This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Radio Free Asia.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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A London-based lawyer accused of secretly working with China’s propaganda arm has lost a legal appeal against the U.K.’s domestic intelligence service.
Christine Lee said an “interference alert” from MI5 issued in January 2022 had violated her rights, leading to lost business, a barrage of racist emails and even death threats. Her son, David Wilkes, was part of the appeal and said that the alert also negatively affected him.
But the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, an independent U.K. judiciary body, unanimously dismissed their claim, calling the alert issued to the British Parliament “a proportionate response to the threat posed” by Lee.
The alert accused Lee of attempting to interfere with U.K. politics on behalf of the United Front Work Department, which Western governments say operates covert intelligence and influence campaigns abroad.
The alert was the first ever issued related to China. However, officials did not deem her to have committed any prosecutable offense.
Lee was born in Hong Kong but emigrated with her family to Belfast when she was 12.
The advisory notice on lawyer Christine Lee from MI5, the U.K.’s domestic intelligence and security agency. (MI5)At the time the alert was issued, she was working as an attorney largely on behalf of members of the British Chinese community. Lee’s work on Anglo-Chinese relations garnered an award in 2019 from then-Prime Minister Theresa May.
Wilkes, her son, was a diary manager for Barry Gardiner, a member of Parliament to whom Lee had donated more than 500,000 GBP over five years.
The issuance of the alert prompted a barrage of news reports alleging that Lee was a Chinese agent, which she claimed caused her emotional distress. The judgment issued this week notes that Lee received rape and death threats following the issuance of the alert. Lee said the alert led to “irreparable reputational harm” and ended her work on behalf of asylum seekers.
Wilkes alleged that he was told by his employer to resign or be dismissed the day the alert was issued. Gardiner denied the claim, and the two later reached a settlement. But the alert forced him to change careers and cost him friendships, Wilkes said.
However, the tribunal ruled today that MI5’s warning about Lee’s alleged threat was justified, and that the agency was not responsible for abuses she faced from the media and public. The court was established in 2000 to weigh cases in which public entities, in particular British intelligence agencies, are alleged to have violated individual rights.
The decision to dismiss Lee and Wilkes’ claims comes as fears over Chinese efforts to influence politics have gripped Britain.
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On Monday, British officials named Yang Tengbo as the alleged Chinese spy who had been barred from entering the United Kingdom due to national security risks in 2021, confirming an RFA Dec. 13 report.
Yang had served as a business adviser to Prince Andrew and, as also was reported by RFA, had connections with former British Prime Ministers David Cameron and Teresa May through his consultancy, the Hampton Group International.
British authorities allege Yang plotted to secretly advance Beijing’s interest in the U.K. through his ties to high-profile figures.
China’s Foreign Ministry said the UK’s allegation of YangTengbo engaging in espionage was ‘ridiculous’ and called on both sides to work towards mutual benefit. Chinese officials have denied the allegations, saying Yang’s work was part of normal exchanges to promote international business. Yang himself had asked British authorities to release his name publicly. “The widespread description of me as a ‘spy’ is entirely untrue,” he said in a statement.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian on Tuesday called the spying allegations against Yang “ridiculous.”
Edited by Abby Seiff and Boer Deng
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Jim Snyder.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Radio Free Asia.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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A Californian man was sentenced to almost three-and-a-half years in prison on Monday for running a business that helped affluent Chinese tourists “hide their pregnancies” from immigration officials so they could give birth on American soil and grant their children U.S. citizenship.
The sentencing comes amid a proposal by President-elect Donald Trump to end birthright citizenship in the United States, and the “Run” movement that has seen a surge in Chinese immigrants arriving at the southern American border to seek asylum in the United States.
Michael Wei Yueh Liu, a 59-year-old man from San Bernardino county, was sentenced to 41 months in U.S. federal prison over the “USA Happy Baby” business he ran with his wife, 47-year-old Jing Dong, from January 2012 to March 2015, selling “birth tourism” packages.
Federal agents raid an apartment complex, March 3, 2015, in Irvine, Calif., to conduct a crackdown on alleged maternity tourism rings. (Jae C. Hong/AP)Liu was found guilty of one count of conspiracy and 10 counts of international money laundering in September. Dong, who is now separated from Liu, is expected to be sentenced early next year.
The couple charged “tens of thousands of dollars” for the service, which included short-term housing in San Bernardino and maternity care to the mostly affluent women, who usually returned to China “within one or two months after giving birth,” a press release said.
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“Liu and Dong advised their customers on how to hide their pregnancies from the immigration authorities,” the press release said, adding that they later also helped in obtaining birth certificates.
The clients were instructed to wear baggy clothing and lie to immigration officials by saying they were visiting only for tourism and would only stay for one or two weeks. In practice, they remained in the country for months and gave birth.
“Liu and Dong or their agents also advised their customers to fly to ports of entry with perceived less customs scrutiny, such as Hawaii, before flying to Los Angeles, to wear loose fitting clothing, to favor certain lines at customs that they perceived to be less strict, and on how to answer the customs officials’ questions,” it explained.
Liu and Dong made several millions of dollars from the scheme, federal prosecutors had said in court.
Pleas for leniency
In federal court on Monday, Liu pleaded for leniency in sentencing, with his attorney noting that he was the sole provider for his 95-year-old father and 82-year-old mother, as well as he and his estranged wife’s 13-year-old son, according to a report by the Associated Press.
Prosecutors had sought a more than five-year prison sentence for the scheme that they said deliberately aimed to deceive U.S. immigration officials. His attorney argued he should face a 26-month term.
A group of people, many from China, walk along the USA – Mexico border wall after crossing into the USA to seek asylum, Tuesday, Oct. 24, 2023, near Jacumba, Calif.. (Gregory Bull/AP)U.S. District Judge R. Gary Klausner said he had reduced the sentence slightly to reflect Liu’s family situation but that his legal predicament was ultimately due to the “choices you make,” and not the court’s.
Liu’s lawyers had earlier argued he and Dong had not violated any U.S. laws because they had only helped the pregnant Chinese women give birth once they had arrived in America, and that other companies were responsible for helping them evade detection on their way in.
The women would have faced punishment under China’s one-child policy, which was eventually scrapped in 2015, had they been allowed to return home to give birth, Liu’s defense attorney told the court.
However, the California jury did not buy the story and found both Liu and Jong guilty of their offenses in September – almost a decade after their “maternity hotels” were raided by police in 2015 amid a wider crackdown on the lucrative “birth tourism” industry in the state.
