Aircraft upgrades are a more economical way of sharpening the combat edge of existing fighter fleets around Asia Pacific. With geopolitical tensions continuing to grow in Asia Pacific, regional air forces are striving to keep their in-service combat aircraft mission-ready and relevant through upgrades while acquiring next-generation platforms. For the less-resourced countries, upgrading existing aircraft […]
Sabina Shoal, located over 75 nautical miles west of the Philippines and 600 miles from China, has become the latest flashpoint between the two rival claimants in the South China Sea.
A months-long standoff began in April when Manila sent one of its largest and most modern ships, BRP Teresa Magbanua, to the shoal amid reports that Beijing could be trying to reclaim land there.
In response, China accused the Philippines of planning to ground the ship there to occupy it.
In August, Manila accused a Beijing ship of ramming BRP Teresa Magbanua several times, the fifth case of alleged harassment by China of Philippine ships operating near the shoal that month. Chinese officials said the Philippine ship acted dangerously and rammed into a Chinese vessel.
On Sunday, the Philippine Coast Guard pulled BRP Teresa Magbuana from the shoal’s waters and sent it back to port after a five-month deployment, citing needed repairs and medical care for crew members. But Filipino officials said they had not surrendered Manila’s claim to the area.
What is Sabina Shoal and why is it important for the Philippines?
This map highlights Mischief Reef, Second Thomas Shoal and Sabina Shoal in the disputed Spratly Islands region of the South China Sea. [AFP]
Sabina Shoal – which the Philippines calls Escoda Shoal and China refers to as Xianbin Jiao – serves as a rendezvous point for resupply missions to nearby Second Thomas Shoal, where the Philippines maintains a World War II-era ship to serve as a military outpost and territorial marker.
Analysts have said that if China takes control of Sabina Shoal, it could prevent the Philippines from conducting resupply missions to the Second Thomas Shoal or reaching the Manila-occupied Thitu island, home to about 400 Filipinos.
Part of a crucial maritime trade route for Manila, the reef is also “a good staging ground for vessels that [could] interfere with Philippine maritime activities extending from Palawan to the West Philippine Sea and the Kalayaan Islands,” said Jay Batongbacal, a Filipino maritime analyst and director of the Institute for Maritime Affairs and Law of the Sea.
Manila calls territories and waters in the South China Sea within its 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ) the West Philippine Sea.
This map shows occupied or administered islands in the disputed South China Sea. [AFP]
“A hostile China would be able to strangle our maritime trade with the rest of Asia and most of the world from Escoda Shoal,” Batongbacal told BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news organization, on Sept. 3.
The South China Sea is a critical world trade route accounting for 21% of global trade (U.S. $3.4 trillion) in 2016, the most recent year these data are available, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said in a report earlier this year.
Sabina Shoal is important to Manila because of its proximity to Reed Bank, another South China Sea feature that is a traditional fishing ground for Filipinos, and has a potential role in the country’s energy security because of its rich oil and gas deposits.
Territorial presence
Philippine officials said a new ship will be sent to the Sabina Shoal to replace the BRP Teresa Magbanua, which returned to port.
Two Philippine Navy sources told BenarNews that the country could not send a ship to the shoal anytime soon because of extreme weather conditions.
For its part, China could send dozens of ships to block a Philippine ship if it is stationed at the shoal, according to the sources who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the issue.
Blocking a Philippine ship “en route to Sabina Shoal is a possible prospect,” especially since Chinese ships appear to be capable of tracking movements at sea, said Collin Koh, a maritime security analyst with the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.
Another scenario is that Beijing “might tolerate” Manila’s stance on putting a “strategic presence” in the shoal but it “would actively block the [Philippine] ship from entering the lagoon of the feature,” Koh said.
Some military officials, diplomats and analysts – a majority of whom did not want to be identified – have expressed concerns that the Philippines has no cohesive strategy on its South China Sea claim.
In March, the Philippine government created the National Maritime Council to have overall jurisdiction and “direction on policy-formation, implementation and coordination” on all issues affecting the country’s maritime security and domain awareness.
But the country also has the National Task Force on the West Philippine Sea, created in 2016 for similar objectives.
Under the latest order, the task force would be placed under the council. But confusion abounds as several officials are discussing Manila’s claim coming from different agencies including the Philippine Coast Guard, Armed Forces of the Philippines and National Security Council, which are members of the council and the task force.
Jonathan Malaya, assistant director general of the National Security Council and task force spokesman, said the task force is not mandated to provide overall strategy or policy.
“Here in the [task force], we’re more strategic and operational,” he told BenarNews.
Meanwhile, the Philippines needs to step up with its South China Sea strategy, analysts told BenarNews.
“At this point, it’s not clear if the government has a specific game plan to deal with Chinese actions in the West Philippine Sea,” said Rommel Jude Ong, a retired Navy rear admiral and a professor at the Ateneo de Manila University.
“From a naval standpoint, the entire West Philippine Sea is a single theater of operations. Our crisis response should always be looking at the big picture and not to disaggregate incidents in Sabina from whatever is happening elsewhere.”
Another analyst expressed similar concerns.
“It is now wait and see for the Philippines in terms of its plans for Escoda Shoal,” said Julio Amador, a Manila-based analyst with the Amador Research Services, using the Philippine name for Sabina Shoal. “[China] has numbers on its side so the Philippine approach needs to be strategic and not tactical at this point.”
“Whatever path of action the Philippines will take, the whole government must be behind it and the plan should be approved at the highest levels.”
BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Camille Elemia – Manila.
Sabina Shoal, located over 75 nautical miles west of the Philippines and 600 miles from China, has become the latest flashpoint between the two rival claimants in the South China Sea.
A months-long standoff began in April when Manila sent one of its largest and most modern ships, BRP Teresa Magbanua, to the shoal amid reports that Beijing could be trying to reclaim land there.
In response, China accused the Philippines of planning to ground the ship there to occupy it.
In August, Manila accused a Beijing ship of ramming BRP Teresa Magbanua several times, the fifth case of alleged harassment by China of Philippine ships operating near the shoal that month. Chinese officials said the Philippine ship acted dangerously and rammed into a Chinese vessel.
On Sunday, the Philippine Coast Guard pulled BRP Teresa Magbuana from the shoal’s waters and sent it back to port after a five-month deployment, citing needed repairs and medical care for crew members. But Filipino officials said they had not surrendered Manila’s claim to the area.
What is Sabina Shoal and why is it important for the Philippines?
This map highlights Mischief Reef, Second Thomas Shoal and Sabina Shoal in the disputed Spratly Islands region of the South China Sea. [AFP]
Sabina Shoal – which the Philippines calls Escoda Shoal and China refers to as Xianbin Jiao – serves as a rendezvous point for resupply missions to nearby Second Thomas Shoal, where the Philippines maintains a World War II-era ship to serve as a military outpost and territorial marker.
Analysts have said that if China takes control of Sabina Shoal, it could prevent the Philippines from conducting resupply missions to the Second Thomas Shoal or reaching the Manila-occupied Thitu island, home to about 400 Filipinos.
Part of a crucial maritime trade route for Manila, the reef is also “a good staging ground for vessels that [could] interfere with Philippine maritime activities extending from Palawan to the West Philippine Sea and the Kalayaan Islands,” said Jay Batongbacal, a Filipino maritime analyst and director of the Institute for Maritime Affairs and Law of the Sea.
Manila calls territories and waters in the South China Sea within its 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ) the West Philippine Sea.
This map shows occupied or administered islands in the disputed South China Sea. [AFP]
“A hostile China would be able to strangle our maritime trade with the rest of Asia and most of the world from Escoda Shoal,” Batongbacal told BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news organization, on Sept. 3.
The South China Sea is a critical world trade route accounting for 21% of global trade (U.S. $3.4 trillion) in 2016, the most recent year these data are available, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said in a report earlier this year.
Sabina Shoal is important to Manila because of its proximity to Reed Bank, another South China Sea feature that is a traditional fishing ground for Filipinos, and has a potential role in the country’s energy security because of its rich oil and gas deposits.
Territorial presence
Philippine officials said a new ship will be sent to the Sabina Shoal to replace the BRP Teresa Magbanua, which returned to port.
Two Philippine Navy sources told BenarNews that the country could not send a ship to the shoal anytime soon because of extreme weather conditions.
For its part, China could send dozens of ships to block a Philippine ship if it is stationed at the shoal, according to the sources who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the issue.
Blocking a Philippine ship “en route to Sabina Shoal is a possible prospect,” especially since Chinese ships appear to be capable of tracking movements at sea, said Collin Koh, a maritime security analyst with the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.
Another scenario is that Beijing “might tolerate” Manila’s stance on putting a “strategic presence” in the shoal but it “would actively block the [Philippine] ship from entering the lagoon of the feature,” Koh said.
Some military officials, diplomats and analysts – a majority of whom did not want to be identified – have expressed concerns that the Philippines has no cohesive strategy on its South China Sea claim.
In March, the Philippine government created the National Maritime Council to have overall jurisdiction and “direction on policy-formation, implementation and coordination” on all issues affecting the country’s maritime security and domain awareness.
But the country also has the National Task Force on the West Philippine Sea, created in 2016 for similar objectives.
Under the latest order, the task force would be placed under the council. But confusion abounds as several officials are discussing Manila’s claim coming from different agencies including the Philippine Coast Guard, Armed Forces of the Philippines and National Security Council, which are members of the council and the task force.
Jonathan Malaya, assistant director general of the National Security Council and task force spokesman, said the task force is not mandated to provide overall strategy or policy.
“Here in the [task force], we’re more strategic and operational,” he told BenarNews.
Meanwhile, the Philippines needs to step up with its South China Sea strategy, analysts told BenarNews.
“At this point, it’s not clear if the government has a specific game plan to deal with Chinese actions in the West Philippine Sea,” said Rommel Jude Ong, a retired Navy rear admiral and a professor at the Ateneo de Manila University.
“From a naval standpoint, the entire West Philippine Sea is a single theater of operations. Our crisis response should always be looking at the big picture and not to disaggregate incidents in Sabina from whatever is happening elsewhere.”
Another analyst expressed similar concerns.
“It is now wait and see for the Philippines in terms of its plans for Escoda Shoal,” said Julio Amador, a Manila-based analyst with the Amador Research Services, using the Philippine name for Sabina Shoal. “[China] has numbers on its side so the Philippine approach needs to be strategic and not tactical at this point.”
“Whatever path of action the Philippines will take, the whole government must be behind it and the plan should be approved at the highest levels.”
BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Camille Elemia – Manila.
China’s Communist Party is clamping down on the secret hobby of some high-ranking officials: reading banned books, a series of state media reports suggest.
Officials from glitzy Shanghai to poverty-stricken Guizhou have been accused in recent months of “privately possessing and reading banned books and periodicals,” according to state media reports, which typically surface when the officials are probed by the party’s disciplinary arm.
Senior officials have traditionally enjoyed privileged access to materials banned as potentially subversive for the wider population, via the “neibu,” or internal, publishing system, former Communist Party officials told RFA Mandarin in recent interviews.
Now it appears that President Xi Jinping is coming for their personal libraries and private browsing habits in a bid to instill the same ideas in all party members regardless of rank.
A man walks past posters about Chinese political books displayed at the Hong Kong Book Fair in Hong Kong, July 18, 2012. (Philippe Lopez/AFP)
During the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution, any foreign book could be considered a “poisonous weed that promotes the bourgeois lifestyle.”
Overseas publications are often banned or tightly controlled in China, either online, or via a complex process of political vetting by the authorities, including a 2017 requirement that anyone selling foreign publications in China must have a special license.
Wider knowledge makes better leaders
Former Party School professor Cai Xia said officials were generally allowed to read whatever they liked until the turn of the century. The arrangement encouraged officials to broaden their perspective, making them better leaders.
