Communist Party of Vietnam General Secretary To Lam rounded off his three-day visit to China on Tuesday, his first foreign trip since being appointed to his country’s top job on Aug. 3.
Lam and Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged in a meeting on Monday to address territorial conflicts in the South China Sea to “maintain peace and stability,” and to work together to “continue bolstering collaboration in security and defense, boosting economic, trade and investment cooperation,” the Vietnamese government said in a statement.
The two witnessed the signing of 14 cooperation agreements, including one between the Vietnam News Agency and Xinhua News Agency and a memorandum of understanding between health ministries on cooperation.
Other agreements included protocols on phytosanitary requirements for fresh coconuts and frozen durian exports from Vietnam, as well as an agreement on quarantine and health requirements for Vietnam’s exports of farmed crocodiles.
A main focus was infrastructure development, including plans for three standard-gauge cross-border rail links; the 555 kilometer (345 mile) Vientiane-Vung Ang railway, linking the Lao capital with a Vietnamese port; and the Hanoi metro,building on agreements reached during Xi’s visit to Vietnam last December 2023.
Lam asked for China’s support through “high-quality investment” in key projects, bringing together Hanoi’s “Two Corridors One Belt” policy and Beijing’s “Belt and Road” initiative, to construct “major and symbolic works to match their political trust,” Vietnam said.
Xi told Lam that China was ready to “accelerate the ‘hard connectivity’ of railway, expressway and port infrastructure, enhance the ‘soft connectivity’ of smart customs, and jointly build a secure and stable industrial and supply chain,” according to China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
A spokesperson for the Chinese ministry, Mao Ning, told a regular media briefing on Monday that rail links between China and Vietnam, launched in November 2017 opened “a new channel for China-Vietnam logistics transportation,” cutting transport time, increasing the efficiency of customs clearance, optimizing hub functions and significantly increasing the range of goods traded across the border, “becoming a fast track to promote economic and trade exchanges.”
The two leaders are likely to meet next in Hanoi after Xi accepted an invitation from Lam to visit the Vietnamese capital.
Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Staff.
China is working on major archaeological projects with its neighbors in Central Asia in a bid to dig up fresh finds to shore up its official historical narrative and extend its regional soft power, experts told RFA Mandarin in recent interviews.
Since President Xi Jinping launched his “Belt and Road” global influence and supply chain initiative in 2013, the country has invested heavily in high-profile excavations along the ancient Silk Road trading routes that once linked China to the Middle East via Central Asia.
The Chinese Communist Party relies on strongly stated historical narratives to boost China’s image at home and abroad, and Xi believes archaeology can help with that, experts said.
Last month, Chinese historians and archaeologists claimed that a 7th century Chinese empress ordered the construction of an ancient Buddhist temple in Xinjiang, home to 11 million mostly Muslim Uyghurs, emphasizing the idea of the region as a “melting pot” going back centuries.
Yet the whole idea of the Silk Road was invented in the 19th century as a colorful metaphor to describe ancient patterns of trade and communication between China, Central Asia, the Middle East and Europe, according to Sören Stark of the Center for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University.
“The whole notion of the Silk Road is … a construct, right, in which we are operating,” he told RFA Mandarin in an interview earlier this month. “There wasn’t such a thing like the Silk Road — there never was. It’s a 19th century construct.”
“There were corridors, there was a network of communication between China, Rome, India, the Near East, northeastern Europe, the Tigris,” he said.
“It’s just a little bit heightened right now because there’s obviously a lot of government funding from the Chinese side into the sphere of Central Asian archaeology.”
70 digs
China has carried out more than 70 archaeological collaborations in Central Asian countries in a bid to “study the ancient Silk Road exchanges between China and Central Asia,” the nationalistic Global Times newspaper reported in June.
One joint dig in Uzbekistan recently unearthed an ancient settlement dating back to the 8th century BC near the Surkhandarya river.
A researcher checks the ceramics discovered at the archaeological site of Shuomen ancient port in Wenzhou, east China’s Zhejiang Province, Oct. 11, 2022. The archaeological site of Shuomen ancient port was discovered at the end of 2021, with ruins of ancient buildings, shipwrecks, and porcelain pieces unearthed in the following archaeological excavations. According to the National Cultural Heritage Administration, the discovery is important to studies of the ancient Maritime Silk Road. (Weng Xinyang/Xinhua via Getty Images)
“Chinese and Uzbek experts have made a total of three discoveries in the Central Asian country from April to June,” the paper reported on June 23, citing an investigation into the ancient Kushan Empire, along with ruins and cliff paintings in the Fergana valley.
The projects are being touted as part of the Belt and Road initiative, with the paper quoting cultural scholar Fang Gang as saying that “the story of the ancient Silk Road is transforming into today’s Belt and Road Initiative to strengthen the ties between China and Central Asian countries.”
The point, according to archeologist Wang Jianxin at Xi’an’s Northwest University, is to “challenge Western-centered interpretations of ancient Silk Road culture while also enhancing the world’s understanding of China’s contribution to ancient Silk Road civilization,” the paper said.
But archaeologists said nationalistic agendas and archaeology make uneasy bedfellows, although China isn’t the only country to look to the past to boost its legitimacy in the present.
“My concern is that as with any country or any government that supports archaeological excavations (in contrast to excavations supported by academic institutions or private funds) that there is a nationalistic agenda,” Silk Road scholar Judith Lerner told RFA Mandarin in a written reply.
The aim is often “to prove that we were there first, that people speaking a particular language can be traced by that language back to the country supporting the excavations, that is, China,” she said.
‘Add Chinese voices’
For example, the idea of China as a historically peaceful influence in the region has been widely propagated by Northwest University’s Wang Jianxin, who has used findings from the Uzbekistan digs around the Kushan Empire and Yuezhi sites as evidence that the two peoples lived peacefully side by side near the Surkhandarya river.
Wang has said his mission is to “add Chinese voices” to the archaeological work currently being done in Central Asia.
“We just really don’t know,” Lerner said. “And I think we really have to look at things more culturally and sociologically.”
Stark said Chinese teams typically look for evidence from the point of view of the official history of China, to see if it supports it or disproves it.
“Essentially they come equipped with their national … Chinese-language, historical sources and what they tell about the history, what they tell about the history of the Western regions,” Stark told RFA Mandarin in an interview earlier this month. “That’s their guide in what they are doing … they always come from a Chinese perspective on things.”
Visitors look at a 3,000-year-old mummified body of a child found along the Silk Road in China’s far western region of Xinjiang at an exhibition in Beijing, Jan. 16, 2003. (China Photos via Getty Images)
“They’re not fundamentally questioning actually whether this whole narrative in these sources is problematic,” he said.
For example, the people known in China as the Yuezhi who allegedly lived in harmony with the proto-Chinese Kunshan Empire may not have been called that when they were alive, Stark said, adding that they could have been a tribe of Central Asian nomads, giving them more links to the Turkic peoples of Xinjiang than to modern Han Chinese.
“The tombs that the Chinese team has excavated are very consistent with the burial traditions of nomadic groups in Central Asia, and not just in Bactria [an ancient kingdom spanning parts of Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan] … but also in southwestern Central Asia and Xinjiang,” Stark said.
It is precisely links and conclusions like those about the “Yuezhi” that can be used to shore up a nationalistic and ultimately colonialist agenda, according to critics of China’s forays into regional archaeology.
“They are not taking into account what has been done before. They come as if there was a plain slate,” Stark said, adding there are plenty of similarities between the colonial attitudes of the Western expeditions that poured into the region following the collapse of the Soviet Union and those of Chinese archaeology under Xi Jinping.
“This is a very colonial approach I think in both ways,” Stark said. “And that is the problem I have with it, this idea that people from the outside have come to teach or discover things that were not discovered before.”
Much of the previous archeological work in the region was published in Russian, which some Chinese experts don’t seem to have read, he said.
Countering ‘untrue narratives’
Meanwhile, Beijing is pouring money into the field on a large scale to counter “untrue narratives” about the northwestern region of Xinjiang, according to comments from Chinese Communist Party United Front Work Department deputy director Pan Yue on June 12.
“There is an untrue narrative in the international community that separates Xinjiang culture from Chinese culture and even sets it up in opposition,” Pan said. “But a large amount of archaeological evidence tells us that Xinjiang has been an important part of the Chinese cultural circle since ancient times.”
A collection of terracotta sculptures depicting the armies of Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China, Oct. 1, 2016, in Xian, China. It is a form of funerary art buried with the emperor in 210–209 BC and whose purpose was to protect the emperor in his afterlife. The figures were discovered in 1974 in Lintong District, Xian, capital of Shaanxi Province, one of the oldest cities in Xian. (Frédéric Soltan/Corbis via Getty Images)
His comments are straight out of Beijing’s propaganda playbook on “self-confidence” and “exploring the origins of Chinese civilization,” with Xi claiming in May 2022 that cultural relics and cultural heritage “carry the genes and blood of the Chinese nation,” describing them as its “inexhaustible resource.”
In July, the State Administration of Chinese Cultural Heritage said it would focus on cultural relics as a matter of national priority under the current five-year plan.
But using material findings dug up from burial sites to prop up theories about ethnic groups and their historical interactions is highly problematic in the absence of written clues, Stark said, adding that questions of ethnicity aren’t generally very productive for archaeologists.
“Today, in the 21st century, we think everybody has and always had an ethnic identity, but that’s just not the case,” he said. “It’s a very modern phenomenon that in the premodern past was mostly tied up with the elites.”
“The Chinese teams excavating in Central Asia are very much obsessed about this kind of ethnic identity, [with] finding the tribes that are mentioned in the Chinese texts,” Stark said.
“[But] archaeology is not very well equipped to answer that with precision and certainty.”
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Lucie Lo for RFA Mandarin.
China has stepped up emergency pandemic drills across the country and announced tighter surveillance of incoming travelers amid warnings that a more lethal and transmissible strain of the mpox virus is spreading internationally.
From Aug. 15, anyone arriving in China from countries and regions where mpox cases have been confirmed, or with symptoms like fever, headache, back or muscle pain, swollen lymph nodes or a rash is now required to declare their condition to customs authorities on entry, state news agency Xinhua reported on Friday.
sThe move comes after the World Health Organization on Wednesday declared mpox a public health emergency of international concern, sounding the alarm over its potential for further international transmission, with several African countries, Sweden and Pakistan all reporting confirmed cases of the deadly virus.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, mpox is spread through “close contact,” including sexual contact, and by touching contaminated surfaces. But The Lancet medical journal cited animal studies in March 2023 as showing that transmission through the air is also possible with some variants of the virus.
Data from the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cited by Xinhua showed that during the past week alone, more than 2,000 new mpox cases have been reported in African countries, with 38,465 mpox cases and 1,456 deaths across the continent since January 2022.
Local authorities rolled out emergency drills to prepare for “pneumonia of unknown cause” in Henan’s Zhengzhou city, Zhangye in the western province of Gansu, southwestern Sichuan and the megacities of Beijing and Chongqing.
Workers take part in an emergency pandemic drill in Beijing’s Shijingshan district, Aug. 7, 2024. (Beijing Municipal Health Commission)
Similar drills happened ahead of the World Military Games in Wuhan in 2019, while COVID-19 was also initially described as “atypical pneumonia” when it tore through the central city of Wuhan in December 2019 before being named by the WHO as a global pandemic.
According to a post on X by citizen journalist “Mr. Li is not your teacher,” the drills form part of a nationwide disease control and prevention action plan. The financial news service Yicai.com said the drills will be rolled out across 10 provinces by the end of August.
Photos from emergency infectious disease drills in Chongqing on July 4 included a photo of two people in full-body PPE collecting samples from two chickens, although there was no mention of avian influenza in the official report.
Some online comments referred to “post-traumatic stress syndrome” caused by the three years of lockdowns, compulsory quarantine and mass-testing of ruling Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping’s zero-COVID policy, which ended amid nationwide protests in late 2022.
“This is so we can be on a war footing again, right? I think if this happens again, the Chinese Communist Party will bring about its own downfall,” said one comment, while another said: “We don’t want to go through that again.”
The first comment also alluded to a renewed wave of COVID-19 infections in China, adding: “It’s still out there, and it’s peaked again recently, but it’s too hot to mention.”
More behind the scenes?
Lin Xiaoxu, a former virology researcher at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center said there could be more going on in China currently than meets the eye, citing the government’s track record in trying to cover up public health emergencies.
“Generally speaking, the government still conceals a lot of health information, especially during public health crises,” Lin said. “I don’t think they’re doing these so-called emergency drills for no reason.”
Chinese social media users seem to be thinking along similar lines.
A recent wave of COVID-19 infections in the southern province of Guangdong was listed among “hot topics” on Weibo on Thursday, claiming that the latest strain of the coronavirus was causing more severe symptoms in younger people.
Clicking on the search term refers readers to a video on the official account of the Southern Metropolis Daily newspaper and N Video, in which reporters visit Guangzhou Xinshi Hospital to investigate the recent spike in COVID-19 cases, quoting an expert as saying that the latest wave of the disease is hitting younger people with more pain and fever than previous variants.
Guangzhou’s Yangcheng Evening News and the Luzhong Morning News both reported a sharp spike in the number of COVID-19 cases in July, with “more obvious symptoms” in young people.
Workers take part in an emergency pandemic drill in Beijing’s Shijingshan district, Aug. 7, 2024. (Beijing Municipal Health Commission)
Huang Yanzhong, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations, said Japan, Europe and the United States are all currently seeing a wave of COVID-19 infections, and that cases in China appear to be following the same pattern.
“China is getting this too, but I don’t see any pattern suggesting any essential mutations that would make it different from what is happening overseas,” Huang told RFA Mandarin in an interview on Thursday.
Young people hit
He said the latest strains of COVID-19 have hit younger people harder everywhere, not just in China, likely due to impaired immunity caused by repeated infections.
“The number of young people infected is increasing, so I think that a large proportion of Chinese population has impaired immunity, with a lot of people who’ve been repeatedly infected, but the Chinese government basically doesn’t report it much,” Huang said.
He said a return to citywide lockdowns could happen if the Chinese authorities find the current wave is getting out of control.
“Given that the whole economy and the unemployment situation are very bad right now, the government could use a public health crisis as an excuse to impose more stringent social controls, as a way of clamping down on social unrest,” Lin said.
But he said the current emergency drills may not relate to COVID-19 at all, citing anthrax as another possible target.
Officials reported on Aug. 2 that anthrax had been found at a beef cattle farm in Liaocheng city in the eastern province of Shandong, while an unconfirmed Weibo post reported anthrax near Shijiazhuang city in northern Hebei province.
Lin said the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang had warned local residents on July 3 to take precautions against the spread of anthrax during the flood season, adding that such warnings were “very unusual.”
“My greatest suspicion is that there was a serious outbreak in Heilongjiang, but they didn’t make it public,” Lin said.
Translated with additional reporting 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.
Since early August, Chinese authorities have dramatically boosted surveillance of Tibetans in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa by putting more police on the streets, cracking down on social media users and – in a new wrinkle – hiring food delivery workers to serve as auxiliary police officers, sources inside Tibet say.
The increased monitoring activities coincided with the start of a major annual festival, the Shoton Festival, on Aug. 4. Also known as a yogurt festival, it is observed when monks complete their annual religious retreats and involves the unveiling of a 500-square-meter thangka painting, performances of Tibetan opera and huge picnics.
“The government has been taking various measures to tighten its vigilance in response to sensitive situations in Tibet, but this August, it has suddenly taken even more drastic measures,” said one source from inside Tibet.
Authorities are calling it a “summer public security crackdown and rectification operation,” the sources said.
The precise reasons behind the stricter measures – which continue – are not known, but Beijing has steadily tightened surveillance in Tibet over many years. One source said the measures were to ensure stability for the government’s commercial activities to stimulate economic growth.
