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Category: China

  • US, EU demand China respond to human rights abuses in Xinjiang

    The U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Human Rights Council called on China on Tuesday to implement recommendations made by the U.N.’s human rights office in a two-year-old report issued and to release Uyghurs and others unjustly detained in Xinjiang. 

    American diplomat Michèle Taylor also demanded that China clarify the fate and whereabouts of missing family members and facilitate safe contact and reunion during a speech at the current Human Rights Council session in Geneva, which runs from Sept. 9 to Oct. 11.

    Taylor read the joint statement on behalf of Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Lithuania, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States – all members of the Core Group on Xinjiang.

    In September 2022, the U.S. and Norway cosponsored a proposal that the Human Rights Council hold a debate on the situation of human rights in Xinjiang, home to roughly 12 million Uyghurs, as a follow-up to a report issued that August by the Office of the High Commission for Human Rights, or OHCHR.

    The 46-page report by then-U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet said “serious human rights violations” had been committed in Xinjiang in the context of the Chinese government’s application of counter-terrorism and counter-extremism strategies, and that repression of the Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities there “may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity.”  

    But China and its allies on the 47-member Council defeated the proposal in a 19-17 vote, with 11 abstentions.

    “Over the past two years, China has had many opportunities to meaningfully address these well-founded concerns,” Taylor said. 

    “We regret that China has denied the impartial and objective findings and rejected the recommendations of the OHCHR’s assessment,” she said.

    RELATED STORIES

    UN rights chief calls on China to protect human rights in Tibet and Xinjiang

    China ‘gamed’ UN human rights review, experts say

    51 nations blast China over violating Uyghurs’ rights

    UN human rights chief issues damning report on Chinese abuses in Xinjiang

    Earlier this year during China’s Universal Periodic Review – a human rights record review by U.N. member states that occurs every five years – “China rejected many legitimate concerns and dismissively labeled the OHCHR’s assessment ‘completely illegal and void,’” Taylor said.

    EU’s statement

    Rushan Abbas, executive director of Campaign for Uyghurs, praised the Core Group’s statement because it  highlighted “the undeniable atrocities” of arbitrary detention, forced labor and cultural erasure occurring in Xinjiang, as documented by the OHCHR.

    “The way the CCP exerts influence in the U.N. is to bury the ongoing genocide, and these findings are deeply troubling,” she told Radio Free Asia, referring to the Chinese Communist Party. “Every day of inaction only prolongs the suffering of Uyghur families.”

    “It is essential that the U.N. strengthens its efforts to hold China accountable,” Abbas said.

    Rushan Abbas, executive director of Campaign for Uyghurs, holds a photo of her sister, Gulshan Abbas, who is imprisoned in Xinjiang, during a rally in New York, March 22, 2021. (Timothy A. Clary/AFP)
    Rushan Abbas, executive director of Campaign for Uyghurs, holds a photo of her sister, Gulshan Abbas, who is imprisoned in Xinjiang, during a rally in New York, March 22, 2021. (Timothy A. Clary/AFP)

    The U.S.’s statement, along with another by the European Union, coincided with this week’s U.N. General Assembly meeting in New York.  

    The EU’s delegation to the U.N. Human Rights Council expressed concern over China’s mistreatment of Uyghurs on Tuesday in Geneva, including political re-education camps, mass detentions, widespread surveillance, the use of forced labor, and sexual and gender-based violence in Xinjiang.

    “Numerous reports by U.N. treaty bodies and special rapporteurs, and in particular OHCHR’s assessment report on human rights in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, confirm that the human rights situation requires the urgent attention of the government of China, U.N. bodies and the human rights system,” the delegation said.

    It also noted that the human rights situation in neighboring Tibet “continues to be dire” with compulsory boarding schools for Tibetan children and DNA sampling, and said the EU would closely monitor the safeguarding of the fundamental freedoms, cultural heritage and identity of Tibetans.

    The delegation called on China to provide bilingual education in Tibetan and Chinese at all levels of instruction. 

    “The EU continues to urge China to abide by its obligations under national law, including its own Constitution, and international law, to respect, protect and fulfill the rule of law and human rights for all, including Uyghurs, Tibetans and other persons belonging to national or ethnic, linguistic, religious or other groups and minorities across China,” the delegation said. 

    Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian speaks during a press conference in Beijing, China, March 20, 2024. (Tingshu Wang/Reuters)
    Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian speaks during a press conference in Beijing, China, March 20, 2024. (Tingshu Wang/Reuters)

    At a regular press conference on Wednesday, Chinese Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman Lin Jian noted that Cuba delivered a joint statement on behalf of nearly 80 countries at the Human Rights Council session in Geneva “in response to the attacks and smears on China’s human rights situation by the U.S. and a handful of countries.”

    “They stressed that issues related to Xinjiang, Hong Kong and Xizang are China’s internal affairs,” he said, using the Chinese government’s word for Tibet.

    “They spoke against the politicization of human rights issues, the application of double standards and interference in other countries’ internal affairs in the name of human rights,” Lin said.  

    Edited by Matt Reed.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Alim Seytoff for RFA Uyghur and Roseanne Gerin for RFA English.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • China confirms ‘successful’ intercontinental ballistic missile test

    The Chinese military said that it successfully launched an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) into the Pacific Ocean on Wednesday, its first such test in more than 40 years.

    ICBMs are primarily designed to carry nuclear warheads and China’s latest generation ICBM – Dongfeng-41 (DF-41) – has an operational range of between 12,000 kilometers and 15,000 kilometers (7,500- 9,300 miles), which means it can reach the U.S. mainland.