“Politics, like art, requires imagination,” Cai said.
“Because experience shows that the more single-minded and closed-off the thinking of the Communist Party, especially the senior cadres, the narrower their vision and the poorer their thinking, and the harder it is for them to grasp the complex phenomena and situations that have emerged in China’s rapid development,” she told Radio Free Asia.
Wider reading encourages deeper thought, which helps China “to move forward,” she said.
Masks, goggles and books collected from the Occupy zone are seen on the table at guesthouse in Hong Kong Dec. 30, 2014. (Tyrone Siu/Reuters)
Du Wen, former executive director of the Legal Advisory Office of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region government, said the purge of readers of banned publications is worrying.
“This phenomenon is so scary, because it sends the message that there is no independence in the ranks of the Chinese Communist Party,” Du said. “Even dialectical materialism and critical thinking have become evidence of guilt.”
Nearly 20 officials have been accused of similar infractions, Du said, basing the number on his observation of media reports.
Officials have been tight-lipped about the names of the books and periodicals these officials were reading, yet the accusations keep coming.
Those targeted
In November 2023, the party launched a probe into former Zhejiang provincial Vice Gov. Zhu Congjiu, accusing him of losing his way ideologically.
In addition to making off-message comments in public, Zhu had “privately brought banned books into the country and read them over a long period of time,” according to media reports at the time.
In June 2023, the Beijing branch of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection expelled former state assets supervisory official Zhang Guilin for “possessing and reading books and periodicals with serious political issues,” alongside a slew of other alleged offenses including “engaging in power-for-sex and money-for-sex transactions.”
Many of those targeted have been in the state-controlled financial system, while some have been concentrated in the central province of Hunan and the southwestern megacity of Chongqing, according to political commentator Yu Jie.
A vendor attends to a customer next to images and statues depicting late Chinese chairman Mao Zedong, at the secondhand books section of Panjiayuan antique market in Beijing, China, Aug. 3, 2024. (Florence Lo/Reuters)
“Interestingly, a lot of officials in the political and legal system, national security and prison systems, which are responsible for maintaining stability and persecuting dissidents, are also keen on reading banned books,” Yu wrote in a recent commentary for RFA Mandarin, citing the case of former state security police political commissar Li Bin.
In Hubei province, the commission went after one of their own in party secretary Wang Baoping, accusing him of “buying and reading books that distorted and attacked the 18th Party Congress.”
“Monitoring what people are reading shows the authoritarian system’s determination and ability to maintain its power and to destroy any resources that could be subversive and any doubts about the legitimacy of the authorities’ rule,” Yu wrote in a Chinese-language commentary on May 28.
“Xi Jinping’s … goal is to turn more than 80 million party members into marionettes or zombies, and follow him, like the Pied Piper, in a mighty procession that leads to hell,” he said.
Categories
Zhang Huiqing, a former editor at the People’s Publishing House, told RFA Mandarin that “gray” books were allowed to be published under the watchful eye of the party’s Central Propaganda Department, which also reviewed and vetted foreign-published books for translation into Chinese, for distribution as “neibu” reading material.
Divided into categories A, B and C, where A was restricted to the smallest number of officials, “reactionary” books were those that could potentially cause people to challenge the party leadership, and they were once distributed in a highly controlled manner, Zhang said.
Du Wen said that while he was an official in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region government, he had access to a slew of foreign news outlets not usually sold on the streets of Chinese cities, including Bloomberg, The New York Times, The Washington Post and newspapers published in democratic Taiwan.
“These were all allowed because if you want to do research, you have to understand what’s going on overseas,” Du said. “How can you research something if you don’t understand the situation?”
A visitor walks past an exhibit featuring a large portrait of Chinese President Xi Jinping at the newly-completed Museum of the Communist Party of China in Beijing, June 25, 2021. (Mark Schiefelbein/AP)
Yet recent changes to party disciplinary regulations have brought more publications into the danger zone.
Nowadays, any publication not entirely in line with orthodox Marxism-Leninism or the official view of Communist Party history is likely to be seen as “reactionary,” as is any information about China’s highest-ranking leaders, both past and present, according to a senior figure in the Chinese publishing industry who spoke to RFA Mandarin on condition of anonymity.
“There’s a lot of randomness and contingency that affects whether something winds up being labeled as reactionary,” the person said. “It also depends on the level of understanding and personal ambition of the person in charge of an investigation.”
And times change, making it hard for officials to stay on the right side of the rules.
“A book that was reactionary yesterday may not be reactionary today, and vice versa,” the person said.
Public hotline
Typically, Chinese publishing houses take direct instructions from the General Administration of Press and Publication and its provincial branches about what they can and can’t publish.
But a public hotline and a highly cautious attitude in recent years has meant that a book can be banned on the basis of a single phone call from a concerned individual.
A class in the China Executive Leadership Academy in Yan’an, the headquarters of the Chinese Communist Party from 1936 to 1947, in Shaanxi province, May 10, 2021. (Hector Retamal/AFP)
The senior publishing industry figure said one work of non-fiction was canned on the say-so of the widow of a senior cadre because she didn’t like the way her late husband was portrayed. The man had only played a minor role in the book.
“All of our editing, proofreading, binding, design, printing, marketing and distribution work was wasted,” the person said. “We had already printed several thousand copies of the book, but we had to send them to be pulped.”
The Chinese Communist Party’s internal rule-book entry on what constitutes a banned book offense has been amended three times since 2015, with categories being added each time.
Article 47 of the original regulations issued in 2003 warn: “Anyone who brings reactionary books, audio-visual products, electronic reading materials and so on into the country from abroad shall be criticized and educated; if the circumstances are serious, they will be given a warning or a serious warning; more serious offenses will be disciplined by removal from party post, probation or expulsion from the party.”
Since 2015, the rules have been updated three times to include anyone “reading privately, browsing or listening” to banned material, which now includes “online text, images and audiovisual material.”
Another senior media figure who requested anonymity said the key factor that makes a book reactionary these days is whether or not it tells the truth, especially about the Chinese government.
“Actually, the most reactionary thing is the truth,” the person said, “because the truth could shake the foundations of party rule.”
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Luisetta Mudie and Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Zhu Liye for RFA Mandarin.
A claim emerged in Chinese-language social media posts that China has not launched a war since 1949.
But the claim is misleading as it is a one-sided historical interpretation. A review of events shows that China has been involved in several major conflicts since 1949, and there are different views about how much of a role it played in starting them.
The claim was shared on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Aug. 24, 2024.
“While the U.S. has launched 469 conflicts since 1789, China has launched none since 1949,” the claim reads in part.
Multiple Chinese accounts on X have reposted an infographic comparing the number of wars initiated by the U.S. and China. (Screenshots/X)
Even Chinese President Xi Jinping said during a telephone call with U.S. President Joe Biden in 2021 that his country had not started a conflict since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949.
Several Chinese diplomats also reposted the image and further spread on the narrative of the U.S. as a warhawk (Screenshots/X)
But the claim is misleading as it is a one-sided historical interpretation.
A review of historical events shows that China has been involved in several major conflicts since 1949 and there are different views about how much of a role Beijing played in starting them.
Below is what AFCL found.
The Sino-Indian War
The month-long Sino-Indian War of 1962 was a conflict rooted in disputes with India over China’s attempts to build a military road linking its Xinjiang region with Tibet after China occupied the Tibet area in 1950, according to Encyclopædia Britannica, the world’s oldest continuously published encyclopedia.
The road was scheduled to pass through Aksai Chin, an area that overlaps parts of Tibet and Xinjiang but is also claimed by India as part of its northern Ladakh region.
The war was preceded by intermittent skirmishes beginning in 1959, which culminated in an attack by Chinese forces against the region on Oct. 20, 1962.
But some scholars, including Wang Hongwei, a Chinese academic expert on South Asia, said that the campaign originated from an arbitrary border demarcation by India’s government in 1961.
Wang listed the advance of India’s army into territory that China claimed, attacks on Chinese posts, the killing of Chinese border guards and a 1962 Indian order for its forces to expel the Chinese from the North-East Border Special Region as evidence that the war was imposed on China.
China has officially described the conflict as a war of self-defense ever since.
The Sino-Vietnamese War
Internationally known as the Sino-Vietnamese War, the conflict that broke out when 220,000 Chinese soldiers struck along the 800-mile border with Vietnam early on Feb. 17, 1979.
While at the time both neighbors had communist political systems, Vietnam’s decision to sign a mutual defense pact with the Soviet Union in 1978 provoked the ire of many Chinese leaders, given that at the time Beijing and Moscow were struggling for leadership of the global communist movement.
This tension was later exacerbated by Vietnam’s invasion of neighboring Cambodia at the end of 1978 and the overthrow of the Beijing-backed Khmer Rouge government, an event that served as the catalyst for the conflict between Beijing and Hanoi.
The conflict has been called an aggressive war launched by China by scholars such as Miles Yu, the director of the Hudson Institute’s China Center, who emphasized that the conflict is portrayed completely differently in Vietnam and in China.
Vietnam portrays the conflict as a struggle against Chinese expansion, while China frames it as a war of self-defense.
In line with this interpretation, a Chinese government webpage commemorating soldiers killed in the conflict, lists several actions by Vietnam in the mid-1970s – implementing discriminatory policies against Chinese minorities in Vietnam and conducting provocative border raids in which several Chinese citizens were wounded – as evidence that Vietnam came to view China as an enemy and gradually adopted a warlike posture towards it.
However, Hsiao-Huang Shu, a scholar of Chinese military tactics at Taiwan’s Tamkang University, told AFCL that while the official Chinese government position paints the war as a punitive conflict rather than as an “invasion,” the war was clearly initiated by China.
Sino-Soviet border clashes
In March 1969, Chinese and Soviet forces engaged in a series of clashes on an island called Zhenbao on a border river.
Subsequent border skirmishes in the months following the conflict resulted in an unknown number of casualties. In order to end the dispute, Moscow adopted a carrot-and-stick approach, proposing negotiations on the border dispute while at the same time threatening military action if Beijing did not cooperate.
The Soviet Union said that an initial ambush by Chinese army units of Soviet border guards on March 2 was followed by a larger clash on March 15.
However, an article published by China’s state-run CCP Review said that the initial skirmish broke out when a Chinese patrol was obstructed and later shot at by Soviet troops.
But according to the noted historian of Sino-Soviet relations, Li Danhui, Chinese soldiers initially stabbed and fired upon a Soviet patrol on the day fighting broke out.
He cited statements by Chen Xilian, the Chinese commander at Zhenbao, as evidence.
Michael S. Gerson, a former analyst at the U.S. Center for Naval Analyses, published a study of the incident, saying that territorial disputes over the strategically unimportant island largely arose as a byproduct of the larger Sino-Soviet ideological split in the 1960s.
As part of the split, China said that the Soviet Union’s control of the island was a direct result of unequal treaties China had been coerced to sign, while the Soviet Union argued that China had no legal claim to the island.
‘Illogical comparison’
Michael Szonyi, a professor of Chinese history at Harvard University, told AFCL that while the U.S. has been involved in several wars around the world, the notion that China had “never started a war” was “absurd,” mentioning the conflicts involving Vietnam, Tibet, and fighting over the Kinmen Islands in the Taiwan Strait as evidence.
Szonyi pointed out that counting conflicts involving the U.S. from 1798 and conflicts involving China from 1949 – over 150 years later – is an illogical baseline for making such a comparison.
He added that many of the wars the U.S. has been involved in – such as the Korean War and the 2003 invasion of Iraq – did not involve territorial seizure.
China also characterizes several other conflicts it has been involved in since 1949 as either extensions of the Chinese Civil War or as incidents of large-scale civil unrest.
But Szonyi said it was still incorrect to say that China never initiated any of these wars.
