process, he doesn’t see it as an immediate fight for socialism, but apart from it, for China’s national liberation:
This is a time … when the proletariat of the capitalist countries is preparing to overthrow capitalism and establish socialism, and when the proletariat, the peasantry, the intelligentsia and other sections of the petty bourgeoisie in China have become a mighty independent political force under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party. Situated as we are in this day and age, should we not make the appraisal that the Chinese revolution has taken on still greater world significance? I think we should. The Chinese revolution has become a very important part of the world revolution… [my emphasis]
The separation between the proletariat’s role in the capitalist countries and the Party’s “independent” role in shaping a multi-class force could not be clearer.
Absent from the 1940 statement of Mao’s vision is any endorsement of the Communist International’s broad principles of solidarity. Instead, the Party operated under the Three Principles of the People, the CPC’s revision of Sun-Yat Sen’s original Three Principles. On New Democracy defines them as:
Three Great Policies of alliance with Russia, co-operation with the Communist Party and assistance to the peasants and workers. Without each and every one of these Three Great Policies, the Three People’s Principles become either false or incomplete in the new period…
Thus, “alliance with Russia” (USSR) became central to China’s foreign policy and expanded to alliance with other socialist countries. After liberation in 1949, the PRC practiced that line by aiding the Democratic Peoples’ Republic of Korea, especially in repelling the US and its allies as they invaded DPRK territory. The PRC military fought in the DPRK until the armistice of 1953. Over 183,000 Chinese died resisting the invasion of the North.
The CPC established ties with various liberation movements after the Korean War, with Peoples’ China offering military aid and training to many movements in Asia and Africa. At the same time, the PRC adopted Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence to lead foreign relations: respect for territory and sovereignty, non-aggression, non-interference in internal affairs, equality and cooperation for common benefit, and peaceful coexistence.
The Five Principles were strikingly similar to the natural-law doctrines adopted by the early mercantilist theorists of bourgeois international relations; they constituted an even less robust version of the eight points of the 1941 Atlantic Charter crafted by Roosevelt and Churchill. Nonetheless, they were enshrined in the constitution of Peoples’ China:
China pursues an independent foreign policy, observes the five principles of mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, mutual nonaggression, mutual noninterference in internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful coexistence, keeps to a path of peaceful development, follows a mutually beneficial strategy of opening up, works to develop diplomatic relations and economic and cultural exchanges with other countries, and promotes the building of a human community with a shared future. [my emphasis]
By the end of the 1950s, The CPC had rejected the first of the “three great policies”: the “alliance with Russia”. The PRC had embarked on a period of bitter conflict with the USSR, culminating with a split in the unity of the World Communist Movement. It is source of great irony that many of the charges the CPC made against the Soviets in the Mao era were and are features of China today that have drawn the same charges from some on the left: The Chinese attacked the Soviet policy of peaceful coexistence with the US, taunting the US as a paper tiger; they accused the Soviets of being “social-imperialist” intent on global hegemony; they claimed a restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union; they accused the Soviet Party of revising Marxism-Leninism. All charges that resonate for some in current policies of Peoples’ China.
It is difficult to reconcile the Five Principles with the PRC support for the US proxies in the former Portuguese African colonies. For over a decade, the PRC sided with South Africa, Israel, the US, and bogus liberation movements in Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea-Bissau, delivering weapons, training, and material support to surrogates fighting the internationally recognized freedom fighters. It was left for thousands of Cuban internationalists to give their lives to finally close the door on this ugly chapter and open the door to the fall of Apartheid.
It is difficult to reconcile the Five Principles with the PRC 1979 invasion of Vietnam, ostensibly in response to Democratic Vietnam’s overthrow of the Khmer Rouge — an intervention, if principally motivated, that cannot be squared with the PRC’s vocal denunciation of the Warsaw alliance’s engagement in Czechoslovakia in 1968.