    China’s defense ministry said in a statement that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Rocket Force successfully launched an ICBM carrying a training simulated warhead into the high seas of the Pacific Ocean early on Wednesday.

    “It accurately landed in the designated sea area,” the ministry said.

    It was not clear what type of ICBM was tested.

    The ministry said that the launch was a routine arrangement of the force’s annual military training, “in line with international law and international practice, and is not aimed at any specific country or target.”

    China’s first publicly known ICBM test launch was in May 1980 when it fired at least two missiles into the South Pacific as a gesture of deterrence to the Soviet Union but since then the PLA has not announced any further test.

    In its 2023 China Military Power report, the Pentagon said that China had completed construction on at least 300 ICBM silos in 2022. It also said that as of May 2023, it had more than 500 operational nuclear warheads, and that number would likely grow to more than 1,000 by 2030.

    RELATED STORIES

    US, China rebuild military contacts even as China wants on Taiwan

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    Analysts: US missile deployment expected to assist Philippines’ defense

    China’s Xinhua News Agency said relevant countries had been notified about Wednesday’s test launch in advance but it did not elaborate.

    Taiwan’s ministry of national defense said it had recorded “intensive” Chinese missile firing activities but did not provide further details.

    This month, China’s neighbor North Korea has also conducted several short-range ballistic missiles.

    Meanwhile, Beijing has protested against the deployment of U.S. Mid-Range Capability missile system Typhon in the Philippines since April, saying it undermined peace and stability in the region.

    Edited by RFA Staff.


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

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Finland zoo returns giant pandas to China over cost | Radio Free Asia (RFA)


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

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • China responds to Biden’s ‘hot mic’ comment on aggression | Radio Free Asia (RFA)


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

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • China hits back at Biden’s ‘hot mic’ comment on aggression

    China has responded angrily to comments by U.S. President Joe Biden, at a weekend summit of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, about Chinese aggression, saying the grouping was a U.S. tool to ensure its hegemony.

    Leaders of the so-called Quad, which groups the United States, Australia, India and Japan, met on Saturday in Delaware, Biden’s home state on Saturday. 

    During their talks the U.S. president made comments that were transmitted by a microphone he did not realize was on, a so-called hot mic incident, saying: “China continues to behave aggressively, testing us all across the region. It’s true in the South China Sea, the East China Sea, South China, South Asia and the Taiwan Straits.”

    A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, asked about the comments at a media briefing in Beijing on Monday, said the grouping was “a tool the U.S. uses to contain China and perpetuate U.S. hegemony.”

    Spokesman Lin Jian said the U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy was essentially an attempt “to patch up forces to exclude and contain China.”

     “Though the U.S. claims that it does not target China, the first topic of the summit is about China and China was made an issue throughout the event,” Lin said, adding: “the U.S. is lying through its teeth” and Washington needed to “get rid of its obsession with perpetuating its supremacy and containing China.”

    RELATED STORIES

    Quad foreign ministers meet in Tokyo to discuss regional security

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    U.S. not seeking to create ‘Asian NATO,’ defense secretary says

    The Quad was established in 2007 but Australia withdrew in 2008. It was re-established in 2017 and was immediately denounced by Beijing as a U.S. effort to gang up to create “an Asian NATO.”

    U.S. and other Quad officials have repeatedly denied that they are attempting to form a defense alliance in the region to counter China.

    ‘Lack of significant decisions’

    The Quad summit’s 5,600-word final statement did not mention China by name but said that Quad members “are seriously concerned about the situation in the East and South China Seas.”

    “We continue to express our serious concern about the militarization of disputed features, and coercive and intimidating maneuvers in the South China Sea,” the group said. 

    “We condemn the dangerous use of coast guard and maritime militia vessels, including increasing use of dangerous maneuvers,” it said, without mentioning any other countries. 

    Chinese coast guard.JPG
    Chinese Coast Guard vessels fire water cannons towards a Philippine resupply vessel Unaizah May 4 on its way to a resupply mission at Second Thomas Shoal in the South China Sea, March 5, 2024. (Reuters/Adrian Portugal)

    The statement underscored that the 2016 Arbitral Award, which rejected all China’s claims in the South China Sea, should be the basis for peacefully resolving maritime disputes.

    Yet on the issue of maritime security, Quad members only agreed to launch a first Quad-at-Sea Ship Observer Mission between coast guards in 2025 “to improve interoperability and advance maritime safety,” without releasing further details.

    “There weren’t any really significant decisions made,” said Malcolm Davis, a senior defense analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, or ASPI. 

    “I suspect given that this is the last ones for Joe Biden and Kishida Fumio – with a U.S. presidential election fast approaching – and with an Australian election occurring by May next year – they decided to ‘mark time’ for this one.”

    “So, a missed opportunity to set a firm stance going into 2025, with a potential return of Trump, and an uncertain situation in Japan in terms of likely replacement for Kishida,” the analyst added.

    ‘Quad has to step up’

    Stephen Nagy, a Tokyo-based professor of politics and international studies agreed that the group had likely avoided making commitments that new leaders might question.

     “With President Biden and Prime Minister Kishida departing soon, I suspect the Quad statement was focused on presenting a broad vision rather than concrete initiatives that incoming leaders may not agree to,” said Nagy. 

    The Quad‘s function had “evolved significantly away from being a security provider to a public good provider and regional problem solver, and this explains the lack of concrete details as to how to deal with China’s assertive behavior in the South and East China Seas,” added Nagy.

    The summit’s final statement reaffirmed that “the Quad is here to stay” and that the U.S. would host the next Quad foreign ministers’ meeting in 2025 while the next Quad Leaders’ Summit would take place in India, also in 2025. 

