In an increasingly multipolar world, Donald Trump’s plans to impose tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and the European Union threaten to erode the United States’ global standing. The move has even provoked a backlash from Canada, a historically close ally, where citizens have responded by launching a significant boycott movement.
With the notable exception of Israel, Trump has strained relations with nearly all of Washington’s traditional allies. Among the most unexpected targets of his rhetoric has been Canada, a country he has suggested should “become our cherished 51st state.”
The rights group Campaign for Uyghurs and freedom of expression advocate Li Ying, known as “Teacher Li” on social media, were nominated for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize by two U.S. congressmen who are members of a China panel.
John Moolenaar, a Michigan Republican and chairman of the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, and fellow member Raja Krishnamoorthi, an Illinois Democrat, made the announcement on Feb. 5.
The praised the nominees in a statement for their “unwavering commitment to justice, human rights, and the protection of the Uyghur people against genocide and repression.”
‘Teacher Li’ and the Campaign for Uyghurs nominated for Nobel Prize
About 12 million mostly Muslim Uyghurs live in northwestern China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region where they face repression by the Chinese government, which includes mass arbitrary detentions, forced labor, family separations, religious persecution and the erasure of Uyghur identity and culture.
“In the face of one of the most pressing human rights crises of our time, Campaign for Uyghurs and Teacher Li continue to shine a light in the face of adversity, while challenging injustices and amplifying the voices of those too often silenced,” Krishnamoorthi said.
Moolenaar noted the CFU’s “tireless advocacy and bold testimony” in ensuing that the world can’t ignore the truth about the Uyghur genocide in Xinjiang, and in amplifying victim’s voices to pierce the Chinese Communist Party’s wall of silence.
U.S. Reps. Raja Krishnamoorthi (left) and John Moolenaar (right) of the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party have nominated Campaign for Uyghurs and freedom of expression advocate Li Ying, known on social media as ‘Teacher Li,’ for the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize.(AP)
He also said Teacher Li had become “a vital lifeline for free expression, courageously breaking through China’s Great Firewall to shed light on citizens’ protests despite grave personal risk.”
‘Long overdue attention to the Uyghur plight’
Established in 2017 by its executive director, Rushan Abbas, the CFU champions human rights and democratic freedoms for Uyghurs while urging the global community to take action against human rights abuses in East Turkistan, Uyghurs’ preferred name for Xinjiang.
Rushan said the nomination acknowledges her organization’s dedication to advocating for Uyghur rights and acts as a powerful symbol of the resilience of a people resisting oppression.
“We hope this recognition brings overdue attention to the Uyghur plight,” she said in a statement. “The Chinese government’s crimes are not just a regional issue; they constitute a global human rights crisis that demands immediate action.”
“The world must unite — governments, institutions, and civil society alike — to defend fundamental human rights for all, no matter the perpetrator,” Abbas said.
In February 2022, the CFU was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize by U.S. Reps. Tom Suozzi, a New York Democrat, and Chris Smith, a New Jersey Republican, who co-chair the Uyghur Caucus.
A Campaign for Uyghurs press release announces that the Uyghur rights organization has been nominated for the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize.(Campaign for Uyghurs)
In the past, other Uyghur advocacy groups and individual activists, including the World Uyghur Congress, Uyghur Human Rights Project, prominent Uyghur scholar Ilham Tohti, and former World Uyghur Congress president Rebiya Kadeer, were nominated for the Nobel Prize.
‘White Paper’ movement
Li Ying, a social media influencer who now lives in exile in Italy, rose to prominence during the ”White Paper” movement of November 2022, when thousands of people gathered in the streets of cities across China to protest lockdowns and mass quarantines President Xi Jinping’s zero-COVID policy.
The protests, in which people held up blank sheets of paper to show they felt authorities had robbed them of their voices, were also triggered by an apartment fire in Urumqi, Xinjiang’s capital, where dozens died, apparently because they were locked in their building.
Li took to social media to tell the world in videos and texts about the White Paper protests on his X account “Teacher Li is not your teacher”.While X is banned in China and news of the protests was heavily suppressed by the authorities, young people who supported the movement still found ways to send Li footage, photos and news of the protests.
When Li woke up in Milan, Italy, on Feb. 6, his mobile phone was flooded with text messages congratulating him on the nomination, he told Radio Free Asia.
“I never thought that this would happen to me, because there are many human rights lawyers and activists who are currently locked up in China’s detention centers and prisons,” he said, adding that they were more deserving of the nomination.
“At the very least, this nomination demonstrates to the world, and to my family, that their son is not a traitor, and that he is really doing something to help the Chinese people,” said Li, who has been called a “traitor to the Chinese people” by Communist Party supporters.
“So, in that sense it is a recognition of what I do,” he said.
Mongolian rights
Ethnic Mongolian Hada, an ailing dissident and political prisoner from China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region who goes by only one name, has also been nominated for the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize.
Mongolian dissident Hada displays a sign expressing support for herders in Mongolian and Chinese, Jan. 15, 2015.(Photo courtesy of SMHRIC)
Hada has been imprisoned or placed under house arrest in China since 1995 because of his activities. He is a co-founder of the Southern Mongolian Democratic Alliance, a campaign group that advocates for the self-determination of Inner Mongolia, a northern region of China.
The 2025 Nobel Peace Prize will be announced in October by the Norwegian Nobel Committee in Oslo, and awarded on Dec. 10, 2025.
Additional reporting by RFA Mandarin. Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Roseanne Gerin for RFA English.
TAIPEI, Taiwan – Chinese AI startup DeepSeek warned of “misunderstanding and confusion” over the firm and its service, saying misinformation was being spread about it, but it did not address an increasing number of bans by authorities around the world on its AI chatbot due to security concerns.
DeepSeek’s chatbot app became the most downloaded on Apple’s iPhone, surpassing U.S. company OpenAI’s ChatGPT. While praised for efficiency, it faces concerns over censorship of sensitive topics and data privacy, and ties to the Chinese government, with some governments banning the app.
“Recently, some counterfeit accounts and baseless information related to DeepSeek have misled and confused the public,” DeepSeek said in a statement on its official WeChat channel on Thursday, without addressing the global security concerns.
“All information related to DeepSeek is based on what is posted on the official account, and please be careful to identify any information posted on any unofficial or personal account as it does not represent the views of the company,” the Chinese firm added, saying it only manages accounts on WeChat, RedNote, also known as Xiaohongshu, and X.
“To enjoy DeepSeek’s AI service, users must download the app through the official channels, including our website,” the company said, without elaborating.
DeepSeek did not elaborate on the misleading information it said was being spread, but its statement came amid growing steps by some governments and private companies to ban the AI chatbot app.
Australia ordered on Tuesday all government bodies to remove DeepSeek products from their devices immediately, while South Korea’s foreign and defense ministries as well as its prosecutors’ office banned the app on Wednesday, with its lawmakers seeking a law to officially block the app in the country.
The ban follows similar restrictions by U.S. agencies including NASA and the Pentagon. Italy’s data protection authority has also reportedly blocked access to DeepSeek, while Taiwan prohibited its public sector from using the Chinese app.
China criticized Australia’s ban, calling it the “politicization of economic, trade and technological issues,” which Beijing opposes, adding that it “will never require enterprises or individuals to illegally collect or store data.”
The Global Times, a state-run Chinese tabloid, cited an expert as saying Australia’s ban was “clearly driven by ideological discrimination, not technological concerns.”
According to one recent study, DeepSeek’s flagship R1 AI model, which powers its chatbot application, failed to block a single harmful prompt during a series of security tests.
Conducted in collaboration between the U.S. technology company Cisco and the University of Pennsylvania, the research found that DeepSeek R1 generated responses to prompts specifically designed to bypass its guardrails. These included queries related to misinformation, cybercrime, illegal activities, and other harmful content.
While DeepSeek R1 delivers strong performance without requiring extensive computational resources, Cisco researchers said that its safety and security have been compromised by a reportedly smaller training budget. This, they suggested, has left the model vulnerable to misuse.
Researchers tested various AI models using “temperature 0,” the most cautious setting that ensures consistent and reliable responses. In these tests, DeepSeek responded to 100% of harmful prompts. By comparison, OpenAI’s o1 model only responded to 26%, while Anthropic’s Claude 3.5 Sonnet had a 36% response rate.
Unlike its competitors, which successfully blocked harmful queries, DeepSeek provided answers to every harmful input it received. While the model does have some restrictions, they mainly prevent it from responding to content that contradicts the views of the Chinese government.
The researchers conducted the study on a budget of less than US$50, using an automated evaluation method to assess the AI models’ safety performance.
Edited by Mike Firn.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Taejun Kang for RFA.
The fragility of US power was clear when a small Chinese startup released the DeepSeek machine learning program. The US stock market Nasdaq shuddered, with technology stocks collapsing. This collapse is not a minor matter for the US economy. During the post-COVID-19 inflation (2021), foreign investors began to slow down their purchase of US debt. Then, after the US seized USD 600 billion in Russia’s foreign exchange assets (2022), many central banks moved their own holdings away from the long-arm jurisdiction of the United States. US Treasury bills languished.
The Chinese government has rebuffed bold consumption stimulus policy. But boosting domestic household spending is precisely what the country needs to achieve healthy growth.
New tariffs ordered by U.S. President Donald Trump on imports from China will also apply to goods from Hong Kong, according to a U.S. government document, indicating that Washington has erased the city’s status as a separate trading entity.
