Category: China

  • Authorities across China are cracking down on thousands of college students who took part in mass night-cycling events that commentators said could be seen as a new form of protest against the ruling Chinese Communist Party.

    The police department in Henan’s Zhengzhou city issued a warning to students on Nov. 9, following a mass “night ride to Kaifeng” by thousands of young people a day earlier, as a social media video about riding to the city in search of dumplings spawned dozens of copycat outings, eventually expanding to a mass cycle ride that some observers said left the authorities rattled, concerned that it could turn into a political protest like the “white paper” movement two years ago, or Halloween in Shanghai.

    Video footage of the rides uploaded to social media of the Nov. 8 event showed phalanxes of cyclists riding abreast across several lanes of a highway, flying the Chinese national flag and singing the Chinese national anthem, many of whom were riding bikes from urban sharing schemes.

    Bike-riding college students pack the Zhengkai Road, top, in Zhengzhou, in China's Henan province, Nov. 9, 2024.
    Bike-riding college students pack the Zhengkai Road, top, in Zhengzhou, in China’s Henan province, Nov. 9, 2024.

    Police didn’t take action at the time, but they announced a ban on cycles from downtown Zhengzhou on Nov. 9 and Nov. 10, reserving main roads for motorized traffic only, according to Jimu News.

    Cycle-hire companies Hello, Qingjue and Meituan responded by banning the riding of their bikes between city jurisdictions, saying anyone who defied the ban would have their hired bike locked remotely.

    A retired teacher from Zhengzhou who gave only the surname Jia for fear of reprisals said she saw the road from Zhengzhou to Kaifeng “packed” with cyclists on Nov. 8.

    “I would say there were more than 200,000 people,” Jia said. “Zhengzhou to Kaifeng Boulevard was so crowded that … there were no shared bikes left and a lot of people had to walk instead.”

    “[The authorities] are very nervous,” she said.

    The cycling bans came after the Nov. 8 ride was joined by more than 600 students who traveled down by train from Beijing to take part, and also by military veterans, a group regarded as highly politically sensitive by the government, who carried flags and shouted slogans calling for “freedom,” according to social media reports.

    “Eight years in the Rocket Force, night ride to Kaifeng — charge!” a person shouts in one video clip. “Five years in the Air Force, retired but still got it, night ride to Kaifeng, let’s go!” shouts someone else.

    Thousands of students participate in a bike ride to Kaifeng, in search of soup dumplings, causing a highway to be clogged in Zhengzhou, Henan, China, Nov. 9, 2024.
    Thousands of students participate in a bike ride to Kaifeng, in search of soup dumplings, causing a highway to be clogged in Zhengzhou, Henan, China, Nov. 9, 2024.

    One Douyin user from Shandong posted a video saying the authorities in Henan were now cracking down on “night rides” by students in universities across the province, as well as in the northern provinces of Shanxi and Shaanxi.

    “One video I saw showed students from Shandong and Tianjin also took action, with some waving national flags,” the user said.

    According to other social media posts, some students who tried to form a mass ride to Beijing’s Tiananmen Square were stopped and turned away at a police checkpoint, so they rode the 138 kilometers (86 miles) to the northern port city of Tianjin.

    In the eastern city of Nanjing, tens of thousands of college students rode to Chaohu Lake 140 kilometers (87 miles) away or Ma’anshan, 59 kilometers (37 miles) away, while students in Sichuan’s provincial capital Chengdu role to Dujiangyan 70 kilometers (43 miles) away and students from Xi’an rode 28 kilometers (17 miles) by night to Xianyang.

    According to Jia, authorities in Zhengzhou also locked down college campuses across the city and wouldn’t let students leave.

    “All students were told to return to campus, and then not allowed out again for a certain period of time,” she said. “The universities sent out a lot of internal notices to counselors and other staff, which you can seen online.”

    Jimu News reported that students at the Henan Institute of Science and Technology in Zhengzhou were required to get a special pass to leave campus, citing campus officials.

    Zhengzhou-based teacher Li Na said she was amazed at the students’ actions.

    “Let’s not impute a political stance to this, but at the very least it shows that young people in mainland China are very eager to take part in public life,” Li said. “Secondly, they are very organized.”

    “I don’t know how they are communicating with each other given how tight the controls are, and yet it’s gotten so big that students all over the country have responded,” she said.

    Li cited local media reports as saying that universities in Shanxi and other places had gone as far as to label the bike rides a “political movement,” and warn students not to take part on pain of having a black mark on their record.

    University staff were also working “ideologically” with students to persuade them not to take part, she said.

    “This isn’t the first time we have seen the capacity of young people to organize,” Li said. “The first time was the white paper movement, and the second was Halloween.”

    Li Meiyao, a psychologist from Shanxi, said the initial bike ride in June was described as a way to alleviate mental health problems by the young woman who posted about it first.

    “I rode a bike to Kaifeng to eat dumplings, because I haven’t found any other way to release the depression caused by the three-years of pandemic restrictions,” she paraphrased the original post as saying.

    University students endured months of lockdown on campus during the three years of zero-COVID restrictions, which ended in December 2022, and were sent home en masse when they gathered to protest, with the authorities blaming instigation by “hostile foreign forces” for the protests.

    A Henan-based commentator who gave only the surname Gong for fear of reprisals said the rides likely started out as a way for young people to let off steam.

    “At the outset, this was about having fun, with a few young students going to Kaifeng, but why did they get such an instant response?” Gong said. “Because college students have been isolated and shut off from society for such a long time, and rarely had the opportunity to take part in any public events.”

    “It was an important opportunity for them to let off steam, express themselves, and affirm their values in a public setting,” he said.

    Translated by Luisetta Mudie.

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

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Read more on this topic in Cantonese.

    Hong Kong’s main opposition Democratic Party held its 30th anniversary dinner on the weekend but only after a last-minute scramble to book a venue, reflecting what one senior party loyalist said was the shrinking political space in the city.

    The party, one of the last pro-democracy political organizations operating in the former British colony after a sweeping crackdown on dissent by pro-Beijing authorities, celebrated the anniversary of its founding in 1994 on Saturday evening.

    The restaurant in the Tsim Sha Tsui district where party members gathered was their third choice.

    The first restaurant the party booked canceled the reservation on Nov. 1, saying a deposit had not been paid.

    But a former chairwoman of the party, Emily Lau, said the establishment had not asked for a payment to secure the booking, the South China Morning Post reported.

    A second venue canceled the booking the night before the banquet saying two of its chefs got into a fight.

    Then during the dinner, which party members said was smaller than previous such dinners, several policemen arrived at the restaurant saying they were responding to a complaint but they made no arrests and left.

    Lau said it was a pity so many hurdles had been encountered “for various reasons” in trying to organize a simple party dinner.

    Lau added the party used to hold annual banquets on a much larger scale and the obstacles it now faced reflected the shrinking political space in the city.

    The party has run into similar problems in the past with events being canceled, due to what members have attributed to the fears that many people have of being associated with it.

    Political activity has been severely curtailed since Beijing imposed a national security law in the Asian financial hub in 2020 in response to huge pro-democracy protests the previous year.

    Hundreds of pro-democracy politicians and activists have been jailed or have gone into exile, and many media outlets and civil society groups have been shut down.

    Critics say China has broken a promise made when Britain handed the city back in 1997, that it would retain its autonomy under a “one country, two systems” formula.

    Hong Kong’s Beijing-backed government rejects accusations from its domestic critics and Western countries, including the United States and Britain, that it has smothered freedoms in the once-vibrant society.

    The city government and Beijing say stability must be ensured and what they see as foreign interference must be stopped to protect the city’s economic success.

    The party’s current chairman, Lo Kin-hei, and vice chairman Bonnie Ng attended the dinner but there were several notable no-shows including former party chairman Martin Lee and former legislative councilor James To.

    The Democratic Party was formed in 1990 with a platform of supporting China’s sovereignty over Hong Kong while calling for the protection of the rule of law, personal freedom, and human rights.

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    Following the 2019 protests, candidates representing a coalition of pro-democracy parties won the largest percentage of votes in that year’s city election.

    However, subsequent measures taken by Beijing effectively curbed pro-democracy parties’ ability to run in regular elections.

    Legislation in 2023 reduced the number of directly elected seats in the city’s legislature and local elections, while also requiring candidates to pass national security background checks and get nominations from committees that support the government.

    The Democratic Party did not contest the city’s 2021 Legislative Council elections or district council elections last year and holds no seats in either.

    Translated by Shen Ke. Edited by Taejun Kang.


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

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Authorities in Hong Kong have been going to extraordinary lengths to avoid shining a light on some of the more negative aspects of recent Chinese history, and thereby angering Beijing.

    Officials have changed the name of a lamppost whose official number contained an inadvertent reference to the 1989 Tiananmen massacre.

    The move suggests local officials are keen to avoid getting into trouble with the ruling Chinese Communist Party, which bans public references to the bloodshed that ended weeks of pro-democracy demonstrations on Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, and would prefer to keep the public in the dark.

    The lamppost is located next to a footbridge between Yu Wing Path and Ma Tin Road in Hong Kong’s Yuen Long district, close to the internal border with mainland China, and was once labeled “FA8964,” which could be read as code for “June 4, 1989,” a politically sensitive keyword that is banned on the Chinese internet.

    The old number was clearly visible on Google Streetview on Nov. 8, but RFA Cantonese found that the actual number had been changed to “DG8332” in an on-the-ground investigation on the same day, while the lamppost had been repainted with a sign warning of “wet paint.”

    A lamppost in Yuen Long marked “FA8964″—a reference to the June 4 incident—recently had its number changed, sparking criticism.

    A government database of lamppost locations that is used to help residents report the precise location of crimes showed that lampposts numbered “FA8963” and “FA8966” were still listed, but a query on Nov. 8 for lamppost “FA8964” resulted in the message “data not found.”

    The city’s Highways Department told Radio Free Asia in response to a query about the disappeared number that lampposts are sometimes given new numbers when new streetlights are installed, their position changed, or the equipment renovated.

    While Hong Kong isn’t yet subject to China’s Great Firewall of blanket internet censorship, some websites linked to the pro-democracy movement are blocked by internet service providers in the city. The website of the London-based rights group Hong Kong Watch is also blocked.

    The city has used a High Court injunction to force YouTube and other providers to remove references to the banned protest anthem “Glory to Hong Kong,” and arrested local residents for “seditious” posts on Facebook.

    While the city’s 7 million residents are able to search Google and other sites for information on the People’s Liberation Army’s 1989 killing of civilians in Beijing, authorities have removed hundreds of books from public libraries in recent years, including those referencing the massacre.

    The Hong Kong lamppost is seen after it was repainted and the problematic FA8964 designation changed to an innocuous number.
    The Hong Kong lamppost is seen after it was repainted and the problematic FA8964 designation changed to an innocuous number.

    Local residents said they thought the lamppost’s “upgrade” was pretty pointless.

    “Changing the number is just going to draw more attention to it,” former Yuen Long district councilor Kisslan Chan told RFA Cantonese in a recent interview. “But there are always people who want to get promoted.”

    He said he didn’t think the order had come from higher up, but suggested that local officials were trying to demonstrate zeal amid an ongoing crackdown on public dissent in the city.

    Former district councilor Leslie Chan said the move showed just how sensitive the authorities were, however, citing the High Court injunction on “Glory to Hong Kong.”

    “It’s the same reason … that such a powerful ruling party is afraid of a song,” Leslie Chan said. “Beijing fears the number 8964 more than anything.”

    A local resident who gave only the surname Chan for fear of reprisals said the move was a waste of public funds.

    “They could have used that money to help people,” she said.

    Translated by Luisetta Mudie.

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

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • ATLANTA – The leaves were turning red and orange at Georgia Institute of Technology on a recent afternoon, and students were studying for midterms. Yet within this quiet haven, a global conflict has raged.

    Georgia Tech, as the university is known, has been pulled into the geopolitical strife between the United States and China. A group of U.S. lawmakers say that Chinese officials have been trying to pilfer research from Georgia Tech and other American universities and use their resources to strengthen China’s military.

    In a September report, Republican members of two separate committees in the House of Representatives said that Beijing has been benefiting from the U.S.-funded research done at Georgia Tech and other universities in this country.

    The report claimed that research intended to help the U.S. military has inadvertently given a boost to the Chinese armed forces by allowing Chinese researchers access to knowledge and technology that could ultimately have militaristic ends.

    Chinese scientists have managed to obtain such resources through joint U.S.-China educational initiatives and similar programs, the report said. American research is being used to develop Chinese semiconductors, artificial intelligence and military technology, it warned.

    The new Trump administration could mean that the U.S.-China university partnerships and exchange programs will be placed under even more scrutiny, say academics and experts in the field. David Zweig, the author of a new book, “The War for Chinese Talent in America,” told RFA that university administrators may face now increased pressure.

    “It puts those exchanges at greater risk,” Zweig said, referring to the U.S.-China university partnerships. It may be “that the new administration will investigate the exchange programs or will stop them, or they will broaden what is seen as threats to national security.”

    He and others worry the claims of the Republican lawmakers are too far-reaching and are unnecessarily shuttering much-needed research programs. At least one American scientist who worked on such projects denied allegations made in the recent congressional report, telling Reuters the research was both early-stage and all in the public domain.

    The discussion around these tensions is the latest in long running disputes over the role of U.S. higher education in competition with China. Amid shifting dynamics in U.S-China relations, students are often paying the price.

    Chinese students wait outside the U.S. Embassy for their visa application interviews on May 2, 2012, in Beijing.
    Chinese students wait outside the U.S. Embassy for their visa application interviews on May 2, 2012, in Beijing.

    Ripple effects

    Those dynamics today are testy. The mood in the U.S. now is one that, regardless of party, politicians agree that China poses a danger to this country.

    “Anything having to do with China right now—you’re able to score political points by being the most hawkish,” said Margaret Kosal, an associate professor of international affairs at Georgia Tech.

    A defense policy bill, the National Defense Authorization Act, expected to pass this year, will likely include provisions against China and warnings to U.S. universities in particular; universities could even be blocked from receiving U.S. Defense Department funds for some research.

    Chinese officials say that academic exchanges promote better understanding between the two cultures and do not pose a threat to the United States. Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington, told RFA in an email that the accusations from the U.S. lawmakers are unwarranted. Liu criticized lawmakers for “blocking normal scientific research exchanges and cooperation between the two sides in the name of ‘national security.’”

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    Chinese influence at universities has been a long-running issue, especially regarding the study of technology. In 2018, Congress restricted federal funding to schools with the Chinese cultural programs known as the Confucius Institutes because of concerns about influence operations. Since then, nearly all these programs have been shut down.

    Besides Georgia Tech, the September government report also scrutinized University of California, Berkeley, and its relationship with a non-profit, Tsinghua-Berkeley Shenzhen Institute, in Shenzhen.

    In a statement, Dan Mogulof, an assistant vice chancellor at Berkeley, said they “take concerns about research security very seriously” and have “implemented new processes to foster and monitor foreign collaborations.”

    They are currently bringing their relationship with the Tsinghua-Berkeley Shenzhen Institute to an end, he added.

    They would not be the first. In 2023, a law was passed in Florida that imposes restrictions on public universities and their ability to receive grants from educational institutes in China. Afterwards, the Marriott Tianjin China Program, a prominent hospitality management program affiliated with Florida International University, was closed down.

    Abbigail Tumpey, a vice president at Georgia Tech, told RFA that their program in China, the Georgia Tech Shenzhen Institute, was established decades ago for educational purposes and had nothing to do with military research. Nevertheless, she and her colleagues at Georgia Tech all agreed that it was best to wind down their program in China.

    The wind-down has impacted students. Several hundred are currently enrolled in the program in China. They will be able to complete their degrees, but they will be the last to do so. More broadly, the number of Chinese students in the U.S. has fallen from over 370,000 in 2019-2020 to fewer than 290,000 in 2022-2023. About 800 US students studied in China this year compared to 11,000 before the pandemic.

    Zoë Altizer, a neuroscience major born in China who is studying at Georgia Tech’s main campus in Atlanta, said she believes that the university’s decision to pull back from China has been a consequence of “the ever-strange relationship between the two countries.”

    Students and graduates of Florida universities have also been talking about the new restrictions on the schools and programs.

    Annie Dong, 22, a native Floridian who spent part of her childhood in Fuzhou, China, was thrilled to find a “home,” as she put it, in the Chinese Language and Culture department at a progressive state university, New College of Florida, in Sarasota. She studied art and painted a mural on the wall of a campus gallery in the fall of 2022. The mural showed images of red-crowned cranes, birds with “strong symbolism in Chinese culture,” she said. “It means longevity and luck. It means you’re able to take on a long journey.”

    A mural by student Annie Dong at New College of Florida, in Sarasota, was painted over.
    A mural by student Annie Dong at New College of Florida, in Sarasota, was painted over.