    “I definitely think that the Quad has to step up and become a more powerful and visible group – and that means it needs to start dealing more decisively on defense and security matters, rather than avoiding them,” said ASPI’s Davis.

    “It shouldn’t be an ‘Asian NATO’ per se, but it does need to do more than low-level diplomatic decisions,” he said.

    “China will continue to treat the Quad with contempt if the group doesn’t take on a more visible role, and the group will lose influence.”

    There have reportedly been some proposals to expand the grouping’s dialogue mechanism to Quad Plus to attract wider support but Nagy said the Quad was “designed as a foursome to maximize the decision making process.”

    “Adding more members would slow down decisions and potentially lead it down the road of the tyranny of multilateralism,” he argued, “But ad hoc, functional cooperation with other nations in a Quad Plus format may be possible.”

    Edited by Mike Firn.


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

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Better Than Ever

    Aircraft upgrades are a more economical way of sharpening the combat edge of existing fighter fleets around Asia Pacific. With geopolitical tensions continuing to grow in Asia Pacific, regional air forces are striving to keep their in-service combat aircraft mission-ready and relevant through upgrades while acquiring next-generation platforms. For the less-resourced countries, upgrading existing aircraft […]

    The post Better Than Ever appeared first on Asian Military Review.

    This post was originally published on Asian Military Review.

  • Industrial Policy Without Nationalism

    Can we expand the state’s role in the economy while diminishing its capacity for war?

    This post was originally published on Dissent MagazineDissent Magazine.

  • Explainer: Sabina Shoal, the newest flashpoint in the South China Sea

    Sabina Shoal, located over 75 nautical miles west of the Philippines and 600 miles from China, has become the latest flashpoint between the two rival claimants in the South China Sea.

    A months-long standoff began in April when Manila sent one of its largest and most modern ships, BRP Teresa Magbanua, to the shoal amid reports that Beijing could be trying to reclaim land there.

    In response, China accused the Philippines of planning to ground the ship there to occupy it.

    In August, Manila accused a Beijing ship of ramming BRP Teresa Magbanua several times, the fifth case of alleged harassment by China of Philippine ships operating near the shoal that month. Chinese officials said the Philippine ship acted dangerously and rammed into a Chinese vessel.

    See: 2024 Sabina shoal standoff: A timeline

    On Sunday, the Philippine Coast Guard pulled BRP Teresa Magbuana from the shoal’s waters and sent it back to port after a five-month deployment, citing needed repairs and medical care for crew members. But Filipino officials said they had not surrendered Manila’s claim to the area.

    What is Sabina Shoal and why is it important for the Philippines?

    PH-CH-Sabina-explainer 2.jpg
    This map highlights Mischief Reef, Second Thomas Shoal and Sabina Shoal in the disputed Spratly Islands region of the South China Sea. [AFP]

    Sabina Shoal – which the Philippines calls Escoda Shoal and China refers to as Xianbin Jiao – serves as a rendezvous point for resupply missions to nearby Second Thomas Shoal, where the Philippines maintains a World War II-era ship to serve as a military outpost and territorial marker.

    Analysts have said that if China takes control of Sabina Shoal, it could prevent the Philippines from conducting resupply missions to the Second Thomas Shoal or reaching the Manila-occupied Thitu island, home to about 400 Filipinos.

    Part of a crucial maritime trade route for Manila, the reef is also “a good staging ground for vessels that [could] interfere with Philippine maritime activities extending from Palawan to the West Philippine Sea and the Kalayaan Islands,” said Jay Batongbacal, a Filipino maritime analyst and director of the Institute for Maritime Affairs and Law of the Sea.

    Manila calls territories and waters in the South China Sea within its 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ) the West Philippine Sea.

    PH-CH-Sabina-explainer 3.jpg
    This map shows occupied or administered islands in the disputed South China Sea. [AFP]

    “A hostile China would be able to strangle our maritime trade with the rest of Asia and most of the world from Escoda Shoal,” Batongbacal told BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news organization, on Sept. 3.

    The South China Sea is a critical world trade route accounting for 21% of global trade (U.S. $3.4 trillion) in 2016, the most recent year these data are available, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said in a report earlier this year.

    Sabina Shoal is important to Manila because of its proximity to Reed Bank, another South China Sea feature that is a traditional fishing ground for Filipinos, and has a potential role in the country’s energy security because of its rich oil and gas deposits.

    Territorial presence

    Philippine officials said a new ship will be sent to the Sabina Shoal to replace the BRP Teresa Magbanua, which returned to port.

    Two Philippine Navy sources told BenarNews that the country could not send a ship to the shoal anytime soon because of extreme weather conditions.

    For its part, China could send dozens of ships to block a Philippine ship if it is stationed at the shoal, according to the sources who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the issue.

    Blocking a Philippine ship “en route to Sabina Shoal is a possible prospect,” especially since Chinese ships appear to be capable of tracking movements at sea, said Collin Koh, a maritime security analyst with the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.

    Another scenario is that Beijing “might tolerate” Manila’s stance on putting a “strategic presence” in the shoal but it “would actively block the [Philippine] ship from entering the lagoon of the feature,” Koh said.

    RELATED STORIES

    Troubled Waters: The South China Sea

    Philippines says it did not surrender Sabina Shoal to China

    Philippines says 200-plus Chinese vessels have clustered in its EEZ

    Unclear strategy

    Some military officials, diplomats and analysts – a majority of whom did not want to be identified – have expressed concerns that the Philippines has no cohesive strategy on its South China Sea claim.

    In March, the Philippine government created the National Maritime Council to have overall jurisdiction and “direction on policy-formation, implementation and coordination” on all issues affecting the country’s maritime security and domain awareness.