“Products of China and Hong Kong [other than exempted categories] and other than products for personal use included in accompanied baggage of persons arriving in the United States, shall be subject to an additional 10% ad valorem rate of duty,” according to Department of Homeland Security implementation guidelines for Trump’s Feb. 1, 2025 Executive Order.
The order imposes duties on imported goods “to address the synthetic opioid supply chain in the People’s Republic of China.”
The document cites a July 17, 2020, Executive Order from the previous Trump administration, which states that China’s ongoing political crackdown in the city represents “an unusual and extraordinary threat” because it “fundamentally undermine[s] Hong Kong’s autonomy.”
“It shall be the policy of the United States to suspend or eliminate different and preferential treatment for Hong Kong to the extent permitted by law and in the national security, foreign policy, and economic interest of the United States,” the order states, citing Hong Kong’s 2020 National Security Law.
Employees check rain boots for export at a shoe factory in Lianyungang, China, March 13, 2024.(AFP)
“Under this law, the people of Hong Kong may face life in prison for what China considers to be acts of secession or subversion of state power—which may include acts like last year’s widespread anti-government protests,” the Order said, citing the lack of trial by jury and the possibility of secret prosecutions.
The new tariffs apply to all goods, even those with a value of less than US$800, but with exemptions for humanitarian and aid supplies.
“The message is very clear,” Sunny Cheung, fellow for China studies at the Jamestown Foundation, told RFA Cantonese in a recent interview. “Hong Kong has always been China’s main transshipment port and unaffected by tariffs on Chinese goods.”
“Now, Hong Kong is being included [in those tariffs], which can be seen as an attempt to plug a loophole and send a tougher message,” Cheung said. “It will have a greater deterrent effect on China.”
Shipping containers at a port in Hong Kong, March 2, 2022.(DALE DE LA REY, Dale de la Rey/AFP)
He said the Trump administration is keenly aware of indirect ways in which China gets what it wants, citing the recent concern in Washington over the acquisition of key strategic port facilities along the Panama Canal by Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing’s CK Hutchison.
Cheung said currently the tariffs only apply to goods produced in China or Hong Kong, and had stopped short of applying to goods shipped through Hong Kong.
“That would be a more nuclear-level attack,” Cheung said.
While the balance of trade has fluctuated over the years, the United States has always been in the top 10 markets for goods exported from Hong Kong, which topped US$5.9 billion for the whole of last year.
Meanwhile the Hong Kong Post said packages and parcels to the United States were suspended with effect from Feb. 5, although services for postal items containing documents only will be unaffected.
“As advised by the postal administration of the United States, Hongkong Post shall not dispatch any postal items containing goods destined to the United States with immediate effect, unless a “formal entry” has been completely and accurately filed with the United States Customs and Border Protection in accordance with United States law,” the postal service said in a statement.
It said postal items containing goods which entered into the United States on or after Feb. 4, 2025, will be returned to Hong Kong.
A “formal entry” must be made via a customs broker, and requires necessary import documents and payment of duties, it said.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Ha Syut for RFA Cantonese.
Vietnam’s island reclamation activities in the South China Sea made headlines in 2024 with a record area of land created and several airstrips planned on the new islands.
The Washington-based Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, or AMTI, said that between November 2023 and June 2024, Hanoi created 280 hectares (692 acres) of new land across 10 of 27 features it occupies in the Spratly archipelago.
“Three years from when it first began, Vietnam is still surprising observers with the ever-increasing scope of its dredging and landfill in the Spratly Islands,” the think tank said.
Hanoi’s island building program stemmed from a Communist Party resolution in 2007 on maritime strategy toward the year 2020, according to Carlyle Thayer, a Vietnam expert at the University of New South Wales in Australia.
The resolution set out an integrated strategy to develop coastal areas, an exclusive economic zone, and 27 land features in the South China Sea with the objective that this area would contribute between 53% and 55% of the gross domestic product by 2020, Thayer said.
China has built an airfield, buildings and other structures on the Spratly Islands’ Fiery Cross Reef in the South China Sea, Oct. 25, 2022.(Ezra Acayan/Getty Images)
It was only in 2021 that Vietnam began a modest program of landfill and infrastructure construction on its features in the Spratly Islands, Thayer said.
By that time, China had completed the construction of its “Big Three” artificial islands in the South China Sea – Fiery Cross, Mischief and Subi reefs – and equipped them with runways and military facilities.
The island-building program focuses mainly on the so-called integrated marine economy, the analyst told Radio Free Asia, noting that there are only modest defenses such as pillboxes, trenches and gun emplacements on the newly developed features.
Risk of tension
Vietnam has long been wary of causing tension with China but its increasing assertiveness had led to a re-think in Hanoi.
“Vietnam has not placed major weapon systems on its land features that would threaten China’s artificial islands,” Thayer said.
“But no doubt the rise in Chinese aggressiveness against the Philippines after the election of Ferdinand Marcos Jr. reinforced Vietnam’s determination not to leave its island features in the Spratlys exposed.”
“Vietnamese occupation also serves to deny China the opportunity to occupy these features as China did when it took control of unoccupied Mischief Reef belonging to the Philippines in 1984,” he added.
(AFP)
Carl Schuster, a retired U.S. navy captain based in Hawaii, said that on the surface, Vietnam and China appeared to have strong, positive relations but “at its roots, the relationship is one of distrust and for Vietnam, pragmatism.”
“Vietnam has noticed that the PRC is most aggressive around undefended or uninhabited islands and islets,” Schuster said, referring to China by its official name the People’s Republic of China.
“Hanoi therefore sees expanding, hardening and expanding the garrisons on its own islands as a means of deterring PRC aggression.”
Yet Vietnam’s island building activities have been met with criticism from some neighboring countries.
Malaysia sent a rare letter of complaint to Vietnam in October 2024 over its development of an airstrip on Barque Canada reef – a feature that Malaysia also claims in the South China Sea.
Vietnam has built an airstrip on Barque Canada Reef in South China Sea, seen Feb. 2, 2025.(Planet Labs)
In July 2023, the pro-China Manila Times published two reports on what it called “Vietnam’s militarization of the South China Sea,” citing leaked masterplans on island development from the Vietnamese defense ministry.
Shortly after the publication, a group of Filipinos staged a protest in front of the Vietnamese embassy in Manila, vandalizing the Vietnamese flag. The incident did not escalate but soured the usually friendly relationship between the two neighbors.
Reasonable response
The Southeast Asian bloc ASEAN has long been negotiating with China on a Code of Conduct in the South China Sea and the consensus is to observe the status quo in the disputed waterway and maintain peace.
Azmi Hassan, a senior fellow at Malaysia’s Nusantara Academy for Strategic Research, explained that status quo means “there shouldn’t be any new reclamation, especially in the Spratly or Paracel Islands as new reclamation could create some instability.”
“But in the case of Vietnam, it’s very difficult to stop them because the Chinese have been doing it for many years and China has the longest airstrip and the biggest reclamation on Mischief Reef,” Hassan said.
Philippine Coast Guard personnel maneuver their rigid hull inflatable boat next to a Vietnamese coast guard ship during a joint exercise off Bataan in the South China Sea on Aug. 9, 2024.(Ted Aljibe/AFP)
Malaysia also built an airstrip on Pulau Layang-Layang, known internationally as Swallow Reef, which is claimed by several countries including Vietnam.
“So it’s very hard to criticize Vietnam because Malaysia has done it, China has done it, and the Philippines has been doing it for quite some time,” the analyst said.
Greg Poling, AMTI’s director, told RFA that in his opinion, Hanoi’s goal with the development of features in the South China Sea “appears to be to allow it to better patrol its exclusive economic zone by sea and air in the face of China’s persistent presence.”
“That seems a reasonable and proportionate response,” he said.
The U.S. government has taken no public position on the issue but the Obama administration did push for a construction freeze by all parties, Poling said.
Then-U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter visited Hanoi in June 2015 and discussed the issue during a meeting with his Vietnamese counterpart, Phung Quang Thanh and, according to the transcript of a press briefing.
Carter was told that “the government of Vietnam is considering … a permanent halt to reclamation and further militarization” of the new islands.
“But that was when the prime goal was to stop China’s island building,” Poling said. “Obviously that didn’t work so now I think the U.S. and other parties understand that Vietnam is not likely to agree to unilaterally restrain itself when China has already done it.”
In 2015, Vietnam still insisted that it was only carrying out activities “to enhance and to consolidate the islands that are under our sovereignty.”
In the late Gen. Phung Quang Thanh’s words: “We do not expand those islands, we just consolidate to prevent the soil erosion because of the waves, to improve the livelihood of our people and of our personnel who are working and living there.”
“And for the submerged features, we have built small houses and buildings, which can accommodate only three people, and we do not expand those features. And the scope and the characteristics of those features are just civilian in nature,” Thanh told Carter.
Bad investment?
Fast forward 10 years, and Vietnam has reclaimed a total area of about half of what China has built up and among the 10 largest features in the Spratlys, five are being developed by Hanoi with an unknown, but no doubt massive budget.
The island building program, however, has been received positively by the Vietnamese public.
Pearson Reef on March 23, 2022 and Feb. 5, 2025.(RFA/Planet Labs)
Photos and video clips from the now popular Bai Thuyen Chai, Dao Tien Nu and Phan Vinh – or Barque Canada, Tennent and Pearson reefs respectively – have been shared and admired by millions of social media users as proof of Vietnamese military might and economic success even if the construction comes at a big environmental cost.
