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Category: China

  • Xi Jinping calls for wider use of Mandarin in China’s border areas

    TAIPEI, Taiwan – Chinese President Xi Jinping said common Chinese language, or Mandarin, should be “spoken more broadly” in border regions, adding to longstanding concerns about the impact on China’s ethnic minority languages, which some of their speakers say are struggling to survive.

    China’s borderlands, spanning five provinces and four autonomous regions, including Tibet, Xinjiang Uygur and Inner Mongolia, are culturally and linguistically diverse and have seen opposition to Beijing’s efforts to assimilate ethnic minorities into the majority Han culture.

    While Mandarin is China’s official language, efforts to promote it have sparked controversy, with critics warning of harm to ethnic languages and cultural identities.

    “We should continue to deepen efforts on ethnic unity and progress, actively build an integrated social structure and community environment, and promote the unity of all ethnic groups – like pomegranate seeds tightly held together,” said Xi, addressing a Politburo study session on Monday.

    Xi also said Mandarin, colloquially known as Putonghua, and its writing system should be comprehensively popularized in border regions, and the use of national textbooks compiled under central guidance should be fully implemented, the state-run People’s Daily newspaper reported.

    He told members of the ruling party’s top policymaking body that it was necessary to guide all ethnic groups in border regions to “continuously enhance their recognition of the Chinese nation, Chinese culture and the Communist Party”.

    The Chinese leader added that maintaining security and stability was the “baseline requirement” for border governance, noting that efforts should be made to improve social governance, infrastructure and “the overall ability to defend the country and safeguard the border”.

    China’s Politburo regularly holds sessions, with discussion usually led by an academic – Monday’s session was led by Li Guoqiang, vice-president of the Chinese Academy of History.

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    Xi’s latest remarks come amid a broader push in recent years by authorities to promote Mandarin-language education as part of a nationwide effort to assimilate ethnic minorities into the majority Han culture.

    In Inner Mongolia, the 2020 introduction of Mandarin as the primary language of instruction for core subjects led to widespread protests, school boycotts, and demonstrations by ethnic Mongolians, who fear the erosion of their native language and identity.

    Similarly, in Tibet, the increasing use of boarding schools where children are taught primarily in Mandarin has been condemned by rights groups as a strategy to weaken Tibetan cultural ties and instill loyalty to Beijing.

    In Xinjiang, the strict enforcement of Mandarin education has been linked to broader campaigns targeting Uyghur Muslims, including reports of mass detentions and forced assimilation – which Beijing denies – raising alarm over the systematic suppression of Uyghur language and traditions.

    On Dec. 28, 2021, China’s Ministry of Education, the National Rural Revitalization Bureau and the National Language Commission issued a plan to promote Mandarin.

    By 2025, it aims for Mandarin to be spoken and understood in 85% of the country as a whole and in 80% of rural areas.

    Edited by RFA Staff.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Taejun Kang for RFA.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Canada sanctions 8 Chinese officials for human rights violations

    Canada imposed sanctions on eight former and current senior Chinese officials on Tuesday, citing their involvement in grave human rights violations in Tibet and Xinjiang and against Falun Gong followers.

    The sanctions attempt to freeze the assets of the individuals by prohibiting Canadians living inside and outside the country from providing financial services to them or engaging in activities related to their property.

    “Canada is deeply concerned by the human rights violations in Xinjiang and Tibet and against those who practice Falun Gong,” Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly said in a statement. “We call on the Chinese government to put an end to this systematic campaign of repression and uphold its international human rights obligations.”

    Joly visited China in July and met with her Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, to discuss relations, human rights and global and regional security issues.

    The announcement comes at a time when Western governments — particularly Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union — are increasingly turning to sanctioning individuals in China involved in the persecution of Tibetans in Tibet, Muslim Uyghurs in Xinjiang and practitioners of Falun Gong, a religious group banned in China.

    Probably the most prominent of those sanctioned is Chen Quanguo, Chinese Communist Party Committee Secretary of Tibet Autonomous Region from 2011 to 2016 and of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region from 2016 to 2021.

    Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly speaks during a press conference in Kyiv, Ukraine, Feb. 2, 2024.
    Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly speaks during a press conference in Kyiv, Ukraine, Feb. 2, 2024.

    Also sanctioned was Wu Yingjie, Communist Party Secretary of Tibet from 2016 to 2021.

    Wu, 67, was expelled from the Chinese Communist Party and removed from other public positions for disciplinary violations following a corruption probe, Chinese officials announced Tuesday. They said he failed to implement the Central Committee’s strategy for governing Tibet, and intervened in engineering projects allegedly for personal gain, according to an article in the state-run China Daily.

    Others who were sanctioned include:

    • Erkin Tuniyaz, deputy secretary of the Chinese Communist Party Xinjiang Committee and chairman of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region
    • Shohrat Zakir, chairman of Xinjiang and deputy secretary of the Chinese Communist Party Xinjiang Committee from 2014 to 2021
    • Peng Jiarui, vice chairman of Xinjiang and vice chairman of the Xinjiang Regional Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, who previously served as commander of Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, a paramilitary organization
    • Huo Liujun, party secretary of Xinjiang’s Public Security Department since March 2017
    • Zhang Hongbo, former director of Tibet’s Public Security Bureau
    • You Quan, former director of the United Front Work Department and a former secretary of the Secretariat of the Chinese Communist Party

    ‘Ongoing atrocities’

    The Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project based in Canada submitted the names of six of the individuals to the Canadian government for sanctions consideration in December 2022, said Mehmet Tohti, the group’s executive director.

    Tibetan and Falun Gong organizations provided the other two names, he said.

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    Adrian Zenz, senior fellow at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation in Washington, said the measure was long overdue.

    “Great to see Canada do this,” he said. “The Europeans are now far behind; they have not even sanctioned Chen Quanguo yet.”

    “Sanctioning Tuniyaz is very important in terms of showing to the world that the atrocities in the Uyghur homeland are ongoing,” said Zenz, who is an expert on Xinjiang.

    The most prominent individual is Chen Quanguo because he was the person behind China’s suppression of Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in Xinjiang that first drew international attention in 2017, said Charles Burton, a former Canadian diplomat who worked in China.

    Wang, who is retired, has said he no foreign assets, family abroad or desire to travel, so the sanctions are symbolic but not substantive, Burton said.

    The same likely applies to the others who played a part in the repression of Uyghurs in Xinjiang, including Erkin Tuniyaz, Peng Jiarui, Huo Liujun and Shohrat Zakir, he said.

    Wu Yingjie, Communist Party secretary of the Tibet Autonomous Region, attends the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in Beijing, Oct. 19, 2017.
    Wu Yingjie, Communist Party secretary of the Tibet Autonomous Region, attends the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in Beijing, Oct. 19, 2017.

    “But Canada’s action sends out a clear signal of support for Uyghurs in the PRC and their families in Canada and elsewhere,” Burton added, referring to the People’s Republic of China. “It also makes clear to Chinese Communist Party officials that they will be held accountable for their complicity in violations of international law.”

    ‘False allegations’

    On Wednesday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said the Canada government “made false allegations against China in the name of human rights and imposed illicit sanctions on Chinese personnel.”

    “This is gross interference in China’s internal affairs and a serious violation of international law and the basic norms governing international relations,” she said. “China firmly opposes and strongly condemns this.”

    RFA contacted Canada’s foreign ministry for additional comment, but had not received a response before publication time.

    The United States previously imposed sanctions on all eight officials for their connections to serious human rights violations.

    The Washington-based Uyghur Human Rights Project welcomed the move.

    “This decision by Canada is a significant step toward accountability for the architects of mass repression in East Turkistan,” Omer Kanat, the group’s executive director, said in a statement, using Uyghurs’ preferred name for Xinjiang.

    “Targeted sanctions send a clear message that perpetrators of atrocity crimes cannot act with impunity.”

    Translated by Mamatjan Juma for RFA Uyghur. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Tibetan and by Gulchehra Hoja for RFA Uyghur.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Pacific police chiefs open Australian base for regional rapid deployment force

    By Stefan Armbruster of BenarNews

    Pacific police chiefs have formally opened the headquarters and training center for a new stand-by, mutual assistance force in Australia to support countries during civil unrest, natural disasters and major events.

    The Pacific Policing Initiative was declared operational just 17 months after chiefs agreed in 2023 on the need to create a multinational unit, with US$270 million (A$400 million) in funding from Australia.

    The PPI comes as Australia and its allies are locked in a geostrategic contest for influence in the region with China, including over security and policing.

    Riots in Solomon Islands and violence in Papua New Guinea, the region’s increased exposure to climate change impacts, escalating transnational crime and securing a higher standing internationally for the Pacific’s forces were key drivers.

    PNG police commissioner David Manning (center) flanked by Vanuatu Police Commissioner Robson Iavro (left), Australian Federal Police commissioner Reece Kershaw (2nd right) and Australian Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus at the PPI launch, pictured on Dec. 10, 2024. [Stefan Armbruster/BenarNews]
    PNG Police Commissioner David Manning (centre) flanked by Vanuatu Police Commissioner Robson Iavro (left), Australian Federal Police commissioner Reece Kershaw (second right) and Australian Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus at the PPI launch on Tuesday. Image: BenarNews/Stefan Armbruster

    At a flag-raising ceremony in Brisbane on Tuesday, Papua New Guinea’s Police Commissioner David Manning hailed the PPI’s funding as an “unprecedented investment” in the region.

    “The PPI provides a clear, effective, and agile mechanism to which we can support our Pacific family in times of need to uphold the law and maintain order in security,” said Manning, who chairs the PPI design steering committee.

    He said issues in deploying foreign police throughout the region still needed to be resolved but the 22 member nations and territories were “close to completing the guiding legal framework around Pacific Island countries to be able to tap into this.”

    The constitutional difficulties of deploying foreign police are well known to Manning after PNG’s highest court ruled two decades ago that a deployment of Australian Federal Police there was illegal.

    “That incident alone has taught us many lessons,” he said, adding changes had been made to the Constitution and relevant legislation to receive assistance and also to deploy to other countries lawfully.

    Manning said no deployments of the Pacific Support Group had currently been requested by Pacific nations.

    Impetus for the PPI was a secretive policing and security deal Beijing signed with Solomon Islands in 2022 that caused alarm in Washington and Canberra.

    Several other Pacific nations — including Tonga, Samoa and Kiribati — also have policing arrangements with China to provide training and equipment. On Monday, Vanuatu received police boats and vehicles valued at US$4 million from Beijing.

    “I wouldn’t say it locks China out, all I’m saying is that we now have an opportunity to determine what is best for the Pacific,” Manning said.

    “Our countries in the Pacific have different approaches in terms of their relationship with China. I’m not brave enough to speak on their behalf, but as for us, it is purely policing.”

    Samoan Police Minister Lefau Harry Schuster on Tuesday also announced his country would be hosting the PPI’s third “center of excellence”, specialising in forensics, alongside ones in PNG and Fiji.

    He said the PPI will use the Samoan Police Academy built by China and opened in June.

    “We wanted it to be used not just for Samoa, but to open up for use by the region,” Schuster said in Brisbane.

    Australian Federal Police Commissioner Reece Kershaw said the PPI “symbolises our commitment as part of the Pacific region” and enhances the Pacific’s standing internationally.

    “Asia represents Australia and the Pacific at the moment at Interpol,” he said. “We want to show leadership in the region and we want a bit more status and recognition from Interpol.”

    Kershaw said “crime in our region is becoming more complex”, including large seizures of drug shipments.

    “The fact is that we’re able to work together in a seamless way and combat, say, transnational, serious and organized crime as a serious threat in our region.”

    “At the same time, we’ve all got domestic issues and I think we’re learning faster and better about how to deal with domestic issues and international issues at the same time.”

    Police ministers and chiefs from across the Pacific attended the launch of the PPI’s Pinkenba Hub, pictured on Dec. 10, 2024. [Stefan Armbruster/BenarNews]
    Police ministers and chiefs from across the Pacific attended the launch of the PPI’s Pinkenba Hub on Tuesday. Image: BenarNews/Stefan Armbruster

    Asked about tackling community policing of issues like gender-based violence, he said it was all part of the “complex” mix.

    The Australian and Samoan facilities complete the three arms of the PPI consisting of the Pacific Support Group, three regional training centers and the co-ordination hub in Brisbane.

    The Pinkenba centre in Brisbane will provide training — including public order management, investigations, close personal protection — and has accommodation for 140 people.

    Training began in July, with 30 officers from 11 nations who were deployed to Samoa to help with security during the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in October, the largest event the country has ever hosted.

    Schuster expressed surprise about how quickly the PPI was established and thanked Australia and the region for their support.

    “This is one initiative I’m very happy that we didn’t quite do it the Pacific way. [The] Pacific way takes time, a long time, we talk and talk and talk,” he joked.

    “So I look forward to an approach like this in the future, so that we do things first and then open it later.”