It’s not illegal for women to visit the United States while pregnant, but it is an offense to lie to immigration officials about the reason for travel.
Edited by Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Alex Willemyns.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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Hong Kongers who go overseas are still winding up trapped in a notorious scam park operation in Myanmar, family members told RFA Cantonese in recent interviews after petitioning the city’s leader John Lee for help.
They are joining thousands of captives who are being held at a large compound in Kayin state called KK Park, a Chinese development project that has become a notorious center for scam operations.
Thousands of human trafficking victims from all over Asia — and as far away as Africa — are being held hostage there despite some attempts at rescue by the authorities. Former victims have said they were lured in by false advertisements and forced to scam other people, then tortured if they refused to comply.
A woman who gave only the nickname Mary for fear of reprisals, who was among three people to petition Chief Executive John Lee for assistance with disappeared family members on Tuesday, said she had lost contact with her son after he traveled to Thailand at the beginning of December “for work.”
Hong Kong Secretary for Security Chris Tang speaks to the Legislative Council about people held in scam parks, in Hong Kong, Dec. 3, 2024. (Legislative Council)He didn’t tell his family what kind of work he had planned, and remained in touch until the point where he is believed to have entered KK Park.
Asked if she fears for her son’s life, Mary told reporters: “That’s the thing I’m most worried about.”
Mary’s son is among at least 23 Hong Kongers believed to be lured into Southeast Asian scam operations this year, Secretary for Security Chris Tang told the Legislative Council on Dec. 3. Of those, 11 have returned to Hong Kong, Tang said.
While Tang told lawmakers that some people inside KK Park were “in contact” with loved ones, and that anyone working there had “entered voluntarily,” relatives of the missing say they haven’t heard from their loved ones at all, and that they were tricked into going there while traveling to completely unrelated countries like Japan and Taiwan.
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Scam centers have plagued the border areas of Thailand, Myanmar and China as nationals from all three countries are tricked into — and subsequently enslaved in — online fraud.
The businesses typically force trafficked workers to call people across Asia and convince them to deposit money in fake or fraudulent investments.
Tens of thousands involved in the criminal schemes were deported from Myanmar in 2023 by both junta and rebel army officials. Many are linked to forced labor, human trafficking and money laundering, which proliferated after COVID-19 shut down casinos across Southeast Asia.
Six new cases
Former Yau-Tsim-Mong District Council chairman Andy Yu, who has previously helped Hong Kong families with loved ones in KK Park, said he has received six new cases of family members trapped at the site in recent weeks.
“There are a lot of family members who are unable to contact their loved ones, so they are wondering why the secretary for security said that they are in contact with those trapped there,” Yu told RFA Cantonese while delivering the petition on Tuesday.
A satellite image of the Dongfeng Park area of Myawaddy, which is a sub-district of KK Park, in Myanmar, December 2023. (Google Earth)Yu said the organization that runs the park now appears to be stopping them from contacting loved ones to let them know they’re OK, after previously allowing it.
“It’s been hard for family members to reach their loved ones lately, so they don’t even know if they’re OK or not,” he said.
Another family member of a person trapped in KK Park who gave only the nickname Calvin for fear of reprisals said his relative had been lured to Myanmar after traveling to Japan in search of a job as a purchasing agent six months ago.
They were only supposed to be gone for two or three days, so by day four, Calvin reported them missing to the Hong Kong police.
He later heard from his relative that they were being held in KK Park, but he hasn’t heard anything back from the police, he told RFA Cantonese.
Promises of jobs
Yu said victims are being lured initially to Japan and Taiwan, often with the promise of a job, then taken to Thailand, then to KK Park in Myawaddy.
Three family members and former District Councilor Andy Yu en route to petition Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee for assistance over loved ones held in Myanmar’s KK Park, in Hong Kong, December 2024. (Wei Sze/RFA)Ransoms have skyrocketed in recent years, he said.
“Two years ago, you could have gotten out by paying a ransom of HK$500,000-600,000 (US$64,300-77,200),” Yu said. “Now, it’s much higher, more than HK$1 million (US$129,000), and that’s if they even offer a ransom.”
“Getting out of there isn’t easy,” he said.
While staff at his office accepted the families’ petition, Chief Executive John Lee made no mention of the issue when he took questions from reporters at a regular news briefing later in the day.
A United Nations report in August 2023 said that hundreds of thousands of people have been forced by organized criminal gangs into working at illegal casinos and other online scam work in Southeast Asia.
Myanmar and Cambodia topped the list of countries where the largest numbers of citizens were being forced to carry out online scams.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Roseanne Gerin.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Wei Sze and Edward Li for RFA Cantonese.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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TAIPEI, Taiwan – An annual forum between the cities of Shanghai and Taipei that is meant to promote dialogue across the Taiwan Strait has opened about six months late after tensions including unprecedented Chinese sabre-rattling raised doubts that it could be organized this year.
The Shanghai-Taipei City Forum opened in the self-ruled island’s capital on Monday with a visit by Hua Yuan, the deputy mayor of China’s largest city, presided over by Taipei’s mayor, Chiang Wan-an.
Chiang, in his opening remarks, acknowledged the recent tensions between Beijing and the island it regards as its territory and has vowed to take over by force if necessary.
Just last week, China’s military deployed what one senior Taiwan official called a “staggering” array of ships and aircraft in the seas and skies around the island in a show of force that analysts said could be aimed at setting red lines for the incoming administration in the United States, Taiwan’s main ally.
“I always say that the more tense and difficult the moment, the more we need to communicate,” Chiang told the visiting Chinese delegates at the forum.
Chiang called for talks.
“More dialogue and less confrontation; more olive branches of peace and less sour grapes of conflict. More lights from fishing boats to adorn the sunset; less of the howls of ships and aircraft,” said Chiang.
Chiang, a member of Taiwan’s main opposition party, the Kuomintang, which traditionally advocates for closer cross-strait ties while rejecting accusations it is pro-Beijing, is widely seen as a possible presidential candidate.
The forum is an annual platform for dialogue and cooperation between the two cities. Established in 2010, it serves as a semi-official channel for communication, focusing on practicalities such as economic collaboration, tourism, education, culture, and public services.
The city-to-city is seen as a useful avenue for people-to-people exchanges, especially when official cross-strait communications are limited.
Shanghai Vice Mayor Hua Yuan and Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an pose for photo at a dinner before the annual city forum in Taipei, Taiwan, Dec. 16, 2024. (Ann Wang/Reuters)Entry bans
This year’s forum was initially planned for July or August but was postponed as the tensions raised doubts about the schedule, until an agenda was finally drawn up late in the year.