Translated by Shen Ke. Edited by Shen Ke and Taejun Kang.
Asia Fact Check Lab (AFCL) was established to counter disinformation in today’s complex media environment. We publish fact-checks, media-watches and in-depth reports that aim to sharpen and deepen our readers’ understanding of current affairs and public issues. If you like our content, you can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and X.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Alan Lu for Asia Fact Check Lab.
China has agreed to “gradually resume” imports of Japanese seafood products a year after it banned them in response to the release of treated waste water from the damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant.
The decision was made after “rounds of talks” between Beijing and Tokyo over the impact of discharging the waste water into the Pacific Ocean, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Friday.
“Following the implementation of monitoring activities, including participation in long-term international monitoring within the framework of the International Atomic Energy Agency and independent sampling by participating countries, we will begin to adjust relevant measures based on scientific evidence and gradually resume imports of Japanese seafood that meet the standards,” the ministry said.
“Japan has made it clear that it will continue to conduct ongoing marine environment and marine ecological impact assessments in order to substantially fulfill its obligations under international law and to use its utmost efforts to avoid adverse impacts on human health and the environment,” it added.
China has imposed a blanket ban on imports of Japanese seafood since the beginning of the treated water discharge in August last year, calling the water “nuclear-contaminated.” Japan has insisted the water is safe.
Chinese trade statistics show that no fishery products, except aquarium fish, have been imported from Japan since September last year, forcing restaurants in China to get their ingredients elsewhere.
Some other countries also restricted seafood imports from Japan after it began releasing the treated water from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, badly damaged by a 2011 earthquake and tsunami, but most have since lifted those curbs.
Japan started the gradual release of treated radioactive wastewater into the Pacific Ocean despite regional and domestic concerns, with plans to eventually pump more than a million metric tons of it into the sea.
The release came 12 years after a nuclear meltdown at the plant following its battering by the earthquake and subsequent tsunami. According to authorities, the water used to cool the nuclear reactors and additional groundwater and rainwater seeping into the reactor buildings has reached near-full storage capacity.
The water was processed through an advanced liquid processing system to remove most contaminants, except for relatively nontoxic tritium, before being released into the Pacific.
At that time, the International Atomic Energy Agency said the planned discharge of wastewater met international safety standards and would have a “negligible” radiological impact on people and the environment.
The Japanese government said no abnormalities had been detected in the monitoring of seawater around the plant, including the concentration levels of tritium, since the discharge began.
Edited by Mike Firn.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Taejun Kang for RFA.
A 10-year-old Japanese boy stabbed on his way to school in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen has died of his injuries, signaling likely further strain on Sino-Japanese ties, Japanese media reported on Thursday.
The boy, who has a Japanese father and a Chinese mother, was attacked while with his mother near a Japanese school in Shenzhen on Wednesday morning, and was taken to hospital, where he died Thursday.
Police are holding a 44-year-old man surnamed Zhong on suspicion of carrying out the attack. Some 3,600 Japanese nationals reside in Shenzhen, an industrial city near the border with Hong Kong.
Eyewitnesses said the boy was bleeding from the stab wounds and was given a heart massage at the scene, according to Japan’s Kyodo News.
Nationalist rhetoric
Commentators blamed the attack on a steady output of nationalistic rhetoric under the government of Xi Jinping in recent years.
“It’s caused by the Chinese authorities’ incitement of so-called nationalism,” said Khubis, a Japan-based Chinese national and ethnic Mongolian.
The ruling Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda arm has been churning out anti-Japanese rhetoric for years, current affairs commentator Lu Jun said.
“The authorities have launched wave after wave of xenophobia in recent years, anti-American, anti-Japanese and anti-Western in nature,” Lu said. “A lot of people have been encouraged by this propaganda and have gradually lost their common sense and even their humanity, turning into the thugs and minions of the authorities.”
Stepped up security
Tokyo on Thursday said the government was “deeply saddened,” and called on China to ensure the safety of more than 100,000 Japanese citizens who live in the country.
The Japanese flag was flown at half-mast at the Japanese Embassy in Beijing on Thursday in mourning. Ambassador Kenji Kanasugi was en route to Shenzhen, Japanese media reported.
Meanwhile, the Japanese government “has been and will continue to strongly urge China to share information related to the attack and ensure the safety of Japanese nationals in China,” government spokesman Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters.
Describing the attack on the boy as “a despicable act,” Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa ordered Japanese officials to craft measures to prevent a similar incident from happening again.
Japan’s Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroshi Moriya announced on Wednesday that the government will allocate 350 million yen (US$2.45 million) from April 2025 to step up security measures linked around Japanese schools in China.
The attack came on the 93rd anniversary of the 1931 Japanese bombing of a railroad track in northeastern China that Japan used as an excuse to invade Manchuria. Tokyo had asked Beijing to step up safety measures around Japanese schools ahead of the sensitive anniversary, Kamikawa said in comments reported by Kyodo.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said the boy was a student at the Shenzhen Japanese School.
“[He] was stabbed by a man at a spot about 200 meters from the school gate,” Lin told reporters on Wednesday, adding that “all-out efforts” were being made to save the boy.
“The perpetrator was caught at the scene,” Lin said. “The case is under investigation and relevant authorities of China will handle the case in accordance with the law.”
Shockwaves
Yang Haiying, a professor at Shizuoka University in Japan, said the incident has sent shockwaves through political circles in Japan.
“Both the left and the right, the conservatives and the liberals, the government and the opposition are very angry about this incident,” Yang told RFA Mandarin in an interview after the boy’s death.
The attack comes ahead of Japanese general elections on Oct. 31, and will likely stoke anti-China sentiment during the campaign period, he said.
He said Japanese companies are likely to step up their withdrawal from China.
“I believe that this incident will have an even bigger impact on economic, cultural and interpersonal exchanges between the two countries,” Yang said.
“Politically, Japan may come up with some tougher slogans, but whether it will take a tougher stance in its foreign policy is still hard to predict,” he said.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Qian Lang for RFA Mandarin, Lee Heung Yeung for RFA Cantonese.
China will suspend tariff exemptions on 34 agricultural items imported from Taiwan, including fresh fruits, vegetables and aquatic products, effective from Sept. 25, China’s finance ministry said, a decision Taipei called “economic coercion.”
“Taiwan’s unilateral adoption of discriminatory measures such as bans and restrictions on the export of mainland products has seriously impeded cross-Strait economic and trade cooperation,” the ministry said on Wednesday, adding that tariffs on these items would be implemented in line with existing regulations.
Citing 2023 statistics, Taiwan’s Minister of Agriculture Chen Junne-jih said the annual tariff exemptions on these agricultural and aquacultural goods was nearly US$1.08 million.
Chen Binhua, a spokesperson for China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, said that since 2005, the tariff exemptions had helped Taiwanese farmers and fishermen expand their access to the Chinese market, bringing them “tangible benefits.”
But he blamed the administration led by President Lai Ching-te in Taiwan, for its “stubborn adherence” to a pro-independence stance.
Lai is a member of Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, which Beijing accuses of harboring separatist aspirations.
He came to power after winning a January election despite Beijing’s fierce opposition to his bid. He ran on a platform of promoting peace in the Taiwan Strait while not compromising on claims of Taiwanese sovereignty.
In response to China’s decision to suspend tariff exemptions, Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council, or MAC, said the cutting of the tariff exemptions represented a “weaponization” of trade and would harm the interests of farmers and fishermen on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.
Calling it “economic coercion,” the MAC added: “This only leads to resentment among Taiwan’s farmers, fishermen and the general public, and does not contribute to the long-term development of cross-strait relations.”
The council said it was clear China was weaponizing trade and using preferential measures as tools of coercion, and it warned that the Chinese Communist Party’s “goodwill” had political motives and could be revoked at any time.
China’s decision came after it announced sanctions on nine U.S. military-linked firms for their sale of equipment to Taiwan and denounced what it called the “dangerous trend” of U.S. military support for the democratic island.
On Monday, the U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency announced the sale of aircraft spare parts and related logistics and support worth about US$228 million to Taiwan, adding that the spare parts would boost the island’s “ability to meet current and future threats.”
Washington’s arms sales to Taipei “seriously interfered in China’s internal affairs, and seriously damaged China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” said China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Wednesday.
China regards Taiwan as a renegade province that should be reunited with the mainland, by force if necessary. The democratic island has been self-governing since it effectively separated from mainland China in 1949 after the Chinese civil war.
Despite their lack of formal diplomatic ties, the U.S. has long been a key supplier of arms to Taiwan. Washington is bound by U.S. legislation, the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, to provide the island with arms for its defense.
Edited by Mike Firn.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Taejun Kang for RFA.
U.S. lawmakers on Wednesday urged the Biden administration to do more to bring home Americans unjustly imprisoned in China, as family members of the prisoners begged for help to secure their release.
The appeals were made at a hearing of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, which came just three days after China’s government released one American prisoner who had been imprisoned for almost two decades – the 68-year-old pastor David Lin.
“We’re overjoyed for the Lin family,” said the chair of the commission, Rep. Chris Smith, who is a Republican from New Jersey, before noting estimates there are some 300 more Americans in Chinese prisons.
“This is absolutely unacceptable,” he said. “If the Chinese government wants to improve relations with the United States, they should release Americans who are wrongfully imprisoned without condition, and end the use of exit bans, a form of de facto hostage taking.”
The commission heard from family members of those still imprisoned in China, each of whom said they felt “joy” upon hearing of the release of Lin on Sunday, even if it ultimately left them with a bittersweet feeling.
“Each time we get this news, it’s a really complex mix of emotions,” said Harrison Li, the son of Kai Li, a Chinese-born naturalized U.S. citizen from Long Island, New York, who was arrested in Shanghai in 2016 for “espionage” on a trip to mark his mother’s death.
Li pointed to the recent release of Britney Griner and Paul Whelan from Russian prisons – as well as lower-profile cases of U.S. citizens being brought home from prisons in Afghanistan, Iran, Niger and Venezuela
“Of course, we’re just so thrilled for these families,” he said. “We know, of course, what it’s like to have a loved one unjustly missing for so long, and to know that the family is finally being made whole.”
“But at the same time,” Li told the hearing, “it begs the question for us, ‘What about my dad? When will it be his turn?’”
Lin’s release ‘not a coincidence’
Others told the hearing they believed American officials were not always doing enough to secure the release of their loved ones.
Peter Humphrey, a British former journalist and private investigator imprisoned in China from 2013 to 2015 for obtaining the private data of elite business people in China, said it was clear Beijing cared about its reputation and could be persuaded to release unjustly held Americans.
Lin was released by China on Sunday, he explained, “probably because of this imminent hearing on the calendar, which China was very well aware of,” calling the timing “not a coincidence at all.”
If U.S. officials more forcefully called out Beijing for arresting Americans for political, business or other illegitimate reasons, he said, Beijing could be forced to release more people.
“The U.S. government must end its policy of non-intervention in these judicial cases in China, and should intervene in them all,” Humphrey said, adding Washington alone could hold such sway over Beijing.
“It has a duty of care to protect its citizens against abusive dictatorships, and their so-called judicial systems,” he said. “It can lead the world in this pushback like no other country can.”
Fake contest
The commission also heard from Tim Hunt, the brother of Dawn Michelle Hunt, who said his 53-year-old sister was tricked both into thinking she won a contest to visit China and then into agreeing to take luggage out of the country that was lined with methamphetamine.
Dawn Hunt. (Courtesy of the Hunt Family)
The scam started, he said, when she received an email that said she had won an “all-expenses paid trip to Hong Kong.” After traveling to Hong Kong and enjoying the trip, she was invited to mainland China. There, she was asked if she wanted to extend her trip to Australia.
“She was told that she had also won some designer purses,” he said, noting the purses were lined with drugs. “It was at the airport, waiting to board her Australian flight, that she was called by airport security.”
