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.
Malaysia will press on with oil exploration in South China Sea waters that China also claims, its prime minister said on Thursday, adding that an investigation had been launched into the publication of what a media outlet said was a Chinese diplomatic note expressing “strong dissatisfaction” with Malaysia over the work.
The Philippine Daily Inquirer, in a story published last week, cited what it said was a Chinese diplomatic note of Feb. 18, in which China accused Malaysia of infringing upon its sovereignty at the Luconia Shoals – an oil-rich area in the South China Sea that both countries claim.
Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, while not confirming the veracity of the note, said an inquiry had been launched into its publication, and he defended Malaysian exploration in the waters.
“We have made it clear that what we are doing with oil exploration is within our own waters,” Anwar said on the sidelines of the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Russia. “We’ve informed Beijing, and they’ve sent a few protests, claiming those areas as theirs.”
“We’ve explained that we must proceed as it concerns our economic survival,” he said.
The shoals are 100 kilometers (52 nautical miles) off the coast of Malaysia’s Sarawak state, on Borneo island, well within its exclusive economic zone, or EEZ, where Kuala Lumpur has jurisdiction over natural resources and the state company Petronas has been operating for years.
But they also lie within the so-called nine-dash line that Beijing draws on its maps to claim “historical rights” over most of the South China Sea.
The reported Chinese diplomatic note, apparently obtained by the Philippine news outlet from an unidentified Malaysian journalist, expressed “serious concern” and “strong dissatisfaction” over Malaysia’s oil and gas exploration projects in the area and asked that Malaysia immediately stop those activities.
The newspaper said the note was a taste of the bullying that China’s neighbors including the Philippines are facing.
‘Open for discussion’
Six parties – Brunei, China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam – hold overlapping claims in the South China Sea.
China has not commented on the reported diplomatic note but its foreign ministry and representatives overseas often send diplomatic notes to protest against other countries’ activities in maritime areas it claims.
While the Philippines is pursuing a more assertive approach in dealing with China by publicizing what it says are Chinese acts of aggression against its vessels, Vietnam and Malaysia have adopted a more measured approach, rarely criticizing in public but preferring to use diplomatic channels and closed-door negotiation.
Petronas Sabah gas platform off the coast of Sabah, on northern Borneo island. ( AFP PHOTO / HO /Petronas Malaysia)
Anwar insisted that “operations continue at one or two major wells within our territory.”
“We will respond to China and explain our position, that we never intended to be in any way provocative or unnecessarily hostile,” he said, adding that his government was “open to continuing discussions, whether bilaterally, multilaterally, or within the context of ASEAN” about the South China Sea.
“China is a great friend,” he said. “This should not harm the bilateral relationship between the countries.”
Malaysia’s foreign ministry said in a statement on Thursday that it had “consistently underscored the importance of maintaining the confidentiality of diplomatic communication” with other countries and considers the unauthorized dissemination of such documents “an irresponsible act.”
This is the second time this year that the Malaysian foreign ministry has requested investigations into leaked diplomatic notes.
In February, a confidential diplomatic note on a consular issue dated Sept. 20, 2023, and reportedly from the Moroccan government to the Malaysian Embassy in Rabat, was leaked on social media.
The ministry said it had expressed regret over that incident but the leak had not originated from internal sources.
Chinese authorities are holding Gao Zhen, one of the Gao Brothers artistic duo, on suspicion of ‘insulting revolutionary heroes and martyrs,’ after seizing satirical artworks depicting Chairman Mao from his home studio, Radio Free Asia has learned.
Gao Zhen, 68, who with his brother Gao Qiang has a global reputation for works of political satire, was detained by police in Sanhe city in the northern province of Hebei on Aug. 26, according to a detention notice sent to his family the following day, Gao’s lawyer and friends told RFA Mandarin.
The Gao Brothers’ dissident artwork has been shown at many venues overseas, but not publicly displayed in China since they signed an open letter from dissident physicist Fang Lizhi to then supreme leader Deng Xiaoping during the pro-democracy movement of 1989.
Police detained Gao Zhen at around 9.00 a.m. on Aug. 26, rushing into his apartment and taking him away in handcuffs, while searching his studio and questioning his wife for several hours, according to an Aug. 31 post on the Gao Brothers’ Facebook page.
State security police confiscated books, computer hard drives, and sculptures and artwork relating to late supreme leader Mao Zedong, the post said.
Chinese artists Gao Brothers perform during the award ceremony of the Kandinsky Prize in Moscow on Dec. 10, 2008. (Reuters/Sergei Karpukhin)
All of the works taken by police were created more than a decade ago, before laws on protecting the reputation of “revolutionary heroes and martyrs” took effect, it said.
Gao is currently being held in the Sanhe Detention Center on suspicion of “infringing the reputation of revolutionary heroes and martyrs,” the Facebook post said.
