Taiwan’s ministry of national defense is warning a potential cut in the island’s defense budget for 2025 would have grave consequences.
Recently passed amendments to a fiscal planning law could reduce the defense budget by 28%, or NT$80 billion (US$2.44 billion), which would “have a serious impact on the national military’s buildup and preparedness,” the ministry said in a statement issued late Wednesday.
Last week, Taiwan’s opposition parties, which hold a majority in parliament, passed the amended Act Governing the Allocation of Government Revenues and Expenditures that if implemented would see a NT$375.3 billion (US$11.47 billion) reduction in the central government’s overall budget.
The current defense budget is approximately 2.4% of Taiwan’s gross domestic product, or GDP, but it would shrink to less than 2% after the cut, “at a time when every country in the region is increasing its defense spending,” said the ministry.
Previously, the Taiwanese government proposed a record high military budget that accounted for approximately 2.5% of the GDP for 2025 but that increase now seems unlikely.
“It may create a negative image in the international community that we … lack the determination to defend ourselves,” the ministry said.
The national defense budget should be decided in accordance with “the threats posed by the enemy and the need to build up the military and prepare for war,” it said.
China has been ramping up military activities around Taiwan, which it considers a Chinese province that should be “reunified” with the mainland, by force if necessary.
An analyst said that in the face of constant cross-Strait threats, Taiwan needs to increase its defense budget, as well as social and economic resilience.
“We need to demonstrate that we’re willing to fight,” said Kuan-chen Lee, associate research fellow at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, a government think tank.
“Taiwan must improve military capabilities and make war more costly for China,” Lee told Radio Free Asia.
The budget cut would “make it impossible to continuously upgrade major weapons and equipment, and it would be difficult to make payments for contracted purchases,” warned the defense ministry.
C-130 fleet upgrade
On Wednesday, the Taiwanese Defense Mission to the United States issued a public notice to invite tenders to upgrade its existing C-130 military transport aircraft for an estimated NT$126 million (US$3.85 million).
The money will be allocated to purchase new propellers, according to the procurement notice.
A Taiwan C-130 military transport aircraft at Songshan airport, Taipei, Sept. 28, 2023.(RFA)
The acquisition is part of a six-year overhaul project, called Taiwu Mountain III, to be carried out between 2025-2030 and expected to cost NT$10 billion (US$ 305.86 million).
Taiwan’s air force has a fleet of 20 U.S.-made C-130s bought in the 1980s that serve as the main transport aircraft for the armed forces.
The upgrade would ensure that the aircraft have integrated cockpits and improved sea rescue capabilities.
Edited by Mike Firn.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Staff.
The Chinese Communist Party’s United Front Work Department is counting on a new ally in the fight to persuade Taiwan’s 23 million people to give up their democratic way of life to be ruled by Beijing — Cheng Huang, the god of cities.
Officials in the southeastern province of Fujian, just across the Taiwan Strait from self-ruled Taiwan, invited hundreds of Taoists, temple representatives, scholars and experts to a lavish cultural exchange event last month, according to the provincial government’s official website.
The event included seminars on Cheng Huang temples across Fujian as well as beliefs around the god in Taiwan, particularly in smaller towns on the island, the Nov. 14 report said.
Cheng Huang isn’t the first supernatural being to be enlisted by the Chinese Communist Party in pursuit of its political goals, in this case, to control Taiwan, whether by soft power and propaganda or by military force if necessary.
China has already tried to co-opt the sea goddess Matsu, widely revered in Taiwan, as part of a United Front operation targeting millions of voters.
And it has also encouraged the worship of the controversial Tibetan dharma protector Shugden, a move at loggerheads with the Tibetan Buddhist Gelugpa sect of the exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.
A man places incense sticks at the Taishan Up Temple, a Taoist temple built in 1754, New Taipei City, Taiwan, March 2, 2023.(Sam Yeh/AFP)
The United Front is a shadowy government agency in charge of seeking Chinese influence outside the country through individuals and often innocuous-sounding organizations.
The Chinese Communist Party embraces atheism and exercises tight controls over any form of religious practice among its citizens, requiring them to join government-backed governing bodies and to display the Chinese flag, along with other demonstrations of loyalty to Beijing.
But apparently it isn’t opposed to using religion to further its political objectives.
Religious cross-straits links
Cheng Huang emerged in Chinese folk belief as a spirit protector of city walls and moats, and later diversified into a more complex deity with his own following and underworld bureaucracy mirroring structures found in the land of the living.
“Cheng Huang culture is one of the important links connecting compatriots on both sides of the Taiwan Strait,” the report quoted Cheng Ming-hui of Taiwan’s Wuji Sanching Temple as saying.
“I hope we can to hold more such activities in the future to further enhance the understanding and friendship between believers on both sides of the Taiwan Strait,” Cheng said.
Worshippers carry the Matsu statue, center, during the annual pilgrimage in honor of sea goddess Matsu in Dajia, Taiwan, April 17, 2010.(Pichi Chuang/Reuters)
Taiwan has never been ruled by Beijing and is formally governed by the Republic of China government, formed after the 1911 fall of the Qing Dynasty under Sun Yat-sen, that later fled to Taipei after losing the civil war in 1949 to Mao Zedong’s communists on the mainland.
While China insists on eventual “unification” with Taiwan, by armed invasion if necessary, the majority of Taiwan’s 23 million people have no wish to give up their democratic way of life to submit to Chinese rule.
Ho Cheng-Hui, who heads Taiwanese civil defense organization the Kuma Academy, said China likes to cash in politically on religious devotion of any kind, citing its involvement in the cult of Matsu as an example.
“They are catering to the customs of the Taiwanese people, but with other motives behind it,” Ho said. “They call it religious exchange, but actually it’s a United Front operation — scholars have defined it as the warfare of influence in recent years.”
“Some Taiwanese take part in these so-called exchanges because of their religious feeling, or sense of the historical origins [of their beliefs],” he said. “But that’s not what’s happening here.”
He called on religious believers in Taiwan to become more aware of China’s motives, “so as not to be used” by Beijing.
‘Living chess pieces’
Wu Se-Chih, a researcher at Taiwan’s Cross-Straits Policy Association, agreed.
“There is also a certain degree of United Front motivation,” he said. “China will always try to leverage any United Front gains from the people of Taiwan.”
Wu said the “deep connection between folk beliefs and local politics” in Taiwan also offers a channel for funds to flow into — and influence — the island’s messily democratic political life.
The Chinese government has acquired a number of local temples in Taiwan in recent years, which he described as “living chess pieces” in Beijing’s hands, to boost its influence in Taiwanese politics at a local level.
“These interest groups haven’t been subjected to enough supervision,” Wu said. “That’s the main reason the Chinese Communist Party targets local temples.”
And there are also personal risks involved for any religious believers traveling to China, according to Wu, who cited the recent detention of three elderly Taiwanese members of the I-Kuan Tao religion in Zhongshan city.
“Sometimes the red lines aren’t very clear … so people need to think twice and be vigilant, which is the best way to protect themselves,” Wu said.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Huang Chun-mei for RFA Mandarin.
Increasingly, understanding the inter-imperialist competition between the United States and China is becoming essential to understanding the dynamics of the modern capitalist system. With the goal of broadening our understanding of the dynamics at play, Ashley Smith, along with co-authors Eli Friedman, Kevin Lin, and Rosa Liu, have published China in Global Capitalism: Building International…
Authorities in China are going after the country’s richest celebrity live-streamers, punishing two high-profile influencers for failing to pay up, at a time when government coffers are looking bare and many are struggling.
The Taxation Bureau named and shamed Shanghai-based Wang Zibai, who has 2.92 million followers, for “concealing his income” from tax officials, evading taxes to the tune of 7.49 million yuan (US$1.26 million), state media reported.
He was slapped with a tax bill, fines and late payment fees totaling 13.3 million yuan (US$1.82 million), state broadcaster CCTV reported on Dec. 19.
Cash-strapped local authorities across China are struggling to pay public employees, as a burst property bubble and dwindling exports depict an increasingly grim outlook for the world’s second-largest economy, meaning they need to cast a wider net when it comes to tax revenues, analysts told Radio Free Asia in recent interviews.
Authorities in the southeastern port city of Xiamen also accused celebrity live-streamer Cheng Hu, who has 5 million followers, of concealing the income from livestream sales commission to the tune of 1.21 million yuan (US$165,800) in unpaid taxes, the report said.
Cheng was forced to pay up the taxes owed, fines and late payment charges totaling 1.99 million yuan (US$272,700), it said.
Investigations
Shanghai tax inspectors started an investigation after checking out Wang’s channel, and figuring out that the volume of goods he was selling there was inconsistent with his reported income, the People’s Daily online finance channel reported on Dec. 19.
“The inspectors ran a comprehensive analysis of … pricing, categories and clicked links to third-party merchants, and concluded that he was earning a considerable amount of commission and under-reporting his income,” the paper said.
The team requested his family’s bank details, and found large amounts of money being deposited in Wang’s mother’s account, it said.
In Xiamen, inspectors thought it strange that Cheng claimed not to have earned over the personal annual tax threshold between 2020 and 2022, despite being a live-streamer with 5 million followers, the paper said.
“Cheng Hu did not set up account books as required by the law, and only used a notebook to briefly record the details of income and expenditure, and the handwriting was smudged and blurry, making it almost impossible to confirm his true financial situation,” the People’s Daily said.
“As public figures, live streaming practitioners should establish correct values, legal and professional values, fulfill their tax obligations in accordance with the law, and set a good example for society,” the paper said.
New source of tax revenue
According to financial commentator Cai Shenkun, online platforms are replacing the property market as an important source of tax revenue for local governments.
“Digital platforms have developed rapidly in recent years … and some anchors have made a lot of money,” Cai said. “Now that fiscal sources are increasingly tight, taxation may be further increased and these online platforms will be fully supervised.”
He said local governments across China are still struggling to pay civil servants and teachers, even in first-tier cities like Guangzhou.
“Teachers and civil servants are actually seeing significant salary cuts, to an unprecedented level,” Cai said.
An e-commerce insider who gave only the surname Liu for fear of reprisals said the story will likely fuel public anger at a time of rampant inequality in a flagging economy.
“The government is going to be finding ways to claw back as much revenue as possible, whether currently or retrospectively,” Liu said.
But companies may not have the cash to pay up, he added.
“A lot of Chinese companies and institutions can’t even pay their wages,” Liu said.
Digital platforms
Financial commentator Zheng Xuguang said the authorities are also targeting digital platforms.
“They’re targeting digital platform operators and staff,” Zheng said. “When platforms get to a certain size and their income is quite substantial, they now mandate tax audits on platform operators, including tax-related information reporting, such as who you work with, how many people, and so on.”
He said the government will likely hold off from cracking down on tax avoidance at the lowest income levels for the time being.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Roseanne Gerin.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Qian Lang for RFA Mandarin.
MANILA – The Philippines’ acquisition and deployment of a U.S. mid-range missile system is “completely legitimate, legal, and beyond reproach,” its defense chief said on Tuesday.
China protested against the plan by the Philippines to acquire a Typhon mid-range missile system from the United States to boost its maritime capabilities amid rising tensions in the disputed South China Sea.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning called the plan “provocative and dangerous,” and said on Monday it was an “extremely irresponsible choice” not only for the Philippine people and people of all Southeast Asian countries, but also “to history and to regional security.”
Philippine Secretary of National Defense Gilberto Teodoro said any deployment for the security of the Philippines was its affair.
“The Philippines is a sovereign state, not any country’s ‘doorstep’,” Teodoro said in a statement.
He did not refer to the Chinese comment on the missile system but reiterated that the enhancement of Philippine defense capabilities was intended to serve its national interest and “not targeted against specific countries.”
“Any deployment and procurement of assets related to the Philippines’ security and defense fall within its own sovereign prerogative and are not subject to any foreign veto,” Teodoro said.