“This could happen to a lot of people,” said Hunt, a retired Chicago police officer. “She was duped, she was scammed. She trusted the wrong people, but she doesn’t deserve this. My sister is trusting and believes people are good.”
Through tears, Hunt, whose father last week told The New York Times that he believed his daughter had been mistreated and raped in the prison, said the case “isn’t political.”
“I’m just asking, as a brother, just bring my sister home,” he said.
A similar case was detailed by Nelson Wells Sr., the father of Nelson Wells Jr., who was sentenced to 22 years in prison after being caught trying to leave China in 2014 with baked goods containing drugs.
Nelson Wells, Jr. (Friends & Family of Nelson Wells, Jr. via Facebook)
Wells Sr. said his son agreed to take the baked goods out of China as a favor for a friend, who asked him to relay them to another friend.
“For that one mistake – that one betrayal – none of our lives will ever be the same,” Wells Sr. said, adding he had not seen his son since.
“We are asking, we are pleading, with this commission, with Congress, with the administration and with the Chinese government, to work together on behalf of our son to create a pathway for outright release, or prisoner transfer to a home prison,” he said.
High priority
Smith, the chair of the commission, said the cases of the prisoners should be made a priority for the Biden administration in its dealings with Chinese President Xi Jinping and other officials in Beijing.
“The release of American citizens should be the first thing President Biden says to … Xi Jinping whenever they talk,” Smith said. “Their names should be said so often that Xi Jinping memorizes them.”
Sen. Jeff Merkley, a Massachusetts Democrat who co-chairs the commision, said he hoped for more good news in the near future.
“We’re joyful that David Lin has been released,” Merkley told the hearing, “but we want a celebration for each of your families.”
Edited by Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Alex Willemyns for RFA.
A Japanese lawmaker of Uyghur descent has called on Tokyo to take a stronger stand against China’s human rights abuses against the 12 million mostly Muslim ethnic group living in northwestern China.
“Egregious human rights violations occurring in the Uyghur region is one of the greatest, and certainly a generation-defining, human rights crises of our time,” Arfiya Eri, a 35-year-old member of Japan’s more powerful lower house of parliament, told Radio Free Asia.
“The international community, including Japan, must do its part to ensure that we do not set a precedent where such violations go unaccounted for under our watch,” she said, echoing comments she made earlier this month at the Sydney Dialogue, hosted by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. The annual summit in Sydney focuses on critical, emerging and cyber technologies.
In 2023, Eri was elected to Japan’s Diet, or parliament, as a member of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party representing a district just east of Tokyo. Raised in Japan, she is the first Japanese of Uyghur background to be elected to the Diet.
Eri’s perspective carries personal and symbolic weight, highlighting the experiences of those directly affected by human rights abuses in Xinjiang and underscoring a moral imperative for Japan to act, Uyghur activists say.
For the past decade, China has severely repressed the 12 million mostly Muslim Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities who live in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, subjecting them to heavy surveillance, restricting their religious practices and detaining them in internment camps and prisons.
Eri’s call comes amid greater demands by Uyghur activists for the international community to take concrete steps to punish China for its rights abuses against the Uyghurs in Xinjiang.
In February 2022, Japan’s Lower House adopted a resolution expressing concern over the human rights situation in China, including the plight of the Uyghurs, and called on Beijing to take measures to address the situation.
But Eri said nothing has really changed in Tokyo’s stance toward Beijing on this issue.
She said that Japan, “as the strongest democratic economy in Asia, and as a country that holds the values of democracy, human rights, and rule of law as fundamental to its identity, can and must do more for peace, democracy, and human rights worldwide.”
As a board member of a multiparty alliance on human rights diplomacy in Japan, she is engaging her colleagues to “do more in resolving human rights and humanitarian crises worldwide,” Eri said.
Fluent in English, Japanese and Uyghur, Eri previously worked for the Bank of Japan and the United Nations.
Translated by RFA Uyghur. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Mamatjan Juma for RFA Uyghur.
China imposed sanctions on Wednesday on nine U.S. military-linked firms for their sale of equipment to Taiwan and it denounced what it called the “dangerous trend” of U.S. military support for the democratic island.
On Monday, the U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency announced the sale of aircraft spare parts and related logistics and support worth about US$228 million to Taiwan, adding that the spare parts would boost the island’s “ability to meet current and future threats.”
The sale included both classified and unclassified components for the aircraft, as well as related engineering, technical and logistics support services.
Washington’s arms sales to Taipei “seriously interfered in China’s internal affairs, and seriously damaged China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” said China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Wednesday.
China regards Taiwan as a renegade province that should be reunited with the mainland, by force if necessary. The democratic island has been self-governing since it effectively separated from mainland China in 1949 after the Chinese civil war.
A spokesperson for China’s foreign ministry on Wednesday also urged the U.S. to immediately stop the “dangerous trend” of arming Taiwan.
“Stop conniving and supporting Taiwan independence, and stop undermining peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait,” said Lin Jian at a regular press briefing.
The steps taken against the firms, including Sierra Nevada Corporation and Stick Rudder Enterprises LLC, come into effect on Wednesday and will freeze their property within China, the foreign ministry said in a statement.
It described the sanctions as countermeasures and said they also applied to Cubic Corporation, S3 Aerospace, TCOM Ltd Partnership, TextOre, Planate Management Group, ACT1 Federal and Exovera.
Organizations and individuals within China are prohibited from engaging in transactions with the firms, the ministry added.
China previously sanctioned and banned firms, including units of Lockheed Martin, for selling arms to Taiwan.
The latest sales were the 16th military sale to Taiwan authorized by the administration of President Joe Biden.
Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry expressed its appreciation for the U.S.support for Taiwan’s security while its Ministry of National Defense highlighted the strategic importance of the sale, noting that China’s gray zone tactics – a tactic using the threat of force to create fear and intimidation – had affected Taiwan’s training and operational readiness.
The aviation-related equipment would enhance the combat readiness and security of Taiwan’s air force, the ministry said.
Edited by Mike Firn.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Taejun Kang for RFA.
North Korea has executed two women who had been forcibly repatriated from China for helping other North Koreans in China escape to South Korea, a human rights organization told Radio Free Asia.
Charged with human trafficking, a 39-year-old woman surnamed Ri and a 43-year-old surnamed Kang were executed Aug. 31 after a public trial in the northeastern port city of Chongjin, according to Jang Se-yul, head of Gyeore’eol Unification Solidarity, based in Seoul.
Nine other women were sentenced to life in prison on the same charges.
All 11 women were among a group of around 500 North Koreans which China forcibly repatriated in October 2023.
“These two women were executed because they had sent North Korean escapees from China to their enemy country, South Korea,” Jang told RFA Korean.
“When they first escaped, they were sold to a Chinese adult entertainment business,” he said. “When other North Korean women working there said they wanted to go to South Korea, they made arrangements to send them there.”
This is the first report of executions since the resumption of forced repatriation of North Korean escapees in China in October.
Escapees in South Korea and elsewhere have urged China not to send North Koreans back, saying they would face severe punishments. China says it has an obligation to repatriate them under bilateral agreements it has with Pyongyang.
Women at risk
Women make up the majority of North Korean escapees in China. While there, they are often at the mercy of Chinese handlers who can sell them into servitude, either to work in prostitution, or to be the “wives” of Chinese men.
Since the end of the Korean War in 1953, more than 34,000 North Koreans have escaped to South Korea. Of these, around 72% were women.
Jang said that he learned of the trial and execution through Freedom Chosunan online media outlet run by North Korean escapees.
Residents in North Korea confirmed that the trial and execution occurred.
A resident of the Chinese border city of Hoeryong told RFA that he witnessed the trial while visiting Chongjin, about 44 miles (70 kilometers) away. He said it started at 11 a.m. Aug. 31 and lasted an hour, and hundreds of residents and merchants at the marketplace were in attendance.
The trial concluded when the Social Security Bureau of North Hamgyong Province decided to execute the women on the same day, and put the 11 women in a convoy to send them away, he said.
The family of a North Korean escapee in South Korea, also confirmed (to him/her) that two people were executed in Chongjin.
Suzanne Scholte, chairwoman of the Virginia-based North Korea Freedom Coalition, confirmed to RFA Sept 11, that the trial and executions were discussed at a recent meeting of the organization.
Helping escapees
Jang said he had spoken with the younger sister of one of the executed women, who told him that she was able to escape to South Korea with her sister’s help.
She said that her sister was caught by a Chinese broker while she was trying to escape to the South herself, Jang explained. She had been helping North Korean women escape by running a business with her Chinese husband in Longjing, Jilin province, China.
“She cried a lot,” said Jang. “It seems like her sister had rescued a lot of North Korean escapees and sent them to South Korea.”
Translated by Claire S. Lee. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Jamin Anderson for RFA Korean.
North Korea has dispatched 500 workers to China – a violation of international sanctions – in the first such deployment since the pandemic, residents in China told Radio Free Asia.
The 500 workers were sent at the end of August. Prior to the pandemic, North Korea routinely sent workers abroad to countries like Russia and China to earn foreign currency for its cash-strapped government.
All of that was supposed to have ended in late 2019, when UN Security Council Resolution 2397 – aimed at pressuring North Korea to end its nuclear program – kicked in, saying that all North Korean workers were to return home and no new work visas for North Koreans were to be issued.
But when the pandemic hit and North Korea shuttered all its borders, many of the overseas workers became stranded abroad.
According to a report by the U.N. North Korea Sanctions Panel of Experts published earlier this year, approximately 100,000 North Korean workers are still earning foreign currency in some 40 countries, including China and Russia.
Though Pyongyang ordered many of those workers home, this is the first time since the pandemic that it is sending out new workers.
On Aug 28 and 29, the workers arrived by bus in the city of Hunchun, just across the Tumen river from North Korea’s North Hamgyong province, a Chinese citizen of Korean descent told RFA Korean on condition of anonymity for security reasons.
“A clothing company in the garment industrial park … hired 150 of the dispatched workers,” the resident said. “The company is run by local Chinese people. North Korea will start sending workers on a large scale starting from now.”
According to the resident, among the 3,000 or so workers who returned from China to North Korea since 2022, most were recalled because they got sick or showed signs of mental illness.
“They also repatriated those who caused problems during group living in China,” he said. “They withdrew workers who could no longer earn party funds and sent new workers to China starting at the end of August.”
‘Huge demand’
But many who have been there since before the pandemic are going to stay and work for the companies they are already contracted with, he said.
“Currently, North Korean workers are dispatched to some companies here in Jilin Province, but it seems that they will gradually be dispatched throughout China,” the resident said. “There is a huge demand in China for young workers who can live and work inside factories and increase productivity indefinitely.”
A resident of the Chinese city of Dandong, which lies across the Yalu River from North Korea’s Sinuiju, told RFA that the 500 workers will be working in three different companies in Hunchun.
“There are several clothing processing companies in Hunchun, including the Border Economic Cooperation Zone,” he said. “About 200 North Korean workers were dispatched to Hunchun Rabboni Garment Co., Ltd. on August 29.”
Companies in China that utilize North Korean labor are relieved at the news, he said. They had been worried that once the workers return home, North Korea would not send new ones to replace them, but the new deployment is reassuring.
“North Korea workers are initially dispatched to the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in Jilin Province, but they are expected to expand to many companies in all three northeastern provinces in the future,” he said, referring to Jilin, Liaoning and Heilongjiang provinces, often referred to as China’s Rust Belt due to recent decline of population and economic growth in what had been China’s most vibrant industrial region.
According to the Dandong resident, the region’s manufacturing sector is experiencing a serious shortage of workers, as many young Chinese avoid employment in rural areas and factories. North Koreans cost less and can pick up the slack, he said.
