Remember when the exuberant yelling of Gov. Howard Dean was enough for corporate media to declare him unfit for the presidency (Extra!, 3–4/04)?
Remember January 2004, when Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean yelled in a pep talk to supporters after the Iowa caucus, and elite media declared that his “growling and defiant” “emotional outburst” was patent evidence of unacceptability? Having already declared Dean too excitable—“Yelling and hollering is not an endearing quality in the leader of the free world,” said the Washington Post (8/2/03)—media found verification in the “Dean scream,” which was played on TV news some 700 times, enough to finish off his candidacy (Extra!, 3–4/04). As Pat Buchanan on the McLaughlin Group (1/23/04) scoffed: “Is this the guy who ought to be in control of our nuclear arsenal?”
Fast forward to the present day, when Donald Trump states, “For purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity.”
And today’s journalistic response looks like a CBS News explainer (1/8/25), headed “Why Would Trump Want Greenland and the Panama Canal? Here’s What’s Behind US interest.” It’s simple, you see, and not at all weird. “Greenland has oil, natural gas and highly sought after mineral resources.” And you know what? “Western powers have already voiced concern about Russia and China using it to boost their presence in the North Atlantic.”
In an effort to make Trump’s proposal seem rational, CBS (1/8/25) offered a map that made Greenland look like a chokepoint on the all-important Dalian/Rotterdam sea route. In fact, Greenland is more than 1,500 miles from Eurasia—greater than the distance between Boston and New Orleans.
CBS tells us Trump is “falsely alleging” that the Panama Canal is being “operated by China,” but then adds in their own, awkward, words, “China has also denied trying to claim any control over the canal.” Takeaway: who knows, really? Believe what you want. PS—you’re Americun, right?
The New York Times (1/2/25) assured us that,” Trump’s Falsehoods Aside, China’s Influence Over Global Ports Raises Concerns.” The story made it obvious that Chinese companies in charge of shipping ports is inherently scary—what might they do?—in a way that the US having 750 military bases around the world never is.
The message isn’t that no one country should have that much power; it’s that no country except the US should have that much power. That assumption suffuses corporate news reporting; and China threatens it. So whatever China does or doesn’t do, look for that lens to color any news you get.
U.S. lawmakers are demanding answers after it was revealed that China-backed hackers had accessed Treasury Department workstations and unclassified documents through a compromised third-party software provider. The department said it was working with cybersecurity experts, the FBI, intelligence agencies and independent investigators to and assess the impact of the incident. Beijing called the U.S. accusation of Chinese involvement another example of “unwarranted and groundless allegations” from Washington.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Paul Eckert.
Chinese TV actor Wang Xing is heading back to China on Friday following his rescue from Myanmar’s notorious KK Park human trafficking and scam operation, where he was lured on the fake promise of a job, according to local media reports.
Wang, who appeared in public with a shaved head following his release, will fly to Shanghai on Friday evening local time, his lawyer told state media, but his family had requested that the flight number not be publicized.
Thai police reported on Jan. 7 that Wang, 31, a relatively unknown TV actor, had been rescued after being lured to Thailand by scammers.
According to Thai police, Wang didn’t realize he’d been deceived until his he was taken across the river into Myanmar and found himself “in a rustic environment.”
However, he did take photos of his vehicle’s license plate and key landmarks on the way, sending them to his girlfriend in China, Chinese state media quoted Thailand’s Senior Inspector General Thatchai Pitaneelaboot as saying.
Wang’s girlfriend Jia Jia then raised the alarm on Chinese social media after losing touch with him, according to the Global Times.
“I’m grateful to the Thai government and the local immigration authorities for bringing me back here safely,” Wang told Thai broadcaster PBS. “I realized I’d been tricked when they took me across the border, but I didn’t dare to resist.”
KK Park
The actor was taken to KK Park in Myawaddy, Myanmar, near the Thai border, where thousands of human trafficking victims from all over Asia — and as far away as Africa — are being held hostage by scammers in the area, victims have told Radio Free Asia in earlier reports.
They said they were lured by false advertisements and forced to scam other people, then tortured if they refused to comply.
The families of victims from Hong Kong recently petitioned the city’s leader John Lee for help, while the relatives of 174 mainland Chinese nationals believed to be in KK Park have made their details public following Wang Xing’s rescue, state media reported.
The campaigners say their relatives are mostly men between the ages of 17 and 35, and have been missing for anything from a few months to a few years, China’s Global Times newspaper reported.
Trips to Thailand
Wang’s kidnapping has prompted a wave of cancellations of planned trips to Thailand by Chinese nationals, local media reported.
“Many Chinese travelers planning to visit Thailand for the upcoming Lunar New Year have expressed concerns on social media this week and posed blunt questions,” Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post reported.
In a separate report, the paper said Cantopop star Eason Chan had canceled a gig in Thailand, citing safety concerns.
Wang’s return came amid growing fears for the safety of Chinese model Yang Zeqi, who is also missing, believed held in KK Park after traveling to the Thai-Myanmar border region, according to HK01.com.
Chinese actor Wang Xing is interviewed by Thai news media in Mae Sot district on the Thai-Myanmar border in Thailand’s Tak province, Jan. 7, 2025.(Cover News)
Yang’s family made an appeal on Weibo on the evening of Jan. 8, saying he had traveled there “after passing an online audition.”
Yang spoke to his mother by video call on Dec. 29, wearing black clothes and looking beat up, telling her he was OK, but nothing has been heard from him since, the report said.
Thai police are investigating his disappearance, according to Thailand’s The Nation.
‘Intensified police crackdowns’
According to China’s Global Times, the majority of Chinese nationals are taken to the park either from the Thai border area, or after crossing the border into Myanmar from the southwestern Chinese province of Yunnan.
Some families still receive occasional messages from their loved ones, but most appear to have had their personal belongings and devices confiscated, the report said.
“Due to intensified police crackdowns by the authorities in China, Myanmar and Thailand, profits from these scam centers have since dwindled,” the paper said, citing family members.
“As a result, these centers have ramped up their deceptive tactics [and] new types of scams are also emerging,” it said, adding that scammers are now targeting actors and language teachers with the promise of jobs.
In November, an ethnic minority militia in northern Myanmar detained more than 1,000 people suspected of online scamming, the majority of them Chinese nationals, and deported them back to China.
Online scamming centers have proliferated across Southeast Asia in recent years, especially in some of the more lawless parts of Myanmar, as well as in neighboring Laos and Cambodia.
The centers are often run by Chinese gangs and are notorious for luring unsuspecting people into jobs that entail going online to contact and defraud people, many in China.
Chinese authorities are keen to get the rackets based over the border in Myanmar shut down, and so action against them has become a key factor for rival factions in Myanmar, from the junta to its insurgent enemies and other militias, as they vie for China’s favor.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Roseanne Gerin.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Mandarin and RFA Cantonese.
This week on CounterSpin: New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman’s December 17 piece, headlined “How Elon Musk and Taylor Swift Can Resolve US-China Relations,” contained some choice Friedmanisms, like: “More Americans might get a better feel for what is going on there if they simply went and ordered room service at their hotel.” (Later followed quaintly by: “A lot of Chinese have grown out of touch with how China is perceived in the world.”)
But the big idea is that China has taken a “great leap forward in high-tech manufacturing” because of Donald Trump, who a source says “woke them up to the fact that they needed an all-hands-on-deck effort.” And if the US doesn’t respond to China’s “Sputnik” moment the way we did to the Soviet Union, “we will be toast.”
The response has to do with using tariffs on China to “buy time to lift up more Elon Musks” (described as a “homegrown” manufacturer), and for China to “let in more Taylor Swifts”—i.e., chances for its youth to spend money on entertainment made abroad. Secretary of State Tony Blinken evidently “show[ed] China the way forward” last April, when he bought a Swift record on his way to the airport.
In a prayer ceremony for victims of Monday’s earthquake in Tibet, the Dalai Lama told listeners that because it was a natural disaster and “not caused by political tensions,” there was no reason to be angry with Chinese authorities.
The magnitude 7.1 quake left 126 people dead and destroyed 3,600 houses, according to Chinese officials — although Tibetans inside Tibet say the death toll probably exceeds 200.
“Even though it is in our human nature, do not feel dispirited or doomed by such disasters,” the Dalai Lama told more than 12,000 Buddhist clergy members gathered for a ceremony in southern India on Thursday. “It helps to think that events like earthquakes are natural disasters and not caused by political tensions.
The 7.1-magnitude earthquake killed scores of people and damaged thousands of homes.
“There is no reason to show anger or hatred towards China,” he said. “Hence, Tibetans inside and outside Tibet should develop a kinder, more compassionate heart.”
Still, Tibetans are disturbed that Chinese authorities have called off search-and-rescue operations, promoted the government’s official relief work, and banned them from sharing photos or videos about the quake on social media.
The earthquake was centered around Dingri and Shigatse, close to the border with Nepal, in the southern part of the Tibetan Autonomous Region, controlled by China.
‘Meditate upon compassion’
The Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, who is visiting the South Indian town of Bylakuppe — which has the largest Tibetan settlement in the world outside Tibet — counseled Tibetans not to lose heart in the face of the natural disaster.
Instead, he urged them to transform this tragedy into a condition for the practice of compassion and spiritual growth and enlightenment.
Butter lamps are seen lit in front of a portrait of the Dalai Lama in remembrance of those who lost their lives in the recent earthquake, at a Tibetan camp in Lalitpur, Nepal, on Jan. 8, 2025.(Niranjan Shrestha, Niranjan Shrestha/AP)
He spoke at the Tashi Lhunpo Monastery, the principal monastery in Shigatse founded by the First Dalai Lama, Gyalwa Gendun Drup, and the former seat of the Panchen Rinpoches that was re-established in South India.
“Even for me, seeing the pictures of ruins of Dingri after the earthquake encourages me to meditate upon compassion and emptiness and pray to Chenrezig, the Buddha of Infinite Compassion,” the Dalai Lama said. “It empowers us to take adversities in our stride and not be crushed by them. That is our advantage as religious people.”
Tibetans in Dharamsala, North India — the residence of the Dalai Lama and the seat of the Tibetan government-in-exile — held a candlelight vigil and prayer service on Thursday for those affected by the quake.
On Wednesday evening, four NGOs — the Tibetan Youth Congress, Tibetan Women’s Association, Students for a Free Tibet and the National Democratic Party of Tibet — jointly organized a candlelight vigil from the Dharamsala suburb of McLeod Ganj to the Tsuglagkhang Temple, followed by a prayer service.
They said they were holding the vigil was to show solidaritywith Tibetans inside Tibet and to demand transparency from Chinese authorities about the disaster.
Search and rescue
Inside the Tibet Autonomous Region, or TAR, Chinese officials announced the end of search-and-rescue operations to focus on the resettlement of those who now are homeless.
The Dalai Lama, right, leads prayers at a monastery in Bylakuppe, India, Jan. 9, 2025, in solidarity with those affected by the earthquake that hit the Tibet Autonomous Region in western China.(Tenzin Choejor/AP)
But Tibetans continued to conduct their own rescue efforts in villages on Thursday, two sources in Tibet’s capital Lhasa told Radio Free Asia.
A third source told RFA that Chinese authorities stopped operations to recover bodies from the ruins, even as the general public continued to retrieve them from the rubble on Thursday.
Most of the casualties were elderly people and children because many young people were away at work when the temblor struck, the source said.
Li Ling, deputy director of the TAR’s Special Disaster Investigation Office, attributed the earthquake to tectonic plate movement and blamed the high casualty numbers on poorly constructed traditional buildings.
The Shigatse government has ordered residents not to post earthquake-related photos and videos on social media, saying it would harm rescue efforts and threatening severe punishment for violators, the two Lhasa sources said.
Chinese authorities are restricting documentation of the actual situation and local rescue efforts while heavily promoting official government relief operations, they added. They are also preventing people from taking photos or sharing information about casualties and damage.
One of the sources reported that after three days, some remote areas still hadn’t received government assistance.
Many villagers are sleeping in damaged building compounds without food, a source from the quake-affected region said.
In Dingri’s Dramtso village alone, over 20 people died, and the Dzongphug Nunnery suffered severe damage, killing two nuns and injuring many others. Residents still had not received aid by the Wednesday afternoon, said one of the Lhasa sources.
The Dewachen Monastery in Dingri’s Chulho township was completely destroyed, he added.
Translated by RFA Tibetan. 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 RFA Tibetan.
Chinese authorities in Xi’an have detained Fei Xiaosheng, a prominent musician and performance artist who had publicly supported the Hong Kong democracy movement, his friends and fellow artists told RFA Mandarin.