The event has not been without its casualties.
As tensions surged last week with the Chinese show of force, Taiwan banned entry to Shanghai Taiwan Affairs Office Director Jin Mei and nine Chinese media personnel.
Assistant Professor of Taiwan’s Shoochow University’s Department of Political Science Chen Fang-Yu told Radio Free Asia that the forum, in principle, should be a “positive event,” especially as it involves official exchanges from both sides.
“However, since 2016 China has unilaterally cut off all opportunities for official dialogue with Taiwan,” he said, adding that Taipei seemed “urged” to host the forum this year.
Chen noted that Taipei Mayor Chiang had vowed in his 2022 election campaign that the forum would only be hosted when the Chinese Communist Party stopped sending military aircraft and vessels to harass Taiwan.
“Clearly, this goal has not been met,” Chen said.
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At the forum, Shanghai Mayor Hua called for practical cooperation between the two sides and said that Shanghai tour group trips to Taiwan would resume, although China has yet to fully restore the levels of tourism to the island seen before the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Compatriots on both sides of the Taiwan Strait have always been one family. We often come and go, getting closer and closer to each other,” Hua told the forum.
However, Chen warned that the offer to resume tour groups from China could be seen as a Chinese tactic to promote its pro-unification agenda.
“It feels like they are treating the reopening as some kind of favor to Taiwan,” Chen said, referring to the resumption of group tours.
Edited by Taejun Kang.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Alan Lu for RFA.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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ANALYSIS: By Sione Tekiteki, Auckland University of Technology
The A$140 million aid agreement between Australia and Nauru signed last week is a prime example of the geopolitical tightrope vulnerable Pacific nations are walking in the 21st century.
The deal provides Nauru with direct budgetary support, stable banking services, and policing and security resources. In return, Australia will have the right to veto any pact Nauru might make with other countries — namely China.
The veto terms are similar to the “Falepili Union” between Australia and Tuvalu signed late last year, which granted Tuvaluans access to Australian residency and climate mitigation support, in exchange for security guarantees.
And just last week, more details emerged about a defence deal between the United States and Papua New Guinea, now revealed to be worth US$864 million.
In exchange for investment in military infrastructure development, training and equipment, the US gains unrestricted access to six ports and airports.
Also last week, PNG signed a 10-year, A$600 million deal to fund its own team in Australia’s NRL competition. In return, “PNG will not sign a security deal that could allow Chinese police or military forces to be based in the Pacific nation”.
These arrangements are all emblematic of the geopolitical tussle playing out in the Pacific between China and the US and its allies.
This strategic competition is often framed in mainstream media and political commentary as an extension of “the great game” played by rival powers. From a traditional security perspective, Pacific nations can be depicted as seeking advantage to leverage their own development priorities.
But this assumption that Pacific governments are “diplomatic price setters”, able to play China and the US off against each other, overlooks the very real power imbalances involved.
The risk, as the authors of one recent study argued, is that the “China threat” narrative becomes the justification for “greater Western militarisation and economic dominance”. In other words, Pacific nations become diplomatic price takers.
Defence diplomacy
Pacific nations are vulnerable on several fronts: most have a low economic base and many are facing a debt crisis. At the same time, they are on the front line of climate change and rising sea levels.The costs of recovering from more frequent extreme weather events create a vicious cycle of more debt and greater vulnerability. As was reported at this year’s United Nations COP29 summit, climate financing in the Pacific is mostly in the form of concessional loans.
The Pacific is already one of the world’s most aid-reliant regions. But considerable doubt has been expressed about the effectiveness of that aid when recipient countries still struggle to meet development goals.
At the country level, government systems often lack the capacity to manage increasing aid packages, and struggle with the diplomatic engagement and other obligations demanded by the new geopolitical conditions.
In August, Kiribati even closed its borders to diplomats until 2025 to allow the new government “breathing space” to attend to domestic affairs.
In the past, Australia championed governance and institutional support as part of its financial aid. But a lot of development assistance is now skewed towards policing and defence.
Australia recently committed A$400 million to the Pacific Policing Initiative, on top of a host of other security-related initiatives. This is all part of an overall rise in so-called “defence diplomacy”, leading some observers to criticise the politicisation of aid at the expense of the Pacific’s most vulnerable people.
Kiribati: threatened by sea level rise, the nation closed its borders to foreign diplomats until 2025. Image: Getty Images/The Conversation Lack of good faith
At the same time, many political parties in Pacific nations operate quite informally and lack comprehensive policy manifestos. Most governments lack a parliamentary subcommittee that scrutinises foreign policy.The upshot is that foreign policy and security arrangements can be driven by personalities rather than policy priorities, with little scrutiny. Pacific nations are also susceptible to corruption, as highlighted in Transparency International’s 2024 Annual Corruption Report.
Writing about the consequences of the geopolitical rivalry in the Solomon Islands, Transparency Solomon Islands executive director Ruth Liloqula wrote:
Since 2019, my country has become a hotbed for diplomatic tensions and foreign interference, and undue influence.
Similarly, Pacific affairs expert Distinguished Professor Steven Ratuva has argued the Australia–Tuvalu agreement was one-sided and showed a “lack of good faith”.
Behind these developments, of course, lies the evolving AUKUS security pact between Australia, the US and United Kingdom, a response to growing Chinese presence and influence in the “Indo-Pacific” region.
The response from Pacific nations has been diplomatic, perhaps from a sense they cannot “rock the submarine” too much, given their ties to the big powers involved. But former Pacific Islands Forum Secretary-General Meg Taylor has warned:
Pacific leaders were being sidelined in major geopolitical decisions affecting their region and they need to start raising their voices for the sake of their citizens.
While there are obvious advantages that come with strategic alliances, the tangible impacts for Pacific nations remain negligible. As the UN’s Asia and the Pacific progress report on sustainable development goals states, not a single goal is on track to be achieved by 2030.
Unless these partnerships are grounded in good faith and genuine sustainable development, the grassroots consequences of geopolitics-as-usual will not change.
Dr Sione Tekiteki, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Law, Auckland University of Technology. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.
This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.
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This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Radio Free Asia.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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Representatives of the military junta and leaders of an insurgent army have been holding talks in China’s Yunnan province as Beijing leans on both sides to find a resolution to Myanmar’s civil war, sources close to the junta and the ethnic armed group told Radio Free Asia.
The negotiations in Kunming began Sunday, according to the sources who requested anonymity for security reasons. Neither the junta nor the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, or MNDAA, have made any statements on the talks.