    Several other students also painted murals. Then, the atmosphere on campus changed amid tightening restrictions on university affiliations with institutes in China.

    Around that time, the murals on the New College campus were painted over. But some, including Dong, felt that it was a symptom of a culture less welcoming to diverse students. “They said it was a way to beautify the campus,” Dong said. (A university spokesman declined to comment on the matter.)

    “I felt like, really, where is home now, if they’re not welcoming color and diversity. How does that make sense?” she said.


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

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Japan’s new prime minister, Shigeru Ishiba, is stirring the pot – notably on regional security matters.  He has proposed something that has done more than raise a few eyebrows in the foreign and defence ministries of several countries.  An Asian version of NATO, he has suggested, was an idea worth considering, notably given China’s ambitions in the region.  “The creation of an Asian version of NATO is essential to deter China by its Western allies,” he revealed to the Washington-based Hudson Institute in September.

    During his campaign for office, Ishiba had mooted changes to the deployment arrangements of the Japan Self-Defence Forces and the need to move beyond the purely bilateral approach to regional security anchored by US agreements with various countries, be it with Japan, South Korea, the Philippines and others.

    Ishiba’s suggested changes to Japan’s self-defence posture builds on a cabinet decision made during the Abe administration to reinterpret the country’s constitution to permit exercising the right of collective self-defence.  It was a problematic move, given the pacifist nature of a text that renounces the use of force in the resolution of international disputes.

    In September 2015, then Prime Minister Shinzo Abe convinced the Diet to pass a package of security bills known as the Legislation for Peace and Security, thereby allowing Japan to participate in limited forms of collective self-defence.  Opponents warned, understandably, that the legislation paved the way for Japan to attack a country in concert with another on the premise of collective self-defence, despite not itself being directly attacked.  They have every reason to be even more worried given Ishiba’s recent meditations.

    The intention to broaden the remit of how Japan’s armed forces are deployed is also a reminder to the United States that Tokyo is no longer interested in playing a subordinate role in its alliance with Washington. “The current Japan-US security treaty,” complains Ishiba, “is structured so that the US is obligated to ‘defend’ Japan, and Japan is obligated to ‘provide bases’ to the US.”  He suggests “expanding the scope of joint management of US bases in Japan”, a move that would reduce Washington’s burden, and revising the Japan-US Security Treaty and Status of Forces Agreement to permit the stationing of Japanese forces on Guam.

    What makes his suggestions disconcerting is not merely the establishment of a power bloc bound by the glue of collective self-defence – an arrangement that has much to do with defence as a growling provocation.  Ishiba is intent on being even more provocative in suggesting that any such “Asian version of NATO must also specifically consider America’s sharing of nuclear weapons or the introduction of nuclear weapons into the region.”

    Were such a move taken, it would, at least from a Japanese perspective, fly in the face of a doctrine in place since December 1967, when Prime Minister Eisaku Sato articulated the three non-nuclear principles of “not possessing, not producing and not permitting the introduction of nuclear weapons, in line with Japan’s Peace Constitution.”

    As with so many in the business of preaching about international security, false paradigms and analysis are offered from the pulpit.  The Japanese PM, much like neoconservative hawks in Washington and Canberra, prove incapable of seeing conflict in generic, transferrable terms. “Ukraine today is Asia tomorrow,” he falsely reasons. “Replacing Russia with China and Ukraine and Taiwan, the absence of a collective self-defense system like NATO in Asia means that wars are likely to break out because there is no obligation for mutual defense.” Ergo, he reasons, the need for an Asian version of NATO.

    Ishiba’s suggestions have yet to gather momentum. Daniel Kritenbrink, US assistant secretary of state for East Asia and the Pacific, told a forum on Indo-Pacific security at the Stimson Center in September that he preferred the current “latticework” approach to US regional alliances featuring, for instance, the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue involving Japan, India and Australia, and AUKUS, featuring Australia and the UK. “It’s too early to talk about collective security in that context, and [the creation of] more formal institutions.” It was far better to focus on “investing in the region’s existing formal architecture and continuing to build this network of formal and information relationships.”

    Kritenbrink’s analysis hardly gets away from the suspicion that the “latticework” theory of US security in the Indo-Pacific is but a form of NATO in embryo. As Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said with tartness in 2022, “The real goal for the [US] Indo-Pacific strategy is to establish an Indo-Pacific version of NATO. These perverse actions run counter to common aspirations of the region and are doomed to fail.”

    From New Delhi, the view towards such an alliance is not a glowing one.  On October 1, at an event held by Washington’s Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar proved dismissive of any NATO replication in Asia. “We don’t have that kind of strategic architecture in mind.” India had “a different history and different way of approaching” its security considerations.

    With the return of Donald Trump to the White House, the collective defence hawks so keen on adding kindling to conflict will have their teeth chattering.  Ishiba’s ideas may well have to be put back into cold storage – at least in the interim.  And as luck would have it, his own prime ministerial tenure already looks threatened.

    The post Visions of an Asian NATO first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • China has announced the baselines of its territorial sea around the Scarborough Shoal to strengthen its claim over the South China Sea feature that lies within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone.

    China has also formally named 64 islands and reefs, many of which are claimed by several countries, risking escalating tensions with its neighbors.

    A baseline under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, orUNCLOS, is a line that runs along the coast of a country or an island, from which the extent of the territorial sea and other maritime zones such as the exclusive economic zone and extended continental shelf are measured.

    A foreign ministry’s spokesperson in Beijing said in a statement on Sunday that the Chinese government delimited and announced the baselines of the territorial sea adjacent to Huangyan Dao “in accordance with international law,” referring to the shoal by its Chinese name.

    “This is a natural step by the Chinese government to lawfully strengthen marine management and is consistent with international law and common practices,” the ministry said, adding: “Huangyan Dao has always been China’s territory.”

    Radio Free Asia contacted the Philippine foreign department for comment but did not receive a reply by the time of publication.

    Scarborough Shoal, known in the Philippines as Bajo de Masinloc, is a triangular chain of reefs about 125 nautical miles (232 kilometers) from Luzon, the main Philippine island. Claimed by China, the Philippines and Taiwan, the shoal has been under Beijing’s de-facto control since 2012.

    In 2016, an U.N. arbitration tribunal ruled against all of China’s claims to the reefs in the South China Sea, including to the Scarborough Shoal. It also ruled that Scarborough Shoal is a rock, not an island, which means that even if the shoal is entitled to a 12-nautical-mile territorial sea, it cannot generate an exclusive economic zone but instead is recognized as part of the exclusive economic zone and continental shelf of the Philippines.

    ‘Cornering the Philippines’

    Beijing’s announcement came right after Manila passed the Maritime Zones Act and the Archipelagic Sea Lanes Law, which China “strongly condemns and firmly rejects,” according to the Chinese foreign ministry. The ministry also reiterated that China had neither accepted nor participated in the 2016 arbitration, nor did China accept or recognize the ruling.

    Also on Sunday, the Chinese ministries of natural resources and of civil affairs announced Chinese standard geographical names for 64 islands and reefs in the South China Sea, including several features within the Second Thomas Shoal and Sabina Shoal, both also claimed by the Philippines, Vietnam and Taiwan.

    The naming is seen by analysts as to assert China’s sovereignty over the features.

    “China is really pushing the Philippines to the corner, now Manila has no choice but to respond,” said a regional South China Sea expert who declined to be identified because they are not authorized to speak to the media.

    “As the formalization of names is also related to Vietnam’s claims over some South China Sea features, I expect the Vietnamese government to react in the near future,” added the expert, “This is an escalation of tension on China’s part.”

    Image from handout video footage taken on April 30, 2024 by the Philippine Coast Guard shows its ship BRP Bagacay (C) being hit by water cannon from Chinese coast guard vessels near Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea.
    Image from handout video footage taken on April 30, 2024 by the Philippine Coast Guard shows its ship BRP Bagacay (C) being hit by water cannon from Chinese coast guard vessels near Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea.

    Separately, Jay Batongbacal, a maritime expert from the University of the Philippines College of Law, told RFA that “China’s reaction and statements are not unexpected, given their increasingly aggressive posture and belligerence toward the Philippines in the past decade.”

    “They are naturally opposed to the Philippines’ official actions that implement international law, UNCLOS, and the 2016 South China Sea Arbitration Award,” Batongbacal said.

    Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning, while commenting on Manila’s Maritime Zones Act, said China urged the Philippines to “immediately end any unilateral move that may escalate the dispute and complicate the situation, and keep the South China Sea peaceful and stable.”

    “China reserves the right of taking all measures necessary,” Mao added.

    Batongbacal referred to a June clash between a Philippine resupply mission to an outpost in the Second Thomas Shoal and Chinese vessels as he warned of the possibility of China escalating risks in disputed waters.

    “Given the array of military and paramilitary forces that China has been employing against the Philippines, including private fishing vessels and civilian government ships, and the illegal use of force against the Philippines on 17 June 2024, any further escalation that increases the risk of armed conflict can only come from China,” he told RFA.

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    Edited by Taejun Kang.


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

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • China’s state broadcaster has launched a historical TV show with an all-star cast dramatizing the role of President Xi Jinping’s father Xi Zhongxun in the communist revolution, although social media reaction and commentators suggest that young people in China would rather watch “Stranger Things.”

    “When the wind blew from the northwest, the revolutionaries … watered their faith with their own blood and lived their lives in hope,” state broadcaster CCTV said in a Weibo post announcing the launch of the 39-episode TV series with a short trailer on Nov. 5.

    “I’m Xi Zhongxun,” whispers a youthful version of the revolutionary veteran over footage of idealistic young men saluting the communist flag and charging into battle.

    “I will forever fight for the struggling masses with all my might,” he pledges over full-costume footage of historic battles amid the yellow dust of northwest China, with red flags appearing in nearly every shot.

    “I make revolution with the Communist Party because it’s through them that I saw the light of truth, and was given something to fight for,” the character says.

    Later, the narrator intones: “Xi Zhongxun, a leader of the people who came from the people,” followed by a shot in which the elder Xi plays with his young son, Xi Jinping, driving home a political point about the current Chinese leader’s lineage.

    Personality cult

    The show comes amid growing signs of a Mao-style personality cult around Xi, as institutions and political figures compete to show the utmost loyalty to Xi and his personal brand of political ideology, including via propaganda movies and TV shows.

    The latest show, titled “The Northwest Years,” tells the story of the elder Xi’s role as a young man in the war against the Japanese in the country’s northwest, defending China’s borders and promoting land reforms to free farming communities from the yoke of local landlords.

    A scene from the historical TV drama
    A scene from the historical TV drama “The Northwest Years.”

    With a star-studded cast playing young and good-looking versions of revolutionary cadres and military commanders like Xi Zhongxun, Liu Zhidan and Xie Zichang, the show’s action focuses on the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Revolutionary Base. Leaders Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Liu Shaoqi, and generals Zhu De and Peng Dehuai also make an appearance.

    Directed by Dong Yachun and starring actors Jin Dong, Yu Hewei, Ding Yongdai, Wu Lei, and Ni Ni, the show is clearly a big-budget production that’s hoping to reach a wide audience across China.

    Yet comments on the show were largely very similar and repeated the slogans in the original post, with users repeatedly commenting “keep the faith” and “live in hope” under the Weibo post.

    By contrast, Weibo users got into a somewhat livelier discussion under a newly released trailer for Season 5 of Netflix retro supernatural drama Stranger Things, which is scheduled for release next year.

    “Is it finally coming?” user @ARTISTVW commented from the northern province of Shaanxi, while @Macabre-Chi thought it “looks good.”

    “It is good,” wrote @Nutwo-1-1, adding: “Stick with it and you’ll soon be hooked.”

    “Haven’t you seen it?” commented @-Freedom-to-go-crazy from the southwestern province of Sichuan. “It’s very good.”

    “The plotting is very tight, and there are no boring moments,” @blue2w added from neighboring Yunnan province. “It’s full of intelligence and doesn’t treat the audience like fools.”

    While Netflix isn‘t officially available in China, viewers behind the Great Firewall can still find ways to binge the Duffer Brothers’ 1980s nostalgia-fest, including using circumvention tools like VPNs or BitTorrent, according to media reports from 2019, when Season 3 was released.

    Preference for US shows

    A Chinese journalist and critic who gave only the surname Gao for fear of reprisals said many young people in China prefer to watch American TV shows, which can still be accessed via circumvention tools.

    “U.S. TV series like ‘Perry Mason,’ ‘Game of Thrones’ and ‘Stranger Things’ are hugely popular in China,” he said. “They are downloaded hundreds of thousands or even millions of times, according to my knowledge.”

    He said most people wouldn’t bother with revolutionary period dramas like “The Northwest Years” unless forced to watch them by their bosses or local party committee as part of a political study task at work or in school.

    Chinese President Xi Jinping, on screen, delivers a speech during the celebrations of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China at Tiananmen Square in Beijing on July 1, 2021.
    Chinese President Xi Jinping, on screen, delivers a speech during the celebrations of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China at Tiananmen Square in Beijing on July 1, 2021.

    “Nobody’s going to watch this kind of show unless they have to,” Gao said, adding that the role played by Xi Zhongxun in the 1969 Ninth Party Congress headed by late supreme leader Mao Zedong had been hugely inflated.

    “Xi Zhongxun was very low-ranking at the time of the Ninth National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, and played a very small role only,” he said. “I saw a scene showing him raising the curtain for Mao Zedong … which I think is a bit over the top.”

    But he said audiences were still unlikely to be impressed, despite the lavish costume and set design.

    “People are no longer interested in these dramas, which have nothing to do with the lives of ordinary people,” he told RFA Mandarin in a recent interview.

    He said such shows no longer have the captive audiences via free-to-air state broadcasters that they used to enjoy, as people can now go online for their entertainment.

    A resident of the northern province of Shaanxi who gave only the surname Li for fear of reprisals said Xi Zhongxun was more of a political than a military leader.

    “Xi Zhongxun’s most important political achievement was to instigate the Hengshan Uprising, which was a rebellion of two divisions of the National Revolutionary Army stationed in Yulin, in all about 5,000 to 6,000 people,” Li said.

    “This uprising cleared the obstacles for the Yan’an troops to move northward and ensured the safety of Mao Zedong’s troops based in Yan’an,” he said.

    Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.


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

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Read this story in Chinese.

    When Chinese President Xi Jinping sent a congratulatory message to Donald Trump on his election victory this week, he warned that both countries stand to “lose from confrontation,” amid growing concerns that a Trump administration could be further bad news for China’s flagging economy.

    “Xi Jinping noted that history tells us that both countries stand to gain from cooperation and lose from confrontation,” China’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement on its website, citing Xi.

    “A China-U.S. relationship with stable, healthy and sustainable development serves the common interests of the two countries and meets the expectations of the international community,” it paraphrased Xi as saying.

    “It is hoped that the two sides will, in the principles of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation, enhance dialogue and communication, properly manage differences, expand mutually beneficial cooperation, and find the right way for China and the United States to get along with each other in the new era to the benefit of the two countries and the world,” the statement said.

    It said China’s Vice President Han Zheng sent a congratulatory message to J.D. Vance on his election as U.S. vice president on the same day.

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

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    “Trump’s re-election as U.S. president won’t improve relations with China, but will continue sanctions and the trade war by increasing tariffs,” veteran political journalist Gao Yu said, citing a sharp fall in Chinese stock markets on the news of Trump’s victory.

    “The sharp fall in Chinese markets were part of a psychological reaction from the people,” Gao said. “China may talk a good fight, but actually it’s very worried about a Trump presidency.”

    Tariffs

    Rana Mitter, director of the University of Oxford China Centre, said the Sino-U.S. relationship will likely go through a turbulent period if Trump follows through on his pledge to impose 60% tariffs on Chinese imports.

    “This is obviously a very, very high level of tariff or import tax to place on goods,” Mitter told Radio Free Asia a recent interview. “And since it’s coming at a moment when China’s economy is vulnerable, it’s likely to be regarded as the first stage in an extremely detailed and probably quite rigorous negotiation between the two sides about resetting the trade relationship.”

    A man walks past a screen showing Chinese stock market movements in Beijing, Nov. 7, 2024.
    A man walks past a screen showing Chinese stock market movements in Beijing, Nov. 7, 2024.

    “China … is also keen to try and make sure that its currently rather sluggish economy which is not currently operating at full strength, is not further made vulnerable,” he said.

    But he said negotiations with China would likely come as part of the Trump administration’s attempt to rework its trade relations with much of the rest of the world, including the European Union and other economies.

    Mitter dismissed recent speculation that the Chinese government would alter its expected fiscal stimulus package in response to the U.S. election result, however.

    “The primary motivation I think for the fiscal stimulus within China is domestic,” he said. “The fear that consumer demand simply isn’t picking up enough to actually play the role that it needs to in revitalizing the economy.”