Xi’an police caught up with Fei, 55, on Tuesday, and are now holding him the Beilin Detention Center, according to associates who knew him as part of the Songzhuang Artists’ Village scene of dissident and fringe artists in Beijing.
His detention comes as the ruling Communist Party continues to crack down on artists and other creative workers whose work or views are seen as potentially subversive.
Authorities are also holding Gao Zhen, one of the Gao Brothers artistic duo, on suspicion of ‘insulting revolutionary heroes and martyrs,’ after seizing satirical artworks depicting Chairman Mao from his home studio.
“I was shocked to hear that Songzhuang musician and artist Fei Xiaosheng has been detained,” fellow artist Du Yinghong, who now lives in Thailand, said in a social media post on Wednesday.
“Two years ago, we contacted each other a number of times, and he said he envied me [living outside of China],” he wrote. “A few days ago, we had a video call, and I found out he had applied for a passport, gone to Serbia, yet somehow returned to the cage that is our country.”
“He said he planned to leave again soon, and told me to add his European number, but then we heard the bad news that he’d been arrested,” Du wrote.
Devout Christian
Du later told RFA Mandarin that Fei is being held in Xi’an’s Beilin Detention Center, but that the authorities have yet to issue any official notification of his detention.
“This is part of their cultural cleansing operation, and a settling of scores,” he said, adding that Fei had likely been targeted for his public support for the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong.
“Fei Xiaosheng is a devout Christian who once expressed solidarity and support for Hong Kong, and was detained for more than 40 days for this,” Du said.
Du said the artist had a strong sense of social justice, and followed current affairs closely. He was expelled by state security police from Songzhuang Artists’ Village in 2020.
“He used to organize music festivals and performance art festivals in Songzhuang,” Du said, adding that police had burned Fei’s old passport.
“He had returned to China [from Serbia] for work, and was just about to leave China again,” he said.
‘China is finished’
Writer He Sanpo, who like many Chinese writers now lives in Thailand, said he was saddened to hear of Fei’s detention, but not surprised.
“But people who are really engaged in making art know that China is finished,” He said. “In today’s China, if you have a conscience and dare to speak a few truths, you will have committed some crime.”
“The only thing you can do is to escape from it.”
Fei’s detention came as Gao Zhen’s trial is expected to start.
Gao’s friends told RFA Mandarin in recent interviews that his case will be heard at the Xianghe County People’s Court in the northern province of Hebei next week, possibly Monday.
Gao’s lawyer has been warned not to make public any details of the case, they said.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Qian Lang for RFA Mandarin.
They grew up working hard, getting good grades and thinking they’d likely have careers, maybe marry and have kids, all in the city that formed them — Hong Kong.
But now, Anna Kwok, Frances Hui and Joey Siu are all in exile in the United States, with no idea of when they will be able to return. Each has a bounty of HK$1 million (US$128,500) on their heads from the Hong Kong government, which has vowed to pursue them for the rest of their lives.
Hong Kong Chief executive John Lee warned her and others on the list that they would be “pursued for life,” urging them “to give themselves up as soon as possible.”
Hui, the first Hong Kong democracy activist to receive asylum in the United States, and Siu, policy adviser to the London-based rights group Hong Kong Watch, were added to the list in December 2023.
Frances Hui(RFA)
All three women were educated in Hong Kong from elementary school onwards, including classes in Liberal Studies, the former critical-thinking and citizenship program for Hong Kong schoolchildren. The ruling Communist Party has blamed it for waves of youth-led pro-democracy protests since Hong Kong’s 1997 handover from Britain.
Some fled to the United Kingdom on the British National Overseas, or BNO, visa program. Others have made their homes anew in the United States, Canada, Australia and Germany.
The changes have happened fast, and turned around the lives of many young Hong Kongers.
Yet Kwok, Hui and Siu can trace their political development as far back as their school days, and continue to carry the message of the protests to policymakers in the United States and beyond.
Even at a young age, Hui was keenly political, joining the activist movement Scholarism, which organized a mass protest led by then-high schooler Joshua Wong against a Beijing-backed program of ” patriotic education” planned for the city’s schools.
“The movement against patriotic education happened when I was in Form 4 [age 15], and it was a personal issue for me, because if it happened, I would be brainwashed like a lab rat,” Hui said. “I felt that I could speak out because the leader [Joshua Wong] was also still in school uniform.”
“He ushered in an era where schoolchildren took part in political movements,” she said. “Soon after that, the Umbrella movement happened, and I decided to join Scholarism.”
“Then I went to study journalism in the United States … which was also part of my work towards freedom and democracy,” Hui said.
‘Strong sense of justice’
As a girl, Siu saw herself as a potential high-school teacher.
“I was lively and outgoing as a kid, with a strong sense of justice,” Siu told RFA Cantonese in a recent interview, adding that she frequently volunteered for positions of responsibility like prefect, monitor and counselor while in school.
But part of her always felt she didn’t belong.
“I was born in the U.S. and didn’t go back to Hong Kong until I was in elementary school,” she said. “My relationship with my parents wasn’t close because I didn’t live with them as a child … I was looked after by my grandparents.”
Joey Siu relaxes at a sports facility in Hong Kong, before she was forced to leave.(Courtesy Joey Siu)
“My upbringing was pretty strict,” she said. “I was only allowed to watch the 6.30 evening news on TVB while we ate dinner, but I wasn’t allowed to watch any TV the rest of the time.”
“I wasn’t allowed to read anything that wasn’t on the school curriculum, including comics and novels; I was only allowed to read newspapers,” she said.
Kwok, by contrast, was always something of a rebel.
“I’ve always been someone who likes to challenge existing frameworks, ever since I was a child,” she said. “In high school, I often talked back to my teachers, and would also speak out enthusiastically and ask questions about current affairs.”
Anna Kwok before she left Hong Kong, with an ambition to become a filmmaker.(Courtesy Anna Kwok)
“I also loved to try new things, or rather my family gave me a lot of opportunities to try different things, like rhythmic swimming, Chinese music, and playing the piano,” she said.
Complex world
Hui, meanwhile, described herself as “very noisy” in school.
“I don’t like to be boxed in by frameworks,” she said. ” I used to like boy stuff; I was popular and had a lot of different interests.”
Yet her upbringing was strongly Catholic, and her family’s world revolved around the church.
“It wasn’t until I joined Scholarism in 2014 that I actually met people outside of the Catholic community,” she said. “That’s when I realized how complex the real world actually is.”
All three women are now firmly regarded as subversive by their government, and by extension, the ruling Chinese Communist Party.
Their generation is unique in that it received a liberal education from a young age, but also lived through the early stages of Beijing’s patriotic education program in schools and universities.
“Kindergartens and primary schools gradually started to offer classes about China, and study tours to Beijing,” Kwok said. “They were constantly indoctrinating us that we were Chinese and should be proud of our identity as Chinese.”
“But at the same time, I was seeing a lot of negative news about China, including the [banned] Sudan Red food dye, and about the tofu buildings in Sichuan [that led to the deaths of thousands of schoolchildren in the 2008 quake],” she said. “It made me realize that … Hong Kong was different from China.”
Anna Kwok as a child in Hong Kong. Undated.(Courtesy Anna Kwok)
“When I was in junior high school, people starting talking about the identity of Hong Kong people, and I realized that Hong Konger was the identity that I could relate to,” she said.
Yet Kwok doesn’t see herself as particularly influenced by Western ideas.
“Western education has had a definite impact on me, but only in the sense that it made us realize that critical thinking is an essential skill for anyone, and that human rights, freedom and democracy are all necessary to work for the sustainable development of society,” she said.
Around the same time, Siu was getting similar information about China from Hong Kong’s still freewheeling press.
“All my knowledge of politics and current affairs came from the few free newspapers I got in the lobby of my apartment building when I was in school,” she said. “I learned that infant formula in China was laced with melamine, and that they cut corners when it came to building.”
“Later, I saw that the Hong Kong government was ignoring … demands for democracy from its people,” she said. “I’ve known since I was a child that neither the Chinese nor the Hong Kong government is a friend to people of Hong Kong.”
Learning about Tiananmen Massacre
Meanwhile, Hui was glued to a weekend political discussion show that ran live on Radio Television Hong Kong called “City Forum.”
“When I was 10, it was the 20th anniversary of the [1989] Tiananmen massacre, and all the TV stations made anniversary specials, which were a shock to me,” she said. “I never thought there would be such brutal suppression just across the border from Hong Kong, which was still fighting for freedom and democracy, and that some people had lost their lives.”
Frances Hui as a child in Hong Kong.(Courtesy of Frances Hui)
“Those students [in 1989] were just fighting for the right to vote, and for the freedom that should have been their birthright,” she said. “They weren’t brainwashed to do that; it was just something that it was natural for them to pursue.”
Back then, none of them realized how big a role they would come to play in their city’s history.
Kwok dreamed of becoming an artist and filmmaker, while Siu thought she might like to teach Liberal Studies, and Hui was thinking about journalism, or maybe accountancy.
But the 2014 Umbrella Movement — protests in which demonstrators used umbrellas to protect themselves — changed them, without their realizing it at the time.
“Back in 2014 I was studying … in Norway, and the Umbrella Movement started, and I felt very guilty because a friend of mine got caught in a tear gas attack and I wasn’t even there,” Kwok said. “So I organized a seminar in Norway to tell the outside world about what was happening in Hong Kong.”
“The same thing happened again in 2019, when all of [the protests] were happening … I was a overseas, so that time I went to a seminar,” she said. “Basically, there was no way I was going to carry on as if nothing was happening.”
Transnational repression
Life as an activist in exile isn’t easy, however.
All three women bemoaned dwindling attendance at overseas protests, as Hong Kongers start to feel the pinch of their government’s “long-arm” law enforcement, in the form of threats to loved ones and financial assets back home.
Sometimes, they wonder if it’s worth it, and whether they should take a break from lobbying to live their lives more fully.
Frances Hui, Joey Siu and Anna Kwok with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi at a rally in support of the 45 jailed Hong Kong democracy activists in Washington, Nov. 19, 2024.(RFA)
All of them miss Hong Kong terribly, the city’s hustle and bustle, its Cantonese culture, and their friends and family, with whom they have cut off ties for their own protection.
“It’s been four years and two months since I left Hong Kong,” Siu said. “Before I got on the plane … I was afraid that this would be my final good-bye.”
“When they put out the arrest warrants, I was so sad not to able to celebrate my grandma’s birthday with her, yet I couldn’t call and tell her not to worry about me,” she said.
Yet none of the three women has any regrets about the way things turned out.
“The government is so scared of three young women in their 20s because what we say is right,” Hui said.
Siu added: “Everything we do is done to make Hong Kong a better place.”
Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Ha Syut for RFA Cantonese.
U.S. lawmakers are demanding answers after it was revealed that China-backed hackers had accessed Treasury Department workstations and unclassified documents through a compromised third-party software provider.
The department said it was working with cybersecurity experts, the FBI, intelligence agencies and independent investigators to and assess the impact of the incident.
Beijing called the U.S. accusation of Chinese involvement another example of “unwarranted and groundless allegations” from Washington.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Paul Eckert.
Canadian naval vessel HMCS Ottawa sailing in the East China Sea was closely shadowed by a Chinese warship, according to a reporter from Canada’s CTV television network embedded on the ship.
The hours-long incident took place on Tuesday, when the Canadian Halifax-class patrol frigate with 250 crew on board was on its first international deployment of the year to enforce U.N. sanctions against North Korea, called Operation NEON.
Since then it has moved to Operation Horizon, a multi-nation effort to “promote peace, stability, and the rules-based international order,” according to a press release from the Canadian defense department.
The CTV National News reporter on board HMCS Ottawa said that less than 12 hours after leaving the south of Japan, “the Canadian crew on board quickly learned their ship was being closely watched.”
The guided-missile frigate Binzhou (Hull 515) at Gdynia port, Northern Poland on June 22, 2018
Credit: China Military(China Military)
HMCS Ottawa’s commanding officer Adriano Lozer was quoted as saying that the Chinese ship, “because we are in these regional waters, has decided to stick around us and is currently seven miles on our beam and has been in and out between two to seven miles all day.”
Two miles is considered the minimum safe distance between two ships in open waters in order to avoid collision.
The People’s Liberation Army naval ship was identified as Binzhou, a 4,000-ton Type 054A frigate that carries air defense and anti-submarine missiles.
This was not the first time that Canadian military assets taking part in international missions were shadowed and harassed by the PLA.
In October 2023, Canada accused Chinese fighter jets of intercepting a Royal Canadian Air Force aircraft in an “aggressive manner” while the latter was flying over international waters also during an Operation NEON mission.