His lawyer Qu Zhenhong confirmed Gao’s detention to RFA Mandarin on Sunday, but declined to give further details.
“His family has received a notice [of detention], but it’s inconvenient for me to say anything more because the case is still under investigation,” Qu said.
‘Miss Mao’
U.K.-based writer Ma Jian said he had heard of Gao’s detention in a text message from his brother Gao Qiang, who lives in New York.
“According to the detention notice, he has been detained for crimes against the reputation of heroes and martyrs,” Ma said in an open letter about Gao’s detention, a copy of which was shared with RFA Mandarin.
The letter cited several sculptures from several years back including the “Miss Mao” series, depicting the late chairman with breasts, and “Mao Kneels in Repentance,” which are believed to have sparked the charges.
Chinese artists the Gao Brothers walk past some of their “Miss Mao” pieces that feature life-sized, Pinocchio-nosed sculptures of Mao Zedong in their studio in Beijing Oct. 16, 2007. (Reuters/David Gray)
Signed by Ma and several other creative artists, the letter called on the Chinese government to release Gao and to repeal the legislation banning “insults” to revolutionary heroes, because it infringes on the freedom of speech guaranteed — on paper, at least — in China’s constitution.
It likened Gao’s detention to the political witch-hunts of the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution, in which the Gao brothers lost their father.
“Today, the Sanhe police department seems to see Gao Zhen’s artistic works as evidence of crime, repeating the persecution of the Cultural Revolution,” the letter said, saying that controls on Chinese artists continue to tighten under Communist Party leader Xi Jinping.
About to depart for New York
Thailand-based fellow artist Du Yinghong said Gao’s detention came as he and his family prepared to board a flight to New York, where his son was due to start school.
“We’ve booked a flight to Tokyo, and then back to New York, because our son is about to start school,” Gao says in an Aug. 26 voice note to Du, a recording of which was shared with RFA Mandarin. “I hope I’ll get a chance to organize a trip [to visit you] next year, when we can discuss art-related matters.”
Repeated calls to the Sanhe Detention Center rang unanswered on Sunday.
The other Gao Brother — Gao Qiang — responded to written questions from RFA only with the message: “Thank you for your attention.”
A person close to the case told RFA Mandarin that the detention notice included the phrase “infringing the reputation of heroes and martyrs.” It is likely that the charge relates to sculptures of late supreme leader Mao Zedong, including one of Mao “kneeling and repenting,” they said.
If the authorities can’t make that stick retroactively, they may seek evidence to support other charges typically used to target critics of the ruling Chinese Communist Party, including “subversion” and “picking quarrels and stirring up trouble,” the person said.
Raid on warehouse
Gao Zhen’s detention came alongside a police raid on his warehouse, apartment and studio in Sanhe’s Best Jingu Industrial Park, according to Ma Jian. Previous attempts by police to enter the premises in 2023 were unsuccessful as Gao Zhen was in New York for the whole of last year.
In 2011, as the authorities released artist and social critic Ai Weiwei from 80 days’ detention over alleged tax evasion, officials raided the 798 Art Village in Beijing in reaction to a satirical sculpture the brothers made of Mao as a woman.
The polished stainless steel sculpture titled “Miss Mao trying to poise herself at the top of Lenin’s head,” portrays the aging leader with signature receding hairline and facial mole, sporting a large pair of naked breasts. The Miss Mao element sits atop a large and grotesque head of Lenin, balancing with a tightrope walking pole.
A super-sized version of the sculpture was shown at the Vancouver Biennale festival in 2010, and was widely seen as a dissident work, satirizing orthodox communism and the official Chinese view of history.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Kitty Wang for RFA Mandarin.
Taipei, September 2, 2024—Hong Kong authorities are criminalizing normal journalistic work with the “openly political” conviction of two editors from the shuttered news portal Stand News for subversion, the Committee to Protect Journalists and four other rights groups said.
By weaponizing the legal system against journalists, China has ruthlessly reneged on guarantees given to Hong Kong, which should enjoy a high degree of autonomy after the former British colony was handed back to Beijing in 1997, the groups said in a joint statement.
Former Stand News editors Patrick Lam and Chung Pui-kuen are due to be sentenced on September 26 and could be jailed for two years.
“We now await with trepidation the outcome of trials targeting senior staff from the defunct Apple Daily newspaper, especially its founder Jimmy Lai who faces the prospect of spending the rest of his life behind bars,” they added.
The video obtained by GT shows how the Philippine side dangerously disrupted and intervened in China’s scientific research in waters off China’s Xianbin Jiao in the #SouthChinaSea. Similar actions occurred when China conducted marine ecosystem research in Ren’ai Jiao.
China and the Philippines traded accusations of ramming each other’s vessels on Saturday at a disputed shoal in the South China Sea, marking an apparent escalation in an already tense situation in the area.