    But he added: “Policies which create economic uncertainty within China, for instance tariffs, might make that situation more delicate and vulnerable.”

    ‘Anti-Chinese Communist Party flavor’

    A Chinese researcher who gave only the surname Jia for fear of reprisals said Trump’s re-election will definitely have a negative impact on the Chinese economy.

    “Trump’s China policy has a clear anti-Chinese Communist Party flavor, which will exacerbate economic and political chaos in China,” Jia said. “The Chinese economy is already sluggish, and the re-intensification of the trade war will further hit exporters, and could lead to more bankruptcies and unemployment.”

    People walk through a quiet shopping mall in Beijing, Nov. 3, 2024.
    People walk through a quiet shopping mall in Beijing, Nov. 3, 2024.

    A retired Chinese official who gave only the surname Tang for fear of reprisals said Trump is seen by many Chinese people as different from traditional politicians, and acts more like a “trader.”

    “The ultimate goal is to see who will bring the most benefits to the country, and to the world,” Tang said. “That’s what the American people expect.”

    He said Trump’s victory was unlikely to make the Sino-U.S. relationship any worse, however.

    “Sino-U.S. relations have never really eased,” Tang said. “The conflict is rooted in the different ideologies of the two countries, which won’t change with the arrival of a new president.”

    He said the less confrontational approach taken in the era of late supreme leader Deng Xiaoping wasn’t genuine detente, only a matter of the Chinese Communist Party biding its time.

    “It’s impossible for there to be detente, because the problems are bone-deep,” he said.

    Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Roseanne Gerin.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Qian Lang and Lucie Lo for RFA Mandarin.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Ōriwa Tahupōtiki Haddon (Ngāti Ruanui), Reconstruction of the Signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, c. 1940.

    For the past few weeks I have been on the road in Aotearoa (New Zealand) and Australia at the invitation of groups such as Te Kuaka, Red Ant, and the Communist Party of Australia. Both countries were shaped by British colonialism, marked by the violent displacement of native communities and theft of their lands. Today, as they become part of the US-led militarisation of the Pacific, their native populations have fought to defend their lands and way of life.

    On 6 February 1840, Te Tiriti o Waitangi (the Treaty of Waitangi) was signed by representatives of the British Crown and the Māori groups of Aotearoa. The treaty (which has no point of comparison in Australia) claimed that it would ‘actively protect Māori in the use of their lands, fisheries, forests, and other treasured possessions’ and ‘ensure that both parties to [the treaty] would live together peacefully and develop New Zealand together in partnership’. While I was in Aotearoa, I learned that the new coalition government seeks to ‘reinterpret’ the Treaty of Waitangi in order to roll back protections for Māori families. This includes shrinking initiatives such as the Māori Health Authority (Te Aka Whai Ora) and programmes that promote the use of the Māori language (Te Reo Maori) in public institutions. The fight against these cutbacks has galvanised not only the Māori communities, but large sections of the population who do not want to live in a society that violates its treaties. When Aboriginal Australian Senator Lidia Thorpe disrupted the British monarch Charles’s visit to the country’s parliament last month, she echoed a sentiment that spreads across the Pacific, yelling, as she was dragged out by security: ‘You committed genocide against our people. Give us our land back! Give us what you stole from us – our bones, our skulls, our babies, our people. … We want a treaty in this country. … You are not my king. You are not our king’.

    Walangkura Napanangka (Pintupi), Johnny Yungut’s Wife, Tjintjintjin, 2007.

    With or without a treaty, both Aotearoa and Australia have seen a groundswell of sentiment for increased sovereignty across the islands of the Pacific, building on a centuries-long legacy. This wave of sovereignty has now begun to turn towards the shores of the massive US military build-up in the Pacific Ocean, which has its sights set on an illusionary threat from China. US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall, speaking at a September 2024 Air & Space Forces Association convention on China and the Indo-Pacific, represented this position well when he said ‘China is not a future threat. China is a threat today’. The evidence for this, Kendall said, is that China is building up its operational capacities to prevent the United States from projecting its power into the western Pacific Ocean region. For Kendall, the problem is not that China was a threat to other countries in East Asia and the South Pacific, but that it is preventing the US from playing a leading role in the region and surrounding waters – including those just outside of China’s territorial limits, where the US has conducted joint ‘freedom of navigation’ exercises with its allies. ‘I am not saying war in the Pacific is imminent or inevitable’, Kendall continued. ‘It is not. But I am saying that the likelihood is increasing and will continue to do so’.

    George Parata Kiwara (Ngāti Porou and Te Aitanga-a-Māhaki), Jacinda’s Plan, 2021.

    In 1951, in the midst of the Chinese Revolution (1949) and the US war on Korea (1950–1953), senior US foreign policy advisor and later Secretary of State John Foster Dulles helped formulate several key treaties, such as the 1951 Australia, New Zealand, and United States Security (ANZUS) Treaty, which brought Australia and New Zealand firmly out of British influence and into the US’s war plans, and the 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty, which ended the formal US occupation of Japan. These deals – part of the US’s aggressive strategy in the region – came alongside the US occupation of several island nations in the Pacific where the US had already established military facilities, including ports and airfields: Hawaii (since 1898), Guam (since 1898), and Samoa (since 1900). Out of this reality, which swept from Japan to Aotearoa, Dulles developed the ‘island chain strategy’, a so-called containment strategy that would establish a military presence on three ‘island chains’ extending outward from China to act as an aggressive perimeter and prevent any power other than the US from commanding the Pacific Ocean.

    Over time, these three island chains became hardened strongholds for the projection of US power, with about four hundred bases in the region established to maintain US military assets from Alaska to southern Australia. Despite signing various treaties to demilitarise the region (such as the South Pacific Nuclear Free Treaty, also known as the Treaty of Rarotonga in 1986), the US has moved lethal military assets, including nuclear weapons, through the region for threat projection against China, North Korea, Russia, and Vietnam (at different times and with different intensity). This ‘island chain strategy’ includes military installations in French colonial outposts such as Wallis and Futuna, New Caledonia, and French Polynesia. The US also has military arrangements with the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and Palau.


    Christine Napanangka Michaels (Nyirripi), Lappi Lappi Jukurrpa (Lappi Lappi Dreaming), 2019.

    While some of these Pacific Island nations are used as bases for US and French power projection against China, others have been used as nuclear test sites. Between 1946 and 1958, the US conducted sixty-seven nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands. One of them, conducted in Bikini Atoll, detonated a thermonuclear weapon a thousand times more powerful than the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Darlene Keju Johnson, who was only three years old at the time of the Bikini Atoll detonation and was one of the first Marshallese women to speak publicly about the nuclear testing in the islands, encapsulated the sentiment of the islanders in one of her speeches: ‘We don’t want our islands to be used to kill people. The bottom line is we want to live in peace’.

    Jef Cablog (Cordillera), Stern II, 2021.

    Yet, despite the resistance of people like Keju Johnson (who went on to become a director in the Marshall Islands Ministry of Health), the US has been ramping up its military activity in the Pacific over the past fifteen years, such as by refusing to close bases, opening new ones, and expanding others to increase their military capacity. In Australia – without any real public debate – the government decided to supplement US funding to expand the runway on Tindal Air Base in Darwin so that it could house US B-52 and B-1 bombers with nuclear capacity. It also decided to expand submarine facilities from Garden Island to Rockingham and build a new high-tech radar facility for deep-space communications in Exmouth. These expansions came on the heels of the Australia-United Kingdom-United States (AUKUS) partnership in 2021, which has allowed the US and the UK to fully coordinate their strategies. The partnership also sidelined the French manufacturers that until then had supplied Australia with diesel-powered submarines and ensured that it would instead buy nuclear-powered submarines from the UK and US. Eventually, Australia will provide its own submarines for the missions the US and UK are conducting in the waters around China.

    Over the past few years, the US has also sought to draw Canada, France, and Germany into the US Pacific project through the US Pacific Partnership Strategy for the Pacific Islands (2022) and the Partnership for the Blue Pacific (2022). In 2021, at the France-Oceania Summit, there was a commitment to reengage with the Pacific, with France bringing new military assets into New Caledonia and French Polynesia. The US and France have also opened a dialogue about coordinating their military activities against China in the Pacific.

    Yvette Bouquet (Kanak), Profil art, 1996.

    Yet these partnerships are only part of the US ambitions in the region. The US is also opening new bases in the northern islands of the Philippines – the first such expansion in the country since the early 1990s – while intensifying its arm sales with Taiwan, to whom it is providing lethal military technology (including missile defence and tank systems intended to deter a Chinese military assault). Meanwhile the US has improved its coordination with Japan’s military by deciding to establish joint force headquarters, which means that the command structure for US troops in Japan and South Korea will be autonomously controlled by the US command structure in these two Asian countries (not by orders from Washington).

    However, the US-European war project is not going as smoothly as anticipated. Protest movements in the Solomon Islands (2021) and New Caledonia (2024), led by communities who are no longer willing to be subjected to neocolonialism, have come as a shock to the US and its allies. It will not be easy for them to build their island chain in the Pacific.

    The post We Don’t Want Our Islands to Be Used to Kill People first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • This story was reported with the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation. Read their story here

    On an early morning in late July, a luxury expedition cruise ship, boasting the latest in high-end Arctic travel, made a slow approach to the docks of Ny-Ålesund, a remote settlement in Norway’s Svalbard Islands.

    At 79 degrees north latitude, Ny-Ålesund is the northernmost inhabited outpost on Earth. Isolated in the Arctic’s desolate winter, it hosts just 30 year-round residents.

    Newayer, a Chinese travel agency, chartered the vessel for 183 tourists from Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Beijing. Each passenger paid at least $13,000 for a two-week “Three Arctic Islands” tour, marketed as an exclusive opportunity to reach the “top of the Earth,” complete with “the luxury of Chinese hospitality.”

    Clad in matching red jackets bearing a polar bear logo, the travelers disembarked at their first stop: China’s Yellow River Research Station in Ny-Ålesund.

    There they marked the 20th anniversary of the station – one of several research facilities established on Svalbard by different nations. More than 100 Chinese tourists waved national flags beneath a Chinese Communist Party-style banner hung on the research station’s door. The travel agency’s blog likened the celebration to “raising the Chinese national flag during the Olympics.”

    Among the participants, a woman in a People’s Liberation Army, or PLA, uniform was seen saluting and posing for photos. A PLA Ground Force patch is visible on her right arm, two professional cameras are slung over her shoulders.

    This photo from an internal Norwegian government document seen by RFA and NRK shows a woman in a People’s Liberation Army uniform saluting during ceremonies to mark the 20th anniversary of China’s Yellow River Research Station in Svalbard, Norway.
    This photo from an internal Norwegian government document seen by RFA and NRK shows a woman in a People’s Liberation Army uniform saluting during ceremonies to mark the 20th anniversary of China’s Yellow River Research Station in Svalbard, Norway.

    The episode has raised serious alarm in Norway, according to experts and government discussions reviewed by RFA and NRK. Military function and symbolism on Svalbard is highly restricted, and a treaty that governs foreign presence on the island forbids military activity.

    Yet Chinese interests have blatantly disregarded these prohibitions, in what experts say is a prime example of China’s increasing willingness to push the bounds of legal acceptability to exert its influence and power.

    Indeed, RFA and NRK can reveal that at least eight tourists on the cruise were PLA veterans, with at least one still appearing to hold an on-going (though not active duty) role with the Chinese armed forces. The PLA-linked tourists participated in a co-ordinated display of nationalism in the Arctic while on board their cruise ship and on Svalbard.

    The jingoistic displays align with what experts regard as “gray zone” tactics employed by Beijing, in which blurry lines between civilian and military actions are exploited to exert influence.

    It comes as China-watchers warn that the West is ill-prepared to address the geopolitical consequences of this flexing of power.

    “The big picture of China’s ambitions in the Arctic is that it reflects a clear, long-term strategic goal: China wants to be a significant presence in the Arctic,” says Isaac Kardon, a senior fellow for China Studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Washington D.C. think tank.

    Since declaring itself a “near-Arctic state” in 2018—despite lacking territorial claims—China has steadily built its presence through legal, military, commercial, and individual channels.

    Svalbard has become the latest frontline.

    An Arctic Battleground for Great Powers

    A remote Norwegian archipelago roughly twice the size of Hawaii, Svalbard lies less than 1,000 kilometers from the North Pole, some 650 kilometers north of mainland Norway.

    Svalbard, Norway, April 5, 2023.
    Svalbard, Norway, April 5, 2023.

    A land of dramatic peaks and glaciers, its location is of strategic as well as scientific importance. Its proximity to Russia’s Kola Peninsula—home to the Russian Northern Fleet and nuclear submarines—positions it as a critical focal point for military and resource interests.

    Radar data collected from Svalbard can aid in missile trajectory calculations and satellite calibration. Experts caution that, in the event of a war, missile routes could increasingly traverse the Arctic skies—covering the shortest distance from Beijing to Washington.

    “The role Svalbard might play in a large-scale conflict involving the Arctic cannot be ignored,” warns a recent report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

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    “If tensions with the United States continue to worsen, the Arctic becomes the only other viable route (for China) to Europe for significant volumes of energy,” says Kardon.

    As melting ice opens up new shipping lanes, the waters around Svalbard are set to become even more pivotal in global trade and shifting geopolitical dynamics.

    In the face of these changes, governance of Svalbard– until now a sleepy affair– has come into focus.

    A 1920 treaty granted Norway sovereignty over the archipelago while allowing signatory nations to engage in peaceful scientific and economic activities. The treaty prohibits any “warlike purposes,” and gives Norway authority to enforce these restrictions on the islands.

    Russia has had a decades-long presence, first with mining operations during the Cold War. Today, there is still an active mining town, Barentsburg, and a Russian research station.

    Lion statues adorn the entrance of China's Yellow River Research Station in Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard, Norway, April 6, 2023.
    Lion statues adorn the entrance of China’s Yellow River Research Station in Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard, Norway, April 6, 2023.

    China joined the Svalbard Treaty in 1925 but didn’t establish a scientific presence until 2004; the founding of the Yellow River Research Station marked a significant step forward in its Arctic ambitions.

    According to China’s official website, the station supports scientific observation, monitoring, and research in glaciology, and conducts research in ecology, space physics, atmospheric studies, and geographic information. Its goal is to “contribute to global efforts in addressing climate change and other challenges,” the website says.

    Not everyone is convinced that it is all benign.

    “The fact is, when we’re talking about Russia and China, we are talking about authoritarian states. There’s no such thing really as a completely civilian, independent agency, especially one with very strong strategic implications,” says Marc Lanteigne, a Political Science professor at The Arctic University of Norway.

    “Any activity, regardless of how civilian in nature it is, will produce information which will get back to the Chinese military.”

    Last year, Russia held what Norwegian officials described as a militaristic parade in Barentsburg—something never before seen on Svalbard—in support of Moscow’s troops in Ukraine. Dozens of trucks, tractors, and snowmobiles moved through the town waving Russian flags. A Russian company was fined for unauthorized use of a Mi-8 helicopter that flew overhead.

    Norway is concerned about the rise of Russian—and now Chinese—nationalist displays on the island, says Lanteigne.

    An internal report from the Norwegian Polar Institute raised the alarm over the celebration in front of the Chinese research station.
    An internal report from the Norwegian Polar Institute raised the alarm over the celebration in front of the Chinese research station.

    An internal report from the Norwegian Polar Institute, the governing authority on Svalbard Island, sounded alarm over the high-profile July celebration staged by the cruise ship tourists in front of the Chinese research station.

    The report, seen by RFA and NRK, found the activities “particularly problematic” as they showed a clear disregard for regulations. A month before the event, Norwegian authorities had explicitly denied the station permission to hang a celebratory banner given its nationalistic nature– but the station displayed it anyway, with Chinese scientists photographed posing in front of it.

    The Institute noted that tourists appeared “well-prepared” with Chinese flags and stickers, and that photographs were organized in such a way that “it is likely that the photos will be used by the Chinese authorities.”

    A woman at the Svalbard celebration wore a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Type 21 uniform and cap, center photo, and arm patches signifying the PLA and PLA ground forces, right photo.
    A woman at the Svalbard celebration wore a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Type 21 uniform and cap, center photo, and arm patches signifying the PLA and PLA ground forces, right photo.

    It made specific mention of the woman in the military fatigues, which they identified as PLA garb. The report noted that the authority was unsure what to do.

    Camilla Brekke, Director of the Norwegian Polar Institute later told RFA and NRK: “New Ålesund is a Norwegian research station, and we do not see it as useful for the various institutions that rent premises there to hang banners, as we want a unified research nation.”

    “It would not be a successful practice if various research institutions in Ny-Ålesund start hanging such banners on the houses they rent.”

    Some experts fear the government has been caught on the back foot.

    “I get the feeling that the Norwegian government is still playing catch-up on this,” says Lanteigne.