China and the Philippines have been trading accusations of provocation and intimidation over escalating tensions in parts of the South China Sea that they both claim, especially near reefs that lie inside Manila’s exclusive economic zone, or EEZ, but are also claimed by Beijing.
“If the Chinese Communist Party is truly intent on reducing tensions and instability in the region, they should … stop their provocative actions … withdraw their illegal presence from the Philippines’ EEZ, and adhere to International Law,” said Teodoro, who also accused Beijing of building up a nuclear arsenal and ballistic missile capability.
Typhon system
On Monday, Philippine army chief Lt. Gen. Roy Galido – while delivering his year-end report to an audience of domestic and foreign journalists in Manila – confirmed that the army has endorsed a plan to acquire a mid-range missile system “to boost the country’s capability in protecting its territory.”
The mobile system, called Typhon, was deployed to the Philippines early this year as part of a joint military exercise with the U.S. military.
Chinese defense minister Dong Jun said in June the deployment was “severely damaging regional security and stability.”
The missile system, developed by U.S. firm Lockheed Martin, has a range of 480 kilometers (300 miles), and is capable of reaching the disputed Scarborough Shoal as well as targets around Taiwan.
Philippine Army chief Lt. Gen. Roy Galido delivering his year-end report on Dec. 23, 2024, in Manila.(Jason Gutierrez/BenarNews)
Galido said that the Typhon would “protect our floating assets,” referring to Philippine navy and coastguard vessels.
The acquisition is taking place as the army is “tasked to come up with plans to contribute to the comprehensive archipelagic defense,” according to Galido, who added that “one of our inputs is to be able to defend this land through this type of platform.”
Chinese spokeswoman Mao Ning criticized the plan, saying that the Philippines, “by bringing in this strategic offensive weapon, is enabling a country outside the region to fuel tensions and antagonism in this region, and incite geopolitical confrontation and arms race.”
BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization.
Edited by Mike Firn.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA and BenarNews Staff.
The Hong Kong government announced on Tuesday rewards of HK$1 million (US$130,000) for help in arresting six more pro-democracy campaigners, accusing them of violating a national security law and working to undermine the territory with calls for sanctions against lawmakers and independence from China.
Carmen Lau, Tony Chung, Chung Kim-wah, Joseph Tay and Chloe Cheung were accused of incitement to secession in a notice posted on the Hong Kong Police Force website.
The police also accused journalist Victor Ho, 69, of subversion for calling a referendum over the proposed formation of a parliament-in-exile to push for Hong Kong’s independence from China.
All of the six live abroad.
“Today was the last working day before our year-end holiday at HKDC and I just learned that I am now a wanted Hong Konger with a HK$1 million bounty for national security offences,” former Hong Kong district councillor and current Hong Kong Democracy Council member Carmen Lau, 29, posted on social media platform X.
“I have always considered serving Hong Kongers and fighting for our freedom and democracy my lifelong obligation since the day I was elected as a district councillor,” she added. “I swear to put our fight for Hong Kong before anything else, even before myself.”
Lau called on governments including the U.K., where she lives, the U.S. and the E.U. to impose sanctions on Hong Kong “human rights perpetrators” without naming anyone.
Hong Kong Security Secretary Chris Tang said the six had endangered national security through their speeches and social media posts and by lobbying foreign governments to sanction Hong Kong officials. He told a news conference the six “had little conscience.”
“Illegal acts will be prosecuted and punished no matter how far away they are,” Tang said.
Nineteen people now have HK$1 million bounties on their heads following two previous announcements in July and December 2023. Authorities plan to cancel the passports of seven of the activists on the wanted list, including ex-lawmakers Ted Hui and Dennis Kwok, Hong Kong media reported.
Hong Kong was a British colony from 1841 to 1997, when it was returned to Chinese rule under a “one country, two systems” agreement. The Sino-British Joint Declaration said the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region would maintain a degree of autonomy from China for 50 years, maintaining the rights and freedoms set out in the Basic Law.
In 2019, thousands of Hong Kong people took to the streets to protest against what they saw as the erosion of democracy, prompting a crackdown by the government. The following year Beijing imposed a national security legislation that included new crimes like “collusion with foreign forces” and subversion.
In April, the city passed its own version of China’s national security law, known as Article 23, adding several new offenses, including treason, sabotage, and espionage and allowing police to hold suspects for up to 16 days without charge. Sedition was also added and its scope expanded to include “inciting hatred” against the Chinese Communist Party.
The United States and Britain have condemned what they see as the erosion of the freedoms and rights that Hong Kong was promised when it returned to Chinese rule.
The city government and Beijing reject the accusations saying stability is needed to safeguard the Asian financial hub’s economic success.
Edited by Mike Firn.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Staff.
Chinese internet censors have targeted dozens of writers of online erotic fiction across the country since June, in a bid to crack down on “pornographic” content, according to multiple mainstream and social media reports.
A “special task force” arrested the writers after they published on the Taiwan-based adult fiction website Haitang Literature, Hong Kong’s Sing Tao Daily News and Taiwan’s Pacific Daily newspapers reported.
The task force started with distributors of online erotic fiction, then moved on to target writers who had earned at least 300,000 yuan (US$41,000) from their work, according to posts to the gaming bulletin board NGA cited by the AO3 fan-fiction site on Reddit.
Online fiction, including fan fiction and erotic fiction, has mushroomed in China in recent years, according to a survey by government-backed news outlet The Paper in March.
By the end of 2023, readers in China could choose from among nearly 35 million works of online fiction, with some work already adapted into movies and TV shows, the report said.
Last year, the Chinese online fiction market was worth around 40 billion yuan (US$5.48 billion), according to Statistica.com, with daily life, science fiction, fantasy and history topping the list of most popular genres.
“One of my friends is an author, who was released on bail, called me from a new phone and told us to be prepared,” the NGA user wrote in a post dating back to June, before the story appeared in the newspapers.
“Later, others also reported that their friends had been affected,” the post said. “We compared details and confirmed that this is a nationwide crackdown. Moreover, the website’s [Chinese] distributor is indeed in trouble and can’t be reached.”
Haitang writers
In the months that followed this post, social media reports have been emerging of authors arrested for publishing erotic fiction.
Top Haitang Literature author Yuan Shang Bai Yun Jian, a pen-name, was sentenced to four years and six months’ imprisonment, according to a Dec. 17 post on the WeChat account Age of Aquarius, Singapore’s Lianhua Zaobao reported.
Another Haitang author with the pen name Yi Xie was handed a one-year, five-month suspended sentence, while a writer with the pen name Ci Xi was jailed for five years and six months.
The reports said some writers had been given harsher sentences because they had been unable to return the money they had earned from their writings.
A Chinese man reads a book as another walks between shelves at the ‘Utopia’ bookshop in central Beijing in this March 25, 2009 file picture.(David Gray/Reuters)
While details of the charges haven’t been made public in every case, many of the writers were contributors to Haitang Literature, and were widely assumed to be targeted for “disseminating obscene electronic messages,” which carries harsher penalties, the more a person is judged to have earned from their online activities.
China’s state-controlled media haven’t reported on the arrests, and details have mostly emerged in social media posts, sometimes from family members of those detained, or from the authors themselves who have taken to Weibo to try to crowd-fund the money to pay their fines to avoid a harsher penalty.
Chinese online fiction platform Jinjiang Literature City recently also reported that it had been summoned by consumer protection officials in the eastern province of Zhejiang, but said it had refused to turn up, accusing the authorities of “fishing,” the Lianhua Zaobao reported.
‘Profiting from obscene material’
Celebrity lawyers have been warning their followers via livestream that “profiting from the distribution of obscene material” is a crime that can extend even to writers who share their work for no fee.
The crackdown has prompted online writers to rush to delete or hide their work from other online fiction platforms, including Feiwen and PO18, according to the Reddit post.
“Online literature has become hugely popular because the barrier to entry is low,” Si Yueshu, who has been writing fan fiction in Chinese since high school, told RFA Mandarin in a recent interview. “Anyone could do it. All they needed was to want to.”
Si has had her own battle with censorship over the years, including having her work suddenly deleted without warning.
One of the biggest difficulties is that the lines keep shifting.
“You can’t actually know what you’re allowed to write and what you’re not allowed to write,” she said, adding that she only publishes on overseas platforms now, to try to evade censorship. “And something that was allowed before could stop being permissible at any time.”
A long-time online fiction fan who gave only the pseudonym Li Hua for fear of reprisals told RFA that many authors write erotic content because that’s what drives traffic, and gets them into a highly competitive industry.
“Authors who make a living from online writing are very hard-working,” Li said. “Very successful authors usually upload three chapters a day, or more than 10,000 words, and the most they can make is around 20,000 yuan (US$2,740) a month.”
And for many writers, it’s more of a labor of love.
“A huge number of authors don’t actually make much at all — I’ve seen some authors who make 0.10 yuan (US$0.13) a day,” she said.
Nothing ‘below the neck’
Nowadays, it’s even harder to get traffic, as explicitly erotic content is banned.
“You used to be able to get away with [euphemisms like] ‘they went 100 rounds,’ or ‘they found perfect harmony’, but even that’s not allowed these day,” Li said. “You can’t write about anything below the neck.”
That’s why the authorities are arresting writers who post on Haiting Literature, which is based in democratic Taiwan.
The Chinese equivalent, Jinjiang Literature, has been reduced to censoring anything considered remotely erotic or even politically sensitive with AI-generated blank boxes in lieu of Chinese characters, with often hilarious results, according to Li.
For example, a sentence containing the words “down” or “lower” and “body” will generate blanks even if the overall meaning is very far from erotic.
Likewise, phrases referencing love and nature will be censored because the two words mean “sex” when combined a certain way.
The censorship is also spilling over into other forms of fiction.
Chinese novelist Mo Yan (given name Guan Moye), 2012 Nobel Prize Laureate for Literature, who is also a delegate of Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), is seen surrounded by journalists after a group discussion of CPPCC in Beijing, March 4, 2014.(China Stringer Network/Reuters)
As online commentator Xiao Wu points out, plenty of Chinese contemporary and classic literary fiction gets sexy at times.
“Romance novels will inevitably involve some kind of erotic content,” he said, citing explicit content in Nobel literature laureate Mo Yan’s Big Breasts, Wide Hips, Chen Zhongshi’s White Deer Plain and the novels of Jia Pingwa.
Meanwhile, demand for even erotic-adjacent (known as “borderline” content) continues to rise, said Xiao Wu, who has been approached by editors luring him with the prospect of writing something that pays much better than op-ed pieces.
“There’s a pretty low barrier to entry for reading this stuff for ordinary Chinese people who just want to relax,” he said. “Anyone with a cellphone and internet connection can enjoy it for a few yuan (around a dollar), while going out to sing karaoke with their friends could cost them hundreds of yuan (tens of U.S. dollars).”
“There aren’t many ways to let off steam in this highly repressive society, so this is a fairly low-cost route to happiness,” Xiao Wu said.
Li Hua agreed.
“Sometimes all I want is pure, sensory stimulation, and it’s only around 100 yuan (US$13) a year,” she said. “I think it’s just human nature.”
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Joshua Lipes.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Zhu Liye for RFA Mandarin.
TAIPEI, Taiwan – China has announced “countermeasures” against Canadian groups and individuals two weeks after Canada imposed sanctions on senior Chinese officials in early December over human rights concerns.
China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a press release on Saturday that it was freezing the assets in China of Canada’s Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project and the Canada Tibet Committee.
The ministry, citing China’s Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law, said organizations and individuals in China were prohibited from conducting transactions or cooperating with those groups. They would also be barred from travel to China, including Hong Kong and Macau.
The ministry in its announcement did not refer directly to Canada’s Dec. 10 sanctions on eight former and current senior Chinese officials over what Canada said was their involvement in grave human rights violations in Tibet and Xinjiang and against followers of the Falun Gong spiritual sect.