Translated by Claire S. Lee. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Kim Jieun for RFA Korean.
The Philippine coast guard vessel at the center of a standoff with China in the South China Sea has left the disputed Sabina Shoal, according to vessel tracking data obtained by RFA.
Radio Free Asia tried to contact Philippine government agencies for comment on why the vessel had left the shoal, which is about 140 km (85 miles) west of Palawan island, but did not receive a response by time of publication. China has not commented.
Data provided by the website MarineTraffic, which uses automatic identification system (AIS) signals to track ships, show that the BRP Teresa Magbanua (MRRV-9701) is back in the Sulu Sea near the Philippines’ Balabac island, about 200 km (125 miles) to the south of the shoal.
Ship tracking specialists told RFA the 2,200-ton coast guard flagship left the hotly disputed shoal, known in the Philippines as Escoda, at around 1 p.m. on Friday.
The shoal is claimed by both countries but is entirely within the Philippine exclusive economic zone, or EEZ, where the Philippines holds rights to explore for natural resources.
BRP Teresa Magbanua is one of the largest and most modern vessels of the Philippine coast guard. It was first deployed to Sabina Shoal in April to monitor what the Philippines fears is a Chinese plan to reclaim land at the shoal, as China has done elsewhere in the South China Sea.
Philippine officials insisted that the vessel could remain there for as long as necessary but China denounced what it saw as the “illegal grounding” of the BRP Teresa Magbanua and deployed a large number of ships there to keep watch. The Philippines denied that the vessel had been grounded.
The standoff resulted in several collisions between Philippine and Chinese vessels, especially during Philippine resupply missions to the BRP Teresa Magbanua, raising fears of a more serious conflict between the Philippines, a close U.S. ally, and an increasingly assertive China.
Beijing feared that by maintaining the vessel’s semi-permanent presence at the shoal, Manila aimed to establish de-facto control over it, similar to what it has done at the Second Thomas Shoal, where an old Philippine warship, BRP Sierra Madre, was deliberately run aground to serve as an outpost.
For its part, the Philippines is worried that without the presence of its authorities, Chinese ships will swarm the area and effectively take control of it, as happened at Scarborough Shoal – another disputed South China Sea feature – where China has had control since 2012.
Sabina Shoal is close to an area believed to be rich in oil and gas, and also served as the main staging ground for resupply missions to the Sierra Madre at the Second Thomas Shoal.
Lower the tension
“The parallels are unavoidable,” said Ray Powell, director of the U.S.-based SeaLight project at Stanford University, referring to what China did at the Scarborough Shoal.
“China is also likely to declare victory – hard to avoid that conclusion,” said the maritime security analyst who monitors developments in the South China Sea, referring to the withdrawal of the Philippine ship.
On Sept. 12, Philippine Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Maria Theresa P. Lazaro met China’s Vice Foreign Minister Chen Xiaodong to discuss the situation at the shoal.
The Chinese side reportedly urged the Philippines to immediately withdraw its vessels while “Lazaro reaffirmed the consistent position of the Philippines and explored ways to lower the tension in the area,” the Philippines Department of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.
It is not clear whether the BRP Teresa Magbanua withdrew as a result of that consultation.
Philippine analyst Chester Cabalza, president of the International Development and Security Cooperation think tank, described the withdrawal of the ship as “anti-climactic,” adding that he thought both sides should withdraw from the vicinity of the shoal, which is in an important sea lane.
Cabalza said if the Philippines and China had reached any agreement in their Sept. 12 consultation, that would become evident in the absence of any “swarming of Chinese armada” at the shoal.
“The ball is with China now,” the analyst told RFA’s affiliate BenarNews.
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China’s National People’s Congress is considering amendments to the law that would expand compulsory military training at universities and ‘national defense education’ in high schools.
Under the amendments, branches of the People’s Liberation Army will be stationed in colleges, universities and high schools across the country to boost a nationwide program of approved military education and physical training to prepare young people for recruitment, state news agency Xinhua reported on Sept. 10.
“The second draft of the revised bill clarifies that ordinary colleges, universities and high schools should strengthen military skills training, hone students’ willpower, enhance organizational discipline, and improve the level of military training,” the agency said in a summary of the amendments.
China has long had a culture of military training in schools and universities, with military-style boot-camps for kids on vacation and ‘defense education bases’ catering to corporations and tour groups. The authorities in Hong Kong have also imposed such training on former young protesters, alongside “patriotic education.”
People’s Armed Forces departments already exist at every level of government, in schools, universities and state-owned enterprises to strengthen ruling Chinese Communist Party, or CCP, control over local militias, guard weapons caches and find work for veterans.
After decades of relative invisibility throughout the post-Mao economic boom, they are once more mobilizing to build militias in big state-owned companies and consolidate party leadership over local military operations.
But analysts say the amendments, if adopted, will standardize these activities under guidelines laid down by the CCP’s military arm, in a bid to create more potential recruits as part of preparations for war. While Chinese citizens have an obligation to serve in the People’s Liberation Army on paper, this hasn’t been implemented since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949.
‘Glorious’ military service
Under the planned amendments, high schools will also be obliged to teach children about military service, and create an atmosphere in which military service is seen as “glorious,” Xinhua said.
Primary and junior high schools are included in the plan, which calls on them to “combine classroom teaching with extracurricular activities,” according to the China News Service.
“Students in colleges and high schools are required to offer compulsory basic military training, while junior high schools may also organize such activities,” the report said.
According to a report in the Legal Daily newspaper, the amendments aim to build a nationwide program of military training that connects schools at all levels and of all types.
They also guarantee funding for these activities, which will include military camps and “national defense education bases,” the paper said.
Primary school students wearing Red Army uniforms visit the Martyrs Cemetery in Yecheng, northwestern China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, ahead of the Qingming grave-tending festival, April 4, 2015. (Reuters)
“They want students to know about national defense, an awareness of who the enemy is, at a much younger age,” Shan-Son Kung, an associate researcher at Taiwan’s Institute for National Defense and Security Research, told RFA Mandarin in a recent interview.
“[They also] want kids to get basic military training, which is being extended lower down the system, so as to universalize basic military knowledge,” he said. “The aim is to step up preparations for a future war, so that there will be more conscripts available following the passing of the Mobilization Law.”
The National Defense Mobilization Law of the People’s Republic of China took effect on July 1, 2010, with the aim of setting up a nationwide structure for national defense mobilization.
Currently, the Chinese military mostly relies on recruitment, and most of the standing army are professional soldiers, Kung said.
“In the next few years, we could see growing tensions between China and the United States, and China may look to strengthen its economic and military mobilization as well as the frequency and scope of exercises sooner rather than later,” Kung said. “They may be making advance preparations for a large-scale war.”
‘Educational brainwashing’
China already requires graduates in fluid mechanics, machinery, chemistry, missile technology, radar, science and engineering, weapons science and other technical disciplines to join the People’s Liberation Army.
Taiwan-based Chinese dissident Gong Yujian said the Chinese Communist Party is aware that it may face great difficulty in recruiting young people to the military, given the shrinking of that age group due to the one-child policy, so it’s stepping up pro-military propaganda while they’re still young.
“They need to cultivate high school students to be loyal to the party and patriotic, and worship the People’s Liberation Army,” Gong said. “It’s educational brainwashing.”
“That way, they can join up after graduation and boost the People’s Liberation Army’s recruitment figures,” he said.
Gong said he still has memories of some military training exercises from when he was in high school.
“When we were in school, we had seven days’ military training, but it was just a formality,” he said. “The local armed police force sent soldiers to our school to teach the students how to march, and how to fold a blanket.”
“But we didn’t even so much as touch a firearm,” he said.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Roseanne Gerin.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Hsia Hsiao-hwa for RFA Mandarin.
In Sudan, a recent United Nations fact-finding mission documented “harrowing” human rights violations committed by both the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, including indiscriminate attacks on civilians, schools, hospitals, water and power supplies. Civilians have also been subjected to torture, arbitrary detention and gruesome sexual violence. Over 20,000 people have been killed and 13 million displaced over the past 16 months. The war has also destroyed the country’s healthcare system and caused an outbreak of diseases like cholera, malaria and dengue. Sky News correspondent Yousra Elbagir, whose reporting helped uncover details of a June 2023 massacre of civilians by the RSF in North Darfur, says the world is showing “complete apathy and neglect” over the violence in Sudan today. We also speak with Jean-Baptiste Gallopin, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch, who says countries including Russia, China and Iran are supplying both sides with advanced weapons that are “very likely to be used to commit human rights violations and war crimes.”
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
The Samoan government’s attempt to control the media for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting is a slap across the face of press freedom, democracy and freedom of speech.
It is a farce and an attempt by a dysfunctional government unit to gag local and overseas media.
No international forum of such importance does this. The United Nations, the Pacific Islands Forum or other CHOGMs never had to deal with such dictatorial policies for journalism. What is the sub-committee thinking?
We are not living under a dictatorship, neither are the media organisations coming to cover the event. The message to media organisations like the BBC, ABC, AFP and others is you will only publish and broadcast what we tell you to.
To the people who came up with these policies, what were you thinking? This goes to show the inexperience of the press secretariat and the media sub-committee. It would have been good if you had involved experienced journalists who have covered international events.
There is never a restriction on media to cover side events, there is never a restriction for photographers and cameramen to take pictures, and there are never restrictions for media to approach delegates for interviews or what content they can get their hands on.
In any international forum, the state or the organisation’s media uploads their content, interviews, pictures and videos and makes it accessible for all to use. It is at the discretion of the media to choose to use it. In most cases, the media come with their issues and angles. To say that this will be dictated, makes it sound like this is not Samoa but China.
Next thing, the sub-committee will announce prison terms for not following the policies set by them. The CHOGM is the biggest international event Samoa has ever hosted and this decision is going to cause an international nightmare. The media in Samoa is furious because this is choking media freedom.
The hiring of a New Zealand company will not solve the matter. They can help the government as they have done sporting bodies for the Pacific Games but who are you to dictate to the media what to publish and what to report?
Each of the heads of delegations will be followed by the media from their country including their state media. All these people will not be allowed at the closing and opening ceremony. ABC, Nine News and other Australian media will follow Anthony Albanese, RNZ, New Zealand Herald, and Stuff will be behind Christopher Luxon and the British media with the King.
This is surely not a move proposed by the Commonwealth Secretariat. If anyone at the press secretariat or any of the state-owned media has covered international events like the COP, CHOGM, UN meetings or even the Pacific Island Forum Leaders Meeting, you will know that this is not how things work. To even recommend that overseas and local media work together to cover the event is absurd.
Imagine the press secretariat journalist following Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mataafa is told at an international event, no stay away from the events she goes to because we will tell where you are allowed to go. That also begs the question, will state media from other countries be treated differently from media who are independent?
Each media outlet has its priorities. They will cover what is relevant to their audience.
Media are given access and the option to choose whichever side event they would want to be part of. Does this also mean that the itinerary or schedule of events will also be not made public?
The prime minister needs to intervene as quickly as possible before this situation escalates into an international incident. Stifling the media is never a good thing and trying to control them is even worse. Let us hope that this is not the legacy of this government. The one that managed to control media from 54 countries. It would be an achievement marked on the international stage.
This year, Samoa jumped into the top 20 in the latest press freedom index released by the global group Reporters Without Borders out of 180 countries and territories assessed.
It is one of only two Pacific nations in the top 20 of the index with New Zealand the other state and ahead of Samoa in 13th position. The other Pacific states below Aotearoa and Samoa include Australia (27), Tonga (44), Papua New Guinea (59), and Fiji (89).
This is not a reflection of that.
To justify this action by saying it is being done for security reasons either shows that you expect journalists to kill delegates with their questions or the lack of security arrangements surrounding the event. Is this an attempt to hide the inadequacies of the preparation from the eyes of the world?