That may be true on the surface, but comments from a senior security official point to a deeper motive. Zhang Hongbo, vice chairman of the Tibet Autonomous Region and director of the Public Security Department told state media that security forces would focus on national unity and fight separatism or secession.
Tibet was once an independent country, but Chinese forces invaded in 1950 and have controlled the territory ever since. The Dalai Lama fled into exile in India amid a failed 1959 uprising against Chinese rule. Since then, Beijing has sought to legitimize Chinese rule through the suppression of dissent and policies undermining Tibetan culture and language.
Authorities are hyper-sensitive to any hints of protest against Chinese rule or resistance to those efforts.
Here are three ways that authorities are boosting surveillance in Lhasa:
One: Greater police presence on the streets.
This includes plainclothes officers, and an increase in the number of traffic and police inspection points.
Lhasa’s Public Security Bureau deployed more than 1,200 police officers, set up 65 inspection and traffic checkpoints and conducted inspections of more than 2,000 venues and 24,000 vehicles, according to a Chinese state media report on Aug. 5.
Two: Authorities have deployed civilians – mostly food delivery drivers – as auxiliary police officers.
Lhasa authorities launched a pilot program hiring delivery drivers from food delivery company Meituan to perform “voluntary patrol and prevention work,” Chinese state media reported on Aug. 8 – although sources say the workers are essentially forced to do the work.
They are helping police to keep an eye on ordinary residents, including serving at night watchmen in certain areas.
The measure suggests China is using Tibet as a testing ground for its surveillance tactics because they are similar to civilian-police integration efforts China employs in border areas, said Sriparna Pathak, associate professor of China studies at the O.P. Jindal Global University in Haryana, India.
China has set up civilian-police integrated units in sensitive border areas of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and the Tibet Autonomous Region, both in the far western part of the country. The units comprise civilians, policemen, militiamen and government officials working with People’s Liberation Army soldiers to ensure security.
“China’s efforts to rope in delivery riders for surveillance is in line with the effort to further consolidate its grip in Tibet,” said Kalpit Mankikar, an expert at the New Delhi-based think tank Observer Research Foundation.
Hiring Meituan delivery workers for surveillance also signals a link between the Chinese government and private enterprises, showing how the government drafts companies to fulfill certain national objectives, Mankikar said.
Three: Crackdown on social media use among Tibetans.
In the past, Tibetans could sign up for social media with only a phone number.
But at the end of July, the government announced that social media users had to re-open their accounts and provide personal details, the sources said.
Re-registering involves providing a password connected to one’s personal cell phone or identity card that is accessible to the government, one of the Tibetans said.
“If you do not have proper social media account registration, you will receive a summons from the government to re-register, and your phone will be examined,” one of the sources said.
Authorities also began stopping individual Tibetans in Lhasa to check for use of virtual private networks, or VPNs, that allow users to get around China’s internet restrictions, often dubbed “China’s Great Firewall,” two sources from inside Tibet said.
In early August, authorities in Lhasa arrested three people for using a VPN but released them with an administrative punishment, the Municipal Public Security Bureau said on its website.
The government said the latest measure was meant to protect personal data information, properly manage internet society and prevent telecommunication network fraud.
Lhasa police said Tuesday that it was inspecting the entire internet network and city streets for two days and nights to ensure public safety and security.
This comes on top of authorities’ strict monitoring of Tibetans’ use of social media, including Douyin, China’s version of TikTok.
Authorities have banned Tibetans from using the Tibetan language on social media sites – part of an effort to undermine their language and assimilate into Chinese culture.
Additional reporting by Dickey Kundol, Tenzin Dickyi and Yangdon for RFA Tibetan. Written and edited by Tenzin Pema for RFA Tibetan. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Tibetan.
China opened fire across the border into Myanmar apparently as a warning to Myanmar military aircraft that attacked an ethnic minority insurgent base, an insurgent force spokesman and residents told Radio Free Asia.
Myanmar junta forces attacked the headquarters of the Kachin Independence Army, or KIA, at Lai Zar, close to Myanmar’s northern border with China on Thursday after Kachin fighters captured two junta force positions in Hpakant township earlier in the day.
Chinese forces on their side of the border then opend fire across the border, said Col. Naw Bu, a KIA Information Officer.
“We assume the Chinese fired shots because of their security concerns,” Naw Bu said.
“I don’t know what they fired but the sound was quite loud. There were explosions in the sky. They fired more than 10 times from the Chinese side. They weren’t firing flares.”
Naw Bu did not say whether the earlier junta airstrikes on the KIA headquarters caused any casualties or damage.
The Chinese embassy in Myanmar did not respond to a request from Radio Free Asia for comment on the incident. The junta’s spokesman for Kachin state, Moe Min Thein, did not answer telephone calls seeking comment.
The KIA, one of Myanmar’s most powerful insurgent groups, has made significant gains against junta forces this year, as have allied rebel groups in other parts of Myanmar.
The KIA and its allies have captured more than 200 junta camps in Kachin state since the beginning of the year, Naw Bu said.
China has been alarmed by the fighting on its border, in Myanmar’s Kachin state and Shan state in northeast Myanmar, and the threat the turmoil poses to its economic interests in Myanmar, which include energy pipelines, ports and natural resources.
China maintains close relations with the junta but also has links with ethnic minority forces, especially those that operate along its border.
China has repeatedly called for Myanmar’s rivals to settle their differences through dialogue and even managed to broker two short-lived ceasefires in Shan state this year.
A Lai Zar resident who did not want to be identified for safety reasons said Chinese planes had also been in the sky on Thursday, after the junta planes bombed the Kachin rebel base.
“I don’t know which side of the border the bombs fell. It was a bit far from Lai Zar,” the resident said of the junta attack that triggered the Chinese response.
“There were also Chinese planes and the Chinese side fired more than 10 warning shots,” the resident said.
Earlier on Thursday, the KIA seized control of La Mawng Kone, a strategic hill held by junta troops, along with a military camp in Taw Hmaw village, both in Hpakant, Naw Bu said.
Hpakant is famous for its jade mines, and since the beginning of the year Kachin fighters have been closing in on the town and the junta forces stationed there.
The Chinese fire into Myanmar came a day after its foreign minister, Wang Yi, was in Myanmar for talks with junta leaders.
Wang raised China’s concerns with junta leader Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing at a meeting in the capital Naypyidaw, according to China’s foreign ministry.
“Wang Yi expressed his hope that Myanmar will earnestly safeguard the safety of Chinese personnel and projects in Myanmar, maintain peace and stability along the China-Myanmar border, step up joint efforts to crack down on cross-border crimes and create a safe environment for bilateral exchanges and cooperation,” the ministry said.
Analysts say China is also keen to limit the influence of Western countries and India in Myanmar and is becoming increasingly frustrated with Min Aung Hlaing and the junta’s failure to end the conflict. It is pressing for an “all-inclusive” election as a way to resolve the crisis, they say.
Wang also had talks this week with a former Myanmar military leader, Than Shwe, who called on China to help Myanmar restore stability, the Chinese ministry said.
Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Mike Firn.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Burmese.
Vietnam’s top leader To Lam will visit China for three days from Sunday, the 67-year-old’s first foreign trip since he was elected general secretary of the Communist Party on Aug. 3.
He will meet President Xi Jinping, Premier Li Qiang, Chairman Zhao Leji of the National People’s Congress Standing Committee, and Chairman Wang Huning of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference National Committee, China’s foreign ministry said on Thursday.
He will also meet representatives of leading Chinese corporations in Beijing, according to Vietnamese media.
Lam became general secretary two weeks after the death of his 80-year-old predecessor Nguyen Phu Trong. Lam has been serving as president since May.
Xi, who sent Lam a congratulatory message on his appointment, last visited Vietnam in December 2023, 14 months after Trong’s final trip to China.
The neighbors, who fought a brief but bloody border war in 1979, normalized relations in 1991. In 2008, Vietnam elevated their relationship to a “comprehensive strategic partnership,” the highest level of engagement.
Speaking ahead of Lam’s visit, Vietnam’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Bui Thanh Son emphasized the economic benefits of warm relations.
“We have been impressed by the figures such as two-way trade in the first half of 2024 rising 24.1% year-on-year to US$94.5 billion; the number of FDI projects in the six-month span remaining at the top with 447 new ones worth nearly $1.3 billion,” he said in an interview with Vietnamese media, referring to foreign direct investment.
Son also highlighted what he called a positive tourism recovery, adding: “Vietnam hosted 2.1 million Chinese tourist arrivals during January-July, higher than that of the whole 2023.”
The two sides have clashed over competing territorial claims in the South China Sea, which have earned diplomatic rebukes from Hanoi and sparked widespread public protests in Vietnam.
Son said Lam and Xi were likely to have “frank, sincere, and substantive,” discussions on territorial issues, while claiming that the situation was “basically well controlled; and exchange and negotiation mechanisms between the two sides on the sea issues regularly maintained.”
Vietnam has adopted a flexible approach to foreign policy, known as “bamboo diplomacy,” under which it has established six other comprehensive strategic partnerships with Russia, India, South Korea, the United States, Japan and Australia.
As president Lam met Russia’s President Vladimir Putin while he was on a visit to Vietnam in June and spoke to him by telephone after being named general secretary.
The U.S. became a comprehensive strategic partner during a visit to Hanoi by President Joe Biden in September 2023, during which the U.S. president courted Vietnamese tech executives in a push to develop new semiconductor supply chains.
Vietnam’s National Assembly Chairman Tran Thanh Man was keen to stress the economic benefits of having the U.S. as a “partner of strategic importance,” during a reception for Ambassador Marc Evans Knapper in Hanoi on Thursday, pointing out that bilateral trade topped US$66.1 billion in the first seven months of this year, after approaching $111 billion in 2023.
Edited by Mike Firn.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Staff.
A former military leader of Myanmar, Senior Gen. Than Shwe, has called on China to help Myanmar end internal conflict and stabilize the country, according to China’s foreign ministry.
The 91-year-old ruled during a period of strict military rule, from 1992 to 2011, when Myanmar was facing the condemnation of Western governments for suppressing democracy and locking up Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. He is rarely seen in public these days.
Than Shwe, during a meeting on Wednesday with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, praised Beijing’s long-term support and said he hoped it would continue “to provide valuable support to help Myanmar prevent external interference and maintain domestic stability,” Wang’s ministry said.
Wang told Than Shwe that China was willing to “support Myanmar in safeguarding its independence, sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity, and support Myanmar in its efforts to achieve domestic political reconciliation within the constitutional framework, smoothly hold national elections, and restart the process of democratic transformation.”
The two met as Wang visited Myanmar’s capital Naypyidaw for talks with the junta leader, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing.
Myanmar’s state-controlled Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper reported that China had offered to help Myanmar organize an election next year but it did not report Than Shwe’s request for help in restoring stability.
The Myanmar military, shunned and sanctioned again by Western nations after ousting a government led by Suu Kyi in early 2021, has been able to rely on China for diplomatic, economic and military support.
But China has also maintained links with some of the ethnic minority insurgent forces battling the junta, particularly groups operating along its border in northeastern Myanmar’s Shan state and it calls on all sides to resolve differences peacefully.
This year, China brokered two short-lived ceasefires between the junta insurgent forces as battles affected trade and stability along the border. This month, insurgents in Shan state called on China to press the junta to stop attacks on civilians.
China is one of Myanmar’s main foreign investors, in minerals and energy in particular, and some insurgents have promised to protect China’s interests. Fighting in central Myanmar’s Mandalay region has in recent days come near to oil and natural gas pipelines that run from Myanmar’s coast into China.
Wang stressed China’s displeasure at renewed fighting along the border, and also his opposition to “interference of foreign forces in Myanmar” and actions that “destroy peace and development,” his ministry said.
He did not specify which foreign interference he referred to but analysts say China is keen to limit the influence in Myanmar of Western countries like the United States, as well as that of India.
Wang promised technical support and aid for the junta’s promised election, which could be held next year, and a census late this year, the Global New Light of Myanmar reported.
“Necessary technological assistance will be provided for Myanmar to conduct the census-taking process,” the newspaper reported. “Moreover, essential aid will be given for the election.”
He also stressed the need for all parties to be represented in the vote, calling in his talks with Min Aung Hlaing for an “all-inclusive election.”
Political analyst Than Soe Naing told RFA that Than Shwe’s request to China for help might be an indication of how desperate the junta was in the face of major battlefield setbacks in recent weeks.
“He’s asking China to put pressure on the fighting in northern Shan state to maintain the junta leader’s power,” the analyst said.
On Friday, Wang Yi will attend a regional foreign ministers’ meeting in Thailand.
Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Burmese.
Of the international intelligence information that comes to Australian agencies from the Five Eyes, 90 percent comes from the CIA and related US intelligence agencies. So in effect we have the colonisation of our intelligence agencies These agencies dominate the advice to ministers, writes John Menadue.
Michael Lester:Hello again listeners to Community Radio Northern Beaches Community Voices and also the Pearls and Irritations podcast. I’m Michael Lester.
Our guest today is the publisher and founder of the Pearls and Irritations Public Policy online journal, the celebrated John Menadue, with whom we’ll be so pleased to have a discussion today. John has a long and high profile experience in both the public service, for which he’s been awarded the Order of Australia and also in business.
As a public servant, he was secretary of a number of departments over the years, prime minister and cabinet under a couple of different prime ministers, immigration and ethnic affairs, special minister of state and the Department of Trade and also Ambassador to Japan.
And in his private sector career, he was a general manager at News Corp and the chief executive of Qantas. These are just among many of his considerable activities.
These days, as I say, he’s a publisher, public commentator, writer, and we’re absolutely delighted to welcome you here to Radio Northern Beaches and the P&I podcast, John.
John Menadue: Thank you, Michael. Thanks for the welcome and for what you’ve had to say about Pearls and Irritations. My wife says that she’s the Pearl and I’m the Irritation.
ML:You launched, I think, P&I, what, 2013 or 2011; anyway, you’ve been going a long while. And I noticed the other day you observed that you’d published some 20,000 items on Pearls and Irritations to do with public policy. That’s an amazing achievement itself as an independent media outlet in Australia, isn’t it?
JM: I’m quite pleased with it and so is Susie, my wife. We started 13 years ago and we did everything. I used to write all the stories and Susie handled the technical, admin, financial matters, but it’s grown dramatically since then. We now contract some of the work to people that can help us in editorial, in production and IT. It’s achieving quite a lot of influence among ministers, politicians, journalists and other opinion leaders in the community.
We’re looking now at what the future holds. I’m 89 and Susie, my wife, is not in good health. So we’re looking at new governance arrangements, a public company with outside directors so that we can continue Pearls and Irritations well into the future.
Pearls and Irritations publisher John Menadue . . . “I’m afraid some of [the mainstream media] are just incorrigible. They in fact act as stenographers to powerful interests.” Image: Independent AustralianML: So you made a real contribution through this and you’ve given the opportunity for so many expert, experienced, independent voices to commentate on public policy issues of great importance, not least vis-a-vis, might I say, mainstream media treatment of a lot of these issues.
This is one of your themes and motivations with Pearls and Irritations as a public policy journal, isn’t it? That our mainstream media perhaps don’t do the job they might do in covering significant issues of public policy?
JM: That’s our hope and intention, but I’m afraid some of them are just incorrigible. They in fact act as stenographers to powerful interests.
It’s quite a shame what mainstream media is serving up today, propaganda for the United States, so focused on America.Occasionally we get nonsense about the British royal family or some irrelevant feature like that.
But we’re very badly served. Our media shows very little interest in our own region. It is ignorant and prejudiced against China. It is not concerned about our relations with Indonesia, with the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam.
It’s all focused on the United States.We’re seeing it on an enormous scale now with the US elections. Even the ABC has a Planet America programme.
It’s so much focused on America as if we’re an island parked off New York. We are being Americanised in so many areas and particularly in our media.