‘Turning black into white’
The Chinese military has not reacted to the CTV report but a news outlet known for its hawkish stance, the Global Times, accused the Canadian media of “turning black into white by hyping” the PLA shadowing the Canadian warship.
Taking press aboard warships is “designed to allow media to exaggerate China’s legitimate monitoring on its doorstep,” Chinese military expert Song Zhongping was quoted as saying.
“Canada is a country from outside of the region,” Song said, stressing that China’s identification and verification of foreign vessels near its waters “completely conforms to international law.”
Canadian and U.S. warships have often conducted joint transits in the Taiwan Strait, angering China, which sees them as a deliberate effort to challenge its control.
Canada said it is committed to promoting freedom of navigation and a free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific.
In 2023, the HMCS Ottawa sailed through the waters between Taiwan and China’s mainland twice, and also deployed two sorties of shipborne helicopters near the China-controlled Paracel islands.
During the current Operation Horizon, it is expected to join allied naval vessels to carry out exercises and other operational activities to strengthen regional relationships “through security cooperation, building military-to-military interoperability, and enhancing Canada’s role as a trusted international security partner,” the Canadian defense department said.
Edited by Mike Firn.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Staff.
Panda bears are adorable—so fluffy and carefree. They can spend their time snacking on bamboo and climbing trees because they have no natural enemies. The panda is such a distinct and lovable animal that it was chosen to represent the World Wildlife Fund, the largest and most well-known wilderness preservation organization in the world. It’s easy to see why these animals are so beloved.
Charismatic megafauna is the quality that makes pandas so distinct. Being large helps a species stand out, but even the colorblind can recognize the black and white fur of a panda. Most importantly, pandas are culturally significant because they’re indigenous; they only come from China.
Pandas are so charismatic that the Communist Party of China uses them in political gestures called Panda Diplomacy. They lease pandas to other trusted countries as a sign of goodwill. It’s a symbolic act. The PCP is saying they don’t want to send bombs and war machines; they want open exchange. They want to share the best and most desirable parts of each other’s cultures.
Humans have a special ability to see meaning in things. That’s what makes us human. Your dog can’t read a map, and your cat can’t understand your songs, but we find meaning in giving a dog a map to its treat, knowing it will be guided by the scent. When we compose and sing 600 verses of a song to our cat, it’s not weird—it’s an expression of care and connection.
We create symbols and assign them meaning. When Lenin and the Bolsheviks were building a new nation, they knew they couldn’t keep the old Tsarist symbols of cruelty and oppression. They needed something new, something the people could rally behind. They looked to the source of their economic power. That’s where the hammer and sickle came in: the hammer to stand for industrial workers, who could manufacture goods for everyone, and the sickle to represent agricultural workers, who sustained the nation with food. The people saw themselves in that symbol. It’s what made it powerful.
The symbols of an oppressive empire need to be discarded. To many, the American flag symbolizes slavery and institutional racism. To others, the Star-Spangled Banner means land theft, invasion, and genocide. The masses can’t rally behind a banner that excludes them. The emblems of a revolution in the United States won’t be stars and bars, nor will they be hammers and sickles. Revolution in the US will have brand new trademarks.
When we create our own banner, we will choose our own symbols. In Mozambique, they overthrew colonial rule and defended their independence with AK-47 assault rifles; their flag still carries an AK-47 to this day. Samora Machel, Mozambique’s revolutionary leader, was brilliant at creating images the masses would rally around. He was also great at putting complicated strategic military maneuvers into simple terms anyone can understand. Machel didn’t try to copy the hammer and sickle; he saw the power in finding the symbol that told their own story.
We don’t have a culturally significant animal like the panda, and we don’t have an agrarian economy with a serf class. But we don’t need those things. Revolutions aren’t built on copy-pasting someone else’s strategy—they’re built on long-term goals and dedication. Hatred and anger might get things started, but they’re not enough to sustain a movement. Che Guevara, one of the most well-renowned guerrilla fighters of all time, knew this. He said, ‘The true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality.’
I can’t tell you what the new flag will look like or what symbols it will carry. But I can tell you how it will feel. It will inspire hope, unity, and a sense of belonging. Small countries like Laos and Vietnam have shown us what’s possible when people unite under a shared vision; powerful opponents are brought down. When the working class defeats the capitalist class, it will be under a banner that represents us. Together, there’s nothing we can’t achieve.
China has created two new counties in southwestern Xinjiang in disputed territory also claimed by India, a move analysts say is aimed at strengthening Beijing’s control over the area — and will likely exacerbate tension with India.
The two new counties — Hekang and He’an — are in Aksai Chin, a rugged, high-altitude desert area that China took from India in 1962 during the Sino-Indian War. It is the easternmost part of the larger Kashmir region claimed by India as part of its Nubra district in Ladakh.
“The two new counties show that China is consolidating its control over Aksai Chin,” said Anders Corr, principal of the New York-based political risk firm Corr Analytics.
“The move will further inflame tensions with India, which might seek to retake the Aksai Chin if there is a war with China over Taiwan, for example,” he said.
India objected by lodging an official protest with Beijing, according to Indian media reports.
The decision to create the two new counties was approved by the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee and the State Council, according to a Dec. 27 announcement on the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region government’s website.
The He’an county government will be located in Yulghun township, or Hongliu in Chinese, of Hotan county, while the Hekang county government will be located in Shaydulla township of Guma county, the announcement said.
Renaming locations
In other spots along its border with India, China has renamed locations to reflect its desire for territorial expansion and to normalize its occupation of disputed areas.
Speaking to reporters on Jan. 3, Randhir Jaiswal, spokesman for India’s Ministry of External Affairs, said India never accepted China’s “illegal occupation of Indian territory in this area,” The Hindu reported.
“The creation of new counties will neither have a bearing on India’s long-standing and consistent position regarding our sovereignty over the area nor lend legitimacy to China’s illegal and forcible occupation of the same,” he was quoted as saying.
Jaiswal also said India conveyed its concerns to Beijing about the planned construction of a mega hydropower project — which would be the world’s largest such dam — on the Yarlung Tsangpo River, the Tibetan name of Brahmaputra River, which flows through Arunachal Pradesh and Assam.
‘Break apart India’
China had expressed its willingness to cooperate with India on border issues, and on Dec. 18, Indian National Security Advisor Ajit Doval met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing for the 23rd round of boundary negotiations.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (right) meets with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the BRICS summit in Kazan, Russia, Oct. 23, 2024.(Reuters)
But just 10 days later, China announced the creation of the two counties — which U.S. political analyst Gordon G. Chang said could be a negotiating ploy.
“After all, the Chinese are talking to the Indians about territorial matters,” he said. “But we have to step back and understand that China is seeking to break apart India. It has for decades. This establishment of counties is just another tactic in a very long series of tactics of China to break apart India.”
Erkin Ekrem, a professor at Hacettepe University in Ankara, Turkey, said the move is part of Beijing’s pressure tactics against India.
“The aim is to pressure India with a viewpoint or policy that claims this region has historically been Chinese territory in order to resolve the border dispute, and they have been trying to gain control of whatever border they desire,” he said.
Ekrem predicted that China would try to relocate Uyghurs living in the Aksai Chin area and bring in Han Chinese settlers.
He said this is what occurred nine years ago when Chinese authorities established the city of Qurumqash, or Kunyu in Chinese, in Xinjiang, when they brought in many Han Chinese with the Bingtuan, a state-run economic and paramilitary organization that develops land and secures borders.
Leveraging infrastructure
Major infrastructure projects in Xinjiang and neighboring Tibet are positioning China to have the upper hand in territorial disputes and other disagreements that could escalate, Ekrem said.
The creation of a massive reservoir in Tibet, for instance, not only secures China’s water resources but also gives the Chinese leverage over India and other bordering countries, he said.
Recent upgrades to Hotan’s dual-use airport mean that the air field can be used by the military in the event of a conflict with India, and extensive railway networks built by the Chinese in Tibet can facilitate rapid troop deployment, he said.
“Through these infrastructure developments in both East Turkestan and Tibet, China has created a strategic advantage from military and defense perspectives,” Ekrem said, using Uyghurs’ preferred name for Xinjiang.
“These regions can serve as a rear base in any potential conflict with India, allowing China to potentially gain control of the region,” he said. “This strategic positioning explains the significance of these new construction projects and establishment of the counties.”
Translated by RFA Uyghur. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Uyghar for RFA Uyghur.
Responding to the rejection of Chinese human rights lawyer see also:s appeal against his three-year prison sentence for “inciting subversion of state power”, Amnesty International’s Interim Regional Deputy Director for Research Kate Schuetze said on 6 January, 2025: “The charges against Yu Wensheng and his wife, activist Xu Yan – who was convicted of the same offence – are entirely baseless. They reveal the authorities’ inability to provide any legitimate justification for their imprisonment.
“The Chinese government has used Yu’s online comments and his numerous international human rights awards as an excuse to label him a threat to national security. But all this really demonstrates is Beijing’s deep fear of human rights defenders who dare to dissent.
“Yu Wensheng and Xu Yan have been imprisoned solely for exercising their right to freedom of expression and they must be released immediately and unconditionally.”
Health officials in China are calling on people to wear masks and open the windows to help reduce a wave of respiratory infections that has left hospitals across the country swamped with patients ahead of the Lunar New Year travel rush.
“Influenza is peaking in our city, with influenza A (H1N1) as the main virus,” the Beijing Center for Disease Control and Prevention said in a recent statement warning people to take precautions ahead of the Jan. 29 Lunar New Year holiday, known as Spring Festival in mainland China.
The warning came as social media users posted video clips of crowded waiting rooms with masked parents cradling children and people on drips and lying on gurneys in corridors.
“This year’s influenza is pretty severe,” Douyin user @watchthistolearnaboutBeijing said in a video filmed from the Luhe Hospital in Beijing’s Tongzhou district on Jan. 6.
“The emergency rooms can’t see everyone, and are just handing out medicines or telling people to stay home.”
“H1N1 influenza in Shanghai is causing mayhem! The hospitals are overcrowded. Parents, please protect your children. Try to avoid crowded places!” one parent said in a video filmed at one of the city’s hospitals.
“I caught the influenza A virus which caused pneumonia, and my fever was so high that I was delirious, with a temperature of around 40C (104F),” another user said from the central province of Henan.
Worst still to come
Officials said the worst of the wave could still be to come.
“With the coming of the … Spring Festival holidays, there will be more personal travel and visits to relatives and friends,” Beijing CDC said in a notice published by the Beijing News. “You should wear a mask correctly when taking public transportation or going to crowded and relatively closed places.”
“Open the windows for ventilation 2-3 times a day, each time for no less than 30 minutes, to keep the indoor air fresh,” said the notice, which came as the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported a sharp increase in respiratory viral infections, including human metapneumovirus, in northern China starting last month.
The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control said it was monitoring the situation for potential threats to European countries, but said there was no immediate cause for concern.
“The current epidemiological situation in China reflects a seasonal rise in respiratory infections caused by common respiratory pathogens and does not pose any specific concern [for countries in the European Economic Area or the European Union],” it said.
Meanwhile, authorities in Beijing said thats recent Mycoplasma pneumoniae, human metapneumovirus and adenovirus outbreaks had “fallen significantly,” and along with COVID-19 infections were “currently at a low level.”
State broadcaster CCTV called on schools and childcare facilities to keep classrooms ventilated and maintain good hand hygiene, and implement “prevention and control measures” in the event of a clustered outbreak.
Treatment challenges
A resident of Shanghai who gave only the pseudonym Peng for fear of reprisals said his daughter is still sick with flu-like symptoms after several trips to the hospital.
“It seems there are a whole lot of different viruses going around right now, and even the doctors don’t know what it is,” Peng said.
A resident of the eastern province of Shandong who gave only the pseudonym Liu for fear of reprisals said his area had also been hard-hit.
“They said it was influenza A I think, but we thought it could be a variant of COVID-19,” Liu said.
A resident of the central city of Wuhan who gave only the pseudonym Gu said hospitals large and small are packed with respiratory patients in that city too.
“A lot of people are going to the hospital to get IV fluids, but the seats to get IV fluids are all full in the community hospitals,” she said.
People wearing masks wait at an outpatient area of the respiratory department of a hospital in Beijing on Jan. 8, 2025.(JADE GAO/AFP)
She said it’s also getting harder to find medicines to treat oneself at home.
“This morning, I went to the pharmacy next door to buy a few packs of cold medicine, but they were still sold out,” she said, adding that nobody could get hold of the antiviral Mabaloxavir, while the medicines being given by hospitals “did nothing to cure the illness.”