It is difficult to reconcile the twists and turns of Peoples’ China’s foreign policies with its once radical denouncement of Soviet foreign policy as “social-imperialist.” The late, estimable Al Szymanski– a scrupulous researcher– met those charges in great detail (“Soviet Socialism and Proletarian Internationalism” in The Soviet Union: Socialist or Social-Imperialist?, 1983), showing that Soviet “export of capital” outside of the socialist community was minimal, largely limited to establishing enterprises that expedited trade. Soviet assistance was limited almost entirely to countries outside of or escaping the tyranny of global markets. Soviet trade was minimal — Szymanski argued that it was the world’s most self-sufficient system (no doubt often through forced isolation). Its importing of raw material was minimal: “In short the Soviet economy, unlike those of all Western imperialist countries… has no… need to subordinate less developed countries to obtain raw materials.”
Also, the Soviet Union frequently paid higher prices for imported goods than market prices. Citing Asha Datar, “[O]f the 12 leading export commodities studied…, six were consistently purchased by the USSR at higher than their world prices, three usually purchased at prices higher than those paid by the capitalist countries, and two purchased on a year to year basis sometimes above and sometimes below the world market price.”
Suffice it to say, the Soviet Union substantially subsidized trade with fraternal countries, especially within the socialist community (CMEA), Cuba receiving especially generous terms of exchange.
It would be interesting to compare the PRC’s current foreign policy with the internationalist standards set by the former Soviet Union.
Nonetheless, Peoples’ China — since the victory of the productionist line under Deng’s leadership — has largely been a force for stability in international relations. Over the last thirty or so years, the PRC has sought to maintain a peaceful stage for its trade-based economic expansion while the US and its capitalist allies have engaged in one bloody, imperialist adventure after another. Entry into the global market and acceptance into its market-based institutions has been well served by its Five Principles foreign policy.
But it has been naive to expect capitalist great powers to respect the high-minded, Enlightenment values of the Five Principles and simply stand by while the PRC rises to challenge their dominance of the world economy. Since Engels’ early writings, Marxists have understood that competition is the motor of the commodity-based economy. And since Lenin, Marxists have understood that competition between monopoly capitals and their hosts have spawned aggression and war.
It is equally naive — or disingenuous — to equate the Five Principles with the proletarian internationalism, class solidarity that has been embraced by the international Communist movement throughout the twentieth century. From Comintern activity, to the internationalist sacrifices made for democratic Spain, to the generous support for liberation movements, and the aid to the people of Vietnam, militant, principled internationalism differs fundamentally from the neutrality embodied in the Five Principles. The Five Principles serve a world with no injustice, a world without class struggle, a world without aggression and war.
Indeed, the solidarity advocated in the PRC constitution — “China consistently opposes imperialism, hegemonism and colonialism, works to strengthen its solidarity with the people of all other countries, supports oppressed peoples and other developing countries in their just struggles to win and safeguard their independence and develop their economies, and strives to safeguard world peace and promote the cause of human progress” — is inconsistent with the neutrality and non-intervention of the Five Principles, in any realistic sense.
Where neutrality may have borne few negative consequences during the PRC’s isolation from global markets, China’s profound economic relations with virtually every country in the twenty-first century, do have consequences, consequences of enormous moral impact.
Like other countries that engage economically or refrain from engaging economically (sanctions, tariffs, boycotts, blockades, etc.), the PRC must be judged by that engagement.
With the daily slaughter of Gazan civilians, the brutal actions of Israel cannot be separated from its trading partners: China, the US, Germany, Italy, Turkiye, Russia, France, South Korea, India, and Spain, in descending order of dollar volume of exports to Israel.
And now with the brazen, unprovoked Israeli attack on its putative “friend” Iran, the neutrality of the Five Principles is even less defensible. The “win-win” strategy of many CPC leaders and their allies is a utopian dream that social justice cannot afford.
New Zealand has paused $18.2 million in development assistance funding to the Cook Islands after its government signed partnership agreements with China earlier this year.