    This photo from an internal Norwegian government document seen by RFA and NRK shows Chinese tourists holding a banner by the entrance to the Yellow River Research Station in Svalbard, Norway, July 2024.
    This photo from an internal Norwegian government document seen by RFA and NRK shows Chinese tourists holding a banner by the entrance to the Yellow River Research Station in Svalbard, Norway, July 2024.

    The government’s overall silence about its geopolitics has consequences according to Andreas Østhagen, a Senior Fellow at The Arctic Institute think tank. “When it comes to Svalbard and foreign and security policy, Norway’s strategy has been to sit quietly and do nothing,” he wrote.

    “The less frank and transparent Norway is about issues pertaining to Svalbard, the more misunderstandings and conspiracy theories are likely to emerge, even among close allies.”

    Following its internal report, the Norwegian government said its representatives had met with the Chinese embassy in Oslo and reiterated the expectations for international guests, emphasizing that “all activities in Ny-Ålesund must be civil.”

    They requested an explanation of the person in military dress and were told that the person “was a private citizen or cruise tourist wearing military-style clothing deemed appropriate for the Arctic wilderness,” they told RFA and NRK.

    The Chinese embassy in Norway said that the cruise passengers were private tourists visiting Svalbard independently. “The Chinese scientific team in Ny-Ålesund did not invite any tourists to participate in the relevant celebration activities,” the embassy told RFA and NRK.

    “China has always actively participated in Arctic affairs in accordance with international law,” it said.

    It did not directly address the questions of why banners and flags were displayed despite prior warnings and why military dress was allowed.

    Chinese tourists celebrate for a drone-style video at China’s Yellow River Research Station in Svalbard, Norway, July 2024
    Chinese tourists celebrate for a drone-style video at China’s Yellow River Research Station in Svalbard, Norway, July 2024

    Entering the ‘gray zone’

    Fan Li, the CEO of Newayer, the tour agency, told RFA and NRK that their tour group informed the research station of its plans to stage a celebration at Yellow River, and to hang banners and wave Chinese flags outside the station. The station never objected or even raised it as an issue.

    “The staff at the Yellow River Station came out to engage with us, and everyone was quite happy about that,” Li told RFA and NRK.

    A video of the tour group’s celebration was posted to Newayer’s social media account. It further features eight guests telling the camera that they are PLA veterans and perform coordinated military salutes to China while a patriotic song plays as a soundtrack. Afterward, passengers gathered to share their stories of service in the PLA.

    Li said that the presence of veterans on board was merely a “coincidence” and that when Newayer realized the connection, the company organized a ceremony and incorporated the clip into its video.

    According to Li, all of those featured were retired, as it’s difficult for active military members in China to travel abroad.

    However, one cruise participant, who identifies herself in the video as Yin Liu, was photographed wearing military garb bearing the insignia of the PLA on Svalbard. On camera, Liu says she enlisted in 1976 and fought in Vietnam in 1984 and gave the name of her unit.

    Ying Yu Lin, an expert on the PLA at Tamkang University in Taiwan, identified Liu’s fatigues as a “Type 21” training uniform issued by China’s Ministry of Defense in 2023. It is restricted to military personnel and would not be accessible to civilians, Lin said. The “Type 21” uniform can be seen on the Chinese Defense Department website.

    This photo from an internal Norwegian government document seen by RFA and NRK shows a woman in a People’s Liberation Army uniform walking during ceremonies marking the 20th anniversary of China’s Yellow River Research Station in Svalbard, Norway.
    This photo from an internal Norwegian government document seen by RFA and NRK shows a woman in a People’s Liberation Army uniform walking during ceremonies marking the 20th anniversary of China’s Yellow River Research Station in Svalbard, Norway.

    Lin added that based on her age, the uniform, and other descriptions, it was likely that Liu was a member of a local militia unit. Militia units are one of three branches of the Chinese armed forces, the other two being the PLA and the People’s Armed Police, or PAP.

    Attempts to reach Liu were unanswered by press time.

    But regardless of her status or those of other PLA-linked tourists, “the sight of Chinese veterans waving national flags and performing salutes in the Arctic serves as an effective piece of internal propaganda,” says Lin. “While foreign observers may overlook it, within China, it symbolizes the assertion of influence in a geopolitically significant region.”

    He added: “It’s about operating within legal ambiguities—pushing boundaries without directly violating laws. This time, we see veterans in PLA uniform; next time, it could be active-duty soldiers without the uniform, gradually testing international responses and how far they can go.”

    These displays represent “classic ‘gray zone’ activity—conduct that doesn’t overtly breach regulations but pushes boundaries,” according to Kardon. “On one hand, it may appear as patriotic tourists expressing national pride; on the other, it subtly normalizes a more visible Chinese presence, legitimizing scientific activities that can serve dual purposes, like gathering environmental data and military intelligence.”

    Such incidents can serve to gauge reactions, particularly from Norway and other Arctic nations, helping China understand which behaviors are tolerated, he said. “Given the strategic importance of the Arctic to the U.S., Russia, and increasingly China, there is little doubt that this expanding presence is deliberate.”

    Members of China’s Arctic expedition team, based at the Yellow River Research Station, take a boat out for sampling on the Austre Lovenbreen glacier in Svalbard, Norway, June 22, 2024.
    Members of China’s Arctic expedition team, based at the Yellow River Research Station, take a boat out for sampling on the Austre Lovenbreen glacier in Svalbard, Norway, June 22, 2024.

    Questions of diplomacy

    But sources familiar with diplomatic discussions say that Norway is unlikely to take a leading role in pushing back against China.

    “Like many countries, Norway just doesn’t have a lot of equities in its dealings with China,” says Kardon. Overt criticism or perceived slights can cause notable damage, like in 2010, when Beijing banned imports of Norwegian salmon after its Nobel committee awarded the Peace Prize to Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo.

    But as long as that’s the case, room for more muscular tactics in the Arctic will grow. Last month as China celebrated the 75th anniversary of the People’s Republic, the Chinese Coast Guard engaged in joint operations with Russian forces in the Arctic. This was preceded in September by a meeting of Russian and Chinese officials in Beijing to discuss economic development and resource extraction in the region, and earlier, a Chinese and Russian meeting in Svalbard to explore opening a joint research center in Pyramiden, a former Soviet mining hub on the islands.

    “So if you’re looking for a pattern here, I would say this is the latest version of what China and Russia are trying to do—find a way to get to the red line without crossing it,” says Lanteigne, referring to the Yellow River celebration incident. “It is a very subtle signal, one that really demonstrates that China is now starting to deviate more directly from Norway regarding what is and is not proper activity on Svalbard.”

    Lanteigne views this as a pressing challenge that the Norwegian government must confront head-on.

    “I think there needs to be the understanding that with the Arctic beginning to militarize as a whole, Svalbard is caught in it, whether it likes it or not.”

    Edited by Boer Deng


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Jane Tang for RFA Investigative.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • To achieve a world-class military, China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is pursuing the three parallel pillars of ‘mechanisation, informatisation and intelligentisation’. The latter gained traction after the ‘China’s National Defense in the New Era’ white paper of 2019 stated that the PLA would evolve from informationised to intelligentised warfare through technologies such as artificial intelligence […]

    The post China’s PLA Reshapes to Deliver ‘Intelligentisation’ appeared first on Asian Military Review.

    This post was originally published on Asian Military Review.

  • China has refrained from commenting on the U.S. election, insisting it is its internal affair, and called on Wednesday for respect and cooperation but its state-controlled media has reflected concerns and hopes, with one newspaper calling for the new president, whoever it may be, to stop a deterioration in ties.

    Foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told a press briefing, as reports indicated that former president Donald Trump was heading for victory, that China’s policy towards the United States was consistent.

    “We will continue to view and handle Sino-U.S. relations in accordance with the principles of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence, and win-win cooperation,” Mao said.

    But the China Daily, in a commentary titled “Onus on new US president to improve ties,” expressed frustration with “U.S. hawks” for the deterioration in Sino-US relations.

    “No matter who wins the election, the result will have a far-reaching impact on the world, not least because the winner will decide the U.S.’s China policy,” Chinese academics Fu Suixin and Ni Feng wrote in the commentary.

    Both of the U.S. presidential candidates had played the “China card” to win votes, the academics said.

    While U.S. voters “generally do not understand or care about foreign policy, the country’s elites have always formulated the foreign policy and shaped public opinion,” they said.

    “Both Democrats and Republicans make China a scapegoat for the U.S. domestic mess,” they wrote. “The voters have to pay the cost of the deteriorating China-U.S. relations.”

    “The new U.S. administration, therefore, should give up the illusion of having a consensual China policy, and reflect on the costs of undermining Sino-U.S. relations over the past eight years — and honestly tell the American people the truth about China,” they said.

    The China Daily published an opinion piece on China-U.S. relations on Tuesday written by the former prime minister of Kyrgyzstan, Djoomart Otorbaev, titled “Rebuilding Sino-US trust crucial for world.”

    Otorbaev said in recent years hostility between the U.S. and China “has escalated to the point where the possibility of not just a cold war but even a hot war is becoming threateningly real.”

    “Beijing and Washington are competing with each other in nearly all economic fields,” Otorbaev wrote, adding that their growing rivalry prevents the world’s two largest economies from working together.

    While not directly referring to the U.S. presidential election, Otorbaev called on the U.S. and China to “agree to coexist peacefully and engage in fair competition,” as well as manage friction and confrontations calmly and avoid conflict.

    “The primary issue between Beijing and Washington is mutual distrust, making short-term cooperation unlikely. Nevertheless, both sides should prioritize discussions and swiftly implement effective confidence-building measures and start doing it as soon as possible,” Otorbaev wrote.

    The Global Times, the sister publication of the Chinese Communist Party’s mouthpiece People’s Daily, warned of fears of violence and unrest, and the impact of that on global financial markets.

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    Edited by Mike Firn


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

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Multi-lateral cooperation keep strong as regional terrorism persists. As the war in Ukraine rolls into its third year, strategic competition across the vast maritime expanses and land masses of Asia-Pacific also presses ahead as state actors strive for military advantage. These contemporary threats are clear to see and were identified in a Congressional Research Service […]

    The post Strength in Numbers a Counter to Terrorism appeared first on Asian Military Review.

    This post was originally published on Asian Military Review.

  • Read this story in Chinese

    Chinese rights lawyer Wang Yu has been hospitalized after her health deteriorated following a nine-day hunger strike, which she began in protest during her detention following an Oct. 23 altercation with police outside a court building in the northern province of Hebei.

    Wang was released from Weicheng County Detention Center on Nov. 1 after a brief administrative detention for “disrupting public order” following the fracas, and was taken straight to hospital by her husband and fellow rights attorney Bao Longjun, Bao told RFA Mandarin in a recent interview.

    When she got out, Wang was “completely hunched over and unable to walk” on her release from the detention center, and he carried her on his back, shocked at how little she weighed.

    “It felt like carrying a sack of cotton wool; she was so light, weighing maybe just 30 kilograms” (70 pounds), he said.

    Scans at the Wei County People’s Hospital revealed a “shadow” on Wang’s liver, so Bao had her transferred to the highly regarded Handan Central Hospital where she was placed on a drip and gradually started to eat solid food again, he said.

    Targeting rights lawyers

    Bao and Wang, who were among the first to be targeted in the July 2015 arrests, detention and harassment of more than 300 rights lawyers, public interest law firm staff and rights activists across China, are now staying in a hotel while they plan further medical treatment, he told RFA Mandarin on Nov. 1.

    Police detained Wang along with fellow rights attorney Jiang Tianyong after they showed up to defend their client Liu Meixiang against corruption charges at the Wei County People’s Court.

    A scuffle ensued after police snatched away the camera of a family member who tried to take photos of them, according to a lawyer at the scene who declined to be named for fear of reprisals.

    Bao submitted a legal opinion through legal channels out of concern for his wife’s health on day 7 of her hunger strike, but nobody would accept the document, he said.

    “I asked them to send Wang Yu to the hospital, and I went to the detention center and rang on the doorbell, saying that I wanted to meet with Wang Yu to get her to eat and drink,” Bao said.

    “They lied to me, saying there was no need for that, and that she had eaten something the night before, but she hadn’t eaten anything at all, actually,” he said.

    Wang‘s hunger strike was in protest at the authorities’ refusal to allow her to meet with her lawyer or family members, as well as their refusal to provide adequate medical treatment and to let her take a shower, among other things.

    Bao said he plans to take Wang to seek further medical opinions in Beijing and Tianjin.

    He also plans to appeal her administrative sentence as a form of public protest at her treatment.

    “There’s no rule of law in this country, so all we can do now is to use it to speak out on our own behalf,” Bao said.

    ‘Heartbreaking’

    U.S.-based rights lawyer Yu Pinjian said he had seen a photo of Bao Longjun carrying Wang Yu to hospital, which he described as “heartbreaking.”

    “Human rights lawyers should be allowed to fight their cases using evidence and the law to defend their clients in court, but now they’re forced to go on hunger strike to defend their own human rights,” Yu told RFA Mandarin. “This shows that the legal system that human rights lawyers depend on for their survival has collapsed.”

    Wang’s hunger strike came as authorities in the southwestern region of Guangxi released rights attorney Qin Yongpei at the end of a five-year prison sentence for “incitement to subvert state power,” people familiar with the case told RFA Mandarin.

    Guangxi-based rights lawyer Qin Yongpei is seen in an undated photo.
    Guangxi-based rights lawyer Qin Yongpei is seen in an undated photo.

    Qin returned to his home in Nanning city following his release on Oct. 31, but his wife declined to comment when contacted by RFA Mandarin, saying it was “inconvenient,” a phrase often used to indicate pressure from the authorities.

    Qin Yongpei was detained in November 2021 by the Nanning municipal police department during a raid on his Baijuying legal consultancy company.

    His wife has previously said that Qin had spoken out many times about misconduct and injustices perpetrated by police and local judicial officials, and had likely angered many within the local law enforcement community.

    U.S.-based rights lawyer Wu Shaoping said Qin hadn’t broken any laws with his consultancy activities, despite having been stripped of his lawyer’s license.

    U.S.-based rights lawyer Wu Shaoping.
    U.S.-based rights lawyer Wu Shaoping.

    “He was accused of inciting subversion of state power only because he posted a lot of his personal opinions on the internet,” Wu said. “Everything he did was in compliance with the law and human justice in any normal country.”

    “So he was wrongly convicted,” Wu said, calling on the authorities to restore his legal career and allow him to make a living.

    “The most worrying thing is his physical condition,” he said, adding that the authorities typically continue to “stalk and harass” people on their surveillance blacklist even after their release from prison.

    Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Zhu Liye and Chen Zifei for RFA Mandarin.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.


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

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • By Charlene Lanyon in Suva

    A high-level, seven-member delegation from People’s Daily, China’s most influential newspaper, has been hosted by the University of the South Pacific at its Laucala Campus in Fiji.

    The delegation, headed by deputy editor-in-chief Fang Jiangshan, emphasised the longstanding bilateral ties between Fiji and China, spanning trade, economics, and cultural exchange.

    People’s Daily is the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). It provides direct information on the policies and viewpoints of the CCP in multiple languages.

    With a circulation of between 3 and 4 million, People’s Daily is one of the world’s top 10 largest newspapers, according to UNESCO.

    USP’s deputy head of the School of Pacific Arts, Communication, and Education (SPACE), Associate Professor Shailendra Singh, led the university’s team that met the delegation recently.

    During the meeting at the Confucius Institute, discussions covered China-Fiji relations, people-to-people connections, and youth cooperation. Both sides explored potential collaboration in news production, talent cultivation, and academic exchanges.

    Dr Singh, who is also head of journalism at USP, welcomed the opportunity for collaboration, noting the growing calls within the Pacific media sector for stronger ties with Asia.

    Similarities highlighted
    He highlighted similarities between Asia and the Pacific in terms of history, culture, and development, which provide a natural basis for enhanced cooperation.

    Dr Singh also serves on the advisory committee of the Confucius Centre and highlighted that while contact had been limited due to distance and language barriers, recent efforts to foster closer relations were promising.

    Fang reflected on the historical ties between China and Fiji, noting that next year marks the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations.

    He underscored the importance of language in fostering mutual understanding and praised the Confucius Institute’s role in promoting cultural and educational exchanges.

    Since its inception in 2012, the institute has been a vital bridge between China and Fiji, supporting cultural cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative.

    Deputy chief editor Fang also commended the institute’s efforts during the covid-19 pandemic in 2020, when it continued offering online courses to strengthen the bond between the two nations.

    Republished from USP News.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • By Eleisha Foon, RNZ Pacific senior journalist

    As the US election unfolds, American territories such as the Northern Marianas, American Samoa, and Guam, along with the broader Pacific region, will be watching the developments.

    As the question hangs in the balance of whether the White House remains blue with Kamala Harris or turns red under Donald Trump, academics, New Zealand’s US ambassador, and Guam’s Congressman have weighed in on what the election means for the Pacific.