South China Sea researcher Dinh Kim Phuc told RFA Vietnamese that despite the environmental damage, Vietnam’s actions “must happen” and are necessary for “strategic defense” as long as China does not quit its expansionist ambitions.
However, some experts have warned against the effectiveness of such artificial islands from a military standpoint.
“Like Chinese-built islands, Vietnamese built islands are, by nature, small areas of land that are difficult to defend against modern land-attack missile capabilities, and given their low altitude, they are at the mercy of salt water corrosion of structures and systems ashore,” said Malcolm Davis, a senior analyst in defense strategy and capability at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.
“So as with Chinese experience, the Vietnamese will also struggle to base military capabilities on these islands for extended periods of time,” Davis told RFA.
“In the longer term, they are also going to be vulnerable to the effects of climate change – most notably, sea level rise, which could quickly swamp a low-level landmass and see it become unusable.”
“These challenges are why I don’t worry too much about those Chinese-built bases in the South China Sea, as I think Beijing has made a bad investment there,” the analyst added.
AMTI’s Poling said rising sea levels and storm surge would threaten all the islands “but it is something that both China and Vietnam are likely able to cope with by continually refilling the islands and building up higher sea walls.”
MAE SOT, Thailand – Chinese President Xi Jinping thanked Thailand’s visiting prime minister on Thursday for a crackdown on scam centers in Myanmar a day after Thailand cut off electricity and internet services to five hubs for the illegal operations just over its border.
As Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra was meeting Xi in Beijing, a Myanmar militia allied with the junta released 61 trafficked foreigners from one of Myanmar’s major scam zones and handed them to Thai authorities over the border.
Online fraud has mushroomed in parts of Southeast Asia over recent years, often relying on workers lured by false job advertisements and forced to contact people online or by phone to trick them into putting money into fake investments.
Would-be investors have been cheated out of billions of dollars, with many perpetrators and victims believed to be from China, research groups say.
Reports about the centers have hit the headlines in recent weeks after a Chinese actor was rescued from eastern Myanmar, alarming the public across Asia and leading to a rash of tour group cancellations to Thailand and raising the prospect of economic damage.
Thai officials have also cited national security for their decision to cut electricity and internet to the enclaves in Myanmar, though they have not elaborated.
Xi thanked the visiting Thai leader for her government’s action, China’s CCTV state broadcaster reported.
“China appreciates the strong measures taken by Thailand to combat online gambling and phone and online scams”, CCTV cited Xi as saying.
“The two sides must continue to strengthen cooperation in security, law enforcement and judicial cooperation” to “protect people’s lives and property,” Xi said.
With the pressure growing, the Myanmar militia group that has overseen and profited from the fraud operations in the Myawaddy region, the Border Guard Force, or BGF, sent 61 foreign workers to Thailand on Thursday and vowed to wipe out the illegal businesses.
BGF spokesperson Lt.-Col. Naing Maung Zaw said the 61 foreigners, including some from China, were sent over a bridge across a border river from Myawaddy to the Thai town of Mae Sot.
A Thai group that helps victims of human trafficking said 39 of those released were from China, 13 from India, five from Indonesia and one from Malaysia, Ethiopia, Pakistan and Kazakhstan.
Media photographs showed Thai officials speaking to the 61, who included some women, as they sat on rows of plastic chairs. Many of them wore blue surgical masks.
Last month, BGF leaders said they had agreed with operators of the scam centers to stop forced labor and fraud, and Naing Maung Zaw repeated a promise to clean up his zone.
“At some time, we will completely destroy this scamming business. That’s what we’re working on now,” he told Radio Free Asia, adding that the utility cuts had hurt ordinary people more than the scamming gangs.
Thai Defense Minister Phumtham Wechayachai greeted the 61 as they crossed into Thailand.
“Please feel free to give us information and cooperation which will be useful for eradicating this,” Phumtham told them.
“Please inform everyone about the conditions there,” he said before the 61 were taken to an immigration facility for paperwork.
Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by RFA Staff.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Burmese and Pimuk Rakkanam for RFA.
TAIPEI, Taiwan – China criticized Australia for banning the Chinese AI chatbot app DeepSeek on government devices, describing it as the “politicisation of economic, trade and technological issues,” which Beijing opposes.
DeepSeek is a Chinese AI startup known for its chatbot service, with its app becoming the most downloaded on Apple’s iPhone, surpassing ChatGPT. While praised for efficiency, it faces concerns over censorship of sensitive topics and data privacy, with some governments banning it due to ties with Chinese telecom firms.
Australia became one of the latest to introduce a restriction on Tuesday, mandating that all government agencies – excluding corporate entities such as Australia Post – immediately remove all DeepSeek products from their devices, after it was found to pose national security risks.
China strongly denied that the app was being used to collect data.
“The Chinese government … has never and will never require enterprises or individuals to illegally collect or store data,” said China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Wednesday, as cited by the AFP news agency.
The Global Times, state-run Chinese tabloid, cited an expert as saying that Australia’s ban was “clearly driven by ideological discrimination, not technological concerns.”
Australia’s Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke earlier said the decision was based on security risks to government systems and assets, rather than because of the app’s country of origin.
South Korea’s foreign and defense ministries, among others, also announced a ban on the use of DeekSeek, citing security concerns.
While not a government-wide prohibition, an advisory issued by South Korea’s Ministry of the Interior and Safety on Tuesday urged government agencies and local authorities to exercise heightened caution when using AI chatbots like DeepSeek.
South Korea earlier said it would send an official inquiry to the DeepSeek headquarters in China to confirm its procedures for collecting personal information, and how it is processed and stored.
The South added it would also question how collected personal information was used and details about the chatbot’s AI learning process.
Separately, South Korean internet conglomerate Kakao, which operates the KakaoTalk messaging app with 54 million users, also announced a ban on its employees using DeepSeek.
The ban follows similar restrictions by U.S. agencies including NASA and the Pentagon. Italy’s data protection authority has also reportedly blocked access to DeepSeek, while Taiwan prohibited its public sector from using the Chinese app.
Edited by Mike Firn.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Taejun Kang for RFA.
The US designed the global financial system in a way in which the US dollar is at the center, and other countries need to get access to dollars to pay off their dollar-denominated debt, and to pay for imports.
Yet, in order for this system to work, the US has to run a deficit with the rest of the world, a current account deficit, so other countries can get those dollars.
But Trump wants to disrupt this. He says he wants to tariff other countries to reduce the US trade deficit, which means that other countries won’t be able to get the dollars they need to pay off their debt and to pay for imports.
Tashi, an ethnic Tibetan and Belgian citizen, was elated when he heard last November that China had expanded its visa-free stay to 30 days for 38 countries, including Belgium, from the previous 15 days.
He immediately began making plans to visit relatives he hadn’t seen in 26 years, as the previous 15-day limit was too short a duration for such a long trip.
As the departure day approached, Tashi — whose name has been changed for safety reasons per his request — was filled with “a mixed sense of excitement and apprehension,” he told Radio Free Asia.
Tashi is one of several ethnic Tibetans who have been denied entry to China from European countries under this visa-free policy.
When in late January Tashi boarded his flight from Brussels to Beijing, he envisioned taking a connecting flight to Chengdu, from where he expected to make the 20-hour drive to his hometown in the historic Amdo region in Qinghai province.
“After 26 years, I thought my dream of returning had finally come true,” he said. “I imagined celebrating Losar [the Tibetan New Year] with my family, attending the Monlam Festival, and revisiting the place where I grew up.”
“But mine was a journey interrupted,” he said.
The immigration section of Beijing Capital International Airport in Beijing, China, January 2025.(RFA)
Instead, after Tashi landed, officials at Beijing Capital International Airport interrogated him for eight hours, detained him for 20 hours and put him on a plane back to Belgium.
Authorities said it was because he was a follower of the Dalai Lama and had done volunteer work to preserve Tibetan language and culture.
Denied entry
Tashi is one of several dozens of ethnic Tibetans who have been detained and questioned at Chinese airports, the travelers have told Radio Free Asia.
The Tibetans said officials interrogated them for hours and searched their belongings before they were deported.
At least four other Tibetans have been denied entry to China from European countries under the visa-free policy.
RFA reported in 2018 that Chinese authorities at Chengdu airport in Sichuan province prohibited three Tibetans with foreign passports — two with South Korean passports and one with A U.S. passport — from entering the country, questioning them harshly and detaining them for hours before expelling them.
In January, a Tibetan woman with Belgian citizenship was also deported from China, this time from Shenzhen Baoan International Airport.
This is not a new pattern.
In April 2024, authorities at Shanghai’s Pudong International Airport detained another Belgian citizen, Thubten Gyatso, along with his 6-year-old son, on their way to visit family in Qinghai province.
Signs mark the immigration section at Beijing Capital International Airport in Beijing, China, January 2025.(RFA)
At least six Chinese officials took turns grilling him in a small room for 18 hours, Gyatso said.
They questioned him on a range of subjects, including his escape from Tibet to India in 1994, his move to Belgium and his citizenship status there, and details about his relatives’ professions.
Afterwards, the officials told him that he would not be allowed to return to his hometown because they found a photo of the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan national flag — both banned in China — when searching his belongings and mobile phone.
Queried about Dalai Lama links
Similarly, in the case of Tashi, officials repeatedly accused him of being a follower of the Dalai Lama.