At the time, the Chinese ministry said Canada “smeared and slandered” China and interfered in its internal affairs with its “illegal” sanctions and “clumsy political theatrics.”
Canada is not alone. Western governments have sanctioned China over human rights abuses in Xinjiang and Tibet, citing reports of mass detentions, forced labor, cultural suppression of Uyghurs and Tibetans, and crackdowns on religious and political freedoms. These measures aim to pressure China to uphold international human rights standards.
The United States, for instance, had earlier imposed sanctions on all eight of the Chinese officials that Canada sanctioned, for their connections to serious human rights violations.
Among the most prominent individuals sanctioned by the North Americans was Chen Quanguo, who served as the Chinese Communist Party Committee Secretary of the Tibet Autonomous Region from 2011 to 2016 and the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region from 2016 to 2021.
Another sanctioned official is Wu Yingjie, who was the Communist Party Secretary of Tibet from 2016 to 2021.
Shane Yi, a researcher with the non-governmental organization Chinese Human Rights Defenders said China’s sanctions against the Canadian groups suggested they were having some impact.
“This not only underscores China’s intent to escalate its suppression efforts but also demonstrates the growing impact of these organizations’ work,” Yi said.
China and Canada have had particularly fraught relations in recent years, largely stemming from the 2018 arrest in Canada of a senior executive of China’s technology giant Huawei.
The executive, Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou, was detained in Canada for nearly three years pending U.S. extradition hearings related to suspicion of illegal business dealings with Iran. She flew home to China in 2021 after reaching an agreement with U.S. prosecutors.
Edited by Taejun Kang.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Alan Lu for RFA.
TAIPEI, Taiwan – China has announced “countermeasures” against Canadian groups and individuals two weeks after Canada imposed sanctions on senior Chinese officials in early December over human rights concerns.
China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a press release on Saturday that it was freezing the assets in China of Canada’s Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project and the Canada Tibet Committee.
The ministry, citing China’s Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law, said organizations and individuals in China were prohibited from conducting transactions or cooperating with those groups. They would also be barred from travel to China, including Hong Kong and Macau.
The ministry in its announcement did not refer directly to Canada’s Dec. 10 sanctions on eight former and current senior Chinese officials over what Canada said was their involvement in grave human rights violations in Tibet and Xinjiang and against followers of the Falun Gong spiritual sect.
At the time, the Chinese ministry said Canada “smeared and slandered” China and interfered in its internal affairs with its “illegal” sanctions and “clumsy political theatrics.”
Canada is not alone. Western governments have sanctioned China over human rights abuses in Xinjiang and Tibet, citing reports of mass detentions, forced labor, cultural suppression of Uyghurs and Tibetans, and crackdowns on religious and political freedoms. These measures aim to pressure China to uphold international human rights standards.
The United States, for instance, had earlier imposed sanctions on all eight of the Chinese officials that Canada sanctioned, for their connections to serious human rights violations.
Among the most prominent individuals sanctioned by the North Americans was Chen Quanguo, who served as the Chinese Communist Party Committee Secretary of the Tibet Autonomous Region from 2011 to 2016 and the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region from 2016 to 2021.
Another sanctioned official is Wu Yingjie, who was the Communist Party Secretary of Tibet from 2016 to 2021.
Shane Yi, a researcher with the non-governmental organization Chinese Human Rights Defenders said China’s sanctions against the Canadian groups suggested they were having some impact.
“This not only underscores China’s intent to escalate its suppression efforts but also demonstrates the growing impact of these organizations’ work,” Yi said.
China and Canada have had particularly fraught relations in recent years, largely stemming from the 2018 arrest in Canada of a senior executive of China’s technology giant Huawei.
The executive, Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou, was detained in Canada for nearly three years pending U.S. extradition hearings related to suspicion of illegal business dealings with Iran. She flew home to China in 2021 after reaching an agreement with U.S. prosecutors.
Edited by Taejun Kang.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Alan Lu for RFA.
A photo of what appears to be a group of patients waiting in a hospital lobby emerged in Chinese-language social media posts that claim it shows “recent” COVID-19 patients at a Chinese hospital “overcrowded” with cases.
But the claim is false. The photo was actually published in January 2023. As of December 2024, COVID-19 cases in China remain “at lower epidemic level,” according to Chinese health authorities. Keyword searches found no credible reports to show there was a surge in COVID-19 cases in China in recent months.
“Hospitals are overcrowded as the Chinese Communist Party’s COVID-19 virus breaks out again. It seems that the Chinese have spent three years in prison for nothing,” the post reads.
The photo shows a large number of patients wearing masks in a hospital lobby.
Some social media users appear to have been misled by the photo and the claim.
One user even commented that the photo depicted an event happening “now.”
COVID-19 emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019, with the first cases linked to a seafood market where various live animals were also on sale. By January 2020, China imposed strict lockdowns in Wuhan and later expanded measures nationwide, including mass testing, travel restrictions, and quarantine protocols.
The government implemented a “zero-COVID” policy, which focused on eradicating outbreaks through aggressive containment. The measures were initially effective in reducing cases but sparked debates over economic impacts and civil liberties. In late 2022, China began easing restrictions due to protests and economic pressure, transitioning to a strategy of coexisting with the virus.
But the claim about the photo is false.
Old photo
A reverse image search found that the photo was published by the Associated Press in January 2023.
The caption of the photo, credited to AP journalist Andy Wong, reads: “Patients receive intravenous drips at the emergency ward of a hospital in Beijing, Thursday, Jan. 5, 2023.”
“Patients, most of them elderly, are lying on stretchers in hallways and taking oxygen while sitting in wheelchairs as COVID-19 surges in China’s capital Beijing,” the caption reads further.
Some Chinese social media users claimed that there has been a new wave of COVID in China (left), while the photo they use as evidence of hospital overcrowding was taken from an Associated Press news report released in January 2023 (right).(Screenshots/X and AP)
Official data
As of December 2024, COVID-19 cases in China remain “at lower epidemic level,”according to the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, or China CDC, data released on Dec. 19, 2024.
In the week of December 9–15, 2024, sentinel hospitals reported that 1.9% of outpatient influenza-like illness cases and 2.1% of hospitalized severe acute respiratory infection cases tested positive for COVID-19, China CDC said.
These percentages have remained stable, indicating no significant resurgence of COVID-19 nationwide, it added.
Health authorities monitor the situation closely and recommend maintaining preventive measures, including vaccination and good respiratory hygiene, to mitigate the spread of respiratory illnesses, China CDC noted.
Keyword searches found no credible reports to show there was a surge in COVID-19 cases in China in recent months.
AFCL has not been able to independently confirm whether China had seen a surge in COVID-19 cases in recent months.
However, there have been media reports of overcrowding at Chinese hospitals in early December 2024 due to mass infections of norovirus – a highly contagious but typically non-lethal cause of diarrhea – with at least one doctor interviewed by overseas Chinese media suspecting that the actual cause might be COVID-19.
Translated by Shen Ke. Edited by Taejun Kang.
Asia Fact Check Lab (AFCL) was established to counter disinformation in today’s complex media environment. We publish fact-checks, media-watches and in-depth reports that aim to sharpen and deepen our readers’ understanding of current affairs and public issues. If you like our content, you can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and X.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Zhuang Jing for Asia Fact Check Lab.
The communist apparatchiks who run Laos must appease China if they are to stop their national debt crisis from worsening and avoid an outright default.
The IMF’s latest report on Laos, released last month, was particularly damning about the country’s future. Real GDP growth likely peaked this year, at around 4.1 percent, and will slide from 3.5 percent next year down to 2.5 percent by 2029.
In other words, Laos isn’t going to be able to grow itself out of debt anytime soon.
Moreover, debt servicing costs, spending that is not actually paying off the principal on its monumental debt, will rise from around $1.1 billion this year to $1.5 billion next year and peak at $1.8 billion in 2026, the equivalent of a fifth of exports.
Laos cannot even start to comprehend paying off its debt, which because of the country’s inflation crisis fluctuates as a percentage of GDP ratio. It was 131 percent of GDP in 2022, down to 108 percent this year but potentially up to 118 percent in 2025.
The IMF politely suggested that “alternative options to bring debt toward a sustainable level could also be considered,” yet noted that “the authorities’ financing plan…critically relies on the continued extension of debt relief from China.”
Debt deferrals
All that matters for Vientiane, at least for the short term, is that Beijing continues offering debt deferrals.
In 2023, these amounted to $770 million, about 5 percent of Laos’s GDP, according to the IMF. They were worth $222 million in 2020, $454 million in 2021, and $608 million in 2022.
What other options has Laos got?
It won’t turn to the IMF for a bailout, since that will come with political conditions – and half of national debt is owed to China, which doesn’t do debt write-offs.
The money Vientiane owes Beijing is vast for Laos, but peanuts for Beijing.
The International Monetary Fund headquarters in Washington, D.C, Dec. 19, 2016.(Cliff Owen/AP)
Laos’s debts could be completely forgiven tomorrow and nobody in Beijing would notice. But Chinese lenders don’t like having their pockets pinched and no superpower wants to be seen as a dog being wagged by its tail.
Some people think Vientiane could offer more debt-for-equity swaps, whereby China reduces the debt in exchange for land or mineral rights or a stake in a state company.
However, for all the cries of “debt traps,” it is noticeable that there hasn’t been any major debt-for-equity swap since a Chinese state-owned firm was given majority control of a joint venture (EDL-T) with Electricite du Laos, which effectively handed Beijing Laos’ power grid, including its electricity exports. But that was in 2021!
Few desirable assets
Beijing has presumably browsed and doesn’t fancy anything it sees. As one source told me, “there aren’t enough saleable assets” in Laos for equity swaps to touch the sides of the country’s debt.
Even for natural resources or land, usually a Chinese company will get a multi-decade concession for very low rent. So it makes little sense for Chinese state firms to buy, in the form of a debt swap, what they essentially get for free, since the revenue the Lao government collects will eventually be paid back to the Chinese state.
Nor are swaps all too appealing when it comes to state-run companies.
There’s one reason why Laos’s nationalized companies are so indebted and it isn’t because they’re so well run. Électricité du Laos, the state utility, accounts for perhaps a third of all the state’s debts, for instance.
Laos’ Prime Minister Sonexay Siphandone attends the 27th ASEAN-Japan Summit in Vientiane, Laos, Oct. 10, 2024.(Nhac Nguyen/AFP)
That leaves only debt deferrals, which allow Vientiane to pay back other private creditors and facilitate future loans, all the while avoiding what it must eventually do: massively increase state revenue.
According to the IMF, Laos needs a primary surplus of around 17 percent each year to bring its debt-to-GDP ratio down to a sustainable threshold (35 percent) by 2029.
Next year, Laos will likely run a primary surplus of around 3 percent, per the IMF report. In other words, Vientiane needs to boost revenue or cut expenditure (or both) by more than five-fold.
Austerity is unpopular
But the ruling Lao People’s Revolutionary Party (LPRP) clearly doesn’t think now is the time to dig deeper into the pockets of ordinary people and businesses, especially as economic growth is set to slow in the coming years and the inflation crisis won’t be curbed anytime soon.
It would be politically suicidal for Vientiane to considerably raise taxes while the ordinary Loatian has seen his wealth decimated in recent years. In fact, the party has recently committed to higher state spending.
At first blush, Vientiane’s immobility might appear problematic for the current rulers of the communist party whose jobs are in the line ahead of a reshuffle at the National Congress in early 2026.
That’s especially the case for Prime Minister Sonexay Siphandone, who naturally gets the most flak. Party grandees will retreat into conclaves most of next year to make these decisions, and appeasing China will be a key consideration.
Yet, while the Lao public is incensed by just how appallingly their rulers have managed the economy, the powers that be understand no-one has any real idea of how to get out of this mess other than austerity during a devastating economic crisis.
This isn’t something to be admitted publicly in a one-party state. Neither is admitting that the task of austerity is essentially being kicked to the next generation of party apparatchiks, who will have to suffer the consequences.