    Massey University’s Centre for Defence and Security Studies senior lecturer Dr Anna Powles said it would no doubt have an impact on small island nations facing climate change and intensified geopolitics, including the rapid expansion of military presence on its territory Guam, following the launch of an interballistic missile by China.

    Pacific leaders lament the very real security threat of climate-induced natural disasters has been overshadowed by the tug-of-war between China and the US in what academics say is “control and influence” for the contested region.

    Dr Powles said it came as “no surprise” that countries such as New Zealand and Australia had increasingly aligned with the US, as the Biden administration had been leveraging strategic partnerships with Australia, New Zealand, and Japan since 2018.

    Despite China being New Zealand’s largest trading partner, New Zealand is in the US camp and must pay attention, she said.

    “We are not seeing enough in the public domain or discussion by government with the New Zealand public about what this means for New Zealand going forward.”

    Pacific leaders welcome US engagement but are concerned about geopolitical rivalry.

    Earlier this month, Pacific Islands Forum Secretary-General Baron Waqa attended the South Pacific Defence Ministers meeting in Auckland.

    He said it was important that “peace and stability in the region” was “prioritised”.

    Referencing the arms race between China and the US, he said, “The geopolitics occurring in our region is not welcomed by any of us in the Pacific Islands Forum.”

    While a Pacific Zone of Peace has been a talking point by Fiji and the PIF leadership to reinforce the region’s “nuclear-free stance”, the US is working with Australia on obtaining nuclear-submarines through the AUKUS security pact.

    Dr Powles said the potential for increased tensions “could happen under either president in areas such as Taiwan, East China Sea — irrespective of who is in Washington”.

    South Pacific defence ministers told RNZ Pacific the best way to respond to threats of conflict and the potential threat of a nuclear attack in the region is to focus on defence and building stronger ties with its allies.

    New Zealand’s Defence Minister said NZ was “very good friends with the United States”, with that friendship looking more friendly under the Biden Administration. But will this strengthening of ties and partnerships continue if Trump becomes President?

    US President Joe Biden (C) stands for a group photo with Pacific Islands Forum leaders following the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) Summit, at the South Portico of the White House in Washington, DC, on September 25, 2023 (Photo by Jim WATSON / AFP)
    US President Joe Biden (center) stands for a group photo with Pacific Islands Forum leaders following the Pacific Islands Forum Summit at the South Portico of the White House in Washington on September 25, 2023. Image: Jim Watson/RNZ

    US President Joe Biden, center, stands for a group photo with Pacific Islands Forum leaders following the Pacific Islands Forum Summit, at the South Portico of the White House in Washington on September 25, 2023. Photo: Jim Watson

    US wants a slice of Pacific
    Regardless of who is elected, US Ambassador to New Zealand Tom Udall said history showed the past three presidents “have pushed to re-engage with the Pacific”.

    While both Trump and Harris may differ on critical issues for the Pacific such as the climate crisis and multilateralism, both see China as the primary external threat to US interests.

    The US has made a concerted effort to step up its engagement with the Pacific in light of Chinese interest, including by reopening its embassies in the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, and Tonga.

    On 12 July 2022, the Biden administration showed just how keen it was to have a seat at the table by US Vice-President Kamala Harris dialing in to the Pacific Islands Forum meeting in Fiji at the invitation of the then chair former prime minister Voreqe Bainimarama. The US was the only PIF “dialogue partner” allowed to speak at this Forum.

    However, most of the promises made to the Pacific have been “forward-looking” and leaders have told RNZ Pacific they want to see less talk and more real action.

    Defence diplomacy has been booming since the 2022 Solomon Islands-China security deal. It tripled the amount of money requested from Congress for economic development and ocean resilience — up to US$60 million a year for 10 years — as well as a return of Peace Corps volunteers to Fiji, Tonga, Samoa and Vanuatu.

    Health security was another critical area highlighted in 2024 the Pacific Islands Forum Leaders’ Declaration.

    The Democratic Party’s commitment to the World Health Organisation (WHO) bodes well, in contrast to the previous Trump administration’s withdrawal from the WHO during the covid-19 pandemic.

    It continued a long-running programme called ‘The Academy for Women Entrepreneurs’ which gives enterprising women from more than 100 countries with the knowledge, networks and access they need to launch and scale successful businesses.

    Mixed USA and China flag
    While both Trump and Harris may differ on critical issues for the Pacific such as the climate crisis and multilateralism, both see China as the primary external threat to US interests. Image: 123RF/RNZ

    Guam’s take
    Known as the tip of the spear for the United States, Guam is the first strike community under constant threat of a nuclear missile attack.

    In September, China launched an intercontinental ballistic test missile in the Pacific for first time in 44 years, landing near French Polynesian waters.

    It was seen as a signal of China’s missile capabilities which had the US and South Pacific Defence Ministers on edge and deeply “concerned”.

    China’s Defence Ministry said in a statement the launch was part of routine training by the People’s Liberation Army’s Rocket Force, which oversees conventional and nuclear missile operations and was not aimed at any country or target.

    The US has invested billions to build a 360-degree missile defence system on Guam with plans for missile tests twice a year over the next decade, as it looks to bolster its weaponry in competition with China.

    Despite the arms race and increased military presence and weaponry on Guam, China is known to have fewer missiles than the US.

    The US considers Guam a key strategic military base to help it stop any potential attacks.
    The US considers Guam a key strategic military base to help it stop any potential attacks. Image: RNZ Pacific/Eleisha Foon

    However, Guamanians are among the four million disenfranchised Americans living in US territories whose vote does not count due to an anomaly in US law.

    “While territorial delegates can introduce bills and advocate for their territory in the US Congress, they have no voice on the floor. While Guam is exempted from paying the US federal income tax, many argue that such a waiver does not make up for what the tiny island brings to the table,” according to a BenarNews report.

    US Congressman for Guam James Moylan has spent his time making friends and “educating and informing” other states about Guam’s existence in hopes to get increased funding and support for legislative bills.

    Moylan said he would prefer a Trump presidency but noted he has “proved he can also work with Democrats”.

    Under Trump, Moylan said Guam would have “stronger security”, raising his concerns over the need to stop Chinese fishing boats from coming onto the island.

    Moylan also defended the military expansion: “We are not the aggressor. If we put our guard down, we need to be able to show we can maintain our land.”

    Moylan defended the US military expansion, which his predecessor, former US Congressman Robert Underwood, was concerned about, saying the rate of expansion had not been seen since World War II.

    “We are the closest there is to the Indo-Pacific threat,” Moylan said.

    “We need to make sure our pathways, waterways and economy is growing, and we have a strong defence against our aggressors.”

    “All likeminded democracies are concerned about the current leadership of China. We are working together…to work on security issues and prosperity issues,” US Ambassador to New Zealand Tom Udall said.

    When asked about the military capabilities of the US and Guam, Moylan said: “We are not going to war; we are prepared to protect the homeland.”

    Moylan said that discussions for compensation involving nuclear radiation survivors in Guam would happen regardless of who was elected.

    The 23-year battle has been spearheaded by atomic veteran Robert Celestial, who is advocating for recognition for Chamorro and Guamanians under the RECA Act.

    Celestial said that the Biden administration had thrown their support behind them, but progress was being stalled in Congress, which is predominantly controlled by the Republican party.

    But Moylan insisted that the fight for compensation was not over. He said that discussions would continue after the election irrespective of who was in power.

    “It’s been tabled. It’s happening. I had a discussion with Speaker Mike Johnson. We are working to pass this through,” he said.

    US Marine Force Base Camp Blaz.
    US Marine Force Base Camp Blaz. Image: RNZ Pacific/Eleisha Foon

    If Trump wins
    Dr Powles said a return to Trump’s leadership could derail ongoing efforts to build security architecture in the Pacific.

    There are also views Trump would pull back from the Pacific and focus on internal matters, directly impacting his nation.

    For Trump, there is no mention of the climate crisis in his platform or Agenda47.

    This is in line with the former president’s past actions, such as withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement in 2019, citing “unfair economic burdens” placed on American workers and businesses.

    Trump has maintained his position that the climate crisis is “one of the great scams of all time”.

    The America First agenda is clear, with “countering China” at the top of the list. Further, “strengthening alliances,” Trump’s version of multilateralism, reads as what allies can do for the US rather than the other way around.

    “There are concerns for Donald Trump’s admiration for more dictatorial leaders in North Korea, Russia, China and what that could mean in a time of crisis,” Dr Powles said.

    A Trump administration could mean uncertainty for the Pacific, she added.

    While Trump was president in 2017, he warned North Korea “not to mess” with the United States.

    “North Korea [is] best not make any more threats to the United States. They will be met by fire and fury like the world has never seen.”

    North Korea responded deriding his warning as a “load of nonsense”.

    Although there is growing concern among academics and some Pacific leaders that Trump would bring “fire and fury” to the Indo-Pacific if re-elected, the former president seemed to turn cold at the thought of conflict.

    In 2023, Trump remarked that “Guam isn’t America” in response to warning that the US territory could be vulnerable to a North Korean nuclear strike — a move which seemed to distance the US from conflict.

    If Harris wins
    Dr Powles said that if Harris wins, it was important to move past “announcements” and follow-through on all pledges.

    A potential win for Harris could be the fulfilment of the many “promises” made to the Pacific for climate financing, uplifting economies of the Pacific and bolstering defence security, she said.

    Pacific leaders want Harris to deliver on the Pacific Partnership Strategy, the outcomes of the two Pacific Islands-US summits in 2022 and 2023, and the many diplomatic visits undertaken during President Biden’s presidency.

    The Biden administration recognised Cook Islands and Niue as sovereign and independent states and established diplomatic relationships with them.

    Harris has pledged to boost funding to the Green Climate Fund by US$3 billion. She also promised to “tackle the climate crisis with bold action, build a clean energy economy, advance environmental justice, and increase resilience to climate disasters”.

    Dr Powles said that delivery needed to be the focus.

    “What we need to be focused on is delivery [and that] Pacific Island partners are engaged from the very beginning — from the outset to any programme right through to the final phase of it.”

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

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Evidence is mounting of clandestine Chinese influence operations in the heart of America.

    Just in the last few months, a former aide to the governor of New York state and her husband were arrested for alleged illicit activities promoting the interests of China; a Chinese democracy activist was arrested and accused of spying for China; and a historian was convicted of being an agent for Beijing.

    The three separate cases of former Albany functionary Linda Sun, dissident Yuanjun Tang and author Wang Shujun took place in New York alone. And they were not the first cases of alleged Chinese influence operations targeting immigrants from China in the Big Apple.

    Those cases came to light as a detailed investigation by the Washington Post revealed that China’s diplomats and pro-Beijing diaspora were behind demonstrations in San Francisco that attacked opponents during President Xi Jinping’s visit to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, or APEC, summit last November.

    Linda Sun, a former aide to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, exits Brooklyn Federal Court after she was charged with acting as an unregistered agent of China’s government in New York City, Sept. 3, 2024.
    Linda Sun, a former aide to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, exits Brooklyn Federal Court after she was charged with acting as an unregistered agent of China’s government in New York City, Sept. 3, 2024.

    All bear the hallmarks of China’s “united front” influence operations conducted by government ministries, party operatives and local proxies – but in a veiled manner.

    “United front work is a unique blend of influence and interference activities, as well as intelligence operations that the CCP uses to shape its political environment,” said the House of Representatives Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party in a report published last November.

    What is the United Front Work Department?

    Coordinating this overseas influence and interference work is Beijing’s shadowy United Front Work Department, or UFWD, set up in 1942, even before the Communists took over control of China.

    Headed by Shi Taifeng, a Politburo member, it seeks to promote China’s political interests through an extensive network of organizations and individuals around the world, experts say.

    It spares no effort trying to push Beijing’s view – and crush dissenting opinions – among people in Taiwan and Hong Kong, ethnic minorities such as Mongolians, Tibetans and Uyghurs as well as among religious groups.

    How does the UFWD operate?

    The United Front Work Department is engaged in a mixture of activities, from interfering in the Chinese diaspora and suppressing dissidents to gathering intelligence, encouraging investment in China and facilitating the transfer of technology, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, or ASPI, said in a report.

    Chinese martial arts teacher Liu Wei practices with students of the Fourah Bay College Secondary School in Freetown during a training session at the Confucius Institute University of Sierra Leone on Oct. 15, 2024.
    Chinese martial arts teacher Liu Wei practices with students of the Fourah Bay College Secondary School in Freetown during a training session at the Confucius Institute University of Sierra Leone on Oct. 15, 2024.

    It uses quasi-official organizations and civil society groups based overseas to blur the line between official and private, giving China plausible deniability in many cases, witnesses told the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, which advises Congress on China.

    It funds Confucius Institutes – Chinese-language study centers on university campuses around the world – many of which have been shut down in the United States. It also funds diplomats’ engagement with foreign elites and its police force’s perpetration of “transnational repression” – clamping down on dissidents or opponents outside China’s borders, the review commission said in a 2023 report based on expert testimony.

    United front groups often have innocuous sounding names, like the Council for the Promotion of Peaceful National Reunification or the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries. Many appear to be ordinary overseas Chinese community organizations, and are found in business and even in multinational corporations.

    Lurking behind or within them, though, are government or party agencies – very often China’s powerful intelligence, security and secret police agency.

    “United front groups are used – very specifically – to hide the Ministry of State Security,” said Peter Mattis, head of the non-profit Jamestown Foundation. “This is why I like to think of the United Front Work Department as the tall grass that is sort of deliberately cultivated to hide snakes,” he told RFA.

    What is the history of China‘s ’united front’ work?

    Under the Moscow-led Comintern in the 1920s, the Chinese Communist Party adapted Soviet revolutionary Vladimir Lenin’s concept of forming a “united front” – forging temporary alliances with friends and lesser enemies in order to defeat greater enemies.

    After Mao Zedong’s Communists took power in 1949, united front work focused internally on co-opting Chinese capitalists and intellectuals, who were brought to heel and persecuted in the 1950s under Mao’s vicious ideological campaigns.

    People in costumes perform onstage at the 13th Confucius Institute Conference in Chengdu, Sichuan province, China, Dec. 4, 2018.
    People in costumes perform onstage at the 13th Confucius Institute Conference in Chengdu, Sichuan province, China, Dec. 4, 2018.

    Xi Zhongxun, the father of current President Xi Jinping, played a key united front work role with top Tibetan Buddhist figures, trying to influence the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama.

    What role has Xi played?

    While China denies meddling in the affairs of foreign nations, experts say that under President Xi, China’s overseas influence activities have become more aggressive and technologically sophisticated.

    In 2017, Xi famously repeated Mao’s description of united front work as a “magic weapon” for the party’s success. But two years before that, he established a “leading small group” to coordinate top-level united front work and carried out a major expansion and reorganization of the UFWD.

    “We will build a broad united front to forge great unity and solidarity, and we will encourage all the sons and daughters of the Chinese nation to dedicate themselves to realizing the Chinese Dream of national rejuvenation,” Xi told the 20th Party Congress in 2022.

    That congress saw Xi’s top ideological theorist, Wang Huning, who ranks fourth in the Politburo, appointed to lead the national-level united front system, the House Select Committee report said.

    Xi has built up the power and capacity of the UFWD, which controls 11 subordinate government agencies, including the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office, the State Ethnic Affairs Commission and the State Administration for Religious Affairs, according to Australia’s ASPI.

    What are some examples of the UFWD’s efforts in the U.S.?

    In New York, prosecutors say that Linda Sun and her husband, Christopher Hu, received millions of dollars in cash, event tickets and gourmet salted duck from the UFWD. In exchange, Sun tried to remove references to Taiwan in state communications, and obtained unauthorized letters from the governor’s office to help Chinese officials travel, prosecutors say.

    In California during Xi’s visit in November, the Washington Post reported, the Chinese Consulate in Los Angeles paid for supporters’ hotels and meals and directly interacted with aggressive actors who punched and kicked anti-Xi protesters and attacked them with flagpoles and chemical spray. U.S. stopovers by Taiwan leaders have drawn similar protests.

    Who are the targets of united front work?

    Sun and Hu represent a key demographic in the UFWD’s crosshairs: the Chinese diaspora. The activist Tang had access to the overseas Chinese dissident and pro-democracy community and its network of supporters.

    United front pressure and harassment tactics – including threats against family in China – are deployed against diaspora members of China’s persecuted ethnic and religious minorities: Tibetans, Uyghurs, Mongolians, and members of the banned Falun Gong movement.

    Supporters await the arrival of Chinese Premier Li Qiang and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to Kings Park in Perth, Australia, June 18, 2024.
    Supporters await the arrival of Chinese Premier Li Qiang and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to Kings Park in Perth, Australia, June 18, 2024.