This move is causing consternation in the realm country, with one local political leader calling it “a significant escalation” between Avarua and Wellington.
A spokesperson for Foreign Minister Winston Peters said the Cook Islands did not consult with Aotearoa over the China deals and failed to ensure shared interests were not put at risk.
On Thursday (Wednesday local time), Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown told Parliament that his government knew the funding cut was coming.
“We have been aware that this core sector support would not be forthcoming in this budget because this had not been signed off by the New Zealand government in previous months, so it has not been included in the budget that we are debating this week,” he said.
The agreements focus in areas of economy, infrastructure and maritime cooperation and seabed mineral development, among others. They do not include security or defence.
However, to New Zealand’s annoyance, Brown did not discuss the details with it first.
Prior to signing, Brown said he was aware of the strong interest in the outcomes of his visit to China.
Afterwards, a spokesperson for Peters released a statement saying New Zealand would consider the agreements closely, in light of the countries’ mutual constitutional responsibilities.
The Cook Islands-New Zealand relationship Cook Islands is in free association with New Zealand. The country governs its own affairs, but New Zealand provides assistance with foreign affairs (upon request), disaster relief and defence.
Cook Islanders also hold New Zealand passports entitling them to live and work there.
In 2001, New Zealand and the Cook Islands signed a joint centenary declaration, which required the two to “consult regularly on defence and security issues”.
The Cook Islands did not think it needed to consult with New Zealand on the China agreement.
Peters said there is an expectation that the government of the Cook Islands would not pursue policies that were “significantly at variance with New Zealand’s interests”.
A spokesperson for Peters said at the time said the New Zealand government noted the mining agreements and would analyse them.
How New Zealand reacted On Thursday morning, Peters said the Cook Islands had not lived up to the 2001 declaration.
Peters said the Cook Islands had failed to give satisfactory answers to New Zealand’s questions about the arrangement.
“We have made it very clear in our response to statements that were being made — which we do not think laid out the facts and truth behind this matter — of what New Zealand’s position is,” he said.
“We’ve got responsibilities ourselves here. And we wanted to make sure that we didn’t put a step wrong in our commitment and our special arrangement which goes back decades.”
Officials would be working through what the Cook Islands had to do so New Zealand was satisfied the funding could resume.
He said New Zealand’s message was conveyed to the Cook Islands government “in its finality” on June 4.
“When we made this decision, we said to them our senior officials need to work on clearing up this misunderstanding and confusion about our arrangements and about our relationship.”
Asked about the timing of Luxon’s visit to China, and what he thought the response from China might be, Peters said the decision to pause the funding was not connected to China.
He said he had raised the matter with his China counterpart Wang Yi, when he last visited China in February, and Wang understood New Zealand’s relationship with the Cook Islands.
Concerns in the Cook Islands Over the past three years, New Zealand has provided nearly $194.6 million (about US$117m) to the Cook Islands through the development programme.
Cook Islands opposition leader Tina Browne said she was deeply concerned about the pause.
Browne said she was informed of the funding pause on Wednesday night, and she was worried about the indication from Peters that it might affect future funding.
She issued a “please explain” request to Mark Brown:
“The prime minister has been leading the country to think that everything with New Zealand has been repaired, hunky dory, etcetera — trust is still there,” she said.
“Wham-bam, we get this in the Cook Islands News this morning. What does that tell you?”
Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown (left) and Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters in Rarotonga in February last year. Image: RNZ Pacific/Eleisha Foon
Will NZ’s action ‘be a very good news story’ for Beijing? Massey University’s defence and security expert Dr Anna Powles told RNZ Pacific that aid should not be on the table in debate between New Zealand and the Cook Islands.
“That spirit of the [2001] declaration is really in question here,” she said.
“The negotiation between the two countries needs to take aid as a bargaining chip off the table for it to be able to continue — for it to be successful.”
Dr Powles said New Zealand’s moves might help China strengthen its hand in the Pacific.
She said China could contrast its position on using aid as a bargaining chip.