He told RFA that authorities accused him of being part of a campaign under the Dalai Lama, as seen by Beijing, to split Tibet from China, even though his work focuses solely on Tibetan language and culture.
“This made me realize just how important my work is and knowing my work is meaningful and effective strengthens my resolve to do more,” Tashi said.
Tibetan Buddhism’s spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, offers blessings to his followers at his Himalayan residence in Dharamsala, India, Dec. 20, 2024.(Priyanshu Singh/AFP)
During more than eight hours of questioning, Tashi was asked about items among his belongings, apps on his mobile phone and the volunteer work he’d been doing in Belgium since 2006 concerning the preservation of Tibetan cultural and linguistic identity.
“With each passing minute, they probed deeper, inquiring about every activity I had been involved in while volunteering in Belgium,” he said.
Despite the quizzing, officials already “seemed to know every detail, right down to specific dates” about his activities, he said.
When authorities informed Tashi that he needed to return to Belgium, they confiscated his passport and flight tickets and escorted him to immigration where he had to wait for another 13 hours without food or drink.
“With nowhere to get sustenance, I sat there feeling helpless,” Tashi said.
The Belgian Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to an RFA request for comment.
Liu Pengyu, spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, told RFA via email that the Chinese government does not engage in any discrimination with regards to its visa-free policy.
“The Chinese government administers the entry and exit affairs of foreigners in accordance with the Exit and Entry Administration Law of the People’s Republic of China and other laws and regulations,” Liu said.
“Patriotic overseas Tibetans are an important part of the overseas Chinese community,” he added. “The Chinese government has always been very caring about their situation, and there is certainly no discrimination.”
Additional reporting by Tsering Namgyal, Tenzin Tenkyong and Dickey Kundol. Edited by Tenzin Pema for RFA Tibetan, and by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Lhuboom for RFA Tibetan.
An economist who advised the Federal Reserve, the central bank of the United States, pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to economic spying charges that prosecutors say could have helped Chinese officials reap enormous profits.
John Harold Rogers, 63, is accused of obtaining trade secrets from his former employer and handing them over to the People’s Republic of China.
Documents he is alleged to have delivered include briefing books, an internal Federal Reserve policy assessment and a spreadsheet containing “Trade Secret Information” to agents working for Beijing.
He is also accused of making false statements to federal investigators.
The information Rogers passed on would have given Chinese officials details on U.S. policy that could allow them to manipulate markets “in a manner similar to insider trading,” prosecutors said.
The prosecutors said the crimes started in 2013.
Rogers pleaded not guilty on Wednesday afternoon during an appearance at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. His plea was entered by his lawyer Stephen Saltzburg.
United States Magistrate Judge Matthew Sharbaugh asked if Rogers had understood the accusations against him. He nodded and said that he did.
When the judge asked if he was under the influence of drugs or alcohol, Rogers leaned close to a microphone at the defense table. “No, sir,” he said in a low, raspy voice. He wore orange prison garb, a wrinkled, short-sleeved shirt, baggy pants and slip-on loafers.
For the most serious charge, conspiracy to commit economic espionage, Rogers could be sentenced to 15 years in prison.
In a statement issued last Friday, Assistant Director Kevin Vorndran of the FBI Counterintelligence Division said: “Rogers betrayed his country while employed at the Federal Reserve by providing restricted U.S. financial and economic information to Chinese government intelligence offices.”
According to the indictment, Rogers began communicating with a conspirator, a Chinese national working at a University in Shandong, in 2013.
Over the course of a few years, the conspirator paid for trips Rogers would take to China, where he would eventually deliver information obtained from employer under the guise of teaching a class. He was later given a part-time professorship at a Chinese university, for which he was paid $448,160, the indictment said.
Rogers was arrested on Friday at his apartment in Vienna, Va. More than $50,000 in cash was found in the apartment, according to FBI agents. The money belonged to his wife, a Chinese national, the agents said.
His lawyers have argued that he should be placed on bail before the trial rather than remain in jail. He is the primary caregiver of his 6-year-old daughter as his wife lives mainly in China. In addition, they argue he has a medical condition, Type 1 diabetes, that is more easily treated when he is at home.
But he will remain in jail before his trial. Judge Sharbaugh said Wednesday that he posed a “flight risk” and could try and skip bail. The judge cited the argument of the prosecutors, explaining that Chinese officials might try to help him make his escape.
“There’s a potential incentive for operatives in China to assist his flight,” said the judge.
A date for his trial will be set in the coming weeks.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Tara McKelvey for RFA.
A woman has returned to Hong Kong after being rescued from a Myanmar scam park by the Thai authorities, as family members petitioned the Thai Consulate for help for those who remain, according to campaigners, local media reports and the city government.
“A Hong Kong resident, who had been detained for illegal work in Myanmar and was recently rescued, has departed Thailand for Hong Kong this afternoon with members of the [government’s] dedicated task force,” the city’s Security Bureau said in a statement on Feb. 4.
The areas all host online scam centers that have proliferated in lawless corners of Southeast Asia since the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020, when many casinos turned to online fraud operations, often staffed by unsuspecting job seekers lured by false offers of work, to make up for lost gamblers.
Last month, Hong Kong authorities sent a task force to Thailand in a bid to rescue scam park victims, citing a “resurgence” in criminal activity targeting the city’s residents.
The move followed the high-profile rescue of Chinese TV actor Wang Xing from the notorious KK Park scam facility in Myawaddy, near the border with Thailand.
Former Hong Kong district councilor Andy Yu and family members of scam park victims petition the Thai Consulate in Hong Kong, Feb. 3, 2025.(Channel C HK)
Local media showed photos of the 31-year-old woman being taken across the river from Myawaddy and having her passport and other details checked by Thai officials.
According to Thai media reports, the woman was rescued after the Thai Narcotics Control Bureau dispatched the Royal Thai Army and Police to get her across the border from Myawaddy to Phop Phra county in Thailand’s Tak Province.
Hong Kong’s news site HK01.com reported that no ransom had been paid.
In good condition
Hong Kong security officials “met with the Hong Kong resident in Bangkok this morning and [were] delighted to find that she was in good mental and physical condition,” the Security Bureau said.
“She expressed gratitude for the active coordination and liaison of the dedicated task force with relevant units of the Thai authorities, as well as for the assistance of different parties that enabled her to return to Hong Kong shortly after her rescue to reunite with her family as soon as possible,” it said.
The woman arrived in Hong Kong on Feb. 4 despite concerns that her passport had a triangular section cut out of it, possibly rendering it invalid.
The statement thanked Chinese Foreign Ministry officials based in Hong Kong, Chinese diplomatic missions in Myanmar and Thailand, as well as the Royal Thai Consulate-General in Hong Kong, for their help with the rescue operation.
“The dedicated task force is continuing to actively follow up on the remaining nine request-for-assistance cases of Hong Kong residents who have yet to return, striving for their return to Hong Kong as soon as possible,” it said.
Former district councilor Andy Yu told RFA Cantonese that he and other campaigners visited the Thai consulate in Hong Kong on Monday to petition for help with the rescue of seven Hong Kongers whose family members have sought his help in recent months.
Yu, who said he didn’t represent the 31-year-old woman rescued on Sunday, said the Thai Vice-Consul had promised that his government would “do its best” to ensure the remaining Hong Kongers are rescued too.
“The deputy consul came to meet with us,” Yu said. “We told him the contents of the letter, including the latest situation of the seven people seeking help and about a new case.”
“He said … that they are maintaining contact with the Hong Kong police, that they will … do their best to rescue the remaining people, and that … they can play a coordinating role,” he said. “If necessary, they can get in contact with the Myanmar Consulate in Hong Kong, and can act as an intermediary.”
Currently, there are eight Hong Kongers trapped in scam parks in Myanmar, and one in a similar facility in Cambodia, Yu said.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Roseanne Gerin.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Wei Sze and Alice Yam for RFA Cantonese.
MANILA — American and Philippine warplanes flew together in a coordinated patrol and drill above the South China Sea, in the allies’ first joint maneuvers over contested waters since U.S. President Donald Trump returned to office, Filipino officials said.
The exercise, where Philippine FA-50 fighter jets flew alongside U.S. B-1 bombers in skies above the waterway, including the hotly disputed Scarborough Shoal, drew a rebuke from China. Beijing said it threatened regional peace and stability.
It was the first time B-1 bombers were used for joint maneuvers in the South China Sea, the Philippine military said. The one-day exercise, staged on Tuesday, reflected the strong relations between the two longtime treaty allies, officials said.
Some security experts had said earlier that President Trump might pay less attention to Southeast Asia, particularly the Philippines, which has been working to shore up international support against China in the South China Sea.
“It’s the first exercise under the current administration of the U.S. government,” Rear Adm. Roy Vincent Trinidad, the Philippine Navy spokesman for the West Philippine Sea, told a press briefing Tuesday.
The exercise involved two B-1 bombers attached to the U.S. Pacific Air Forces and three FA-50s from the Philippine Air Force, Col. Maria Consuelo Castillo, the PAF spokeswoman, told the same press briefing.
The B-1 is a more advanced version of the B-52 bomber, which the U.S. Air Force had deployed in previous training missions over the South China Sea, military officials said.
“This exercise is a crucial step in enhancing our interoperability, improving air domain awareness and agile combat employment and supporting our shared bilateral air objectives,” Castillo said.