The sub-committee even said this was done to safeguard information that cannot be released. If you have covered an event like this before, you would know how it works. The least you could have done was consult with the Commonwealth media team or Rwanda, the previous hosts. The media know which meetings are public.
The CHOGM is not a private event. It concerns governments from 54 nations and a government is its people. Do not be responsible for breaking the communication between governments and their people. Do not be the people to go down in history as the ones who killed media freedom at CHOGM, because that is what has happened here.
If this is allowed to happen for CHOGM, a dangerous precedence will be set for future local events.
The Samoa Observer editorial on 12 September 2024. Republished with permission.
Nearly 2 million people in Myanmar’s northern Shan state are facing a shortage of medicine and other basic commodities after China shuttered its border, according to residents and ethnic rebels, who said prices for goods have “skyrocketed” in the region over the past two weeks.
On Aug. 25, Chinese authorities closed border gates serving 20 Shan state townships and Myanmar’s junta began restricting trade routes, as a group of rebel factions known as the Three Brotherhood Alliance pushed the military out of major towns in the region.
The alliance, which first launched an offensive against the military in October 2023, now controls 21 townships in northern Shan state, as well as five border gates in the townships of Kyin Sang Kyaut, Chinshwehaw, Yan Long Keng, Mone Koe, and Nam Hkam.
Lway Yay Oo, the spokeswoman of one of the ethnic alliance members known as the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, or TNLA, told RFA Burmese that residents of areas under its control no longer have access to the basic necessities they had come to rely on through border trade.
“Since China closed the border gates, and the junta has blocked trade routes, there is a serious shortage of medicine in our area,” she said.
People visit the first Myanmar’s Lashio-China’s Lincang border economic and trade fair in Lashio, Myanmar, Nov. 21, 2019. (Haymhan Aung/Xinhua via Getty Images)
Residents of northern Shan state said they believe that China – one of the junta’s few international allies and the largest foreign investor in Myanmar – shut down the border as part of a pressure campaign to end armed conflict in the area.
“Some pharmacies have tried to get medicine to sell, but it’s not enough,” said a resident of Kutkai township who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on condition of anonymity due to security concerns.
“It is difficult to get medicine for the sick and vaccinate the children,” he said, adding that people in the area cannot afford to pay to have supplies delivered from Myanmar’s urban centers, such as Yangon, which are dealing with their own shortages amid the country’s civil war.
Residents said that the prices of remaining stock have “skyrocketed” since the gate closures.
A pharmacy owner in northern Shan state, who also declined to be named, told RFA that since the junta cut off trade routes, only small quantities of the most important drugs are being transported within the region.
“It is not easy to transport medicine, and we can only smuggle urgently needed supplies,” he said. “Chinese medicine is out of stock now, although we can get B-6 and B-12 [vitamin supplements].”
Attempts by RFA to contact Khun Thein Maung, the junta’s minister of economy and spokesperson for Shan state, for comment on the situation went unanswered Thursday, as did efforts to reach representatives from China’s Embassy in Yangon.
Protecting Chinese interests
China’s border closure follows three separate meetings last month between Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Chinese Ambassador to Myanmar Ma Jia and junta representatives, during which Beijing sought assurances that the military regime would protect its projects and citizens in the country.
In response, the junta pledged to prioritize the safety of China’s assets, according to a statement released by Chinese authorities.
But amidst the intensifying conflict in Myanmar, control over at least 10 Chinese projects has shifted from the military to armed opposition groups, including ethnic rebels and the anti-junta People’s Defense Force, or PDF, according to an Aug. 19 report by the Institute for Strategy and Policy – Myanmar.
A woman works at a motorbike factory in China Yunnan Pilot Free Trade Zone Dehong Area in Dehong, southwest China’s Yunnan Province, Nov. 4, 2019. (Jiang Wenyao/Xinhua via Getty Images)
They include the Muse Border Economic Cooperation Zone, Kunlong Dam, Kunlong Bridge, Chinshwehaw Border Economic Trade Zone, Naung Pha Dam, Lancang-Mekong Environmental Cooperation Center, Goteik Bridge and New Road Project, Sinn Shwe Li-2 Sugar Factory, Alpha Cement Factory and Takaung Nickel Factory, the group said.
When questioned about the situation, TNLA spokeswoman Lway Yay Oo told RFA that all Chinese projects under her group’s control in northern Shan state are currently suspended.
“Given the ongoing instability in the region, we have temporarily suspended all investments,” she said. “Moving forward, we are working to develop the necessary policies in order to resume operations when conditions allow.”
Junta ‘no longer accountable’
Nay Phone Latt, spokesperson for the Prime Minister’s Office of Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government, or NUG, told RFA that the junta no longer has the capacity to safeguard Chinese projects.
“The current regime is in a position where it is unable to ensure its own security, let alone protect the citizens of the country,” he said. “I want to clearly state that it can no longer be held accountable for the safety of international investment projects, foreign workers, or the security of those involved.”
Nay Phone Latt noted that the PDF is currently providing security for the Takaung Nickel Plant, a US$855 million Chinese-owned mining project. He said that while “discussions have taken place” between the NUG and China regarding the plant, he could not disclose details of the talks at this time.
In addition to the China-Myanmar oil and natural gas pipeline, ethnic rebel groups may partially control railways, roads, waterways and trade routes within the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor, which forms part of China’s broader Silk Road infrastructure initiative.
Chinese farmer Yukan who sells vegetables at a market in Myanmar, queues to leave a border crossing in Menghai county, southwest China’s Yunnan Province, Jan. 11, 2020. (Hu Chao/Xinhua via Getty)
According to the Institute for Strategy and Policy – Myanmar, at least nine Chinese investment projects in Kyaukphyu and Thandwe townships, located in Rakhine state, are now partially controlled by the Arakan Army, or AA.
When asked for comment, AA spokesperson Khaing Thukha said that foreign investment projects will be protected. “All parties involved in the ongoing conflict in Myanmar have expressed the need to safeguard China’s interests,” he said.
RFA contacted junta spokesperson Major General Zaw Min Tun regarding the Chinese projects now under the control of ethnic groups, but received no response.
Translated by Kalyar Lwin and Aung Naing. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Burmese.
More than 100 U.S. lawmakers have written to President Joe Biden requesting an executive order to close a “loophole” they say is allowing clothing made with Uyghur slave labor to reach American shores.
The “de minimis” exception allows imports worth less than $800 to enter the United States without being subjected to tariffs or customs inspections.
Critics have labeled it a “loophole” that allows 4 million packages to pass without scrutiny through customs each day.
In particular, they accuse Chinese low-price online retailers like Shein and Temu of exploiting the exception to sell clothing made with Uyghur slave labor directly to Americans. The exemption has also been blamed for allowing fentanyl to be imported through the postal system.
A long-promised bill to end the exemption was promised as part of this week’s high-profile “China Week” flurry of China-related legislation by House Speaker Mike Johnson, but in the end was not included.
Workers produce garments at a textile factory that supplies clothes to fast fashion e-commerce company Shein, June 11, 2024 in Guangzhou in southern China’s Guangdong province. (Jade Gao/AFP)
In an open letter sent to Biden on Wednesday, 126 lawmakers from the Democratic Party said that in the absence of legislative action, the U.S. president should use the “broad discretion” granted to him by existing trade law to restrict what items are eligible for the exemption.
They ask Biden to “disqualify commercial shipments from de minimis treatment,” so such items “no longer evade inspection, information disclosure requirements, or the requisite tariffs and taxes.”
In a press conference Wednesday, Rep. Tom Suozzi, a Democrat from New York who leads the Congressional Uyghur Caucus, said that short of legislation, executive action was the only way to ensure laws like the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act can be properly enforced.
“Some very clever people from the Chinese Communist Party … have come up with ways to get around all the stuff that we’ve negotiated,” Suozzi said, adding that Chinese online retailers “figured out how to use the new e-commerce systems” to skirt U.S. trade laws.
“They’re under $800 and they come in through the mail, not through the ports of entry – nobody inspects it, nobody pays any tariffs,” he said of the packages entering under the exemption.
“Nobody makes sure they’re not being made with forced labor in the Xinjiang region,” he said, where thousands of ethnic Uyghurs are believed to be trapped in factories producing everything from clothing to appliances.
Uyghur slave labor
Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro, a Democrat from Connecticut, said she believed it was “a near certainty” that clothing made with Uyghur slave labor was entering the United States under the exception.
DeLauro said the practice was also harming the U.S. textile industry, with Chinese brands that rely on slave labor “undercutting the competitiveness of many American industries – especially small clothing manufacturers – while enabling human rights abuses.”
A woman uses fentanyl in Portland, Oregon, Jan. 23, 2024. (Patrick T. Fallon/AFP)
Lori Wallach, the director of the Rethink Trade program at the Washington-based American Economic Liberties Project, said it would be preferable to have legislation to close the loophole forever.
“But the good news is that Congress previously granted American presidents broad discretion and authority to determine what types of goods can enter using de minimis – explicitly, in a statute, and it did so to prevent unlawful imports,” Wallach told the press conference.
Ending the ability of foreign retailers to send small packages directly to consumers would not “cut off” such imports, Wallach said, but would “force a different way” of doing business. Sellers would likely revert to container shipments that require advanced information to be filed with customs so items can “get pulled and inspected,” she said.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment about whether Biden would comply with the lawmakers’ request.
Logistical nightmare
Not all industry leaders are united against the exemption.
John Pickel, the senior director of international supply chain policy at the National Foreign Trade Council and a former trade official at the Department of Homeland Security, told Radio Free Asia that the “de minimis” provision was a necessary part of U.S. trade law.
Customs officials are already empowered to inspect goods shipped under “de minimis” if they believed the sender violated the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, he said, arguing the exemption was otherwise cost-saving for both government and consumers.
A photo illustration shows the Temu app in the App Store reflected in videos of Temu consumers, in Washington, DC, on Feb. 23, 2023. (Stefani Reynolds/AFP)
Removing it would require extensive further appropriations for customs officials to inspect more packages and collect duties, he said, and would cost consumers who would be forced to pay for the tariffs.
“I led the team that implemented the UFLPA at DHS, and I haven’t seen any evidence of increased forced labor risk in the de minimis environment,” Pickel said, pointing to a study that showed ending the exception would impose costs of up to $30 billion a year.
“Degrading de minimis would only raise import taxes on low-income consumers and small businesses and have no enforcement benefit at the border,” he said. “Instead of focusing on de minimis, policymakers should be looking for ways to validate information received by the government across all shipment values and entry environments.”
Edited by Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Alex Willemyns for RFA.
The world is now moving through an epoch-shifting transition, and a new system will be brought online as the $1.2 quadrillion derivatives time bomb that has cancerously taken over the western economy crashes.
Now, this may not be a bad thing, as the system created over the dead bodies of JFK and his brother (which some have dubbed ‘post-industrial society’, consumerism or globalization) was always an atrocity premised around a Malthusian paradigm that rejected America’s historic tradition of morality and technological progress.
However, as the multipolar alliance races to bring a system of win-win cooperation, large scale development and long term thinking into reality, it has become increasingly clear that the New World Order priesthood is no longer the only game in town.
In the following article, I would like to clarify the principled difference between the oligarchical closed system of transhumanism and the foundation for open systems now coming alive through the Russia/China led Multipolar Alliance, which President Trump fought to unite with the USA, and which will have to occur after the oncoming elections if the world is to survive a tragedy that has the very real possibility of ushering in a new global dark age for centuries.
Closed Systems, in Brief
If humanity’s new system is presumed to be of a closed nature, then I am sorry to tell you that fascism will be necessitated as the ultimate governing mechanism of the elite.
The reason for this depressing fact is simple.