Jay Tarriela, spokesperson for the Philippine National Task Force for the West Philippine Sea – part of South China Sea over which the Philippines claims jurisdiction – said that a Chinese coast guard vessel “deliberately rammed and collided” three times with a Philippine coast guard ship “despite no provocation” from the Philippine side.
The Philippine vessel, BRP Teresa Magbanua, has been on deployment at Sabina Shoal, known in the Philippines as Escoda Shoal, since April to monitor what the Philippines fears is China’s plan to reclaim land at the shoal.
Tarriela told a press briefing in Manila that the incident was the fifth case of harassment by China of Philippine ships operating in the area in August. He said there were no reports of any injuries to Philippine personnel.
A Chinese coast guard spokesperson accused the Philippines of provocation at the shoal, which both sides claim but which lies entirely within the Philippine exclusive economic zone, or EEZ, where the Philippines holds rights to explore for natural resources.
The Chinese coast guard ship 5205 “lawfully issued verbal warnings and conducted monitoring and control measures” against the Philippine ship which “continued its provocations at China’s Xianbin Jiao,” Chinese coast guard spokesperson Liu Dejun said, referring to the shoal by its Chinese name.
At around midday, the Philippine ship “deliberately rammed into the Chinese ship 5205 in an unprofessional and dangerous manner, causing a collision for which the Philippines bears full responsibility,” Liu said.
Sabina Shoal has in recent days become the latest flashpoint between the Philippines, a close U.S. ally, and China in the South China Sea, raising concerns about conflict between the neighbors.
The U.S. has spoken in support of Manila, with Ambassador MaryKay Carlson saying in a statement that Washington “condemns the multiple dangerous violations of international law” by China, including Saturday’s incident.
“We stand with the Philippines in upholding international law,” she added.
Less than a week ago, Philippine officials said another ship – the BRP Datu Sanday – “encountered aggressive and dangerous maneuvers from eight Chinese maritime forces” while attempting to deliver diesel, food and medical supplies to Filipino fishermen operating near the shoal.
China has repeatedly accused the Philippines of “illegally grounding” the BRP Teresa Magbanua in order to “forcibly occupy” the shoal. China on Friday released an ecological report to back its claim to the feature that officials said is a Chinese island.
More than 800 nationals of democratic Taiwan have “disappeared” over the past 10 years in China, which has long used forced disappearances to silence and control its own dissidents and rights activists, rights groups said on Friday.
Figures compiled by the Taiwan Association for Human Rights and several other non-government groups showed that 857 Taiwan nationals have been “forcibly disappeared or arbitrarily arrested” in China, activists told a joint news conference in Taipei.
They include publisher Li Yanhe (pen name Fu Cha), detained in Shanghai since April 2023, democracy activist Lee Ming-cheh, who served a five-year jail term in Hunan province for “attempting to subvert state power,” and businessman Lee Meng-Chu, jailed for nearly two years for “espionage” after he snapped photos of People’s Armed Police personnel at a Shenzhen hotel at the height of the 2019 Hong Kong protests.
Speaking on the United Nations’ International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, Taiwan Association for Human Rights chief Eeling Chiu called on China to fulfill its obligations under international human rights law.
“China should … immediately release those who have been forcibly disappeared or arbitrarily detained,” Chiu told journalists, calling on the Taiwan authorities to ratify United Nations conventions against torture and enforced disappearances as soon as possible.
“[They should also] actively assist the families of those who have been arbitrarily arrested and detained in China and set up assistance mechanisms for them,” she said.
Members of a support group for disappeared Taiwanese publisher Fu Cha hold up signs calling for his release to mark the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, Aug. 30, 2024. (Huang Chun-mei/RFA)
Activist Wang Chia-hsuan of a petition group in support of Li Yanhe, or Fu Cha, said Li was born in China but had permanent residency in Taiwan at the time of his disappearance, having lived in Taipei for more than a decade.
He has been incommunicado for 527 days, and has been detained on suspicion of “incitement to secession,” Wang said.
He called on Taipei municipal authorities to step up efforts to communicate with the Chinese authorities regarding Li’s case.
Lee Ming-cheh told the news conference that his disappearance and subsequent jailing put huge pressure on his family back home.
“Collaborators with the Chinese government in Taiwan warned my wife off talking to Taiwanese NGOs or speaking out publicly about my case, saying they would allow her to travel to China to visit me [if she complied],” he said.
“If she spoke publicly about my case, she wouldn’t be allowed to go to China,” Lee said, accusing the Chinese government of abusing current crime cooperation agreements with Taiwan to persecute its residents.
Negotiating is key
Ruling Democratic Progressive Party lawmaker Puma Shen said the Taiwanese authorities could do a better job of negotiating in the early stages of such cases.
“Government officials … should call on China for more appropriate handling of [such] cases,” Shen said. “If that doesn’t happen, then we should cut off communication [with China].”
“If we continue to communicate past that point, there will be no deterrence at all … and it will send the message that it’s OK if our people keep disappearing,” he said.