Lieutenant Gen. Ko Ko Oo represented the junta, along with a brigadier general and office staff, a junta source told RFA.
The talks come more than a month after junta leader Min Aung Hlaing traveled to Kunming to meet with Chinese Premier Li Qiang on the sidelines of a regional summit. The Nov. 6 trip marked the junta chief’s first trip to China since Myanmar’s military seized power in a February 2021 coup d’etat.
In August, the MNDAA captured Lashio, northern Shan state’s biggest city and the location of the junta’s northeast military command. Since then, Beijing has pressured the rebel army to withdraw from the city, an important commercial gateway near the Chinese border.
Over the last year, the MNDAA has also seized control of more than a half dozen towns in the area that serve as significant border trading hubs.
In October, the group’s leader, Peng Daxun, traveled to Yunnan for medical treatment and to meet with Deng Xijun, China’s special envoy for Asian Affairs.
Sources close to the MNDAA told RFA last month that he was prevented from returning to Myanmar after the meeting as a way of pressuring the group to withdraw its troops from Lashio.
A source close to the junta regime told RFA that Peng was being held at a hotel in Yunnan that’s owned by his father. China’s foreign ministry denied that he was under house arrest.
The MNDAA, which has been fighting for autonomy since before the 2021 coup, declared a cease fire on Dec. 3 and announced that it would send a high-level delegation for talks with the junta. Peng’s status or location wasn’t mentioned in the announcement.
Aim to reopen trade crossings
Discussions will likely focus on continuing the ceasefire and the reopening of border trade gates, political analyst Phoe Wa said.
“Pressure for either side to withdraw from their territories will not be accepted,” he said. “Instead, both sides are likely to reinforce their commitments to their current stronghold positions. The minimum possible agreement could involve easing the trade ban.”
The junta could request the release of soldiers captured by the MNDAA during the fight for Lashio, a former military officer and political analyst told RFA.
“The rebels have detained a significant number of junta troops, which poses a heavy burden for them,” the analyst said. “Given their limited territory and budget, providing adequate food for the prisoners of war is challenging.”
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Political analyst Than Soe Naing said the junta may also ask that it be allowed to dispatch troops in towns along the Muse-Mandalay trade route, as well as in Kunlong, a border town seized by the MNDAA in November 2023.
“I believe the junta will aim to maintain control in these areas,” he told RFA. “If they can secure Kunlong, they would likely consider that sufficient. They may propose a joint administration with the local population to solidify their rule.”
RFA attempted to contact junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Htun and a spokesperson for the MNDAA for comment but didn’t receive a response.
RFA also didn’t immediately receive a reply to an emailed request for comment sent to the Chinese embassy in Myanmar on Monday.
Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Burmese.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Radio Free Asia.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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Yang Tengbo was officially named as the alleged Chinese spy in Prince Andrew’s entourage after a United Kingdom court lifted an anonymity order today.
Radio Free Asia first revealed Yang’s name on Friday using information contained in a newly released court document and open-source data. Along with his ties to the Duke of York, he had access to top U.K. leaders: He was photographed with two prime ministers, RFA disclosed.
Yang has been excluded from entering the United Kingdom on national security grounds since 2021 on the basis of reports from MI5, the U.K.’s domestic intelligence agency, that he had sought to covertly advance Beijing’s interests in London through his connections to King Charles, Andrews’ brother, as well as an array of senior British political figures.
In a statement issued Monday, Yang said he applied for the anonymity order to be lifted because of the “high level of speculation and misreporting in the media and elsewhere.”
“I have done nothing wrong or unlawful and the concerns raised by the Home Office against me are ill-founded. The widespread description of me as a ‘spy’ is entirely untrue,” he said.
Last Friday, the Chinese Embassy in London described the case against Yang as the product of a campaign to “smear China and sabotage normal people-to-people exchanges between China and the U.K.”
Yang called himself a victim of the changing political climate.
“When relations are good, and Chinese investment is sought, I am welcome in the UK. When relations sour, an anti-China stance is taken, and I am excluded,” he said in the statement today.
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Though Yang was barred from the U.K. three years ago, his case only came to public attention on Dec. 13. He had been appealing his exclusion through the Special Immigration Appeals Commission, a court established to deal with national security cases like Yang’s. The court issued its judgment rejecting his appeal at the end of last week.
The judgment identified Yang only by the codename H6. But it contained sufficient personal information – such as his exact date of birth, membership of clubs and precise details of businesses he owned – for RFA to identify him.
The judgment caused a major stir in the United Kingdom over the details of Yang’s intimate relationship with an already-embattled Prince Andrew, who was forced to retire as a working member of the royal family following revelations about his friendship with the pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
A letter cited in the judgment from one of Andrew’s close advisers described Yang’s position in the prince’s entourage as sitting “at the very top of a tree that many, many people would like to be on.”
RFA reported on Friday that Yang had posed for photographs with May and Cameron. The case has sparked a renewed debate over the need to regulate and guard against foreign agents in the U.K.
A 2019 report by the Intelligence and Select Committee of the British Parliament examining political interference by Russia said acting as an undeclared agent of a foreign power should be made a criminal offense. No such law was passed. The then-chair of the committee, Dominic Grieve, told the Guardian on Saturday that Yang’s case emphasized the need for such a law.
“We remain without an important weapon in our armory,” Grieve told the Guardian.
Edited by Jim Snyder.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Investigative.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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By Mar-Vic Cagurangan in Hagatna, Guam
The United States is advancing the fortification of its territory closest to China with the arrival of the first Marines from Okinawa and its first interceptor missile test in Guam last week.
About 100 Marines from Japan landed on Saturday, the vanguard of about 5000 due to be relocated to Guam under a security treaty with the US.
The US successfully downed one of its own unarmed ballistic missiles last Tuesday in what will be a regular occurrence in the territory over the next decade.
The milestones come as the House of Representatives last week also passed the 2025 National Defence Authorisation Act — with more than US$2 billion in spending for Guam — that now goes to the Senate for approval.
Nicknamed the “tip of the spear” due to its proximity to China, Guam is considered a potential target in any conflict between the two nations. The island has no bomb shelters and the unprecedented military build-up continues to divide residents.
“The intensity of the build-up is overwhelming for citizens and public agencies trying to keep track and respond to military plans as they unfold,” said Robert Underwood, chairman of the Guam-based Pacific Centre for Island Security.
“A master plan is needed for understanding by all concerned. One must exist and we are not privy to it,” he told BenarNews.