ML: What has led to this state of affairs in the way that mainstream media treats major public policy issues these days? It hasn’t always been like that or has it?
JM: We’ve been a country that’s been frightened of our region, the countries where we have to make our future. And we’ve turned first to the United Kingdom as a protector. That ended in tears in Singapore.
And now we turn to the United States to look after us in this dangerous world, rather than making our own way as an independent country in our own region. That fear of our region, racism, white Australia, yellow peril all feature in Australia and in our media.
But when we had good, strong leaders, for example, Malcolm Fraser on refugees, he gave leadership and our role in the region.
Gough Whitlam did it also. If we have strong leadership, we can break from our focus on the United States at the expense of our own region. In the end, we’ve got to decide that as we live in this region, we’ve got to prosper in this region.
Security in our region, not from our region. We can do it, but I’m afraid that we’ve been retreating from Asia dreadfully over the last two or three decades. I thought when we had a Labor government, things would be different, but they’re not.
We are still frightened of our own region and embracing at every opportunity, the United States.
ML: Another theme of the many years of publishing Pearls and Irritations is that you are concerned to rebuild some degree of public confidence and trust that has been lost in the political system and that you seek to provide a platform for good policy discussion with the emphasis being on public policy. How has the public policy process been undermined or become so narrow minded if that’s one way of describing it?
JM: Contracting out work to private contractors, the big four accounting firms, getting advice, and not trusting the public service has meant that the quality of our public service has declined considerably. That has to be rebuilt so we get better policy development.
Ministers have been responsible, particularly Scott Morrison, for downgrading the public service and believing somehow or other that better advice can be obtained in the private sector.
Another factor has been the enormous growth in the power of lobbyists for corporate Australia and for foreign companies as well. Ministers have become beholden to pressure from powerful lobby groups.
One particular example, with which I’m quite familiar is in the health field. We are never likely to have real improvements in Medicare, for example, unless the government is prepared to take on the power of lobbyists — the providers, the doctors, the pharmaceutical companies and pharmacies in Australia.
But it’s not just in health where lobbyists are causing so much damage. The power of lobbyists has discredited the role of governments that are seduced by powerful interests rather than serving the community.
The media have just entrenched this problem. Governments are criticised at every opportunity. Australia can be served by the media taking a more positive view about the importance of good policy development and not getting sidetracked all the time about some trivial personal political issue.
The media publish the handouts of the lobbyists, whether it’s the health industry or whether it’s in the fossil fuel industries. These are the main factors that have contributed to the lack of confidence and the lack of trust in good government in Australia.
ML: A particular editorial focus that’s evident in Pearls and Irritations is promoting, I think in your words, a peaceful dialogue and engagement with China. Why is this required and why do you put it forward as a particularly important part of what you see as the mission of your Pearls and Irritations public policy journal?
JM; China, is our largest market and will continue to be so. There is a very jaundiced view, particularly from the United States, which we then copy, that China is a great threat. It’s not a threat to Australia and it’s not a threat to the United States homeland.
But it is to a degree a threat, a competitive threat to the United States in economy and trade. America didn’t worry about China when it was poor, but now that it’s strong militarily, economically and in technology, America is very concerned and feels that its future, its own leadership, its hegemony in the world is being contested.
Unfortunately, Australia has allowed itself to be drawn into the American contest with China. It’s one provocation after another. If it’s not within China itself, it’s on Taiwan, human rights in Hong Kong. Every opportunity is found by the United States to provoke China, if possible, and lead it into war.
I think, frankly, China will be more careful than that.
China’s problem is that it’s successful. And that’s what America cannot accept. By comparison, China does not make the military threat to other countries that the United States presents.
America is the most violent, aggressive country in the world. The greatest threat to peace in the world is the United States and we’re seeing that particularly now expressed in Israel and in Gaza.
But there’s a history. America’s almost always at war and has been since its independence in 1776. By contrast, China doesn’t have that sort of record and history. It is certainly concerned about security on its borders, and it has borders with 14 countries.
But it doesn’t project its power like the US. It doesn’t bomb other countries like the United States. It doesn’t have military bases surrounding the United States.
The United States has about 800 bases around the world. It’s not surprising that China feels threatened by what the United States is doing. And until the United States comes to a sensible, realistic view about China and deals with it politically, I think they’re going to make continual problems for us.
We have this dichotomy that China is our major trading partner but it’s seen by many as a strategic threat. I think that is a mistake.
ML: But what about your views about the public policy process underlying Australia’s policy in reaching the positions that we’re taking vis-a-vis China?
JM: There are several reasons for it, but I think the major one is that Australian governments, the previous government and now this one, takes the advice of intelligence agencies rather than the Department of Foreign Affairs.
Our intelligence agencies are part of Five Eyes. Of the international intelligence which comes to Australian agencies, 90 percent comes from the CIA and related US intelligence agencies. So in effect we’ve had the colonisation of our intelligence agencies and they’re the ones that the Australian government listens to.
Very senior people in those agencies have direct access to the Prime Minister. He listens to them rather than to Penny Wong or the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. On most public issues involving China, the Department of Foreign Affairs has become a wallflower.
It’s a great tragedy because so much of our future in the region depends on good diplomacy with China, with the ASEAN, with the countries of our region.
Those intelligence agencies in Australia, together with American funded, military funded organisations such as the Australian Strategic Policy Institute have the ear of governments. They’ve also got the ear of the media.
Stories are leaked to the media all the time from those agencies in order to heighten our fear of the region. The Americanisation of Australia is widespread. But our intelligence agencies have been Americanised as well, and they’re leading us down a very dangerous path.
ML: I’m speaking with our guest today on Reno Northern Beaches Community Voices and on the Pearls and Irritations podcast with the publisher of Pearls and Irritations Public Policy Journal, John Menadue, distinguished Australian public servant and businessman.
John, again, it’s one thing to talk about that, but governments, when they change, and we’ve had a change of government recently, very often, as I’m sure you know from personal experience, have the opportunity and do indeed change their advisors and adopt different policies, and one might have expected this to happen.
Why didn’t we see a change of the guard like we saw a change of government?
JM: I think this government is timid on almost everything. It was timid from day one on administrative arrangements, departmental arrangements, heads of departments.
For example, there was no change made to dismantle the Department of Home Affairs with Michael Pezzullo. That should have happened on day one, but it didn’t happen.
Concerns we’ve had in migration, the role of foreign affairs and intelligence with all those intelligence agencies gathered together in one department has been very bad for Australia.
Very few changes were made in the leadership of our intelligence agencies, the Office of National Assessments, in ASIO. The same advice has been continued. In almost every area you can look at, the government has been timid, unprepared to take on vested interests, lobbyists, and change departments to make them more attuned to what the government wants to do.
But the government doesn’t want to upset anyone. And as a result, we’re having a continuation of badly informed ministers and departments that have really not been effectively changed to meet the requirements and needs of, what I thought was a reforming government.
ML: In that context, AUKUS and the nuclear submarine deal might be perhaps a case in point of the broader issues and points you’re making. How would you characterise the nature of the public policy process and decision behind AUKUS? How were the decisions made and in what manner?
JM: By political appointees and confidants of Morrison. There’s been no public discussion. There’s been no public statement by Morrison or by Albanese about AUKUS — its history, why we’re doing it.
It’s been left to briefings of journalists and others. I think it’s disgraceful what’s happened in that area. It’s time the Australian government spelled out to us what it all means, but it’s not going to do it. Because I believe the case is so threadbare that it’s not game to put it to the public test.
And so we’re continuing in this ludicrous arrangement, this fiscal calamity, which Morrison inflicted on the Albanese government which it hasn’t been game to contest.
My own view is that frankly, AUKUS will never happen. It is so absurd — the delay, the cost, the failure of submarine construction or the delays in the United States, the problems of the submarine construction and maintenance in the United Kingdom.
For all those sorts of reasons, I don’t think it’ll really happen. Unfortunately, we’re going to waste a lot of money and a lot of time. I don’t think the Department of Defence could run any major project, certainly not a project like this.
Defence has been unsuccessful in the frigate and numerous other programmes. Our Department of Defence really is not up to the job and that among other reasons gives me reason to believe, and hope frankly, that AUKUS will collapse under its own stupidity.
But what I think is of more concern is the real estate, which we are freely leasing to the Americans. We had it first with the Marines in Darwin. We have it also coming now with US B-52 aircraft based out of Tindal in the Northern Territory and the submarine base in Perth, Western Australia.
These bases are being made available to the United States with very little control by Australia. The government carries on with nonsense about how our sovereignty will be protected.
In fact, it won’t be protected. If there’s any difficulties, for example, over a war with China over Taiwan, and the Americans are involved, there is no way Americans will consult with us about whether they can use nuclear armed vessels out of Tindal, for example.
The Americans will insist that Pine Gap continues to operate. So we are locked in through ceding so much of our real estate and the sovereignty that goes with it.
Penny Wong has been asked about American aircraft out of Tindal, carrying nuclear weapons and she says to us, sorry but the Americans won’t confirm or deny what they do.
Good heavens, this is our territory. This is our sovereignty. And we won’t even ask the Americans operating out of Tindal, whether they’re carrying nuclear weapons.
Back in the days of Malcolm Fraser, he made a statement to the Parliament insisting that no vessels or aircraft carrying nuclear weapons or ships carrying nuclear weapons could access Australian ports or operate over Australia without the permission of the Australian government.
And now Penny Wong says, we won’t ask. You can do what you like. We know the US won’t confirm or deny.
When it came to the Solomon Islands, a treaty that the Solomons negotiated with China on strategic and defence matters, Penny Wong was very upset about this secret agreement. There should be transparency, she warned.
But that’s small fry, compared with the fact that the Australian government will allow United States aircraft to operate out of Tindal without the Australian government knowing whether they are carrying nuclear weapons. I think that’s outrageous.
ML: Notwithstanding many of the very technical and economic and other discussions around the nuclear submarine’s acquisition, it does seem that politically, at least, and not least from the media presentation of our policy position that we’re very clearly signing up with our US allies against contingency attacks on Taiwan that we would be committed to take a part in and we’re also moving very closely, to well the phrase is interoperability, with the US forces and equipment but also personnel too.
You mentioned earlier, intelligence personnel and I believe there’s a lot of US personnel in the Department of Defence too?
JM: That’s right. It’s just another example of Americanisation which is reflected in our intelligence agencies, Department of Defence, interchangeability of our military forces, the fusion of our military or particularly our Navy with the United States. It’s all becoming one fused enterprise with the United States.
And in any difficulties, we would not be able, as far as I can see, to disengage from what the United States is doing. And we would be particularly vulnerable because of the AUKUS submarines. That’s if they ever come to anything. Because the AUKUS submarines, we are told, would operate off the Chinese coast to attack Chinese submarines or somehow provide intelligence for the Americans and for us.
These submarines will not be nuclear armed, which means that in the event of a conflict, we would have no bargaining or no counter to China. We’d be the weak link in the alliance with the United States.
China will not be prepared to strike the mainland United States for fear of massive retaliation. We are the weak link with Pine Gap and other real estate that I mentioned. We would be making ourselves much more vulnerable by this association with the United States.
Those AUKUS submarines will provide no deterrence for us, but make us more vulnerable if a conflict arises in which we are effectively part of the US military operation.
ML: How would you characterise the mainstream media’s presentation and treatment of these issues?
JM: The mainstream media is very largely a mouthpiece for Washington propaganda. And that American propaganda is pushed out through the legacy media, The Washington Post, The New York Times, the news agencies, Fox News which in turn are influenced by the military/ business complex which Eisenhower warned us about years ago.
The power of those groups with the CIA and the influence that they have, means that they overwhelm our media. That’s reflected particularly in The Australian and News Corporation publications.
I don’t know how some of those journalists can hold their heads. They’ve been on the drip feed of America for so long. They cannot see a world that is not dominated and led by the United States.
I’m hoping that over time, Pearls and Irritations and other independent media will grow and provide a more balanced view about Australia’s role in our region and in our own development.
We need to keep good relations with the United States. They’re an important player, but I think that we are unnecessarily risking our future by throwing our lot almost entirely in with the United States.
Minister for Defence, Richard Marles is leading the Americanisation of our military. I think Penny Wong is to some extent trying to pull him back. But unfortunately so much of the leadership of Australia in defence, in the media, is part and parcel of the mistaken United States view of the world.
ML: What sort of voices are we not hearing in the media or in Australia on this question?
JM: It’s not going to change, Michael. I can’t see it changing with Lachlan Murdoch in charge. I think it’s getting worse, if possible, within News Corporation. It’s a very, very difficult and desperate situation where we’re being served so poorly.
ML: Is there a strong independent media and potential for voices through independent media in Australia?
JM: No, we haven’t got one. The best hope at the side, of course, is the ABC and SBS public broadcasters, but they’ve been seduced as well by all things American.
We’ve seen that particularly in recent months over the conflict in Gaza. The ABC and SBS heavily favour Israel. It is shameful.
They’re still the best hope of the side, but they need more money. They’re getting a little bit more from the government, but I think they are sadly lacking in leadership and proper understanding of what the role of a public broadcaster should be.
I don’t think there’s a quick answer to any of this. And I hope that we can extricate ourselves without too much damage in the future. Our media has a great responsibility and must be held responsible for the damage that it is causing in Australia.
ML: Well, look, thank you very much, John Menadue, for joining us on Radio Northern Beaches and on the Pearls and Irritations podcast. John Menadue, publisher, founder, editor-in-chief of, for the last 13 years, the public policy journal Pearls and Irritations. We’ve been discussing the role of the mainstream media, independent media, in the public policy processes too in Australia, and particularly in the context of international relations and in this case our relationships with the US and China.
Thank you so much John for taking the time and for sharing your thoughts with us here today. Thanks for joining us John.
JM: Thank you. Let’s hope for better days.
John Menadue, founder and publisher of Pearls and Irritations public policy journal has had a senior professional career in the media, public service and airlines. In 1985, he was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for public service. In 2009, he received the Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Adelaide in recognition of his significant and lifelong contribution to Australian society. This transcript of the Pearls and Irritations podcast on 10 August 2024 is republished with permission.
Of the international intelligence information that comes to Australian agencies from the Five Eyes, 90 percent comes from the CIA and related US intelligence agencies. So in effect we have the colonisation of our intelligence agencies These agencies dominate the advice to ministers, writes John Menadue.
Michael Lester:Hello again listeners to Community Radio Northern Beaches Community Voices and also the Pearls and Irritations podcast. I’m Michael Lester.
Our guest today is the publisher and founder of the Pearls and Irritations Public Policy online journal, the celebrated John Menadue, with whom we’ll be so pleased to have a discussion today. John has a long and high profile experience in both the public service, for which he’s been awarded the Order of Australia and also in business.
As a public servant, he was secretary of a number of departments over the years, prime minister and cabinet under a couple of different prime ministers, immigration and ethnic affairs, special minister of state and the Department of Trade and also Ambassador to Japan.
And in his private sector career, he was a general manager at News Corp and the chief executive of Qantas. These are just among many of his considerable activities.
These days, as I say, he’s a publisher, public commentator, writer, and we’re absolutely delighted to welcome you here to Radio Northern Beaches and the P&I podcast, John.
John Menadue: Thank you, Michael. Thanks for the welcome and for what you’ve had to say about Pearls and Irritations. My wife says that she’s the Pearl and I’m the Irritation.
ML:You launched, I think, P&I, what, 2013 or 2011; anyway, you’ve been going a long while. And I noticed the other day you observed that you’d published some 20,000 items on Pearls and Irritations to do with public policy. That’s an amazing achievement itself as an independent media outlet in Australia, isn’t it?
JM: I’m quite pleased with it and so is Susie, my wife. We started 13 years ago and we did everything. I used to write all the stories and Susie handled the technical, admin, financial matters, but it’s grown dramatically since then. We now contract some of the work to people that can help us in editorial, in production and IT. It’s achieving quite a lot of influence among ministers, politicians, journalists and other opinion leaders in the community.