Taiwanese publisher Li Yanhe in an undated photo. (Fu Cha via Facebook)
Meanwhile, Taiwanese lawmaker Hung Shen-han warned that it’s not only Taiwanese who are at risk of arbitrary arrest and “disappearance” in China.
“The risk to individuals of being disappeared and prosecuted in China don’t just apply to Taiwanese,” Hung said, adding that some democratic countries have issued travel advisories to their citizens on the matter.
“The Chinese government uses its laws, along with various undemocratic and unsupervised practices, to threaten the personal safety of people from all countries who go to China,” he said.
“Chinese citizens themselves face the same problem.”
Geng He, the U.S.-based wife of human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng said it has been seven years since he “disappeared” on Aug. 13, 2017.
“Gao Zhisheng has been missing for seven years and 17 days, with no news or explanation, neither verbal nor written,” she told RFA Mandarin in a recent interview.
“They deploy the whole state apparatus in its entirety to target people like Gao Zhisheng who speak the truth and work on behalf of the people,” Geng said.
The couple’s entire family has also been affected, she said.
“My entire family’s ID cards have been confiscated for the past 15 years now,” Geng said. “This has caused great inconvenience to my family in terms of their ability to work, go about their lives, access medical treatment and travel.”
“They’re being controlled to death,” Geng said. “Basically, they can’t leave their homes.”
Gao’s sister died by suicide in May 2020, while his brother-in-law also took his own life after being forced to beg the authorities to “borrow” his own ID card so he can access his cancer medication.
Disappeared Chinese rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng in an undated photo. (Weiquanwang)
Veteran rights lawyer Bao Longjun said the authorities have also “disappeared” his wife Wang Yu, also a prominent rights attorney, on several occasions in recent years. She was incommunicado for several hours on Wednesday during the trial of rights lawyer Yu Wensheng and activist Xu Yan in Suzhou.
“I feel like it’s about ruling the country through terror,” Bao told RFA Mandarin. “There is no legal basis for [enforced disappearances].”
“If you are even slightly disobedient, they will immediately bring state power to bear, forcibly restricting your freedom, and controlling you to achieve what they think is stability,” he said.
Uyghurs and Tibetans
Chinese authorities have also forcibly disappeared Uyghurs and Tibetans in the far-western part of mainland China.
An estimated 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims have been detained in Xinjiang under flimsy pretexts during mass incarcerations that began more than seven years ago in an effort by Chinese authorities to prevent religious extremism, separatism and terrorism.
Former Xinjiang University President Tashpolat Teyip, who himself vanished in 2017 amid rumors he had run afoul of China’s increasingly hardline policies in Xinjiang, told RFA that he has had no news about his brother, Nury, who also fell victim to an enforced disappearance.
Teyip, who now lives in the U.S. state of Virginia, said he has lost faith in the United Nations and international human rights organizations which did little to help except release a statement.
“I haven’t received any information from them regarding my brother — whether he’s alive or not, whether he was executed or not,” he said.
Former Xinjiang University President Tashpolat Teyip (L) at the University of Paris in France in an undated photo. (Nury Teyip)
Rights groups and the Tibetan government-in-exile expressed “serious concern” on Friday over the enforced disappearances of Tibetans in Tibet and called on the Chinese government to release credible information on the whereabouts and well-being of those who have been arbitrarily detained.
The Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy highlighted a “disturbing trend” of underreporting of the number of Tibetans who are victims of enforced disappearances as China cracks down more heavily with restrictions and heightened surveillance in Tibet.
The rights group has documented more than 63 known cases of Tibetans subjected to enforced disappearance in Tibet over the past four years, but said the underreporting likely had to do with fear of reprisals.
In February 2024, Tibetan performer Gyegjom Dorjee, who sang publicly about the exiled Dalai Lama’s return to Tibet and blasted Chinese leaders as “false,” was arrested in China’s Sichuan province.
On Friday, the U.S. Congressional Executive Commission on China and the Tibetan government in exile urged Beijing to reveal the whereabouts of one of the highest Tibetan Buddhist leaders, the 11th Panchen Lama, or Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, as one of the “most prominent enforced disappearance cases.”
He was abducted by Chinese authorities in May 1995, just days after the Dalai Lama recognized the then six-year-old as the 11th reincarnation of the Panchen Lama, the second-highest spiritual leader in the largest sect of Tibetan Buddhism.
‘An egregious human rights violation’
The whereabouts and well-being of disappeared Tibetans remain unknown, despite repeated attempts by family members to get information about them, causing them, government officials and rights groups said.
Tibetan singer Gyegjom Dorjee performs ‘Tearful Deluge of a Sorrowful Song’ at a concert in Khyungchu county, Ngaba Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, in southwest China’s Sichuan Province, Jan. 15, 2024. (Screenshot via citizen)
“Enforced disappearance is an egregious human rights violation that inflicts the trauma of indeterminate detention or disappearance on its victims, whom all too often are targeted for their dissent or advocacy for human rights and democracy,” said U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in a statement on Friday.