    Citizens of Taiwan have for decades been pressured by united front efforts to support unification with the Communist-controlled mainland.

    The recent imposition of draconian national security legislation in Hong Kong has made citizens and exiles who oppose those authoritarian steps in formerly free Chinese territory targets of united front pressure.

    These targets are not alone and the list is growing, with Australia, Britain, Canada and New Zealand also grappling with Chinese influence campaigns that smack of united front work.

    “There’s no clear distinction between domestic and overseas united front work: all bureaus of the UFWD and all areas of united front work involve overseas activities,” the report from Australia’s ASPI said.

    “This is because the key distinction underlying the United Front is not between domestic and overseas groups, but between the CCP and everyone else,” it said.

    The Chinese Embassy in Washington told Radio Free Asia that the United Front’s domestic role is to “promote cooperation between the (Communist Party) and people who are not members of it.” Outreach to the diaspora “helps give full play to their role as a bridge linking China with the rest of the world,” the embassy spokesperson’s office said in an e-mailed statement.

    “Its work is transparent, above-board and beyond reproach,” it said. “By making an issue out of China’s United Front work, some people are trying to discredit China’s political system and disrupt normal exchange and cooperation between China and the United States.”

    Additional reporting by Jane Tang of RFA Investigative. Edited by Malcolm Foster.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Paul Eckert for RFA.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • I am always leery of hubris. It may be true that all people of good now want ‘the fall’ of Israel, after a century of lies, deceit, killing and more killing, first by the British and European Jews, then by the US and European Jews, now by Britain-US-EU-Israel and European and Arab Jews. But compassion does not pay the bills. The stakes keep mounting, along with high tech death toys, and it’s very hard to image Israel on the verge of collapse. It, and world Jewry, have never been so rich, so powerful in all history.

    The major world powers – the ‘collective West’, China, India, Russia – provide it with most of the death toys and the fuel to run them. None of these hard-nosed political schemers want to see Israel collapse, nor do any of them lose much sleep over the plight of the Palestinians. I, like many others today, am devoting my life to help free Palestine and really, really don’t want to be disappointed, so I’ll temper my enthusiasm, hold off on celebrating the end of the monstrosity. I am not counting any chickens yet. It’s a long way till the final act when the fat lady belts out her last hava nagila.

    Dan Steinbock has written a book titled The Fall of Israel: The Degradation of Israel’s Politics, Economy & Military (2025). Steinbock is a leading international economic expert who has put his chips on the side of BRICS and multipolarism. That’s where the future is and the ‘collective West’ better wake up soon as it is being left behind. And that includes Israel, as the West’s swan song to 19th century imperial glory. He is CEO and founder of Difference Group (Paul Krugman is a member of the board), its purpose: In the past, the West drove the global economic prospects. Today, that role belongs to the Global South. We help governments, institutions, businesses, and NGOs navigate in the new and complex, multipolar environment.

    The thesis of The Fall is simple: Aiming to turn a secular democracy into a Jewish autocracy/ theocracy, the most far-right government in the history of Israel has continued to push this judicial coup amid the fog of war. These cleavages in the Israeli society figure large in its political disintegration.

    Most analysis of the dilemmas Israel faces looks to the occupation of the Palestinian territories in the 1967 War and the subsequent expansion of Jewish settlements as the chief problem. They are its proximate effect; following directly on the ethnic expulsions of the Palestinian Arabs in 1948. Steinbock makes it clear the Israelis never had any interest in anything but one Jews-only state, which was sort of achieved in the 1950s. Everything thereafter is footnotes.1 A pro-forma future two-state solution with present de facto one-state realities.2

    The US is both the problem, having encouraged Israel in its expansion from 1948 on, feeding it with lethal weapons, financing settlements condoning ethnic cleansing and murder on a daily basis, and the solution, as the current genocidal monster Israel would indeed ‘fall’ at the ‘twinkling of an eye’ if the US closed the spigot.

    The last US president to try that was Bush I, whose feeble attempt to stop the settlement expansion led to his humiliating defeat from a vengeful Israel lobby a few months later in 1992. The penultimate protest, JFK’s stand against Israel acquiring nukes, led to his assassination and replacement by Israel sycophant LBJ. With both Republican and Democratic parties in lockstep today, supporting Israel’s textbook genocide, the only hope is public opinion, anti-apartheid activism, which is increasingly criminalized in the ‘collective West’.

    Steinbock points to the mid-50s as the moment of truth, though we can go back to Jabotinsky in the 1920s, or Ben Gurion in the fateful 1948, when the slaughter began in earnest and was clear, certainly to the Palestinians, if not to a still naive collective West. The ‘bilateral’ ties with Washington and massive US military aid kicked in then and have reached staggering proportions now, a virtual blank cheque to reak havoc, no end in sight.

    These ties led to such new-old doctrines as the Dahiya (suburb) doctrine of carpet bombing civilians, the Hannibal directive to murder Israelis stupid enough to be taken hostage, and mass assassination factories, backed by pioneering artificial intelligence. The socialism of labor Zionism was replaced by the hard-right coalitions driven by revisionist Zionism, thanks to US neoliberal economic policies, assertive neoconservatism and Jewish-American donors. It also explains the rise of the Messianic far-right, centrist parties, and the failure of the Left.

    The Fall of Israel covers the country’s political and ethnic divides, economic polarization, social and military changes, the shifts in the Palestinian struggle for sovereignty, the apartheid regime in the occupied territories, the genocidal atrocities, the regional and global reverberations, and the ensuing human and economic costs, both prior and subsequent to Israel’s fatal war on Gaza. Not to mention the domestic hell – the economic polarization, the collapse of innovative, high tech start-ups, the talent brain drain, the undermined welfare state, rising poverty and the subsidized religious sector.

    Steinbock documents the three waves of settlers from 1948, the last following the 1993 Oslo Accords, which should have ended the settlements, but was so flawed that it allowed their acceleration, now under policing by the Palestinian Authority, even as Hamas was elected in Gaza, and the PA totally discredited, but still the de facto ‘authority’, now just a fig leaf for creeping genocide. Israeli attacks on Palestinians increased, killing Palestinians on a daily basis, with occasional massive bombings of Gaza (2008, 2009, 2014, 2023) killing thousands each time.

    Steinbock documents the atrocities, the complicity of the US. His many charts show the massive increase in West Bank land seizures in 2023, clearly part of a push to fully steal all the West Bank, even as there is no ‘exit strategy’ for the millions of Palestinians still alive. We know what Netanyahu would like to do to each and every one of those vermin, and at this point US politicians are more or less united on letting him ‘finish the job’. Steinbock (and all of us) pin our hopes on world mass opinion. None of the world leaders apart from the Axis of Resistance can be counted on. Arab leaders loathe the pesky Palestinians almost as much as US-Israel does. It is only the revolting masses that stand between them and the Palestinians.

    Tactics? Strategy? Duh …

    Their only strategy to achieve Apartheid 2.0 is denial of the facts on the ground, starting from 1948, denying the ethnic ‘cleansing’, the mass slaughter, the erasure of hundreds of Palestinian villages. Israelis pay no attention to the current slaughter, most hoping that the IDF and settlers kill all Palestinians still breathing. Israelis tactics are violence, murder, theft. In short, terrorism. But this is also its strategy since 1948, along with ‘divide and conquer’ of its Arab neighbors.

    Steinbock doesn’t take seriously the option of total erasure of the Palestinians, though that is the stated goal of Israeli leaders. The victory of the dead. But even if they could dump the Palestinians in Sinai, that is not a strategy which can bring peace, which would require negotiating with your own dispossessed citizens, and neighbors. In good faith. Which is impossible for Israel, as it is terrorizing its own Arab and its neighbors. In short, Israel can only survive through 24/7 terror, which is very expensive and means 24/7 US military aid. This can continue only as long as the US can keep printing dollars to cover its own massive debt. 18% of government spending is just to pay interest on this debt. As this continues to increase, eventually the US will be bankrupt, unable to function under the mountain of debt. This inevitable bankruptcy of the US will finally hit Israel, bringing to an end the blank cheque on its daily horrors, but I keep reminding myself, it took Rome four centuries to finally collapse collapse.

    What is particularly creepy is how Israel has used Palestinians as guinea pigs for testing its weapons of crowd control, now touting itself as the leader in the technology of totalitarian mind-body control. The only growth industry now for Israel is producing weapons, spyware, i.e., anything disgusting and lethal. This also began in the 1950s as Israel settled in to its schizoid de facto one-state- Jews-only state. The Israel Military Industry (IMI) began collaboration with the IDF, aiming to develop the most technologically advanced small arms systems for troops fighting in urban areas and harsh environments. The state-owned IMI (i.e., socialized death toys) was privatized in 2018, when it was taken over by Elbit Systems. (Poor Elbit is now the victim of western activists, who forced it to close up shop in Britain. Elbit has become our calling card for smashing windows and splashing red paint.)

    Israel has had to work very hard to overcome its notoriety as terrorist and mass killer. And it worked! By the early 1980s, more than 50 countries on five continents had become customers for Israeli killing technology. Israel added some sugar to its military toys, famously bragging about its agricultural successes in ‘making the desert bloom,’ and uses that as PR abroad about how nice Israel really is. That and weapons, ‘butter and guns’, though its ‘butter’ is all milked from stolen land, and its guns are used not to defend, but to suppress popular uprisings in oppressive Israel-like regimes around the world.

    Yes, Dahiya and Hannibal, but these ‘doctrines’ are merely (disgusting, inhuman) tactics rather than winning long run strategies. Israel’s tactics/ strategy have been violence, denial, theft with the goal of a Jews-only state, ignoring the natives who lived there, and then more violence. Which apparently works for world elites, including not just the US, but Chinese, Indian and Russian. No one besides plucky South Africa, Colombia and Bolivia have broken relations with the monster, despite rivers of crocodile tears.

    The Palestinian strategy is primarily nonviolent resistance with a militant wing occasionally fighting back, which is fully legal for a nation under occupation but condemned as terrorism. Funny how the real terrorists call the shots. The militants address the egregious crimes of the occupiers; they do not target civilians, even medevac helicopters.3 This strategy of compassion for the wounded is based on Islam, where rules of engagement with the enemy are nonnegotiable. Another religious principle rejects assassination of enemy leaders.

    Such ethical behavior is alien to Israel, which has assassinated hundreds of Palestinian, Lebanese, etc leaders, ‘rationally’ reasoning that the enemy will collapse without them. When Israel assassinates Palestinian leaders, they are mourned, they become martyrs, inspiring the next generation. Whatever personal flaws Nasrallah may have had, he is now a saint, an inspiration to all freedom-loving people. His body parts were gathered and temporarily hidden to prevent Israel from bombing them, and eventually will be buried probably in Karbala. Sinwar’s body was captured by Israel and most likely will not be returned (maybe dumped from a plane over the ocean like Bin Laden) as it will be a potent sword hanging over Israel’s head.

    Israel’s mass murderers, such as Meir Kahane are gruesomely worshipped, but only by nutcase settlers. Israel has few such martyr-heroes, but then neither the Palestinians nor their Muslim allies target Israelis for assassination, not believing that it is a useful tactic or strategy, rather giving a romantic aura of martyrdom to any victim as indeed is the case when Israelis target Palestinians. The Palestinians’ goal is jannah, the path/ strategy is moral and ethical living, prayer, jihad, martyrdom. Tactics are waging war to the death against the enemy, picking up unexploded Israeli bombs and reusing them. All the time, appealing to humanity, to the basic decency of the outside world, calling on world opinion, boycotting, bringing criminal charges to bring peace.

    Steinbock introduces necrotization, which seeks to transform a world of life into a world of death, because that is what displacement, dispossession and devastation ultimately require. It is the collective psychological obliteration of those who have nothing to lose, and therefore fight for their homes, refuse to move away, risk nothingness for being.4 Is this a strategy, or again just a tactic meant to kill or so disillusion Palestinians, so that whoever remains alive will be glad to leave. Whatever. It ignores the ‘last stand’ psychology of the dispossessed, who prefer to die fighting for their homes than to flee to a desolate refugee camp, so it really just amounts to genocide. It just occurred to me that a crude policy of terror, dispossession and genocide doesn’t need any subtleties like tactics vs strategy. The victory of the dead.

    Jew vs Jew, Arab turmoil

    The real showdown should be between the more universalist Jewish diaspora and the nationalist, racist Israeli Jews. Even as Trump is showered with Adelson’s millions to complete the Israeli dream of total control of the Middle East, some Jews are protesting, but have made zero difference politicly as the Democrats and Republicans are still in lockstep. So much for that strategy. What’s left? The brain drain and increased emigration of Jews from Israel as the crisis deepens. But that leaves the Kahane-ites in control. So much for that strategy.

    He considers the rise of Islamic movements in particular the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt under al-Banna, which spread to all the Arab world, rivaled by Arab nationalism under Nasser and Hafez Assad. In all cases, the MBs were crushed by neocolonial regimes, and then attempts to promote Arab nationalism failed, descending into personal dictatorships. Muslims make poor nationalists. Islam rejects ideologies that interfere with being good Muslims. In Iraq the Baath party reformers finally ending in the humiliating defeat of atheistic Saddam Hussein (who called on Allah in a panic at the end). Though battered, the MBs remain the only survivors of a century of anti-imperialist struggle, still determined to face off against the Zionist occupiers.

    With Israel commanding everyone’s undivided attention, the Arab world remains shamefully ‘divided and conquered’, resentful, even hostile to Shia Iran’s lifeline to Gaza and Lebanon. Jordan and Saudi assistance to US-Israel to shoot down Iran’s missiles will never be erased. Jordan and Saudi leaders have a lot to account for before their people. Only when Israel is eventually brought to justice, can the Middle East develop more naturally. Islam remains the bedrock, and Islamic reforms will be the way forward, based now on the experience of the past century, including Egypti’s MB, Islamic Iran and Afghanistan. The Saudis and Gulf emirates are remnants of 19th century British imperialism and do not represent the future of the Egyptian, Iraqi, Palestinian, Jordanian, etc masses. But until the enemy is defeated, we must stand shoulder to shoulder (though the Saudis et al should keep a look out over theirs).

    Russia, China

    Steinbock doesn’t make predictions on their account. He puts his hopes on BRICS, especially China’s hint at engagement, its brokering Saudi-Iranian reconciliation, and Palestinian factions uniting. The latter was called the Beijing Declaration, calling for a larger-scale Israeli-Palestinian peace conference and a timetable to implement a two-state solution.

    I think it is a mistake to be too hopeful. Russia and Chinese have highly developed economic relations with Israel; Russia provides it with the oil to use to bomb Palestinians; China is Israel’s largest trade partner – 18% of trade vs 10% for US and 2.5% for Russia. Chinese investment is more than US$15b, spawning seed capital in Israeli startup companies, as well as the acquisition of Israeli companies by major Chinese corporations that incorporate Israel’s know how to help invigorate the development of the modern Chinese economy more efficiently. China ranked second in 2015 after the US on collaboration with Israeli high-tech firms that are backed by Israel’s Office of the Chief Scientist. Neither Russia nor China want to see Israel collapse. BRICS is not a coherent economic force. We are stuck with US-Israel, the Axis of Resistance, the Palestinian now scattered around the world, working with the handful of anti-Zionist diaspora Jews, until the US itself collapses. That seems to be our strategy.

    All countries listen to China, Israel included. It would be lost if China made an serious move to threaten its economic ties. China’s recent two-state proposals prompted Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Jordan, Egypt, and the Palestinian Authority to move forward with plans to present a joint political vision for rehabilitating the Gaza Strip and establishing a Palestinian state after the Israel-Hamas war. To preempt such schemes, Netanyahu’s office presented its own vision of ‘Gaza 2035’ in May. The Israeli proposal labels Gaza as an ‘Iranian outpost’, taunting the quisling Arab leaders as ineffectual, traitors, allies of the hated Israel. So Gaza can be taken, as it isn’t really part of the Arab world, but an Iranian outpost which must be destroyed. More tactic than strategy and very silly. Israel would mobilize the emirates and Saudis to divvy out aid to Gazans and hunt down and eliminate Hamas, much like the Oslo Accords got the PA to police Palestinians as settlements proceeded. After 15 years, if things go well, some limited autonomy would be allowed, all the while under Israeli hegemony.

    Steinbock puts his eggs in China’s basket in his vision of any future Middle East peace. At each step, China is filling in where the US fears (or is too lazy) to tread. Re Egypt, in the absence of Israel’s full withdrawal from the occupied territories, the bilateral trust with Israel has been eroding for decades. Today it is sustained mainly by US aid, which is vital to bottomless-pit Cairo. Meanwhile China’s multibillion-dollar economic cooperation initiatives are fostering rather than undermining Egyptian development. Ditto Jordan, where China is building a national railway network, an oil pipeline to link Iraq and Jordan, and a new Jordan-China university. Egypt and Jordan, weak and corrupt, are throwing themselves at China’s feet, much like Iran did over the past decade. China is waging a positive-sum war against/ with the world, promising prosperity and Chinese hegemony as a package deal. (At least this is not the subtle Bretton Woods ‘prosperity and US imperialism’.)