Lays the groundwork
The arrival of the first troops lays the groundwork for preparing Marine Corps Base Camp Blaz to receive thousands more.“Relocations will take place in a phased approach, and no unit headquarters will be moving during this iteration,” a US Marine Corps press release said on Saturday.
An aerial photo shows the front gate and ongoing construction progress at Marine Corps Base Camp Blaz in Guam, pictured in March this year. Image: DVIDS/BenarNews “Forward presence and routine engagement with allies and partners are essential to the United States’ ability to deter attempts to change the status quo by force or coercion and respond to crises in the region, to include providing humanitarian assistance and disaster relief when necessary,” the USMC said.
Japan will pay US$2.8 billion to fund some of the infrastructure projects on Naval Base Guam, Andersen Air Force Base and Camp Blaz.
A missile is fired from the Vertical Launching System at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, as part of a ballistic missile exercise last week. Image: DVIDS/BenarNews The Missile Defence Agency last Tuesday tested its Aegis system, firing off an interceptor from Andersen Air Force to down an unarmed, medium-range ballistic missile more than 200 nautical miles north-east of Guam.
“The event marked a pivotal step taken in the defence of Guam and provides critical support to the overall concept for the future Guam defence system,” deputy Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh said in a press briefing last Wednesday.
The launch was the first in a series of twice-yearly missile defence tests on Guam over the next 10 years.
16 sites planned
The US Indo-Pacific Command plans to build a missile defence system with 16 sites, touted to provide 360-degree protection for Guam.The urgency was highlighted after China conducted a rare ballistic missile test with a dummy warhead in September. Its flight path crossed near Guam, Federated States of Micronesia and Marshall Islands before falling into the ocean in the vicinity of Kiribati.
China’s short and mid-range missiles cannot reach Guam, but its intermediate-range missiles, including DF-26, nicknamed the “Guam Express,” can. Image: BenarNews In July, US military officials had announced that the first missile defence test was set to take place in Guam “by the end of the year,” but did not provide the exact date.
Nanette Reyes-Senior, a resident of Maina village, said she was “extremely surprised” that the MDA launched the flight test “without prior notice to the public — unless there was notice that I missed.”
Underwood has called for greater transparency about the missile defence of Guam.
“The missile testing had already been announced . . . but no specific week, let alone date was announced,” Underwood said.
With more tests to be launched in the coming years, Underwood said: “The general public should be given advanced notice and especially land owners.”
No significant impact
After public consultation earlier this year, the Missile Defence Agency decided the planned tests would not significantly impact humans or the natural environment.President of the Pacific Association of Radiation Survivors Robert Celestial welcomed the US missile defense test.
“China had 23000 ballistic missiles, numerous ICBM missiles and 320 nuclear warheads. It is evident that we are preparing for war, so we should at least prepare to protect the civilian population from a nuclear attack,” he told BenarNews.
“Growing up in the 1960s we had duck-and-cover drills. I feel better prepared now than [to] suffer later.”
Guam is no stranger to war, being part of the Pacific campaign during World War II.
Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te’s visit to Guam earlier this month to strengthen ties has raised residents’ fears of the territory being further targeted in escalating tensions between Washington and Beijing.
Shelly Vargas-Calvo, a senator-elect who will assume her seat in the Guam legislature next month, said the growing tensions in the region will take Guam into the path of war.
“I applaud the successful test launch,” she said. “It is imperative to show power and capability despite having a small footprint in the region to send a message that we and our allies are not to be messed around with.”
Republished from BenarNews with permission.
This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.
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While the United States provokes conflicts across the world, China has promoted economic development, lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, building infrastructure, and encouraging win-win cooperation. Political economists Radhika Desai and Michael Hudson are joined by Beijing-based scholar Mick Dunford to discuss the significance of the 75th anniversary of the Chinese revolution.
In this episode of Geopolitical Economy Hour, Radhika Desai and Michael Hudson are joined by Beijing-based scholar Mick Dunford to discuss the significance of the 75th anniversary of the Chinese revolution.
The post While The US Provokes Chaos, China Promotes Economic Development appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.
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Trigger Warning: Disturbing Visuals
A short video apparently showing a human body tied up and placed above a fire is being shared on X (formerly Twitter) as yet another incidence of violence against Hindus in Bangladesh.
X user Mini Razdan (@mini_razdan10) posted the video on December 12, claiming it genocide was taking place in the neighbouring country. “Hindu Gen0cide in Bangladesh …. WAKE UP HINDUS BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE,” the post, which was later deleted, said. However, by then, it had already been viewed over 6,000 times and shared widely.
The video has also been shared with similar claims by users such as Dr JaiNath Singh (@DrJaiNathSingh3) and Sanjeev Singh (@Sanjeev26429531), among others.
Click to view slideshow.Fact Check
A reverse image search of some key frames from the video led us to an Instagram post by Galaxychimelong, uploaded on October 31, 2018. The location was specified in the post as Hengqin, Guangdong, China.
The Instagram post contains a video in which a similar contraption — with sets of sticks tied up vertically at two ends and another stick connecting them horizontally with logs of wood placed underneath it — can be seen. The video also shows a man rotating a handle from one end and the human-like figure tied to the horizontal stick rotates with it.
On investigating further, we found a YouTube video uploaded on October 27, 2018, by travel vlogger SviatMe. The video was titled “Halloween Party at Chimelong Ocean Park, Zhuhai, China” and we can see similar visuals as the viral post from the 5:26-minute mark in the video.
We are not embedding the video here in view of its graphic nature.
Click to view slideshow.Based on this, it seems like the human-like figure is merely a prop used for Halloween celebrations.
Taking cue from this, we ran another keyword search. This led us to a fact-check report by an Indonesia-based anti-hoax portal, posted on December 28, 2019. Turns out this isn’t first time the video has gone viral with a false claim. In 2019, the video was widely shared with rumours that it showed a restaurant in Nigeria serving human flesh.
The Indonesian outlet’s report debunking that claim also corroborates that the clip was actually from a Halloween party in October 2018 at China’s Chimelong Ocean Park.
Thus, the video recently viral on X is neither from Bangladesh nor does it show brutality against the Hindu minorities there. The video is from a Halloween party in China in 2018, where a human-like figure was used as a prop.
The post Video of burning Halloween prop in China shared as ‘Hindu genocide’ in Bangladesh appeared first on Alt News.
This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Ankita Mahalanobish.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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Several times a year, the U.S. Defense Department launches ballistic missiles from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. These ballistic missiles are generally intercepted by missiles launched 4,200 miles away from the Ronald Reagan Missile test range located in the Marshall Islands.