George Orwell once remarked that “it is a feeling of relief, almost of pleasure, at knowing yourself at last genuinely down and out…It takes off a lot of anxiety.”
Likewise, the current LPRP leadership must feel a certain freedom from knowing that there’s only one way out of its predicament: Keep appeasing Beijing and keep up the debt deferrals.
David Hutt is a research fellow at the Central European Institute of Asian Studies (CEIAS) and the Southeast Asia Columnist at the Diplomat. He writes theWatching Europe In Southeast Asianewsletter. The views expressed here are his own and do not reflect the position of RFA.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by David Hutt.
The changes will also prohibit tertiary institutions from adopting positions on issues that do not relate to their core functions.
Associate Education Minister David Seymour said fostering students’ ability to debate ideas is an essential part of universities’ educational mission.
“Despite being required by the Education Act and the Bill of Rights Act to uphold academic freedom and freedom of expression, there is a growing trend of universities deplatforming speakers and cancelling events where they might be perceived as controversial or offensive,” he said.
“That’s why the National/ACT coalition agreement committed to introduce protections for academic freedom and freedom of speech to ensure universities perform their role as the critic and conscience of society.”
Minister for Tertiary Education and Skills Penny Simmonds said freedom of speech was fundamental to the concept of academic freedom.
“Universities should promote diversity of opinion and encourage students to explore new ideas and perspectives. This includes enabling them to hear from invited speakers with a range of viewpoints.”
It is expected the changes will take effect by the end of next year, after which universities will have six months to develop a statement and get it approved.
Aside from the fact that the free speech legislation for universities is a waste of time (and seemingly ideologically inconsistent with the anti-regulation stance of the government), this line from the RNZ article is both hilarious and worrying pic.twitter.com/aOoPa0ZPc5
Te Herenga Waka-Victoria University of Wellington said the important issue of free speech had been a dominant topic throughout the year.
It believed a policy it had come up with would align with the intent of the criteria laid out by the government today.
However, the Greens are among critics, saying the government’s changes will add fuel to the political fires of disinformation, and put teachers and students in the firing line.
Labour says universities should be left to make decisions on free speech themselves.
‘A heavy-handed approach’ The Tertiary Education Union (TEU) said proposed rules could do more harm than good.
They have been been welcomed by the Free Speech Union, which said academic freedom was “under threat”, but the TEU said there was no problem to solve.
TEU president Sandra Grey said the move seemed to be aimed at ensuring people could spread disinformation on university campuses.
“I think one of the major concerns is that you might get universities opening up the space that is for academic and rigorous debate and saying it’s okay we can have climate deniers, we can have people who believe in creationism coming into our campuses and speaking about it as though it were scientific, as though it was rigorously defendable when in fact we know some of these questions . . . have been settled,” she said.
Grey said academics who expressed views on campus could expect them to be debated, but that was part and parcel of working at a university and not an attack on their freedom of speech.
“There isn’t actually a problem. I do think universities, all the staff who work there, the students, understand that they’re covered by all of their requirements for freedom of speech that other citizens are.
“So it feels like we’ve got a heavy-handed approach from a government that apparently is anti-regulation but is now going to put in place the whole lot of requirements on a community that just doesn’t need it.”
Some topics ‘suppressed’
Free Speech Union chief executive Jonathan Ayling . . . some academics are afraid to express their views and there is also a problem with “compelled speech”. Image: VNP/Phil Smith/RNZ News
Free Speech Union chief executive Jonathan Ayling said freedom of speech was under threat in universities.
“We’ve supported academics . . . where they feel that they have been unfairly disadvantaged simply for holding a different opinion to some of their peers. Of course, that is also an addition to the explicit calls for people to be cancelled, to be unemployed,” he said.
Ayling said some academics were afraid to express their views and there was also a problem with “compelled speech”.
“Forcing certain references on particularly ideological issues. There’s questions around race, gender, international conflicts, covid-19, these are all questions that we’ve found have been suppressed and also there’s the aspect of self-censorship,” he said.
“As we have and alongside partners looked into this more and more, it seems that many people in the academy exist in a culture of fear.”
University committed to differing viewpoints Te Herenga Waka-Victoria University of Wellington is committed to hearing a range of different viewpoints on its campuses, vice-chancellor Professor Nic Smith says.
Free speech had been an important issue during 2024, and the university had arrived at a policy that covered both freedom of speech and academic freedom.
By consulting widely, there was now a shared understanding of “foundational principles”, and its policy would be in place early in the new year.
“We believe this policy aligns with the intent of the criteria [from the government] as we understand them. It recognises the strength of our diverse university community and affirms that this diversity makes us stronger,” Professor Smith said.
“At the same time, it acknowledges that within any diverse community, individuals will inevitably encounter ideas they disagree with-sometimes strongly.
“Finding value in these disagreements is something universities are very good at: listening to different points of view in the spirit of advancing understanding and learning that can ultimately help us live and work better together.”
The university believed in hearing a range of views from staff, rather than adopting a single institutional position.
“The only exception to this principle is on matters that directly affect our core functions as a university.”
‘Stoking fear and division’
The Green Party’s spokesperson for Tertiary Education, Francisco Hernadez . . . this new policy has nothing to do with free speech. Image: VNP/Phil Smith/RNZ News
Green Party’s spokesperson for Tertiary Education, Francisco Hernadez, said the new policy had nothing to do with free speech.
“This is about polluting our public discourse for political gain.”
Universities played a critical role, providing a platform for informed and reasoned debate.
“Our universities should be able to decide who is given a platform on their campuses, not David Seymour. These changes risk turning our universities into hostile environments unsafe for marginalised communities.
“Misinformation, disinformation, and rhetoric that inflames hatred towards certain groups has no place in our society, let alone our universities. Freedom of speech is fundamental, but it is not a licence to harm.”
Hernandez said universities should be trusted to ensure the balance was struck between academic freedom and a duty of care.
“Today’s announcement has also come with a high dose of unintended irony.
“David Seymour is speaking out of both sides of his mouth by on the one hand claiming to support freedom of speech, but on the other looking to limit the ability universities have to take stances on issues, like the war in Gaza for example.
“This is an Orwellian attempt to limit discourse to the confines of the government’s agenda. This is about stoking fear and division for political gain.”
Labour’s Associate Education (Tertiary) spokesperson Deborah Russell responded: “One of the core legislated functions of universities in this country is to be a critic and conscience of society. That means continuing to speak truth to power, even if those in power don’t like it.”
“Nowhere should be a platform for hate speech. I am certain universities can make these decisions themselves.”
‘Expectations clarified’ – university The University of Auckland said in a statement the announcement of planned legislation changes would help “to clarify government expectations in this area”.
“The university has a longstanding commitment to maintaining freedom of expression and academic freedom on our campuses, and in recent years has worked closely with [the university’s] senate and council to review, revise and consult on an updated Freedom of Expression and Academic Freedom Policy.
“This is expected to return to senate and council for further discussion in early 2025 and will take into account the proposed new legislation.”
The university described the nature of the work as “complex”.
“While New Zealand universities have obligations under law to protect freedom of expression, academic freedom and their role as ‘critic and conscience of society’, as the proposed legislation appreciates, this is balanced against other important policies and codes.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Chinese President Xi Jinping left Macau on Friday after a three-day ceremonial visit to mark the 25th anniversary of the former Portuguese enclave’s handover to Chinese rule, after laying out his vision for the role the gambling hub will play in his plans to boost China’s flagging economy.
“Macau is a shining pearl inlaid on the coast of the South China Sea and a treasured part of our great motherland,” Xi said in his keynote speech marking Friday’s anniversary, and inaugurating the next city government.
“The earliest Chinese students to go overseas went out to the world from here, many Chinese classics were translated and spread to the West, and modern Western science, technology and culture were introduced to mainland China via Macau,” he said.
“At different times in history, Macau has played an important role and made unique contributions,” Xi said.
Xi said Macau’s economic growth is now seven times what it was at the 1999 handover.
The city’s key task is now to “actively integrate into overall national development,” he said.
What does that mean in practice?
Xi wants the city to “actively participate” in his signature Belt and Road global infrastructure and supply chain project, as part of the “Greater Bay Area” integrating the city with neighboring Guangdong province and the former British colony of Hong Kong.
In 2021, the ruling Chinese Communist Party launched a semi-conductor research and development base jointly administered by authorities in the southern province of Guangdong and the formerly Portuguese city of Macau on Hengqin Island, paving the way for a blurring of the border between the two jurisdictions.
The “cooperation zone” on Hengqin Island is jointly administered by Guangdong and Macau, with a Communist Party, police, state security police and government presence.
The aim is to fast-track semiconductor chip designs and other high-tech research and development projects including new energy, big data, artificial intelligence and biomedical industries.
A gala to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Macau’s return to China is held at the Macau East Asian Games Stadium, Dec. 19, 2024.(Anthony Kwan/Reuters)
Beijing wants relatively cash-rich Macau to move away from its status as a gambling hub and plow funding into the Hengqin project and boost the mainland Chinese economy through innovation.
Xi also said Macau has “more prominent” advantages when it comes to acting as a platform for “China-foreign cultural exchange and cooperation.”
What does it mean for Hong Kong?
Xi’s description of Macau as “a higher-level platform for opening-up” suggests that Beijing now favors the city as its gateway to the rest of the world, a role held by Hong Kong for more than a century.
But Macau journalist Roy Choi said the city lacks Hong Kong’s advantages.
“Firstly, Macau’s financial system and laws aren’t up to level of Hong Kong’s, which is a common law jurisdiction, and secondly, it doesn’t have a large port, so it won’t be able to replace Hong Kong in terms of infrastructure.”
“But Beijing is anxious right now, so it thinks Macau is the way to go.”
Political commentators say China is rewriting its idea of the “one country, two systems” framework under which Hong Kong and Macau were returned to mean that the two former colonies can keep their separate jurisdictions only insofar as it benefits China as a whole.
“It … means that the mainland is the foundation, and Macau and Hong Kong are branches and are there to serve the mainland,” political analyst Chen Daoyin told RFA Mandarin in a recent interview. “The main point is that Hong Kong and Macau must be integrated into the overall framework of China’s modernization and must not create anything unique to them.”
What about the promises of autonomy?
Xi’s Macau visit coincided the 40th anniversary of the signing of the Sino-British Joint Declaration, which promised Hong Kong a “high degree of autonomy” for at least 50 years after the 1997 handover.
The last British governor of Hong Kong, Chris Patten, hit out at Beijing’s “flagrant disregard” of its commitments in the U.N.-registered treaty in a newspaper article on Thursday, accusing it of comprehensively crushing the city’s freedoms under two national security laws that followed the 2019 protest movement, and calling for sanctions from London in response.
Chinese five-star flags and the flag of the Macao Special Administrative Region are hung in a square in front of the Senate in Macao.(Tyrone Siu/Reuters)
Xi’s singling out of Macau as a favored location for global exchanges is in keeping with the fact that the city has never mounted any serious political challenge to the will of Beijing, and, unlike Hong Kong, was never promised fully democratic elections in the first place.
The city’s political and financial elite, exemplified by mainland-born incoming Chief Executive Sam Hou Fai, have always been more closely aligned with Chinese political goals than the former British colony of Hong Kong, and have never really wanted democracy, experts say.
In that sense, the city is living up to its reputation as the “well-behaved child,” while Hong Kong remains in a cycle of political repression following waves of mass popular protest since its handover to Chinese rule.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Chen Zifei for RFA Mandarin.
Russia and China have developed relations to an unprecedented level based on “full trust” and they almost always coordinate international action, Russian President Vladimir Putin told his annual press conference.
Relations between Russia and China had reached “a point that has never existed throughout our entire history” in both level and quality, Putin told Russian and foreign journalists, as well as members of the public who called in during the four-and-a-half televised session on Thursday.
“Everything that Russia and China do for each other is based on full trust,” he said during the “Result of the Year” press conference on Thursday.