We’re looking now at what the future holds. I’m 89 and Susie, my wife, is not in good health. So we’re looking at new governance arrangements, a public company with outside directors so that we can continue Pearls and Irritations well into the future.
Pearls and Irritations publisher John Menadue . . . “I’m afraid some of [the mainstream media] are just incorrigible. They in fact act as stenographers to powerful interests.” Image: Independent AustralianML: So you made a real contribution through this and you’ve given the opportunity for so many expert, experienced, independent voices to commentate on public policy issues of great importance, not least vis-a-vis, might I say, mainstream media treatment of a lot of these issues.
This is one of your themes and motivations with Pearls and Irritations as a public policy journal, isn’t it? That our mainstream media perhaps don’t do the job they might do in covering significant issues of public policy?
JM: That’s our hope and intention, but I’m afraid some of them are just incorrigible. They in fact act as stenographers to powerful interests.
It’s quite a shame what mainstream media is serving up today, propaganda for the United States, so focused on America.Occasionally we get nonsense about the British royal family or some irrelevant feature like that.
But we’re very badly served. Our media shows very little interest in our own region. It is ignorant and prejudiced against China. It is not concerned about our relations with Indonesia, with the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam.
It’s all focused on the United States.We’re seeing it on an enormous scale now with the US elections. Even the ABC has a Planet America programme.
It’s so much focused on America as if we’re an island parked off New York. We are being Americanised in so many areas and particularly in our media.
ML: What has led to this state of affairs in the way that mainstream media treats major public policy issues these days? It hasn’t always been like that or has it?
JM: We’ve been a country that’s been frightened of our region, the countries where we have to make our future. And we’ve turned first to the United Kingdom as a protector. That ended in tears in Singapore.
And now we turn to the United States to look after us in this dangerous world, rather than making our own way as an independent country in our own region. That fear of our region, racism, white Australia, yellow peril all feature in Australia and in our media.
But when we had good, strong leaders, for example, Malcolm Fraser on refugees, he gave leadership and our role in the region.
Gough Whitlam did it also. If we have strong leadership, we can break from our focus on the United States at the expense of our own region. In the end, we’ve got to decide that as we live in this region, we’ve got to prosper in this region.
Security in our region, not from our region. We can do it, but I’m afraid that we’ve been retreating from Asia dreadfully over the last two or three decades. I thought when we had a Labor government, things would be different, but they’re not.
We are still frightened of our own region and embracing at every opportunity, the United States.
ML: Another theme of the many years of publishing Pearls and Irritations is that you are concerned to rebuild some degree of public confidence and trust that has been lost in the political system and that you seek to provide a platform for good policy discussion with the emphasis being on public policy. How has the public policy process been undermined or become so narrow minded if that’s one way of describing it?
JM: Contracting out work to private contractors, the big four accounting firms, getting advice, and not trusting the public service has meant that the quality of our public service has declined considerably. That has to be rebuilt so we get better policy development.
Ministers have been responsible, particularly Scott Morrison, for downgrading the public service and believing somehow or other that better advice can be obtained in the private sector.
Another factor has been the enormous growth in the power of lobbyists for corporate Australia and for foreign companies as well. Ministers have become beholden to pressure from powerful lobby groups.
One particular example, with which I’m quite familiar is in the health field. We are never likely to have real improvements in Medicare, for example, unless the government is prepared to take on the power of lobbyists — the providers, the doctors, the pharmaceutical companies and pharmacies in Australia.
But it’s not just in health where lobbyists are causing so much damage. The power of lobbyists has discredited the role of governments that are seduced by powerful interests rather than serving the community.
The media have just entrenched this problem. Governments are criticised at every opportunity. Australia can be served by the media taking a more positive view about the importance of good policy development and not getting sidetracked all the time about some trivial personal political issue.
The media publish the handouts of the lobbyists, whether it’s the health industry or whether it’s in the fossil fuel industries. These are the main factors that have contributed to the lack of confidence and the lack of trust in good government in Australia.
ML: A particular editorial focus that’s evident in Pearls and Irritations is promoting, I think in your words, a peaceful dialogue and engagement with China. Why is this required and why do you put it forward as a particularly important part of what you see as the mission of your Pearls and Irritations public policy journal?
JM; China, is our largest market and will continue to be so. There is a very jaundiced view, particularly from the United States, which we then copy, that China is a great threat. It’s not a threat to Australia and it’s not a threat to the United States homeland.
But it is to a degree a threat, a competitive threat to the United States in economy and trade. America didn’t worry about China when it was poor, but now that it’s strong militarily, economically and in technology, America is very concerned and feels that its future, its own leadership, its hegemony in the world is being contested.
Unfortunately, Australia has allowed itself to be drawn into the American contest with China. It’s one provocation after another. If it’s not within China itself, it’s on Taiwan, human rights in Hong Kong. Every opportunity is found by the United States to provoke China, if possible, and lead it into war.
I think, frankly, China will be more careful than that.
China’s problem is that it’s successful. And that’s what America cannot accept. By comparison, China does not make the military threat to other countries that the United States presents.
America is the most violent, aggressive country in the world. The greatest threat to peace in the world is the United States and we’re seeing that particularly now expressed in Israel and in Gaza.
But there’s a history. America’s almost always at war and has been since its independence in 1776. By contrast, China doesn’t have that sort of record and history. It is certainly concerned about security on its borders, and it has borders with 14 countries.
But it doesn’t project its power like the US. It doesn’t bomb other countries like the United States. It doesn’t have military bases surrounding the United States.
The United States has about 800 bases around the world. It’s not surprising that China feels threatened by what the United States is doing. And until the United States comes to a sensible, realistic view about China and deals with it politically, I think they’re going to make continual problems for us.
We have this dichotomy that China is our major trading partner but it’s seen by many as a strategic threat. I think that is a mistake.
ML: But what about your views about the public policy process underlying Australia’s policy in reaching the positions that we’re taking vis-a-vis China?
JM: There are several reasons for it, but I think the major one is that Australian governments, the previous government and now this one, takes the advice of intelligence agencies rather than the Department of Foreign Affairs.
Our intelligence agencies are part of Five Eyes. Of the international intelligence which comes to Australian agencies, 90 percent comes from the CIA and related US intelligence agencies. So in effect we’ve had the colonisation of our intelligence agencies and they’re the ones that the Australian government listens to.
Very senior people in those agencies have direct access to the Prime Minister. He listens to them rather than to Penny Wong or the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. On most public issues involving China, the Department of Foreign Affairs has become a wallflower.
It’s a great tragedy because so much of our future in the region depends on good diplomacy with China, with the ASEAN, with the countries of our region.
Those intelligence agencies in Australia, together with American funded, military funded organisations such as the Australian Strategic Policy Institute have the ear of governments. They’ve also got the ear of the media.
Stories are leaked to the media all the time from those agencies in order to heighten our fear of the region. The Americanisation of Australia is widespread. But our intelligence agencies have been Americanised as well, and they’re leading us down a very dangerous path.
ML: I’m speaking with our guest today on Reno Northern Beaches Community Voices and on the Pearls and Irritations podcast with the publisher of Pearls and Irritations Public Policy Journal, John Menadue, distinguished Australian public servant and businessman.
John, again, it’s one thing to talk about that, but governments, when they change, and we’ve had a change of government recently, very often, as I’m sure you know from personal experience, have the opportunity and do indeed change their advisors and adopt different policies, and one might have expected this to happen.
Why didn’t we see a change of the guard like we saw a change of government?
JM: I think this government is timid on almost everything. It was timid from day one on administrative arrangements, departmental arrangements, heads of departments.
For example, there was no change made to dismantle the Department of Home Affairs with Michael Pezzullo. That should have happened on day one, but it didn’t happen.
Concerns we’ve had in migration, the role of foreign affairs and intelligence with all those intelligence agencies gathered together in one department has been very bad for Australia.
Very few changes were made in the leadership of our intelligence agencies, the Office of National Assessments, in ASIO. The same advice has been continued. In almost every area you can look at, the government has been timid, unprepared to take on vested interests, lobbyists, and change departments to make them more attuned to what the government wants to do.
But the government doesn’t want to upset anyone. And as a result, we’re having a continuation of badly informed ministers and departments that have really not been effectively changed to meet the requirements and needs of, what I thought was a reforming government.
ML: In that context, AUKUS and the nuclear submarine deal might be perhaps a case in point of the broader issues and points you’re making. How would you characterise the nature of the public policy process and decision behind AUKUS? How were the decisions made and in what manner?
JM: By political appointees and confidants of Morrison. There’s been no public discussion. There’s been no public statement by Morrison or by Albanese about AUKUS — its history, why we’re doing it.
It’s been left to briefings of journalists and others. I think it’s disgraceful what’s happened in that area. It’s time the Australian government spelled out to us what it all means, but it’s not going to do it. Because I believe the case is so threadbare that it’s not game to put it to the public test.
And so we’re continuing in this ludicrous arrangement, this fiscal calamity, which Morrison inflicted on the Albanese government which it hasn’t been game to contest.
My own view is that frankly, AUKUS will never happen. It is so absurd — the delay, the cost, the failure of submarine construction or the delays in the United States, the problems of the submarine construction and maintenance in the United Kingdom.
For all those sorts of reasons, I don’t think it’ll really happen. Unfortunately, we’re going to waste a lot of money and a lot of time. I don’t think the Department of Defence could run any major project, certainly not a project like this.
Defence has been unsuccessful in the frigate and numerous other programmes. Our Department of Defence really is not up to the job and that among other reasons gives me reason to believe, and hope frankly, that AUKUS will collapse under its own stupidity.
But what I think is of more concern is the real estate, which we are freely leasing to the Americans. We had it first with the Marines in Darwin. We have it also coming now with US B-52 aircraft based out of Tindal in the Northern Territory and the submarine base in Perth, Western Australia.
These bases are being made available to the United States with very little control by Australia. The government carries on with nonsense about how our sovereignty will be protected.
In fact, it won’t be protected. If there’s any difficulties, for example, over a war with China over Taiwan, and the Americans are involved, there is no way Americans will consult with us about whether they can use nuclear armed vessels out of Tindal, for example.
The Americans will insist that Pine Gap continues to operate. So we are locked in through ceding so much of our real estate and the sovereignty that goes with it.
Penny Wong has been asked about American aircraft out of Tindal, carrying nuclear weapons and she says to us, sorry but the Americans won’t confirm or deny what they do.
Good heavens, this is our territory. This is our sovereignty. And we won’t even ask the Americans operating out of Tindal, whether they’re carrying nuclear weapons.
Back in the days of Malcolm Fraser, he made a statement to the Parliament insisting that no vessels or aircraft carrying nuclear weapons or ships carrying nuclear weapons could access Australian ports or operate over Australia without the permission of the Australian government.
And now Penny Wong says, we won’t ask. You can do what you like. We know the US won’t confirm or deny.
When it came to the Solomon Islands, a treaty that the Solomons negotiated with China on strategic and defence matters, Penny Wong was very upset about this secret agreement. There should be transparency, she warned.
But that’s small fry, compared with the fact that the Australian government will allow United States aircraft to operate out of Tindal without the Australian government knowing whether they are carrying nuclear weapons. I think that’s outrageous.
ML: Notwithstanding many of the very technical and economic and other discussions around the nuclear submarine’s acquisition, it does seem that politically, at least, and not least from the media presentation of our policy position that we’re very clearly signing up with our US allies against contingency attacks on Taiwan that we would be committed to take a part in and we’re also moving very closely, to well the phrase is interoperability, with the US forces and equipment but also personnel too.
You mentioned earlier, intelligence personnel and I believe there’s a lot of US personnel in the Department of Defence too?
JM: That’s right. It’s just another example of Americanisation which is reflected in our intelligence agencies, Department of Defence, interchangeability of our military forces, the fusion of our military or particularly our Navy with the United States. It’s all becoming one fused enterprise with the United States.
And in any difficulties, we would not be able, as far as I can see, to disengage from what the United States is doing. And we would be particularly vulnerable because of the AUKUS submarines. That’s if they ever come to anything. Because the AUKUS submarines, we are told, would operate off the Chinese coast to attack Chinese submarines or somehow provide intelligence for the Americans and for us.
These submarines will not be nuclear armed, which means that in the event of a conflict, we would have no bargaining or no counter to China. We’d be the weak link in the alliance with the United States.
China will not be prepared to strike the mainland United States for fear of massive retaliation. We are the weak link with Pine Gap and other real estate that I mentioned. We would be making ourselves much more vulnerable by this association with the United States.
Those AUKUS submarines will provide no deterrence for us, but make us more vulnerable if a conflict arises in which we are effectively part of the US military operation.
ML: How would you characterise the mainstream media’s presentation and treatment of these issues?
JM: The mainstream media is very largely a mouthpiece for Washington propaganda. And that American propaganda is pushed out through the legacy media, The Washington Post, The New York Times, the news agencies, Fox News which in turn are influenced by the military/ business complex which Eisenhower warned us about years ago.
The power of those groups with the CIA and the influence that they have, means that they overwhelm our media. That’s reflected particularly in The Australian and News Corporation publications.
I don’t know how some of those journalists can hold their heads. They’ve been on the drip feed of America for so long. They cannot see a world that is not dominated and led by the United States.
I’m hoping that over time, Pearls and Irritations and other independent media will grow and provide a more balanced view about Australia’s role in our region and in our own development.
We need to keep good relations with the United States. They’re an important player, but I think that we are unnecessarily risking our future by throwing our lot almost entirely in with the United States.
Minister for Defence, Richard Marles is leading the Americanisation of our military. I think Penny Wong is to some extent trying to pull him back. But unfortunately so much of the leadership of Australia in defence, in the media, is part and parcel of the mistaken United States view of the world.
ML: What sort of voices are we not hearing in the media or in Australia on this question?
JM: It’s not going to change, Michael. I can’t see it changing with Lachlan Murdoch in charge. I think it’s getting worse, if possible, within News Corporation. It’s a very, very difficult and desperate situation where we’re being served so poorly.
ML: Is there a strong independent media and potential for voices through independent media in Australia?
JM: No, we haven’t got one. The best hope at the side, of course, is the ABC and SBS public broadcasters, but they’ve been seduced as well by all things American.
We’ve seen that particularly in recent months over the conflict in Gaza. The ABC and SBS heavily favour Israel. It is shameful.
They’re still the best hope of the side, but they need more money. They’re getting a little bit more from the government, but I think they are sadly lacking in leadership and proper understanding of what the role of a public broadcaster should be.
I don’t think there’s a quick answer to any of this. And I hope that we can extricate ourselves without too much damage in the future. Our media has a great responsibility and must be held responsible for the damage that it is causing in Australia.
ML: Well, look, thank you very much, John Menadue, for joining us on Radio Northern Beaches and on the Pearls and Irritations podcast. John Menadue, publisher, founder, editor-in-chief of, for the last 13 years, the public policy journal Pearls and Irritations. We’ve been discussing the role of the mainstream media, independent media, in the public policy processes too in Australia, and particularly in the context of international relations and in this case our relationships with the US and China.
Thank you so much John for taking the time and for sharing your thoughts with us here today. Thanks for joining us John.
JM: Thank you. Let’s hope for better days.
John Menadue, founder and publisher of Pearls and Irritations public policy journal has had a senior professional career in the media, public service and airlines. In 1985, he was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for public service. In 2009, he received the Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Adelaide in recognition of his significant and lifelong contribution to Australian society. This transcript of the Pearls and Irritations podcast on 10 August 2024 is republished with permission.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with Myanmar ruler Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing on Wednesday and highlighted Beijing’s continued support for the military regime, even as the junta had to dispel rumors of a coup.
Pro-junta media reported that the two men held a closed-door meeting in the capital Naypyidaw during which Wang expressed China’s hope for Myanmar’s stability and development, expressed appreciation for Myanmar’s continued endorsement of China’s claim to sovereignty over the democratic island of Taiwan, and pledged China’s steadfast support in international forums.