U.S. officials said the recent U.S. missile test launch was just part of routine and periodic activities to reassure U.S. allies that its nuclear deterrent “is safe, secure, reliable and effective to deter 21st-century threats.” However, several days ago, on December 10, 2024, Guam became an even bigger military target in the Pacific with the activation of a missile intercept site.
The post Guam Becomes An Even Bigger Military Target appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.
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Congress has just passed a new bill that will see the U.S. spend huge sums of money redesigning much of the public school system around the ideology of anti-communism. The “Crucial Communism Teaching Act” is now being read in the Senate, where it is all but certain to pass. The move comes amid growing public anger at the economic system and increased public support for socialism.
The Crucial Communism Teaching Act, in its own words, is designed to teach children that “certain political ideologies, including communism and totalitarianism…conflict with the principles of freedom and democracy that are essential to the founding of the United States.”
The post Congress Revives Cold War Tactics With New Anti-Communism Curriculum appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.
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Panelists and attendees championed the cause of sovereignty, modernization, and South-South cooperation at the Global South Academic Forum in Shanghai from December 5–6. Over 250 guests from 35 countries and regions attended the forum, whose theme was “Global South and Global Modernization.”
The forum was hosted by East China Normal University (ECNU) and organized by the institution’s School of Communication and Fudan University’s Institute for Global Communication and Integrated Media. Co-organizers included Fudan University’s School of Journalism and Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s School of Media and Communication.
The post Sovereignty, Modernization, And Cooperation Championed At Global South Forum In Shanghai appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.
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The verdict by a Hong Kong court has generated widespread criticism after it found seven people — including former lawmaker Lam Cheuk-ting — guilty of “rioting” when they tried to stop white-clad men wielding sticks from attacking passengers at a subway station in 2019.
Exiled former pro-democracy lawmaker Ted Hui, who like Lam is a member of the Democratic Party, accusing authorities of “rewriting history.”
“It’s a false accusation and part of a totally fabricated version of history that Hong Kong people don’t recognize,” Hui told RFA Cantonese after the verdict was announced on Dec. 12.
“How does the court see the people of Hong Kong?” he asked. “How can they act like they live in two separate worlds?”
The District Court found Lam and six others guilty of “taking part in a riot” by as dozens of thugs in white T-shirts rained blows down on the heads of unarmed passengers — including their own — using rattan canes and wooden poles at Yuen Long station on July 21, 2019.
Lam, one of the defendants in the subversion trial of 47 activists for holding a democratic primary, is also currently serving a 6-years-and-9-month prison sentence for “conspiracy to subvert state power.”
Victim Galileo, a V, displays scarring and seven stitches following the July 21, 2019 attacks at Yuen Long MTR station in Hong Kong. While the defense argued that the men were defending themselves against the thugs, the prosecution said they had “provoked” the attacks and used social media to incite people to turn up and defend against the men.
Letters of thanks
The verdict came despite Lam and former District Councilor Sin Cheuk-lam having received letters from the Hong Kong Police thanking them for their role in the incident.
Sentencing in the trial, which began in October 2023, is expected on Feb. 27, with mitigation hearings set for Jan. 22.
A conviction for rioting carries a maximum sentence of 10 years’ imprisonment, although the District Court is limited to handing out sentences of no more than seven years.
Issuing his verdict on Dec. 12, Judge Stanley Chan said he didn’t believe that Lam had using his standing as a Legislative Councilor to mediate the conflict or monitor the police response, and accused him of trying to take advantage of the situation for his own political benefit.
Felt numb
A victim of the attacks who is now overseas and gave only the pseudonym Galileo for fear of reprisals said he felt numb when he heard Thursday’s verdict, as he had felt the result to be inevitable amid an ongoing crackdown on public dissent in Hong Kong.
“I used a fire extinguisher and sprayed water [during the attacks],” Galileo said, adding that he and journalist Gwyneth Ho were “beaten several times.”
Wearing a cycle helmet, Galileo, a pseudonym, left, tries to protect Stand journalist Gwyneth Ho, right, during attacks by thugs at Yuen Long MTR, July 21, 2019 in Hong Kong. “I was panicky and scared, and my instinct was to protect myself and others,” he said.
According to Galileo, Lam’s actions likely protected others from also being attacked.
“I felt that his presence made everyone feel calmer, because he was a member of the Legislative Council at the time,” he said of Lam’s role in the incident. “He kept saying the police were coming, and everyone believed him, so they waited, but the police never came.”
Police were inundated with emergency calls from the start of the attacks, according to multiple contemporary reports, but didn’t move in until 39 minutes after the attacks began.
In a recent book about the protests, former Washington Post Hong Kong correspondent Shibani Mahtani and The Atlantic writer Timothy McLaughlin wrote that the Hong Kong authorities knew about the attacks in advance.
Members of Hong Kong’s criminal underworld “triad” organizations had been discussing the planned attack for days on a WhatsApp group that was being monitored by a detective sergeant from the Organized Crime and Triad Bureau, the book said.
Chased and beaten
According to multiple accounts from the time, Lam first went to Mei Foo MTR station to warn people not to travel north to Yuen Long, after dozens of white-clad thugs were spotted assembling at a nearby chicken market.
When live footage of beatings started to emerge, Lam called the local community police sergeant and asked him to dispatch officers to the scene as soon as possible, before setting off himself for Yuen Long to monitor the situation in person.
On arrival, he warned some of the attackers not to “do anything,” and told people he had called the police. Eventually, the attackers charged, and Lam and others were chased and beaten all the way onto a train.
One of the people shown in that early social media footage was chef Calvin So, who displayed red welts across his back following beatings by the white-clad attackers.
So told RFA Cantonese on Friday: “The guys in white were really beating people, and injured some people … I don’t understand because Lam Cheuk-ting’s side were spraying water at them and telling people to leave.”
He described the verdict as “ridiculous,” adding: “But ridiculous things happen every day in Hong Kong nowadays.”
Erosion of judicial independence
In a recent report on the erosion of Hong Kong judicial independence amid an ongoing crackdown on dissent that followed the 2019 protests, law experts at Georgetown University said the city’s courts now have to “tread carefully” now that the ruling Chinese Communist Party has explicitly rejected the liberal values the legal system was built on.
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Nowadays, Hong Kong’s once-independent courts tend to find along pro-Beijing lines, particularly in politically sensitive cases, according to the December 2024 report, which focused on the impact of a High Court injunction against the banned protest anthem “Glory to Hong Kong.”
“In our view, at least some judges are issuing pro-regime verdicts in order to advance their careers,” said the report, authored by Eric Lai, Lokman Tsui and Thomas Kellogg.