Putin added bilateral trade between Russia and China was worth between US$220 billion and US$240 billion, with almost 600 joint investment projects of a combined value of US$200 million.
“It means the future is assured,” he said.
The president, who has held the post, with a four-year gap to serve as prime minister, for 20 years, has visited China 20 times, most recently in May.
Before that, Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping announced a “no limits partnership” with no forbidden areas of cooperation in February 2022, days before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“We frequently, almost always, coordinate our actions on the international stage, which is a very important element of international affairs,” Putin said.
In 2009, Russia and China, together with India and Brazil, founded a grouping called BRICS that has now become a geopolitical grouping with nine members.
The Russian president denied, however, that the bloc was established to counter the West and that it had a confrontational agenda.
“Our work is not aimed against anyone. We focus on our own interests and the interests of the group’s member countries,” he said.
Ties between Moscow and Beijing serve as “a stabilizing tool” in global affairs, said Putin, whose invasion of neighboring Ukraine has become the largest and deadliest conflict in Europe since World War II.
‘Special military operation’
Putin’s answers were clearly aimed at the domestic audience, who sent more than 2.2 million questions to the televised press conference.
A large part of the press conference was focused on the war in Ukraine, which the president referred to as a “special military operation.”
“I started telling fewer jokes and almost stopped laughing,” Putin said about how the war had changed him.
“Due to various circumstances, we are now increasing the strength of the army, security and law enforcement agencies to 1.5 million people.”
Asked whether he would change his decision to launch the full-scale invasion in 2022 if he could, Putin said: “we should have done it earlier” instead of waiting for the situation to deteriorate.
Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during his annual news conference at Gostinny Dvor in Moscow, Russia, Thursday, Dec. 19, 2024, as men hold a replica of the banner of the 155th Marine Brigade of the Pacific Fleet, participating in a special military operation in Ukraine in the background.(Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP)
He insisted that the Russian army was making progress and advancing “by square kilometers” every day but he declined to give a timeline for the war.
Russia has always been ready to talk with Ukraine, Putin said, “but we need that country to be ready for both negotiations and compromise.”
Putin also said that he was open to talks with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump.
“I don’t know when we will meet because he has not said anything about it … I have not talked to him for more than four years,” he said.
“Should there be an opportunity for a meeting with the newly elected president, Donald Trump, I am confident there will be plenty to discuss.”
Putin, responding to a question from an American journalist, rejected the suggestion that he would find himself in some kind of weakened state when meeting Trump.
“You and the people who pay your salary in the United States really want to see Russia in a weakened state,” he told the journalist. “I believe that Russia has become significantly stronger in the past two or three years.”
Russia’s sovereignty
“We are strengthening our defense capability. The combat readiness of the Russian armed forces is the highest in the world today,” he added.
According to Putin, Russia was now “capable of firmly standing on our feet when it comes to the economy,” with an expected growth rate of about 4% for 2024.
He acknowledged a rocketing year-on-year inflation rate of more than 9% but said that people’s salaries had increased, too.
“We are becoming a truly sovereign country, and we barely depend on anybody,” he added.
Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during his annual news conference and call-in show at Gostinny Dvor in Moscow, Russia, Thursday, Dec. 19, 2024(Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP)
The president spoke at length about Russia’s sovereignty, which appeared to be at the core of his political calculations.
“Economic growth is also an effect of bolstered sovereignty,” Putin said.
He also spoke of the changes in Russia’s nuclear doctrine, adopted in November, in which it demands increased “responsibility of non-nuclear states that may participate in an aggression against the Russian Federation alongside the countries that have nuclear weapons.”
“If, like their allies, these countries also pose a threat to our sovereignty and Russia’s existence, then we imply that we have the right to use our nuclear weapons against them,” Putin said.
That means Russia could respond with nuclear weapons should it deems an attack by Ukraine as “a threat to Russia’s sovereignty.”
Edited by Taejun Kang.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Staff.
TAIPEI, Taiwan – Taiwan has received 38 M1A2T tanks from the United States, the first U.S. tanks for the island in 23 years, and the first batch of an expected 122 due to arrive over the next two years.
While many defense experts rate the M1A2T as the world’s most advanced main battle tank, some also question whether it is suitable for Taiwan’s relatively confined, built-up spaces and its mountainous terrain.
Eric Gomez, senior fellow of Defense and Foreign Policy at Cato Institute, said in a news release that in the event of an invasion by China, its amphibious assault brigade may have light amphibious armored vehicles to help in the attack but it would not be supported by main tanks.
“The main task of the Abrams tanks in the Taiwanese army is to fight for those landing points and rely on strong firepower and armor to resist the landing troops,” said Gomez.
The M1A2 Abrams, a variant of the M1 Abrams produced by General Dynamics Land Systems, is considered one of the most advanced main battle tanks in the world. It is armed with 120-millimeter smoothbore guns capable of piercing armor up to 850 millimeters thick.
It can withstand shells fired by most other battle tanks and is faster than Taiwan’s existing tanks, U.S.-made M60A3s and indigenously developed CM11 tanks.
The M1A2T tank also features a “hunter-killer” capability, allowing it to track one target while simultaneously engaging another.
Soldiers securing a US-made M1A2 Abrams battle tank onto a trailer at an army armorr training center in Hsinchu County, Hsinchu on Dec. 16, 2024.(Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense/AFP)
Lin Ying-yu, an assistant professor at Tamkang University’s Graduate Institute of International Affairs and Strategic Studies, told Taiwan’s Central News Agency that Taiwan’s M60A3s and CM11s tanks have been in use for 30 years and are unlikely to withstand China’s advanced anti-armor weapons.
Lin said the M1A2Ts would significantly enhance the island’s defensive capabilities but some experts have questioned the suitability of the M1A2T in Taiwan’s built-up and mountainous terrain.
‘Highly constrained’
Michael Hunzeker, associate director of the Center for Security Policy Studies at George Mason University, told Radio Free Asia that although the M1A2 is highly capable, its weight and size made it more suited to open terrain.
“Taiwan is highly urbanized, mountainous, and or covered in small roads and small bridges,” he said. “Thus, M1s are highly constrained in where they can go, which limits their utility and works against one of their main advantages: mobility and speed.”
The tanks also require extensive logistical support for fuel to keep its jet turbine engine running, and for maintenance, Hunzeker said.
“In essence, it’s not that the M1 is ‘bad’ per se,” said Hunzeker. “It’s that the M1 is a suboptimal allocation of Taiwan’s scarce defense dollars.”
Gomez added that the fuel consumption and maintenance issues were real but not insurmountable.
“The bigger danger related to the Abrams logistics requirements is the vulnerability of support facilities,” he said, adding that maintenance facilities and fuel may be vulnerable to China’s long-range strikes.
Ukraine, which has a variant of the Abrams, has more space to disperse its support facilities and reduce its exposure to Russian attacks, unlike Taiwan, Gomez said.
“Taiwan’s smaller size makes it harder to disperse its logistics facilities, though it could try hardening the facilities to make them more difficult to destroy,” he said.
“Tanks can still be effective, but they need to be supported by other forces that can protect them against things like helicopters and drones,” Gomez added.
China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, asked about the arrival of the U.S. tanks on the island that China claims as its territory, reaffirmed its opposition to U.S.-Taiwan military ties.
“The Taiwan authorities’ attempts to achieve independence through military reliance on external forces are doomed to fail. China will resolutely defend its national sovereignty, security, and territorial integrity,” said Lin Jian, a Chinese ministry spokesperson, on Monday.
The tanks delivered on Sunday are from a batch of 108 tanks and other items announced for Taiwan by then-U.S. President Donald Trump in 2019.
According to Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense records, the island’s military is set to receive two more shipments of Abrams tanks, each consisting of 42 units, over the next two years.
Edited by Taejun Kang.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Alan Lu for RFA.
Authorities in Hong Kong are stepping up surveillance of the city’s 7 million residents with plans to deploy automated police drones, artificial intelligence and thousands of new cameras in public places, including taxis, according to recent government announcements.
The police are currently installing an additional 2,000 surveillance cameras in public places including the controversial smart lampposts targeted by protesters in 2019, Senior Superintendent of Police for Operations Leung Ming-leung told a meeting of the Independent Police Complaints Council on Dec. 17.
By 2027, an additional 7,000 cameras will be installed to monitor “crime black-spots,” with a pilot scheme already rolled out in Mong Kok, which saw mass pro-democracy protests and gatherings in 2014 and 2019, as well as the “Fishball Revolution” of 2016.
Thousands have been arrested on public order charges and hundreds under two national security laws, which ban criticism of the authorities or references to the protests.
Taxis drive along a street in Hong Kong, Dec. 19, 2024.(Wei Sze/RFA)
“At places where there is a higher footfall, we would install the CCTV with a view to preserving public order and public safety,” Leung said.
Police will also install “public address systems” to boost communication with the public, he added.
Facial recognition
As early as 2019, protesters were damaging and toppling controversial “smart lampposts” that had been newly installed in the city, saying their specification included facial recognition functions, although officials said at the time they hadn’t been activated.
Police Commissioner Raymond Siu said in February that use of facial recognition technology to track people caught by the cameras was likely in future.
Leung told the Council that footage captured by CCTV has helped solve 97 cases so far this year, including assaults and murders, but it is currently not intended for use in traffic violations like running a red light.
He said the authorities used surveillance cameras to estimate the size of crowds in the Lan Kwai Fong bar district at Halloween, “to help with manpower deployment.”
Automated drone patrols
Secretary for Security Chris Tang told lawmakers police are currently looking at bringing in automated drone patrols along default routes across Hong Kong, with images analyzed by AI for policing purposes.
“This can lead to greater operational effectiveness and higher work quality,” Tang said, adding that the program would comply with current safety and privacy laws.
Hong Kong’s police force is already equipped with a range of different drones and monitoring instruments, and are already increasingly being used by police, customs and immigration for investigation purposes, Tang told the Legislative Council on Dec. 11.
Police also use drones to conduct high-rise patrols at crime black spots, he said.
“For instance, mounted thermography and infrared detection systems are used to detect the presence of suspicious persons lingering or hiding at remotely located places or at difficult terrains,” Tang told lawmakers.
Surveillance cameras on a Hong Kong street, November 2024.(Wei Sze/RFA)
Meanwhile, the Transport Advisory Committee has said it plans to amend the law to mandate in-vehicle and dashboard cameras and GPS systems in all taxis.
“The camera system proposal … will better safeguard the interests of taxi drivers and passengers in cases of disputes and enhance driving safety for taxis,” Committee Chairman Stephen Cheung said in a statement on Dec. 17.
“These two measures will be conducive to enhancing the overall quality and image of taxi services,” he said.
‘It’s overkill’
Not everyone thought the additional cameras would make them safer, however.
“I don’t think it will,” a passerby who gave only the surname Lai for fear of reprisals told Radio Free Asia on Thursday. “On the contrary, if the streets are being monitored, there will be no privacy.”
“I really think it’s overkill.”
A taxi driver who gave only the surname Wong for fear of reprisals said: “I don’t really agree with it, because of the privacy issues.”
“Who gets to see it? It could be misused, or used as a political tool by the government,” he said. “I’m very worried about that.”
A passerby who gave only the surname Chan told RFA in an earlier interview that he had doubts about the true purpose of the surveillance cameras because there isn’t much street crime in Hong Kong.
“There really aren’t that many thieves,” he said. “But it’ll mean that if we have something we want to speak out about in future, or to oppose, we won’t be able to.”
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Roseanne Gerin.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Wei Sze, Luk Nam Choi and Edward Li for RFA Cantonese.
Authorities in Hong Kong are stepping up surveillance of the city’s 7 million residents with plans to deploy automated police drones, artificial intelligence and thousands of new cameras in public places, including taxis, according to recent government announcements.
The police are currently installing an additional 2,000 surveillance cameras in public places including the controversial smart lampposts targeted by protesters in 2019, Senior Superintendent of Police for Operations Leung Ming-leung told a meeting of the Independent Police Complaints Council on Dec. 17.