    This article is republished from BenarNews with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • A new book details how mainstream media is still manufacturing consent for war in 2024

    Amid globally visible Western hypocrisy on Palestine and Ukraine, a new book provides us with a clear outline of how the mainstream corporate media plays an important role in shaping opinions in the service of US imperialism. In doing so, the book updates and validates the seminal work of Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman in Manufacturing Consent. The Canary caught up with author Devan Hawkins to discuss his new book Worthy and Unworthy.

    And in our first article on the book, we look at how uneven coverage of protests in China and India pushed him to explore even more cases of blatant media bias.

    Worthy and Unworthy: behind the research

    Hawkins said his experiences growing up made him “skeptical of the media”. In particular, the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003 taught him about “how the media can manipulate people’s opinions, intentionally or not”. And more recently, he decided to “delve more deeply into these topics”, especially as US foreign policy has “reoriented itself” to the perception of China as “the new official enemy”.

    The spark for the book was an article he was preparing on the differing coverage between the Hong Kong and Kashmir protests of 2019. As these “almost lined up with each other perfectly”, he began to analyse them systematically.

    By “applying Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman’s idea around worthy and unworthy victims”, he would evaluate whether Hong Kong got more attention because the ‘bad guy’ of the story was New Cold War target China, while the bad guy in Kashmir was India – a “Major Defense Partner” of the US.

    Hawkins focused on looking at coverage from the New York Times, as a paper of record. In particular, he searched for all relevant articles there, counted them, and then determined the “quality of the coverage”.

    The expectation was that “not only would the coverage be greater in the case of the events that are happening in your official state enemies of the country, but also that it would be more negative”.

    By applying Chomsky and Herman’s approach, Hawkins essentially validated it, showing that it’s still relevant today. In fact, he said:

    If anything, it’s even more relevant now because of the cutbacks that are happening for a lot of outlets, right? In the past, smaller media outlets might have had foreign coverage, where now it’s really the New York Times and those big papers. So that’s the only source for a lot of these stories that are happening in these other countries.

    How the media is still ‘Manufacturing Consent’ for conflict

    Chomsky and Herman’s Manufacturing Consent looked at how capitalist mainstream media organisations work in the interests of powerful elites. And they argued that these media outlets split victims of violence or injustice into two groups – ‘worthy’ or ‘unworthy’.

    If a victim is fighting a country that powerful interests oppose, their cause is worthy (think Ukraine and Russia). But if a victim is fighting a country that’s an ally of powerful interests, their cause is unworthy (think Palestine and Israel).

    The idea is that mainstream media coverage will show significant sympathy for ‘worthy’ victims, treating them as worthy of support, but will downplay or even justify the suffering of ‘unworthy’ victims. Even if their situations are essentially the same, the theory says, the coverage will be different.

    The double standards of the US empire and its allies have long been clear. But with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Israel’s genocide in Gaza overlapping in the last year, the hypocrisy is as nakedly obvious as perhaps ever before. And the mainstream media has loyally followed suit, to differing extents.

    Hawkins started out with a scientific, analytical comparison of the Hong Kong and Kashmir protests. But he ended up compiling a number of important comparisons from different parts of the world. And these help to prove that the mainstream media’s distinction between worthy and unworthy causes is still going strong.

    In fact, if anything, Chomsky and Herman’s theory is as poignantly relevant today as it ever has been.

    Case Study One: a ’worthy’ protest against China and an ‘unworthy’ protest against India

    Talking about legitimate concerns for citizens in Hong Kong, now part of China under the “one country, two systems” principle, Hawkins takes us back to the protests of 2019 over the Extradition Bill. These events were big news in the West, but he boils it down to the fact that:

    sometimes criminals would commit crimes, especially financial crimes in mainland China, and then flee to Hong Kong, and then there’d be a situation where it would be impossible for them to be extradited for it.

    And while Western media covered the protests, they rarely highlighted that there was “a certain element of the population that was in favor of the Extradition Bill”.

    Over in Kashmir, meanwhile, Hawkins explains:

    the article of the Constitution was revoked, and that was an article of the Constitution that had existed… for well over half a century that gave the special status to Kashmir

    Comparing this to the events in Hong Kong:

    Basically, democratic elections completely ended in Kashmir during that time, and then there was a much more violent response. There were more deaths that occurred in terms of the protests and the state response to it. There were actually no deaths that were documented in the case of the Hong Kong protests where there were… maybe close to a dozen that occurred in Kashmir during those time periods.

    So both in terms of the the nature of what was done, which I would say would be more drastic in the case of Kashmir than in Hong Kong… and then also the state response, it seemed more drastic, and therefore you would think it would get at the very least as much coverage as the Hong Kong protests.

    But as I show in the book that was very much not the case… And then also in terms of the nature of the coverage overall, I would say that the coverage was critical in the case of the Kashmir revocation, but not to the same extent… and not to the same volume as was the case with Hong Kong.

    Why was the coverage different?

    Hawkins insists that he doesn’t really go into the reasons for the the difference in coverage. However, he does point out that:

    It’s easier to report on the stories when they’re negative about China, because we’re… primed to see China as the enemy, and not have those same necessary feelings about India.

    He also says protesters in Hong Kong seemed “more media savvy”:

    They were doing a good job of doing things that would generally get the attention of the US media.

    On this point, he mentions that the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), which journalist and author Matt Kennard has called “an overt CIA”, had previously “supported what are called ‘democratic movements’ in Hong Kong”. He believes it would be great to have more research about how such training “can be helpful for teaching protesters how to appeal to Western audiences”.

    The Canary will be releasing more articles on the comparisons Hawkins made in his book in the coming days.

    Featured image supplied

    By Ed Sykes

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • China mobilizes ‘staggering’ naval presence in Taiwan Strait: Taipei

    TAIPEI, Taiwan – China has deployed an “unprecedented number” of naval vessels in the Taiwan Strait and announced extensive reserved airspace zones in a display of its capability to project power into the Pacific, a senior island defense official said on Wednesday.

    The show of force, which has yet to include any military exercises, comes days after Taiwan’s president, Lai Ching-te, visited the U.S. state of Hawaii and the U.S. territory of Guam during a tour to reinforce ties with the island’s Pacific allies. It also comes as U.S. President-elect Donald Trump is preparing for his second term.

    The Reuters news agency said on Wednesday that China had deployed about 90 vessels in waters surrounding Taiwan.

    In addition to the ships, China’s People’s Liberation Army, or PLA, announced seven reserved airspace zones east of Zhejiang and Fujian provinces and spanning 1,000 kilometers (620 miles), covering what is known as the First Island Chain, in the western Pacific, from Japan south to Borneo.

    “This showcases the PLA’s capability to project power eastward to the First Island Chain and the Western Pacific,” Taiwan defense ministry official Lieutenant General Hsieh Jih-sheng, deputy chief of the Intelligence and Operations Staff, told at a press conference.

    Hsieh said the deployment, which included 47 fighter aircraft, was larger than two previous exercises China launched this year, Joint Sword-2024A and Joint Sword-2024B.

    “The figures are indeed staggering,” Hsieh said, when asked about the Chinese aircraft and vessels involved.

    Asked about the timing of the Chinese deployment, and whether it could be related to Lai’s Pacific tour or the change of administration in the United States, Hsieh declined to speculate.

    “Whatever connections the CCP tries to draw is their matter; there’s no need to answer on their behalf,” he said, referring to the Chinese Communist Party. “Their actions have indeed raised concerns and unease among neighboring countries.”

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    When a spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs was also asked about the situation at a Tuesday press conference, she reiterated Beijing’s longstanding position on its claim to Taiwan.

    “Taiwan is an inseparable part of China’s territory,” spokesperson Mao Ning said. “The Taiwan issue is an internal affair of China. China will firmly safeguard its national sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

    The spokesperson for Taiwan’s defense ministry, Sun Li-fang, said China’s actions were never in response to a particular individual or political position but more of a broader challenge.

    “The CCP’s fundamental goal is to use authoritarian means to challenge regional order and peace,” Sun said.

    Edited by Taejun Kang.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Alan Lu for RFA.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Nauru-Australia Treaty: Strategic gain or ‘corrupt arrangement’?

    By Margot Staunton, RNZ Pacific journalist

    Refugee advocates and academics are weighing in on Australia’s latest move on the Pacific geopolitical chessboard.

    Canberra is ploughing A$100 million over the next five years into Nauru, a remote 21 sq km atoll with a population of just over 12,000.

    It is also the location of controversial offshore detention facilities, central to Australia’s “stop the boats” immigration policy.

    Political commentators see the Nauru-Australia Treaty signed this week by Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Nauru’s President David Adeang as a move to limit China’s influence in the region.

    Refugee advocates claim it is effectively a bribe to ensure Australia can keep dumping its refugees on Nauru, where much of the terrain is an industrial wasteland following decades of phosphate mining.

    The Refugee Action Coalition told RNZ Pacific that there were currently between 95 and  100 detainees at the facility, the bulk of whom are from China and Bangladesh.

    The Nauru-Australia Treaty signed by Nauru's President David Adeang, left, and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in Canberra. 9 December 2024.
    The Nauru-Australia Treaty signed by Nauru’s President David Adeang (left) and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in Canberra on Monday. Image: Facebook/Anthony Albanese/RNZ Pacific

    The deal was said to have been struck after months of secretive bilateral talks, on the back of lucrative counter offers from China.

    The treaty ensures that Australia retains a veto right over a range of pacts that Nauru could enter into with other countries.

    In a written statement, Albanese described the agreement as a win-win situation.

    “The Nauru-Australia treaty will strengthen Nauru’s long-term stability and economic resilience. This treaty is an agreement that meets the need of both countries and serves our shared interest in a peaceful, secure and prosperous region,” he said.

    ‘Motivated by strategic concerns’ – expert
    However, a geopolitics expert says Australia’s motivations are purely selfish.

    Australian National University research fellow Dr Benjamin Herscovitch said the detention centre had bipartisan support and was a crucial part of Australia’s domestic migration policies.

    “The Australian government is motivated by very self-interested strategic concerns here,” Herscovitch told RNZ Pacific.

    “They are not ultimately doing it because they want to assist the people of Nauru, Canberra is doing it because it wants to keep China at bay and it wants to keep offshore processing in play.”

    The Refugee Action Coalition in Sydney agrees.

    The Coalition’s spokesperson Ian Rintoul said Canberra had effectively bribed Nauru so it could keep refugees out of Australia.

    “It’s a very sordid game. It’s a corrupt arrangement that the Australian government has actually bought Nauru and made it a wing of its domestic anti-refugee policies,” he said.

    “It’s small beer for the Australian government that thinks that off-shore detention is critical to its domestic political policies.”

    Rintoul said that in the past foreign aid had not been used to improve life for Nauruans.

    “The relationship between Nauru and Australia is pretty extraordinary and Nauru has been able to effectively extort huge amounts of foreign aid to upgrade their prison, they’ve built sports facilities,” he said.

    “I suspect a large amount of it has also found its way into the pockets of various elites.”

    Herscovitch said Nauru is in a prime position to negotiate with its former coloniser.

    “When China comes knocking, Australia immediately gets nervous and wants to put on the table offers that will keep those Pacific countries coming back to Australia.

    “That provides a wide range of Pacific countries with a huge amount of leverage to extract better terms from Australia.”

    He added it was unclear exactly how the funds would be used in Nauru.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • US offers $10 million reward for Chinese hackers

    WASHINGTON – The U.S. Treasury Department on Tuesday offered a $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.

    The Commerce Department separately announced human-rights related sanctions on two companies from China, two from Myanmar and four from Russia, which variously stand accused of links to the Myanmar military junta and to China’s repression of the Uyghurs.

    State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said that the Chinese company accused of hacking firewalls worldwide in 2020 -– which he identified as Sichuan Silence –- had “put American lives at risk.”

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    Sichuan Silence and one of its chief employees, Guan Tianfeng, were now sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department, “for their roles in the compromise of tens of thousands of firewalls worldwide, including firewalls at U.S. critical infrastructure companies,” Miller said.

    In addition, the State Department’s Rewards for Justice program was offering a reward of up to $10 million for any information about Sichuan Silence or Guan Tianfeng, the State Department spokesperson said.

    No information was provided about which U.S. companies or pieces of infrastructure were targeted, but Miller said that Guan had attempted to deploy “ransomware” into his victims’ networks, which seize control of the system software and freeze its use until a payment is made.

    U.S. law enforcement officials have warned that Chinese state-backed hackers are actively seeking to silently gain access to the software used to run important infrastructure like ports, electricity networks, hospitals and energy pipelines to “wreak havoc” at the right time.

    The Treasury Department said in a press release that Sichuan Silence was “cybersecurity government contractor whose core clients are PRC intelligence services,” referring to the People’s Republic of China.

    “Sichuan Silence provides these clients with computer network exploitation, email monitoring, brute-force password cracking, and public sentiment suppression products and services,” it said.

    Human rights sanctions

    To mark International Human Rights Day, the Commerce Department also unveiled new sanctions against eight other companies that stand accused of human rights violations in China, Myanmar and Russia.

    The U.S. Department of Justice headquarters building in Washington, July 14, 2009.
    The U.S. Department of Justice headquarters building in Washington, July 14, 2009.