The meeting came amid calls from junta supporters for the removal of Min Aung Hlaing over his failure to eliminate the armed opposition and rumors circulating on social media that he had been deposed by a fellow general, which the military regime’s True News Information Team denied.
During Wednesday’s talks, Wang emphasized the need for all stakeholders to be represented in an election that the junta has promised for next year, but which critics say will be an illegitimate sham. Wang also offered China’s assistance with election-related matters and technical support for a census in preparation for the vote, media reports said.
Myanmar’s military ousted an elected government led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi in early 2021, jailing her and hundreds of party colleagues and supporters, dissolving her party and banning other parties.
The coup touched off a nationwide civil war as the junta sought to cement its control, pitting it against various paramilitary groups and ethnic armies on multiple fronts in the country’s remote border regions. The junta has promised to hold elections but critics say a vote would be meaningless with Suu Kyi and so many pro-democracy politicians and activists behind bars.
At Wednesday’s meeting, Wang expressed Beijing’s opposition to attacks by ethnic armed groups on towns and villages in northern Shan state, which borders China.
Junta officials responded by saying that Myanmar would not permit any actions that could harm China’s interests and is placing special attention on China’s stability, development and security, reports said.
Beijing has not released any information regarding the meeting or discussions with the junta and details of Wang’s statement were not carried by pro-junta media.
‘Push for broad dialogue’
Speaking to RFA Burmese, Kyaw Zaw, the spokesperson for the presidential office of Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government, or NUG, suggested that “China’s statements were misrepresented by the junta” to align with its interests and stabilize the border region.
“The Chinese Embassy has also issued a statement [ahead of the meeting],” he said. “Their primary concern seems to be the border areas of Shan state and aiming to halt the fighting in Myanmar – particularly due to fears about the impact on their own border regions.”
Attempts by RFA to contact junta spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun for his response to the NUG’s claims went unanswered Wednesday.
In this Kokang online media provided photo, fighters of Three Brotherhood Alliance check an artillery gun, claimed to have been seized from Myanmar junta outpost on a hill in Hsenwi township, Shan state on Nov. 24, 2023. (The Kokang online media via AP)
Hla Kyaw Zaw, an expert on China-Myanmar affairs, said that Wang met with Min Aung Hlaing as part of a bid by the Chinese government to “maintain a positive relationship” with the junta.
“The situation [in northern Shan state] won’t be resolved by a ceasefire alone,” he said. “There is a push for a broad dialogue that includes all stakeholders involved in the Myanmar issue to find a comprehensive solution. But the junta appears to be displeased with this approach.”
RFA sources in Naypyidaw said that Wang Yi’s visit to Myanmar was also scheduled to include meetings with retired Senior Gen. Than Shwe and former President Thein Sein, who led Myanmar’s quasi-civilian government prior to the November 2020 elections that brought Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party to power.
Wang Yi’s meeting with Min Aung Hlaing follows talks he held in June with Myanmar’s former President Thein Sein at the State Guesthouse in Beijing. The Chinese foreign minister’s visit to Myanmar is his second since the military coup, following one in June 2022.
Rumors of coup
The talks in Naypyidaw came amid rumors swirling on social media that Min Aung Hlaing had been detained as part of an internal coup orchestrated by a military adjutant general on Tuesday evening.
The claims, which originated from a social media account called “Captain Seagull,” were quickly dismissed by the junta’s True News Information Team as “baseless rumors spread by fake accounts aimed at destabilizing the country.”
The information team also said that military officials, including Min Aung Hlaing, were continuing to perform their duties as usual.
A former military officer, speaking anonymously due to security concerns, told RFA that the disinformation is part of a broader effort to create social and political instability in Myanmar.
“The notion of a military disintegration due to an internal coup is creating false hope among the public,” he said. “In reality, the political situation remains stagnant. The military, having been built up over decades, cannot be expected to collapse in just three years.”
The rumors come amid frustration from junta supporters over Min Aung Hlaing’s handling of the conflict, which has seen the armed opposition make substantial gains in recent months.
Market shelled
Myanmar’s military has increasingly turned to airstrikes and artillery fire as its troops suffer battlefield defeats, often with deadly results for the country’s civilian population.
During busy hours on Tuesday, at least 11 civilians were killed and 10 others injured when junta troops in Sagaing region’s Monywa township fired a 60-millimeter rocket that landed in a market in Hta Naung Taw village, residents told RFA.
Those killed in the attack included eight women and three men, aged 14 to 50, they said.
A woman who was at the market and witnessed the attack told RFA that it occurred at around 9:00 a.m.
“We heard the explosion followed by huge smoke, and everyone started running, while others stood as if in a daze,” said the woman, who also declined to be named for fear of reprisal.
A local woman was injured by an artillery shell in Hta Naung Taw (South) village of Monywa township, Sagaing region, Aug. 13, 2024. (@MomywaAMyintRoadInformation via Telegram)
Residents no longer dare to sleep in their homes, fearing more artillery attacks, and have taken shelter in concrete bunkers and nearby monasteries, she said.
A member of the armed opposition in Monywa township told RFA that junta troops used to exclusively fire heavy weapons at military positions, but have begun targeting civilians as well.
“Recently, they began intentionally targeting busy areas with tea shops, betel shops, markets, and so on,” he said.
On Sunday, an artillery shell fired from the military’s Ma Au village checkpoint exploded in front of a betel shop near Lin Poe and Lin Pin villages, killing two 40-year-old female pedestrians and injuring nine others.
Attempts by RFA to reach Nyunt Win Aung, the junta’s social affairs minister and spokesperson for Sagaing region, by phone for comment on the attacks went unanswered Wednesday.
According to data collected by RFA, as of the end of May, military airstrikes and artillery fire have killed 596 civilians and injured 823 others in Sagaing region.
Translated by Kalyar Lwin and Aung Naing. Edited by Joshua Lipes.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Burmese.
A lawyer who blew the whistle on a grisly nationwide trade in stolen and dismembered corpses has been removed from his position as director of a Beijing law firm, RFA has learned.
Yi Shenghua, who until Wednesday morning local time was listed as a director of the Beijing Yongzhe Law Firm, sparked a social media storm after he revealed the grisly details of a body-snatching scheme in which dead bodies and body parts were sold off to biotech institutions to be harvested for dental bone grafts without relatives’ knowledge or consent.
Investigators from the Ministry of Public Security are investigating reports that Shanxi Aurui Biomaterials had been involved in trading thousands of dead bodies or body parts, on suspicion that the company engaged in “theft of, insult to, or intentional destruction of human remains,” according to multiple news reports that followed up on Yi’s posts.
Yi had alleged that bodies were being sent to the company from funeral homes across Shanxi, Sichuan and Guangxi provinces, with thousands of bodies in Sichuan alone, and more than 70 families seeking redress.
Their bones were being used to create dental bone implants, and relatives couldn’t be sure the ashes they were receiving were indeed the complete remains of their loved ones, he wrote, quoting a fellow lawyer.
Later, after being warned off going public by officials from the Beijing Municipal Judicial Affairs, he posted: “I am willing to pay the price to expose this enraging truth.”
In an Aug. 13 official announcement, the Bureau said Yi would step down from his position as director of Beijing Yongzhe, which he founded. The firm didn’t immediately update its website, however, and Yi was still listed as a director on Wednesday morning.
Beijing lawyer Yi Shenghua is earlier shown as a director of the Beijing Yongzhe Law Firm (above), and is later replaced by Li Yinghong (below) on Aug. 14. (Beijing Yongzhe Law Firm website)
An employee who answered the phone at Beijing Yongzhe on Wednesday appeared to confirm the move when contacted by RFA Mandarin.
“Li Yinghong is now the director recognized by the Judicial Affairs Bureau,” the employee said, before handing the phone to a colleague.
Asked why Yi’s name was still listed on the firm’s website, the second colleague said: “The Bureau of Judicial Affairs’ version will definitely be more accurate than ours.”
Soon afterward, Yi’s listing as director was removed from the firm’s website, and Li Yinghong’s name appeared in its place.
‘Anyone who dares to expose’
A Beijing-based lawyer who gave only the pseudonym Wang for fear of reprisals said Yi’s ouster was definitely linked to his whistle-blowing over the body-snatching case.
“The Beijing Municipal Judicial Affairs Bureau has a deputy director of the lawyers’ work guidance department called Zhu Yuzhu who has been behind the punishment of many lawyers and law firms in the past,” Wang said. “He was the architect of the July 9, 2015, political crackdown [on rights lawyers].”
“Now, it’s Yi Shenghua’s turn,” he said. “Yi’s exposure of the theft and sale of human bones was a meaningful act for society, but … he is being punished by the Beijing Municipal Judicial Affairs Bureau.”
Another lawyer who gave only the pseudonym Tan for fear of reprisals said Yi’s sacking highlights how little freedom of speech there is in China.
“It’s not just Yi Shenghua; journalists who exposed the gutter oil scandal were also persecuted back then,” Tan said. “Anyone who dares to expose the dark side [of Chinese society] will be attacked and retaliated against.”
Chinese censors have moved in tandem with the sacking of Yi Shenghua to minimize public discussion of the scandal.
All of Yi’s Weibo posts about the body-snatching case have since been removed from the social media platform Weibo, along with much of the content and comment on the case.
According to an in-depth follow-up from official media outlet The Paper that has since been deleted, the Taiyuan Public Security Bureau in the northern province of Shanxi sent the results of an investigation into the illegal sale of corpses to the state prosecutor for review and prosecution in May.
Shanxi Aorui stands accused of “illegally purchasing human remains and body parts from Sichuan, Guangxi, Shandong and other places for processing into bone grafts worth 380 million yuan (US$53 million) between January 2015 and July 2023,” The Paper said.
It said police had seized “more than 18 tonnes of human bones” and more than 34,000 articles of finished product from the company, and that one suspect identified only by his surname Su had arranged for more than 4,000 human remains to be stolen from four funeral homes in Yunnan, Chongqing, Guizhou and Sichuan between 2017 and 2019.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Huang Chun-mei for RFA Mandarin.
China has “destroyed” a large network of Taiwanese spies in the mainland and uncovered more than 1,000 espionage cases undertaken by Taiwan, China’s security ministry said as it vowed to fight “separatism.”
“The cases involved espionage activities and leaking state secrets,” said the Ministry of State Security, China’s counterintelligence agency, in a post on its official WeChat account.
The ministry cited the case of Taiwanese citizen Yang Zhiyuan, who was arrested in 2022.
“His arrest dealt a serious blow to pro-independence separatist forces and had a strong deterrent effect,” the ministry said in its post on Tuesday, calling Yang a “Taiwan independence” leader.
Yang was detained in August 2022 in Wenzhou, Zhejiang province, on suspicion of engaging in “separatist activities” and endangering China’s national security.
He was reportedly handed over to prosecutors in April the following year and is now facing trial in a Chinese court.
“We will resolutely fight against Taiwanese separatism and espionage,” the ministry said, adding that it would destroy any attempt to seek Taiwanese independence.
Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council, which is responsible for cross-strait affairs, said in response to a query from RFA Mandarin that the announcement by the Chinese security department illustrated its use of “vague and unclear laws” to detain people from Taiwan who do not conform with the political ideology of China’s ruling Communist Party.
The arrests also hindered a healthy interaction between the two sides, the council said, while reiterating its advice to Taiwan people to carefully consider the necessity of traveling to the mainland.
The Chinese ministry also lashed out at Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party authorities, warning that “those who are willing to work with them will be shattered under the wheels of history.”
China regards Taiwan as a renegade province that should be reunited with the mainland, by force if necessary. The democratic island has been self-governing since it effectively separated from mainland China in 1949 after the Chinese civil war.
China has dialed up diplomatic and economic pressure on the island since former president Tsai Ing-wen’s administration came to power in 2016.Tsai and her party refuse to acknowledge that Taiwan and the mainland belong to “One China.”
President Lai Ching-te, who is also a DPP member who came to power after a January election, is also viewed with suspicion by China’s Communist Party.
There have been several other cases in recent years of people from Taiwan who have been imprisoned in mainland China on espionage charges.
Researcher Cheng Yu-chin was jailed for seven years in prison in 2022 on espionage-related charges. He was a former aide to Taiwan’s former president Tsai.
Taiwanese activist Lee Ming-che was sentenced to five years in a mainland Chinese prison for subversion of the state before being released in 2022, while Taiwanese businessman Lee Meng-chu was jailed on espionage charges after being arrested in Shenzhen in 2019 for taking photos of armed police officers.
In June, China issued guidelines on criminal punishment for “diehard Taiwanese separatists,” who attempt or incite secession, with penalties up to death.
Chinese authorities also recently released a list of 10 “diehard Taiwanese separatists,” including Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim and former DPP chairman Su Tseng-chang.
Edited by Mike Firn.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Taejun Kang for RFA and RFA Mandarin.
Fiji’s Prime Minister, Sitiveni Rabuka, says he will “apologise” to fellow Melanesian leaders later this month after failing to secure agreement from Indonesia to visit its restive West Papua province.
At last year’s Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) leaders meeting in Cook Islands, the Melanesian Spearhead Group appointed Rabuka and PNG Prime Minister James Marape as the region’s “special envoys” on West Papua.
Several Pacific officials and advocacy groups have expressed anguish over alleged human rights abuses committed by Indonesian forces in West Papua, where an indigenous pro-independence struggle has simmered for decades.
Rabuka and Marape have been trying to organise a visit to West Papua for more than nine months now.
But in an exclusive interview with the ABC’s Pacific Beat, Rabuka said conversations on the trip were still “ongoing” and blamed Indonesia’s presidential elections in February for the delay.
“Unfortunately, we couldn’t go . . . Indonesia was going through elections. In two months’ time, they will have a new substantive president in place in the palace. Hopefully we can still move forward with that,” he said.
“But in the meantime, James Marape and I will have to apologise to our Melanesian counterparts on the side of the Forum Island leaders meeting in Tonga, and say we have not been able to go on that mission.”
Pacific pressing for independent visit
Pacific nations have been pressing Indonesia to allow representatives from the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to conduct an independent visit to Papua.
A UN Human Rights committee report released in May found there were “systematic reports” of both torture and extrajudicial killings of indigenous Papuans in the province.
But Indonesia usually rejects any criticism of its human rights record in West Papua, saying events in the province are a purely internal affair.
West Papua Resistance Leader, Victor Weimo: I must thank the colonialists for continuously teaching us to aspire to true humanity by means of rebellion. pic.twitter.com/h9n4rN9yyN
Rabuka said he was “still committed” to the visit and would like to make the trip after incoming Indonesian president Prabowo Subianto takes power in October.
The Fiji prime minister made the comments ahead of a 10-day trip to China, with Rabuka saying he would travel to a number of Chinese provinces to see how the emerging great power had pulled millions of people out of poverty.
He praised Beijing’s development record, but also indicated Fiji would not turn to China for loans or budget support.
“As we take our governments and peoples forward, the people themselves must understand that we cannot borrow to become embroiled in debt servicing later on,” he said.
“People must understand that we can only live within our means, and our means are determined by our own productivity, our own GDP.”
Rabuka is expected to meet Chinese president Xi Jinping in Beijing towards the end of his trip, at the beginning of next week.
Delegation to visit New Caledonia After his trip to China, the prime minister will take part in a high level Pacific delegation to Kanaky New Caledonia, which was rocked by widespread rioting and violence earlier this year.
While several Pacific nations have been pressing France to make fresh commitments towards decolonisation in the wake of a contentious final vote on independence back in 2021, Rabuka said the Pacific wanted to help different political groups within the territory to find common ground.
“We will just have to convince the leaders, the local group leaders that rebuilding is very difficult after a spate of violent activities and events,” he said.