    China’s Belt Road Initiative has reached around the world, despite US attempts to sabotage China with its own rail-ship road from India through the Middle East to Europe, but that assumes Saudi compliance, which is dead-on-arrival now. One can only laugh in disbelief as US hegemony is being K-Oed by the Chinese economic fist – everywhere. Unlike US-Israel, China has a clear strategy of nonzero sum cooperation with all, promising advantages where past ‘aid’ meant corruption, misuse of funds, more debt.

    The US-China economic rivalry is providing lots of brainstorming by potential participants in both hopeful outcomes, but China remains cautious, more or less abiding by US sanctions on Russia. BRICS at least has raised the profile of the South, given them collective clout though still much less than the collective West.

    With the Ukraine war unending, Russia is now unofficially joining all anti-US efforts, probably providing Iran and the Houthis with satellite information to keep the Suez Canal out of commission and for accurate bombing, possibly even providing a few missiles and drones. Why not? The world really is going to Hell in a handbasket, and the ride is rocky but exciting and even hopeful, considering the bad guys seem to be doing everything wrong, pushing Putin into the hands of enemy.

    Nuke time?

    The ongoing war on multiple fronts from the Axis of Resistance, with 100,000s of Hezbollah bombs ready, could push Israel to use its nukes.5 The Begin ‘doctrine’ was ‘formulated’ to justify bombing Iraq’s nuclear facilities and is still in play against Iran. Several nuclear sites were bombed in October, though not the main sites, and were accompanied by a promise to bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities after the election.

    Trump has already voiced his approval. But Iran’s success in bombing Israel twice in 2024 shows it has jumped ahead of Israel (and the US) in hypersonic missiles, which can be mobilized to really destroy little sitting-duck Israel. Israel is still loudly threatening Iran but my gut reaction is to imagine hundreds of hypersonic missiles reining down on Israel. Israelis are uniformly racist monsters now, so the civilian-military distinction is moot. When the whole world feels that way about you, all the king’s horse and all the king’s lackeys won’t be able to put Humpty-Dumpty together again.

    In the West, Israel’s peace treaties with Egypt (1979) and Jordan (1994), and the Abraham Accords (2020–2021) with some Gulf states are often portrayed as steps toward a two-state solution. In Israel, they are seen more as bilateral “normalization” deals with individual Arab countries that will over time marginalize or exclude Palestinians from a final peace solution. The Gaza War has jeopardized the future of such normalization agreements, while severely shuttering the existing deals. The trouble is neither the US nor Israel ever took the negotiations seriously. No one believed then or now that the two-state solution is possible. Meanwhile even US presidents don’t control things, as congress is completely in thrall to Israel and will not allow any pressure to be put on Israel to negotiate. The Knesset voted unanimously against a Palestinian state for the nth time (68, 9 Arab Israelis voting for a Palestinian state).

    Given the likely Trump second term, funded by Adelson, probably none of this matters at all. Trump’s Project 2025 includes Project Esther, which plans to crush all anti-Israel dissent in the US and Europe and to create a Potemkin villlage of acceptable Palestinians, to be kept in line by Arab sheikhs with Israeli puppet masters. Netanyahu couldn’t have said it better.

    Steinbock is hopeful re Russia, with its offer to Iran of S-400 anti-missile defense (a decade after Iran paid for them), showing the US that it is not the only kid on the block with nukes. But Steinbock’s only real hope is that world opinion, backed by a Jewish diaspora, will somehow click in and bring the US to its senses. I would add the Palestinian diaspora, which is already larger (in 2003 9.6m) than the Jewish one (8.5m), working together, will be the driving force of change. And Islam. It is the fastest growing religion (always has been) and the Middle East is now multiple-birthing Ziophobia and Islamophilia. It’s never been a better time to be a Muslim. We have a huge diaspora in the House of War. And we have Boycott Divest Sanction as the secular version of jihad. When Jews, Christians6 and Muslims can join forces, we can do anything.

    The first real sign that South African apartheid would be dismantled was when (Jewish) MP Harry Schwarz met with ANC’s Mangosuthu Buthelezi to sign the Mahlabatini Declaration of Faith in 1974, enshrined the principles of peaceful transition of power and equality for all, the first such agreement by black and white political leaders in South Africa. But it took another 2 decades of struggle until de Klerk opened bilateral discussions with Nelson Mandela in 1993 for a transition of policies and government.

    It seems we have reached that first stage today. Ehud Olmert, who served as the Israeli prime minister from 2006 to 2009, and Nasser al-Kidwa, the Palestinian foreign minister from 2005 to 2006, met Pope Francis October 17, 2024, to promote a peace plan that would see a Palestinian state existing alongside the state of Israel ‘on the basis of 1967 borders’ with a few territorial adjustments. Their plan calls for the city of Jerusalem to be the capital of both Israel and Palestine, with the Old City being ‘administered by a trusteeship of five states of which Israel and Palestine are part.’

    ENDNOTES:

    The post To Turn a Secular Democracy into a Jewish Autocracy first appeared on Dissident Voice.
    1    Dan Steinbock, The Fall if Israel: The Degradation of Israel’s Politics, Economy & Military, 2025</a>, p362.
    2    Israel has been in complete control of all lands since 1948. Palestinians who stayed were to be ethnically cleansed, killed or deported over time.
    3    There may be an implicit pact here: you let us retrieve our wounded soldiers and we will not starve you TO DEATH.
    4    Ibid., p126.
    5    Ibid., p350.
    6    I have given Christianity short shrift here, but ‘that’s life.’ The Palestinian Christians have been decimated already, hanging on only due to their Muslim friends.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • The ruling Chinese Communist Party has enshrined the ashes of a general who presided over a Cultural Revolution massacre that included cannibalism of those deemed “enemies of the people” by late supreme leader Mao Zedong.

    On Oct. 24, officials reburied the ashes of People’s Liberation Army founding general and former Guangxi regional party chief Wei Guoqing – 35 years after his death.

    The full-honors burial ceremony at Beijing’s Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery – the resting place of China’s high-ranking leaders and revolutionary heroes – was attended by high-ranking guests, including the descendants of late revolutionary leaders Zhu De and Peng Dehuai.

    A poster showing how to deal with the so-called “enemy of the people” during the Cultural Revolution is seen on a Beijing street in late 1966.
    A poster showing how to deal with the so-called “enemy of the people” during the Cultural Revolution is seen on a Beijing street in late 1966.

    The news prompted outrage and satire on Chinese-language social media, with comments highlighting Wei’s role in the Guangxi Massacre in which members of factional gangs killed an estimated 100,000-150,000 people through beheadings, beatings, burial alive, stoning, drowning, boiling and disembowelment, according to historical research.

    Wei’s name is most strongly linked in the public mind with cannibalism during the massacre period in Guangxi’s Wuxuan and Wuming counties and Nanning city, after the victims were targeted as “enemies of the people” amid the factional violence of the 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution.

    Public records cited in The New York Times in 1993 and by Radio France International in 2016 showed that at least 137 people were eaten, with thousands participating.

    Chinese-language comments on this week’s news story on X, which is blocked in China but still accessed by some using circumvention tools, were darkly scathing about the move.

    “So the Chinese Communist Party’s running-dog butcher is now a hero for killing people,” commented @ueinhu, while @sebonesama quipped: “Babaoshan is already packed full of demons and monsters – there’s always room for one more.”

    Other jibes seemed to echo those made about the fictional killer Hannibal Lecter, with one user posting a meme of Wei faced with piles of deep-fried meat and a KFC logo in the background.

    “Paying tribute to a legendary gourmet,” commented @WaterMargin_10, while @akira38458278 wondered if the move was to prevent the people of Guangxi from “digging him up and eating him” and @DingeX22503 concluded: “Only those who are ruthless enough get to be a hero in China.”

    Hands ‘covered in blood’

    Feng Chongyi, a professor at the University of Technology in Sydney, said Wei’s burial is politically symbolic, as it underscores Xi Jinping’s status as the heir of late supreme leader Mao Zedong, and is a tacit endorsement of the political “struggle” tactics used by his predecessor.

    “Wei Guoqing was an executioner whose hands were covered in blood,” Feng told RFA Cantonese in a recent interview. “By giving him the honor of entering Babaoshan, Xi Jinping is endorsing the persecution mania of the Cultural Revolution, which reflects his own totalitarian resurgence.”

    “It indicates that Xi Jinping and Mao Zedong have the same authoritarian nature,” Feng said.

    A security person patrols in the Babaoshan Cemetery in Beijing, April 2, 2017.
    A security person patrols in the Babaoshan Cemetery in Beijing, April 2, 2017.

    Yang Haiying, a professor at Japan’s Shizuoka University who has researched Cultural Revolution violence against the ethnic Mongolian population, said the burial of Wei’s remains seemed to indicate Xi’s unwillingness to distance himself from that era of China’s recent history.

    “When Wei Guoqing was in Guangxi, his people killed and ate people, and yet he gets to be in Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery,” Yang said. “The Chinese Communist Party has never condemned the Cultural Revolution … just paused it temporarily.”

    “Xi Jinping is now restarting it; we’re right in the middle of it now,” he said.

    Yang said there was a leader similar to Wei in Inner Mongolia, who presided over massacres of tens of thousands of ethnic Mongolians during the Cultural Revolution, but that the authorities had refused to criticize his actions in public.

    “The Chinese Communist Party is a violent regime, and all its talk of revolution just means violence,” he said. “So it will only reward its most violent followers.”

    Wei Guoqing died of illness on June 14, 1989, 10 days after the Tiananmen massacre put an end to weeks of student-led pro-democracy demonstrations on Tiananmen Square.

    His ashes were placed in storage at the Babaoshan Columbarium until the Oct. 24 burial ceremony.

    Translated with additional reporting by Luisetta Mudie.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Yitong Wu and Kit Sung for RFA Cantonese.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Read this story in Chinese

    As China watches the countdown to the U.S. presidential election results, state media has been hammering home the point that American democracy is messy, violent and encourages extreme behaviors on both sides, while ordinary people seem to support Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump in roughly equal measure, commentators told Radio Free Asia.

    “In the past three months, Trump has survived multiple assassination attempts,” the state-run China Daily newspaper said in an Oct. 29 commentary. “Harris’s campaign office in Arizona was also shot at and vandalized.”

    “Political violence is on the rise as polarization and public opinion divisions intensify ahead of the election,” the paper said, adding that there are widespread fears of political violence that could follow even when results are known.

    Other media reports focused on name-calling in the campaign, including the description of Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage” at a Trump campaign event, and Harris’ taunting of the former president for not being able to “finish a thought.”

    Voters cast their ballots during early voting in the Bronx Borough of New York City on Nov. 1, 2024.
    Voters cast their ballots during early voting in the Bronx Borough of New York City on Nov. 1, 2024.

    While Chinese President Xi Jinping expressed brief “condolences” following the shooting of Trump at a campaign rally in July, officials have largely refrained from commenting in public on the election campaign.

    Yet many in China are still watching closely, with similar levels of support for each party’s candidate, commentators told RFA Mandarin in recent interviews.

    “It’s actually really interesting — [some] people in China hope that the U.S. will elect a president who doesn’t favor the Chinese Communist Party,” a Guangdong resident who gave only the surname Zhou for fear of reprisals told RFA Mandarin in a recent interview.

    “But there is roughly equal popular support for both candidates in China,” he said.

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    He said it’s unsurprising that the Chinese media try to play up the “instability” angle when covering the rough and tumble of a presidential campaign trail, given the Chinese Communist Party’s focus on stability as a top priority at home.

    Yuan Dong, a scholar from the central province of Hunan, said there is a dedicated group of social media users in China who have followed the election step-by-step since campaigning started.

    “People are paying much more attention this time around compared with four years ago,” Yuan told RFA Mandarin in a recent interview. “Chinese social media users aren’t allowed to talk about domestic current affairs, and the U.S. election will have an impact on the international situation, particularly the Ukraine war.”

    “A lot of the people paying the most attention are dissidents and former political prisoners.”

    While many Chinese believe that the outcome of the Nov. 5 poll will have a crucial impact on China, very few are publicly supporting either candidate, taking their cue from official silence on the topic, Yuan said.

    “Most people are getting their information from blogs and WeChat friend circles,” he said. “Very few are getting it from traditional media like newspapers, TV or radio.”

    A motorcyclist rolls past campaign signs on Oct. 31, 2024, in Barrington, New Hampshire.
    A motorcyclist rolls past campaign signs on Oct. 31, 2024, in Barrington, New Hampshire.

    Overseas Chinese have less to worry about when it comes to taking sides, according to former Anhui prosecutor Shen Liangqing.

    “[Some are] relatively friendly to the United States and hope the party they like will get elected,” Shen said. “The arguments among the Harris and Trump supporters are more intense.”

    Another group of overseas Chinese is fairly hostile to the U.S., and is watching the process as if it were a joke, relishing any expression of “chaotic” behavior, he said.

    “There are fierce arguments between Harris and Trump supporters, and people are even falling out and blocking each other,” Shen said. “There’s another attitude too, which is that it doesn’t matter who comes to power, because the U.S. is a democratic country.”

    A commentator who gave only the surname Zhou for fear of reprisals said some people in China have expressed envy at the right to vote for the next president in a country where President Xi has amended the constitution to abolish presidential term limits, paving the way for indefinite rule.

    “A lot of people are paying attention to the U.S. election, because actually we envy it,” Zhou said. “The so-called ‘full process democracy’ we have here is just a word. We don’t have democracy here at all.”

    “Even our village committee elections are controlled by [the ruling party],” he said. “We would love to have one person, one vote one day, so we could elect our own national leaders.”

    A Protestant pastor from the southwestern province of Yunnan who gave only the surname Cao for fear of reprisals said his church members are watching closely, and many wish that the Chinese people also had the right to vote.

    “But what is the point of the Christians in our church having any opinions? There’s nothing they can do about any of it,” he said. “Opinions are a luxury.”

    Zhejiang-based scholar Zhao Zhi said the complexity of the Sino-US relationship has been the main focus in the official media.

    “While the general public are watching the election as spectators, the official media is emphasizing the potential risks of dividing U.S. society,” Zhao said, adding that Beijing is also keen to find out which of the candidates’ China policies will be implemented.

    In an economic commentary on Oct. 29, the China Daily said U.S. China trade and economic policy is unlikely to be hugely affected, regardless of whether Harris or Trump forms the next administration.

    “No matter which party controls the House or/and Senate, there is little chance this ‘small yard, castellated wall’ approach will change any time soon,” the paper said in a separate commentary on recent Treasury rules curbing U.S. investments in high-end computer chips, AI and quantum computing.

    “Containing Chinese scientific and technological progress has become a bipartisan consensus in US domestic politics, and a key pillar of US geopolitical strategy,” the paper said.

    “Beijing has been cast as the foremost threat to US national security. And national security has been a handy rallying cry for US politicians to concentrate support both at home and abroad,” it said.

    Translated with additional reporting by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Eugene Whong.


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

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.


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

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Vietnam has accused the Chinese coast guard of “seriously violating” its sovereignty in the Paracel islands, which both countries claim, by detaining a number of Vietnamese fishermen and their fishing boats in the area.

    A foreign ministry spokesperson told a press briefing in Hanoi on Thursday that the Vietnamese government had “resolutely” protested and demanded China “immediately release all the fishermen and fishing vessels, appropriately compensate them for the damages and stop the harassment against Vietnamese fishermen” operating in the contested Paracel archipelago in the South China Sea.

    Vietnam, China and Taiwan all claim sovereignty over the island chain, known as Xisha islands in Chinese, but Beijing has been controlling the entire area since 1974 after defeating and expelling troops of the government of the then South Vietnam.

    The Vietnamese spokesperson, however, did not provide any details on how many fishermen had been detained or when.

    China had not responed to Vietnam’s accusation at time of publication but on Thursday, the Chinese defense ministry’s spokesperson, Zhang Xiaogang, told reporters that the Chinese military wished to “deepen the traditional friendship as comrades and brothers with Vietnam, as well as enhance strategic mutual trust.”

    Last month, Vietnam protested after Chinese law enforcement personnel boarded a fishing boat from Quang Ngai province and beat the crew with iron bars, seriously injuring four of them.

    The crew claimed that most of the equipment on the boat was smashed and taken away along with the catch.

    China responded by saying that “on-site operations were professional and restrained, and no injuries were found.”

    China’s ramped up activities

    Separately, the Chinese defense ministry spokesperson revealed on Thursday that the People’s Liberation Army navy recently conducted the first ever dual aircraft carrier exercise in the South China Sea.

    The exercise was carried out in the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea and the South China Sea, with real combat scenarios, Zhang told a press briefing in Beijing without specifying the time frame.