    But the country also has the National Task Force on the West Philippine Sea, created in 2016 for similar objectives.

    Under the latest order, the task force would be placed under the council. But confusion abounds as several officials are discussing Manila’s claim coming from different agencies including the Philippine Coast Guard, Armed Forces of the Philippines and National Security Council, which are members of the council and the task force.

    Jonathan Malaya, assistant director general of the National Security Council and task force spokesman, said the task force is not mandated to provide overall strategy or policy.

    “Here in the [task force], we’re more strategic and operational,” he told BenarNews.

    Meanwhile, the Philippines needs to step up with its South China Sea strategy, analysts told BenarNews.

    “At this point, it’s not clear if the government has a specific game plan to deal with Chinese actions in the West Philippine Sea,” said Rommel Jude Ong, a retired Navy rear admiral and a professor at the Ateneo de Manila University.

    “From a naval standpoint, the entire West Philippine Sea is a single theater of operations. Our crisis response should always be looking at the big picture and not to disaggregate incidents in Sabina from whatever is happening elsewhere.”

    Another analyst expressed similar concerns.

    “It is now wait and see for the Philippines in terms of its plans for Escoda Shoal,” said Julio Amador, a Manila-based analyst with the Amador Research Services, using the Philippine name for Sabina Shoal. “[China] has numbers on its side so the Philippine approach needs to be strategic and not tactical at this point.”

    “Whatever path of action the Philippines will take, the whole government must be behind it and the plan should be approved at the highest levels.”

    BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Camille Elemia – Manila.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Explainer: Sabina Shoal, the newest flashpoint in the South China Sea

    Sabina Shoal, located over 75 nautical miles west of the Philippines and 600 miles from China, has become the latest flashpoint between the two rival claimants in the South China Sea.

    A months-long standoff began in April when Manila sent one of its largest and most modern ships, BRP Teresa Magbanua, to the shoal amid reports that Beijing could be trying to reclaim land there.

    In response, China accused the Philippines of planning to ground the ship there to occupy it.

    In August, Manila accused a Beijing ship of ramming BRP Teresa Magbanua several times, the fifth case of alleged harassment by China of Philippine ships operating near the shoal that month. Chinese officials said the Philippine ship acted dangerously and rammed into a Chinese vessel.

    See: 2024 Sabina shoal standoff: A timeline

    On Sunday, the Philippine Coast Guard pulled BRP Teresa Magbuana from the shoal’s waters and sent it back to port after a five-month deployment, citing needed repairs and medical care for crew members. But Filipino officials said they had not surrendered Manila’s claim to the area.

    What is Sabina Shoal and why is it important for the Philippines?

    PH-CH-Sabina-explainer 2.jpg
    This map highlights Mischief Reef, Second Thomas Shoal and Sabina Shoal in the disputed Spratly Islands region of the South China Sea. [AFP]

    Sabina Shoal – which the Philippines calls Escoda Shoal and China refers to as Xianbin Jiao – serves as a rendezvous point for resupply missions to nearby Second Thomas Shoal, where the Philippines maintains a World War II-era ship to serve as a military outpost and territorial marker.

    Analysts have said that if China takes control of Sabina Shoal, it could prevent the Philippines from conducting resupply missions to the Second Thomas Shoal or reaching the Manila-occupied Thitu island, home to about 400 Filipinos.

    Part of a crucial maritime trade route for Manila, the reef is also “a good staging ground for vessels that [could] interfere with Philippine maritime activities extending from Palawan to the West Philippine Sea and the Kalayaan Islands,” said Jay Batongbacal, a Filipino maritime analyst and director of the Institute for Maritime Affairs and Law of the Sea.

    Manila calls territories and waters in the South China Sea within its 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ) the West Philippine Sea.

    PH-CH-Sabina-explainer 3.jpg
    This map shows occupied or administered islands in the disputed South China Sea. [AFP]

    “A hostile China would be able to strangle our maritime trade with the rest of Asia and most of the world from Escoda Shoal,” Batongbacal told BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news organization, on Sept. 3.

    The South China Sea is a critical world trade route accounting for 21% of global trade (U.S. $3.4 trillion) in 2016, the most recent year these data are available, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said in a report earlier this year.

    Sabina Shoal is important to Manila because of its proximity to Reed Bank, another South China Sea feature that is a traditional fishing ground for Filipinos, and has a potential role in the country’s energy security because of its rich oil and gas deposits.

    Territorial presence

    Philippine officials said a new ship will be sent to the Sabina Shoal to replace the BRP Teresa Magbanua, which returned to port.

    Two Philippine Navy sources told BenarNews that the country could not send a ship to the shoal anytime soon because of extreme weather conditions.

    For its part, China could send dozens of ships to block a Philippine ship if it is stationed at the shoal, according to the sources who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the issue.

    Blocking a Philippine ship “en route to Sabina Shoal is a possible prospect,” especially since Chinese ships appear to be capable of tracking movements at sea, said Collin Koh, a maritime security analyst with the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.

    Another scenario is that Beijing “might tolerate” Manila’s stance on putting a “strategic presence” in the shoal but it “would actively block the [Philippine] ship from entering the lagoon of the feature,” Koh said.

    RELATED STORIES

    Troubled Waters: The South China Sea

    Philippines says it did not surrender Sabina Shoal to China

    Philippines says 200-plus Chinese vessels have clustered in its EEZ

    Unclear strategy

    Some military officials, diplomats and analysts – a majority of whom did not want to be identified – have expressed concerns that the Philippines has no cohesive strategy on its South China Sea claim.