By 2027, an additional 7,000 cameras will be installed to monitor “crime black-spots,” with a pilot scheme already rolled out in Mong Kok, which saw mass pro-democracy protests and gatherings in 2014 and 2019, as well as the “Fishball Revolution” of 2016.
Thousands have been arrested on public order charges and hundreds under two national security laws, which ban criticism of the authorities or references to the protests.
Taxis drive along a street in Hong Kong, Dec. 19, 2024.(Wei Sze/RFA)
“At places where there is a higher footfall, we would install the CCTV with a view to preserving public order and public safety,” Leung said.
Police will also install “public address systems” to boost communication with the public, he added.
Facial recognition
As early as 2019, protesters were damaging and toppling controversial “smart lampposts” that had been newly installed in the city, saying their specification included facial recognition functions, although officials said at the time they hadn’t been activated.
Police Commissioner Raymond Siu said in February that use of facial recognition technology to track people caught by the cameras was likely in future.
Leung told the Council that footage captured by CCTV has helped solve 97 cases so far this year, including assaults and murders, but it is currently not intended for use in traffic violations like running a red light.
He said the authorities used surveillance cameras to estimate the size of crowds in the Lan Kwai Fong bar district at Halloween, “to help with manpower deployment.”
Automated drone patrols
Secretary for Security Chris Tang told lawmakers police are currently looking at bringing in automated drone patrols along default routes across Hong Kong, with images analyzed by AI for policing purposes.
“This can lead to greater operational effectiveness and higher work quality,” Tang said, adding that the program would comply with current safety and privacy laws.
Hong Kong’s police force is already equipped with a range of different drones and monitoring instruments, and are already increasingly being used by police, customs and immigration for investigation purposes, Tang told the Legislative Council on Dec. 11.
Police also use drones to conduct high-rise patrols at crime black spots, he said.
“For instance, mounted thermography and infrared detection systems are used to detect the presence of suspicious persons lingering or hiding at remotely located places or at difficult terrains,” Tang told lawmakers.
Surveillance cameras on a Hong Kong street, November 2024.(Wei Sze/RFA)
Meanwhile, the Transport Advisory Committee has said it plans to amend the law to mandate in-vehicle and dashboard cameras and GPS systems in all taxis.
“The camera system proposal … will better safeguard the interests of taxi drivers and passengers in cases of disputes and enhance driving safety for taxis,” Committee Chairman Stephen Cheung said in a statement on Dec. 17.
“These two measures will be conducive to enhancing the overall quality and image of taxi services,” he said.
‘It’s overkill’
Not everyone thought the additional cameras would make them safer, however.
“I don’t think it will,” a passerby who gave only the surname Lai for fear of reprisals told Radio Free Asia on Thursday. “On the contrary, if the streets are being monitored, there will be no privacy.”
“I really think it’s overkill.”
A taxi driver who gave only the surname Wong for fear of reprisals said: “I don’t really agree with it, because of the privacy issues.”
“Who gets to see it? It could be misused, or used as a political tool by the government,” he said. “I’m very worried about that.”
A passerby who gave only the surname Chan told RFA in an earlier interview that he had doubts about the true purpose of the surveillance cameras because there isn’t much street crime in Hong Kong.
“There really aren’t that many thieves,” he said. “But it’ll mean that if we have something we want to speak out about in future, or to oppose, we won’t be able to.”
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Roseanne Gerin.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Wei Sze, Luk Nam Choi and Edward Li for RFA Cantonese.
NEW YORK and WASHINGTON D.C.- Manhattan resident Chen Jinping has pleaded guilty to a charge in federal court related to running a secret Chinese police station in New York.
Chen Jinping, a U.S. citizen, had assisted with administrative tasks at the hidden outpost in Manhattan’s Chinatown in 2022.
According to U.S. prosecutors, it was set up by officials at China’s Fuzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau, a branch of its Ministry of Public Security, and was used to intimidate and silence critics of the Chinese government in New York.
Chen’s plea in Brooklyn on Wednesday is the first time a person involved in one of these overseas outposts has been held to account in court.
More than 100 of the Chinese police outposts have apparently been opened in cities around the world.
Chen, 61, admitted to conspiring to act as a foreign government agent, for which he faces up to five years in prison.
The existence of the police station in Chinatown and in other locations around the world was first reported in a 2022 report by the Spain-based human-rights group, Safeguard Defenders.
The former office of the America ChangLe Association, described by U.S. authorities as a Chinese “secret police station,” is seen on the fourth floor of the Royal East Plaza building in the Chinatown neighborhood of New York, April 17, 2023.(BING GUAN, Bing Guan/Reuters)
“I hope the outcome of cases like this will encourage victims of the PRC’s transnational repression to come forward in greater numbers,” Laura Harth, the campaign director of Safeguard Defenders, told RFA, referring to the People’s Republic of China.
“I also hope that the 53 countries where ‘overseas police stations’ have been uncovered take note and take action. This case serves as a warning to anyone considering assisting the CCP in its covert operations: there is no advantage in doing so,” she said, using an acronym for the Chinese Communist Party.
Chen Jinping was arrested in April 2023. He was charged with conspiracy and obstruction of justice. He did not plead guilty to the second charge. He will be sentenced on May 30, 2025.
Chen Jinping, a home health aide, wore a dark blue suit and a red tie to appear before Judge Nina Morrison of the Eastern District of New York.
Rising to address the court, he read from a sheet of paper. “I knowingly acted as a foreign agent,” he said in Mandarin. An interpreter from Fujian Province translated.
When RFA asked later how he felt after pleading guilty, he only smiled.
RFA visited the association last year, and members of the Chinese community in New York disclosed that while the association had helped some in the diaspora with paperwork and logistics, it had also played a role in harassing others.
Responding to Chen’s plea Wednesday, Zhou Fengsuo, a community leader, told RFA: “This is a representative case for the U.S. system, in which justice is served and evil is punished.”
“We hope that more overseas police stations will be closed and investigated so that Chinese people living abroad will face less oppression and threats from the CCP,” he added.
Lu is due in court in 2025.
The Chinese embassy in Washington did not return a request for comment by press time, but the Chinese Foreign Affairs Ministry has previously denied the existence of overseas police stations.
Edited by Boer Deng
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Jane Tang, Tara McKelvey.
A US$10-billion oil project in Uganda being developed by France’s TotalEnergies and CNOOC of China has been linked to human rights violations, with rights groups accusing the local authorities of repression and forced evictions, and citing sexual violence and environmental damage in connection with the project.
The project forms a key part of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s signature Belt and Road global supply chain and infrastructure program, which China says has helped more than 150 countries develop seaports, railways and bridges, and critics say has led to growing geopolitical influence for Beijing and debt traps for its partner countries.
Championed by Uganda’s strongman President Yoweri Museveni, despite ongoing opposition from environmentalists, the Ugandan project involves drilling for oil in the northwestern Lake Albert region and building a 1,443-kilometer (900-mile) heated pipeline to ship the crude to Tanzania’s Indian Ocean port of Tanga.
According to a recent report by the International Federation for Human Rights, or FIDH, Civic Response on Environment and Development and Lawyers Without Borders, the project has been associated with “disproportionate security measures, repression, land rights violations, forced evictions and corruption.”
The report accuses Ugandan troops of beating and harassing fishing communities, and documents cases of sexual and gender-based violence committed by soldiers and company personnel.
Some 12,000 families have been displaced to make way for the pipeline, while hundreds of households around Lake Albert have also been forced to leave their homes, it said.
The most serious abuses took place in and around the Kingfisher oil fields, the report said, noting a “high level of fear” in the region.
Meanwhile, non-government groups have reported house break-ins, beatings, unlawful detentions and torture, with at least 96 activists arrested between May and early December after they opposed the project, it said.
“Having displaced thousands of people, oil development is now significantly transforming the realities of local communities,” Sacha Feierabend, FIDH’s Senior Researcher on business and human rights, said in a statement launching the report.
Construction works, high inflation, pressure on land, deployment of security forces, and influx of workers have a considerable, combined impact on human rights, he said.
He called on all companies, the Uganda authorities and other stakeholders to assess their involvement in human rights abuses.
The army has reportedly carried out repeated arrests, extortion, and blatant mistreatment of community members to enforce restrictions on fishing, crippling the main source of livelihood in the area and instilling fear among residents, the rights groups said, citing eyewitness testimonies of hundreds of people being “evicted at gunpoint.”
The report said CNOOC, as the operator of Kingfisher, had a “distinct responsibility,” yet was taking no action to address “serious violations on its doorstep.”
It said TotalEnergies, as the main investor in all the projects including Kingfisher, had “failed to uphold its human rights duty to conduct effective due diligence.”
Sexual exploitation and gender-based violence are also on the rise in the project area, with growing prostitution near Kingfisher and Tilenga, the report found, adding that women are being excluded from work on the project itself.
Andrew Bogrand, Senior Policy Advisor at Oxfam, called on TotalEnergies to strengthen its human rights policies and ensure they are “better enforced” among its partners on the project.
“This report reveals how human rights risks flagged in previous years are turning into real violations, especially against human rights defenders,” Bogrand warned.
Government and companies respond
Ugandan government spokesman Chris Baryomunsi said the allegations were “rather ridiculous and unfounded,” and a “smear campaign” that wouldn’t succeed in halting the project, Agence France-Presse reported.
TotalEnergies expressed its “strongest disagreement” with the claims in the report “that cast doubt on the attention paid to respect for human rights in operations in Uganda,” the agency said.
“In Uganda, as elsewhere, TotalEnergies is transparent about its human rights commitments and their implementation, which have been the subject of numerous public communications,” it added.
People fetch water on the shores of Lake Albert in Buliisa, Uganda, Jan. 21, 2023.(BADRU KATUMBA, Badru Katumba/AFP)
CNOOC has yet to comment publicly on the report, but took part in a joint consultation on similar allegations from Just Finance International, according to a company response posted to the Business Human Rights website, that found “no connection” between recent human rights allegations and the activities of the Kingfisher operations in the project area.
The June 10 response from TotalEnergies said the Ugandan military hadn’t carried out any enforcement operations for the project, and “the allegations of physical displacement seem not connected to the Kingfisher project.”
CNOOC’s official website defines non-government groups and local communities as “stakeholders” in its projects.
“We believe respecting human rights is a fundamental aspect of responsible energy development,” according to the Corporate Social Responsibility section of its website.
“We strive to ensure business decisions are examined for their potential impact on human rights and by taking steps to ensure employees and contractors are never complicit in human rights violations,” according to the website.
Policy of non-interference
David Hamilton Shinn, adjunct professor at the School of International Affairs at George Washington University and former U.S. ambassador to Burkina Faso and Ethiopia, said CNOOC likely sees any local human rights violations as the Ugandan government’s problem.
He said the state-owned offshore exploration and development giant had likely adopted the Chinese government’s own approach of non-interference in the “internal affairs” of other countries.
Remained containers of crude oil at the test drilling site of the China National Offshore Oil Corporation, which operates the “Kingfisher” project at the south-east of Lake Albert, Uganda, Jan. 24, 2020.(Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP)
Lin Kunda, an assistant professor of international affairs at the Georgia Institute of Technology, said many of China’s Belt and Road projects take place in authoritarian regimes, where it’s far harder for local people to hold their own government to account.
“This is … all about Beijing’s relationship with Uganda’s rulers, who are also profiting from this project,” Lin said. “China doesn’t care about its reputation in Uganda because people there have no way to complain to the government.”
Yet China’s Belt and Road cooperation model has been popular among developing countries where political instability is a concern for Western competitors, because its state-owned enterprises are able to offer technology and funding in the form of cheap loans.
“Chinese state-owned enterprises hunt in packs, and so others will come in to set up factories to refine raw materials, and transport [the products] back to China too,” Lin said. “This one-stop shop approach is very attractive.”