Rabuka gave strong backing to a plan to overhaul Pacific policing which Australia has been pushing hard ahead of the PIF leaders meeting in Tonga at the end of this month.
Senior Solomon Islands official Collin Beck took to social media last week to publicly criticise the initiative, suggesting that its backers were trying to “steamroll” any opposition at Pacific regional meetings.
Rabuka said the social media post was “unfortunate” and suggested that Solomon Islands or other Pacific nations could simply opt out of the initiative if they didn’t approve of it.
“When it comes to sovereignty, it is a sovereign state that makes the decision,” he said.
Republished with permission from ABC Pacific Beat.
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
Countering UAS is a growing part of defence requirements, and industry is stepping up to the demand. The unmanned drone threat to the security of not only government and military operations and facilities but also to commercial, industrial, and public events has grown rapidly. Industries in the Asia-Pacific region, capitalising particularly on their expertise and […]
Countering UAS is a growing part of defence requirements, and industry is stepping up to the demand. The unmanned drone threat to the security of not only government and military operations and facilities but also to commercial, industrial, and public events has grown rapidly. Industries in the Asia-Pacific region, capitalising particularly on their expertise and […]
The chairman of Papua New Guinea’s national power provider has called for a faster U.S. and foreign donor roll-out of promised electricity infrastructure while saying there is absolutely no plan to sell critical grid assets to China.
At APEC’s Port Moresby meeting in 2018, the U.S, Australia, New Zealand and Japan pledged to fund new electricity infrastructure in the Pacific country with the goal of connecting 70% of PNG’s population by 2030.
The deal was announced against a backdrop of growing concern in Washington and Canberra about China’s inroads with Pacific island nations, especially as an economic partner.
But six years later, there is little to show in terms of electricity connectivity, according to analysts and industry insiders, with one donor admitting the “2030 target remains ambitious.”
“It could be faster, and there are a lot more discussions that need to be made between the parties,” Moses Maladina, the chairman of PNG Power, told RFA affiliate BenarNews on the sidelines of an investment conference in the Australian city of Brisbane.
Moses Maladina gestures in this photo posted to Facebook by PNG Power on March 8, 2022. (PNG Power/Facebook)
“There is room for improvement. We just have to work closely and make sure we achieve the target.”
Maladina, who is also the chairman of Kumul Consolidated Holdings, the government’s investment arm in state-owned infrastructure, ports, logistics and financial services, batted away reports that the power grid was for sale.
Australian broadcaster Channel 7 claimed last week that management from PNG Power had traveled to China seeking investment in its power grid, triggering a furious denial from Port Moresby which accused the station of inflaming geopolitical tensions.
Maladina said that legally and officially there had been no talks about any potential sale to Chinese investors.
“From a shareholders point of view, there has been no discussion on it and absolutely no interest on our part to sell our transmission lines or our distribution lines in any way,” he said.
Papua New Guinea is the most populous Pacific island country with an estimated 11.7 million people, but its economy is small, underdeveloped and plagued by infrastructure problems.
Only about 13% of the population is estimated to have access to electricity, and even then it is unreliable and confined primarily in urban areas, according to the Asian Development Bank.
In 2018, the Trump White House touted the Papua New Guinea Electrification Partnership (PEP) as a “principles-based, sustainable infrastructure development that is transparent” – in an apparent rebuke of what it frequently said was China’s secrecy-shrouded development financing to poor nations.
Papua New Guinea’s Prime Minister Peter O’Neill (center), flanked by the leaders of Australia, New Zealand, Japan and U.S. Vice President Mike Pence (far right), during the signing of a joint electricity deal at the APEC Summit in Port Moresby Nov. 18, 2018. (Reuters)
Australia committed A$25 million in the first year of the multi-year PEP project. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade did not provide figures on overall investment by the time of publication.
New Zealand has invested NZ$41 million (US$24.7 million) to date towards electrification in PNG under the partnership, including rural grid extension and renewable generation projects.
“The constraints to broad based grid connection in Papua New Guinea are significant, including geography, land ownership structures and the regulatory environment, so a 2030 target remains ambitious,” said a spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) launched a five-year US$57 million electrification program under the PEP in November 2020, but did not reply to a request for comment about its continued involvement.
Mihai Sora, director of the Pacific islands program at the Lowy Institute, said the partnership’s 2030 target was looking increasingly out of reach.
“The PEP was designed as a multi-party flagship development initiative that was intended to present an alternative to the BRI for PNG,” he told BenarNews, using the acronym for China’s globe-spanning infrastructure program, the Belt and Road Initiative.
“But progress has been slow, complicated by the deep governance challenges in PNG’s domestic power sector, the rugged geography of PNG, the difficulty of coordinating so many separate partners, and low capacity among domestic stakeholders in PNG.”
Sora said the strategic context during which the deal was signed in 2018 has become more pronounced today, as China vies for influence in PNG with the U.S. and its allies. However, it would be difficult for PNG to “pivot to China for the same kind of support in the power sector, given the work that is already underway on this project.”
PNG’s Minister for State Enterprises William Duma demanded an apology from Channel 7 over its report, calling it “ridiculous.” But the broadcaster said it stood by the story.
Duma’s demand was not the first time he has squared off with Australian media. He successfully sued the Australian Financial Review last year for defamation over claims that he acted corruptly in granting a petroleum license and won A$545,000 (US$340,000).
BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Harry Pearl for BenarNews.
From his own redoubt of critical inquiry, the former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating has made fighting the imperialising leprosy of the AUKUS security pact between Australia, the UK and the United States a matter of solemn duty.
In March 15, 2023, he excoriated a Canberra press gallery seduced and tantalised by the prospect of nuclear-powered submarines, calling the Albanese government’s complicit arrangements with the US and UK to acquire such a capability “the worst international decision by an Australian Labor government since the former Labor leader, Billy Hughes, sought to introduce conscription to augment Australian forces in World War one.”
His latest spray was launched in the aftermath of a touched-up AUKUS, much of it discussed in a letter by US President Joe Biden to the US House Speaker and President of the Senate. The revised agreement between the three powers for Cooperation Related to Naval Nuclear Propulsion is intended to supersede the November 22, 2021 agreement between the three powers on the Exchange of Naval Nuclear Propulsion Information (ENNPIA).
The new agreement permits “the continued communication and exchange of NNPI, including certain RD, and would also expand the cooperation between the governments by enabling the transfer of naval nuclear propulsion plants of conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarines, including component parts and spare parts thereof, and other related equipment.” The new arrangements will also permit the sale of special nuclear material in the welded power units, along with other relevant “material as needed for such naval propulsion plants.”
The contents of Biden’s letter irked Keating less than the spectacular show of servility shown by Australia’s Defence Minister Richard Marles, and Foreign Minister Penny Wong on their visit to Annapolis for the latest AUSMIN talks. In what has become a pattern of increasing subordination of Australian interests to the US Imperium, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken played happy hosts and must have been delighted by what they heard.
The details that emerged from the conversations held between the four – details which rendered Keating passionately apoplectic – can only make those wishing for an independent Australian defence policy weep. Words such as “Enhanced Force Posture Cooperation” were used to describe the intrusion of the US armed forces into every sphere of Australian defence: the domains of land, maritime, air, and space.
Ongoing infrastructure investments at such Royal Australian Air Force Bases as Darwin and Tindal continue to take place, not to bolster Australian defence but fortify the country as a US forward defensive position. To these can be added, as the Pentagon fact sheet reveals, “site surveys for potential upgrades at RAAF Bases Curtin, Learmonth, and Scherger.”
The degree of subservience Canberra affords is guaranteed by increased numbers of US personnel to take place in rotational deployments. These will include “frequent rotations of bombers, fighter aircraft, and Maritime Patrol and Reconnaissance Aircraft”. Secret arrangements have also been made involving the disposal of nuclear propulsion plants that will feature in Australia’s nuclear powered submarine fleet, though it is unclear how broad that commitment is.
The venomous icing on the cake – at least for AUKUS critics – comes in the form of an undisclosed “Understanding” that involves “additional related political commitments”. The Australian Greens spokesperson on Defence, Senator David Shoebridge, rightly wonders “what has to be kept secret from the Australian public? There are real concerns the secret understanding includes commitments binding us to the US in the event they go to war with China in return for getting nuclear submarines.”
Marles has been stumblingly unforthcoming in that regard. When asked what such “additional political commitments” were, he coldly replied that the agreement was “as we’ve done it.” The rest was “misinformation” being spread by detractors of the alliance.
It is precisely the nature of these undertakings, and what was made public at Annapolis, that paved the way for Keating’s hefty salvo on ABC’s 7.30. The slavishness of the whole affair had made Keating “cringe”. “This government has sold out to the United States. They’ve fallen for the dinner on the White House lawn.”
He proved unsparing about Washington’s intentions. “What AUKUS is about in the American mind is turning [Australia into suckers], locking us up for 40 years with American bases all around … not Australian bases.” It meant, quite simply, “in American terms, the military control of Australia. I mean, what’s happened … is likely to turn Australia into the 51st state of the United States.”
Having the US as an ally was itself problematic, largely because of its belligerent intentions. “If we didn’t have an aggressive ally like the United States – aggressive to others in the region – there’d be nobody attacking Australia. We are better left alone than we are being ‘protected’ by an aggressive power like the United States.”
As for what Australian obligations to the US entailed, the former PM was in little doubt. “What this is all about is the Chinese laying claim to Taiwan, and the Americans are going to say ‘no, no, we’re going to keep these Taiwanese people protected’, even though they’re sitting on Chinese real estate.” Were Australia to intervene, the picture would rapidly change: an initial confrontation between Beijing and Washington over the island would eventually lead to the realisation that catastrophic loss would simply not be worth it, leaving Australia “the ones who have done all the offence.”
As for Australia’s own means of self-defence against any adversary or enemy, Keating uttered the fundamental heresy long stomped on by the country’s political and intelligence establishment: Canberra could, if needed, go it alone. “Australia is capable of defending itself. There’s no way another state can invade a country like Australia with an armada of ships without it all failing.” Australia did not “need to be basically a pair of shoes hanging out of Americans’ backside.” With Keating’s savage rhetoric, and the possibility that AUKUS may collapse before the implosions of US domestic politics, improbable peace may break out.
One of China’s largest plant-based beverage companies, Viee, has received raised an undisclosed sum in private equity funding from L Catterton.
Sichuan Viee Beverage Food Co., which describes itself as the largest plant-based drinks maker in western China, has received an investment from L Catterton.
Viee makes plant-based dairy drinks from nuts and oats, which are intended to complement the spicy cuisine typical to its home regions of Sichuan and Chongqing. The details of the deal were not disclosed, but the financing will help the brand solidify its foothold in these areas.
L Catterton, which claims to be the world’s “largest and most experienced consumer-focused private equity group”, said its strategic investment will also help Viee grow its presence in adjacent provinces, and expand nationwide.
Spice-neutralising alt-dairy drinks bring commercial success for Viee
Courtesy: Viee
Viee was established in 1992 and has become a staple for locals in western China. Its signature portfolio of alt-milk beverages and drinkable yoghurts are made primarily from peanuts and walnuts and contain vitamin E and bifidus factor. Additionally, it has a line of oat and soy milk products in flavours like ginger, jasmine, osmanthus, pine nut, and sesame.
The company’s drinks have been classed as spice and grease “neutralisers” for spicy dishes characteristic of Sichuan and Chongqing. They’re available at over 550,000 points of sale in these regions, and their popularity has made Vie the “top-selling non-carbonated, non-alcoholic beverage brand” here, according to L Catterton.
Viee has leant on its additive- and preservative-free formulations to appeal to China’s increasingly health-conscious population, and has been rewarded with “best-in-class” repeat purchase rates in its home region, and higher traction in the nearby provinces of Shaanxi, Guizhou and Yunnan, the private equity firm said.
“By working together to solidify our lead in Sichuan and Chongqing, and further penetrate the market in adjacent provinces as well as the rest of China, we believe that we will be better able to enrich our target customers’ lives, providing them with tasty and nutritious beverages which they enjoy,” said Viee founder representative Yawen Guo.
Scott Chen, managing partner at L Catterton’s Asia fund, praised Viee’s “vertically integrated supply chain and wide network of distributors”. He added: “Earnings have been on a clear uptrend and hit a record high in 2023, attesting to consumers’ enduring demand for Viee through market cycles. The company has a proven management team and we look forward to working closely with it to unlock further value.”
Health high on the agenda in China’s food and beverage sector
Courtesy: Viee
The investment in Viee comes as health becomes the main focus for China’s consumers post-Covid, with the government prioritising more nutritious food products as part of its Healthy China policy.
A recent report by GlobalData found that low-calorie soft drinks grew by nearly 40% from 2022-23, as Chinese citizens look to healthier beverage options. “Amplified health awareness following the Covid-19 pandemic pushed more people towards healthier lifestyles and encouraged them to reduce their consumption of sugary beverages,” the report suggested.
Health is also the main driver of plant-based food consumption in China, with 46% of consumers saying so in a poll published in June. This was followed by nutrition (39%). The research revealed that 98% would eat more vegan food if they were told of its advantages, and among the top 10 benefit statements they agreed most with, seven were related to health.
Meanwhile, a 2023 report by Asymmetrics Research stated that plant-based milk brands are highlighting attributes like ‘no sugar/cholesterol/trans fat’, ‘good for brains/eyes’, and ‘high protein/calcium’ on product packaging, alongside cleaner labels.
L Catterton cited data indicating that China’s market for beverages consumed alongside food is expected to hit $60B by 2028, owing to a hike in dining out and the use of meal delivery services over at-home cooking. Non-alcoholic drinks are also encroaching upon alcohol’s share in foodservice, thanks to rising demand for healthier drinks and natural ingredients, especially among Gen Zers.
Responding to these trends, Nestlé recently introduced six new coffee lines in China, two of which were vegan ready-to-drink beverages and boast attributes like low sugar, low fat, and high fibre.
“L Catterton has a keen understanding of our industry and business,” said Guo. “We are impressed by the comprehensive value creation plan that the firm has devised for Viee and are excited about executing it in partnership with them.”
“I have to say there is widespread support for the membership of Guam and American Samoa, and so that is the recommendation in principle coming from foreign ministers that will be tabled with leaders,” he said.
However, Griffith Asia Institute’s Pacific Hub project lead Dr Tess Newton Cain said the move had a geopolitical aspect.
Forum foreign ministers gathered at the PIF Secretariat for its meeting on Friday. Image: Pacific Islands Forum
“When it comes to the Pacific Islands Forum, the US has struggled with the fact that it sits at the same table as China — they are both dialogue partners,” she said.
“It is like when you invite people to a wedding — the US does not like the table it is on.
US seeking ‘better table’
“It wants to be on a better table and being able to have two of its territories, American Samoa and Guam, get that associate membership — if that happens — does seem to indicate this is how they get a little bit of an edge on China.”
She expects the application to be accepted at the Leaders’ Meeting in Tonga at the end of the month.
Tokelau and Wallis and Futuna are currently the associate members of the Forum. American Samoa and Guam are currently forum observers; being upgraded to associate members will give them better participation in the regional institution.
Guam’s Governor Lou Leon Guerrero told RNZ Pacific last week the territory would ultimately want to be full voting members.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken had previously said the territories’ political status meant they could not be full members but he supported the application for associate membership.
French territories New Caledonia and French Polynesia became full members in 2016.
Newton Cain believes full membership for the two US territories would be a push.
French territories ‘justified’
But she said for the French territories it was “kind of justified” — New Caledonia was on the path to independence, while French Polynesia was re-inscribed to the United Nations list of non-self-governing territories (C-24 list).
“If Guam and American Samoa are not interested, or there is no kind of indication that they are moving towards being sovereign or even in a compact, like Marshall Islands and Palau and FSM, then that would be a big ask.”
Newton Cain thinks full membership would mean some member states would have concerns because it means Washington is getting closer to the decision making.