    The two Chinese firms –- Beijing Zhongdun Security Technology Group and Zhejiang Uniview Technologies –- stand accused of selling items to the Chinese government for use in repression, a statement said.

    Zhejiang Uniview Technologies was blacklisted “because it enables human rights violations, including high-technology surveillance targeted at the general population, Uyghurs, and members of other ethnic and religious minority groups,” according to a Federal Register filing.

    The Myanmar firms -– Sky Aviator Company and Synpex Shwe Company –- were sanctioned, it adds, for selling the junta “parts and components that have enabled the military to carry out human rights violations, including brutal aerial attacks against the civilian population. ”

    Two Russian companies –- Aviasnab LLC and Joint Stock Company Gorizont –- were also sanctioned for supplying the junta with parts, while the two remaining Russian companies were sanctioned for links to alleged human rights abuses that occurred within Russia itself.

    The sanctions mean that no U.S. companies or individuals can do business with the companies, including by providing financial services like bank accounts or selling components for use in their products.

    “Human rights abuses are contrary to the foreign policy interests of the United States,” said Alan Estevez, under secretary of commerce for industry and security, in a Commerce Department press release.

    “By adding these parties to the Entity List with the presumption of denial license review policy, we aim to ensure that U.S. technology is not used to enable human rights violations and abuses,” he added.

    Edited by Malcolm Foster.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Alex Willemyns.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • China’s record ‘worsening’ on Human Rights Day, activists say

    The right to criticize the government, follow a religion and to get a meaningful defense in court are all deteriorating in China, activists told Radio Free Asia on Tuesday, Human Rights Day.

    Over the past year in China, 45 pro-democracy activists and former lawmakers in Hong Kong were jailed for “subversion” after organizing a democratic primary, prominent dissident Xu Zhiyong held a hunger strike to protest his treatment in prison and a journalist was jailed for having lunch with a Japanese diplomat.

    The ruling Communist Party has stepped up its suppression of public speech, organized religion and personal freedoms, while continuing to persecute anyone agitating for change, rights activists told RFA Mandarin in recent interviews.

    On this day in 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which proclaimed the inherent, inalienable rights of every person “without distinction of any kind, such as race, color, religion, sex, language, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.”

    Some of that language is echoed in China’s Constitution.

    Article 34 guarantees citizens “the right to vote and stand for election,” while Article 35 guarantees “freedom of speech, the press, assembly, association, procession and demonstration.”

    Article 36 promises them freedom of religious belief.

    But activists say there is less and less protection for anything resembling those rights in China today.

    “Right now, we don’t feel that human rights have improved,” Shandong-based rights activist Lu Xiumei told RFA Mandarin. “Controls have become more severe, and there are more rules and regulations.”

    1,700 prisoners of conscience

    According to the China Political Prisoner Concern Database, there are more than 1,700 known prisoners of conscience behind bars.

    While many once believed that the internet would be impossible for the authorities to control, eventually leading to greater freedom of speech in China, the government has spent the last 30 years perfecting its control of online spaces.

    The WeChat logo is displayed on a mobile phone, July 21, 2016.
    The WeChat logo is displayed on a mobile phone, July 21, 2016.

    “On social media platforms like WeChat and TikTok, it is almost impossible to post comments that have a negative impact on the government,” Jiangsu-based rights activist Lu Jianrong told RFA Mandarin. “You can only praise the government.”

    Police have targeted young people who dress up for Halloween, particularly if their costumes had a satirical twist, while online censors have been going after social media accounts that use “unauthorized” language, including puns and homophones, to get around censorship.

    Meanwhile, life is getting harder for women and for the LGBTQ+ community.

    The party is also cracking down on its own officials if they’re found in possession of banned books, and taking direct control over the running of the country’s universities.

    And it’s training up the next generation of religious leaders under President Xi Jinping’s “sinicization” of religion policy, to ensure that they put loyalty to the government ahead of the requirements of their faith.

    A Protestant pastor from the central province of Henan who gave only the surname Li for fear of reprisals told Radio Free Asia: “There is almost no religious freedom; they don’t want to give believers any room to breathe at all.”

    “A lot of churches have been banned, and are still being banned,” he said.

    No criticism allowed

    Even pursuing complaints against the government using its own official channels can get a person in hot water.

    “Take Xu Weibao for example, a petitioner from Taizhou,” Lu Jianrong said. “He has been persecuted to the point that he can no longer survive in his hometown, and has had to move somewhere else.”

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    Many who complain about official wrongdoing are targeted for harassment, extrajudicial detention and even physical violence, or locked up in a psychiatric institution for “mental illness.”

    “There’s another petitioner from Taixing who was held in a psychiatric hospital for three years,” Lu said. “He’s still under surveillance, and has no freedom at all.”

    Chinese journalist Dong Yuyu is seen in this undated photo.
    Chinese journalist Dong Yuyu is seen in this undated photo.

    A human rights lawyer who asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals said that prior to the 2015 crackdown on public interest law firms and rights lawyers, the profession wasn’t generally regarded as a threat to the ruling party.

    Now, they’re seen as a natural enemy of the Chinese Communist Party, he said.

    “Many have had their licenses revoked, and some have also been sent to prison,” he said.

    Heavier sentences

    Lawyer Li Fangping, who represented the jailed Uyghur scholar Ilham Tohti said rights protections are getting weaker across the board in China.

    “There’s a serious regression,” Li said. “We are seeing cases getting much heavier sentences now, especially for people who try to speak out, which is getting harder and harder.”

    He said there has been scant information about the status of Ilham Tohti in prison.

    Ilham Tohti, a scholar from China's Turkic Uighur ethnic minority shows how the officers stopped him at the airport, during an interview at his home in Beijing Feb. 4, 2013.
    Ilham Tohti, a scholar from China’s Turkic Uighur ethnic minority shows how the officers stopped him at the airport, during an interview at his home in Beijing Feb. 4, 2013.

    Foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning hit out on Tuesday at criticisms of China’s human rights record, saying the government had massively advanced its citizens’ social and economic rights.

    “Some countries have used human rights as a weapon to serve their political agenda,” Mao told a regular news briefing in Beijing.

    “We also hope that certain countries will discard megaphone diplomacy and stop interfering in other countries’ internal affairs under the pretext of so-called human rights issues,” she said.

    Also in Beijing, independent journalist Gao Yu said local police had once more taken steps to stop her from speaking out on Dec. 10.

    “The police came to my house on Human Rights Day,” Gao said in a post to her X account, adding that she had used the day to commemorate late Nobel peace laureate and dissident Liu Xiaobo, whose subversion trial was held on Dec. 10, 2009.

    Liu, who co-authored the Charter 08 manifesto calling for sweeping political change, died of liver cancer in prison in 2017 despite multiple applications for medical parole.

    “I climbed up a ladder and tied a yellow ribbon to the window railing in front of them,” Gao wrote, adding that the local state security police were once more keeping watch outside her apartment building in a vehicle now very familiar both to Gao and her neighbors.

    “Today is the 74th Human Rights Day, and the seven-seater Buick is here again,” she wrote.

    Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Staff.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • China ‘made wrong bet’ on Assad regime in Syria, say analysts

    The collapse of the Assad regime in Syria on Dec. 8 will likely hamper Beijing’s diplomatic ambitions in the Middle East and prompt a reevaluation of its support for Iran and Russia in the region, experts told Radio Free Asia in recent interviews.

    Back in September 2023, President Xi Jinping rolled out the red carpet for former Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad and his wife Asma, who made a six-day visit to the country amid great fanfare in the ruling Chinese Communist Party’s state media.

    The Assads were Xi’s guests at the opening ceremony of the 19th Asian Games in Hangzhou, which was hailed by the Global Times newspaper as an opportunity to strengthen trade and economic ties with the isolated regime.

    China was only the sixth country visited by Assad since the start of the Syrian conflict in 2011, and Beijing saw opportunities for Chinese companies in post-war economic reconstruction as part of Xi’s Belt and Road supply chain and global infrastructure program.

    China’s top envoy Wang Yi has pledged to play a key role in bringing peace to troubled global “hotspots,” and has repeatedly sent diplomats to the Middle East in recent years.

    Beijing has also called for an end to the “collective punishment” of Palestinian civilians by Israel.

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    Beijing likely reevaluating

    Chinese diplomats brokered a truce between Fatah, Hamas and other rival Palestinian factions earlier this year, but has yet to succeed in helping to facilitate the emergence of a unity government, despite repeated rounds of diplomatic efforts, Reuters reported.

    Its support for Assad, however, was largely based on its view of the Syrian resistance as being instigated by the United States and its allies, and its alignment with Iran and Russia, something that Beijing may now be reevaluating, analysts said.

    “Beijing wants to expand its influence in the Middle East, and Syria was an important foothold for it to do that,” U.S.-based current affairs commentator Heng He told RFA Mandarin in a recent interview.

    “This is at the very least a huge setback for the Chinese Communist Party’s desire to boost its influence … by winning allies or supporting certain forces in the Middle East,” he said.

    But as Assad and his family arrive in Moscow, where they will reportedly be granted political asylum, China’s bet doesn’t appear to have paid off, according to Hudson Institute researcher Zineb Riboua.

    “I think China is realizing that the costs of its of its alignment with Iran and Russia in the Middle East are high because they really relied on Iran to to expand their influence,” Riboua said. “It is by being Iran’s closest friend that China was able to broker a deal, a normalization deal, with Saudi Arabia.”

    “It is really by being close to Iran that China was able to say to everyone that it can handle the Yemen question. This is why they try to do some mediation and diplomatic missions in Yemen,” she said.

    “But it seems that now that Assad fell, that all that everything that Iran has tried to achieve in terms of influence and also in terms of nourishing its proxies across the Middle East is vanishing.”

    She said she expects Beijing to distance itself from Tehran in the future, and adjust its Middle East strategy to reflect Turkey’s status as “a real regional power.”

    China seeks to build ties with anti-Western authoritarian and totalitarian regimes including Iran and the Assad regime in Syria, Riboua said.

    “I would say that China made the wrong bet, and it’s going to pay a certain price for it,” she said.

    Beijing has said it remains open-minded about recognition for a future Syrian government.

    “The future and destiny of Syria should be decided by the Syrian people,” foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told journalist on Dec. 9. “We hope that all parties concerned will find a political solution to restore stability and order as soon as possible.”

    Social media takes

    Meanwhile, social media comments about the issue focused on expectations of Israel’s further expansion into Syria and satirical comments about the failure of China’s foreign policy experts to predict the fall of Assad.

    “Hehe, the freedom of the Syrian people is over, for the next few decades at least,” commented @qinyuehanguan1900 from Chongqing. “Israel is far worse than any terrorist.”

    “We hereby announce to the world that, from now on, Jerusalem will be our southern capital, Damascus the capital and Tel Aviv our temporary residence,” @pingwaqingsheng from Beijing quoted an imaginary Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu as saying.

    “Do you all think this is over?” commented @tianyahuiguke from Beijing. “It’s only just getting started.”

    People take to the streets of Damascus, Syria, to celebrate the fall of the Assad regime, Dec. 8, 2024.
    People take to the streets of Damascus, Syria, to celebrate the fall of the Assad regime, Dec. 8, 2024.

    Comments also took aim at Li Shaoxian, dean of the China-Arab States Research Institute at Ningxia University, who said in a Dec. 4 interview with Phoenix TV that it was highly unlikely that anti-government forces would succeed in overthrowing the government.

    “How embarrassing!” said one comment on the story. “I could be an expert like him,” scoffed another.

    Heng said China’s international relations experts are typically hampered by their need to repeat the ruling Chinese Communist Party’s official line on everything, rather than taking a coldly analytical view of international developments.

    “Some experts … basically go along with the Chinese Communist Party line when commenting, rather than analyzing and judging based on the international situation,” he said, adding that many commentators are wary of being accused of bad-mouthing Beijing’s allies.

    “These misjudgments are political, based on their political position,” Heng said.

    While news coverage of the unfolding situation in Syria was widely available on Chinese social media on Tuesday, not everyone is being allowed to post anything they like about the situation in the Middle East, according to current affairs commentator Ji Feng, who has a background in the pro-democracy movement.

    “I [tried to] make a few posts about Assad today on WeChat,” Ji told RFA Mandarin. “Others can post about it, but I can’t.”

    He said plenty of people in his circle have opinions about the situation in Syria, which he saw as a displacement of their dissatisfaction with their own government, sentiments that are banned under strict online censorship.

    “The Assad issue is definitely an outlet for a lot of people,” he said.

    Translated by Luisetta Mudie.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Kitty Wang for RFA Mandarin.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • China hits US chipmaker Nvidia with antitrust investigation

    TAIPEI, Taiwan – China has opened an antitrust investigation into American chipmaker Nvidia, the world’s largest provider of processors that power artificial intelligence, weeks after the U.S. announced a semiconductor export control package against China.

    The U.S. package, curbing exports to 140 companies, was part of its latest major effort to block China’s access to and production of chips capable of advancing artificial intelligence for military purposes. China retaliated, tightening controls on the export of key raw materials to the U.S. and cautioning Chinese companies against buying American chips.