In all closed (i.e., finite/bounded) systems, the number of people alive will always tend to consume more energy than the system itself creates over time as resources, and agricultural potential is slowly drawn down and entropy increases.
In such a world, someone has to decide who receives those ever-diminishing returns of resources, and who are the useless eaters to be sacrificed “for the greater good” of the system.
This is the Hobbesian world that such misanthropes like Thomas Malthus, T.H. Huxley, Henry Kissinger and Al Gore live in. In true Pygmalion fashion, these cynics will use any and all political clout at their disposal to force society to adhere to their obsession with “balance”, “mathematical equilibrium” and perfect linear predictability. The self-professed “alphas” of these sorts of master-slave societies are committed to forcing the “might-makes-right” laws of the jungle onto humanity.
In the closed-uncreative world of such a misanthrope, imbalance is considered both un-natural and evil. Imbalance is wild. It is unpredictable. It is open.
Based on their words and actions, Putin, Xi, Modi, Bashar al Assad, Mohammed bin Salman, and Donald Trump do not think this way.
Open Systems, in Brief
As a short example of my meaning, listen to President Xi describe the fundamental principle of open system economics during a 2016 speech to the CPC central committee:
“Coordinated development is the unity of balanced development and imbalanced development. The process from balance to imbalance and then to rebalance is the basic law of development. Balance is relative, while imbalance is absolute. Emphasizing coordinated development is not pursuing equalitarianism, but giving more importance to equal opportunities and balanced resource allocation.”
By placing imbalance as the absolute factor, and balance as merely relative, Xi is defining a process of progress built upon creative leaps, with each higher system requiring a reasonable balance/distribution of resource use, but without ever becoming reliant on that particular set of finite resources.
Putin expressed his understanding of this principle in his own way when he discussed the importance of unlimited energy and growth potential attainable through the harnessing of fusion power:
“Potentially we can harness a colossal, inexhaustible and safe source of energy. However, we will only succeed in fusion energy and in solving other fundamental tasks if we establish broad international cooperation and interaction between government and business, and join the efforts of researchers representing different scientific schools and areas.
If technological development becomes truly global, it will not be split up or reined in by attempts to monopolize progress, limit access to education and put up new obstacles to the free exchange of knowledge and ideas. With their help, scientists will be able to literally see nature’s creation processes.”
Programs like China’s Belt and Road Initiative (and its space, polar, health and information extensions) has not only won over 135 nations to its framework, but this program is entirely rooted in open-system thinking.
Within this framework’s operating system, there is no presumed fixed limit to resources or end point to the progress that nations can create if certain principles are adhered to.
At the heart of these vital principles is found the moral concept of “win-win cooperation,” or as China’s former president Sun Yat-sen called it in his Three Principles of the People, the Principle of “Right makes Might”.
Sun Yat-sen understood in 1924, as Presidents Xi and Putin do today, that if a nation adheres to win-win/right-makes-might thinking, then that nation will never lose the Mandate of Heaven (Tianxia).
In the Western matrix, this principle is expressed beautifully by the Principle of Westphalia, which established the first modern nation states in 1648 premised around the principle of the “Benefit of the Other.” When Kissinger, Brzezinski or Blair speak of a “post-Westphalian age”, it is this fundamental principle that they are attacking more than the mere existence of national borders.
This principle is again reflected in the UN Charter, which was designed by the anti-colonial President FDR “to achieve international co-operation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character, and in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion, and to be a center for harmonizing the actions of nations in the attainment of these common ends.”
FDR’s early death and the British-Deep State takeover of America over his dead body prevented these ideals and open system dynamics from ever coming to life.
As long as nations are empowered to stand on their own feet, develop full spectrum agro-industrial economies, and if people benefit by developing new skillsets, and if new technologies and new discoveries in science are encouraged rather than sabotaged (as has been the practice under the Might-Makes-Right Darwinian laws of gobble-ization), then potential for human perfectibility is as boundless as our ability to discover, create, plan and inspire future generations.
Some Points of Mutual Interest
Now there are an array of domains, which all nations of the U.N. Security Council can focus on during this period of intense crisis that would tie civilization’s interests into open system thinking benefiting all nations and people.
To end this paper, I wish to outline several of the most fruitful topics to be tackled at upcoming summits, which will best define the coming century (or more) of cooperation and growth:
Space Diplomacy, Asteroid Defense, Arctic and Far east development, nuclear energy.
Space Diplomacy
America’s successful return to manned space flight on May 28, 2020 was more than just another space launch, but rather one important component of a much larger commitment illustrated by the May 15, 2020 Artemis Accords to not only send humans back to the Moon for the first time since 1973, but to permanently develop a Lunar and Mars-based economy with a focus on international cooperation.
This outlook dovetails Russia’s commitment for permanent lunar colonization and resource development, which began with Luna 25 in 2021, followed by Luna 26, 27 and 28 soon thereafter, with a plan to have a permanent manned base along with the Chinese in early 2030.
Although banned from the ISS and U.S.-cooperation since 2011, China has become a pioneer in space, with a tight alliance with Russia on lunar cooperation signed in September 2019. China’s own Chang-e program has resulted in landing on the far side of the moon, with plans for colonization in the coming decades, as well as the development of Helium-3 mining for fusion power.
Asteroid Defense
Faced with the two-fold threat of NATO military encirclement on earth and asteroid collisions from abroad, the former head of Roscosmos, Dimitry Rogozin made headlines in 2011 by reviving the concept for a joint U.S.-Russia controlled defense system first announced by President Reagan’s 1983 Strategic Defense Initiative.
Rogozin’s 2011 version (titled the Strategic Defense of Earth) now called for turning humanity’s arsenal of atomic weapons away from each other and towards the grave danger of asteroid collisions, for which we are woefully unprepared. Introducing this topic into the emerging joint U.S/Russia working groups on arms control set to begin in mid-July would contribute in powerful non-linear ways that cannot be calculated by any linear standard of measurement.
This vision has been echoed by China, as well as the European and Japanese space agencies.
Arctic and Far East Development
In 2007, Russia revived a 150-year-old idea that once had the support of leading republicans of Lincoln’s 19th century America to unite rail lines in America and Eurasia through the Bering Strait crossing in the form of a 65 mile tunnel.
Russia again re-emphasized its commitment to building this $64 billion project in 2011. With China’s Polar Silk Road having extended the traditionally east-west development corridor into the Arctic, and as China and Russia have increasingly merged the Belt and Road Initiative with the Eurasian Economic Union, this new development dynamic offers incredible economic opportunities for all Arctic nations, and also an escape from military confrontation.
As I outlined in The Strategic Importance of the Alaska-Canada Railway, Donald Trump’s executive order reviving the Alaska-Canada railway was directly tied to this strategic vision for Arctic cooperation, in opposition to the closed system warhawks promoting a militaristic program against Russia and China in the Arctic.
Putin’s Far East Development Plan
Part in parcel with this initiative comes President Putin’s Far East development plans as a “21st century national priority” for Russia.
The development of new cities, mining, transport corridors and oil and natural gas of Russia’s Far East represent one of the greatest boons for economic investment during the coming century and already features an array of partners from China, Japan, South Korea, India and other APEC nations.
Putin’s 2018 proposal that the USA join in this project of win-win cooperation is important not only because it would build trust, create business opportunities and re-establish the lost art of long-term thinking, but would also help link up western businesses into partnership with the Asia Pacific development process now being shaped by China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
Although tensions have been enflamed to schism China and India from cooperating directly on the BRI, India’s embrace of Russian Far East development investments has created a non-linear flank, which can help bring these two Asian giants into harmony.
Only the tip of the iceberg…
Overall, there are many other points of common benefit shared by nations committed to a Multi-Polar “open system” future, including education/cultural exchange, fission/fusion energy research and counterterrorism.
If Russia, America, China and other nations of the UN Security Council and BRICS were to apply their best minds to solving these problems rather than falling into a new arms race, then not only would either country benefit immensely, but so too would humanity more broadly.
This article was loosely based on a presentation delivered in Basel Switzerland this year:
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris said on Tuesday the United States must beat China “in the competition for the 21st century,” while her presidential election rival, Donald Trump, said China had feared him and would pay billions in tariffs if he returned to the White House.
Democratic presidential nominee Harris and Republican nominee Trump clashed for 90 minutes in a debate in Philadelphia that was largely focused on domestic issues but touched on foreign affairs, in particular the Middle East, the war in Ukraine, the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and China.
The debate began with probably the biggest concern of U.S. voters, the state of the American economy.
A moderator, referring to a Trump plan to impose tariffs of as much as 20% on all imports, asked if Americans could afford the higher prices that the policy would bring. Trump dismissed that suggestion.
“They’re not going to have higher prices. What’s going to happen, who’s going to have higher prices is China and all of the countries that have been ripping us off for years,” Trump said, pointing out that some tariffs he introduced had been retained by the Joe Biden administration over the past three-and-a-half years.
“China was paying us hundreds of billions of dollars and so were other countries,” he said.
“We’re going to take in billions of dollars, hundreds of billions of dollars,” Trump added, referring to his hoped-for second term.
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks during a presidential debate with Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris at the National Constitution Center, Philadelphia, Sept. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Harris has backed the Biden administration’s targeted tariffs on only certain Chinese imports – such as a 100% rate on electric cars and a 50% rate on solar panels – arguing it will bolster domestic manufacturing without causing wider economic damage.
Trump has proposed an across-the-board rate of “more than” 60% on Chinese imports, and a rate of 10% – or even 20% – on all other imports, in order to revive the U.S. manufacturing sector and reduce reliance on foreign trade.
Harris said Trump as president had “invited trade wars” and resulted in a trade deficit.
“If you want to talk about his deal with China, what he ended up doing is, under Donald Trump’s presidency, he ended up selling American chips to China to help them improve and modernize their military, basically sold us out,” she said.
“A policy about China should be in making sure the United States of America wins the competition for the 21st century, which means focusing on the details of what that requires,” Harris said.
“Focusing on relationships with our allies, focusing on investing in American-based technology so we win the race on AI, on quantum computing, focusing on what we need to do to support America’s workforce so that we don’t end up on the short end of the stick in terms of workers’ rights.”
The debate, hosted by American broadcaster ABC News, was the first time the two have faced each other since Harris entered the race.
President Joe Biden, 81, dropped out of the race in late July after stumbling through a debate with Trump, 78, raising concerns among Democrat politicians and donors that voters would not back him in the November presidential poll.
Harris, 59, won the Democratic nomination last month. She is the first woman, Black person and person of South Asian descent to serve as vice president.
Trading barbs
Harris took Trump to task for a response to China’s President Xi Jinping over the COVID-19 pandemic, which emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019.
“With COVID he actually thanked President Xi for what he did during COVID,” Harris said, referring to a Trump post on Twitter at the time.
“Look at his Tweet – ‘Thank you President Xi’, exclamation point – when we know that Xi was responsible for lacking and not giving us transparency about the origins of COVID.”
China faced criticism in the early stage of the pandemic for what some health experts said was a bid to cover up the disease and its origin. Beijing rejects that.
Trump criticized the Biden administration’s overall record in international affairs, saying: “The leaders of other countries think that they’re weak and incompetent and they are.”
Harris repeated assertions she made during her nomination speech on Aug. 22 that Trump liked to “cozy-up” to dictators.
“It is well-known that he exchanged ‘love letters’ with Kim Jong Un,” said Harris, referring to unprecedented communication between a U.S. president and a North Korean leader that led to three meetings between Trump and Kim, but no breakthrough on efforts to press North Korea to give up its nuclear and missile programs.
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris gestures as she speaks during an ABC News presidential debate with Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Sept. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Trump highlighted his relationship with authoritarian Hungarian leader Victor Orban, citing Orban as saying: “You need Trump back as president.”