    In March, the Philippine government created the National Maritime Council to have overall jurisdiction and “direction on policy-formation, implementation and coordination” on all issues affecting the country’s maritime security and domain awareness.

    But the country also has the National Task Force on the West Philippine Sea, created in 2016 for similar objectives.

    Under the latest order, the task force would be placed under the council. But confusion abounds as several officials are discussing Manila’s claim coming from different agencies including the Philippine Coast Guard, Armed Forces of the Philippines and National Security Council, which are members of the council and the task force.

    Jonathan Malaya, assistant director general of the National Security Council and task force spokesman, said the task force is not mandated to provide overall strategy or policy.

    “Here in the [task force], we’re more strategic and operational,” he told BenarNews.

    Meanwhile, the Philippines needs to step up with its South China Sea strategy, analysts told BenarNews.

    “At this point, it’s not clear if the government has a specific game plan to deal with Chinese actions in the West Philippine Sea,” said Rommel Jude Ong, a retired Navy rear admiral and a professor at the Ateneo de Manila University.

    “From a naval standpoint, the entire West Philippine Sea is a single theater of operations. Our crisis response should always be looking at the big picture and not to disaggregate incidents in Sabina from whatever is happening elsewhere.”

    Another analyst expressed similar concerns.

    “It is now wait and see for the Philippines in terms of its plans for Escoda Shoal,” said Julio Amador, a Manila-based analyst with the Amador Research Services, using the Philippine name for Sabina Shoal. “[China] has numbers on its side so the Philippine approach needs to be strategic and not tactical at this point.”

    “Whatever path of action the Philippines will take, the whole government must be behind it and the plan should be approved at the highest levels.”

    BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Camille Elemia – Manila.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • China targets high-ranking officials who read banned books

    Read RFA’s coverage of this story in Chinese

    China’s Communist Party is clamping down on the secret hobby of some high-ranking officials: reading banned books, a series of state media reports suggest.

    Officials from glitzy Shanghai to poverty-stricken Guizhou have been accused in recent months of “privately possessing and reading banned books and periodicals,” according to state media reports, which typically surface when the officials are probed by the party’s disciplinary arm.

    Senior officials have traditionally enjoyed privileged access to materials banned as potentially subversive for the wider population, via the “neibu,” or internal, publishing system, former Communist Party officials told RFA Mandarin in recent interviews. 

    Now it appears that President Xi Jinping is coming for their personal libraries and private browsing habits in a bid to instill the same ideas in all party members regardless of rank.

    20240920-CHINA-BOOK-PURGES-002.jpg
    A man walks past posters about Chinese political books displayed at the Hong Kong Book Fair in Hong Kong, July 18, 2012. (Philippe Lopez/AFP)

    During the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution, any foreign book could be considered a “poisonous weed that promotes the bourgeois lifestyle.” 

    Books banned since 2000 have typically been works about recent Chinese history or inside scoops on senior leaders, including memoirs from Mao Zedong’s personal physician, late ousted premier Zhao Ziyang and a book about the later years of Mao’s trusted premier Zhou Enlai.

    Overseas publications are often banned or tightly controlled in China, either online, or via a complex process of political vetting by the authorities, including a 2017 requirement that anyone selling foreign publications in China must have a special license.

    Wider knowledge makes better leaders

    Former Party School professor Cai Xia said officials were generally allowed to read whatever they liked until the turn of the century. The arrangement encouraged officials to broaden their perspective, making them better leaders.

    “Politics, like art, requires imagination,” Cai said. 

    “Because experience shows that the more single-minded and closed-off the thinking of the Communist Party, especially the senior cadres, the narrower their vision and the poorer their thinking, and the harder it is for them to grasp the complex phenomena and situations that have emerged in China’s rapid development,” she told Radio Free Asia.

    Wider reading encourages deeper thought, which helps China “to move forward,” she said.

    20240920-CHINA-BOOK-PURGES-003.jpg
    Masks, goggles and books collected from the Occupy zone are seen on the table at guesthouse in Hong Kong Dec. 30, 2014. (Tyrone Siu/Reuters)

    Du Wen, former executive director of the Legal Advisory Office of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region government, said the purge of readers of banned publications is worrying.

    “This phenomenon is so scary, because it sends the message that there is no independence in the ranks of the Chinese Communist Party,” Du said. “Even dialectical materialism and critical thinking have become evidence of guilt.”

    Nearly 20 officials have been accused of similar infractions, Du said, basing the number on his observation of media reports.

    Officials have been tight-lipped about the names of the books and periodicals these officials were reading, yet the accusations keep coming.

    Those targeted

    In November 2023, the party launched a probe into former Zhejiang provincial Vice Gov. Zhu Congjiu, accusing him of losing his way ideologically.

    In addition to making off-message comments in public, Zhu had “privately brought banned books into the country and read them over a long period of time,” according to media reports at the time.

    In June 2023, the Beijing branch of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection expelled former state assets supervisory official Zhang Guilin for “possessing and reading books and periodicals with serious political issues,” alongside a slew of other alleged offenses including “engaging in power-for-sex and money-for-sex transactions.”

    Many of those targeted have been in the state-controlled financial system, while some have been concentrated in the central province of Hunan and the southwestern megacity of Chongqing, according to political commentator Yu Jie.

    20240920-CHINA-BOOK-PURGES-004.jpg
    A vendor attends to a customer next to images and statues depicting late Chinese chairman Mao Zedong, at the secondhand books section of Panjiayuan antique market in Beijing, China, Aug. 3, 2024. (Florence Lo/Reuters)

    “Interestingly, a lot of officials in the political and legal system, national security and prison systems, which are responsible for maintaining stability and persecuting dissidents, are also keen on reading banned books,” Yu wrote in a recent commentary for RFA Mandarin, citing the case of former state security police political commissar Li Bin.