    The Chinese government believed Nvidia’s purchase of Israeli networking company Mellanox could violate its anti-monopoly laws, said China’s State Administration for Market Regulation in a statement on Monday, without specifying details. China approved the regulation in 2020.

    Nvidia had not responded to China’s announcement of its investigation at the time of publication, but its shares fell 2.2% in pre-market trading in New York.

    The announcement came a few days after Nvidia signed an agreement to establish an artificial intelligence research and development center in Vietnam, which is widely seen as an effort by the U.S. chipmaker to reduce its reliance on China, amid the tit-for-tat China-U.S. chip row.

    The Biden administration’s latest export controls were the third such round of restrictions on the sale of chips to China. The U.S. Commerce Department said the restrictions would slow China’s development of AI chips, which could, according to the U.S., be used to gain a military advantage.

    China’s Commerce Ministry said such restrictions would pose “a significant threat” to the stability of global supply chains.

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    Nvidia has been a key supplier of high-performance GPUs and AI chips to Chinese companies. In the July quarter of 2024, China accounted for approximately 12% of Nvidia’s revenue, amounting to about US$3.7 billion – a more than 30% increase from the previous year.

    Although Nvidia CEO Jenson Huang said in November that the chipmaker remained committed to maintaining its presence in mainland China, the U.S. chipmaker has also been eyeing ways to reduce its reliance on China.

    Apart from Vietnam, Nvidia has increased partnerships and investments in other Southeast Asian countries in recent years including Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore.

    Edited by RFA Staff.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Taejun Kang for RFA.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • INTERVIEW: An Ex-FBI agent helps unravel the mysteries of a spy swap

    A secret deal between the US and China announced in November allowed Chinese nationals to be freed in exchange for the release of several Americans imprisoned in China.

    One of the Chinese nationals who was freed, Xu Yanjun, had been serving a 20-year sentence. He had worked for China’s Ministry of State Security. One of the Americans in China, John Leung, reportedly an FBI informant, had been held in prison for three years. Two other Americans, Kai Li, also accused of providing information to the F.B.I., and Mark Swidan, a Texas businessman, were freed at the same time. In addition, Ayshem Mamut, the mother of human-rights activist Nury Turkel, and the two other Uyghurs were allowed to leave China. They all traveled on the same plane to the United States.

    Holden Triplett, the co-founder of a risk-management consultancy, Trenchcoat Advisors, has served as the head of the FBI office in Beijing and as director of counterintelligence at the National Security Council. Here, he weighs in on the high-stakes game of exchanging spies. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

    RFA: Spy swaps have a long history. What was it like in the past?

    Holden Triplett: During the Cold War, there were a lot of spy swaps. It’s kind of a normal way of interacting between two rival powers. But it was always Russia, or the Soviet Union, and the United States. It’s not something that China had typically engaged in in the past.

    RFA: Why would China, or any country, be interested in a spy swap?

    Holden Triplett: China would be very interested in getting back the individuals who’d worked for them. The longer they’re in prison in the U.S., the more chance they’re going to divulge information about what they’ve done. Also, the Chinese want to be able to say to the people who work for them, ‘Hey, we may put you in dangerous situations. But, don’t worry, if anything happens, we’ll get you back home.’ The down side for the Chinese, of course, is that it’s an implicit acknowledgement of what they’ve been doing. In the past, they’ve denied that they’re [engaged in espionage].

    RFA: And for the U.S?

    Holden Triplett: The idea is the same; We get our spies back. It’s more of a game, I guess you could say. There’s a bit more protection for spies than for others. They get arrested, but they don’t serve time. And so, spying on each other is made into a regularized affair.

    My concern is that the Chinese say, ‘Now that we’ve established this kind of exchange, people for people, now all we need to know to do now is pick up some more Americans and arrest them.’ Then, the Chinese can try and bargain with the U.S. for their release.

    We’ve already seen that in Russia with Brittney Griner [an American basketball player who was imprisoned in Russia]. Look at who the Russians got back – Viktor Bout [a Russian arms dealer found guilty of conspiring to kill Americans].

    The Russians have wanted him for decades. Nothing against Ms. Griner, but that is a pretty easy decision-making process. They pick up somebody who has star power, and they can get someone they want back. If China’s gotten that message, then Americans should be concerned about going to China. They could become a chip in a larger geopolitical game. There’s a possibility that they could get arrested and end up in a nightmare jail.

    RFA: Well, they say you’re not supposed to negotiate with –

    Holden Triplett: – with terrorists. Look, I think the U.S. is in a really difficult place. There’s pressure on the U.S. government from the families to get them back.

    RFA: Several Uyghurs were also released. What is the significance of that?

    Holden Triplett: I would assume the Chinese got something for this. They’re very transactional. They’re not doing something for the good of the relationship between the U.S. and China.

    RFA: It didn’t seem as though John Leung, who’d been held in a Chinese prisoner, was an important asset for the FBI. What do you think was behind this?

    Holden Triplett: I don’t know what role he played for the FBI, or even if that’s true. But regardless, the message from the bureau is: Don’t worry. Even if you’re doing dangerous work, we will protect you. We will come and get you.

    Edited by Jim Snyder.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Tara McKelvey.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Two years on, Chinese carry ‘painful’ memories of COVID lockdowns

    At the 20th party congress in October 2022, ruling Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping made it clear to the country that his hugely unpopular zero-COVID restrictions, including grueling lockdowns and the mass testing, tracking and quarantining of citizens, would remain in place for the foreseeable future.

    Just a few weeks later, young people holding up blank sheets of paper started gathering in their thousands in public places and university campuses across China, sparked by a fatal lockdown fire in Xinjiang’s regional capital Urumqi, calling on Xi to step down and amid growing calls for pandemic restrictions to end.

    Within days, a new policy had been announced, and authorities across the country began abandoning Xi’s pet policy, lifting quarantine requirements and travel bans in a bid to rescue the country’s flagging economy.

    Two years after the easing of restrictions, many who were there still have vivid memories of being sealed up in their apartments, and of the wave of COVID-19 infections and deaths that ripped through the country once restrictions were lifted.

    Guo Bin was living at his parents’ home in the northeastern city of Changchun in 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic emerged in Wuhan and spread around the country and to the rest of the world.

    Graphic showing Guo Bin, who was trapped in his parents' apartment in Changchun, capital of northern China's Jilin province, amid a lockdown during the Chinese government's zero-COVID policy.
    Graphic showing Guo Bin, who was trapped in his parents’ apartment in Changchun, capital of northern China’s Jilin province, amid a lockdown during the Chinese government’s zero-COVID policy.

    His father wasn’t allowed to leave the factory where he worked, while Guo and his mother were barricaded into their alleyway by police and local unemployed youths pressed into service to enforce isolation orders.

    Guo and his mother were left to get by on potatoes and cabbage, while they heard of elderly people who lived alone without internet access starving to death that winter.

    Their home province of Jilin was locked down for another month in the winter of 2021, just in time for Lunar New Year, he said.

    “I was depressed, in such a low mood,” Guo recalled of that time, drawing parallels with the Mao era of mass social controls. “I was exposed to propaganda every day that was similar to the Cultural Revolution.”

    “I was trapped in a few dozen square meters with no access to fresh air, freedom of movement or communication with the outside,” he said. “It wasn’t like being in prison; it was a prison.”

    Mask orders for prisoners

    Citizen journalist Fang Bin, who served three years in jail after blowing the whistle on the extent of the initial COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan in early 2020, endured strict restrictions in prison, too.

    “In prison, you had to wear a mask 24 hours a day,” Fang said. “You weren’t allowed to take it off even to sleep.”

    “Anyone not wearing one would be forced to stand for three hours every day.”

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    Former Inner Mongolia official Du Wen said the mask orders didn’t always protect prisoners.

    “A lot of people around us were dying, but the authorities wouldn’t admit it was COVID-19,” Du told RFA Mandarin in a recent interview. “Nobody dared to admit it.”

    “At one point, 350 people in the Hohhot No. 2 Prison had a fever, but they still didn’t admit it was COVID,” Du said. “Because if they did, everyone from the prison bureau to the director to the prison guards would be sanctioned [under the zero-COVID policy].”

    “Some people died because of this, and they said it was tuberculosis.”

    Waves of deaths

    When restrictions were eventually lifted, the timing meant that the newly emerged Omicron variant of COVID-19 ripped through the population, causing huge waves of deaths that have never been confirmed or fully reported, according to anecdotal evidence from funeral parlors and social statistics.

    At the peak of the wave, mortuaries and funeral homes in Beijing were overwhelmed, with a weeks-long backlog of bodies awaiting cremation.

    Infection control enforcers known as 'Dabai' enter a building at the Sunshine New City Phase III apartment complex during the COVID-19 pandemic in Changchun, capital of northern China's Jilin Province, 2021.
    Infection control enforcers known as ‘Dabai’ enter a building at the Sunshine New City Phase III apartment complex during the COVID-19 pandemic in Changchun, capital of northern China’s Jilin Province, 2021.

    Bodies piled up in hospitals and in people’s homes awaiting cremation across China, as funeral homes recruited more staff to transport the dead.

    Overseas researchers estimated that cases peaked at 4.8 million a day with 62 million infections predicted across the Lunar New Year holiday of 2023.

    Fang Bin remembers that time well.

    “I was in the Jiang’an District Detention Center, and masks were no longer being worn, and everyone was infected,” Fang said. “More than 1,000 people in the detention center were infected.”

    Guo, who has since fled the country, said China should learn the lesson that cover-ups never help an emerging public health crisis.

    “Politics always comes first, rather than human life,” he said. “I hope we can all remember these ridiculous, absurd, painful, sad and random stories, and the suffering we have been through as a nation.”

    He said if the government had listened to whistleblowers like Wuhan doctor Li Wenliang instead of suppressing them, the outcome could have been very different.

    “We owe the world an explanation,” Guo said. “An apology, or at least some self-reflection.”

    Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Roseanne Gerin.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Qian Lang and Hsia Hsiao-hwa for RFA Mandarin.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • German carmaker Volkswagen announced it will cease operations in Xinjiang, China


    This content originally appeared on Human Rights Watch and was authored by Human Rights Watch.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Hong Kong officials learn neighborhood surveillance from China

    Hong Kong is sending district councilors and other local officials to mainland China to learn how the ruling Chinese Communist Party uses local networks of volunteers to monitor the population and target potential unrest before it happens.

    China’s “red armband” brigade of state-sanctioned busybodies have been dubbed the biggest intelligence network on the planet by social media users, and have supplied information that has also led police to crack major organized crime, according to state media.

    Neighborhood committees in China have long been tasked with monitoring the activities of ordinary people in urban areas, while its grid management system turbo-charges the capacity of officials even in rural areas to monitor what local people are doing, saying and thinking.

    These local forms of surveillance and social control are known in Chinese political jargon as the “Fengqiao Experience.”

    Now, it looks as if Hong Kong will be adopting similar measures, according to the city’s Secretary for Home and Youth Affairs, Alice Mak, who confirmed that 18 local officials had already been to the eastern province of Zhejiang to study the system.

    “Through classroom study and on-the-spot understanding of the practical methods of the Fengqiao Experience … district councilors understand that regional governance requires strengthening communication with citizens, understanding their emergencies, difficulties and worries, as well as the early detection and resolution of citizens’ problems,” Mak told the Legislative Council on Wednesday.

    She said the Fengqiao Experience will be implemented in Hong Kong by newly introduced “care teams,” and that further training is in the pipeline.

    Former pro-democracy District Councilor Cheung Man-lung.
    Former pro-democracy District Councilor Cheung Man-lung.

    In July 2021, China empowered local officials at township, village and neighborhood level to enforce the law, as well as operating a vastly extended “grid management” system of social control in rural and urban areas alike.

    According to directives sent out in 2018, the grid system carves up neighborhoods into a grid pattern with 15-20 households per square, with each grid given a dedicated monitor who reports back on residents’ affairs to local committees.

    Hong Kong’s care teams are also expected to help the authorities inform the public, as well as reporting the views of the public to the government, according to a 2022 document announcing their deployment.

    Detecting grievances

    Current affairs commentator Johnny Lau said the ongoing crackdown on public dissent under two national security laws isn’t enough for the authorities, who want to nip any signs of potential unrest in the bud.

    “The authorities are taking the big-picture view that there will be a lot of public grievances given the current economic problems,” Lau told RFA Cantonese in a recent interview. “It’s clear that more grassroots work will have to be done to prevent any outbreak of such grievances.”

    He said the District Councils, which now contain only members judged “patriotic” following recent changes in the electoral system, will be the mainstay of the new approach, with the care teams staying in touch with local residents in neighborhoods.

    But he said there are also plenty of technological options for keeping an eye on what people are up to.

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    Former pro-democracy District Councilor Cheung Man-lung said the care teams won’t necessarily be effective if people don’t trust them, however.

    “Community work is always based on public trust in those in positions of responsibility,” Cheung said. “If people don’t trust them, then there’ll be a lot of problems [with this approach].”

    Cheung said he hasn’t seen much of his local care team, despite the bursting of a water main in his neighborhood recently.