More effective medicines like antivirals were “too expensive, and can’t be prescribed,” she said. ‘You can buy them at your own expense, but they’re not covered by medical insurance.”
Main virus unclear
Lin Xiaoxu, director of the Protovirus Laboratory at the U.S. Army Research Institute, said it was unclear exactly which viruses are driving the current wave of respiratory illness in China.
“It’s possible that there are other, more serious, respiratory viruses in China, but the government hasn’t highlighted them in their testing or their public service announcements,” Lin said.
“Instead, the media have all been focusing on human metapneumovirus [as a recent issue].”
Meanwhile, there are signs that many could struggle to afford any medical care at all.
China’s hospitals are still reeling from the financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and some are trying to claw back revenue by refusing to take insurance cards and insisting that patients pay out of pocket for their treatment, according to recent reports from specialist healthcare bloggers.
“We went to one hospital [for a family member] and they told us … that they couldn’t accept our medical insurance card, so we had to pay out of pocket,” Shanghai resident Peng told RFA Mandarin. “It’s the same for me; a lot of the medicines I take for my current condition are paid for out of pocket, and the price is very high.”
Translated with additional reporting by Luisetta Mudie.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Kitty Wang for RFA Mandarin.
MANILA – Beijing has denied any infringement of Philippine jurisdiction rights by sending its largest coast guard vessel to near the disputed Scarborough Shoal inside the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun told a press briefing that the coast guard “conducts its patrols and law enforcement activities in relevant waters in full accordance with the law.”
“It is fully justified,” he added.
Repeated confrontations in disputed waters over the past year have raised fears of conflict between China and U.S. ally the Philippines.
In the latest development, the 12,000-ton CCG5901, dubbed “The Monster” because of its size, seemed to have left the coastline off Zambales, in the central Luzon region of the Philippines, and was about 90 nautical miles offshore as of Wednesday afternoon, the Philippine coast guard, or PCG, said.
Another Chinese coast guard ship – the CCG3103 – is heading to the area and was likely to serve as a replacement vessel for the monster ship to maintain China’s “illegal presence” within the exclusive economic zone, it said.
Besides the CCG5901 and CCG3103, there are at least six other Chinese coast guard vessels in the waters in which the Philippines holds jurisdiction rights to resources.
“The Monster” had been operating in an area 60-70 nautical miles from Zambales for the previous four days, according to spokesperson Jay Tarriela, who said that coast guard vessel BRP Cabra was deployed to closely monitor the “illegal” Chinese ship.
China “has provocatively deployed a People’s Liberation Army Navy helicopter, tail number 47” to the area, Tarriela said in a statement. The Philippine coast guard has been ordered by its commandant to refrain from action that could escalate tension, he added.
The Philippine military on Tuesday confirmed that it would continue conducting maritime and air patrols in the West Philippine Sea, or part of the South China Sea under Manila’s jurisdiction.
The Global Times, a Chinese newspaper known for its hawkish stance, said the Philippines was “hyping up” the CCG5901’s “normal” activities.
Chinese analyst Ding Duo was quoted as saying that after China announced the baselines around Huangyan Dao, the Chinese name for Scarborough Shoal, both the Chinese navy and coastguard were “set to increase their routine patrols and exercises in the area, and the Philippines needs to adapt to this process.”
That meant the current campaign, seen by Manila as an illegal act of intimidation, was set to continue.
U.S. aircraft carrier
Meanwhile, a carrier strike group led by the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70), has been operating in the South China Sea since Jan. 3.
Sailors signal aircraft during routine flight operations on the flight deck of the USS Carl Vinson on Jan. 7, 2025.(Petty Officer 3rd Class Nathan J/U.S. Navy)
The strike group includes the embarked Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 2, cruiser USS Princeton (CG-59) and destroyers USS Sterett (DDG-104) and USS William P. Lawrence (DDG-110).
The U.S. Navy has released a number of photos showing the Carl Vinson and its accompanying vessels conducting daily “routine operations” to reaffirm freedom of navigation in the waterway.
It did not specify the carrier’s exact location and only said that it was “in the U.S. 7th Fleet area of operations.”
“U.S. forces operate in the South China Sea on a daily basis,” the 7th Fleet has repeatedly said in its statements. “The United States upholds freedom of navigation for all nations as a principle.”
“No member of the international community should be intimidated or coerced into giving up their rights and freedoms,” it said.
Besides the Carl Vinson strike group, U.S. Navy Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Higgins (DDG 76) was also spotted conducting a firearms shooting training for its sailors on Tuesday in the South China Sea.
The Philippines and the U.S. in 1951 signed a Mutual Defense Treaty that commits the allies to help each other in time of attack by a third party.
Edited by RFA Staff.
BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news organization.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA and BenarNews Staff.
MANILA – Beijing has denied any infringement of Philippine jurisdiction rights by sending its largest coast guard vessel to near the disputed Scarborough Shoal inside the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun told a press briefing that the coast guard “conducts its patrols and law enforcement activities in relevant waters in full accordance with the law.”
“It is fully justified,” he added.
Repeated confrontations in disputed waters over the past year have raised fears of conflict between China and U.S. ally the Philippines.
In the latest development, the 12,000-ton CCG5901, dubbed “The Monster” because of its size, seemed to have left the coastline off Zambales, in the central Luzon region of the Philippines, and was about 90 nautical miles offshore as of Wednesday afternoon, the Philippine coast guard, or PCG, said.
Another Chinese coast guard ship – the CCG3103 – is heading to the area and was likely to serve as a replacement vessel for the monster ship to maintain China’s “illegal presence” within the exclusive economic zone, it said.
Besides the CCG5901 and CCG3103, there are at least six other Chinese coast guard vessels in the waters in which the Philippines holds jurisdiction rights to resources.
“The Monster” had been operating in an area 60-70 nautical miles from Zambales for the previous four days, according to spokesperson Jay Tarriela, who said that coast guard vessel BRP Cabra was deployed to closely monitor the “illegal” Chinese ship.
China “has provocatively deployed a People’s Liberation Army Navy helicopter, tail number 47” to the area, Tarriela said in a statement. The Philippine coast guard has been ordered by its commandant to refrain from action that could escalate tension, he added.
The Philippine military on Tuesday confirmed that it would continue conducting maritime and air patrols in the West Philippine Sea, or part of the South China Sea under Manila’s jurisdiction.
The Global Times, a Chinese newspaper known for its hawkish stance, said the Philippines was “hyping up” the CCG5901’s “normal” activities.
Chinese analyst Ding Duo was quoted as saying that after China announced the baselines around Huangyan Dao, the Chinese name for Scarborough Shoal, both the Chinese navy and coastguard were “set to increase their routine patrols and exercises in the area, and the Philippines needs to adapt to this process.”
That meant the current campaign, seen by Manila as an illegal act of intimidation, was set to continue.
U.S. aircraft carrier
Meanwhile, a carrier strike group led by the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70), has been operating in the South China Sea since Jan. 3.
Sailors signal aircraft during routine flight operations on the flight deck of the USS Carl Vinson on Jan. 7, 2025.(Petty Officer 3rd Class Nathan J/U.S. Navy)
The strike group includes the embarked Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 2, cruiser USS Princeton (CG-59) and destroyers USS Sterett (DDG-104) and USS William P. Lawrence (DDG-110).
The U.S. Navy has released a number of photos showing the Carl Vinson and its accompanying vessels conducting daily “routine operations” to reaffirm freedom of navigation in the waterway.
It did not specify the carrier’s exact location and only said that it was “in the U.S. 7th Fleet area of operations.”
“U.S. forces operate in the South China Sea on a daily basis,” the 7th Fleet has repeatedly said in its statements. “The United States upholds freedom of navigation for all nations as a principle.”
“No member of the international community should be intimidated or coerced into giving up their rights and freedoms,” it said.
Besides the Carl Vinson strike group, U.S. Navy Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Higgins (DDG 76) was also spotted conducting a firearms shooting training for its sailors on Tuesday in the South China Sea.
The Philippines and the U.S. in 1951 signed a Mutual Defense Treaty that commits the allies to help each other in time of attack by a third party.
Edited by RFA Staff.
BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news organization.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA and BenarNews Staff.
Indonesia is the world’s number one producer of nickel, by a large margin. Nickel is an important mineral needed for renewable energy technologies like batteries and solar panels.
In the past decade, the Indonesian government has embarked upon an ambitious industrialization program. Through careful state planning and industrial policy, Jakarta banned the export of raw minerals and, with strategic investments from Chinese state-owned enterprises and favorable loans from Chinese state-owned banks, Indonesia has moved up the value chain, processing nickel at home, instead of simply exporting the ore.
Authorities at a college in the northern Chinese province of Shaanxi have imposed three days of restrictions after the death of a student sparked mass protests on campus, as police insisted there was no foul play involved, according to social media footage and state media reports.
State media have also reported that local officials have investigated the death of a student at a vocational college following a “verbal and physical altercation” with a roommate, after thousands of angry citizens gathered outside the school, sparking clashes with police.
Officials in Shaanxi’s Pucheng county have launched a probe into the Jan. 2 death of a Pucheng Vocational Education Center student identified only by the surname Dang, state broadcaster CCTV reported on Jan. 6, after large crowds gathered a day earlier.
Video clips uploaded to the X accounts “Mr. Li is not your teacher” and “DiplySync” showed large crowds of people chanting outside the school, and rocking an ambulance after the school’s vice principal hid in it, according to an accompanying post.
“[The victim’s] family suspected that the deceased had been bullied on campus and accused the school of concealing the truth,” according to a DiplySync post.
‘Verbal and physical altercation‘
According to the CCTV report, Dang had gotten involved in a “verbal and physical altercation” at about 10 p.m. on Jan. 1 after he complained that two roommates were talking too loudly and stopping him from sleeping.
Dang reported his roommates to the college “political education department,” then returned to his dorm.
“At about 3 a.m. on Jan. 2, Huang, who shared a dormitory with Dang, found a wooden stool under the balcony window of the dormitory when he went to the toilet,” the report said.
“The sliding window was open and the mesh screen on the window had been removed. Dang was down below, outside,” it said.
Police determined that the student had “died from falling from a height,” and that no foul play was suspected, the report said.
Now, the school is reportedly under “stability maintenance” measures, according to a copy of a notice to students leaked to the citizen journalist X account “Mr. Li is not your teacher.”
At least some students have “taken leave for personal reasons” in the wake of the protests, under strict instructions not to make further trouble for the authorities.
“We put forward clear requirements for students who are on leave at home for personal reasons … to study at home and respect the three days of restrictions,” the notice, which RFA was unable to verify independently, said.
“Do not make contact with other students or members of the public to gather in the restricted area,” it said.
In a move that echoed the official response to the hanging death of teenager Hu Xinyu in February 2023, the notice warned students: “Do not speak publicly, do not post, comment on or like any related content on online platforms, and do not start, give credence to or spread rumors.”
The citizen journalist behind “Mr. Li is not your teacher” told RFA Mandarin that they post content that has been directly submitted by people on the ground, as well as content that has also appeared on other social media platforms.
The account noted in an X post on Tuesday that video from the Jan. 5 protests had largely disappeared from the video-sharing platform Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Jenny Tang for RFA Mandarin.
Authorities at a college in the northern Chinese province of Shaanxi have imposed three days of restrictions after the death of a student sparked mass protests on campus, as police insisted there was no foul play involved, according to social media footage and state media reports.
State media have also reported that local officials have investigated the death of a student at a vocational college following a “verbal and physical altercation” with a roommate, after thousands of angry citizens gathered outside the school, sparking clashes with police.
Officials in Shaanxi’s Pucheng county have launched a probe into the Jan. 2 death of a Pucheng Vocational Education Center student identified only by the surname Dang, state broadcaster CCTV reported on Jan. 6, after large crowds gathered a day earlier.
Video clips uploaded to the X accounts “Mr. Li is not your teacher” and “DiplySync” showed large crowds of people chanting outside the school, and rocking an ambulance after the school’s vice principal hid in it, according to an accompanying post.
“[The victim’s] family suspected that the deceased had been bullied on campus and accused the school of concealing the truth,” according to a DiplySync post.
‘Verbal and physical altercation‘
According to the CCTV report, Dang had gotten involved in a “verbal and physical altercation” at about 10 p.m. on Jan. 1 after he complained that two roommates were talking too loudly and stopping him from sleeping.
Dang reported his roommates to the college “political education department,” then returned to his dorm.
“At about 3 a.m. on Jan. 2, Huang, who shared a dormitory with Dang, found a wooden stool under the balcony window of the dormitory when he went to the toilet,” the report said.