Filipino officials said the exercise was not a direct response to recent Chinese military and coast guard activities in the South China Sea, where tensions have been high lately between Manila and Beijing.
Scarborough Shoal, which is claimed by both countries, lies within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone but has been under de facto Chinese control since 2012.
China: ‘On high alert’
In response, Beijing said the joint exercise was a threat to peace and stability in the waterway.
“[T]he Philippines has been colluding with countries outside the region to organize the so-called ‘joint patrols’ to deliberately undermine peace and stability in the South China Sea,” a spokesperson for China’s military said on Tuesday.
Beijing said it had also conducted a routine patrol in the airspace above Scarborough Shoal on Tuesday.
China’s air force units would remain “on high alert to resolutely defend China’s territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests,” the spokesperson said.
Castillo said the PAF were prepared for radio challenges from China during the staging of the joint exercise, even though it proceeded “regardless of the action of other foreign actors.” As of press time, there were no reports of any such challenges.
However, there were no scenarios where the airplanes simulated dogfights, Castillo said.
“[There’s] no bombing exercise,” she said.
Under the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty, the Philippines and the United States are compelled to come to each other’s aid in times of external attacks. Under Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, Washington said that the scenario included armed attacks in the South China Sea.
China lays claim to almost the entire South China Sea, but its claims overlap with those of the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Taiwan. Over the past few months, Manila and Beijing have faced off in a series of confrontations at sea.
A map showing islands and reefs held by China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Taiwan in the South China Sea.(AFP)
In related news, the Philippine military accused three Chinese Navy vessels of violating rules on innocent passage during their transit in Philippine waters.
The Chinese ships – a frigate, cruiser and replenishment oiler – were first monitored in the West Philippine Sea on Monday. The West Philippine Sea is Manila’s name for South China Sea waters that lie within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone.
The ships traveled southward and moved at a speed of six knots (11.1 kph), passing through Basilan Channel, towards Indonesia.
They were tracked by the Philippine Navy and Air Force aircraft, the military said, adding that radio challenges were also issued against the Chinese ships.
As of Tuesday morning, Trinidad said the Chinese vessels were about 120 nautical miles south of Basilan. “They are moving out of our exclusive economic zone,” he said.
During the radio challenges, the Chinese vessels said they were exercising freedom of navigation and innocent passage, according to Trinidad.
A spokesperson for China’s military also said on Monday that the passage complied with “international law and practice.”
“The violation was that the travel through our archipelagic waters was not expeditious,” Trinidad said. “They could have traveled at a faster speed. There were instances in the central part of Sulu Sea that they slowed down to five to six knots.”
Trinidad said the Chinese vessels were likely on the way to Indonesia to take part in an upcoming military exercise, dubbed Komodo, which would involve at least 37 countries.
Apart from Indonesia and China, some of the countries involved in the Komodo exercise this month are the Philippines, the United States, Japan, Australia, France, India, the United Kingdom, and South Korea.
BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Jason Gutierrez for BenarNews.
After intense pressure by the U.S. on Panama to return possession of its canal to Washington because the Trump administration thinks China is threatening it, the Central American nation on Sunday sought a compromise by announcing it would study whether or not to renew contracts with a Chinese company managing two ports on the waterway and would withdraw from China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
The announcement was made by Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino after meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Panama City.
Ethnic Mongolian dissident and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Hada is in the hospital in China’s northern region of Inner Mongolia after being rushed there for emergency treatment while under house arrest, Radio Free Asia has learned.
Hada, 69, was admitted to the Affiliated Hospital of Inner Mongolia Medical University on Jan. 25, where he spent some time in a critical condition, his wife Xinna told RFA on Monday. 3. Both Hada and Xinna go by a single name.
The news emerged as Hada was nominated for the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize by Japanese lawmakers last month, who cited his continuing advocacy for his people living under Chinese Communist Party rule despite years of persecution.
State security police, who are supervising Hada’s house arrest in Inner Mongolia’s regional capital Hohhot, contacted his son Uiles, Xinna said.
“When we rushed to the hospital at 2 p.m., Hada was in the emergency room on a ventilator, and his condition was very serious,” she said. “All of his organs were starting to fail.”
“The hospital showed Uiles a notice of critical illness, but wouldn’t allow him to take photos,” Xinna said.
Hada had been rushed in after suffering from fecal incontinence at home, and had received a blood transfusion at the hospital, she said.
Xinna, who was later allowed to take photos, shared photos of Hada, no longer intubated, wearing a respirator and on a drip in the intensive care unit.
She also photographed multiple bruises down his left leg.
Hada wasn’t out of danger until Jan. 31, and didn’t come off the ventilator until Feb. 2.
He remains under police escort on the ward.
Police surveillance
Xinna said the couple was unable to afford the 10,000 yuan (US$1,300) daily cost of his hospital care, but that the police had eventually agreed to meet the cost.
She said police have been holding Hada under house arrest at a residential compound in the northern suburbs of Hohhot, with a round-the-clock security detail.
“Hada has been imprisoned for 30 years now; his body and mind have been severely damaged, and now his life is in danger,” Xinna said. “I and my son have both spoken the truth, but we have both been framed, imprisoned and sentenced.”
Xinna, wife of ethnic Mongolian dissident Hada, pulls down a bed sheet to show bruises on her husband’s leg at the Affiliated Hospital of Inner Mongolia Medical University in Hohhot, capital of northern China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, January 2024.(Courtesy of Xinna)
Xinna said she remains under police surveillance, and has to live separately from her husband.
“The police have also moved into my residential building and monitor us all year round, so my whole family has also lost their freedom,” she told RFA Mandarin.
“The endless persecution of Hada and our family by the Chinese Communist Party is a picture of the tragic human rights situation in Inner Mongolia in microcosm,” Xinna said.
“I call on the international community to pay more attention to this, and to condemn it.”
Xinna called on Beijing to immediately lift its surveillance of her family, but thanked the hospital staff for their treatment of her husband.
U.S.-based ethnic Mongolian activist Enghebatu Togochog said the authorities have been neglected Hada’s medical needs while under house arrest.
“He’s in a very poor state of health, he hasn’t been getting proper treatment, and Xinna isn’t allowed to see him,” he told RFA Mandarin in an interview on Feb. 3.
“The deterioration in Hada’s physical health is linked to his long-term detention by the authorities.”
Activism
Hada, who was incarcerated for 19 years for his activism on behalf of ethnic Mongolian herding communities, remains under house arrest in the regional capital Hohhot.
His wife Xinna has also helped an unknown number of ethnic Mongolian herders petition the authorities and find lawyers to fight their claims to their traditional grazing lands that are increasingly being taken over by Han Chinese migrants or state-owned companies.
Hada was released from extrajudicial detention in December 2014, four years after his 15-year jail term for “separatism” and “espionage” ended, but he has remained under close police surveillance and numerous restrictions, including a travel ban and frozen bank accounts.
Hada has taken issue with his alleged “confession,” to the charges, saying that it was obtained under torture and after being given unidentified drugs.
He has also said he expects to stay locked up for as long as the ruling Chinese Communist Party remains in power.
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.
Libraries in democratic Taiwan are stocking books removed from the shelves by authorities in Hong Kong, who are waging a war on politically “sensitive” content amid an ongoing crackdown on public dissent, a recent investigation by RFA Cantonese revealed.
Hong Kong’s bookstores once drew Chinese-language bibliophiles from far and wide in pursuit of some of the city’s most off-beat, salacious and politically radical writings, coupled with cute or alternative takes on art and culture.
As the political crackdown gathered momentum, libraries also made lists of books likely to run afoul of the new law, and pulled them from the shelves.
But Taiwan’s libraries now stock tens of thousands of banned books, possibly driven in part by demand from Hong Kongers living in exile there.
A recent search of the library catalog by RFA Cantonese, and interviews with experts, suggest that democratic Taiwan continues to act as a protective outlet for Hong Kong’s Cantonese culture, despite the ongoing crackdown.
A catalog search of the National Taiwan Library, Taipei City Library and Academia Sinica Library for 144 books that have been removed from libraries in Hong Kong, according to local media reports, found that 107 of the titles is now available in one of these libraries.
Among the banned titles on offer are We Were Chosen by the Times and Every Umbrella, compilations of interviews with non-prominent participants in the 2014 Umbrella Movement for fully democratic elections, now removed from the Hong Kong Central Library.
Farewell to Cynicism: the Crisis of Liberalism in Hong Kong, Parallel Space and Time I : An International Perspective Based on Locality, and Hong Kong, a Restless Homeland, a history of the city from a local perspective, once-lauded titles freely available in Hong Kong, have also found new homes in Taiwan, the catalog showed.
Readers can also choose among 17 business-related titles penned by jailed pro-democracy media mogul Jimmy Lai, now stocked at the National Taiwan Library, Taipei City Library and Academia Sinica Library.
The Taipei City Library also houses the most extensive collection of books about the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, the 2019 Hong Kong protests and the Umbrella Movement.
Public demand
Hong Kong historian Eric Tsui told RFA Cantonese he was surprised to see some of his banned books on the shelves of libraries in Taiwan.
“The fact that you can find these books in public libraries in Taiwan, suggests that the Taiwanese public cares about Hong Kong, and that public libraries are stocking these books due to public demand,” Tsui said.
Taipei City Library Director Hung Shih-chang said the library has added an average of 1,500 to 2,000 Hong Kong publications a year in recent years.