    Chief Executive John Lee, who was “elected” unopposed following changes to the electoral rules in 2022, first announced the establishment of care teams in his October policy address of that year, saying they would “take part in community-building” across Hong Kong’s 18 districts.

    The government would carve up districts into sub-districts, and seek to engage local organizations and groups, including young people and ethnic minorities to take part in community building, he said.

    The first care teams, chosen for their patriotism and willingness to follow the government’s lead, were deployed in Tsuen Wan and Southern districts in 2023.

    The government changed the rules governing District Council election after the 2019 poll resulted in a landslide victory for pro-democracy candidates that was widely seen as a ringing public endorsement for the pro-democracy movement despite months of disruption and clashes.

    Translated by Luisetta Mudie.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Wei Sze and Dawn Yu for RFA Cantonese.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Northern Marianas leaders meet Taiwan President Lai Ching-te in Guam

    By Mark Rabago, RNZ Pacific Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas correspondent

    Northern Marianas Governor Arnold Palacios and Senator Celina Babauta have travelled to Guam to attend a luncheon with Taiwan President Lai Ching-te.

    Taiwan is officially known as the Republic of China (Taiwan). China claims Taiwan as its own territory, with no right to state-to-state ties, a position Taiwan strongly disputes.

    Palacios welcomed the opportunity to meet Lai and said this could pave the way for improved relations with the East Asian country.

    “This meeting is an opportunity for the CNMI to foster relations with allies in the region.”

    When asked if meeting the President would upset the People’s Republic of China, which considers Taiwan a rogue state and part of its territory, Palacios said: “As far as being in the crosshairs of China, we already are in many ways.”

    Worldwide, a dozen countries maintain formal diplomatic ties with Taipei.

    In January, Nauru cut ties with Taiwan and shifted its diplomatic allegiance to Beijing.

    Reconnecting bonds
    Babauta, meanwhile, said she was deeply humbled and honoured to be invited to have lunch with Lai and Chia-Ching Hsu, Lai’s Minister of the Overseas Community Affairs Council.

    “I am looking forward to connecting and discussing opportunities to strengthen the bond between our two regions and explore how we can create new avenues for our mutual benefit and prosperity, particularly by leveraging our Jones Act waiver,” she said.

    “We must turn our economy around. This is an opportunity I could not pass up on.”

    Babauta said she asked Lai if she could also make a stopover to the CNMI, but his busy schedule precluded that.

    “I am assured that he will plan a visit to the CNMI in the near future.”

    The luncheon, which is part of Taiwan’s “Smart and Sustainable Development for a Prosperous Austronesian Region” program, will be held at the Grand Ballroom, Hyatt Regency Guam at noon Thursday and is expected to also have Guam Governor Lou Leon Guerrero and other island leaders.

    Lai has previously visited Hawai’i as part of his US tour, one that has elicited the ire of the government of the People’s Republic of China.

    Summit ends dramatically
    Earlier this year, the Pacific Islands Forum leaders’ summit ended dramatically when China demanded the conference communiqué be changed to eliminate a reference to Taiwan.

    The document had made a reference to the Forum reaffirming its relations to Taiwan, which has been a development partner since 1992.

    But the Chinese Ambassador to the Pacific Qian Bo was furious and the document was rewritten.

    Reports say China’s Foreign Ministry has “strongly condemned” US support for Lai’s visit to the US, and had lodged a complaint with the United States.

    It earlier also denounced a newly announced US weapons sale to Taiwan.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.


    This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • China, Philippines trade accusations over South China Sea confrontation | Radio Free Asia (RFA)


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Radio Free Asia.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • China, Philippines trade accusations over South China Sea confrontation | Radio Free Asia (RFA)

    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Radio Free Asia.

  • ‘Respect our sovereignty’: Palau tells China ahead of Taiwan president’s Pacific tour

    TAIPEI, Taiwan – President Surangel Whipps Jr. urged China to respect Palau’s sovereignty and international law, just days ahead of a contentious visit by Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te.

    Lai is visiting Palau, along with the Marshall Islands and Tuvalu – three of Taipei’s 12 remaining diplomatic allies – as part of a Pacific tour that has triggered fierce criticism in Beijing. China regards Taiwan as a renegade province that must be reunited, by force if necessary.

    Whipps said Lai’s visit would cement a strong 25-year relationship that will continue growing despite China’s opposition.

    “One of the things that China needs to understand is that they should respect our sovereignty and our decision to choose who our friends are,” he told BenarNews in an interview on Monday. “I think if you want to be a partner with Palau, a friend of Palau, you don’t do it by force.”

    China has courted Pacific island nations for the past two decades as it seeks to isolate Taipei from its allies, gain influence in international institutions and challenge U.S. dominance.

    Palau’s refusal to abandon Taiwan has led to what Whipps described as “unfriendly behaviour” from China.

    Whipps has accused China of starving Palau’s tourism-dependent economy of visitors and being behind a major cyberattack this year in which more than 20,000 documents were stolen.

    Last month, he said Chinese research vessels made two illegal incursions into Palau’s exclusive economic zone.

    “That’s another example of [China] not respecting the rule of law, not respecting boundaries,” he said. “These are the types of activities that don’t lend to friendly relations.”

    Taiwan President Lai Ching-te (center) greets people at a hotel in Honolulu at the start of his Pacific visit including to Palau, Marshall Islands and Tuvala.
    Taiwan President Lai Ching-te (center) greets people at a hotel in Honolulu at the start of his Pacific visit including to Palau, Marshall Islands and Tuvala.

    ‘Encourage investment’

    Whipps said he hoped Lai’s visit would unlock new opportunities for investment in areas such as tourism, aquaculture, agriculture, renewable energy and marine transportation.

    “We want to encourage investment and this is something that we hope for during President Lai’s visit,” he said.

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    Another initiative that would be discussed would be joint maritime rescue operations and patrols, he added.

    Palau, which is between the Philippines and the U.S. territory of Guam – a base for U.S. bombers – is one of three Pacific island nations including the Marshall Islands and Federated States of Micronesia that give the U.S. exclusive military access to their territories in exchange for economic assistance under compacts of free association.

    They have among the world’s largest exclusive economic zones and militarily strategic seas near East Asia, a region of potential flashpoints in China-U.S. competition.

    The U.S. military presence is set to grow in Palau with the installation of an over-the-horizon radar by 2026. The U.S. Marine Corps is also expanding a Japanese World War II-era runway on the island of Peleliu.

    Whipps, who won a second term in office after an election last month, said Palau’s close ties with the U.S, Taiwan and Japan were important in securing a free and open Pacific.

    He said certain Chinese actions were stoking regional tension, including its activities towards the Philippines in and around disputed shoals in the South China Sea.

    Whipps also criticised China’s test-firing of an intercontinental ballistic missile, without warning, into the Pacific Ocean in September as a “clear violation of common decency and respect for nations.”

    BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news service.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Harry Pearl for BenarNews.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • US targets China’s chip industry with new export controls

    TAIPEI, Taiwan – The United States announced a new semiconductor export control package against China, curbing exports to 140 companies, its latest major effort to block China’s access to and production of chips capable of advancing artificial intelligence for military purposes.

    China has intensified its efforts to achieve self-sufficiency in the semiconductor sector in recent years, driven by export restrictions on advanced chips and manufacturing tools imposed by the U.S. and other countries. Despite this push, China still lags significantly behind the leading players in the chip industry.

    The new package includes curbs on China-bound shipments of high bandwidth memory chips and new curbs on 24 additional chipmaking tools and three software tools, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security on Monday.

    The bureau also established new foreign direct product controls for certain semiconductor manufacturing equipment items that originate in foreign countries, but are produced with U.S. technology, software or tools.

    While equipment produced in countries such as Israel, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan will be subject to the rule, Japan and the Netherlands will be exempt.

    “This action is the culmination of the Biden-Harris Administration’s targeted approach, in concert with our allies and partners, to impair the PRC’s ability to indigenize the production of advanced technologies that pose a risk to our national security,” said Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, referring China to its official name, the People’s Republic of China.

    Chinese firms facing new restrictions include nearly two dozen semiconductor companies, two investment companies and more than 100 chipmaking tool makers, including Naura Technology Group, Piotech, ACM Research and SiCarrier Technology as well as Swaysure Technology, Si’En Qingdao, and Shenzhen Pensun Technology, which work with China’s Huawei Technologies.

    China vowed to take “resolute measures” in response to the new export curbs.

    “We have repeatedly made clear our position on this issue. China firmly opposes the U.S.’ overstretching the concept of national security, abusing export controls, and maliciously blocking and suppressing China,” foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian told a press briefing.

    “This type of behavior seriously violates the laws of market economy and the principle of fair competition, disrupts international economic and trade order, destabilizes global industrial and supply chains, and will eventually harm the interests of all countries,” he added.

    Tough policy stance on China

    The restrictions come as the U.S. President Joe Biden is set to leave office on Jan. 20 with President-elect Donald Trump expected to adopt a tough policy stance on China.

    Trump said last month he would impose an additional 10% tariff on all products coming into the U.S. from China on his first day in office as penalties for deadly fentanyl and illegal immigrants, which he said were pouring across borders into the U.S.

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    Separately, on Saturday, the president-elect threatened to impose 100% tariffs on the BRICS nations if they were to create a rival currency to the U.S. dollar.

    BRICS is an intergovernmental organization comprising nine countries, including China and Russia.

    “We require a commitment from these countries that they will neither create a new Brics currency nor back any other currency to replace the mighty US dollar or they will face 100% tariffs and should expect to say goodbye to selling into the wonderful US economy,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social.

    Trump’s election victory sparked concern in China, where many expect the next president to take a tougher stand than his predecessor, particularly on trade and economic issues, with negative repercussions for an already struggling Chinese economy.

    Edited by RFA Staff.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Taejun Kang for RFA.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Kachin, Shan residents face hardships as China and Myanmar block trade

    Read a version of this story in Burmese.

    Closures along Myanmar’s shared border with China have cut off residents of Kachin and Shan states from humanitarian aid and sent the prices of goods skyrocketing, sources from the regions said Monday.

    Myanmar’s civil war in the aftermath of the military’s Feb. 1, 2021 coup d’etat prompted China to close all its border gates in Kachin state beginning on Oct. 19, and all border crossings in northern Shan state except for Muse township since July.

    Meanwhile, Myanmar’s junta has imposed restrictions on the transportation of goods to Kachin state from the country’s heartland, as the rebel Kachin Independence Army, or KIA, now controls all 11 of the state’s border gates with China, including the major trade checkpoints of Kan Paik Ti and Lwegel townships.

    In Shan state, the junta has also restricted the transportation of goods from Muse to areas of the state under the control of ethnic armed groups.

    The restrictions have left residents of the two border areas, and especially civilians displaced by fighting, feeling the squeeze, sources told RFA Burmese.

    A civilian sheltering in the Jay Yang camp for the displaced near Kachin’s Laiza township, where the KIA’s headquarters is located, said that between the border closures and junta restrictions on goods transported from the Kachin town of Bhamo and the state capital Myitkyina, “the situation has become dire.”

    “Residents are enduring severe hardships,” he said. “We are facing an uncertain and bleak future.”

    The displaced civilian said that the price of food items in Kachin state has risen dramatically, making it difficult for camp residents to afford basic necessities.

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    Nearly all prices have doubled since the border closures, he said, with eggs at 1,000 kyats from 400; a viss (3.5 pounds) of pork at 50,000 kyats from 20,000; a viss of fish at 30,000 kyats from 15,000; a viss of chicken at 40,000 kyats from 20,000; a viss of beef at 60,000 kyats from 30,000; a viss of potatoes at 10,000 kyats from 6,000; and a cup of chili peppers at 3,000 kyats from 1,500.

    Meanwhile, a liter (.26 gallon) of cooking oil now costs 25,000 kyats, up from 10,000, and a liter of gasoline costs 15,000 kyats, up from 7,000.

    At the time of publishing, the official exchange rate was 2,100 kyats to the U.S. dollar, while the black market exchange rate was 4,300 kyats per dollar.

    Prior to the border closures, relief groups had been providing camps for the displaced with rice, oil, salt and chickpeas, but now can only distribute around 30,000 kyats per person, camp residents told RFA.

    Displaced suffer shortages

    Residents said that since the KIA seized the Kan Paik Ti border gate on Nov. 20 and Chinese authorities shut down the crossing, food prices had increased in Myitkyina, and the Kachin capital is now enduring a fuel shortage.

    A resident of the Sha Eit Yang camp for the displaced, located in a KIA-controlled area along the border, told RFA that the gate closures had made life extremely difficult.

    “There is no work to earn money in the area near our camp, so we can only find jobs far away from the camp,” he said. “With all the border gates closed, we can’t earn any income.”

    People at the Muse border gate in Myanmar's Shan state wait to cross into China on Jan. 11, 2019.
    People at the Muse border gate in Myanmar’s Shan state wait to cross into China on Jan. 11, 2019.