Lin said Beijing is still keen to diversify its energy sources, particularly since the war in Ukraine started.
“They can’t guarantee that their relationship with Russia will always be plain sailing,” Lin said. “I don’t think China will give up its efforts to expand its energy sources via the Belt and Road.”
Translated by Luisetta Mudie.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Jenny Tang for RFA Mandarin.
TAIPEI, Taiwan – The United States finalized a $406 million grant for GlobalWafers, a key Taiwanese semiconductor component manufacturer, amid concerns that President-elect Donald Trump might overturn a law promoting U.S. semiconductor production through subsidies, including to foreign companies.
Trump has expressed a preference for using tariffs over subsidies to encourage domestic semiconductor manufacturing, noting that tariffs on imported chips would incentivize companies to relocate production to the U.S. without the need for government spending.
The funds for projects by GlobalWafers in Texas and Missouri will establish the first high-volume U.S. production of 300-mm wafers for advanced semiconductors and expand production of silicon-on-insulator wafers, the U.S. Commerce Department said in a statement on Tuesday.
Wafers are thin slices of silicon used as the base for making semiconductors. They undergo layering and etching to create circuits for chips used in technologies like AI, 5G, and computing. Their quality is crucial for chip performance.
“The semiconductor wafers that will be produced here in the U.S. because of this investment in GlobalWafers are the foundation of the advanced chips that will help us out-innovate and out-compete the rest of the world,” said U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo.
The subsidy will also support nearly US$4 billion in investments by GlobalWafers in both states to construct new wafer manufacturing facilities and create 1,700 construction and 880 manufacturing jobs, the department added.
“As we plan to achieve the first milestone in the first half of next year, we have an opportunity to receive the first CHIPS Act funding by the end of next year, if everything progresses smoothly,” GlobalWafers chairwoman Doris Hsu told reporters.
The CHIPS Act is designed to strengthen U.S. semiconductor manufacturing by offering subsidies, grants, and incentives to companies, including foreign manufacturers like Taiwan’s GlobalWafers, to invest in semiconductor production within the U.S.
Domestic opinions on the act are divided. Supporters argue it’s vital for boosting U.S. semiconductor production, reducing reliance on foreign supply chains, and ensuring national security. Critics, however, see it as excessive government spending that favors large corporations and question its effectiveness.
Trump, in a November media interview, criticized the Act.
“When I see us paying a lot of money to have people build chips, that’s not the way … you could have done it with a series of tariffs,” he said.
GlobalWafers’s Hus said, however, she believed the U.S. government would uphold the law and that no major changes would occur as Washington has a good track record of living up to its promises even after Trump takes office on Jan. 20.
GlobalWafers is set to establish and expand facilities in Sherman, Texas, to produce wafers for leading-edge, mature-node, and memory chips, and a new facility in St. Peters, Missouri, focused on wafers for defense and aerospace applications.
Five major companies, including GlobalWafers, dominate more than 80% of the global 300-mm silicon wafer market, with approximately 90% of silicon wafers manufactured in East Asia.
Edited by RFA Staff.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Taejun Kang for RFA.
A London-based lawyer accused of secretly working with China’s propaganda arm has lost a legal appeal against the U.K.’s domestic intelligence service.
Christine Lee said an “interference alert” from MI5 issued in January 2022 had violated her rights, leading to lost business, a barrage of racist emails and even death threats. Her son, David Wilkes, was part of the appeal and said that the alert also negatively affected him.
But the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, an independent U.K. judiciary body, unanimously dismissed their claim, calling the alert issued to the British Parliament “a proportionate response to the threat posed” by Lee.
The alert accused Lee of attempting to interfere with U.K. politics on behalf of the United Front Work Department, which Western governments say operates covert intelligence and influence campaigns abroad.
The alert was the first ever issued related to China. However, officials did not deem her to have committed any prosecutable offense.
Lee was born in Hong Kong but emigrated with her family to Belfast when she was 12.
The advisory notice on lawyer Christine Lee from MI5, the U.K.’s domestic intelligence and security agency.(MI5)
At the time the alert was issued, she was working as an attorney largely on behalf of members of the British Chinese community. Lee’s work on Anglo-Chinese relations garnered an award in 2019 from then-Prime Minister Theresa May.
Wilkes, her son, was a diary manager for Barry Gardiner, a member of Parliament to whom Lee had donated more than 500,000 GBP over five years.
The issuance of the alert prompted a barrage of news reports alleging that Lee was a Chinese agent, which she claimed caused her emotional distress. The judgment issued this week notes that Lee received rape and death threats following the issuance of the alert. Lee said the alert led to “irreparable reputational harm” and ended her work on behalf of asylum seekers.
Wilkes alleged that he was told by his employer to resign or be dismissed the day the alert was issued. Gardiner denied the claim, and the two later reached a settlement. But the alert forced him to change careers and cost him friendships, Wilkes said.
However, the tribunal ruled today that MI5’s warning about Lee’s alleged threat was justified, and that the agency was not responsible for abuses she faced from the media and public. The court was established in 2000 to weigh cases in which public entities, in particular British intelligence agencies, are alleged to have violated individual rights.
The decision to dismiss Lee and Wilkes’ claims comes as fears over Chinese efforts to influence politics have gripped Britain.
On Monday, British officials named Yang Tengbo as the alleged Chinese spy who had been barred from entering the United Kingdom due to national security risks in 2021, confirming an RFA Dec. 13 report.
Yang had served as a business adviser to Prince Andrew and, as also was reported by RFA, had connections with former British Prime Ministers David Cameron and Teresa May through his consultancy, the Hampton Group International.
British authorities allege Yang plotted to secretly advance Beijing’s interest in the U.K. through his ties to high-profile figures.
China’s Foreign Ministry said the UK’s allegation of YangTengbo engaging in espionage was ‘ridiculous’ and called on both sides to work towards mutual benefit.
Chinese officials have denied the allegations, saying Yang’s work was part of normal exchanges to promote international business. Yang himself had asked British authorities to release his name publicly. “The widespread description of me as a ‘spy’ is entirely untrue,” he said in a statement.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian on Tuesday called the spying allegations against Yang “ridiculous.”
Edited by Abby Seiff and Boer Deng
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Jim Snyder.
A Californian man was sentenced to almost three-and-a-half years in prison on Monday for running a business that helped affluent Chinese tourists “hide their pregnancies” from immigration officials so they could give birth on American soil and grant their children U.S. citizenship.
The sentencing comes amid a proposal by President-elect Donald Trump to end birthright citizenship in the United States, and the “Run” movement that has seen a surge in Chinese immigrants arriving at the southern American border to seek asylum in the United States.
Michael Wei Yueh Liu, a 59-year-old man from San Bernardino county, was sentenced to 41 months in U.S. federal prison over the “USA Happy Baby” business he ran with his wife, 47-year-old Jing Dong, from January 2012 to March 2015, selling “birth tourism” packages.
Federal agents raid an apartment complex, March 3, 2015, in Irvine, Calif., to conduct a crackdown on alleged maternity tourism rings.(Jae C. Hong/AP)
Liu was found guilty of one count of conspiracy and 10 counts of international money laundering in September. Dong, who is now separated from Liu, is expected to be sentenced early next year.
The couple charged “tens of thousands of dollars” for the service, which included short-term housing in San Bernardino and maternity care to the mostly affluent women, who usually returned to China “within one or two months after giving birth,” a press release said.
“Liu and Dong advised their customers on how to hide their pregnancies from the immigration authorities,” the press release said, adding that they later also helped in obtaining birth certificates.
The clients were instructed to wear baggy clothing and lie to immigration officials by saying they were visiting only for tourism and would only stay for one or two weeks. In practice, they remained in the country for months and gave birth.
“Liu and Dong or their agents also advised their customers to fly to ports of entry with perceived less customs scrutiny, such as Hawaii, before flying to Los Angeles, to wear loose fitting clothing, to favor certain lines at customs that they perceived to be less strict, and on how to answer the customs officials’ questions,” it explained.
Liu and Dong made several millions of dollars from the scheme, federal prosecutors had said in court.
Pleas for leniency
In federal court on Monday, Liu pleaded for leniency in sentencing, with his attorney noting that he was the sole provider for his 95-year-old father and 82-year-old mother, as well as he and his estranged wife’s 13-year-old son, according to a report by the Associated Press.
Prosecutors had sought a more than five-year prison sentence for the scheme that they said deliberately aimed to deceive U.S. immigration officials. His attorney argued he should face a 26-month term.
A group of people, many from China, walk along the USA – Mexico border wall after crossing into the USA to seek asylum, Tuesday, Oct. 24, 2023, near Jacumba, Calif..(Gregory Bull/AP)
U.S. District Judge R. Gary Klausner said he had reduced the sentence slightly to reflect Liu’s family situation but that his legal predicament was ultimately due to the “choices you make,” and not the court’s.
Liu’s lawyers had earlier argued he and Dong had not violated any U.S. laws because they had only helped the pregnant Chinese women give birth once they had arrived in America, and that other companies were responsible for helping them evade detection on their way in.
The women would have faced punishment under China’s one-child policy, which was eventually scrapped in 2015, had they been allowed to return home to give birth, Liu’s defense attorney told the court.
However, the California jury did not buy the story and found both Liu and Jong guilty of their offenses in September – almost a decade after their “maternity hotels” were raided by police in 2015 amid a wider crackdown on the lucrative “birth tourism” industry in the state.
It’s not illegal for women to visit the United States while pregnant, but it is an offense to lie to immigration officials about the reason for travel.
Edited by Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Alex Willemyns.
Hong Kongers who go overseas are still winding up trapped in a notorious scam park operation in Myanmar, family members told RFA Cantonese in recent interviews after petitioning the city’s leader John Lee for help.
They are joining thousands of captives who are being held at a large compound in Kayin state called KK Park, a Chinese development project that has become a notorious center for scam operations.
Thousands of human trafficking victims from all over Asia — and as far away as Africa — are being held hostage there despite some attempts at rescue by the authorities. Former victims have said they were lured in by false advertisements and forced to scam other people, then tortured if they refused to comply.
A woman who gave only the nickname Mary for fear of reprisals, who was among three people to petition Chief Executive John Lee for assistance with disappeared family members on Tuesday, said she had lost contact with her son after he traveled to Thailand at the beginning of December “for work.”
Hong Kong Secretary for Security Chris Tang speaks to the Legislative Council about people held in scam parks, in Hong Kong, Dec. 3, 2024.(Legislative Council)
He didn’t tell his family what kind of work he had planned, and remained in touch until the point where he is believed to have entered KK Park.
Asked if she fears for her son’s life, Mary told reporters: “That’s the thing I’m most worried about.”
Mary’s son is among at least 23 Hong Kongers believed to be lured into Southeast Asian scam operations this year, Secretary for Security Chris Tang told the Legislative Council on Dec. 3. Of those, 11 have returned to Hong Kong, Tang said.
While Tang told lawmakers that some people inside KK Park were “in contact” with loved ones, and that anyone working there had “entered voluntarily,” relatives of the missing say they haven’t heard from their loved ones at all, and that they were tricked into going there while traveling to completely unrelated countries like Japan and Taiwan.
Scam centers have plagued the border areas of Thailand, Myanmar and China as nationals from all three countries are tricked into — and subsequently enslaved in — online fraud.
The businesses typically force trafficked workers to call people across Asia and convince them to deposit money in fake or fraudulent investments.
Tens of thousands involved in the criminal schemes were deported from Myanmar in 2023 by both junta and rebel army officials. Many are linked to forced labor, human trafficking and money laundering, which proliferated after COVID-19 shut down casinos across Southeast Asia.
Six new cases
Former Yau-Tsim-Mong District Council chairman Andy Yu, who has previously helped Hong Kong families with loved ones in KK Park, said he has received six new cases of family members trapped at the site in recent weeks.