Taiwanese sociologist Jieh-min Wu in an undated photo.(RFA)
“Hong Kong books are mainly obtained through exchange and donations, particularly donations,” Hung told RFA Cantonese in a recent interview.
Public demand and purchases are definitely also a factor.
“If the public requests Hong Kong publications that aren’t available in Taiwan, we will purchase them,” Hung said. “There may be people who have moved from Hong Kong to Taipei in recent years who want to read some books published in Hong Kong, so they may make some recommendations, and then the numbers go up a bit.”
“One of the most important purposes of a public library is to provide information to our readers freely and to ensure fair access to all kinds of information,” he said, adding that censorship in democratic Taiwan is “very unlikely” to happen.
“We will try our best to meet the needs of diverse interests in the collection and provision of library materials.”
In this case, a service that was once provided to Hong Kongers in their own city has effectively moved offshore.
Promoting national thought
“The mission of every national public library should be to collect all the works of local citizens and become a resource for national thought, so that citizens of a place can share [ideas] with each other,” Tsui said.
“Now, because of the China factor, you are afraid of offending China and deprive Hong Kongers of their public property,” he said.
Taiwanese sociologist Jieh-min Wu said Taiwan still has memories of its recent, authoritarian past.
“A lot of books were banned during the authoritarian period [here], just as they are in Hong Kong today,” Wu said.
“Libraries removed books from the shelves, but they didn’t have a list of banned books. They just quietly removed them.”
“From my research perspective, Hong Kong is going through a similar period to martial law [in Taiwan, which ended in July 1987]; a time where there are very strict controls on political topics,” Wu told RFA Cantonese in a recent interview.
He said pro-democracy organizations in exile played an important role in “preserving information and then transmitting it back” home during the authoritarian rule of the Kuomintang under Chiang Kai-shek and his son Chiang Ching-kuo.
Taiwan began a transition to democracy following the death of President Chiang Ching-kuo, in January 1988, starting with direct elections to the legislature in the early 1990s and culminating in the first direct election of the island’s president, Lee Teng-hui, in 1996.
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 Communist Party rule.
China has threatened the death penalty for supporters of Taiwan independence, while Taipei says Beijing has no jurisdiction over the actions of its citizens.
A recent public opinion poll from the Institute for National Defense and Security Research showed that 67.8% of respondents were willing to fight to defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Eugene Whong
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Alice Yam for RFA Cantonese.
TAIPEI, Taiwan – China was “ramping up” its efforts to suppress Taiwan in South Africa, the democratic island said, after the South African government again demanded Taiwan’s liaison office in the capital Pretoria be relocated.
The Taipei Liaison Office, established after South Africa severed diplomatic ties with Taiwan in January 1998, has functioned as a de facto embassy but without official diplomatic status.
“The South African government sent another letter to the Taipei Liaison Office in the Republic of South Africa demanding that it leave the capital city of Pretoria before the end of March,” said Taiwan’s foreign ministry in a statement.
“China is ramping up efforts to suppress Taiwan in South Africa,” the ministry added, citing the case of Ivan Meyer, chairman of South Africa’s second-largest political party, the Democratic Alliance, who was sanctioned by China for visiting Taiwan.
“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs reiterates that the Taiwan government remains steadfast in its refusal to accept the South African government’s unilateral violation of their bilateral agreement and that it will continue communicating with South Africa on the principles of parity and dignity.” the ministry added in its statement on Sunday.
Neither South Africa nor China had responded to Taiwan’s statement at time of publication.
South Africa-China ties
South Africa adheres to the One China policy, recognizing the People’s Republic of China as the sole legitimate government of China, including Taiwan as part of its territory.
Diplomatic ties between South Africa and China have strengthened significantly since the establishment of formal relations in 1998, with China becoming South Africa’s largest trading partner.
As a member of the BRICS, an intergovernmental organization consisting of 10 countries, including South Africa, it collaborates with China on economic, political, and developmental initiatives, aligning with Beijing on global governance reforms.
In October 2024, South Africa said that it had asked Taiwan to move the office out of Pretoria. Taiwan said the request was made under pressure from China.
“Relocating what will be rebranded as Trade Offices both in Taipei and in Johannesburg … will be a true reflection of the non-political and non-diplomatic nature of the relationship between the Republic of South Africa and Taiwan,” South Africa’s Department of International Relations and Cooperation said at the time.
The relocation would align with the “standard diplomatic practice” as South Africa officially cut political and diplomatic ties with Taiwan in 1997, the department added.
China welcomed South Africa’s request that Taiwan relocate its office, saying it “appreciated South Africa’s correct decision.”
Taiwan, which China asserts has no right to independent diplomatic relations, maintains formal ties with only a dozen countries, mostly smaller and less developed nations.
Taiwan’s government firmly rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims, insisting that China has no authority to represent or speak on its behalf in international affairs.
Edited by Taejun Kang.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Alan Lu for RFA.
Japan’s government is now increasing defence expenditure in the face of growing threats, but its own defence industry still falls short of developing ‘home grown’ solutions. Japan announced its FY2024 defence budget last December, a record amount of $55.9 billion (JPY7.95 trillion). This figure marked a 16.5 percent increase from a year earlier, and reflected […]
In its 11th year, participation numbers for Veganuary reached an estimated 25.8 million globally. And now, the organisation is bringing a vegan campaign for March to China.
Participation in Veganuary broke records again in 2025, with around 25.8 million people pledging to ditch meat, dairy and eggs this January.
While the organisation has official campaigns in 20 countries, these figures come from YouGov surveys in 11 of its core countries (across Europe and the Americas), and represent a 3% uptick in participation from the 2024 campaign.
Veganuary arrived at the number by assessing the YouGov polls (which involved around 15,500 people) and current population estimates for each of the nations, noting that it no longer measures participation by the number of email signups “as many people take part without officially registering through the website”.
The organisation will now bring the monthlong concept to more people in March, when it’s launching a sister campaign to encourage plant-based eating in China.
Multi-sector support key to Veganuary’s success
Courtesy: Veganuary 2025
Since it was introduced in 2014, Veganuary has become a cultural phenomenon, attracting more and more people every year. Its success has been built on collaborations with celebrities and influencers who have spread the word far and wide – this year’s partners included actor Woody Harrelson, chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, The Great British Bake Off contestant Freya Cox, and social media star Giuseppe Federici.
The campaign has also benefitted from policy support. For example, the City of West Hollywood voted in favour of a resolution to promote Veganuary to residents, staff, and businesses, and Mayor Chelsea Lee Byers announced a Veganuary proclamation in a council meeting yesterday.
Also in the US, over 40 employers in media, education, solar, and manufacturing joined the Veganuary Workplace Challenge. And more than 50 restaurants celebrated Veganuary in New York City alone.
Brands and retailers, meanwhile, came up with new products to appease the demand for vegan food, whether in the form of new ice cream flavours from Salt & Straw, tofu innovations from Squeaky Bean and Cauldron Foods in the UK, or 28 meat-free products from Lidl GB.
Courtesy: Lidl
The continued support from businesses, celebrities and policymakers is notable, given that plant-based meat has become embroiled in a culture war, thanks in part to its association with ultra-processed foods and misinformation campaigns from Big Meat.
“While there is some debate over the health aspects of plant-based meat, the environmental benefits of plant-based protein are undeniable, and this is what is drawing more and more people to choosing plant-based foods as part of their effort to reduce their climate impact,” Veganuary’s head of policy and communications, Toni Vernelli, told Green Queen ahead of this year’s campaign.
“We’re also seeing more interest in whole food plant-based cooking,” she added, which was highlighted in recipes in its 2025 Celebrity eCookbook. “These offer the best of both worlds – health and environmental benefits, plus great flavour and texture to ensure they are satisfying as well as doing good.”
Veganuary heads to China in March
Courtesy: Veganuary
Veganuary has been expanding from its January-only presence recently, after finding evidence of long-term change in participants’ diets. Six months after the 2024 campaign, 27% of participants remained fully vegan, while 54% were eating half as much meat and dairy as they were before the challenge. Only 3% of people said it had no impact on their long-term choices.
So in April, Veganuary announced a host of mini-campaigns to complement its January flagship, starting with a Choose Chicken-Free Week, followed by Choose Fish-Free Week, BBQ Month, and Choose Dairy-Free Week.
Now, it is taking the monthlong concept to China with Mangchun Sanyue (Vegan Spring March or V-March), a campaign co-developed by the China Vegan Society. The 31-day drive is identical to the January challenge, but the first month of the year isn’t an ideal season for lifestyle changes for everybody.
Lunar New Year falls between late January and early February (this year, it occurred on January 29). To accommodate the Chinese calendar, the team at the China Vegan Society came up with V-March as a twist on Veganuary.
Over 50 businesses have already committed to participating in the March campaign by launching or promoting plant-based products, and many more are expected to join.
Courtesy: ProVeg International
“Inspired by the amazing transformative power Veganuary has shown in changing people’s lifestyle for the better, we hope V-March will open up opportunities for people in China and others of Asian descent around the globe who observe the lunar New Year,” said Jian Yi, founder and CEO of the China Vegan Society.
Alternative proteins are on the rise in the East Asian nation, with its population eating more protein per capita than Americans now, and mostly from plants. Both national and local governments are promoting plant-based and novel foods, with Beijing now home to the first cultivated meat and fermented protein R&D centre. And a 2024 survey suggests that when Chinese consumers are informed of the benefits of a vegan diet, 98% say they’ll eat more of these foods.