“There is also regional concern surrounding Guam’s military build-up. If the territory wanted to progress to full membership it may not be able to comply with the South Pacific Nuclear-Free Treaty,” Newton Cain said.
Architecture reform Brown said the Forum was undergoing a review of its architecture, including criteria for associate member status and observer status, which would likely see changes to associate membership applications.
“So, while [Guam and American Samoa] applications will be considered by leaders, and in this case, it looks favourably to be elevated to associate membership — the review of the regional architecture, as it pertains to associate membership, may see some changes,” he said.
Newton Cain said it was not clear what Brown meant.
“It would be a very bad look diplomatically if they were to allow them to become associate members and then in a couple of years say, ‘oh we have changed the rules now and you no longer qualify’.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
The producers of a Taiwanese TV show portraying the “worst-case scenario” of a Chinese invasion have hit back at political criticism, saying the show has no links to the Taiwanese government or ruling party, and that it merely forces people to talk about what everyone is avoiding — the fear of war.
The 17-minute trailer for “Zero Day” has sparked intense reactions in democratic Taiwan, with a prominent opposition politician accusing the ruling Democratic Progressive Party of funding the show to fuel a sense of threat ahead of the 2026 local elections.
Former opposition Kuomintang presidential hopeful Jaw Shau-kong hit out at the show soon after its official trailer was released in late July, garnering more than 2 million views across different platforms.
He pointed to a government subsidy for the show from the Ministry of Culture, accusing the ruling Democratic Progressive Party of funding “cognitive warfare” to shore up its national security platform at the next election.
Still shot from the set of the Zero Day trailer. (Courtesy Lo Ging-zim)
Yet showrunners say the show is simply a speculative dramatization of an event that many fear could take place in the near future — a Chinese invasion.
Producer and screenwriter Cheng Hsin-mei told RFA Mandarin in a recent interview that none of the show’s creators have ties to the ruling Democratic Progressive Party or to the current administration.
Instead, show-runners consulted with military experts and Puma Shen, a specialist in information warfare who later went on to become a DPP member of the democratic island’s Legislative Yuan, she said.
Bank run and social unrest
In the official trailer released July 23, Chinese helicopters overfly the presidential palace in Taipei as China’s People’s Liberation Army blockades Taiwan on the pretext of a search and rescue operation for a downed aircraft.
Reports emerge on social media of a Chinese landing on Taiwan’s Kinmen island, amid rumors that the democratically elected president has left town, as some journalists hesitate to call the invasion what it is.
Social media influencers spread the idea that the island is unable to defend itself, and had better sign a peace agreement with China as soon as possible.
The next day, there’s a run on the banks, sparking social unrest as foreign nationals evacuate and hackers disrupt internet access along with critical power and water supplies. Pro-Beijing activists take to the streets to call for surrender and “unification” with China.
It’s a gradually evolving nightmare scenario likened by one character to “a zombie movie” that sees the foundations of Taiwan’s democracy shaken and undermined in just a few days.
The scenes have sparked intense debate in Taiwan, where a nascent civil defense movement is beginning to take root.
Producer and screenwriter Cheng Hsin-mei (fourth from left) and trailer director Lo Ging-zim (fourth from right). (Zero Day Creative)
“Some people said that after watching it, horror movies didn’t seem scary any more,” Cheng said. “Some people said they wanted to protect Taiwan, while others said it was overly exaggerated, and defeatist.”
“The show addresses that dark shadow of war that looms in the minds of the Taiwanese people,” she said. “No one can deny that Taiwan is a place where war is likely to break out, nor that a war would destroy the familiar lifestyle Taiwanese people enjoy. This should be the consensus of all Taiwanese people.”
“It is war, not this script, that will shake the foundations of our country and destroy Taiwan.”
‘Human nature in wartime’
Cheng started work on the storyline in the second half of 2022, just months after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine met with stronger-than-expected military resistance.
“I’ve always felt that the most important thing we don’t talk about, and we should talk about, is the fear of war,” Cheng said. “Taiwan has faced threats from across the Strait since 1949, and the topic has become more urgent with the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war.”
The show will offer 10 episodes by 10 different directors with plotlines showing the different paths taken by characters as their once-comfortable world is changed forever. The episodes portray political intrigue, media infiltration, internet celebrities and AI deep fakes, with nods to the supernatural, horror, comedy and other genres.
Zero Day producer and screenwriter Cheng Hsin-mei. (Zero Day Creative)
But overall, the show tries not to take a particular point of view, according to Cheng.
“The point isn’t to promote resistance or surrender,” Cheng said. “It’s to focus on human nature in wartime.”
She is personally skeptical that all of the island’s 23 million residents would follow the call to arms in the event of an invasion by Chinese forces.
“Most people will make the choice that’s in their best interests and those of their loved ones,” she said. “Most people’s first instinct will be to leave.”
“But when you think about it, it’s also not that simple. Can an entire family and their friends all leave together? Will they have to give up their entire way of life forever?”
Realistic depictions
Cheng added: “This drama is actually about opposing war, alerting people to the horror of war, so as to prevent it.”
Cheng cited recent media reports claiming that Taiwanese are indifferent to frequent military incursions by China in recent years, adding: “Some foreign journalists … are finding that the Taiwanese are just feigning indifference, and avoiding talking about it out of a sense of helplessness, the feeling that if they really did attack, there would be nothing they could do about it.”
The show is based on predictions from analysts that the most likely time for China to invade would be during the transition between presidents, in the four-month window between late January elections and the new president’s inauguration in May.
Lo Ging-zim, who made the 17-minute trailer and who directs one of Zero Day’s episodes, is a former director of Chinese TV commercials who shot a campaign documentary about ruling Democratic Progressive Party President Lai Ching-te and his running mate Hsiao Bi-khim.
The set of the Zero Day trailer. (Courtesy Lo Ging-zim)
He said the show has tried to keep its depictions as realistic as possible, and show how Chinese infiltration today could tip the balance in a future invasion, by preparing a “fifth column” of agents and supporters of the Chinese state.
“It’s not about sensationalism,” Lo said. “Removing those factors will give us a chance to see China’s red infiltration and gray-zone warfare against Taiwan — something everyone really needs to understand and help with.”
“It’s quite similar to a military exercise, where you have to imagine the worst-case scenarios,” he said, adding that if the show shocks people into being more vigilant, it will have been worth it.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Hsia Hsiao-hwa for RFA Mandarin.
An insurgent group fighting the Myanmar military has captured a northeastern town on a main road to China, seizing the last junta military bases after weeks of fighting, a senior official of the rebel group said on Tuesday.
The Ta’ang National Liberation Army, or TNLA, is a member of the Three Brotherhood Alliance, which is battling the junta that seized power in a 2021 coup across Shan state.
The group captured the headquarters of two junta battalions and the Operation Command Headquarters No. 1 in Kyaukme, a town on the road between the cities of Mandalay and Lashio on Monday, the TNLA official who wished to remain anonymous told Radio Free Asia.
He said the TNLA now had complete control of Kyaukme.
RFA tried to contact Shan state’s junta spokesperson, Khun Thein Maung, to ask about the situation in Kyaukme but he did not respond by the time of publication.
If confirmed, the capture of Kyaukme by the TNLA would be another major setback for the forces of the junta, coming just days after another member of the insurgent alliance captured the headquarters of the military’s Northeast Regional Command in Lashio.
Lashio is about half-way between Myanmar’s second city of Mandalay and the Chinese border.
A Kyaukme resident who witnessed the fighting confirmed that the TNLA had captured the junta’s positions that were defended by trenches, bunkers and mine fields.
“The junta dug trenches around all of the bases, including their Operation Command Headquarters, and built concrete bunkers everywhere,” said the resident, who declined to be identified, in fear of reprisals.
TNLA fighters had used drones to drop bombs on the junta’s defenses, the resident said.
“The whole hill has been turned into a bunker. The TNLA troops had to first clear mines slowly and the junta had the upper hand.”
Neither the TNLA nor the junta released estimates of casualty figures.
Kyaukme residents said junta forces had fled to a position about 6 km (4 miles) away.
While some civilians who had fled earlier were returning to their homes, others were staying away in fear of junta airstrikes, said another resident. Junta forces have launched numerous airstrikes in Shan state and elsewhere, inflicting a heavy toll on civilians.
“We can’t hear any shooting and the TNLA have been securing the area,” the resident said. “The morning market is even operating normally. The only thing people are worried about is airstrikes. Everyone is afraid, the whole country is afraid of planes.”
The Three Brotherhood Alliance launched the second round of an offensive begun late last year, codenamed Operation 1027, in June after two China-brokered ceasefires between the junta and rebel groups broke down.
Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Burmese.
How much do left brain pathologies have to do with culture and geography?
Recently I was interviewed by Jeff J. Brown on China Rising about an article I wrote titled “The Dark Side of Left-Brain Operations”. During the interview, I contrasted the differences between the functions the left and the right sides of the brain. As we went through this, Jeff commented on how the characteristics of the right side of the brain corresponded to Chinese culture and how the characteristics of the left side of the brain seemed to be an expression of European-Yankee culture. A big part of my article discussed how there is a power struggle between the left and the right sides of the brain. Psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist pointed out that when the left side of the brain gets out of control, the result is the dark side of cultural institutions like the Reformation, the Enlightenment and industrial capitalism.
At the end of my interview I pointed out that McGilchrist, author of The Master and His Emissary, did not explain why the left brain running amuck was not the characteristic of Far Eastern countries like China, Japan or Korea. In other words, if when the left brain gets out of control if it was strictly a biological or psychological process, we would expect to find it happening in all cultures all over the world including South America and Africa. But we don’t. It is only Western. This new article attempts to provide a materialist explanation for these differences based on the book The Geography of Thought by Richard Nisbett for why Easterners and Westerners think differently.
Some provocative questions
Why would the ancient Chinese excel at algebra and arithmetic but not geometry (as the Greeks)? Why do modern Asians do very well at math and science but produce less in the way of revolutionary science compared to Westerners? As Nisbett says:
Chinese civilization is remarkable because Chinese civilization far outdistanced Greek civilization technologically in ink, porcelain, magnetic compass, stirrups and wheelbarrow, pound locks on canals, sternpost rudder, quantitative cartography, immunization techniques, astronomical observations of novae, seismographs and acoustics.
Why are East Asians able to see relationships between events better than the West but find it more difficult to disentangle an object from its surroundings? Why are Easterners more susceptible to the hindsight bias such as ‘they knew it all along’? Why do Western infants learn nouns at a much more rapid rate than verbs?Why do Easterners learn verbs at a more rapid rate? Why are Easterners so willing to entertain apparent contradictions? Why are Westerners more likely to apply formal logic when reasoning about everyday events?
Where are we going?
My purpose in this article is three-fold. First is to show the differences that Nisbett contrasts between holistic and analytical thinking. Secondly, I explore his materialist explanations for why these cultures think so differently. Lastly, I point out some weaknesses in Nisbett’s book.
Holistic vs Analytical Thinking in nature
Functional vs taxonomic classification
Which of these three is least like the other two? The three items are a dog, a carrot and a rabbit. If you think holistically the dog is different. If you think analytically the carrot is different. Why? Because in holistic thinking rabbits eat carrots, the dog is different. But if you think analytically the carrots are different because dogs and rabbits are animals while a carrot is a vegetable. Holistic classification is functional, based on how objects work together in everyday life. They are grouped together because of causal, temporal or spatial functional relationships. This analytical classification is called taxonomic. This means objects are classified according to type, independent of space, time or cause. It has little to do with everyday life interactions.
Form vs content
Closely connected to these classification differences is the relationship between form and content. In holistic thinking, objects (content) are never understood as separate from their atmosphere form (or setting). In analytical thinking, objects are separated from their context and treated separately. Thus, empiricism separates objects from their context and examines them in terms of what they have in common (empiricism). So too, thinking is separated from the senses and thoughts are compared to other thoughts leading to rationalism, including formal logic. Contrary to this holistic thinking treats thinking and sensing as going together. There is no formal logic I know of in Chinese thinking.
Here are a couple of examples. In a research experiment with fish in the water, the Japanese made many more references to background elements. Americans focused on the fish and ignored the environment. In the United States an instruction book on how to draw was published called Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. In it there was an exercise on drawing the negative space which surrounded the figure. The idea was to let the figure emerge growing out of the negative space rather than drawing the figure directly. The whole point of the exercise was to get Western students to stop treating the background as irrelevant. Easterners, knowing this already, would have little need for this exercise.
Diffused vs focused attention; aggregates vs synthesis
Holistic thinking and analytic thinking each have their pros and cons. In holistic thinking, we have a wide, diffused lens. We see the forest but the trees are blurry. In analytical thinking we have tunnel vision. We see the detail of the trees, but miss the majesty of the forest. This attention to detail leads analytical thinkers to imagine that the whole of the forest is nothing more than an aggregate of individual trees. In holistic thinking the entire forest system is more than the sum of the trees.
Organism vs mechanism; plenum vs atoms and the void
In general, way beyond forests, holistic thinking imagines all of nature as an organism where all aspects are interdependent. In Chinese philosophy, nature consists of a plenum or Tao which is filled with interdependent substances like the five elements. Wood, fire, earth, metal and water are constantly changing into each other in different proportions. This philosophy is embodied in the writings of Lao-Tze. The philosophy of nature in the West is mechanism where all the parts are interchangeable rather than interdependent. According to Democritus and Epicurus, nature is not a plenum. it is composed of atoms and the void. These atoms are discrete objects (atomism) and these objects are composed of particles or things.
Differences in language socialization
The differences between East Asian languages and Indo-European languages are so deep that they are embedded in how each learn language. Philosophically we can say that for East Asians generally, movement is more important than stasis. In the West, on the other hand, we start with things and then as a derivative try to explain movement. Nisbett points out that East Asian languages verbs are learned at a faster rate than nouns. It the West the opposite is true, nouns are learned faster. What do the nouns and verbs say? In East Asia, verbs are denoted by relationships. In the West nouns are denoted by categories. Lastly, there are differences even in the placements of nouns and verbs in a sentence. In East Asia, verbs come at the beginning and the end of sentence, with nouns in the middle. This indicates that first there is movement which temporarily thickens into a noun which then returns into more movement. In the West it is the opposite. First nouns, then verbs (predicate) and then objects. This follows a philosophy that says in the beginning there are things (nouns), there are verbs in the middle and then nouns (objects) at the end.
Polar vs dualistic opposites
The Tao in Chinese philosophy consists of two polar opposites, yin and yang and these opposites turn into each other creating new combinations of the five elements. These opposites depend on each other and cocreate with each other. In analytical thinking opposites are understood as being mutually exclusive, zero-sum game with choices such as “either/or”, as in Aristotle’s law of the excluded middle. When confronted with two apparently contradictory propositions Americans tended to polarize their beliefs. In the West there is typically a right and wrong and there will be a winner and loser. In holistic philosophy choice involves not choosing one or the other. Both are chosen in addition to other choices. Holistic philosophy strives for hostility reduction and compromise mediated by a third party.
Formal logic vs informal logic
Formal logic in the West is the study of the structure of an argument independently of its content. The basis of formal logic is to abstract qualities from context and connect these abstractions as if they had a life of their own.
The syllogism:
– All women are mortal
– Sandy is a woman
– Sandy is mortal
It is correct from the point of view of formal logic. It doesn’t matter if we change Sandy’s name to Phyllis. It doesn’t even matter if we substitute immortal for mortal.
So:
– All women are immortal
– Phyllis is a woman
– Phyllis is immortal
This is still logically correct. It doesn’t matter that in real life woman are mortal. Nisbett points out that for the Chinese there is a whiteness of the house and the whiteness of the snow but not whiteness as an abstract, detachable concept that can be applied to almost anything. The Chinese were distrustful of decontextualization.