    Chinese aircraft carriers Liaoning and Shandong carry out a dual aircraft carrier formation exercise for the first time in the South China Sea in October 2024.
    Chinese aircraft carriers Liaoning and Shandong carry out a dual aircraft carrier formation exercise for the first time in the South China Sea in October 2024.

    The navy released photos and videos featuring the dual carrier formations led by China’s first aircraft carriers Liaoning and Shandong, with more than 10 destroyers, frigates, and replenishment ships.

    According to the Xinhua news agency, the multi-day exercise was conducted between the Mid-Autumn festival (Sept. 17) and the National Day holidays (Oct 1-7).

    RELATED STORIES

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    Over the past year, Beijing has intensified its activities in the South China Sea, where it has disputes with some of its neighbors, including Vietnam and the Philippines.

    Euan Graham, a senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, told a forum on the South China Sea that while in the last 15 years or so, China mainly usedg coercive tactics known as gray-zone activities, “the number and intensity of incidents involving physical force and threat of armed violence has increased.”

    Maritime tensions between China and the Philippines have risen sharply this year, as well as between China and Taiwan, which Beijing considers a Chinese province that shoul be unified with the mainland, by force if necessary.

    On Oct. 14, the Chinese military launched a large-scale exercise, called Joint Sword-2024B, in the air and waters of the Taiwan Strait and around Taiwan island.

    Edited by Mike Firn.


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

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Vietnam seems “determined to maximize the strategic potential of the features it occupies” in areas of the South China Sea that China also claims, a U.S. think tank said.

    The Washington-based Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, or AMTI, said in a new report there are indications Hanoi is developing airstrips on several of the artificial islands, and “signs of potential military structures” have also been spotted across a number of features.

    Radio Free Asia reported on Oct. 25 on the construction of a runway on Barque Canada reef, the largest-to-date reclaimed island under Vietnam’s control in the Spratly archipelago.

    Known as Bai Thuyen Chai in Vietnamese, the reef has undergone intensive development since 2021 and its current total landfill area is estimated at nearly 2.5 square kilometers, or 617.7 acres.

    The airstrip has since been lengthened from 1,050 meters to approximately 1,600 meters and could be extended to 3,000 meters or more, long enough to accommodate larger aircraft.

    Until now, Vietnam has only one 1,300-meter airstrip on the islands in the South China Sea, on an island called Spratly. The new runway “significantly expands Vietnam’s options for deploying combat aircraft to the Spratly Islands,” AMTI said, adding that it “may not be the only runway Hanoi has planned for the Spratlys.”

    The AMTI said there may be plans to develop airstrips on at least two other reclaimed islands, Pearson reef and Ladd reef. Both of the features are being built up fast.

    Military structures

    Besides the runways, AMTI said in its report that new formations of berms, or raised barriers, encasing six areas “are visible in recent imagery of Barque Canada Reef, Central Reef, Tennent Reef, Namyit Island, South Reef, and Ladd Reef.”

    “Given the coastal orientation of most formations, it’s possible these areas could be intended to house anti-ship artillery or missile platforms,” the group said.

    Suspected military structure on Barque Canada reef, Oct. 2, 2024.
    Suspected military structure on Barque Canada reef, Oct. 2, 2024.

    Analysts have said that military bases and runways in the Spratlys would bolster Vietnam’s strategic capabilities to counter China’s power projection in the South China Sea.

    Beijing has fully developed and militarized at least three artificial islands, known as “The Big Three”, including Fiery Cross, Subi reef and Mischief reef in the Spratly archipelago.

    “Three years from when it first began, Vietnam is still surprising observers with the ever-increasing scope of its dredging and landfill in the Spratly Islands,” AMTI said.

    Yet as reclamation work continues fast on new features and “in unexpected directions,” the think tank said the extent of new capabilities Vietnam would have remains to be seen.

    RELATED STORIES

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    Blinken warns ASEAN on China’s ‘dangerous’ actions in sea disputes

    Edited by Mike Firn.


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

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Xu is protesting against what he describes as inhumane treatment in prison, including lack of contact with his family

    Concerns are growing about the health of Xu Zhiyong, China’s most prominent imprisoned human rights lawyer, who is thought to have been on hunger strike for nearly a month.

    Xu, a scholar and leading figure in China’s embattled civil rights movement, started his hunger strike on 4 October, according to Chinese Human Rights Defenders, an NGO. He is protesting against what he describes as inhumane treatment in prison, including lack of contact with his family and intensive surveillance by other prisoners, according to reports released through his relatives.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • British Foreign Secretary David Lammy is facing blowback for failing to condemn the Uyghur genocide at a meeting with his Chinese counterpart in Beijing during a recent two-day trip to China.

    In April 2021, British MPs passed a motion declaring that China was committing genocide against the Uyghur people in Xinjiang, a vast region in northwestern China that is home to about 12 million mostly Muslim Uyghurs.

    Following Lammy‘s Oct. 18 meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing, Britain’s Foreign Office released a readout which said he raised the issue of rights abuses as a stumbling block in bilateral relations.

    “Human Rights were discussed, including in Xinjiang, and the Foreign Secretary referenced this as an area which the UK and China must engage, even where viewpoints diverge,” the statement said.

    But opposition members of the UK Parliament and an official from the World Uyghur Congress advocacy group blasted Lammy for not specifically addressing the Uyghur genocide.

    “On human rights in Xinjiang, the House of Commons, including the Labour party in opposition, voted that genocide was taking place in Xinjiang, yet the Foreign Office readout simply said: ‘Human rights were discussed,’” Conservative MP Iain Duncan Smith told Lammy during a parliamentary session on Oct. 28.

    Britain's Foreign Secretary David Lammy (R) and British Ambassador to China Caroline Wilson arrive at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Oct. 18, 2024.
    Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Lammy (R) and British Ambassador to China Caroline Wilson arrive at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Oct. 18, 2024.

    “This is a genocide taking place, with slave labor,” he said. “Why is there not more robust condemnation from the government to China?”

    The United States and parliaments of other Western countries have also declared that China has committed genocide or crimes against humanity in Xinjiang based on credible evidence of mass detentions in camps, forced sterilizations of Uyghur woman, and other severe rights abuses.

    Sanctions

    Duncan Smith, who is also co-chair of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, went on to say that he heard there was a move in the Foreign Office to lift British sanctions on Chinese officials responsible for the genocide in Xinjiang as part of a deal to remove sanctions on British lawmakers.

    “And I just simply say to the foreign secretary, I must tell him, that I, for one, would never accept such a shameful deal at any price, and I hope he will stamp on that straightaway,” he said.

    In March 2021, China imposed sanctions on British organizations and politicians, including Duncan Smith and fellow Conservative MP Neil O’Brien, accusing them of spreading “lies and disinformation” about human rights abuses in Xinjiang. The sanctions came in response to Britain’s decision to implement measures against four Chinese officials.

    O’Brien noted at Monday’s parliamentary session that when the Labour party was in opposition, it said there was “clear and compelling evidence” of a genocide in Xinjiang. He asked Lammy if he still believed this to be the case now that Labour is the governing party.

    Responding to O’Brien and Duncan Smith during the session, Lammy said he did “raise Xinjiang in the context of human rights” and the issue of sanctioned parliamentarians with both Wang Yi and the foreign affairs spokesperson for the Chinese Communist Party.

    “I raised that as a matter of huge concern,” Lammy said about the lifting of sanctions on British lawmakers, adding that he also discussed threats and aggression in the South China sea, jailed British national Jimmy Lai and curtailed freedoms in Hong Kong.

    “It would be totally unacceptable for any UK Foreign Minister to go to China and not raise those issues of tremendous concern,” he said.

    Britain's Foreign Secretary David Lammy (2nd from L) attends a meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing, Oct. 18, 2024.
    Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Lammy (2nd from L) attends a meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing, Oct. 18, 2024.

    Lammy said he remains “hugely concerned about the human rights abuses in Xinjiang,” but added that it is a matter for the International Criminal Court and others to make a determination of genocide, “not for national government.”

    Lammy ‘vocal’ on issues

    When asked by Radio Free Asia about reports of a deal to remove sanctions and a clarification of how it classifies rights abuses in Xinjiang, a British government spokesperson said Lammy has been vocal on both issues.

    “The Foreign Secretary has called on China to lift its sanctions on UK parliamentarians at every meeting with his counterpart, along with raising the UK’s serious human rights concerns, including in Xinjiang,” the spokesperson said.

    “China’s sanctions including against parliamentarians are completely unwarranted and unacceptable and are totally incomparable to the sanctions announced by the UK in 2021, which were based on compelling and widespread evidence of serious and systematic human rights violations in Xinjiang,” the spokesperson added.

    Rahima Mahmut, the UK director of the World Uyghur Congress, said she was pleased that O’Brien and Duncan Smith questioned the foreign minister about his failure to raise the Uyghur genocide with Wang Yi.

    She added that it is unlikely the British Government would lift sanctions imposed on the Chinese officials.

    “This is because the punishment imposed on Chinese officials is based on strong evidence that these officials have committed human rights abuses under international law,” she told RFA.

    Edited by Joshua Lipes.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Adile Ablet for RFA Uyghur and Roseanne Gerin for RFA English.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Read coverage of this story in Mandarin here and here.

    Faced with plummeting birth rates, nationwide kindergarten closures and young people who are increasingly choosing to stay single, authorities in China have announced incentives to encourage people to have kids, calling for “a new marriage and childbearing culture.”

    China’s cabinet, the State Council, published a slew of measures on Monday, including childbirth subsidies, better healthcare for mothers and children, and comprehensive childcare services.

    Officials at all levels of government should “actively build a new marriage and childbearing culture and carry forward the traditional virtues of the Chinese nation, advocating … marriage and childbearing at the right age,” the announcement said.

    Communist Party leader Xi Jinping has called on women to focus on raising families, and the National People’s Congress has been looking at ways to boost flagging birth rates and kick-start the shrinking population, including flexible working policies, coverage for fertility treatment and extended maternity leave.

    A child plays with sand near a couple taking part in a pre-wedding photo shoot on a beach in Qingdao, China, April 21, 2024.
    A child plays with sand near a couple taking part in a pre-wedding photo shoot on a beach in Qingdao, China, April 21, 2024.

    But young women in today’s China are increasingly choosing not to marry or have kids, citing huge inequalities and patriarchal attitudes that still run through family life, not to mention the sheer economic cost of raising a family.

    Officials should “vigorously promote positive views of marriage, relationships, childbearing, and family” and build online matchmaking and dating services to help young people to find partners, while getting rid of “lavish weddings and high bride prices,” the State Council directive said.

    The measures come after the Ministry of Education reported a 5% fall in the number of kindergartens last year, with more than 14,800 closures, marking the second year of decline.

    Kindergarten enrollments fell by 5.35 million in 2023, a decrease of 11.55% from 2022, the ministry said in figures widely reported by Chinese media.

    Live births fell from 17.86 million in 2016 to just 9.02 million in 2023, with birth rates plummeting from 1.77 per woman in 2016 to around 1.0 in 2023, placing the country second from bottom among the world’s major economies.

    Global trend

    Peng Xiujian, a senior researcher at Australia’s Victoria University, said low fertility rates are part of a global trend, especially in Asia, where young people are generally unwilling to have children.

    The new measures “will be slow to take effect, and it is impossible to change people’s willingness to have children all at once,” Peng said.

    The State Council said it would extend maternity leave from 98 days to 158 days, which would attract a maternity allowance in more than half of China’s provinces, and allow childcare tax allowances of up to 2,000 yuan (US$280) a month, while calling on local governments to expand and subsidize local childcare services.

    Nurses take care of a newborn baby at a hospital in Xinghua in China's eastern Jiangsu province, May 10, 2024.
    Nurses take care of a newborn baby at a hospital in Xinghua in China’s eastern Jiangsu province, May 10, 2024.

    But Peng said there are still huge barriers for women in the workplace who want to have families, and that issues like discrimination, flexible working and a working culture that is heavily focused on long hours would need to be addressed first.

    Jessica Nisén, a demographer at the University of Turku in Finland, said the latest measures would be “very good” for couples who already have children or who have already decided they want them.

    But she added, “building a new marriage and childbearing culture will surely be difficult though,” calling for more radical policies offering the same amount of leave to each parent to encourage shared responsibility.

    She said the measures could have a “non-marginal” effect in the long term, but said the government needs to demonstrate it is committed to gender equality rather than just setting top-down targets for how many children should be born.

    A millennial who declined to be named for fear of reprisals said that women’s rights in the workplace, affordable medical care and the cost of educating a child all need to be taken into account before more women will even consider having kids.

    “The subsidies China is offering right now wouldn’t even make up one-tenth of the total cost of educating a child,” she said. “Perhaps if they covered all of the costs of prenatal checkups and childbirth, it would look as if they were a bit more serious about this.”

    Recovery unlikely

    Tomáš Sobotka, deputy director of the Vienna Institute of Demography, said the long-term recovery of birth rates looked unlikely in the current economic climate, citing high youth unemployment and “competitive or uncertain labor market prospects for many.”

    He said ideological slogans like “a new marriage and childbearing culture” would have little practical effect and could even have the opposite effect.

    Beds that once were used by children to take naps at a kindergarten-turned-elderly center in lay empty in Taiyuan, China, July 2, 2024, as educators turn their sights away from children in the face of a rapidly aging population and a baby bust.
    Beds that once were used by children to take naps at a kindergarten-turned-elderly center in lay empty in Taiyuan, China, July 2, 2024, as educators turn their sights away from children in the face of a rapidly aging population and a baby bust.

    “Government efforts in trying to exhort younger generations to form a family may meet with resistance from the young people who are alienated by their poor future prospects,” Sobotka told RFA Mandarin in a recent interview.

    He said universal benefits like cheap childcare weren’t outlined in the policy, yet tax breaks would only be an incentive for more affluent couples.

    “The new policies do not manage to address the broader perception of uncertainty, pressures, and lack of confidence about the future among the young generations today, which are driven by a mix of past experiences (such as COVID lockdowns and uncertainties), … unaffordable housing in large cities, miserable labor market prospects, and the economic squeeze that is hitting young adults the most,” he said.

    “Until these issues are at least partly addressed, birth rates will not recover much.”

    Martin Whyte, professor emeritus of sociology at Harvard University, said the ruling Chinese Communist Party’s claim to legitimacy as a government has been undermined by the falling birth rates.

    “There was a general assumption that the party and state in China were managing society quite well and successfully, and that the Chinese people were benefiting from that,” Whyte told RFA Mandarin in a recent interview. “And now, I think it’s likely that, if there’s some new campaigns or whatever, people are much more likely to be skeptical or even critical.”

    He said the campaigns to create a “new childbearing culture” could also backfire.

    “Some of these things Xi Jinping claimed, such as to find ways for women to have more babies, are clearly creating derision in China,” he said. “Young people and women, in particular, think this is absurd, and that Xi Jinping is completely out of touch with reality.”

    “The society Chinese are living under does not produce a situation in which it would make sense to have three babies,” Whyte said, adding that the coercive nature of Xi’s three-year zero-COVID policy had undermined his legitimacy in the eyes of many in China.

    A woman walks past posters of the late Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong at a stall in an antique market in Beijing, Dec. 26, 2023.
    A woman walks past posters of the late Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong at a stall in an antique market in Beijing, Dec. 26, 2023.

    “[There are] also other things like the housing sector crisis,” he said. “China produced incentives for local governments and developers to build a lot more housing than was actually needed. And then with population shrinking… where is the competence of the party-state in allowing that to happen?”

    ‘A very different place’

    Alicja Bachulska, a policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, agreed.

    “I would say … in 2023 we have felt a lot of frustration, a lot of disillusionment,” she said in a YouTube debate with Bonnie Glaser of the German Marshall Fund of the United States. “[The] Chinese authorities [are] making quite arbitrary decisions that are not perceived any more in some circles as very rational.”

    “I think that the end of the zero-COVD policy, the street protests that took place in China at the end of 2022 made many people realize that the level of frustration related to the way Chinese political elites operate at the moment had started to be really, really big,” she said.

    This also has an effect on Beijing’s attempts to boost the birth rate, Bachulska said.

    “For China, the solution is to convince most young women in China, well-educated middle class urban women, to have more children, and they are really trying hard to build this positive energy idea of how the demographic crisis in China will be turned into an opportunity,” she said. “But then on the other hand you have a huge crackdown on the feminist movement.”

    She said women in China are in “a very different place” despite being unable to organize, and were unlikely to go along with the authorities’ campaign for more children.

    Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Roseanne Gerin.


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

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.


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

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.


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

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • The recently concluded 2024 BRICS (an acronym for the combined economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) summit, hosted by Russian President Vladimir Putin in Kazan and attended by scores of Global South leaders, including Chinese President Xi Jinping, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian…

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.