“China boasts extraordinary plant-centred culinary traditions. We have more reasons than ever to celebrate those traditions amid all the health, ecological, and ethical crises we are struggling with today,” said Yi.
BANGKOK – Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra may come under pressure from China to send back 48 Uyghur men who have been in Thai detention for more than a decade and her government should release them immediately, a Uyghur activist group said.
Paetongtarn will travel to China on Wednesday to mark the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations and for talks with President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Li Qiang on economic cooperation, her government’s spokesman said, adding that she would not raise the issue of the Uyghurs.
Thailand has said it has no plan to deport the men from the mostly Muslim minority from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China, who have been held at a Thai Immigration Detention Center since 2014 after attempting to escape Beijing’s persecution through Thailand.
Nevertheless, rights groups worry that they could be deported back to China where they would face the risk of torture.
“The CCP has a pattern of pressuring foreign governments, and bending international law for its own agenda,” Rushan Abbas, executive chair of the World Uyghur Congress, which advocates for Uyghurs around the globe, told Radio Free Asia on Friday, referring to the Chinese Community Party.
“If Thailand is truly committed to human rights and international law, it must immediately release the Uyghur refugees and facilitate their safe resettlement. The world is watching, and these Uyghurs must not be sent to their deaths,” Abbas said.
The rights group Justice for All said last month that reports from the detained Uyghurs indicated that Thai authorities were coercing them to fill out forms in preparation for their deportation.
But the Thai government has denied that.
Asked about the Uyghurs last week, Defense Minister Phumtham Wechayachai reiterated that the detained Uyghurs would not be deported.
“It is important to abide by international laws, human rights basis and non-refoulement principle. These remain Thai government principles. Don’t you worry,” he told reporters.
Uyghurs in China’s vast Xinjiang region have been subjected to widespread human rights abuses, including detention in massive concentration camps.
The group of refugees in Thai detention is part of an originally larger cohort of over 350 Uyghur men, women and children, 172 of whom were resettled in Turkey, 109 deported back to China, and five who died because of inadequate medical conditions.
In 2015, Thailand, Washington’s longest-standing treaty ally in Asia, faced stiff international criticism for those it did deport back to China.
Thailand is not a signatory to the 1951 U.N. Refugee Convention, and therefore does not recognize refugees.
New U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said at his confirmation hearing last month that he would reach out to Thailand to prevent the return of the Uyghurs to China.
Thai government spokesman Jirayu Huangsab said the Uyghurs would not be on the prime minister’s agenda during her China visit.
“There won’t be talks on the Uyghur, it’s not on the agenda. There’s nothing to this issue,” Jirayu told RFA on Tuesday.
A Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman, asked about the Uyghurs in Thailand at a Jan. 22 briefing, said she was not familiar with the issue but said that more broadly, China was resolutely opposed to illegal immigration.
The international rights group Amnesty International has told Thailand that it too was concerned the men “would be at risk of human rights violations, including arbitrary detention, torture and other ill-treatment, if returned to China.”
“The organization calls on your government to strictly adhere to domestic and international legal obligations not to forcibly return individuals in violation of the internationally recognized principle of non-refoulement,” the group said in a Jan. 27 letter to Phumtham, who is also a deputy prime minister.
The prohibition on refoulement prevents the forcible transfer of people to a place where their life and liberty may be at risk.
The rights group called for the release of the Uyghurs.
U.N. experts last week joined rights groups in raising concern about the Uyghurs.
A Thai lawyer has submitted a petition to a court calling for the release of the Uyghurs on the grounds that they have spent enough time locked up. The court is due to consider the submission on Feb. 17.
Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Uyghur and Pimuk Rakkanam for RFA.
The CEO of Anthropic, a US AI company backed by Amazon and Google, argued that the government must impose heavy restrictions on China in order to maintain a monopoly on artificial intelligence technology.
If the US government can block China from getting advanced semiconductors, we will “live in a unipolar world, where only the US and its allies have these models”, wrote Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei.
Calling for more aggressive sanctions on China, Amodei warned, “Well-enforced export controls are the only thing that can prevent China from getting millions of chips, and are therefore the most important determinant of whether we end up in a unipolar or bipolar world”.
Within hours of United States President Donald Trump announcing tariffs on China, Canada and Mexico over the weekend, his Canadian and Mexican counterparts hit back with their own levies on US goods.
The response from China, Washington’s biggest strategic rival, was notably more restrained.
China’s Ministry of Commerce did not announce specific tariffs in its response on Sunday, stating only that it would take “corresponding countermeasures to firmly safeguard its rights and interests”.
The ministry also said it would challenge the tariffs at the World Trade Organization, a largely symbolic measure since its appellate body has been non-functioning since late 2019 due to Washington’s refusal to support the appointment of new judges.
While the Chinese government has loosened a ban on Uyghurs traveling outside of China, it places onerous burdens on those who want to go abroad, violating their internationally protected rights, Human Rights Watch said in a report released Monday.
Uyghurs who apply to visit family abroad must disclose the purpose of their trip and an invitation from the relative, along with personal details, including their address, work status and other relevant documents, according to those who have recently left Xinjiang or met with relatives from the region.
Authorities will also restrict travel by allowing only one family member to go at a time, using other family members as leverage to ensure their return, several Uyghurs told HRW.
Applicants may also need a “guarantor,” often another official, and failing to comply puts family members at risk of punishment.
Once abroad, Uyghur travelers cannot engage with activists or speak critically about the Chinese government. They also must return within a specified time frame, ranging from a few days to several months.
For business trips, Uyghurs are only allowed to visit certain countries, such as Kazakhstan, and are banned from traveling to “sensitive” nations with large Muslim populations like Turkey.
“The modest thaw in China’s travel restrictions has allowed some Uyghurs to briefly reunite with loved ones abroad after having no news for years, but the Chinese government’s travel restrictions are still used to oppress Uyghurs in Xinjiang and in the diaspora,” said Yalkun Uluyol, China researcher at Human Rights Watch, or HRW, in the report.
“The Chinese government continues to deny Uyghurs their right to leave the country, restrict their speech and associations when abroad, and punish them for having foreign ties,” he said.
Still tightly controlled
For nearly a decade, Chinese authorities have clamped down harshly on Uyghurs and other Turkic groups in Xinjiang, putting an estimated 1.8 million in concentration camps in the name of stamping out terrorism and religious extremism.
They began confiscating Uyghurs’ passports during a “strike hard” campaign in 2016 and imprisoned some for contacting people abroad.
In spring 2024, authorities began allowing Uyghurs from overseas who were not critical of China’s policies to make restricted visits to Xinjiang. They also have returned the passports of some Uyghurs and allowed them to apply for travel abroad.
Despite the slight relaxation of travel restrictions, the process is still tightly controlled and limited, according to HRW’s interviews with 23 Uyghurs outside China between October 2024 and February 2025, and a review of relevant official documents.
While abroad, travelers are closely monitored, and upon return, their passports are confiscated, and they are questioned about their trip and contacts.
Uyghurs living abroad can sometimes visit Xinjiang after a strict and lengthy vetting process. Those with foreign passports still need approval from local police and a neighborhood committee.
Once they arrive in Xinjiang, some are questioned or told to stay in hotels instead of family homes.
Join the tour
Uyghurs living abroad who apply for a visa to enter China face thorough background checks, and even attending nonpolitical events or sending their children to Uyghur-language schools can lead to a visa denial, the report said.
Some are directed by Chinese diplomatic missions abroad to join official tours to Xinjiang, requiring personal information and approval from various Chinese authorities, including local police, the local public security bureau and counterterrorism unit, and a neighborhood committee.
Uyghurs holding foreign passports are additionally required to renounce their Chinese citizenship to participate in such tours, the report said.
Those who join them say they are a safer option with a quicker and easier visa application process, rather than traveling on their own and risking police interrogation and possible detention.
While on the tours, Uyghur are closely monitored by Chinese minders, must obtain permission to visit their families, must speak Mandarin Chinese and must participate in propaganda activities with provided scripts that praise the ruling Chinese Communist Party’s policies in Xinjiang.
Through controlled visits and tours, the Chinese government keeps a tight grip on the Uyghur diaspora. Some Uyghurs stay silent or avoid activism and cultural activities, hoping to reconnect with their families and visit the region.
“Uyghurs are facing stringent conditions and requirements if they want to briefly reunite or even just to communicate with family members in China,” Uluyol said in the report. “Being able to contact or visit loved ones abroad shouldn’t be a privilege granted to a few Uyghurs, but is a right that the Chinese government is obligated to respect.”
Edited by Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Roseanne Gerin for RFA English.
Last week, a Chinese startup, DeepSeek, released R1, a large-language model rivaling ChatGPT, that is already unraveling the U.S. tech world. The open-source model performs just as well, if not better, than its American counterparts.
The shock comes mainly from the extremely low cost with which the model was trained. R1 cost just $5.6 million to train. Meanwhile, OpenAI spent at least $540 million to train ChatGPT in 2022 last year alone and plans to spend over $500 billion in the next four years. Meanwhile, Meta revealed it plans to spend over $65 billion on AI development in 2025.