“The government’s aggressive implementation of the National Security Law has sent a clear signal to individual judges that their professional advancement depends on toeing the government’s ideological line, and delivering a steady stream of guilty verdicts.”
Translated with additional reporting by Luisetta Mudie.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Luk Nam Choi and Edward Li for RFA Cantonese.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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Updated Dec. 13, 2024, 7:40p.m. ET
A businessman with close ties to Prince Andrew who has been banned from entry into the U.K. is a longtime operative who did little to hide his ties to Beijing.
RFA can identify the man who served as a business advisor to the Duke of York as Yang Tengbo, a director of the consultancy Hampton Group International, based on details revealed in the immigration judgment against him, as well as evidence gathered from open source intelligence that corroborates information released by the U.K. court.
Yang is listed as a director of the London-based group, which was known to have gained connections to top U.K. government officials as early as in 2020, including Prince Andrew.
The judgment from the Special Immigration Appeals Tribunal made public Friday determined that a Chinese national, codenamed H6, should be barred from entering the U.K. on national security grounds, as he is alleged to have plotted to secretly advance Beijing’s interest in Britain using his ties to high profile figures.
H6 was born on March 21, 1974 and founded a U.K. company in 2005 that changed its name in 2020, according to the ruling.
While the judgement does not name the company, Yang Tengbo shares H6’s birthdate and founded Newland UK Ltd in 2005, which changed its name in 2020 to Hampton Group International Ltd, according to Companies House.
An emailed enquiry to the Hampton Group on Friday returned a message that the group’s server would not accept emails from RFA.
The judgment also noted that H6 was an honorary member of a Sino-British business association, the 48 Group Club, which describes itself as the product of the “first western trade delegation to the newly formed People’s Republic of China” in 1954.
The club’s founder was made an honorary red guard member by Mao Zedong and today the organization is frequently lauded in Chinese media. It was accused of acting as a conduit for the Chinese state to “groom” senior British businessmen and political figures, in “Hidden Hand” a 2020 book by Australian researchers looking at covert Chinese influence worldwide.
The club has previously insisted that it acts only in the U.K.’s national interest and tried to block the publication of the book.
Yang can be found among the honorary members in an archived “who’s who” page from 2022, where he is listed as “Mr Chris Yang, Chairman, Hampton Group.”
In an email, the board of the 48 Group Club told RFA that Yang held only an honorary membership and “has never had any involvement with the work of the 48 Group.” They added that his membership had been rescinded in light of the allegations against him.
Yang’s name has not been published in the U.K. press, despite numerous identifying details about him in the judgment. There is a temporary anonymity order appended to the judgement.
When asked by RFA, the U.K.’s Home Office would not confirm the identity of H6 or the reason for the order.
Other details from the judgment include the assertion that H6 was working for the United Front Works Department – an arm of the Chinese government that seeks to promote its political, economic and social agenda abroad. Such efforts range from using Chinese nationals and sympathizers to broadcast Beijing-friendly talking points to gathering personal information about people of interest.
Yang has frequently and publicly echoed the points United Front advances and had ties to the central government he did not hide, although the judgement notes that he “deliberately obscured his links with the Chinese State, the CCP and the UFWD” in interviews with U.K. authorities.
In 2022, he was photographed attending the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, or CPPCC, in Beijing, where he was also interviewed by the state media outlet China Daily. The CPPCC is the leading body in China’s United Front system.
The China Daily quotes Yang as praising China’s Belt and Road Initiative, a vast project of exporting Chinese-funded infrastructure projects abroad.
“As an overseas Chinese businessman in the U.K., I have actively participated in the “Belt and Road” initiative since it was proposed. China-U.K. cooperation in third-party markets is showing new characteristics of effectively reducing the risk of conflict and promoting harmonious regional development,” he said.
In a filmed 2019 interview with Europe Daily News, a Chinese media outlet registered in France widely reported to be a United Front organization, Yang gives his biography to the camera, telling the reporter that he went to the U.K. in 2002 to study at a public administration school. After graduation, he started in the tourism industry to generate cash flow, he says. Those biographical details are echoed in the court judgement.
“Between 2007 and 2012, China experienced a strong trend of ‘going out’,” he says in the video interview. “We helped domestic enterprises [and] State-owned enterprises expand internationally, starting from tourism and moving into the conference and public relations industries.”
“In 2013, British companies began expressing interest in entering the Chinese market, so our group pivoted to strategic consulting,” Yang continues. “Next, we plan to transform into an investment group.”
He also reveals that “in 2017, through a very unexpected opportunity, a prince entrusted us with bringing this project to China.” The “prince” appears to refer to Prince Andrew and the project appears to be the Pitch@Palace program, an initiative by the prince to connect entrepreneurs seeking funding to wealthy investors.
When asked what was different about making friends with princes and high-ranking figures, Yang replies: “Trust is the most important thing.”
Britain’s Prince Andrew, fourth from right, and Yang Tengbo, right, a director of the consultancy Hampton Group International, take part in a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the 15th World Chinese Entrepreneurs Convention in London on Oct. 22, 2019. The judgement notes that MI5, the U.K.’s domestic intelligence agency, considered that H6 “poses a risk to U.K. national security.”
Prince Andrew’s office issued a statement Friday evening insisting that he had “ceased all contact” with the alleged Chinese spy following advice from the U.K. government.
“Nothing of a sensitive nature was ever discussed” with Yang, he said, adding that he was “unable to comment further on matters relating to national security.”
Besides Prince Andrew, Yang appears to have had access to the top echelons of British society. A profile of Yang that aired on CCTV, the Chinese state broadcaster, features a shot of his desk, upon which sits a photo of him with former prime minister Theresa May and another with former prime minister David Cameron.
Photos of Yang Tengbo with former British Prime Ministers Theresa May and David Cameron are seen in this undated image of Yang’s desk in footage that aired on CCTV, the Chinese state broadcaster. Beijing has long defended the United Front, saying the group aims primarily to improve national prosperity and happiness, and calling claims of espionage or infiltration “conspiracy theories.
Such language was echoed in a press statement issued on Friday, in which the spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in London denounced the judgement as the product of a campaign to “smear China and sabotage normal people-to-people exchanges between China and the U.K.”
“Some on the British side repeatedly use China’s United Front work as a pretext to accuse China of wrongdoing, discredit China’s political system, and undermine normal exchanges and cooperation between China and the U.K. Such sinister plots will never succeed,” the spokesperson said.