“The sliding window was open and the mesh screen on the window had been removed. Dang was down below, outside,” it said.
Police determined that the student had “died from falling from a height,” and that no foul play was suspected, the report said.
Now, the school is reportedly under “stability maintenance” measures, according to a copy of a notice to students leaked to the citizen journalist X account “Mr. Li is not your teacher.”
At least some students have “taken leave for personal reasons” in the wake of the protests, under strict instructions not to make further trouble for the authorities.
“We put forward clear requirements for students who are on leave at home for personal reasons … to study at home and respect the three days of restrictions,” the notice, which RFA was unable to verify independently, said.
“Do not make contact with other students or members of the public to gather in the restricted area,” it said.
In a move that echoed the official response to the hanging death of teenager Hu Xinyu in February 2023, the notice warned students: “Do not speak publicly, do not post, comment on or like any related content on online platforms, and do not start, give credence to or spread rumors.”
The citizen journalist behind “Mr. Li is not your teacher” told RFA Mandarin that they post content that has been directly submitted by people on the ground, as well as content that has also appeared on other social media platforms.
The account noted in an X post on Tuesday that video from the Jan. 5 protests had largely disappeared from the video-sharing platform Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Jenny Tang for RFA Mandarin.
Comments on the U.S. Embassy’s Weibo social media account are striking an overwhelmingly positive note about Sino-U.S. ties, suggesting the Chinese Communist Party’s “public opinion management” system that governs and manipulates online comments wants to send a kinder message ahead of the Jan. 20 inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump, analysts told Radio Free Asia.
In China’s tightly controlled social media environment, comments are widely deleted if deemed politically taboo, but also written to order by an army of pro-government commentators hired to deliver “public opinion” that suits the Communist Party’s political priorities.
The social media accounts of Western embassies and consulates in China have long been a focus for the country’s “little pink” nationalists, and an opportunity for Chinese to vent their frustrations at foreign governments.
But a New Year’s Day article from the U.S. Embassy looking back at the bilateral relationship since 1979 suddenly garnered several hundred comments mentioning “Sino-U.S. friendship” instead, suggesting that the ruling Chinese Communist Party’s “public opinion management” system has switched priorities ahead of Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20.
“The China-U.S. relationship is the greatest in human history,” gushed one comment under the Weibo version of the article. Another said, “Sino-U.S. friendship will last forever,” and another said the countries wielded “unprecedented and far-reaching influence” in the world.
Comments underneath a U.S. Embassy Weibo post about the death of former U.S. President Jimmy Carter also took a more positive tone.
“I hope China and the U.S. will put the interests of their two peoples first, respect and understand each other,” said one comment.
‘American devils’
The comments were in stark contrast with previous comments on U.S. Embassy posts, which would once typically say something like: “Enjoy the holiday, American devils, and don’t interfere with China.”
Chinese state media recently launched a campaign to highlight friendly cooperation with the United States in an attempt to improve turbulent ties as Trump prepares to take office, an analyst said.
Before and after Weibo comments under a Dec. 27, 2024 U.S. Embassy post which speaks of “American devils”, right, while comments posted after New Year speak of “friendship.”(U.S. Embassy/Sina Weibo)
The state-run People’s Daily and Global Times, which often carry searing criticism of the United States, called on Dec. 25 for written work, photos and videos from people and organizations around the world with the aim of “bridging cultural differences and fostering friendship and trust” with the United State.
U.S.-based legal scholar Teng Biao said the shift in tone is almost certainly the result of orders from the top.
“Under China’s media [and social media] controls, all directions taken by its nationalism are laid down by the Chinese Communist Party,” Teng told RFA Cantonese in a recent interview, adding that China has been internationally isolated for several years.
“That isolation will make things harder and harder in China, so the Chinese Communist Party has a political need to manipulate an apparently positive nationalistic mood, in order to ease ties with the U.S. or Japan,” Teng said.
“The relationship between China and the United States is a bit of a paradox for the Chinese government,” Teng said. “If it’s managed well, it will be beneficial to the Chinese Communist Party, and enable China’s economy to grow better.”
“But exchanges with the West will also bring in ideas of freedom and openness that Beijing doesn’t want to see,” he said.
‘50-cent-army’
China deploys thousands of internet commentators dubbed the “50-cent army” to generate pro-government posts on social media.
Their exact numbers are unknown, but their job is to try to swing the opinions of Chinese netizens in the direction of the status quo and to deflect criticism and dissent among the country’s 900 million internet users.
U.S.-based current affairs commentator Zang Zhuo said the comments were almost certainly manufactured.
“I have seen various comments on Weibo, which seem to be a 180-degree turnaround in Chinese netizens’ attitude towards the United States,” Zang said. “But these aren’t the real voices of the people … because they are all directed by the government.”
“Chinese online opinion does as it is told.”
Zang said it’s unlikely to be an effective way to ease ties with Washington.
“Does this change in attitude mean that Sino-U.S. relations will ease, or get closer and more cooperative?” Zang said. “I don’t think so.”
“The international environment has completely changed … so unless the Communist Party loses power, I don’t think there’s much hope of that.”
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Yitong Wu and Pan Jiaqing for RFA Cantonese.
TAIPEI, Taiwan – Chinese firms supporting Russia are presenting themselves as if they are from Taiwan not only to avoid sanctions but also to discredit the self-ruled island, said a Ukrainian activist.
Vadym Labas initially accused the Taiwanese company Taiwan Rung Cherng Suspenparts, or TRC, of modifying and producing servomechanisms for Russia’s deadly glide bombs, citing a transaction document between TRC and a Russian firm.
However, Labas later clarified that further investigation revealed the TRC name in the document was actually a front for a Chinese company seeking to evade international sanctions, not the Taiwanese company.
“We also discovered a double operation, which consisted not only of a new scheme to circumvent sanctions, but also an operation to discredit the Taiwanese manufacturer, which had been repeatedly carried out by the parties concerned,” Labas wrote on his Facebook on Monday.
Labas added that the Chinese company KST Digital Technology Limited supplied servomotors to Russia through a network of intermediaries, including a firm called Kaifeng Zhendaqian Technology. These products were eventually rebranded as those of the Taiwanese firm TRC, whose name was used without authorization.
Servomotors are crucial for glide bombs as they control the bomb’s aerodynamic surfaces, such as fins or wings, enabling precise maneuvering and guidance.
“Taiwan has been unjustly implicated. The actual culprits are Chinese manufacturers exploiting TRC’s name for camouflage,” he added.
Radio Free Asia was not able to contact KST Digital Technology Limited or Kaifeng Zhendaqian Technology for comment.
Chen Shu-Mei, TRC’s deputy general manager, dismissed any suggestion of a business connection with Russia, saying the firm may take legal action to protect its reputation.
“It was a totally unfounded claim,” said Chen, adding that the company primarily produces automotive chassis components and parts for vehicle suspension systems.
While not as advanced as Western precision-guided munitions, Russian glide bombs have become a key part of its air strategy in Ukraine. Military analysts estimate they contribute 20% of Russia’s operational advantage in the conflict.
Ukrainian intelligence reports that Russia has greatly increased its use of such bombs. In May 2023, Russian forces were using about 25 glide bombs daily, but that number has since climbed to at least 60 per day, sometimes exceeding 100.
Edited by Taejun Kang.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Alan Lu for RFA.
Donald Trump cited billionaire egghead venture capitalist Marc Andreessen to advocate for high tariffs. Trump argued that tariffs will magically replace the income tax and pay off US public debt (which is more than 120% of GDP). This is utterly false, and mathematically absurd.
For Trump, tariffs are just another convenient excuse to cut taxes on the rich — which will in fact increase the US deficit, and therefore public debt.
Thanks to Trump’s tax cuts during his first term, the richest billionaire families in the US paid a lower effective tax rate than the bottom half of households in the country.
Janine Jackson interviewed Free Press’s Yanni Chen about the appellate court TikTok ruling for the December 20, 2024, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.
Janine Jackson: As we record on December 18, we’ve heard that the Supreme Court will address TikTok’s challenge to the federal law that was set to ban the platform in the US on January 19, unless they divest from Chinese ownership. The New York Times yesterday noted:
Lawmakers said the app’s ownership represented a risk because the Chinese government’s oversight of private companies would allow it to retrieve sensitive information about Americans, or to spread propaganda, though they have not publicly shared evidence that this has occurred.
A DC Circuit Court of Appeals rejected an earlier challenge from TikTok, ruling that the measure was justified by what were called “grave national security threats.” The judges, the Times reported, were united in accepting the US government’s arguments that “the Chinese government could exploit the site to gain access to users’ data to spread covert disinformation.”
Well, one can practically hear the buzzing in the heads of anyone who has used social media, ever: “Access to our data? No way! Disinformation? You don’t say.” We are in medias res, but what’s at stake, not even so much for TikTok as a company, as for its 170 million US users’—and really everyone’s—ability to access information we want and need, and our rights within those spheres?
Yanni Chen is policy counsel at the group Free Press, who’ve been working on this. She joins us now by phone. Welcome to CounterSpin, Yanni Chen.
Yanni Chen: Thank you so much for having me, Janine.
JJ: The fact that the rhetoric around the TikTok ban relies on phrases like “foreign adversary nation” doesn’t make it sound very 21st century, for a start, but the statement that we aren’t offered evidence that the thing being charged is happening, shouldn’t that at least raise questions about this move, and what else might be going on?
YC: I think absolutely, and that’s one thing that we found pretty troubling about the opinion in general. The court goes through and says that either intermediate or strict scrutiny, which are the higher of the two levels of constitutional analysis that is afforded to constitutional claims, applies here. And they say the highest scrutiny that the court applies, strict scrutiny, this law passes that, and then they don’t cite any evidence that the government didn’t provide publicly. They don’t substantiate it.
And so I think one thing that we have trouble with is the idea that the court can find that a law passes strict scrutiny with a clearly viewpoint-based angle, and not provide even a shred of evidence. And this opens up the door for further precedent, for further laws to be put on the books without that kind of substantiation either.
JJ: I’m going to ask you about that viewpoint angle, but I just want to say it early, in case it gets missed: We lose by making this a solely Trump thing. It’s not that he’s not as weird and dangerous as he is, but this TikTok ban, this proposed ban, doesn’t just map neatly onto a Trump agenda, does it?
YC: No, this is a bipartisan bill that passed overwhelmingly on both sides, by both the House and the Senate. I think it was justified mostly by national security concerns, but the committee hearings were closed doors. So the public doesn’t really know exactly what there is.
And as we’ve discussed before, there isn’t much public information to substantiate anything that we’re talking about. There’s no public evidence of the kind of content manipulation that TikTok is being accused of participating in.
JJ: I would just draw you out on that, because the Times report tells me that Judge Sri Srinivasan said, yes, Americans might lose access to an outlet for expression, a source of community and even a means of income, but national security threats, blah blah blah. But then also:
Because the record reflects that Congress’s decision was considered consistent with longstanding regulatory practice and devoid of an institutional aim to suppress particular messages or ideas, [therefore] we are not in a position to set it aside.
And I wanted to hear how you respond to the idea that this has nothing to do with suppressing viewpoints, and it’s consistent with longstanding practice.
YC: Yeah, I’ll take the last one first. What Judge Srinivasan was alluding to with longstanding regulatory history on foreign control in communications, he’s talking about the broadcast space and the FCC. But broadcast and the FCC is kind of a special realm within the First Amendment, justified by bandwidth scarcity, or the amount of waves that are available to be used. So it receives, actually, a different level of First Amendment protection than other fora. So that’s one distinction.
And then also, certainly, the government and regulators can put in place restrictions for foreign control, but that doesn’t mean that they can do it in any way possible. So just because the government has that power with respect to some broadcasting does not mean that they have the power here. Remind me of the first part of that question, too.
JJ: What do we make of Judge Srinivasan’s contention that this conclusion, this ruling, has nothing to do with an institutional aim to suppress particular messages or ideas? Now I think we can all say that it will, in effect, suppress particular messages or ideas, but this is trying to say, well, that’s not what it’s trying to do, so we shouldn’t address it in that way.
YC: Yeah, I think that position requires ignoring a lot of the statements that lawmakers said themselves. You have lawmakers on the record making statements about the type of content that not only TikTok is pushing, but US users are creating, that they take issue with. So you have to ignore all of the statements of the people who wrote the law themselves to get to that position. It’s hard to really swallow.
JJ: The statement that we’re not being offered evidence, actually, that what is being charged is happening—that should raise questions. But also in this context of where, US listeners, we hear all about the free market, the market responds to what people want, so banning an outlet isn’t a thing that should go down easy, generally speaking. And wouldn’t the government need to show that its stated goals could not be achieved any other way, other than banning this outlet? Shouldn’t they have to show that?