“Families of those forcibly disappeared also suffer immensely, not knowing where their loved ones are, or whether they are alive or dead,” he said. “The agony that enforced disappearance inflicts on the victims and their families is unimaginable.”
According to the U.N.’s official website, enforced disappearances are “frequently” used by authorities around the world as a way of spreading terror.
Hundreds of thousands of people have vanished during conflicts or periods of repression in at least 85 countries around the world, plunging their families into “mental anguish” and dire economic hardship, it said.
The disappeared are particularly vulnerable to torture, while women are at risk of sexual violence, a U.N. page explaining the concept said.
The practice violates a slew of fundamental human rights, including the right liberty and security, the right not to be subjected to torture or inhumane treatment, and the right to a fair trial, it said.
Additional reporting by and Gulchehra Hoja for RFA Uyghur, and Dickey Kundol and Tenzin Dickyi for RFA Tibetan. Edited by Tenzin Pema for RFA Tibetan. Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Roseanne Gerin.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Huang Chun-mei and Jing Wei for RFA Mandarin.
Chinese authorities warned an ethnic minority insurgent group on Myanmar’s northeastern border to stop fighting the Myanmar military or be “responsible for the consequences,” according to a spokesperson for the group.
China has extensive economic interests in neighboring Myanmar, including oil and gas pipelines and mines, and it has been increasingly concerned about the impact of a surge of fighting this year between various insurgent forces and the military
A spokesman for the insurgent group, the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, or TNLA, told Radio Free Asia that the security committee in the Chinese border town of Ruili told the TNLA in a letter to stop fighting.
“Fighting must stop immediately in order to maintain stability and peace on the China-Myanmar border and protect the lives of Chinese citizens,” the Chinese security committee said in the letter, copies of which were posted online.
If the TNLA did not comply, China would “teach them a lesson,” and the group would be “responsible for the consequences,” the security committee said.
Radio Free Asia was not able to contact the security committee in Ruili and the Chinese Embassy in Yangon did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication. However, during a regular press briefing in Beijing on Friday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian told reporters that China is “highly concerned about … the conflict in northern Myanmar” and “will continue to … promote the easing and cooling of the situation” in the region.
A spokesperson for the TNLA, Lway Yay Oo, confirmed that the letter was from Chinese authorities but declined further comment except to say the group’s top leaders were meeting to discuss it.
China is known to maintain contacts with Myanmar rebel groups operating along its border, some of which have promised to protect Chinese business interests.
China-brokered two short-lived ceasefires between a three-party insurgent alliance, which includes the TNLA, and the junta this year but the truces collapsed and the insurgents stepped up pressure on the military, capturing numerous outposts, several major towns and a regional military headquarters. RFA was unable to independently confirm whether the warning was also sent to the other armies that make up the alliance — the Arakan Army and the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army.
China also maintains close ties with the junta that seized power in a 2021 coup, and is keen to limit the influence in Myanmar of Western countries and Myanmar’s other big neighbor, India.
China is hoping an election the junta has promised to hold next year can help restore peace and stability, analysts say, while at the same time it is pressing anti-junta forces to agree to peace.
Media reported this week that China had closed the border between Ruili and the Myanmar town of Muse, cutting off trade including fuel supplies apparently to pressure the TNLA to silence its guns.
In a show of force, China’s People’s Liberation Army began military exercises, including live-fire drills, in the Ruili area on Tuesday. China’s defense ministry said the drills would strengthen border security and stability.
In mid-August, China fired warning shots into Kachin state to the north apparently in a bid to warn off junta aircraft bombing an insurgent base on the border.
Myanmar political and military analyst Than Soe Naing said there was little China could do to stop the war apart from making threats and imposing border restrictions on the insurgent groups and their leaders.
“These restrictions can’t actually limit the battles that are being fought from Nawnghkio township in Shan state to Pyinoolwin township in Mandalay,” Than Soe Naing said, referring to a broad swathe of central-northeast Myanmar where rebel forces have been making advances.
Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn.
This story has been updated to include a statement by Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Burmese.
U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said he reaffirmed a US commitment to the “complete” denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in talks with top Chinese officials this week.
During his visit to Beijing, Sullivan held talks with President Xi Jinping, Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Central Military Commission Vice Chairman Zhang Youxia.
“In all of my meetings, I stressed the importance of maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait; emphasized the United States’ commitment to complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” Sullivan said on Thursday in the press briefing.
His remarks came amid the absence of references to the goal of denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in the policy platforms of both the U.S. Democratic and Republican parties as they prepare for November’s US presidential election.
That omission has raised concern in South Korea that rival North Korea might see an opportunity to secure a long-cherished goal, U.S. recognition that it is a de facto nuclear power.