“We urge the relevant parties in the U.K. to immediately stop creating trouble, stop spreading the “China threat” narrative, and stop undermining normal exchanges between China and the U.K.,” they added.
Yang could not be reached for comment.
Updated to add comment in from the 48 Group.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Investigative.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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My poems were written in anger after Tiananmen Square. But what motivates most prison writing is a fear of forgetting. Today I am free, but the regime has never stopped its war on words. By Liao Yiwu
Because of industrial action taking place by members of the National Union of Journalists at the Guardian and Observer this week, we are re-running an episode from earlier in the year. For more information please head to theguardian.com. We’ll be back with new episodes soon.
Continue reading…This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.
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My poems were written in anger after Tiananmen Square. But what motivates most prison writing is a fear of forgetting. Today I am free, but the regime has never stopped its war on words. By Liao Yiwu
Because of industrial action taking place by members of the National Union of Journalists at the Guardian and Observer this week, we are re-running an episode from earlier in the year. For more information please head to theguardian.com. We’ll be back with new episodes soon.
Continue reading…This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.
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U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has invited Chinese President Xi Jinping to attend his Jan. 20 inauguration in Washington, his incoming White House press secretary said Thursday.
Karoline Leavitt told the hosts of Fox and Friends that inauguration officials are making plans for other foreign dignitaries to attend too.
Her comments confirmed an earlier report by CBS News, which quoted sources as saying that Trump invited Xi in early November, shortly after the election, adding that it was unclear what’s Xi’s response was.
Xi has said he’s ready to work with the Trump administration, but has also warned that both countries stand to “lose from confrontation,” as Trump announced plans to impose tariffs of at least 60% on Chinese imports.
If confirmed, the invitation to Xi would be unprecedented, as foreign leaders haven’t attended U.S. presidential inauguration ceremonies since 1874, but could offer China the chance to negotiate with the new president, who recently nominated several China hawks to top foreign policy positions, analysts told RFA Mandarin.
According to CBS, Hungary’s far-right leader Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, described by the station as having “a warm relationship with Trump,” has yet to respond to his invitation.
“World leaders are lining up to meet with President Trump because they know he will soon return to power and restore peace through American strength around the globe,” the station quoted Leavitt as saying.
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The report comes after Trump nominated outspoken China critic Marco Rubio for his Secretary of State, Rep. Mike Waltz of Florida for national security adviser, and Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York as ambassador to the United Nations.
Trump then announced on Dec. 9 he had picked three China trade hawks for top roles at the State Department, including Michael Anton, who has previously argued it is not in U.S. interests to defend Taiwan from an invasion by China.
‘Preferring one-to-one summits’
But Li Da-Jong, director of the Institute of International Affairs and Strategy at Taiwan’s Tamkang University, told RFA Mandarin, the invitation to Xi, if confirmed, wasn’t an indicator of a more pro-China foreign policy than had previously been expected.
“If Trump made a formal invitation to Xi Jinping from the outset … it’s not a sign of weakness, of compromise, or a concession to China,” Li said. “It’s in line with his past style of preferring one-to-one summits … leader-to-leader, to create the political energy to break through the status quo.”
Ming-shih Shen of Taiwan’s Institute for National Defense and Security Research said Trump considers Xi a personal friend, and the reported invitation would seem natural from that perspective.
He said Xi is very unlikely to accept any invitation, however.
“Given the current situation in China, and the People’s Liberation Army’s large-scale exercises in the Taiwan Strait and Western Pacific right now, I don’t think Xi would go anyway,” Shen said.
“The main question would be who does represent China, which could be the vice president or another member of the Politburo Standing Committee,” he said, adding that he believes Trump’s stated policy of imposing 60% tariffs on Chinese imports across the board is an opening gambit for negotiations, rather than a final policy.
“China will act tough and declare that it won’t comply, but it will devalue the yuan to protect trade,” Shen said. “China often appears to draw a line in the sand, but then makes concessions.”
Taiwan issue
Yi-feng Tao, associate professor of politics at National Taiwan University said China could also stop short of bringing Taiwan into any negotiations with Trump.
“Peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait is a high consensus issues across the United States, and also across all of the U.S.’ allies and Asia-Pacific countries,” Tao told RFA Mandarin in a recent interview. “So Beijing may not directly touch on that issue in a moderate interaction with Trump.”
He said China will more likely continue to reiterate its core interests, particularly the “thorny issue” of tariffs and high-tech bans.
Reuters reported on Thursday that two senior members of Taiwan’s government are in the United States to meet people connected to Trump’s transition team, in a bid to establish ties with the incoming administration.
Fishermen work on an aqua farm on Pingtan island, the closest point in China to Taiwan’s main island, in southeast China’s Fujian province on December 11, 2024. Lin Fei-fan and Hsu Szu-chien, both deputy secretaries-general of Taiwan’s National Security Council and several of their staff are in Washington for meetings through this week, the agency cited multiple sources as saying.
Their visit came as China 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 Taiwanese 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.
One-China principle
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning called on the United States not to do anything to undermine Beijing’s territorial claim on Taiwan, which it terms the “one-China principle.”
“China’s position on the Taiwan issue is consistent and clear,” Mao told a regular news briefing in Beijing on Thursday. “We urge the U.S. to abide by the one-China principle … handle the Taiwan issue prudently, and not send any wrong signals to ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist forces.”
Taiwan has never been ruled by Beijing, nor formed part of the People’s Republic of China, and is formally governed by the Republic of China government formed after the 1911 fall of the Qing Dynasty under Sun Yat-sen, that later fled to Taipei after losing the civil war to Mao Zedong’s communists on the mainland.
While China insists on eventual “unification” with Taiwan, by armed invasion if necessary, the majority of Taiwan’s 23 million people have no wish to give up their democratic way of life to submit to Chinese rule.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Huang Chun-mei for RFA Mandarin.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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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.
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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. 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. “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.
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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 (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 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.
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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.
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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.
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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 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.
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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 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.
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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. “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. 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. 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.
![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]](https://media.rnztools.nz/rnz/image/upload/s--VKcmxE_e--/ar_16:10,c_fill,f_auto,g_auto,q_auto,w_1050/v1733947676/4KFAQQU_papacific_policing_initiative_2_jpeg?_a=BACCd2AD)
![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]](https://media.rnztools.nz/rnz/image/upload/s--Zzq6dq4l--/ar_16:10,c_fill,f_auto,g_auto,q_auto,w_1050/v1733947676/4KFAQQU_papacific_policing_initiative_1_jpeg?_a=BACCd2AD)