    In Kachin state, more than 100,000 civilians have sought shelter in 160 camps following the fighting that began in 2021. Since the coup, the total number of displaced persons has risen to more than 200,000, according to aid workers. Around 40,000 displaced persons are taking refuge in around 20 camps in Kachin state along the Chinese border.

    Sin Yaung, the deputy head of the Wai Kyaing camp for the displaced near Laiza, told RFA that the longer the border gates remain closed, the more hardships residents will face.

    “If the closures persist, it will be very difficult to access food,” he said. “The closure of the border gates and restrictions on the transportation of goods have caused severe difficulties for residents.”

    Attempts by RFA to contact the junta’s spokesperson and social affairs minister for Kachin state, Moe Min Thein, and KIA information officer Colonel Naw Bu for more information went unanswered Monday.

    Transportation restrictions in Shan

    The junta has also blocked the transportation of food from Muse, which is under the control of the military, to rebel-occupied towns on the Myanmar-China border in northern Shan state, according to residents.

    A resident of Nam Hkam, which is under the control of the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, or TNLA, told RFA that no goods have gotten through from Muse since Nov. 27.

    “Residents are not allowed to carry food items by motorcycle and even vendors from Muse no longer come here,” he said. “Commodity prices have sharply increased. Tomatoes are now being sold for 20,000 kyats per viss here, whereas in Muse, one viss of tomatoes costs only 8,000 kyats.”

    A Chinese flag flies over the border wall between China and Myanmar in Ruili, west Yunnan province on Jan. 14, 2023.
    A Chinese flag flies over the border wall between China and Myanmar in Ruili, west Yunnan province on Jan. 14, 2023.

    Residents said that the TNLA has also blocked the transportation of fuel and food from Nam Hkam to Muse since Sunday, although TNLA spokeswoman Lway Yay Oo insisted that her group had imposed no restrictions on the flow of goods.

    RFA also tried to contact the junta’s spokesperson and economic minister for Shan state, Khun Thein, for comments on the commodity blockades, but he did not respond.

    Residents reported that restrictions have caused the prices of goods to “more than double” in Muse and Nam Hkam. Additionally, traders and drivers are out of work due to the closure of trade routes, traders in Muse told RFA.

    The restrictions imposed by China and Myanmar’s junta have impacted most of the nearly two million people who live in northern Shan state’s 20 townships, residents said.

    Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Matt Reed.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Burmese.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Kachin, Shan residents face hardships as China and Myanmar block trade

    Read a version of this story in Burmese.

    Closures along Myanmar’s shared border with China have cut off residents of Kachin and Shan states from humanitarian aid and sent the prices of goods skyrocketing, sources from the regions said Monday.

    Myanmar’s civil war in the aftermath of the military’s Feb. 1, 2021 coup d’etat prompted China to close all its border gates in Kachin state beginning on Oct. 19, and all border crossings in northern Shan state except for Muse township since July.

    Meanwhile, Myanmar’s junta has imposed restrictions on the transportation of goods to Kachin state from the country’s heartland, as the rebel Kachin Independence Army, or KIA, now controls all 11 of the state’s border gates with China, including the major trade checkpoints of Kan Paik Ti and Lwegel townships.

    In Shan state, the junta has also restricted the transportation of goods from Muse to areas of the state under the control of ethnic armed groups.

    The restrictions have left residents of the two border areas, and especially civilians displaced by fighting, feeling the squeeze, sources told RFA Burmese.

    A civilian sheltering in the Jay Yang camp for the displaced near Kachin’s Laiza township, where the KIA’s headquarters is located, said that between the border closures and junta restrictions on goods transported from the Kachin town of Bhamo and the state capital Myitkyina, “the situation has become dire.”

    “Residents are enduring severe hardships,” he said. “We are facing an uncertain and bleak future.”

    The displaced civilian said that the price of food items in Kachin state has risen dramatically, making it difficult for camp residents to afford basic necessities.

    RELATED STORIES

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    Nearly all prices have doubled since the border closures, he said, with eggs at 1,000 kyats from 400; a viss (3.5 pounds) of pork at 50,000 kyats from 20,000; a viss of fish at 30,000 kyats from 15,000; a viss of chicken at 40,000 kyats from 20,000; a viss of beef at 60,000 kyats from 30,000; a viss of potatoes at 10,000 kyats from 6,000; and a cup of chili peppers at 3,000 kyats from 1,500.

    Meanwhile, a liter (.26 gallon) of cooking oil now costs 25,000 kyats, up from 10,000, and a liter of gasoline costs 15,000 kyats, up from 7,000.

    At the time of publishing, the official exchange rate was 2,100 kyats to the U.S. dollar, while the black market exchange rate was 4,300 kyats per dollar.

    Prior to the border closures, relief groups had been providing camps for the displaced with rice, oil, salt and chickpeas, but now can only distribute around 30,000 kyats per person, camp residents told RFA.

    Displaced suffer shortages

    Residents said that since the KIA seized the Kan Paik Ti border gate on Nov. 20 and Chinese authorities shut down the crossing, food prices had increased in Myitkyina, and the Kachin capital is now enduring a fuel shortage.

    A resident of the Sha Eit Yang camp for the displaced, located in a KIA-controlled area along the border, told RFA that the gate closures had made life extremely difficult.

    “There is no work to earn money in the area near our camp, so we can only find jobs far away from the camp,” he said. “With all the border gates closed, we can’t earn any income.”

    People at the Muse border gate in Myanmar's Shan state wait to cross into China on Jan. 11, 2019.
    People at the Muse border gate in Myanmar’s Shan state wait to cross into China on Jan. 11, 2019.

    In Kachin state, more than 100,000 civilians have sought shelter in 160 camps following the fighting that began in 2021. Since the coup, the total number of displaced persons has risen to more than 200,000, according to aid workers. Around 40,000 displaced persons are taking refuge in around 20 camps in Kachin state along the Chinese border.

    Sin Yaung, the deputy head of the Wai Kyaing camp for the displaced near Laiza, told RFA that the longer the border gates remain closed, the more hardships residents will face.

    “If the closures persist, it will be very difficult to access food,” he said. “The closure of the border gates and restrictions on the transportation of goods have caused severe difficulties for residents.”

    Attempts by RFA to contact the junta’s spokesperson and social affairs minister for Kachin state, Moe Min Thein, and KIA information officer Colonel Naw Bu for more information went unanswered Monday.

    Transportation restrictions in Shan

    The junta has also blocked the transportation of food from Muse, which is under the control of the military, to rebel-occupied towns on the Myanmar-China border in northern Shan state, according to residents.

    A resident of Nam Hkam, which is under the control of the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, or TNLA, told RFA that no goods have gotten through from Muse since Nov. 27.

    “Residents are not allowed to carry food items by motorcycle and even vendors from Muse no longer come here,” he said. “Commodity prices have sharply increased. Tomatoes are now being sold for 20,000 kyats per viss here, whereas in Muse, one viss of tomatoes costs only 8,000 kyats.”

    A Chinese flag flies over the border wall between China and Myanmar in Ruili, west Yunnan province on Jan. 14, 2023.
    A Chinese flag flies over the border wall between China and Myanmar in Ruili, west Yunnan province on Jan. 14, 2023.

    Residents said that the TNLA has also blocked the transportation of fuel and food from Nam Hkam to Muse since Sunday, although TNLA spokeswoman Lway Yay Oo insisted that her group had imposed no restrictions on the flow of goods.

    RFA also tried to contact the junta’s spokesperson and economic minister for Shan state, Khun Thein, for comments on the commodity blockades, but he did not respond.

    Residents reported that restrictions have caused the prices of goods to “more than double” in Muse and Nam Hkam. Additionally, traders and drivers are out of work due to the closure of trade routes, traders in Muse told RFA.

    The restrictions imposed by China and Myanmar’s junta have impacted most of the nearly two million people who live in northern Shan state’s 20 townships, residents said.

    Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Matt Reed.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Burmese.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Indonesia’s maritime deal with China: Analysts worry on sovereignty issues

    Indonesia’s foreign minister on Monday responded to concerned lawmakers that a recent joint maritime development deal with China did not recognize Beijing’s claims in the South China Sea, but analysts said his explanations were a weak justification for a serious error.

    A joint statement issued after a meeting last month in Beijing between new Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto and Chinese President Xi Jinping said the two countries had reached an “important common understanding on joint development in areas of overlapping claims.”

    However, Jakarta had consistently rejected China’s sweeping claims in the contested South China Sea, which encroaches into Indonesia’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) north of the Natuna islands.

    During a parliamentary hearing on Monday, Indonesian legislator Sukamta said these Chinese claims, which are represented on its maps by a so-called nine-dash line, are changed by Beijing as it pleases.

    “Previously it was nine dashes, now it’s 10,” said the legislator who goes by one name.

    “We must be firm in asserting our rights. … Without clear boundaries, we risk being manipulated by China,” he said.

    Sukamta called for more clarity on the geographical scope of the development agreement mentioned in the text of the joint statement issued after Prabowo met with Xi.

    China’s claims in the South China Sea overlap those of five Asian nations and Taiwan.

    And in what many analysts back then saw as a political message, Jakarta in 2017 renamed the southern reaches of the South China Sea the North Natuna Sea to emphasize its sovereignty over those waters encompassing natural gas fields.

    Another Indonesian lawmaker, Farah Puteri Nahlia, echoed Sukamta’s concerns.

    “We all understand that China is Indonesia’s key trading partner, but we should not become overly dependent,” Farah said.

    “What steps will the foreign ministry take to ensure we maintain our non-aligned stance? We must aim for not only free trade but fair trade, while safeguarding our EEZ amidst these tensions.”

    Indonesian Maritime Security Agency (Bakamla) patrol boat KN Tanjung Datu-301 (left) and Indonesian Navy corvette KRI Sutedi Senoputra (right) shadow the China Coast Guard (CCG) 5402 ship to expel it from the North Natuna Sea in Indonesia's exclusive economic zone, Oct. 21, 2024.
    Indonesian Maritime Security Agency (Bakamla) patrol boat KN Tanjung Datu-301 (left) and Indonesian Navy corvette KRI Sutedi Senoputra (right) shadow the China Coast Guard (CCG) 5402 ship to expel it from the North Natuna Sea in Indonesia’s exclusive economic zone, Oct. 21, 2024.

    Already, during the first week of Prabowo’s presidency in October, Indonesian naval and coast guard ships confronted and expelled a Chinese coast guard ship from its EEZ in the North Natuna Sea on three occasions.

    China has in recent years also opposed Indonesia’s oil and gas exploration activities in its EEZ.

    This agreement comes amid escalating tensions in the South China Sea region, a crucial maritime route for global commerce.

    ‘50% of nothing is still nothing’

    Foreign Minister Sugiono responded to lawmakers’ concerns saying that the joint statement did not recognize China’s nine-dash line.

    “The text itself is clear – it does not imply any such recognition,” Sugiono, who goes by one name, told lawmakers.

    “The specifics, including the locations and terms of the cooperation, have not yet been defined. This is merely a preliminary agreement and the details will be worked out later.”

    He also said joint cooperation was President Prabowo’s plan “as part of efforts to reduce tensions and maximize resource utilization,” and had been discussed with leaders of neighboring countries.

    “The core principle is that President Prabowo has directed us to enhance cooperation with our neighboring countries for mutual benefit, while upholding Indonesia’s sovereignty,” Sugiono said.

    He said Indonesia’s position on sovereignty remained unchanged, noting that the joint development agreement would be guided by international law and Indonesia’s interests.

    “Indonesia’s stance remains unchanged, as do the positions of its neighbors. However, the principle stands: 50% of nothing is still nothing,” Sugiono further said.

    “If there is no way to derive benefit from these resources for our nation’s interests, it is better to collaborate while strictly adhering to fundamental principles and maintaining sovereignty.”

    ‘Little room for multiple interpretations’

    For foreign policy analyst Mohamad Rosyidin, these explanations from Sugiono did not explain the crux of the problem – why the joint statement included the phrase “overlapping claims.”

    “The statement is merely an excuse for the blunder in the joint statement. It’s unlikely the government will admit to that mistake,” Rosyidin, of Diponegoro University, told BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated news service.

    “Just because we want to collaborate with China in the South China Sea doesn’t mean Indonesia should shift from a rule-based approach to pragmatism.”

    The Indonesian government should remain consistent with the nation’s stance on the South China Sea, he said.

    “The real problem is that Chinese vessels frequently enter Natuna waters. However, this does not mean there is an overlapping claim; it is a violation of sovereignty by China.”

    Another international relations analyst, Muhammad Waffaa Kharisma, concurred.

    “I am among those who believe there is little room for multiple interpretations of the joint statement between President Prabowo and President Xi Jinping regarding overlapping claims,” he told BenarNews.

    “Regardless of how it is responded to or justified, I see the initial phrasing in the agreement as a concession by Indonesia, yielding or compromising with China.”

    He said the problematic text could have an effect on Indonesia, if not immediately then in the near future.

    “Whether intentional or not is a secondary matter. Intentional or not, there will be impacts on Indonesia’s sovereign rights. … especially if there are no serious efforts for reversal through follow-up measures or statements,” he said.