U.S. recognition of that would shift the focus of negotiations from denuclearization to arms control.
Amid the concerns, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said on Thursday that he believed the U.S. would stick to its long-standing goal of North Korea’s denuclearization.
Yoon also said South Korea’s security cooperation with the U.S. and Japan would continue regardless of any leadership changes.
Yoon reaffirmed the commitment to the trilateral cooperation established during a Camp David summit a year ago, which was designed to strengthen the joint responses of the three allies to North Korea’s threats and other security challenges.
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol delivers a speech during his briefing on state affairs at a press conference at the presidential office in Seoul, South Korea, Aug. 29, 2024. (Chung Sung-Jun/Pool via Reuters)
In Japan, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida recently made a surprise announcement that he will step down when his party picks a new leader next month.
His decision means his governing Liberal Democratic Party will choose a new standard bearer in its leadership election next month. The winner will replace Kishida as both party chief and prime minister.
Yoon said cooperation between his country, the U.S. and Japan would endure no matter what.
“The South Korea-U.S.-Japan cooperation framework is very important not only to the Indo-Pacific but also the global economy and security, benefiting all three nations,” Yoon said in a televised press conference. “A change in the leadership will not change this framework, and it will be upheld through the official diplomatic agreements.”
Separately, Yoon also expressed confidence in the U.S.’ “extended deterrence” commitment to defending South Korea with both conventional and nuclear capabilities, as outlined in the Washington Declaration, adopted during his summit with Biden in May 2023.
“The integrated extended deterrence between South Korea and the U.S. is becoming increasingly effective as the alliance is strengthened,” said Yoon.
Edited by RFA Staff.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Taejun Kang for RFA.
A group of 10 Pakistan-based businessmen who praised China’s policies during a trip to Xinjiang this month have been blasted by Uyghur activists for parroting Beijing’s propaganda and turning a blind eye to China’s oppression of the roughly 12 million Uyghurs living there.
The businessmen, most of whom were ethnic Uyghurs, came on the eight-day trip funded by the Chinese government from the Ex-Chinese Association Pakistan, established in 2007 with China’s support to promote the welfare of the Uyghur community in the country.
In social media posts, the delegation said they saw Uyghurs and other Muslims living happily and peacefully in the far-western region, and that China was actively developing the region. They also dismissed Western reports of Chinese atrocities.
Photos and videos from the trip, which began on Aug. 20 and included stops in Urumqi, Korla and Kashgar, show members of the delegation — two of whom wore doppas, or Uyghur skullcaps — raising Chinese flags, attending special banquets and participating in events organized by officials.
The posts showed them watching musical performances and proclaiming that “Muslims of all ethnicities are living happily in Xinjiang.”
The trip is the latest by officials from mostly Muslim countries organized by Beijing in an effort to dispel allegations of genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs in the region, activists say.
An estimated 1.8 million Uyghurs have been put into concentration camps scattered around Xinjiang, although Beijing has described them as job training facilities that are now mostly closed.
But this was the first time that a foreign delegation with ethnic Uyghurs from a Muslim-majority country was invited to the far-western region, Uyghur activists said.
“Despite having relatives in prison, they remain silent about East Turkestan because they benefit from the Chinese consulate” in Pakistan, said Omer Khan, founder of the Pakistan-based Omer Uyghur Trust, which assists Uyghurs living in the country, using Uyghurs’ preferred name for Xinjiang.
“Their actions bring shame not only to Uyghurs in their homeland, but also to Uyghurs worldwide,” he said.
RFA could not reach the Ex-Chinese Association Pakistan for comment.
Helping cover up?
Activists and Uyghurs abroad said they found the photos and videos disturbing, mainly because most Uyghurs living outside China cannot communicate with their relatives in Xinjiang or obtain information about those who have been detained there.
Uyghurs in Pakistan are outraged by the delegation members, seeing them as aiding and abetting China’s efforts to cover up the Uyghur genocide, Khan said.
Nearly 1,000 Uyghur families live in Gilgit and Rawalpindi, Pakistan, where their ancestors migrated from Xinjiang 50 to 60 years ago. However, they are stateless and do not have Pakistani citizenship.
Members of the delegation — which included association chairman Muhammad Nasir Khan and Nasir Khan Sahib, former chairman of the Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry — began posting on social media in Urdu and English as soon as they arrived in Xinjiang, Khan said.
In Korla, the second-largest city by population in Xinjiang, they participated in the city’s “Intangible Cultural Heritage Week” as part of China’s “Xinjiang is a wonderful place” propaganda campaign designed to counter criticism of its policies in the restive, heavily Muslim region, he said.
The Chinese press covered the delegation’s visit, claiming that they witnessed peace, stability, economic development, religious harmony and cultural prosperity in the region.
State-controlled media reports publicized the delegation’s statement: “We can see people dancing happily all the time. We really feel that the life of the people in Xinjiang is sweeter than honey.”