“By Beijing being able to tell its partners in the region, ‘we would never do that, and certainly we would never seek to leverage our relationships in this way’. This could be a very good news story for China, and it certainly puts New Zealand in a weaker position, as a consequence.”
However, a prominent Cook Islands lawyer said it was fair that New Zealand was pressing pause.
Norman George said Brown should implore New Zealand for forgiveness.
“It is absolutely a fair thing to do because our prime minister betrayed New Zealand and let the government and people of New Zealand down.”
Brown has not responded to multiple attempts by RNZ Pacific for comment.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
On the early morning of 13 June, Israel launched an aerial assault on Iran, killing over 224 people to date. This is the gravest breach of Iranian sovereignty since the US-backed Iran–Iraq War of the 1980s, widely understood as a proxy effort to dismantle the nascent Islamic Republic.
In its opening salvo, Tel Aviv assassinated top Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commanders, scientists, and academics, striking residential blocks and faculty housing. The war continues into its fifth day, with Israel and Washington openly seeking to collapse the Islamic Republic and crush the region’s anti-imperialist resistance.
Hong Kong authorities are declining to provide details of six recent arrests under a national security law, fueling growing concerns about government transparency as it tightens controls on dissent.
Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee said Tuesday that since the promulgation of the National Security Law in 2020, 332 individuals have been arrested. That was an increase of six arrests since Secretary for Security Chris Tang stated on June 1 that 326 people had been arrested under the law, with 165 convictions.
When local media asked about the new arrests, the Security Bureau said detailed breakdowns of arrest figures are “classified information related to safeguarding national security in the HKSAR and thus will not be made public.” HKSAR stands for Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.
Political commentator Sampson Wong said that in the past the Hong Kong government rarely used national security as a reason to withhold information, and now the public’s basic right to know was being damaged.
“At this point, reporters can still detect some of these arrests, but how long will that last? In the future, will people be arrested without anyone knowing?” Wong asked.
“Anything could be labelled a breach of confidentiality. If this continues, the truth will be completely under the control of national security authorities,” he said.
A March 21, 2023, photo shows Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee in Hong Kong.(Louise Delmotte/AP)
The National Security Law was adopted after massive pro-democracy protests in 2019 as Beijing tightened controls over Hong Kong, which had enjoyed greater civic freedoms than mainland China and greater government transparency, including by police. China maintains the 2020 law was required to maintain order.
Last month, the Hong Kong government bypassed Legislative Council procedures and unilaterally enacted two new subsidiary laws under the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance, which significantly expanded the powers of Beijing’s office overseeing national security in the city.
Under the measures, it is prohibited to disclose or film the office’s operations; civil servants must cooperate with and support national security operations; and any act that obstructs national security officers from performing their duties is criminalized.
While it remains unclear which six arrests happened in the past two weeks, on June 2, the National Security Department arrested one man and four women for allegedly conspiring to commit terrorist activities. The suspects had reportedly used phones, emails, and messaging apps to send messages threatening to bomb central government offices and a sports park, while also promoting pro-independence messages for Taiwan and Hong Kong.
On June 6, prominent democracy advocate Joshua Wong, who is already serving a four-year-and-eight-month sentence for subversion, was formally arrested on an additional charge of “conspiracy to collude with foreign forces.”
Last week, authorities also launched a national security investigation into six unnamed persons on suspicion of “colluding with a foreign country.” But the Security Bureau clarified that no arrests had been made as yet related to that probe.
Edited by Mat Pennington.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Cantonese.
Why is the South China Sea such a flashpoint between China, the U.S., and Southeast Asia? In this eye-opening video, Professor Kishore Mahbubani breaks down the deeper truth behind the conflict that mainstream media often overlooks. With decades of diplomatic experience and sharp geopolitical insight, he explains what’s really at stake—and why the West’s narrative may not tell the full story. Watch till the end to understand the hidden forces shaping this critical region.
Destroying peace. Illustration: Liu Rui/GT