Yanni Chen: “It singles out a single app without really providing any justification why, and then they just say, ‘Congress picked this one.’”
YC: Yeah. So that’s actually the exact requirement of strict scrutiny, is that it needs to be the most tailored, or the narrowest restriction possible, to achieve the need that the government wishes to accomplish. So, yes, I think, formally and on the books, that is the requirement. And I think the application is where you see some problems.
And I think what you’re seeing, also, between the majority opinion’s application of strict scrutiny and Judge Srinivasan’s intermediate scrutiny dialogue, is that I think it is relatively clear that strict scrutiny does apply, because it is clearly a viewpoint-based restriction. It singles out a single app without really providing any justification why, and then they just say, “Congress picked this one.” That’s the definition of speaker discrimination. So you have that, but then you kind of have to do a backend to make it fit strict scrutiny and pass strict scrutiny. So you’re seeing some mental gymnastics happen in that logic.
And then, the other side of that, you have Judge Srinivasan, who says, “No, no, no, this is intermediate scrutiny.” And I think one reason, at least, motivating this is that strict scrutiny is a very high bar to meet, and most laws should not really pass it, just by definition of what that test is. And so having a law on the books that passed strict scrutiny does create risk of that precedent I talked about earlier, of creating bad law, where a flimsy application of strict scrutiny could lead to more laws passing strict scrutiny where they shouldn’t.
So that is one justification for applying intermediate scrutiny, but then making the law fit such that intermediate scrutiny is the right application, or the right test, then it strikes people as odd too, because it doesn’t actually do that. It is a law that requires a strict scrutiny test.
JJ: And I think it’s just weird, as a layperson, to hear, “Oh, we’re not trying to ban TikTok,Tiktok’s fine, we just need them to sell to a buyer that the US approves of.” I just feel like that lands weird, in terms of common sense, to folks.
YC: And that is something that was brought up in the litigation too. TikTok did raise the issue that, functionally, this divestment requirement would be a ban, and it’s kind of dealt with relatively, in a flip manner, in the decision itself. So you have Judge Ginsburg saying, “270 days, there’s plenty of time to meet a divestment requirement.” We just bypass the idea that it is something that you can’t do.
And the court does say, “Well, we can’t let the Chinese government set the standards for our requirements as the US government.” But what we’re talking about is the First Amendment. And the First Amendment applies to what the US government can do to US entities, and its citizens and Americans more broadly.
JJ: It just lands so weird to folks who are accustomed, at this point in 2024, to consuming news from around the world, from not unfettered, but relatively open access to media outlets from different countries, from different perspectives. It just sounds strange.
But part of the reason that this maybe has more legs than it might is that people do see a problem with platforms collecting their data, with using algorithms to push certain messages and to hold back others. And the question has to do with whether a wholesale ban of one platform is really the way to address that, or really how should we address that? If we were really concerned about privacy and targeted disinformation, what are some other responses that we might be looking at?
YC: Yeah, so TikTok is, as you recognize, not the only platform that collects too much data. Meta, certainly Google, other companies track data; they use it, they sell it, they sell it abroad, they sell it here and they sell it to governments. So TikTok is not a unique case.
So I think one thing at Free Press that we advocate for is wholesale data privacy protection, across the market, rather than targeting a single platform, and not only targeting a single platform, but taking it off the market. Because even if your concern is data collection by the Chinese government, in TikTok’s case, the Chinese government can still buy US user data through other intermediaries. So it doesn’t really make sense to cut people off from access from this single source—particularly, as you mentioned, people’s livelihoods depend on this platform, people really generate a sense of community through it—instead of addressing that larger issue. So I think there have been plenty of advocates for federal privacy law that is broadsweeping, but we can’t seem to get congressional momentum on that, where we can on a law that is, in at least some part, rooted in xenophobia.
JJ: And sinophobia, absolutely, which I think we’re going to be dealing with, anti-China—not “going to be dealing with,” we already are. Everything China is bad. It has a very musty feel about it, and I feel we’re in for a lot more of it.
YC: Yeah.
JJ: Finally, it feels a little bit like flailing. It feels a little bit like closing the barn door after the horses are out.
I mean, technology allows us to find news sources. Humanity makes us care about people, even if they are designated “official enemies.” Curiosity impels us to learn about what’s going on beyond our shores, and judgment helps us see what is weird disinformation, and what is news we can use. So the moment feels like people are far out in front of corporations and politicians. And I just want to ask you, finally, what hopeful thoughts you have about this.
YC: Hopeful thoughts? I mean, I do think that what you mentioned about, from a layman’s standpoint, that this strikes as odd. I do have a lot of hope that it seems like people are understanding that there’s something not right with this decision, and not right with this law. There was something not transparent about it in the first place. This is targeting a specific company, and how it affects our dialogue and our community, so that gives me a lot of hope that people aren’t taking what the court has said here as a wholesale endorsement of the law, and taking it for what it’s worth.
I think that that’s been something that’s really heartening, and I think that it puts the power in the people, and that will be even more important moving forward, where, as you mentioned, information like this is important, and it has a democratic value. And in closing that off here, we put ourselves in line with some of the more repressive governments that do this, and we legitimize that further, as the United States doing this as an example for other countries. So having the civilians, and people who aren’t in government necessarily, sense that there’s something wrong here is definitely heartening.
JJ: All right, then. We’ve been speaking with Yanni Chen; she’s policy counsel at Free Press. They’re online at FreePress.net, and they also have a YouTube channel where you can find their recent webinar on this, breaking down the TikTok ban. Yanni Chen, thank you so much for joining us this week on CounterSpin.
The designers of a subway exit in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou are going back to the drawing board following online complaints that one of their subway exits resembled the “gateway to the underworld,” because its shape recalled a traditional Chinese coffin.
The developer rebuilt part of the newly renovated Exit D for the Huadiwan stop on the Guangzhou Metro overnight after it went viral on social media, sparking ridicule and outrage over its “coffin-like” shape.
“Is this the entrance to the Underworld?” read one comment, while another quipped: “Going into the subway is like going through a portal between two worlds.”
Others wondered if the design team had any understanding of Cantonese culture, which views as unlucky anything that reminds a person of death and mourning, or resembles coffins, graveside offerings and other funeral-related items.
For example, sticking chopsticks upright into a bowl of rice or laying them across the bowl is frowned upon, as it resembles the way offerings of food are made to the ancestors.
According to a widely circulated photo of the orange-pink Exit D at Huadiwan, the structure had a similar bulbous shape to a traditional Chinese coffin, described as “very unlucky” by one comment on social media.
“Is this the work of a professional team?” one social media user wanted to know, while another quipped that “down to earth doesn’t mean going into the earth.”
A man stands next to coffins displayed at a funeral services shop in the Kowloon district of Hong Kong, March 17, 2022.(Isaac Lawrence/AP)
Artist Du Yinghong said metro designers clearly lacked a developed aesthetic sense.
“Their aesthetic tends toward the old-fashioned and the secular, and of course that’s ugly,” Du said. “The Guangzhou subway exit design is like the oval shape of a coffin.”
“They eventually said that it was inspired by the kapok flower, but this explanation is pretty far-fetched.”
It’s not the first time architects working in China have come up with questionable designs.
The Beijing headquarters of state broadcaster CCTV, designed by Dutch architect Rem Koolhas and completed in May 2012, has drawn comparisons on social media with a pair of legs and a person squatting over a toilet, before eventually being nicknamed the “Big Boxer Shorts” by the general public.
According to Du, the more ghastly designs are often driven by a desire to please ruling Chinese Communist Party officials.
“When local governments do these prestige projects, including statues and sculptures, they like to put their own symbols into them,” Du said. “It’s a way to give a literal, concrete form to their so-called political achievements as architecture and sculpture.”
“But it’s against the background of an absurd and distorted era [in China’s history].”
Shandong resident Lu Qiumei said she had been surprised to see such a design.
“We can’t figure out what was going on in the brains of these designers,” Lu told RFA Mandarin in a recent interview. “I guess they want to update public aesthetics, and I guess they think such designs are pretty imposing.”
“But quite frankly this design is crass and ambiguous,” she said.
Coffins and other death-related imagery have sometimes appeared as a form of political protest in Hong Kong, where veteran democracy activist Koo Sze-yiu was jailed earlier this year for carrying a fake coffin, amid an ongoing crackdown on political opposition and public dissent.
State media have also weighed in on the design, calling on the developer in reports on Dec. 30 to take action.
Guangzhou Metro responded that they had intended the design to resemble the kapok flower, the provincial flower of Guangdong.
But by Dec. 30, demolition work on the exit had begun, according to The Paper and state broadcaster CCTV.
Huadiwan Station is one of the oldest stations on Guangzhou Metro Line 1, and had been due to reopen following refurbishment in mid-January.
Social media comments have also hit out recently at Guangzhou’s Wushan subway station for installing a forest of silver bollards, joking that they resembled the “plum blossom” pillars used to show off martial artists’ feats of balance in kung fu movies.
The authorities issued a statement saying the bollards were installed to prevent the “disorderly” parking of e-bikes on the sidewalk.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Qian Lang for RFA Mandarin.
TAIPEI, Taiwan/MANILA – The South China Sea has become one of the world’s most perilous geopolitical hot spots in recent years, with China stepping up the reinforcement of its expansive claims and countries from outside the region getting increasingly involved.
Here are five areas to watch in 2025:
Taiwan Strait
The situation in the Taiwan Strait has been becoming notably more tense, with nearly 3,000 incursions into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone between January and November 2024, as well as two major military exercises – Joint Sword A and B – coinciding with important political events on the self-ruled island.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping reiterated in his New Year message that the unification of Taiwan was “inevitable.”
“China will continue to hold exercises in 2025 if senior Taiwanese officials visit the United States or top U.S. officials visit Taiwan,” said Shen Ming-Shih, a research fellow at the top Taiwan government think tank, the Institute for National Defense Security Research (INDSR).
Chinese military exercises such as joint fire strike, joint blockade, and joint anti-access and area denial will continue, but they will become less effective as Taiwan develops effective countermeasures, Shen said.
Another INDSR research fellow, Ou Si-Fu, director of the Division of Chinese Politics, Military and Warfighting Concepts, told Radio Free Asia that China was not ready for a full-on war with Taiwan.
“Xi is not confident with his army,” Ou said, pointing to recent sackings in the top ranks of the People’s Liberation Army.
“The PLA has not fought a real war in a long time, so an imminent invasion of Taiwan is not expected,” the analyst said. “They may be preparing their forces, but we are preparing, too.”
Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te waves with the Taiwanese flag during a ceremony in Taipei, Taiwan, on Jan. 1, 2025.(Taiwan Presidential Office/AP)
Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te said in his New Year message that his government would increase the defense budget and strengthen military capabilities.
Scarborough Shoal
Latest developments at the chain of reefs in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone but under China’s de-facto control are worrisome. Just before the New Year, the PLA Southern Theater Command conducted large-scale combat readiness drills at the shoal that involved both naval and air force troops.
China’s coast guard is maintaining a strong presence in the area, as is its maritime militia.
A month earlier, Beijing announced a set of baselines around the Scarborough Shoal to define its territorial waters and airspace – a step seen as illegal by many but used by China to justify its actions against the Philippines and its ally the United States.
The Chinese coastguard in early December fired a water cannon at a Philippine fisheries bureau boat taking supplies to fishermen in the shoal, saying it “dangerously approached” Beijing’s territorial waters.
“You cannot draw baselines if you don’t own the features,” said former Philippine Supreme Court justice Antonio Carpio. He suggested that the Philippines should challenge China’s announcement at an international tribunal.
Scarborough Shoal is unoccupied and there are no structures on it but that may change in 2025, given Beijing’s assertiveness. Philippine forces have been removing Chinese floating barriers around the reefs but access by Filipino fishermen to their traditional fishing ground remains restricted.
The Philippines is believed to be considering a new legal case against China for its violations of the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea but since Beijing refused to take part and rejected the ruling of the 2016 U.N. arbitral tribunal, there is little chance it will participate.
Lcdr. Lee Omaweng, commanding officer of the Philippine coast guard vessel BRP Sindangan, which serves at both Scarborough and Second Thomas Shoal, speaks to reporters on board his ship, Dec. 8, 2024.(RFA)
Second Thomas Shoal
Throughout 2024, China and the Philippines were engaged in stand-offs at the Second Thomas Shoal, also inside the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone, where Manila deliberately grounded an old warship in 1999 to serve as an outpost.