Abdul Aziz, a Uyghur businessman from Gilgit who participated in the Xinjiang trip, posted short videos on Facebook titled “Xinjiang trip diaries,” showing the delegation visiting exhibitions on counter-terrorism and anti-extremism, the International Grand Bazaar and the Islamic Institute of Xinjiang in Urumqi and tourist sites in other places.
RFA’s attempts to contact Abdul Aziz via his social media platforms were unsuccessful.
Pakistan under pressure
Hena Zuberi, director of the human rights group Justice for All, described the situation as deeply saddening, saying Beijing is using such visits to justify its genocidal policies under the guise of China-Pakistan friendship.
Pakistan has come under pressure from Beijing because of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a 3,000-kilometer (1,800-mile) Chinese infrastructure network project under the Belt and Road Initiative to foster better trade with China, and secure and reduce travel time for China’s Middle East energy imports.
“If they took a stance and they said and asked the hard questions and demanded to know what was happening to those Muslim people in the Uyghur region, I think the situation would be different,” Zuberi said of the visiting delegates.
“But Pakistan is so economically imprisoned by China, they can’t,” she said.
Translated by RFA Uyghur. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Gulchehra Hoja for RFA Uyghur.
A Chinese military leader and U.S. President Joe Biden’s security adviser agreed on Thursday to theater-level contact between their militaries, the U.S. said, even as China warned that Taiwan independence “is incompatible with peace” and an “insurmountable red line” in relations.
White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, on the third and final day of a visit to China, told Gen. Zhang Youxia, vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, that their countries had a responsibility to “prevent competition from veering into conflict,” the White House said.
“The two sides reaffirmed the importance of regular military-to-military communications as part of efforts to maintain high-level diplomacy and open lines of communication,” it said.
China froze top-level military talks and other dialogue with the U.S. in 2022 after then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi became the highest-ranking U.S. official in 25 years to visit Taiwan.
The island has been self-governing since it effectively separated from the mainland in 1949 after the Chinese civil war.
China, which regards Taiwan as a renegade province and has not ruled out an invasion to force reunification, was infuriated by the Pelosi visit and canceled military-to-military talks, including contacts between theater-level commanders.
President Joe Biden persuaded his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, to resume contacts in November 2023, when they met on the sidelines of an APEC summit in Woodside, California.
In December, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff met his People’s Liberation Army counterpart and the following month, military officials from both sides resumed U.S.-China Defense Policy Coordination Talks at the Pentagon, after a break of more than two years.
Sullivan and Zhang “recognized the progress in sustained, regular military-military communications over the past 10 months and planned to hold a theater commander telephone call in the near future,” the White House said.
But, Taiwan remains a highly sensitive issue for the two sides, which Zhang stressed to Sullivan.
“China demands that the United States stop military collusion between the United States and Taiwan, stop arming Taiwan, and stop spreading false narratives involving Taiwan,” according to China’s defense ministry.
For his part, Sullivan “raised the importance of cross-Strait peace and stability.”
China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi (R) gestures near US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan before talks at Yanqi Lake in Beijing on August 27, 2024. (Ng Han Guan/POOL/AFP)
Sullivan earlier met Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, securing an agreement for a phone call between Biden and Xi “in the coming weeks.”
Sullivan and Wang discussed trade disagreements, ways to stop the illegal flow of synthetic drugs such as fentanyl to the U.S., territorial disputes in the South China Sea and the two countries’ concerns about the situation in North Korea, Myanmar and the Middle East, according to the White House.
Wang told Sullivan that “the security of all countries must be common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable, and the security of one country cannot be built on the basis of the insecurity of other countries,” China’s foreign ministry said.
Edited by Mike Firn.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Staff.
On the political stage, Canada often seems to trail behind the US. After the US government’s announcement in May of imposing high tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles (EV) and steel, the Canadian government has now decided to follow suit.
On Monday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Ottawa would impose a 100 percent tariff on imports of Chinese EVs and announced a 25 percent tariff on imported steel and aluminum from China. These measures align with the tariffs set by the US.
Zhou Rongyao, director of the Canadian Studies Center at the Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times that the recent imposition of tariffs is simply a way for Canada to demonstrate loyalty to the US, as it follows in the footsteps of the US, cheering on American decisions along the way.
Li Haidong, a professor at the China Foreign Affairs University, believes that Canada lacks independence in its foreign and security policies, particularly when it comes to its policies toward China, as Canada almost blindly follows the US. However, Canadian political elites are not sensitive to this issue; instead, they hold onto their inherent alliance mind-set and a sense of arrogant self-righteousness, willingly acting as followers of the US.
Canada’s imposition of tariffs on China has drawn a response from the spokesperson of the Chinese Embassy in Canada. The spokesperson stated this move is typical trade protectionism and a politically motivated decision, which violates WTO rules.