Referring to himself in the third person, Trump spoke of his standing on the world stage. “China was afraid of him, North Korea was afraid of him … Russia was afraid of him,” he said.
Harris said Trump adored strongmen instead of caring about democracy and the American people.
“These dictators and autocrats are rooting for you to be president again because it is so clear they can manipulate you with flattery and favors,” Harris said. She also cited unidentified U.S. military leaders referring to Trump as “a disgrace.”
Trump attacked the Democrats’ record on immigration and American industry, accusing the Biden administration of “losing” 10,000 manufacturing jobs in August.
“They’re building big auto plants in Mexico, in many cases owned by China. What they have given to China is unbelievable. We will put tariffs on those cars so they won’t come into our country,” said Trump.
Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Staff.
Invention is the mother of necessity, and Russia’s response to largely Western-imposed economic and trade sanctions has shown the extent of that inventiveness. While enduring attritive punishment in its Ukraine campaign, the war remains sustainable for the Kremlin. The domestic economy has not collapsed, despite apocalyptic predictions to the contrary. In terms of exports, Russia is carving out new trade routes, a move that has been welcomed by notable powers in the Global South.
One of the chief prosecutors of sanctions against Moscow was initially confident about the damage that would be caused by economic bludgeoning. US President Joe Biden, in February 2022, insisted on the imposition of measures that would “impair [Russia’s] ability to compete in a high-tech 21st century economy.” The Council of the European Union also explained that the move was intended to weaken Moscow’s “ability to finance the war and specifically target the political, military and economic elite responsible for the invasion [of Ukraine].”
In all this, the European Union, the United States and other governments have ignored a salient historical lesson when resorting to supposedly punitive formulae intended to either deter Russia from pursuing a course of action or depriving it of necessary resources. States subject to supposedly crushing economic measures can adapt, showing streaks of impressive resilience. The response from Japan, Germany and Italy during the 1930s in the face of sanctions imposed by the League of Nations provide irrefutable proof of that proposition. All, to a certain extent, pursued what came to be known as Blockadefestigkeit, or blockade resilience. With bitter irony, the targeted powers also felt emboldened to pursue even more aggressive measures to subvert the restraints placed upon them.
By the end of 2022, Russia had become China’s second biggest supplier of Russian crude oil. India has also been particularly hungry for Russian oil. Producing only 10% of domestic supply, Russia contributed 34% of the rest of Indian oil consumption in 2023.
Trade routes are also being pursued with greater vigour than ever. This year, progress was made between Russia and China on a North Sea Route, which straddles the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean, running from Murmansk on the Barents Sea to the Bering Strait and the Far East. The agreement between Russia’s state nuclear agency Rosatom and China’s Hainan Yangpu Newnew Shipping Co Ltd envisages the joint design and creation of Arctic-class container vessels to cope with the punishing conditions throughout the year. Rosatom’s special representative for Arctic development, Vladimir Panov, confidently declared that up to 3 million tonnes of transit cargo would flow along the NSR in 2024.
While that agreement will operate to Russia’s frozen north, another transport route has also received a boosting tonic. Of late, Moscow and New Delhi have been making progress on the 7,200-kilometre International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC), which will run from St. Petersburg in northwestern Russia to ports in southern Iran for onward movement to Mumbai. While the agreement between Russia, Iran and India for such a multimodal corridor dates back to September 2000, the advent of sanctions imposed in the aftermath of the Ukraine War propelled Moscow to seek succour in the export markets of the Middle East and Asia.
As staff writers at Nikkeipoint out, the shipping route will not only bypass Europe but be “less than half as long as the current standard path through the Mediterranean Sea and the Suez Canal.” One calculation suggests that the time needed to transport cargo to Moscow from Mumbai prior to the initiation of the corridor was between 40 and 60 days. As things stand, the transit time has been shaved to 25-30 days, with transportation costs falling by 30%.
Much progress has been made on the western route, which involves the use of Azerbaijan’s rail and road facilities. In March, Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Digital Development and Transport revealed that rail freight grew by approximately 30% in 2023. Road freight rose to 1.3 million tonnes, an increase of 35%. The ministry anticipates the amount of tonnage in terms of freight traffic to rise to 30 million per year. In June this year, the Rasht-Caspian Sea link connecting the Persian Gulf with the Caspian Sea via rail was opened in the presence of Russian, Iranian and Azerbaijani dignitaries.
A further factor that adds worth to the corridor is the increasingly fraught nature of freight traffic from Europe to Asia via the Suez Canal. Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen have been harrying vessels in the Red Sea, a response to Israel’s ferocious campaign in Gaza. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Overchuk suggested back in January that the “North-South [corridor] will gain global significance” given the crisis in the Red Sea.
Despite the frightful losses being endured in the Russia-Ukraine war, it is clear, at least when it comes to using economic and financial weapons, that Moscow has prevailed. It has outfoxed its opponents, and, along the way, sought to redraw global trade routes that will furnish it with even greater armour from future economic shocks. Other countries less keen to seek a moral stake in the Ukraine conflict than pursue their own trade interests, have been most enthusiastic.
The U.S. House of Representatives is aiming to introduce up to 28 bills this week that target China – touching on trade, farm ownership and electric vehicles – in what many people are calling “China Week.”
The aim, apparently, is to empower the winner of November’s presidential election to get off to a running start in Washington’s strategic rivalry with Beijing.
Speaking at a Hudson Institute event in New York in July, House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, said that one of his main goals was to have “a significant package of China related legislation signed into law by the end of this year.”
“We’ll build our sanctions package, punish the Chinese military firms that provide material support to Russia and Iran,” Johnson said, “and we’ll consider options to restrict outbound investments.”
It’s unclear which ones will make it to the floor of the House for debate – or if the Senate will even consider them. To become law, both houses of Congress need to approve bills by a majority of votes.
The president then needs to either sign the bill into law or veto it. A two-thirds majority of both houses is needed to override a veto.
What are the bills?
A laundry list of bills introduced to the House over 2023 and 2024 have been put forward for consideration, with the Republican leadership of the chamber saying they will aim to pass a bulk of the bills in a single package vote by suspending the normal rules for proceedings.
In his speech in New York, the House speaker also flagged the possibility of a bill to close the “de minimis” loophole in U.S. trade.
Leapmotor vehicles are parked outside a showroom in Hangzhou in eastern China’s Zhejiang province, May 14, 2024. (Caroline Chen/AP)
Critics say that the loophole enables Chinese online fashion retailers like Shein and Temu to ship clothing allegedly made with Uyghur slave labor directly to the front doors of American consumers.
However, no such legislation has yet been put on the table. A bill targeting U.S. outbound investment in China, which was also promised by Johnson in July, also does not appear to be on the agenda.
Why is it all being done in one week?
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, who is a Republican from Louisiana, told Fox News that the aim was to highlight congressional action on China, which has been a focus of the current Congress.
U.S. lawmakers from across the partisan divide have zeroed in on China as a rare area of agreement in an otherwise polarized political sphere, accusing Beijing of representing a national security threat.
“We wanted to combine them all into one week so that you had a real sharp focus on the fact that we need to be aggressive in confronting the threat that China poses,” Scalise told Fox, explaining that he hoped to attract “real bipartisan support for a number of these.”
“They’re all bills that should be very bipartisan, because there are things that China is doing right now that are direct threats to our country’s national security,” he said, “and if we get strong bipartisan votes, you have a higher chance of getting through the Senate.”
The Republicans, who control a majority of the 435 seats in the House, have the numbers alone to pass the package of “China Week” bills on their own, but even then they will likely be joined by some like-minded Democrats in sending the bills to the Senate.
However, if all the bills are passed by the end of this week, it would leave the famously slow-moving Senate only two weeks to consider them.
More importantly, the House and the Senate also have to pass a bill to fund the government after Sept. 30, which is a day after both chambers head back into a monthslong recess ahead of the Nov. 5 elections.
A cargo ship loaded with containers berths at a port in Lianyungang, in eastern China’s Jiangsu province on August 7, 2024. (AFP)
Democrats and Republicans are already split on the proposals to keep funding going through to next year, which – if history is any guide – will likely draw the majority of their focus over the next three weeks.
Still, some of the bills could eventually be shoehorned into the mammoth defense appropriations bill typically passed by Congress in December of each year – importantly, this year, after the elections.
What does China say?
As might be expected, Beijing isn’t terribly happy about being declared the focus of proceedings in the first week back of Congress.
Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, told Radio Free Asia that the pieces of legislation proposed as part of “China Week” were all politically motivated and intended to provide lawmakers with evidence of their tough stances on China.
“If passed, it will cause serious interference to China-U.S. relations and mutually beneficial cooperation, and will inevitably damage the U.S.’s own interests, image and credibility,” Liu said in an email.
“The so-called ‘China Week’ and the China-related bills are full of Cold War thinking and zero-sum game concepts, exaggerating the ‘China threat,’ inciting strategic competition and even confrontation with China, clamoring for a ‘new Cold War’ and ‘decoupling,’” he added.
“This is new McCarthyism in the U.S. Congress, manipulating China issues and hyping up Sino-U.S. relations in the U.S. election year.”
Edited by Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Alex Willemyns for RFA.
A photo of an aircraft has been shared in Chinese-language social media posts alongside a claim that it shows a Chinese plane disguised as a Red Cross flight entering Ukraine to help Russia.
But the claim is false. The photo in fact shows a plane that carried a group of doctors to the Chinese city of Wuhan in 2020 following the outbreak of COVID-19.
The photo was shared here on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Aug. 24, 2024.
“China officially sent troops to participate in Russia’s ‘special military operation’ against Ukraine, with the first 15,000 troops entering the war under the name of the ‘Red Cross Forces’,” the caption of the photo reads in part.
The photo shows a white airplane on a landing strip with what appears to be China’s flag emblazoned on its tail.
Several Chinese online users recently claimed that China had officially sent soldiers to fight alongside Russia. (Screenshots/X)
China has repeatedly denied allegations that it supplies Russia with weapons amid accusations that it has built up Russia’s war machine by providing critical components.
Beijing exports more than $300 million worth of dual-use items – those with both commercial and military applications – to Russia every month, according to the U.S.-based think tank Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
The think tank added the list included what the U.S. had designated as “high priority” items – necessary for making weapons, from drones to tanks.
The U.S. in May imposed sanctions on about 20 firms based in China and Hong Kong, saying one exported components for drones, while others helped Russia bypass Western sanctions on other technologies.
China said it was not selling lethal arms and “prudently handles the export of dual-use items in accordance with laws and regulations.”
The claim about the airplane carrying Chinese troops to Russia was also shared on X here and here.
But the claim is false.
A reverse image search on Google found it was published in Chinese-language media in 2020, as seen here and here.
According to the reports, the image shows a Chinese plane carrying doctors to Wuhan following the outbreak of COVID-19 as part of relief efforts and epidemic control.
Keyword searches found no credible or official reports about China sending troops to Ukraine to help Russia.
Did an unmarked Chinese plane transport aid to Russia?
Separately, a photo and a video of an aircraft with no markings were shared on X alongside a claim that they show a Chinese plane transporting prohibited materials to either Russia or Iran.
Several online users claimed China sent prohibited materials to Russia using unmarked planes. (Screenshots/X)
But the claim is false.
A closer look at the photo and the video found the word “ATLAS” written next to the hatch of the plane and the number “704” marked near the landing gear.
Keyword searches using these two clues found the plane in fact is from the U.S. cargo airline Atlas Air and has nothing to do with China.
Translated by Shen Ke. Edited by Shen Ke and Taejun Kang.
Asia Fact Check Lab (AFCL) was established to counter disinformation in today’s complex media environment. We publish fact-checks, media-watches and in-depth reports that aim to sharpen and deepen our readers’ understanding of current affairs and public issues. If you like our content, you can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and X.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Zhuang Jing for Asia Fact Check Lab.