    Such a concession may ease any tensions between Indonesia and China, but it strengthens Beijing’s hand and gives the impression Jakarta is yielding to the major power, he said.

    “Currently, the foreign minister and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs are in damage-control mode. The potential for conflict and unilateral claims are two sides of the same coin,” he said.

    “The only positive aspect is that the initiative has not yet materialized, as mentioned by the foreign minister.”

    BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news service.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Pizaro Gozali Idrus for BenarNews.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Chinese women buy up sanitary products in Hong Kong amid safety fears

    Mainland Chinese shoppers are once more converging on stores in Hong Kong, but this time, they’re not in search of infant formula, clean cooking oil or Yakult probiotic drinks.

    They’re buying up large quantities of sanitary towels and other feminine care items, spurred by reports of contaminated and discolored cotton filling in similar products made just across the border in mainland China and sold in Chinese stores.

    “The quality’s more acceptable,” a resident of neighboring Guangzhou city shopping for sanitary products at one store in Hong Kong told Radio Free Asia in a recent interview. “I’m not so worried about using them because there are guaranteed standards.”

    “I wish Chinese state-owned enterprises and regulatory authorities would follow up on safety issues around Chinese sanitary towels,” said the woman, who gave only the surname Zhang for fear of reprisals.

    “I don’t buy them there anymore,” a woman who gave only the pseudonym Chen told RFA. “I only buy them here.”

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    More than 340 million women aged 15 to 49 use sanitary napkins in China, with sales of such products worth around 98 billion yuan, or US$13.4 billion.

    Yet many mainland Chinese women don’t trust feminine care products that are made in China.

    Chinese companies have been embroiled in a string of public health scandals affecting foodstuffs in recent years, including other incidents involving Sudan Red in foods, melamine-tainted milk, used “gutter” cooking oil and cadmium-tainted rice.

    Skimping on quality

    Women have been taking to social media in recent weeks to report quality issues in sanitary products made in mainland China, including reports of substandard cotton filling that has been recycled from questionable sources, is discolored or contaminated.

    A social media video last month showed one raw material supplier telling a blogger that the recycled material being sold as filling for sanitary towel manufacturers “came from diapers.”

    Another blogger cut open a Sanwu brand product on camera, finding “inexplicable black blobs and foreign objects” in the filling, including a human hair.

    Chinese manufacturers have also been accused of skimping on quality, including supplying sanitary towels that are several centimeters shorter than their advertised length.

    “It’s a hot topic on Douyin right now that some sanitary towels just aren’t long enough,” a Shenzhen resident who gave only the surname Shen for fear of reprisals told RFA in a recent interview. “Some have been said to be unhygienic, with filling that looks black when you shine a light on it.”

    Following social media complaints on Douyin and Xiaohongshu, government-backed media The Paper tested 24 different brands, finding that 88% of them were at least a centimeter (0.4 inches) shorter than advertised.

    Chinese industry standards allow a discrepancy of up to 4%, which would equate to about 10-15 millimeters, suggesting that the discrepancies may not be illegal.

    A worrying situation

    More worryingly, social media users carried out their own private laboratory tests on Chinese-made feminine care products, finding that many products currently on the market have excessive levels of bacteria, harmful chemicals or the wrong pH, and could be harmful to women, leading to health problems, including bacterial vaginitis and pelvic inflammatory disease.

    The reports prompted many women to take to social media in the hope of locating “safe” brands of sanitary products, spawning a wave of sellers on the social media platform claiming to have goods made in Hong Kong and Japan.

    Sanitary products sold in personal products stores like Hong Kong’s Watson’s are often made in Hong Kong or Japan, to far more stringent safety standards.

    In one social media video, a customer service representative of feminine products manufacturer ABC told a customer who complained: “If you don’t think this is acceptable, you don’t have to buy them.”

    The company’s products were later removed from the shelves of its Tmall flagship store following a social media outcry.

    A number of Chinese companies have made public apologies, while ABC has said that it is “deeply sorry” for its “inappropriate” customer service response, according to multiple media reports.

    Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Roseanne Gerin.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Wei Sze for RFA Cantonese.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • China slams Lithuania over expulsions amid cable-cutting row

    China on Monday slammed Lithuania’s expulsion of three of its nationals amid an ongoing row over the involvement of a Chinese-registered cargo vessel in the cutting of undersea internet cables in the Baltic Sea.

    The Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Friday declared three staff members of China’s representative office in the country, a type of diplomatic mission, as personae non gratae, citing alleged violations of the Vienna Convention outlining diplomatic law and Lithuanian legislation, and ordered them to leave the country within a week.

    Calling the move “brutal and provocative behavior,” China’s foreign ministry said Vilnius had previously expressed a desire to improve ties with Beijing, and expressed “strong condemnation.”

    The spat comes after questions were raised over the activities of a Chinese ship that was spotted near two undersea internet cables that were cut in the Baltic Sea on Nov. 17 and 18.

    The cable ship Ile de Brehat lays the C-Lion1 telecommunications cable in the Baltic Sea near Helsinki on Oct. 12, 2015.
    The cable ship Ile de Brehat lays the C-Lion1 telecommunications cable in the Baltic Sea near Helsinki on Oct. 12, 2015.

    While European officials haven’t made details of their investigations public, one of the undersea cables that was cut runs between Sweden and Lithuania.

    Social media users spotted the Chinese ship slightly slowing down and altering course as it crossed the 730-mile C-Lion 1 undersea cable connecting Finland and Germany and the 130-mile link between Sweden and Lithuania around the time that they were cut.

    Several media reports said the authorities in Sweden and Finland are investigating the suspected sabotage of two undersea fiber-optic cables in the Baltic Sea, with attention focusing on a Chinese-registered cargo ship, the Yi Peng 3.

    The ship was still anchored off Denmark on Monday, in close proximity to the German patrol vessel Bamberg, according to MarineTraffic.com.

    Foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning had said on Friday that Beijing was “willing to cooperate … to find out the truth” of the allegations.

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    But China hit out at Lithuania’s move on Monday.

    “China hopes that the new Lithuanian government will take concrete actions to abide by the political commitments made in the communiqué on the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries, adhere to the one-China principle, and push bilateral relations back on track,” foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian told a regular news briefing in Beijing on Monday.

    The state-run Global Times newspaper said Lithuania has already angered Beijing by switching ties in 2021 to democratic Taiwan, which China claims as “an inalienable part” of its territory.

    “Three years on since the downgrade of bilateral ties with China, Lithuania has again taken detrimental action that further exacerbates the relations,” the paper said in an editorial.

    “China calls on Lithuania to immediately stop undermining China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and stop creating difficulty for bilateral relations,”

    China reserves the right to take countermeasures against Lithuania, it quoted the country’s foreign ministry as saying.

    Translated by Luisetta Mudie.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by He Ping for RFA Mandarin.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • China denounces US arms sales to Taiwan, President Lai’s visit

    TAIPEI, Taiwan – China vowed to take “strong measures” following the decision by the United States to approve more arms sales to Taiwan, urging the U.S. to stop “sending out a wrong signal” to the island, hours before Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te made a transit through the state of Hawaii.

    The U.S. State Department approved the potential sale, worth an estimated US$385m, of spare parts and support for F-16 jets and radars to Taiwan, hours before Lai began his trip to three Pacific nations, with stops in Hawaii and the U.S. territory of Guam.

    “China urges the U.S. to immediately stop arming Taiwan and stop conniving at and supporting the ‘Taiwan independence forces’,” said China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a statement on Sunday.

    “It damages China-U.S. relations, endangers peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait … China will closely follow the developments and take resolute and strong measures to defend our nation’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

    China regards Taiwan as a renegade province that should be reunited with the mainland, by force if necessary. The democratic island has been self-governing since it effectively separated from mainland China in 1949 after the Chinese civil war.

    Despite their lack of formal diplomatic ties, the U.S. has long been a key supplier of arms to Taiwan and is bound by U.S. legislation, the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, to provide the island with arms for its defense.

    In a separate statement, the ministry said it “strongly condemned” the U.S. for “arranging” Lai’s stopover.

    Lai arrived on Saturday in Hawaii to begin a two-day transit in the U.S. as part of a trip to the South Pacific, his first since assuming office.

    “China firmly opposes any form of official contact between the United States and Taiwan, as well as any attempts by the leader of the Taiwanese authorities to visit the United States in any name or for any reason,” the Chinese ministry said, adding that it had “lodged serious protests with the U.S.”.

    In response, Taiwan’s foreign ministry stressed that Lai’s transit was “legitimate” and “normal”.

    “President Lai’s visits to diplomatic allies in the Pacific to strengthen diplomatic ties and his customary transit through the United States are all legitimate activities of the rights of a sovereign state,” the ministry said in a statement.

    “If China reacts in any extreme way to a normal visit by the President it will be an inappropriate act by China that undermines regional peace and stability, and will be condemned by the international community.”

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    Lai was given “red carpet treatment” on the tarmac when he arrived at Honolulu’s international airport, according to his office, which said it was the first time a Taiwanese president had been given such a welcome.

    He was met by Hawaii Governor Josh Green as well as Ingrid Larson, managing director in Washington of the American Institute in Taiwan.

    Lai visited the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbour and said the U.S. and Taiwan should “fight together to prevent war”.

    “Peace is priceless, and war has no winners,” he said.

    Lai also said he was “grateful” to the U.S. for its assistance in helping to ensure the success of the tour.

    Lai is on a weeklong trip to visit the Marshall Islands, Tuvalu and Palau, which are among the 12 countries that recognize Taiwan’s claim to statehood.

    Edited by RFA Staff.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Taejun Kang for RFA.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • China’s Ties With Israel Are Hindering the Palestinian Struggle for Freedom

    Over the past year, analysts and writers in the mainstream press as well as in some left-wing media have argued that China has upended its relationship with Israel in its defense of Palestine in the wake of October 7. But China’s relationship with Palestine is not so clear-cut: While it has offered moderate rhetorical criticism of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, China has maintained investments in…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • China jails journalist Dong Yuyu for 7 years for ‘spying’

    A court in Beijing on Friday handed down a seven-year jail term to prominent journalist and columnist Dong Yuyu after finding him guilty of “espionage” in a trial behind closed doors that ended in July 2023, his family and press associations said.

    The Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People’s Court announced the verdict and sentence in the trial of Dong, 62, on Friday, saying it was based on evidence of his “meetings with Japanese diplomats,” his family told Reuters in a statement.

    The Japanese diplomat Dong met with was also detained by police, and China’s foreign ministry hit out at “foreign personnel engaged in activities inconsistent with their status in China.”

    The U.S. National Press Club said Dong, the former deputy head of commentaries at ruling Communist Party newspaper the Guangming Daily, hasn’t been allowed to see or speak with his family since his arrest at Beijing restaurant in February 2022.

    Security was tight near the court building on Friday, with several police cars parked nearby and officers asking journalists to leave the area, Reuters reported.

    “Today’s verdict is a grave injustice not only to Yuyu and his family but also to every free-thinking Chinese journalist and every ordinary Chinese committed to friendly engagement with the world,” Dong’s family said in a statement sent to Reuters.

    The sentence was based on no evidence and “declares to the world the bankruptcy of the justice system in China,” the statement said.

    Commentator

    Espionage convictions in Chinese courts can result in sentences of 3-10 years in less severe cases, or life imprisonment in cases deemed more serious by the authorities.

    A pedestrian walks past Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People's Court, where former Chinese journalist Dong Yuyu received his verdict for espionage charges, in Beijing, China Nov. 29, 2024.
    A pedestrian walks past Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People’s Court, where former Chinese journalist Dong Yuyu received his verdict for espionage charges, in Beijing, China Nov. 29, 2024.

    Dong, who joined the Guangming Daily in 1987 but never became a Communist Party member, had a reputation for liberal commentaries, and was a former contributor to The New York Times‘ online Chinese edition.

    His opinion pieces ranged from legal reform to social issues, and often advocated moderate reforms, but steered clear of direct criticisms of China’s leadership, including President Xi Jinping.

    Dong wrote in a 2013 book review that the official view of the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution downplayed the ruling Chinese Communist Party’s responsibility for the decade of political turmoil. The article was investigated by the paper in 2017, and labeled “anti-socialist.”

    A graduate of Peking University law school, Dong regularly met with diplomats from various embassies and other journalists, Reuters reported.

    A Nieman Fellow at Harvard University in 2007, Dong had also been a visiting scholar and visiting professor at Keio University and Hokkaido University in Japan.

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    Hideo Tarumi, the former Japanese ambassador to Beijing who left his post in December 2023 amid deteriorating bilateral ties, wrote in his memoir that the diplomat who met with Dong had presented his passport and work permits, informing the police that his detention had violated the Vienna Convention because it breached his diplomatic immunity.

    A man reads an issue of the Guangming Daily newspaper at a public display window in Beijing, China, June 10, 2020.
    A man reads an issue of the Guangming Daily newspaper at a public display window in Beijing, China, June 10, 2020.

    Tarumi made an immediate protest to the foreign ministry, meeting with Assistant Foreign Minister Wu Jianghao, who told him that the meeting was “irregular.”