Canada should take a look at what the US has gained by repeatedly wielding the tariff stick against China. In an op-ed entitled “The US protectionist craze hasn’t done its economy any favors,” David Dodwell, CEO of the trade policy and international relations consultancy Strategic Access, pointed out that the US tariffs on China have not only cost the US economy dearly, but have failed in its overall objective to reduce the US trade deficit with China. Currently, the US Trade Representative’s office has received over 1,100 public comments, with many US manufacturers expressing opposition to imposing tariffs on Chinese imports, indicating that the US tariff measures are not popular.
Canada’s lack of rationality is also evident in its disregard for the voices of its own people. Liu Dan, a researcher at the Center for Regional Country Studies at Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, said that there were already voices of doubt within Canada when discussions began on whether to impose tariffs on China. This move is also inconsistent with Canada’s long-standing advocacy for proactive climate governance. Undoubtedly, this will increase burdens for Canadian businesses and consumers.
Clean Energy Canada, a Canadian clean energy think tank, criticized Ottawa’s decision, stating that Canada’s tariffs on Chinese EVs undermine affordability and the country’s climate goals. It can be said that Canada’s blind increase in tariffs will disrupt normal economic and trade cooperation between China and Canada, harm the interests of Canadian consumers and businesses, hinder Canada’s green transition, and impede global efforts to combat climate change, ultimately shooting itself in the foot.
China is Canada’s second-largest trading partner, and the two economies are interconnected. Any disruption to this vital economic relationship through political means would be regrettable and detrimental to the Canadian economy. The US has seen the consequences of its trade protectionism as “cure-all,” and it has backfired. If Canada continues to be “held hostage” by US’ unhealthy policies, it will only create more barriers to free market circulation, leading to deeper negative impacts and unforeseen shocks on the domestic economy. When considering its own interests, Canada should maintain strategic clarity and prioritize the development of its own economy, rather than succumbing to pressure from the US.
Illustration: Chen Xia/GT
On the political stage, Canada often seems to trail behind the US. After the US government’s announcement in May of imposing high tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles (EV) and steel, the Canadian government has now decided to follow suit.
On Monday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Ottawa would impose a 100 percent tariff on imports of Chinese EVs and announced a 25 percent tariff on imported steel and aluminum from China. These measures align with the tariffs set by the US.
Zhou Rongyao, director of the Canadian Studies Center at the Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times that the recent imposition of tariffs is simply a way for Canada to demonstrate loyalty to the US, as it follows in the footsteps of the US, cheering on American decisions along the way.
Li Haidong, a professor at the China Foreign Affairs University, believes that Canada lacks independence in its foreign and security policies, particularly when it comes to its policies toward China, as Canada almost blindly follows the US. However, Canadian political elites are not sensitive to this issue; instead, they hold onto their inherent alliance mind-set and a sense of arrogant self-righteousness, willingly acting as followers of the US.
Canada’s imposition of tariffs on China has drawn a response from the spokesperson of the Chinese Embassy in Canada. The spokesperson stated this move is typical trade protectionism and a politically motivated decision, which violates WTO rules.
Canada should take a look at what the US has gained by repeatedly wielding the tariff stick against China. In an op-ed entitled “The US protectionist craze hasn’t done its economy any favors,” David Dodwell, CEO of the trade policy and international relations consultancy Strategic Access, pointed out that the US tariffs on China have not only cost the US economy dearly, but have failed in its overall objective to reduce the US trade deficit with China. Currently, the US Trade Representative’s office has received over 1,100 public comments, with many US manufacturers expressing opposition to imposing tariffs on Chinese imports, indicating that the US tariff measures are not popular.
Canada’s lack of rationality is also evident in its disregard for the voices of its own people. Liu Dan, a researcher at the Center for Regional Country Studies at Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, said that there were already voices of doubt within Canada when discussions began on whether to impose tariffs on China. This move is also inconsistent with Canada’s long-standing advocacy for proactive climate governance. Undoubtedly, this will increase burdens for Canadian businesses and consumers.
Clean Energy Canada, a Canadian clean energy think tank, criticized Ottawa’s decision, stating that Canada’s tariffs on Chinese EVs undermine affordability and the country’s climate goals. It can be said that Canada’s blind increase in tariffs will disrupt normal economic and trade cooperation between China and Canada, harm the interests of Canadian consumers and businesses, hinder Canada’s green transition, and impede global efforts to combat climate change, ultimately shooting itself in the foot.
China is Canada’s second-largest trading partner, and the two economies are interconnected. Any disruption to this vital economic relationship through political means would be regrettable and detrimental to the Canadian economy. The US has seen the consequences of its trade protectionism as “cure-all,” and it has backfired. If Canada continues to be “held hostage” by US’ unhealthy policies, it will only create more barriers to free market circulation, leading to deeper negative impacts and unforeseen shocks on the domestic economy. When considering its own interests, Canada should maintain strategic clarity and prioritize the development of its own economy, rather than succumbing to pressure from the US.