This incredible achievement is made even more impressive as DeepSeek trained the model on less powered AI chips than those used by American companies, such as the Nvidia H100 GPU. The Biden administration banned China from importing the most powerful AI chips, used by American companies like OpenAI and Meta, as part of the U.S.’ hostility and economic warfare with the country. Rather than limiting China’s AI development, these sanctions have facilitated a small startup to produce language models that outperform ChatGPT, Gemini, and others with only a fraction of the costs. Further still, using these less powerful chips significantly reduces the energy used to train the model. This is another significant benefit in an industry known for its environmental costs. While DeepSeek used American chips to train R1, the model actually runs on Chinese-made Ascend 910C chips produced by Huawei, another company that became a victim of U.S. sanctions.
Silicon Valley has long been hailed as an untouchable technological powerhouse, largely as a result of the economic warfare of successive U.S. governments to sanction any competition to it. For too long, there has been a tight partnership between tech companies and the U.S. government, where tech moguls have accumulated eye-watering wealth in exchange for sustenance to the American empire through its perceived technological dominance. DeepSeek has revealed this fallacy openly.
DeepSeek’s R1, costing just $5 million to train, caused the most significant loss for any company in U.S. history at $600 billion. This was from Nvidia’s stocks, the major supplier of AI chips, including the most advanced chips the U.S. has banned China from importing. After enjoying their stock value doubling in recent years, this loss significantly impacts the U.S. technological industry. The U.S. attacks on China’s development are already coming back to harm it.
Not only is R1 cheaper than its American competitors, but people using the tool have found it provides more accurate and, crucially, results that do not only echo the interests of U.S. imperialism. I asked DeepSeek’s R1, Open AI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, and Meta’s Llama: Should the U.S. arm Israel? Give me a clear, short answer that includes your judgment.
ChatGPT: Yes, the U.S. should arm Israel, as it is a crucial ally in a volatile region. However, this support should be paired with active efforts toward peace and conflict resolution to ensure long-term stability.
Gemini: Yes, the U.S. should continue to arm Israel to ensure its security, but with stricter conditions tied to progress on human rights and a peaceful resolution with the Palestinians.
Llama: The U.S. should provide military aid to Israel, but with conditions that ensure the aid promotes regional stability, supports a two-state solution, and respects human rights.
R1: The decision to arm Israel should be based on strategic interests, regional stability, and adherence to international law. While Israel has a right to self-defense, the U.S. should ensure that arms transfers do not exacerbate conflicts or contribute to human rights violations. A balanced approach, prioritizing diplomacy and peace, is essential.
These answers did shock me a little, despite what I expected from these models. While R1 includes some colonial language, such as the fallacy that Israel has a right to self-defense, which, of course, no country particularly occupying power has, it is much better than the others. While this prompt is simplistic, it reveals how quickly and overtly these other models incorporate U.S. imperialist agendas.
The U.S. tech industry has been bloating for years. Eight of the ten wealthiest people in the world are in the tech industry. One look at Trump’s inauguration attendees already revealed how close these companies are to political power in this country. These companies are also deeply embedded within the American war machine. Google used its AI to help Israel commit genocide. OpenAI is using its technology to target weapons for murder. Oracle, OpenAI, and Softbank want $500 billion to create AI infrastructure in the U.S.; one of the major players involved has publicly sought an AI-data system of mass surveillance.
DeepSeek reveals to us not only the incredible development happening in China but also how this is seen only as a challenge to U.S. dominance rather than a benefit for people worldwide. Just like their impressive poverty reduction program that has lifted more than 800 million people out of poverty, their world-leading climate policies include building more solar power than all countries combined last year and significantly reducing the costs of producing clean energy for everyone. U.S. officials attack all of these achievements in the government and media because they reveal that an impoverishing system of climate-destroying, violent extraction for the wealthy few is not the only way.
This is why the hawkish chorus has already begun attacking open-source software for ‘national security’ concerns or ‘censorship’. We know their playbook already—they just performed the same moves with RedNote as millions of Americans turned to the app in the brief period TikTok went dark. However, many are still active on the platform, and the 90-day suspension of the ban isn’t too far in the future.
U.S. attacks on TikTok have fostered beautiful exchanges between Chinese and Americans, exposing the propaganda Americans have been fed about China and concerning Chinese people that what they have learned about the U.S. is true. U.S. attacks on China’s AI development have made China more innovative and efficient, producing DeepSeek R1 and undoubtedly many more such developments. Not only does this expose how devastating for humanity American economic warfare is, it also uncovers just how this policy of hostility won’t save U.S. hegemony. It’s not just China. The destructive years of the U.S. and Saudi-led bombing of Yemen forced the country to develop renewable and decentralized electricity infrastructure, moving away from a reliance on fossil fuels and sustaining energy for hospitals and homes even when the country is bombed. Venezuela has achieved near total food self-sufficiency in response to U.S. sanctions and blockade. American warfare, in all its forms, has forced countries to disrupt their ways of life completely.
China’s ability to develop this AI at a lower cost, both financially and to the environment, is a win for us all. If the U.S. collaborated with China instead of erecting barriers and sabotage, just imagine how much more we could do.
MANILA/ZAMBOANGA – Newly released Philippine Coast Guard videos show Chinese coast guard ships remaining in South China Sea waters within Manila’s exclusive economic zone west of Luzon, where they have lingered for the past month, PCG officials said.
In video footage taken from a PCG airplane over the weekend and released on Monday, several Chinese coast guard ships were tracked sailing in waters near Manila-claimed Scarborough Shoal, known as Bajo de Masinloc in the Philippines, according to Filipino officials.
On Sunday, two China Coast Guard ships – CCG 3301 and CCG 3104 – were also tracked only 34 nautical miles off the coast of Pangasinan, a province on the west coast of Luzon, the main island in the northern Philippines.
The PCG said it immediately deployed an aircraft to identify the foreign ships and issued radio challenges but those were ignored, according to officials. The Philippine Coast Guard also dispatched two vessels to the area.
Philippine Coast Guard Tracks China Coast Guard Vessels off Pangasinan Coast
The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) has detected the movement of two China Coast Guard vessels approximately 34 nautical miles off the coast of Pangasinan through its Dark Vessel Detection (DVD) program.… pic.twitter.com/6hUtrr85h1
Located about 125 nautical miles (232 km) from Luzon, Scarborough Shoal is a traditional fishing ground for Filipino fishermen but it has been under China’s de facto control since 2012.
The Philippine Coast Guard is committed to “preventing the normalization of the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) illegal deployment of maritime forces in the region,” the agency said in a statement.
The BRP Teresa Magbanua, a local coast guard ship, has been “actively challenging the presence of China Coast Guard 5901,” which is now about 117 nautical miles from the country’s coast, according to officials.
Dubbed “The Monster,” the CCG 5901 is the world’s largest coast ship. The Philippine coast guard statement did not say how the Teresa Magbanua was challenging its bigger foreign counterpart.
“Today marks the 30th consecutive day of the China Coast Guard’s illegal presence in the waters off Zambales,” the PCG said in its statement Saturday, referring to another province on Luzon’s west coast.
The refusal of the Chinese vessel to leave the Philippine EEZ is a “blatant disregard for international law and the established rules-based order,” it said.
Chinese navy ships off southern Philippines
Meanwhile, the Philippine Navy said it escorted three Chinese naval warships, including a cruiser-guided missile class vessel, out of Philippine waters on Monday. The vessels were first monitored Sunday off the coast of the southern Philippine provinces of Zamboanga and Basilan.
“The said PLA [People’s Liberation Army] navy vessels transited without prior diplomatic coordination and maintained an unusually slow speed of four to five knots,” said Maj. Orlando Aylon Jr., a regional military spokesman based in Zamboanga.
The three People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy vessels seen by Philippine authorities included a Jianki Class Frigate II, a Renhai Class Cruiser Guided Missile and a Type 903 Fuchi Class Replenishment Oiler.
“This is not consistent with the principles of innocent passage which requires continuous and expeditious passage and that the vessels should not linger in archipelagic waters longer than necessary,” said Lt. Gen. Antonio Nafarrete, chief of the Armed Forces of the Philippines’ Western Mindanao Command.
China defended the passage of its naval vessels in the area, saying they conducted training exercises in the open sea.
“The Chinese naval vessels’ passage through the Basilan Strait is in full compliance with … international law and practice,” a spokesperson for the Chinese PLA Southern Theater Command said on Monday.
The Philippines’ “act of smearing and hyping up the Chinese naval vessels’ normal passage through the Basilan Strait has seriously undermined the normal navigation rights of other countries including China,” the spokesperson added.
Beijing’s taking possession of Scarborough Shoal forced Manila to file a lawsuit at the world court in The Hague 13 years ago.
In 2016, an international arbitration tribunal ruled in Manila’s favor but Beijing has never acknowledged that decision.
Geopolitical analyst Julio Amador III, who closely monitors the South China Sea, said it was too early to determine the Chinese navy vessels’ intentions but he noted that the principle of “freedom of navigation” applied.
The same could also be said about China’s “monster” ship. As long as it maintained its distance in the periphery of Scarborough, that should not escalate the tension in the area, Amador said.
“But if it goes inside the lagoon and then patrols while challenging our claims, then there are grounds for protest,” he told BenarNews.
“The only difference between that ship and the CCG ships in 2012 is the size.”
He was referring to the first incident when Chinese vessels entered the area and unleashed an international crisis that later resulted in Manila’s filing of a lawsuit against Beijing.
The “monster” ship’s presence there “is to remind us that they are making claims on Scarborough.”
“They want control of the waters,” Amador said.
BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organizations.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Jason Gutierrez and Roel Pareño for BenarNews.
(AFP)