    In Hubei province, the commission went after one of their own in party secretary Wang Baoping, accusing him of “buying and reading books that distorted and attacked the 18th Party Congress.”

    “Monitoring what people are reading shows the authoritarian system’s determination and ability to maintain its power and to destroy any resources that could be subversive and any doubts about the legitimacy of the authorities’ rule,” Yu wrote in a Chinese-language commentary on May 28.

    “Xi Jinping’s … goal is to turn more than 80 million party members into marionettes or zombies, and follow him, like the Pied Piper, in a mighty procession that leads to hell,” he said.

    Categories

    Zhang Huiqing, a former editor at the People’s Publishing House, told RFA Mandarin that “gray” books were allowed to be published under the watchful eye of the party’s Central Propaganda Department, which also reviewed and vetted foreign-published books for translation into Chinese, for distribution as “neibu” reading material.

    Divided into categories A, B and C, where A was restricted to the smallest number of officials, “reactionary” books were those that could potentially cause people to challenge the party leadership, and they were once distributed in a highly controlled manner, Zhang said.

    Du Wen said that while he was an official in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region government, he had access to a slew of foreign news outlets not usually sold on the streets of Chinese cities, including Bloomberg, The New York Times, The Washington Post and newspapers published in democratic Taiwan.

    “These were all allowed because if you want to do research, you have to understand what’s going on overseas,” Du said. “How can you research something if you don’t understand the situation?”

    20240920-CHINA-BOOK-PURGES-005.jpg
    A visitor walks past an exhibit featuring a large portrait of Chinese President Xi Jinping at the newly-completed Museum of the Communist Party of China in Beijing, June 25, 2021. (Mark Schiefelbein/AP)

    Yet recent changes to party disciplinary regulations have brought more publications into the danger zone.

    Nowadays, any publication not entirely in line with orthodox Marxism-Leninism or the official view of Communist Party history is likely to be seen as “reactionary,” as is any information about China’s highest-ranking leaders, both past and present, according to a senior figure in the Chinese publishing industry who spoke to RFA Mandarin on condition of anonymity.

    “There’s a lot of randomness and contingency that affects whether something winds up being labeled as reactionary,” the person said. “It also depends on the level of understanding and personal ambition of the person in charge of an investigation.”

    And times change, making it hard for officials to stay on the right side of the rules.

    “A book that was reactionary yesterday may not be reactionary today, and vice versa,” the person said.

    Public hotline

    Typically, Chinese publishing houses take direct instructions from the General Administration of Press and Publication and its provincial branches about what they can and can’t publish.

    But a public hotline and a highly cautious attitude in recent years has meant that a book can be banned on the basis of a single phone call from a concerned individual.

    20240920-CHINA-BOOK-PURGES-006.jpg
    A class in the China Executive Leadership Academy in Yan’an, the headquarters of the Chinese Communist Party from 1936 to 1947, in Shaanxi province, May 10, 2021. (Hector Retamal/AFP)

    The senior publishing industry figure said one work of non-fiction was canned on the say-so of the widow of a senior cadre because she didn’t like the way her late husband was portrayed. The man had only played a minor role in the book.

    “All of our editing, proofreading, binding, design, printing, marketing and distribution work was wasted,” the person said. “We had already printed several thousand copies of the book, but we had to send them to be pulped.”

    The Chinese Communist Party’s internal rule-book entry on what constitutes a banned book offense has been amended three times since 2015, with categories being added each time.

    Article 47 of the original regulations issued in 2003 warn: “Anyone who brings reactionary books, audio-visual products, electronic reading materials and so on into the country from abroad shall be criticized and educated; if the circumstances are serious, they will be given a warning or a serious warning; more serious offenses will be disciplined by removal from party post, probation or expulsion from the party.”

    Since 2015, the rules have been updated three times to include anyone “reading privately, browsing or listening” to banned material, which now includes “online text, images and audiovisual material.”

    Another senior media figure who requested anonymity said the key factor that makes a book reactionary these days is whether or not it tells the truth, especially about the Chinese government.

    “Actually, the most reactionary thing is the truth,” the person said, “because the truth could shake the foundations of party rule.”

    Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Luisetta Mudie and Malcolm Foster.


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

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Has China not launched a war since 1949?

    A claim emerged in Chinese-language social media posts that China has not launched a war since 1949. 

    But the claim is misleading as it is a one-sided historical interpretation. A review of events shows that China has been involved in several major conflicts since 1949, and there are different views about how much of a role it played in starting them. 

    The claim was shared on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Aug. 24, 2024. 

    “While the U.S. has launched 469 conflicts since 1789, China has launched none since 1949,” the claim reads in part. 

    1 (4).jpg
    Multiple Chinese accounts on X have reposted an infographic comparing the number of wars initiated by the U.S. and China. (Screenshots/X)

    The claim has also been shared by several Chinese diplomats on X.

    Even Chinese President Xi Jinping said during a telephone call with U.S. President Joe Biden in 2021 that his country had not started a conflict since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. 

    2.jpg
    Several Chinese diplomats also reposted the image and further spread on the narrative of the U.S. as a warhawk (Screenshots/X) 

    But the claim is misleading as it is a one-sided historical interpretation. 

    A review of historical events shows that China has been involved in several major conflicts since 1949 and there are different views about how much of a role Beijing played in starting them. 

    Below is what AFCL found. 

    The Sino-Indian War

    The month-long Sino-Indian War of 1962 was a conflict rooted in disputes with India over China’s attempts to build a military road linking its Xinjiang region with Tibet after China occupied the Tibet area in 1950, according to Encyclopædia Britannica, the world’s oldest continuously published encyclopedia. 