Nisbett writes that In China there were only two short-lived movements of little influence in the East that shared the spirit of logical inquiry that has always been common in the West. These are the logicians and the Mohists (Mo Tzu), both in the classical period of antiquity. Mo Tzu shared several logical concerns. They include the ideas of necessary and sufficient conditions, the principle of non-contradiction and the law of the excluded middle. Mo Tzu developed a rough version of cost-benefit analysis. However, there was never even among the logicians and Mohists a willingness to accept arguments that flew in the face of experience.
Holistic vs Analytical Relationships in Society
Cogs in the machine vs interdependent belonging
Earlier I said that analytical thinking treats parts in nature as particles or things. This carries over into how workers function in relationship to capitalism. Workers are treated as things, interchangeable parts. Unskilled workers are hired and fired with no sense of continuity or membership in an organization. They are cogs in a mechanistic machine. In Japan in the 1970s and early 1980s, even though it was a capitalist society, workers were still treated as interdependent parts of an organization. Every worker had a place and worker could have one job for their whole life. In speaking about the industrial revolution, Nisbitt points out:
Seeing the world of objects is linked to the industrial Revolution. Assembly line—auto part atoms were put together by workers performing a repetitive set of actions over and over again (82)… {in the} late 18th century, especially in the United States, they began to modularize the world of manufacture and commerce. From muskets to furniture they were broken down into the most standardized parts possible and the simplest replicable actions…. Time itself became a modular entity: three minutes for bolting on the carburetor; two and a half minutes for installing spark plugs…Starting around the late 19th century retail stores became modular chains. (83)
Collectivism vs individualism
One of the major divisions within cross-cultural psychology is that between collectivism vs individualism. As you might expect, holistic thinkers are collectivist. This means that the group comes first and decisions are based on the interests of the group, which is true from the micro to the macro level. Analytical thinkers are individualists. The individual is the center of attention and the group is seen as secondary or a necessary evil. This plays out when something happens to an individual. When an individualist has an unfortunate circumstance, their tendency is to imagine the personal motives of another person involved rather than the situation another person was in. This is called an “internal locus of control”. In social psychology Collectivist holists are more likely to examine the situation first. They will underestimate the power of individuals to change things. In part this is because they have an external locus of control.
In answer to the question tell me about yourself, Japanese schoolchildren are taught how to practice self-criticism both in order to improve their relations with others and to become more skilled in solving problems. In the West individuals answer the same question by referring to their personality traits, role categories and activities statically proclaiming, “I am what I am”. The proportion of self-references was more than three times higher for American children than for Chinese children.
In-group and out-group
In our initial description of the differences between collectivism and individualism we said that for collectivists the group comes first and for individualists the single person comes first. But this is only for the in-group. It says nothing about relationships with the out-group or strangers. As it turns out in East Asia the gap between in-group and out-group (strangers) is greater than in the West. In the West the relationship between individuals and their in-group is weaker, but their relationship to the out-group (strangers) is less. Part of this no doubt is that under capitalism, being civil to strangers is necessary for the exchange of commodities. In East Asia, which has either outright socialism or moderate capitalism, they are less likely to give strangers the time of day.
Rights vs obligations
Nisbett tells a story that an Asian friend is perplexed to hear in households in Yankeedom members of a family are always thanking each other rather than simply carrying out obligations. The basis of thanking someone is that there is no necessary interconnection between people that makes help a constitutional part of society. Instead, we volunteer to do something with the option to not help. This is the essence of individualism.
Nisbett says that for Westerners, once a contract has been agreed to it is binding regardless of circumstances that might make the arrangement problematic. To the Western mind, once a bargain is struck, it shouldn’t be modified. For Easterners agreements are often regarded as tentatively agreed upon guides for the future. There is little or no conception of rights that are inherit in the individual. Furthermore, Nisbett points out:
The combative, rhetorical form is also absent from Asian law. More typically the disputants take their case to a middleman whose goal is animosity reduction. There is no attempt to derive a resolution to a legal conflict from any universal principle. The Americans were more likely to prefer adversarial adjudication with representation by lawyers. (75)
Holistic vs Analytical Relationships in the Sciences and the Arts
The Chinese used their experience to measure things. The Greeks abstracted from their experience and fixed abstract rules which were used as the basis for predicting and explaining the motion of these objects. As might be expected those who think analytically will disentangle relationships in order to extract abstract rules from them. The Greeks understood that it was necessary to categorize objects in order to be able to apply rules to them. Nisbett says that because the Chinese see relationships first their lack of interest in the categories prevented them from discovering laws that really were capable of explaining classes of events. In the case of the Greeks, most of Aristotle’s physical propositions were false, but Aristotle had testable propositions. Though the Chinese excelled in algebra and arithmetic they made little progress in geometry because proofs rely on formal logic. While the Greeks excelled in geometry and had formal proofs they never developed the concept of zero which was required both for algebra and for an Arabic style place number system.
The arts
Interestingly but not surprisingly, Chinese paintings are dominated by landscape which dwarf human figures. Studies of Western paintings show human figures as three times as large. Furthermore, the Chinese paint the horizon lines 15% higher to call attention to the depth and allows more room for the objects. Analytical tradition of the West paint the horizon lines 15% lower. This reduces the range of the scene that is visible. Nisbett says the Chinese emphasized monophonic music which reflected their concern with unity. In the analytical West, polyphonic music was present where different instruments and different voices take different parts. Please see Table I for a comparison.
Table I
How Asians and Westerners Think Differently
Holistic Thinking
Category of Comparison
Analytic Thinking
Ancient China
Region of the world
Ancient Greece
Wide Lens
See forest less trees
Scope
Narrow Lens—Tunnel Vision
See trees, less forest
Objects are never seen separate from their atmosphere
Form and content
Objects extracted from their environment and treated separately
(Empiricism and rationalism)
Functional-associative
Based on how objects working together
They are grouped together because of causal, temporal or spatial functional relationships
How things are classified
Taxonomic classification
Objects are classified in relationship to type, not what they do together or their connection to causal, temporal or spatial relations
Wholes are more than the sum of their parts
How wholes and parts are understood
Wholes are aggregates, no more than the sum of their parts
Plenum
Tao yin-yang principle
(Lao Tzu)
What is nature?
Atoms and the void
Democritus, Epicurus
Interpenetrating substances
Five elements
Wood, fire, earth, metal, water
What is nature composed of?
Collection of discrete objects
(atomism)
Objects are composed of particles, “things”
Organicism
Nature philosophy
Mechanism
As organisms with interdependent parts
Application to society: How are organizations depicted?
As machines with inter-changeable parts
Polar opposites
depend on each other and co-create each other
“both and more”
How are opposites understood?
Dualistic opposites
Mutually exclusive and have nothing to do w/each-other “Either/Or”
Other than Mo Tzu, the Chinese lacked even a principle of contradiction
How are contradictions held?
Aristotle’s law of non-contradiction
Informal logic
Form of logic
Formal logic—syllogism
Collectivism
Type of Self
Individualism
Explain things situationally Understate disposition
Attribution of causes
Overstate disposition, understate situation
External
Locus of control
Internal
More conforming to in-group More hostility to out-group (strangers)
In-group/out-group
More challenging to in-group More civil to out-group (strangers)
Learn verbs at a faster rate
Verbs are about relationships Verbs come in the beginning and end of a sentence
Nouns come in the middle
Linguistic socialization
Learn nouns at a faster rate Nouns are denoted by categories
Nouns come at the beginning and end of a sentence
Verbs are in the middle.
Experience
What is used to measure?
Fixed abstract rules are used as the basis for predicting and explaining the behavior of these objects
See relationships
Their lack of interest in categories prevented them from discovering laws that really were capable of explaining classes of events
Science
Disentangle relationships and see rules
The Greeks understood that it was necessary to categorize objects in order to be able to apply rules to them
Excel in algebra and arithmetic
They made little progress in geometry because proofs rely on formal logic
Mathematical Application
Geometry
Had formal proofs, but Greeks never developed the concept of zero which is required both for algebra and for an Arabic style place number system
Paint horizontal line of landscapes 15% higher
Calls for attention to depth and allows more room for objects
The Arts
Landscapes
Paint horizon lines 15% lower. Reduces the range of the scene that is visible
Human figures are smaller
Portraiture
Human faces are three times as large
Monophonic music reflected Chinese concern with unity
Type of music
Polyphonic music where different instruments and different voices take different parts
Qualifications
We must be careful not to overstate generalities. In the case of the Far East, there were some atomistic and empirical traditions such as Mo Tzu that shared many of same interests as Western philosophers. Conversely in the West, while the atomism of Democritus and Epicurus were surely important, Western philosophy has a deep anti-atomist tradition stretching from Plato to Leibniz, Shelling and Hegel.
Within the Western tradition, Nisbett points out that the Southern European countries like Spain, and Italy plus Belgium and Germany are intermediate between the East Asian counties and the countries influenced by Protestant, Anglo-Saxon culture. Still more generally the European continent is more holistic and rationalist than are the empirical England or the United States. The big picture theories in politics and economics come from the continent including Marx, Weber, Durkheim and Comte. In psychology we have the big system philosophy of Freud and Piaget. It is hard to imagine behaviorism emerging in any place but the United States or England. When we turn to Western religions, we find the same split between the Anglo-American world of Protestants and the continental European tradition where Catholicism reigns. Within Eastern traditions not all roads lead to China. While both the Chinese and Japanese stress order, it is a different kind of order. For the Chinese, order comes from the macro world of state on the one hand and the micro world of family relations on the other. This comes in the form of mother-son or father-daughter relations. For the Japanese the forces of order come from the meso-world of the peer group. The same pattern holds in school. For the Chinese, obedience to the teacher is primary, but for the Japanese control is managed by what classmates may think or say.
A huge difference between the Japanese and the Chinese is that Japan developed capitalism well over 100 years before the Chinese. But even in this case geography might have had something to do with it. Japan, like England, was an island where no large centralized system had room to develop. Even so, Japanese capitalism still retained a collective orientation. Loyalty to the corporation was much stronger among workers there than in either the United States or England. Finally, Nisbett points out that while in the macro and micro worlds the Chinese expect order, in the meso-world the Chinese have a more relaxed form of life. It is the Japanese who insist on a need for order in all parts of their lives. In that way they are similar to the Germans and Dutch.
Materialistic Explanations for East-West Differences
Geography and climate
Not just in China, but in all the great agricultural civilizations of the past there is a crucial climate, geography problem. First, there is inadequate rainfall, yet the presence of large bodies of water in the valleys. The problem for them is how to get the large bodies of water to their farms. In Greece and in Europe generally there is no such rainfall problem. European countries are surrounded by mountains leading to a change in climate as Jared Diamond pointed out in Guns, Germs and Steel. Political consequences
China, along with Egypt, and India have ways to solve the problem of inadequate rainfall and large bodies of water by setting up irrigation systems. But China and India are very large countries and setting up local irrigation systems is too risky and they could fail too easily. Hence the development of a centralized agricultural state could solve their problems. However, the leaders of these centralized states soon recognized their position and they begin to expect more and more in return for performing this public service. The result is a centralized political system with a ruling class.
In Greece and generally in Europe there was no need for any centralized irrigation system because rainfall made it unnecessary. In addition, the high mountains between European states made any centralized political power over Europe next to impossible. The European continent has never completely fallen to an empire. Hence all political power was decentralized.
Means of subsistence
With a centralized irrigational system and rich river valleys, Chinese peasants settled down to do subsistence agriculture, including rice. The Greeks were not so fortunate. The Greek land was stony and dry which only lent itself to orchards growing olive trees. The Greeks made their living from herding, fishing and trade. They engaged in commercial agriculture producing olive oil for trade.
The subversiveness of trading
The activity of trading produces mutual effects in differentiating Greece from Chinese and other near Eastern civilizations. For one, it taught the merchants different languages and different systems of weights and measures opening them up to more trading. Second, living near the coast meant encountering many ethnic groups with different religions and politics. Third, trading also forced traders to haggle, going back and forth and arguing. This was a very powerful instrument in conducing not only economic affairs but political affairs. As is well known Greece developed an extraordinary decentralized political system in which debate and the teaching of rhetoric by the Sophists was a way of life. Farmers hired rhetoricians to help them win cases when their land was threatened to be taken over.
On the other hand, trade for China was not a necessity. They traded mostly in luxury goods. Surely traders were never given free reign by the emperor. This meant that China was a more closed civilization. Nisbett says that 95% of the Chinese population belongs to the same Han ethnic group. Nearly all of the country’s more than fifty minority ethnic groups are in the western part of the country. The Chinese were less exposed to other religions and political systems and when they were Chinese rulers saw them as inferior. Because there was no reason to learn how to haggle and be argumentative in marketing situations Chinese politics was far from the tradition of Greece debate. Chinese civilization was under a centralized political rule that was from the top down. Argumentation was disapproved of because China did not have liberal political expectations. In addition, the Chinese kin relations, like the Japanese, had built into them the expectation people should be able to save face.
Implications for contemporary science
Nisbett makes a very interesting point about contemporary differences between Chinese and European traditions in science that are connected to what has been said so far. He writes that the Chinese are very good at following up and expanding what Western science has produced but they are not as good at making breakthroughs. Why could this be? Nisbett points out that most scientists they hit their peak contributing innovative scientific explanations in their 20s. But Chinese scientists have a tradition of deferring to elders. Therefore, at Chinese conferences young scientists are expected to defer to elders, even if these elders have nothing new to say. Seniority is more important than innovation. Competitive debate with clear winners and losers is understandably seen as in bad taste. However, in the West competitive debate has been going on for well over 2000 years. In addition, in the West the elderly are not revered, and are considered over the hill. The revering of the young in the West goes perfectly well with young scientists presenting findings that might contradict those of the elderly. Please see Table II for a summary of the ecological, political and economic explanations for the differences between holistic and analytical thinking.
Table II
Materialistic Explanations for Holistic vs Analytical Thinking
China
Original Region of the world
Greece
Fertile plains, low mountains and navigable rivers
Ecology
Mountains descending towards the sea
Subsistence agriculture
Rice, other grains
Means of subsistence
Herding, fishing and trade
Commercial agriculture
Easy to do
Political centralization
Difficult to do
Yes. Yellow River Valley of North China where the Shang Dynasty originated
(18th -11th century BC) Chou Dynasty (11th to 256 BCE)
Centralized irrigation required?
No
Adequate rainfall
Bureaucratic Centralization
Political organization
Decentralized competing states
Direct democracy
Not essential
Trade for luxuries
Competitive debate not taught
Rhetoric harmonious
Place of trading
Necessity for subsistence goods
Competing traders and competing cities invited skills of argument and competitive debate
95% of the Chinese population belongs to the same Han ethnic group
Cultural diversity
Living near the coast meant encountering other ethnic groups, religion and politics
Held back by respect for elders
Seniority over innovation
Contemporary science
Elders “over the hill”
Glorification of young
Innovation over seniority
Absence of competitive debate and peer review
Place of contemporary
debate in science
Competitive debate and peer review
Criticisms of The Geography of Thought
The Geography of Thought is a very interesting and provocative book. Most of what I have to say about it are qualifications rather than direct disagreements. First of all, the book seems ahistorical. It presents the origin of two cultures, China and Greece, too much as destiny. It really does not account for the fact that China has a history which surely has some innovations since ancient China. So too Greece, let alone Europe, must have developed new innovations over the last two thousand years. In addition the book does not provide any explanation for how these historical innovations could have emerged using the ecological, political and economic explanations. According to world-systems theory capitalism emerged in the West in the 16th century. This, of course, is a direct expression of analytical thinking. However, in the last of the 19th century Japanese capitalism developed and from the beginning of the 1980s capitalism also developed in China. We need an explanation for how this invasion of holistic thinking came about. Lastly, the relationship between socialism in the 19th and 20th centuries needs to be made sense of in its relationship with holistic thinking in China. How is it similar and different from the values of ancient China?
(@uriohau) 