“There are a lot of family members who are unable to contact their loved ones, so they are wondering why the secretary for security said that they are in contact with those trapped there,” Yu told RFA Cantonese while delivering the petition on Tuesday.
A satellite image of the Dongfeng Park area of Myawaddy, which is a sub-district of KK Park, in Myanmar, December 2023.(Google Earth)
Yu said the organization that runs the park now appears to be stopping them from contacting loved ones to let them know they’re OK, after previously allowing it.
“It’s been hard for family members to reach their loved ones lately, so they don’t even know if they’re OK or not,” he said.
Another family member of a person trapped in KK Park who gave only the nickname Calvin for fear of reprisals said his relative had been lured to Myanmar after traveling to Japan in search of a job as a purchasing agent six months ago.
They were only supposed to be gone for two or three days, so by day four, Calvin reported them missing to the Hong Kong police.
He later heard from his relative that they were being held in KK Park, but he hasn’t heard anything back from the police, he told RFA Cantonese.
Promises of jobs
Yu said victims are being lured initially to Japan and Taiwan, often with the promise of a job, then taken to Thailand, then to KK Park in Myawaddy.
Three family members and former District Councilor Andy Yu en route to petition Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee for assistance over loved ones held in Myanmar’s KK Park, in Hong Kong, December 2024.(Wei Sze/RFA)
Ransoms have skyrocketed in recent years, he said.
“Two years ago, you could have gotten out by paying a ransom of HK$500,000-600,000 (US$64,300-77,200),” Yu said. “Now, it’s much higher, more than HK$1 million (US$129,000), and that’s if they even offer a ransom.”
“Getting out of there isn’t easy,” he said.
While staff at his office accepted the families’ petition, Chief Executive John Lee made no mention of the issue when he took questions from reporters at a regular news briefing later in the day.
A United Nations report in August 2023 said that hundreds of thousands of people have been forced by organized criminal gangs into working at illegal casinos and other online scam work in Southeast Asia.
Myanmar and Cambodia topped the list of countries where the largest numbers of citizens were being forced to carry out online scams.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Roseanne Gerin.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Wei Sze and Edward Li for RFA Cantonese.
TAIPEI, Taiwan – An annual forum between the cities of Shanghai and Taipei that is meant to promote dialogue across the Taiwan Strait has opened about six months late after tensions including unprecedented Chinese sabre-rattling raised doubts that it could be organized this year.
The Shanghai-Taipei City Forum opened in the self-ruled island’s capital on Monday with a visit by Hua Yuan, the deputy mayor of China’s largest city, presided over by Taipei’s mayor, Chiang Wan-an.
Chiang, in his opening remarks, acknowledged the recent tensions between Beijing and the island it regards as its territory and has vowed to take over by force if necessary.
Just last week, China’s military deployed what one senior Taiwan official called a “staggering” array of ships and aircraft in the seas and skies around the island in a show of force that analysts said could be aimed at setting red lines for the incoming administration in the United States, Taiwan’s main ally.
“I always say that the more tense and difficult the moment, the more we need to communicate,” Chiang told the visiting Chinese delegates at the forum.
Chiang called for talks.
“More dialogue and less confrontation; more olive branches of peace and less sour grapes of conflict. More lights from fishing boats to adorn the sunset; less of the howls of ships and aircraft,” said Chiang.
Chiang, a member of Taiwan’s main opposition party, the Kuomintang, which traditionally advocates for closer cross-strait ties while rejecting accusations it is pro-Beijing, is widely seen as a possible presidential candidate.
The forum is an annual platform for dialogue and cooperation between the two cities. Established in 2010, it serves as a semi-official channel for communication, focusing on practicalities such as economic collaboration, tourism, education, culture, and public services.
The city-to-city is seen as a useful avenue for people-to-people exchanges, especially when official cross-strait communications are limited.
Shanghai Vice Mayor Hua Yuan and Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an pose for photo at a dinner before the annual city forum in Taipei, Taiwan, Dec. 16, 2024.(Ann Wang/Reuters)
Entry bans
This year’s forum was initially planned for July or August but was postponed as the tensions raised doubts about the schedule, until an agenda was finally drawn up late in the year.
The event has not been without its casualties.
As tensions surged last week with the Chinese show of force, Taiwan banned entry to Shanghai Taiwan Affairs Office Director Jin Mei and nine Chinese media personnel.
Assistant Professor of Taiwan’s Shoochow University’s Department of Political Science Chen Fang-Yu told Radio Free Asia that the forum, in principle, should be a “positive event,” especially as it involves official exchanges from both sides.
“However, since 2016 China has unilaterally cut off all opportunities for official dialogue with Taiwan,” he said, adding that Taipei seemed “urged” to host the forum this year.
Chen noted that Taipei Mayor Chiang had vowed in his 2022 election campaign that the forum would only be hosted when the Chinese Communist Party stopped sending military aircraft and vessels to harass Taiwan.
At the forum, Shanghai Mayor Hua called for practical cooperation between the two sides and said that Shanghai tour group trips to Taiwan would resume, although China has yet to fully restore the levels of tourism to the island seen before the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Compatriots on both sides of the Taiwan Strait have always been one family. We often come and go, getting closer and closer to each other,” Hua told the forum.
However, Chen warned that the offer to resume tour groups from China could be seen as a Chinese tactic to promote its pro-unification agenda.
“It feels like they are treating the reopening as some kind of favor to Taiwan,” Chen said, referring to the resumption of group tours.
Edited by Taejun Kang.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Alan Lu for RFA.
The A$140 million aid agreement between Australia and Nauru signed last week is a prime example of the geopolitical tightrope vulnerable Pacific nations are walking in the 21st century.
The deal provides Nauru with direct budgetary support, stable banking services, and policing and security resources. In return, Australia will have the right to veto any pact Nauru might make with other countries — namely China.
The veto terms are similar to the “Falepili Union” between Australia and Tuvalu signed late last year, which granted Tuvaluans access to Australian residency and climate mitigation support, in exchange for security guarantees.
In exchange for investment in military infrastructure development, training and equipment, the US gains unrestricted access to six ports and airports.
Also last week, PNG signed a 10-year, A$600 million deal to fund its own team in Australia’s NRL competition. In return, “PNG will not sign a security deal that could allow Chinese police or military forces to be based in the Pacific nation”.
These arrangements are all emblematic of the geopolitical tussle playing out in the Pacific between China and the US and its allies.
This strategic competition is often framed in mainstream media and political commentary as an extension of “the great game” played by rival powers. From a traditional security perspective, Pacific nations can be depicted as seeking advantage to leverage their own development priorities.
But this assumption that Pacific governments are “diplomatic price setters”, able to play China and the US off against each other, overlooks the very real power imbalances involved.
The risk, as the authors of one recent study argued, is that the “China threat” narrative becomes the justification for “greater Western militarisation and economic dominance”. In other words, Pacific nations become diplomatic price takers.
Defence diplomacy Pacific nations are vulnerable on several fronts: most have a low economic base and many are facing a debt crisis. At the same time, they are on the front line of climate change and rising sea levels.
The costs of recovering from more frequent extreme weather events create a vicious cycle of more debt and greater vulnerability. As was reported at this year’s United Nations COP29 summit, climate financing in the Pacific is mostly in the form of concessional loans.
At the country level, government systems often lack the capacity to manage increasing aid packages, and struggle with the diplomatic engagement and other obligations demanded by the new geopolitical conditions.
In August, Kiribati even closed its borders to diplomats until 2025 to allow the new government “breathing space” to attend to domestic affairs.
In the past, Australia championed governance and institutional support as part of its financial aid. But a lot of development assistance is now skewed towards policing and defence.
Kiribati: threatened by sea level rise, the nation closed its borders to foreign diplomats until 2025. Image: Getty Images/The Conversation
Lack of good faith At the same time, many political parties in Pacific nations operate quite informally and lack comprehensive policy manifestos. Most governments lack a parliamentary subcommittee that scrutinises foreign policy.
The upshot is that foreign policy and security arrangements can be driven by personalities rather than policy priorities, with little scrutiny. Pacific nations are also susceptible to corruption, as highlighted in Transparency International’s 2024 Annual Corruption Report.
Since 2019, my country has become a hotbed for diplomatic tensions and foreign interference, and undue influence.
Similarly, Pacific affairs expert Distinguished Professor Steven Ratuva has argued the Australia–Tuvalu agreement was one-sided and showed a “lack of good faith”.
Behind these developments, of course, lies the evolving AUKUS security pact between Australia, the US and United Kingdom, a response to growing Chinese presence and influence in the “Indo-Pacific” region.
The response from Pacific nations has been diplomatic, perhaps from a sense they cannot “rock the submarine” too much, given their ties to the big powers involved. But former Pacific Islands Forum Secretary-General Meg Taylor has warned:
Pacific leaders were being sidelined in major geopolitical decisions affecting their region and they need to start raising their voices for the sake of their citizens.
Unless these partnerships are grounded in good faith and genuine sustainable development, the grassroots consequences of geopolitics-as-usual will not change.
Representatives of the military junta and leaders of an insurgent army have been holding talks in China’s Yunnan province as Beijing leans on both sides to find a resolution to Myanmar’s civil war, sources close to the junta and the ethnic armed group told Radio Free Asia.
The negotiations in Kunming began Sunday, according to the sources who requested anonymity for security reasons. Neither the junta nor the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, or MNDAA, have made any statements on the talks.
Lieutenant Gen. Ko Ko Oo represented the junta, along with a brigadier general and office staff, a junta source told RFA.
The talks come more than a month after junta leader Min Aung Hlaing traveled to Kunming to meet with Chinese Premier Li Qiang on the sidelines of a regional summit. The Nov. 6 trip marked the junta chief’s first trip to China since Myanmar’s military seized power in a February 2021 coup d’etat.
In August, the MNDAA captured Lashio, northern Shan state’s biggest city and the location of the junta’s northeast military command. Since then, Beijing has pressured the rebel army to withdraw from the city, an important commercial gateway near the Chinese border.
Over the last year, the MNDAA has also seized control of more than a half dozen towns in the area that serve as significant border trading hubs.
In October, the group’s leader, Peng Daxun, traveled to Yunnan for medical treatment and to meet with Deng Xijun, China’s special envoy for Asian Affairs.
Sources close to the MNDAA told RFA last month that he was prevented from returning to Myanmar after the meeting as a way of pressuring the group to withdraw its troops from Lashio.
A source close to the junta regime told RFA that Peng was being held at a hotel in Yunnan that’s owned by his father. China’s foreign ministry denied that he was under house arrest.
The MNDAA, which has been fighting for autonomy since before the 2021 coup, declared a cease fire on Dec. 3 and announced that it would send a high-level delegation for talks with the junta. Peng’s status or location wasn’t mentioned in the announcement.
Aim to reopen trade crossings
Discussions will likely focus on continuing the ceasefire and the reopening of border trade gates, political analyst Phoe Wa said.
“Pressure for either side to withdraw from their territories will not be accepted,” he said. “Instead, both sides are likely to reinforce their commitments to their current stronghold positions. The minimum possible agreement could involve easing the trade ban.”
The junta could request the release of soldiers captured by the MNDAA during the fight for Lashio, a former military officer and political analyst told RFA.
“The rebels have detained a significant number of junta troops, which poses a heavy burden for them,” the analyst said. “Given their limited territory and budget, providing adequate food for the prisoners of war is challenging.”
Political analyst Than Soe Naing said the junta may also ask that it be allowed to dispatch troops in towns along the Muse-Mandalay trade route, as well as in Kunlong, a border town seized by the MNDAA in November 2023.
“I believe the junta will aim to maintain control in these areas,” he told RFA. “If they can secure Kunlong, they would likely consider that sufficient. They may propose a joint administration with the local population to solidify their rule.”
RFA attempted to contact junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Htun and a spokesperson for the MNDAA for comment but didn’t receive a response.
RFA also didn’t immediately receive a reply to an emailed request for comment sent to the Chinese embassy in Myanmar on Monday.
Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Burmese.