    Tarumi replied that Wu had misrepresented the meeting and objected strongly, with the support of the ambassadors of 13 other countries, according to his account. Eventually, the Japanese diplomat was released.

    Targeting Japanese diplomats

    A Beijing-based journalist who declined to be named said China intensified its surveillance of Japanese diplomatic missions following the incident, barring them from taking part in exchange activities as they normally would, and isolating them in their embassy and consulates.

    More than 700 journalists, academics and NGO workers have signed an online petition on Change.org calling for Dong’s release.

    Foreign diplomats, journalists and academics are now being scrutinized more closely by the Chinese authorities, and anyone who contacts them could potentially be accused of “espionage” in today’s political climate, the petition said.

    It said Chinese nationalists had called for the investigation of all former Nieman Fellows from China.

    The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists condemned Dong’s sentence.

    “CPJ condemns the sentencing of Chinese journalist Dong Yuyu to seven years in prison on espionage charges on Friday,” the group said via its X account.

    “The verdict is a travesty of justice and Dong Yuyu must be reunited with his family immediately.”

    Foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told a regular news briefing on Friday, when asked to comment on the sentence, that “Chinese judicial organs handle cases strictly in accordance with the law, and illegal and criminal activities will be investigated and prosecuted according to law.”

    Edited by Malcolm Foster.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Luisetta Mudie.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • China probes top military official for ‘serious violations’

    The ruling Chinese Communist Party has placed Miao Hua, a high-ranking defense official, under investigation for “serious violations of discipline,” a phrase often used to denote an internal party corruption probe.

    “Miao Hua, member of the Central Military Commission and director of the Political Work Department of the Military Commission, is suspected of serious violations of discipline,” defense spokesperson Col. Wu Qian told a news conference in Beijing on Thursday.

    “After research by the Party Central Committee, it has been decided to suspend Miao Hua from his duties pending investigation,” Wu said.

    The announcement came a day after the Financial Times newspaper reported that Admiral Dong Jun, who was named as successor to Li Shangfu in December 2023 after Li was fired for corruption, was himself being investigated for graft.

    Wu dismissed the report on Thursday as “pure fabrication and rumor with ulterior motives.”

    “China does not accept such reports,” he said, but gave no further details of the investigation into Miao Hua.

    Chinese Defense Minister Dong Jun attends the ASEAN China Defense Ministers' meeting in Vientiane, Laos, Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2024.
    Chinese Defense Minister Dong Jun attends the ASEAN China Defense Ministers’ meeting in Vientiane, Laos, Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2024.

    Current affairs commentator Cai Shenkun said Miao was taken away for investigation on Nov. 9, adding that Dong Jun is his former subordinate.

    “Dong Jun was put forward [for defense minister] by Miao Hua, who recommended him to Xi Jinping,” Cai told RFA Mandarin in an interview on Thursday. “There was a lot of controversy over his appointment, because he had only ever served in the navy, and had never fought on the front line.”

    He said any corruption on Dong Jun’s part was unlikely to be serious.

    “He has never worked in a particularly lucrative department, and naval cadres don’t have that much power anyway,” Cai said.

    He said if Dong was assisting party investigators with their inquiry, it would like be in the role of Miao’s former subordinate, and that close associates of Miao could fall with him.

    Refused to meet Austin

    A former admiral and commander of the Chinese navy, Dong was appointed minister of national defense in December 2023, replacing Li Shangfu who was removed in October 2023 after just seven months in office.

    The last time Dong appeared in public was on Nov. 21 when he attended the ASEAN Defense Ministers’ Meeting-Plus in Vientiane, Laos.

    Miao Hua, right, China's director of the political affairs department of the Central Military Commission arrives at the Pyongyang Airport in Pyongyang, North Korea Monday, Oct. 14, 2019.
    Miao Hua, right, China’s director of the political affairs department of the Central Military Commission arrives at the Pyongyang Airport in Pyongyang, North Korea Monday, Oct. 14, 2019.

    While holding talks with the defense chiefs of New Zealand, India, and Malaysia, as well as the ASEAN secretary-general, Dong refused a meeting with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.

    Beijing blamed it on Washington for undermining China’s “core interests” by providing weapons to Taiwan.

    A native of Shandong province from where Xi’s wife Peng Liyuan also hails, Dong –- as well as his predecessor Li Shangfu -– was believed to be appointed by Xi.

    Yet Dong wasn’t promoted to the Central Military Commission, the top military leadership of the Communist Party, nor was he appointed to the State Council, or the national cabinet.

    In China, defense ministers are usually members of both those bodies and Dong’s non-appointment had raised questions about his position.

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    Former ministers Li Shangfu and Wei Fenghe were expelled from the Communist Party for “grave discipline violations” such as taking bribes and causing great damage to the images of the party and its senior leaders, according to official statements.

    Series of sackings

    The investigation into Miao follows a slew of sackings at the highest levels of the People’s Liberation Army in recent months.

    Just after Dong was appointed, China expelled nine military officials from its parliament, including three former commanders or vice commanders of the PLA Rocket Force, one former Air Force chief and one Navy commander responsible for the South China Sea.

    Analysts said they believed that the expulsions were related to the corruption over equipment procurement by the rocket force.

    But they also link the purges to ongoing dissent within the Chinese military about its readiness to stage an invasion of democratic Taiwan, which has said it has no wish to submit to “peaceful unification” under Beijing’s territorial claim on the island.

    An academic who gave only the surname Song for fear of reprisals said Xi’s enthusiasm for an invasion may not be shared by actual military commanders, who fear China may not win such a war.

    “Even if the current boss [Xi] wants to attack Taiwan and work with Putin to change the global order for a century to come, real soldiers and generals know whether or not such a war can be won,” Song said. “The actual military commanders are the ones who know whether their forces are up to the fight, and whether the morale is there.”

    China's then-Minister of National Defence Li Shangfu salutes the audience before delivering a speech during the 20th Shangri-La Dialogue summit in Singapore on June 4, 2023.
    China’s then-Minister of National Defence Li Shangfu salutes the audience before delivering a speech during the 20th Shangri-La Dialogue summit in Singapore on June 4, 2023.

    “The last two defense ministers, Wei Fenghe and Li Shangfu, were removed because they knew it couldn’t be won, and mustn’t be fought,” he said. “That, I think, is the most important reason.”

    China froze top-level military talks and other dialogue with the U.S. in 2022 after then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi became the highest-ranking U.S. official in 25 years to visit Taiwan.

    The island has never been ruled by the Chinese Communist Party, nor formed part of the People’s Republic of China, and its 23 million people have no wish to give up their sovereignty or democratic way of life to be ruled by Beijing, according to recent opinion polls.

    China, which hasn’t ruled out an invasion to force reunification, was infuriated by the Pelosi visit and canceled military-to-military talks, including contacts between theater-level commanders.

    President Joe Biden persuaded his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, to resume contacts in November 2023, when they met on the sidelines of an APEC summit in Woodside, California.

    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.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Beijing tests bilateral waters with US prisoner exchange

    Three Americans who Washington says were wrongfully imprisoned in China have landed back on U.S. soil as part of a rare prisoner swap with Beijing, in a move analysts said could signal China’s willingness to do further deals with the incoming Trump administration.

    Mark Swidan, of Houston, Texas, Kai Li, of Long Island, New York, and John Leung, a permanent resident of Hong Kong, have been reunited with their families for the first time in years in time for Thanksgiving, Nov. 28 this year, ABC News reported.

    Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he spoke to Li, Leung and Swidan while they were en route back home.

    “I told them how glad I was that they were in good health and that they’ll soon be reunited with their loved ones,” Blinken said via his X account.

    While the State Department didn’t reveal more details about the deal, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning confirmed that three Chinese citizens had also been returned.

    “Three Chinese citizens who were wrongly detained by the United States have returned to their motherland safely,” Mao told a regular news conference in Beijing on Thursday.

    “China has always firmly opposed the U.S.’s suppression and persecution of Chinese citizens for political purposes and will, as always, take necessary measures to firmly safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese citizens,” she said.

    Accused of spying

    Reports named one of the Chinese nationals as Xu Yanjun, an official in the Chinese Ministry of State Security who became the first Chinese spy to be extradited to the United States following his arrest in Belgium in 2018.

    A jury found Xu guilty in 2021 of attempting to steal designs for an engine fan from Ohio-based GE Aviation. Department of Justice officials said it was part of an organized effort by Beijing to “modernize” its own economy by stealing U.S. technology.

    The plane with three American citizens, Mark Swidan, Kai Li and John Leung, who were imprisoned for years by China, arrives at Joint Base San Antonio Lackland, in San Antonio, Wednesday, Nov. 27, 2024.
    The plane with three American citizens, Mark Swidan, Kai Li and John Leung, who were imprisoned for years by China, arrives at Joint Base San Antonio Lackland, in San Antonio, Wednesday, Nov. 27, 2024.

    Another was identified as Ji Chaojun, a former graduate student was sentenced in Chicago to eight years in prison for spying for China in January 2023, according to multiple media reports.

    Mao declined to identify the returned Chinese nationals, but said a “fugitive” from Chinese justice had also been returned to the custody of the Chinese authorities, warning that the ruling Communist Party would “continue to pursue fugitives … to the end.”

    Sending a signal?

    Yang Haiying, a professor at Japan’s Shizuoka University, said such prisoner exchanges are rare for China, and could be intended to send a signal to the incoming Trump administration.

    “Maybe China is trying to test Trump, whether he will want to do various kinds of deals with China in future,” Yang said, describing the swap as a form of “hostage trading.”

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    If that works, then maybe China and the United States can make bigger deals in future, including trade deals, political deals, and agreements on international issues like the South China Sea,” he said. “I think they are sending that signal.”

    Current affairs commentator Guo Min said the swap was undoubtedly in Beijing’s interest at this time.

    “China regards some of its people as so-called patriots for propaganda purposes, saying that the Chinese government has made great efforts to protect patriots and successfully returned them to China,” Guo said.

    “Everything the Chinese government does is based on political considerations,” he said.

    The U.S. State Department on Wednesday downgraded its travel advisory for China from Level 3 (reconsider travel) to Level 2 (exercise extreme caution).

    The advisory now warns U.S. citizens of the possibility of “arbitrary enforcement of local laws” in mainland China, Macau and Hong Kong, with the possibility of exit bans in mainland China.

    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.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • China debuted a new fighter plane. How does it compare to the F-35?

    When it debuted at an air show in Zhuhai, China, earlier this month, the J-31 fighter plane made an impression.

    Produced by a Chinese aviation company, Shenyang, the new jet took more than a decade to build- and bears more than a passing resemblance a U.S. fighter, the F-35, made by Lockheed Martin.

    As the U.S. Air Force’s chief of staff, David Allvin, told Air & Space Forces Magazine, the similarities between the two aircraft were striking. Both models have silver-grey wings, a pointed nose and a smooth, slicked-back design. Though made in two different countries, they looked as if they came from the same factory. If you were to put the two jets side-by-side, said Allvin, you could practically see where they both “got their blueprints.”

    That in itself is an achievement for the Chinese military, which has for years struggled to compete with the U.S. military advances. Still, there are differences between the two aircraft.

    The Chinese-made J-31 is more svelte than the American jet—despite the fact that the Chinese model has two engines, while the U.S.-made F-35 has one.

    Chinese designers may have chosen to build their aircraft with two engines to give the jet more power, says Douglas Royce, a senior aircraft analyst with the Sandy Hook, Connecticut-based research company, Forecast International.

    But the design could have also been chosen for a more primitive reason: the second engine could serve as a backup in case of mission failure.

    “Maybe they have less faith in the reliability of the aircraft,” says Greg Malandrino, a former U.S. fighter pilot now at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

    Chinese pilots will have to make do with a smaller workspace than American F-35 pilots, according to Boyko Nikolov, the head of a media company Bulgarian Military. The U.S. fighter jet’s cockpit is cushier, roomier, with a bigger canopy, while the Chinese plane’s cockpit reflects “a more utilitarian approach to pilot ergonomics,” according to Nikolov.

    A Chinese J-35A fighter, top, and an American F-35.
    A Chinese J-35A fighter, top, and an American F-35.

    Malandrino, says he did not notice any significant differences in the design of the two cockpits. Besides, as he points out, the cockpit of a fighter jet, whether Chinese or American, is not known for comfort. The seat is designed to provide the pilot with a way out of a tricky situation.

    “You’re sitting on ejection seat,” he says. “It’s basically a rocket seat.”

    Others questioned whether the Chinese jet, however well-designed, is all that sneaky. According to aviation expert Dario Leone, the J-31 spits a lot of smoke from its exhaust pipe when it’s in the air, which could make it easier to detect the plane.

    But experts agree that the real power of a fighter jet lies in the overall strength of the military they serve. Says Forecast International’s Royce: “People are thinking about two jets operating in a dog fight. But in the real world, it depends on the entire combat system.”

    “Until the two countries fight, it’s just guesswork,” Royce says. “You really don’t know till the shooting starts.”


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Tara McKelvey.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.