In the last few years, China’s coast guard has been blocking and disrupting Philippine resupply missions to the ship, the BRP Sierra Madre, and the troops stationed there.
On June 17, 2024, in an unprecedented confrontation, China coast guard personnel, armed with pikes and machetes, punctured Philippine boats and seized firearms during a Philippine rotate and resupply mission, wounding a Filipino sailor.
Both sides later called for de-escalation. On Dec. 12, China said it had granted permission to the Philippines to resupply the “illegally grounded” warship on Second Thomas Shoal on a humanitarian basis.
But the June 17 incident showed that the situation could easily escalate into conflict, especially given the proximity of Second Thomas Shoal to a Chinese naval base on Mischief Reef, an artificial island that China built and has fully militarized.
Manila and Washington signed a Mutual Defense Treaty in 1951 under which both parties are obliged to support each other in the event of an armed attack. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in November revealed that the U.S. military had set up a Task Force Ayungin, the Filipino name for the Second Thomas Shoal.
Chief of the Philippine armed forces, Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr., told an RFA reporter in Manila that his country was pursuing a three-pronged strategy when it comes to maritime defense: to establish an effective presence; to create effective deterrence and modernize military equipment; and to leverage alliances and partnerships with like-minded nations.
Beijing, however, is not expected to give up its demand that Manila removes the BRP Sierra Madre and leave the disputed shoal.
For its part, the Philippines is determined to defend it.
“We’ll never abandon our territory at Ayungin,” insisted Col. Xerxes Trinidad, the Philippine armed forces’ spokesperson.
Vietnam’s island building
Vietnam’s island building in the South China Sea has reached a record, with the total area created in the first six months of 2024 equaling that of 2022 and 2023 combined, according to a study by the Washington-based Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI).
Between November 2023 and June 2024, Hanoi created 692 new acres (280 ha) of land across a total of 10 features in the Spratly archipelago. Vietnam’s overall dredging and landfill totaled about 2,360 acres (955 ha), roughly half of China’s 4,650 acres (1,881.7 ha).
“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,” AMTI said.
Vietnam occupies 27 features and has been carrying out large-scale reclamation works on some over the past year.
Satellite image of Barque Canada Reef, May 11, 2024.(AMTI/Maxar Technologies)
A new 3,000-meter airstrip is nearly finished on Barque Canada reef, where the total landfill area more than doubled in one year to nearly 2.5 square kilometers, or 617.7 acres, by October 2024.
Vietnam has had only one airstrip on an island called Spratly, measuring 1,300 meters, but besides Barque Canada, AMTI said that “it would be unsurprising” if Hanoi also considers runways on Pearson and Ladd reefs.
New bases and runways “would give Vietnam a position on the other side of China’s ‘Big Three’ islands,” said Tom Shugart, adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security.
He was referring to China-developed Fiery Cross, Subi and Mischief reefs, which are the largest artificial islands in the South China Sea. The next four largest are all newly expanded Vietnamese reefs.
“Its progress in the last five months suggests that Hanoi is determined to maximize the strategic potential of the features it occupies,” said AMTI, adding that “it remains difficult to say when the expansion will end—and what new capabilities Vietnam will have once it has.”
Code of Conduct in the South China Sea
Malaysia is taking over as chairman of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, from Laos this month and every time the chair changes hands, the question of a legally binding code of conduct (COC) for all competing parties in the South China Sea surfaces.
China and ASEAN countries have been negotiating a COC after reaching an initial Declaration of Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea in 2002.
More than two decades later, it seems many obstacles remain despite Beijing’s repeated assertions that the consultation process is going well and agreement is close.
Premier Li Qiang told an ASEAN summit in October that China and the bloc were “striving for early conclusion” of the code of conduct.
China and five other parties, including four ASEAN countries – Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam – hold conflicting claims over parts of the South China Sea but China’s claim is by far the most expansive, covering nearly 90% of the sea.
China is adamantly against what it sees as “a politicization” of the COC, as well as any “external interference” in the matter. Yet its assertiveness has prompted some countries to seek a counterweight from outside ASEAN.
“Negotiations on the COC continue at a snail’s pace,” former Thai Foreign Minister Kantathi Suphamongkhon told Reuters news agency in October.
“An agreement seems impossible,” said Philippine legal expert, former Supreme Court justice Antonio Carpio. “China will never agree to some provisions, Vietnam to some others and so on.
The target of concluding the COC by 2026, therefore, was “unrealistic,” he said.
One of the underlying obstacles is ASEAN’s own division and weakness.
“ASEAN could strengthen its collective bargaining power by aligning the interests of its member states and speaking with a unified voice in negotiations with external powers like China,” said Isha Gharti, a public policy professor at Thailand’s Chiang Mai University.
It remains to be seen how the new chair Malaysia will seek to raise a collective ASEAN voice.
Edited by RFA Staff
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Staff.
TAIPEI, Taiwan – The cybersecurity breach of the U.S. Treasury Department by China-backed hackers is “extremely concerning,” said senior American lawmakers, urging Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to provide them with a detailed briefing on the matter.
The department announced on Monday that China-backed hackers in December accessed workstations and unclassified documents through a compromised third-party software provider. It reported, however, having “no evidence” the hackers were still able to access the information.
“This breach of federal government information is extremely concerning,” Sen. Tim Scott, a ranking member on the Senate Banking Committee, and House Financial Services Committee Vice Chair French Hill said in a letter to Yellen.
“This information must be vigilantly protected from theft or surveillance by our foreign adversaries, including the Chinese Communist Party, who seek to harm the United States,” they wrote, requesting a briefing on the breach in eight days with full detail on the information accessed by the hackers
The department said it was working with cybersecurity experts, the FBI, intelligence agencies and independent investigators to understand the incident and assess its impact.
It did not specify what documents had been accessed, but said the service from the affected third-party software provider had been shut down, and so far, there was no evidence that the hackers still had access to Treasury information.
The department did not respond to RFA’s request for comment by time of publication.
China’s ministry of foreign ministry called the U.S. accusation of Chinese involvement in the hack “groundless.”
“On this kind of unwarranted and groundless allegations, we’ve made clear our position more than once,” said Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning on Tuesday.
“China opposes all forms of hacking, and in particular, we oppose spreading China-related disinformation motivated by political agenda,” she added.
In November, The New York Times reported that a Chinese hacking group known as Salt Typhoon had been embedded in the systems of one of America’s largest telecommunications companies for over a year.
Salt Typhoon, which reportedly has strong ties to China’s Ministry of State Security, targeted phones belonging to then-presidential candidate Donald Trump and his running mate, JD Vance.
This effort was part of a broader intelligence-gathering campaign that also targeted Democrats, including staff from Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York.
The newspaper cited U.S.officials as saying that although the Chinese hackers appeared to stop their activities after the breach was exposed, it would be premature to assume they had been fully removed from the nation’s telecommunications system.
In December, the Treasury Department offered a US$10 million reward for information about a Chinese company and employee it accuses of violating the firewalls of 80,000 computer networks worldwide, including for 36 items of “critical infrastructure” in America.
Edited by Taejun Kang.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Alan Lu for RFA.
With the door now shut on 2024, many will heave a sigh of relief and hope for better things this year.
Decolonisation issues involving the future of Kanaky New Caledonia and West Papua – and also in the Middle East with controversial United Nations votes by some Pacific nations in the middle of a livestreamed genocide — figured high on the agenda in the past year along with the global climate crisis and inadequate funding rescue packages.
Asia Pacific Report looks at some of the issues and developments during the year that were regarded by critics as betrayals:
The assembly passed a resolution on December 11 demanding an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire in Gaza, which was adopted with 158 votes in favour from the 193-member assembly and nine votes against with 13 abstentions.
Of the nine countries voting against, the three Pacific nations that sided with Israel and its relentless backer United States were Nauru, Papua New Guinea and Tonga.
The other countries that voted against were Argentina, Czech Republic, Hungary and Paraguay.
Thirteen abstentions included Fiji, which had previously controversially voted with Israel, Micronesia, and Palau. Supporters of the resolution in the Pacific region included Australia, New Zealand, and Timor-Leste.
Ironically, it was announced a day before the UNGA vote that the United States will spend more than US$864 million (3.5 billion kina) on infrastructure and military training in Papua New Guinea over 10 years under a defence deal signed between the two nations in 2023, according to PNG’s Foreign Minister Justin Tkatchenko.
Any connection? Your guess is as good as mine. Certainly it is very revealing how realpolitik is playing out in the region with an “Indo-Pacific buffer” against China.
However, the deal actually originated almost two years earlier, in May 2023, with the size of the package reflecting a growing US security engagement with Pacific island nations as it seeks to counter China’s inroads in the vast ocean region.
Noted BenarNews, a US soft power news service in the region, the planned investment is part of a defence cooperation agreement granting the US military “unimpeded access” to develop and deploy forces from six ports and airports, including Lombrum Naval Base.
Two months before PNG’s vote, the UNGA overwhelmingly passed a resolution demanding that the Israeli government end its occupation of Palestinian territories within 12 months — but half of the 14 countries that voted against were from the Pacific.
Affirming an International Court of Justice (ICJ) opinion requested by the UN that deemed the decades-long occupation unlawful, the opposition from seven Pacific nations further marginalised the island region from world opinion against Israel.
Several UN experts and officials warned against Israel becoming a global “pariah” state over its 15 month genocidal war on Gaza.
The final vote tally was 124 member states in favour and 14 against, with 43 nations abstaining. The Pacific countries that voted with Israel and its main ally and arms-supplier United States against the Palestinian resolution were Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Palau, Tonga and Tuvalu.
Flags of decolonisation in Suva, Fiji . . . the Morning Star flag of West Papua (colonised by Indonesia) and the flag of Palestine (militarily occupied illegally and under attack from Israel). Image: APR
In February, Fiji faced widespread condemnation after it joined the US as one of the only two countries — branded as the “outliers” — to support Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territory in an UNGA vote over an International Court of Justice (ICJ) advisory opinion over Israel’s policies in the occupied territories.
Fiji’s envoy at the UN, retired Colonel Filipo Tarakinikini, defended the country’s stance, saying the court “fails to take account of the complexity of this dispute, and misrepresents the legal, historical, and political context”.
However, Fiji NGOs condemned the Fiji vote as supporting “settler colonialism” and long-standing Fijian diplomats such as Kaliopate Tavola and Robin Nair said Fiji had crossed the line by breaking with its established foreign policy of “friends-to-all-and-enemies-to-none”.
Indonesian military forces on patrol in the Oksop regency of the West Papua region.
2. West Papuan self-determination left in limbo For the past decade, Pacific Island Forum countries have been trying to get a fact-finding human mission deployed to West Papua. But they have encountered zero progress with continuous roadblocks being placed by Jakarta.
Pacific leaders have asked for the UN’s involvement over reported abuses as the Indonesian military continues its battles with West Papuan independence fighters.
A highly critical UN Human Right Committee report on Indonesia released in May highlighted “systematic reports about the use of torture” and “extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances of Indigenous Papuan people”.
But the situation is worse now since President Prabowo Subianto, the former general who has a cloud of human rights violations hanging over his head, took office in October.
Fiji’s Sitiveni Rabuka and Papua New Guinea’s James Marape were appointed by the Melanesian Spearhead Group in 2023 as special envoys to push for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights’ visit directly with Indonesia’s president.
Prabowo taking up the top job in Jakarta has filled West Papuan advocates and activists with dread as this is seen as marking a return of “the ghost of Suharto” because of his history of alleged atrocities in West Papua, and also in Timor-Leste before independence.
Already Prabowo’s acts since becoming president with restoring the controversial transmigration policies, reinforcing and intensifying the military occupation, fuelling an aggressive “anti-environment” development strategy, have heralded a new “regime of brutality”.
And Marape and Rabuka, who pledged to exiled indigenous leader Benny Wenda in Suva in February 2023 that he would support the Papuans “because they are Melanesians”, have been accused of failing the West Papuan cause.
Protesters at Molodoï, Strasbourg, demanding the release of Kanak indigenous political prisoners being detained in France pending trial for their alleged role in the pro-independence riots in May 2024. Image: @67Kanaky /X
3. France rolls back almost four decades of decolonisation progress
When pro-independence protests erupted into violent rioting in Kanaky New Caledonia on May 13, creating havoc and destruction in the capital of Nouméa and across the French Pacific territory with 14 people dead, intransigent French policies were blamed for having betrayed Kanak aspirations for independence.
While acknowledging the goodwill and progress that had been made since the 1988 Matignon accords and the Nouméa pact a decade later following the bloody 1980s insurrection, the French government lost the self-determination trajectory after two narrowly defeated independence referendums and a third vote boycotted by Kanaks because of the covid pandemic.