    The road was scheduled to pass through Aksai Chin, an area that overlaps parts of Tibet and Xinjiang but is also claimed by India as part of its northern Ladakh region.

    The war was preceded by intermittent skirmishes beginning in 1959, which culminated in an attack by Chinese forces against the region on Oct. 20, 1962. 

    But some scholars, including Wang Hongwei, a Chinese academic expert on South Asia, said that the campaign originated from an arbitrary border demarcation by India’s government in 1961. 

    Wang listed the advance of India’s army into territory that China claimed, attacks on Chinese posts, the killing of Chinese border guards and a 1962 Indian order for its forces to expel the Chinese from the North-East Border Special Region as evidence that the war was imposed on China. 

    China has officially described the conflict as a war of self-defense ever since.

    The Sino-Vietnamese War

    Internationally known as the Sino-Vietnamese War, the conflict that broke out when 220,000 Chinese soldiers struck along the 800-mile border with Vietnam early on Feb. 17, 1979. 

    While at the time both neighbors had communist political systems, Vietnam’s decision to sign a mutual defense pact with the Soviet Union in 1978 provoked the ire of many Chinese leaders, given that at the time Beijing and Moscow were struggling for leadership of the global communist movement. 

    This tension was later exacerbated by Vietnam’s invasion of neighboring Cambodia at the end of 1978 and the overthrow of the Beijing-backed Khmer Rouge government, an event that served as the catalyst for the conflict between Beijing and Hanoi. 

    The conflict has been called an aggressive war launched by China by scholars such as Miles Yu, the director of the Hudson Institute’s China Center, who emphasized that the conflict is portrayed completely differently in Vietnam and in China. 

    Vietnam portrays the conflict as a struggle against Chinese expansion, while China frames it as a war of self-defense.

    In line with this interpretation, a Chinese government webpage commemorating soldiers killed in the conflict, lists several actions by Vietnam in the mid-1970s – implementing discriminatory policies against Chinese minorities in Vietnam and conducting provocative border raids in which several Chinese citizens were wounded – as evidence that Vietnam came to view China as an enemy and gradually adopted a warlike posture towards it.

    However, Hsiao-Huang Shu, a scholar of Chinese military tactics at Taiwan’s Tamkang University, told AFCL that while the official Chinese government position paints the war as a punitive conflict rather than as an “invasion,” the war was clearly initiated by China. 

    Sino-Soviet border clashes 

    In March 1969, Chinese and Soviet forces engaged in a series of clashes on an island called Zhenbao on a border river. 

    Subsequent border skirmishes in the months following the conflict resulted in an unknown number of casualties. In order to end the dispute, Moscow adopted a carrot-and-stick approach, proposing negotiations on the border dispute while at the same time threatening military action if Beijing did not cooperate.

    The Soviet Union said that an initial ambush by Chinese army units of  Soviet border guards on March 2 was followed by a larger clash on March 15. 

    However, an article published by China’s state-run CCP Review said that the initial skirmish broke out when a Chinese patrol was obstructed and later shot at by Soviet troops. 

    But according to the noted historian of Sino-Soviet relations, Li Danhui, Chinese soldiers initially stabbed and fired upon a Soviet patrol on the day fighting broke out.

    He cited statements by Chen Xilian, the Chinese commander at Zhenbao, as evidence. 

    Michael S. Gerson, a former analyst at the U.S. Center for Naval Analyses, published a study of the incident, saying that territorial disputes over the strategically unimportant island largely arose as a byproduct of the larger Sino-Soviet ideological split in the 1960s.

    As part of the split, China said that the Soviet Union’s control of the island was a direct result of unequal treaties China had been coerced to sign, while the Soviet Union argued that China had no legal claim to the island.

    ‘Illogical comparison’

    Michael Szonyi, a professor of Chinese history at Harvard University, told AFCL that while the U.S. has been involved in several wars around the world, the notion that China had “never started a war” was “absurd,” mentioning the conflicts involving Vietnam, Tibet, and fighting over the Kinmen Islands in the Taiwan Strait as evidence. 

    Szonyi pointed out that counting conflicts involving the U.S. from 1798 and conflicts involving China from 1949 – over 150 years later – is an illogical baseline for making such a comparison. 

    He added that many of the wars the U.S. has been involved in – such as the Korean War and the 2003 invasion of Iraq – did not involve territorial seizure. 

    China also characterizes several other conflicts it has been involved in since 1949 as either extensions of the Chinese Civil War or as incidents of large-scale civil unrest.

    They include fighting on Kinmen in 1949, shelling of the island in 1958 and the Tibetan uprising of 1959.

    But Szonyi said it was still incorrect to say that China never initiated any of these wars. 

    Translated by Shen Ke. Edited by Shen Ke and Taejun Kang.

    Asia Fact Check Lab (AFCL) was established to counter disinformation in today’s complex media environment. We publish fact-checks, media-watches and in-depth reports that aim to sharpen and deepen our readers’ understanding of current affairs and public issues. If you like our content, you can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and X.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Alan Lu for Asia Fact Check Lab.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • China to ‘gradually’ lift ban on Japanese seafood imports

    China has agreed to “gradually resume” imports of Japanese seafood products a year after it banned them in response to the release of treated waste water from the damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant.

    The decision was made after “rounds of talks” between Beijing and Tokyo over the impact of discharging the waste water into the Pacific Ocean, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Friday.

    “Following the implementation of monitoring activities, including participation in long-term international monitoring within the framework of the International Atomic Energy Agency and independent sampling by participating countries, we will begin to adjust relevant measures based on scientific evidence and gradually resume imports of Japanese seafood that meet the standards,” the ministry said. 