This third vote with less than half the electorate taking part had no credibility, but Paris insisted on bulldozing constitutional electoral changes that would have severely disenfranchised the indigenous vote. More than 36 years of constructive progress had been wiped out.
“It’s really three decades of hard work by a lot of people to build, sort of like a future for Kanaky New Caledonia, which is part of the Pacific rather than part of France,” I was quoted as saying.
France had had three prime ministers since 2020 and none of them seemed to have any “real affinity” for indigenous issues, particularly in the South Pacific, in contrast to some previous leaders.
In the wake of a snap general election in mainland France, when President Emmanuel Macron lost his centrist mandate and is now squeezed between the polarised far right National Rally and the left coalition New Popular Front, the controversial electoral reform was quietly scrapped.
New French Overseas Minister Manual Valls has heralded a new era of negotiation over self-determination. In November, he criticised Macron’s “stubbornness’ in an interview with the French national daily Le Parisien, blaming him for “ruining 36 years of dialogue, of progress”.
But New Caledonia is not the only headache for France while pushing for its own version of an “Indo-Pacific” strategy. Pro-independence French Polynesian President Moetai Brotherson and civil society leaders have called on the UN to bring Paris to negotiations over a timetable for decolonisation.
West Papuan leader Benny Wenda (left) and Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka . . . “We will support them [ULMWP] because they are Melanesians.” Rabuka also had a Pacific role with New Caledonia. Image: Fiji govt/RNZ Pacific4. Pacific Islands Forum also fails Kanak aspirations
Kanaks and the Pacific’s pro-decolonisation activists had hoped that an intervention by the Pacific Islands Forum in support of the Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS) would enhance their self-determination stocks.
However, they were disappointed. And their own internal political divisions have not made things any easier.
On the eve of the three-day fact-finding delegation to the territory in October, Fiji’s Rabuka was already warning the local government (led by pro-independence Louis Mapou to “be reasonable” in its demands from Paris.
Rabuka and Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown and then Tongan counterpart Hu’akavameiliku Siaosi Sovaleni visited the French territory not to “interfere” but to “lower the temperature”.
But an Australian proposal for a peacekeeping force under the Australian-backed Pacific Policing Initiative (PPI) fell flat, and the mission was generally considered a failure for Kanak indigenous aspirations.
Taking the planet’s biggest problem to the world’s highest court for global climate justice. Image: X/@ciel_tweets
5. Climate crisis — the real issue and geopolitics
In spite of the geopolitical pressures from countries, such as the US, Australia and France, in the region in the face of growing Chinese influence, the real issue for the Pacific remains climate crisis and what to do about it.
Controversy marked an A$140 million aid pact signed between Australia and Nauru last month in what was being touted as a key example of the geopolitical tightrope being forced on vulnerable Pacific countries.
This agreement offers Nauru direct budgetary support, banking services and assistance with policing and security. The strings attached? Australia has been granted the right to veto any agreement with a third country such as China.
Critics have compared this power of veto to another agreement signed between Australia and Tuvalu in 2023 which provided Australian residency opportunities and support for climate mitigation. However, in return Australia was handed guarantees over security.
The previous month, November, was another disappointment for the Pacific when it was “once again ignored” at the UN COP29 climate summit in the capital Baku of oil and natural gas-rich Azerbaijan.
The Suva-based Pacific Islands Climate Action Network (PICAN) condemned the outcomes as another betrayal, saying that the “richest nations turned their backs on their legal and moral obligations” at what had been billed as the “finance COP”.
The new climate finance pledge of a US$300 billion annual target by 2035 for the global fight against climate change was well short of the requested US$1 trillion in aid.
Climate campaigners and activist groups branded it as a “shameful failure of leadership” that forced Pacific nations to accept the “token pledge” to prevent the negotiations from collapsing.
Much depends on a climate justice breakthrough with Vanuatu’s landmark case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) arguing that those harming the climate are breaking international law.
The case seeks an advisory opinion from the court on the legal responsibilities of countries over the climate crisis, and many nations in support of Vanuatu made oral submissions last month and are now awaiting adjudication.
Given the primacy of climate crisis and vital need for funding for adaptation, mitigation and loss and damage faced by vulnerable Pacific countries, former Pacific Islands Forum Secretary-General Meg Taylor delivered a warning:
“Pacific leaders are being side-lined in major geopolitical decisions affecting their region and they need to start raising their voices for the sake of their citizens.”
With the start of winter school break in Tibet, Chinese authorities have implemented new restrictions on Tibetan children, banning private Tibetan-language lessons and requiring ones that focus on Mandarin skills and Chinese political topics, two sources with knowledge of the situation said.
In some areas, they are even forbidding children from wearing religious symbols or participating in religious activities, since the winter break began on Dec. 30, said the sources who requested anonymity for safety reasons.
The restrictions are the latest moves that appear to be part of Beijing’s wider goal to suppress and even erase the Tibetan language and culture and subsume everything under Han Chinese culture and the Mandarin language.
During the two-month-long winter break, Tibetan students in the capital Lhasa and across Tibet are prohibited from receiving tutorials outside of school-planned assignments or taking private lessons in the Tibetan language, they said.
Instead, authorities have instructed students to focus on improving their Mandarin-language skills by taking lessons to further enhance their proficiency, the sources said.
Tibetan students learn Tibetan writing in a first-grade class at the Shangri-La Key Boarding School in Dabpa county, Kardze Prefecture, Sichuan province, China, Sept. 5, 2023.(Andy Wong/AP)
In Dzoge (Zoige in Chinese) and Ngaba (Aba) counties in Aba Tibetan Qiang Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan province, authorities have restricted children from wearing clothing with Tibetan religious symbols, one of the sources said.
This comes along with a ban on Tibetan-language tutoring and a prohibition on parents from taking their children to monasteries or letting them participate in religious activities during the vacation. Teaching any academic modules beyond the Chinese state-approved curriculum is strictly prohibited, the sources said.
Vacation assignments
The restrictions are being enforced across various Tibetan areas such as Golog (Guoluo) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Qinghai province and Dzoge, Ngaba, and Kardze in Sichuan province, they added.
The Chinese government has specifically prohibited the teaching of Tibetan language during the winter break, mandating that students focus on school homework based on Chinese government political education only.
“In Golog, for example, the Qinghai Provincial Education Department has issued specific vacation assignments focusing on the improvement of the Mandarin language alongside the ban on learning Tibetan language and culture in the area,” the second source said.
Tibetan students line up at the Shangri-La Key Boarding School in Dabpa county, Kardze Prefecture, Sichuan province, China, Sept. 5, 2023.(Andy Wong/AP)
These so-called vacation assignments require both parents and students to jointly study Chinese political education, including Xi Jinping’s ideology, he added.
Additional restrictions have been imposed in Lhasa and other Tibetan regions, where Chinese authorities have issued notices mandating the strict surveillance of students and prohibiting them from joining online groups or community activities, sources said.
In 2021, Chinese authorities in various Tibetan areas began prohibiting Tibetan children from taking informal Tibetan-language classes or workshops during their winter holidays, a move that local Tibetans and parents of affected children said would negatively impact the children’s connection to their native language.
In late 2023 and in early 2024, Chinese authorities stepped up efforts to enforce the ban on children taking private lessons and participating in religious activities by going door-to-door to conduct random checks in residential areas and commercial establishments, RFA learned at the time from sources.
Translated by Dawa Dolma for RFA Tibetan. 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 RFA Tibetan.
Taiwan’s government on Thursday hit back at a New Year’s propaganda video created by China’s People’s Liberation Army in which President Xi Jinping reiterated Beijing’s claims on the democratic island.
The video, set to the song “Chinese People” by veteran Hong Kong pop star Andy Lau, features Chinese warships and planes, and what appeared to be a Chinese fighter jet flying near a P-8 Poseidon patrol aircraft that the United States sometimes sends through the Taiwan Strait.
The accompanying Weibo post read: “The officers and soldiers in the war zone are ready to fight at any time and resolutely safeguard the reunification of the motherland.”
In a Jan. 1 address to the nation, Xi vowed to unify Taiwan with the mainland.
“We Chinese on both sides of the Taiwan Strait belong to one and the same family,” Xi declared. “No one can ever sever the bond of kinship between us, and no one will ever stop China’s unification.”
Taiwan has never been ruled by Beijing, nor formed part of the People’s Republic of China. It is governed by the Republic of China government, formed after the 1911 fall of the Qing Dynasty under Sun Yat-sen, that fled to Taipei in 1949 after losing the civil war to Mao Zedong’s communists.
Psychological warfare
Taiwanese Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung told reporters that the video is an example of China’s United Front propaganda targeting the island’s 23 million people, and aimed to intimidate them with an “illusion” of unity.
“It is the People’s Liberation Army showing its intimidation of Taiwan,” Lin said, adding that the video was a form of psychological warfare.
A music video published by the People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater Command shows China as ready to invade democratic Taiwan, Jan. 1, 2025.(PLA Eastern Theater via Weibo)
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.
The video came as Chinese warplanes and ships carried out the first “combat patrol” around Taiwan in 2025. The island’s defense ministry said it had detected 22 Chinese military aircraft including J-16 fighter jets, carrying out a “joint combat readiness patrol” around Taiwan in conjunction with Chinese warships starting Jan. 2.
It omits footage of Taiwanese students shouting and waving pro-democracy slogans at the Chinese delegation, however.
‘No discounts on freedom’
Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te said his government would boost defense spending this year to keep up its defenses and protect it’s democratic way of life.
“Taiwan needs to prepare for danger in times of peace,” Lai said in his Jan. 1 address. “We must continue increasing our national defense budget, bolster our national defense capabilities, and show our determination to protect our country.”
He called on the island’s people to build resilience, vowing to “combat information and cognitive warfare, so that the populace rejects threats and enticements and jointly guards against malicious infiltration by external forces.”
He warned people not to be enticed by Chinese ID card schemes or junkets to China, quoting a Taiwanese saying: “Nothing costs more than a freebie.”
“Democracy is priceless, and there are no discounts on freedom,” Lai warned. “A wrong step today could mean a far higher price to pay in future.”
Stealth fighter
Across the Taiwan Strait, state media said the People’s Liberation Army video showed “the determination, will and ability of officers and soldiers in the theater to stay vigilant, remain ready to fight at any time and resolutely safeguard the reunification of the motherland.”
A music video published by the People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater Command shows Chinese celebrities visiting democratic Taiwan, Jan. 1, 2025.(PLA Eastern Theater via Weibo)
“The PLA Eastern Theater Command’s release of the video on the first day of the New Year also issued a stern warning to the separatist forces of ‘Taiwan independence’,” the paper reported on Thursday.
It quoted Chinese military expert Zhang Junshe as saying that it showed China would “resolutely fight back and … will never allow any forces to split the island of Taiwan from China’s sovereign territory.”
Zhu Fenglian, spokesperson for Beijing’s Taiwan Affairs Office, said the song reminded people in Taiwan that they are “all Chinese.”
Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council responded: “Taiwanese people should be more alert to China’s United Front propaganda targeting Taiwan and strengthen their understanding of cross-strait relations.”
Andy Lau
Hong Kong current affairs commentator Sang Pu said Lau was a shrewd choice to act as Beijing’s mouthpiece, given his huge fan-base across the sinophone world.
“People who love freedom and democracy definitely won’t like Andy Lau, but he’s a very good United Front tool when it comes to centrists, or the politically apathetic,” Sang said. “He can be used as leverage.”
He said Lau, who is also a movie actor, holds a number of official posts in the Chinese Communist Party regime, including vice chairman of the China Film Association and visiting professor at the Sichuan Opera School.
Sang called on Taiwan to ban him from performing there, following a visit in November where Lau performed “Chinese People” on Taiwanese soil.
Former Hong Kong district councilor Lee Man-ho said Hong Kongers have known Lau is a mouthpiece for Chinese propaganda for years.
“A few years ago he made a video promoting the ‘Tomorrow’s Lantau’ [development] project, which was an attempt at United Front brainwashing in Hong Kong,” Lee, who now lives in Taiwan, told RFA Cantonese.
“But nobody fell for it. Everyone in Hong Kong has seen through Andy Lau.”
Lee said that back in the 1990s, Lau had been a staunch supporter of Taiwan, and used to make a point of celebrating the Republic of China’s national day on Oct. 10, instead of the Chinese Communist Party’s national day on Oct. 1.
“But after 30 years of manipulation by the United Front Work Department of the Chinese Communist Party, he has totally changed,” he said.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Yam Chi Yau for RFA Cantonese.