    “Japan has made it clear that it will continue to conduct ongoing marine environment and marine ecological impact assessments in order to substantially fulfill its obligations under international law and to use its utmost efforts to avoid adverse impacts on human health and the environment,” it added. 

    China has imposed a blanket ban on imports of Japanese seafood since the beginning of the treated water discharge in August last year, calling the water “nuclear-contaminated.” Japan has insisted the water is safe.

    Chinese trade statistics show that no fishery products, except aquarium fish, have been imported from Japan since September last year, forcing restaurants in China to get their ingredients elsewhere.

    Some other countries also restricted seafood imports from Japan after it began  releasing the treated water from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, badly damaged by a 2011 earthquake and tsunami, but most have since lifted those curbs. 

    Japan started the gradual release of treated radioactive wastewater into the Pacific Ocean despite regional and domestic concerns, with plans to eventually pump more than a million metric tons of it into the sea.

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    The release came 12 years after a nuclear meltdown at the plant following its battering by the earthquake and subsequent tsunami. According to authorities, the water used to cool the nuclear reactors and additional groundwater and rainwater seeping into the reactor buildings has reached near-full storage capacity.

    The water was processed through an advanced liquid processing system to remove most contaminants, except for relatively nontoxic tritium, before being released into the Pacific.

    At that time, the International Atomic Energy Agency said the planned discharge of wastewater met international safety standards and would have a “negligible” radiological impact on people and the environment.

    The Japanese government said no abnormalities had been detected in the monitoring of seawater around the plant, including the concentration levels of tritium, since the discharge began. 

    Edited by Mike Firn.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Taejun Kang for RFA.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Japanese schoolboy dies following stabbing in China | Radio Free Asia (RFA)


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

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Japanese boy dies after being stabbed in southern China

    Read coverage of this story in Mandarin and Cantonese

    A 10-year-old Japanese boy stabbed on his way to school in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen has died of his injuries, signaling likely further strain on Sino-Japanese ties, Japanese media reported on Thursday.

    The boy, who has a Japanese father and a Chinese mother, was attacked while with his mother near a Japanese school in Shenzhen on Wednesday morning, and was taken to hospital, where he died Thursday.

    Police are holding a 44-year-old man surnamed Zhong on suspicion of carrying out the attack. Some 3,600 Japanese nationals reside in Shenzhen, an industrial city near the border with Hong Kong.

    Tokyo slammed the incident as “despicable.” It comes just three months after a knife attack on a Japanese mother and child in the eastern city of Suzhou in June.

    Eyewitnesses said the boy was bleeding from the stab wounds and was given a heart massage at the scene, according to Japan’s Kyodo News.

    Nationalist rhetoric

    Commentators blamed the attack on a steady output of nationalistic rhetoric under the government of Xi Jinping in recent years.

    “It’s caused by the Chinese authorities’ incitement of so-called nationalism,” said Khubis, a Japan-based Chinese national and ethnic Mongolian.

    The ruling Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda arm has been churning out anti-Japanese rhetoric for years, current affairs commentator Lu Jun said.

    “The authorities have launched wave after wave of xenophobia in recent years, anti-American, anti-Japanese and anti-Western in nature,” Lu said. “A lot of people have been encouraged by this propaganda and have gradually lost their common sense and even their humanity, turning into the thugs and minions of the authorities.”

    Stepped up security

    Tokyo on Thursday said the government was “deeply saddened,” and called on China to ensure the safety of more than 100,000 Japanese citizens who live in the country.

    The Japanese flag was flown at half-mast at the Japanese Embassy in Beijing on Thursday in mourning. Ambassador Kenji Kanasugi was en route to Shenzhen, Japanese media reported.

    Meanwhile, the Japanese government “has been and will continue to strongly urge China to share information related to the attack and ensure the safety of Japanese nationals in China,” government spokesman Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters.

    Describing the attack on the boy as “a despicable act,” Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa ordered Japanese officials to craft measures to prevent a similar incident from happening again.

    Japan’s Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroshi Moriya announced on Wednesday that the government will allocate 350 million yen (US$2.45 million) from April 2025 to step up security measures linked around Japanese schools in China.

    The attack came on the 93rd anniversary of the 1931 Japanese bombing of a railroad track in northeastern China that Japan used as an excuse to invade Manchuria. Tokyo had asked Beijing to step up safety measures around Japanese schools ahead of the sensitive anniversary, Kamikawa said in comments reported by Kyodo.

    Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said the boy was a student at the Shenzhen Japanese School.

    “[He] was stabbed by a man at a spot about 200 meters from the school gate,” Lin told reporters on Wednesday, adding that “all-out efforts” were being made to save the boy.

    “The perpetrator was caught at the scene,” Lin said. “The case is under investigation and relevant authorities of China will handle the case in accordance with the law.”

    Shockwaves

    Yang Haiying, a professor at Shizuoka University in Japan, said the incident has sent shockwaves through political circles in Japan.

    “Both the left and the right, the conservatives and the liberals, the government and the opposition are very angry about this incident,” Yang told RFA Mandarin in an interview after the boy’s death.

    The attack comes ahead of Japanese general elections on Oct. 31, and will likely stoke anti-China sentiment during the campaign period, he said.

    He said Japanese companies are likely to step up their withdrawal from China.

    “I believe that this incident will have an even bigger impact on economic, cultural and interpersonal exchanges between the two countries,” Yang said. 

    “Politically, Japan may come up with some tougher slogans, but whether it will take a tougher stance in its foreign policy is still hard to predict,” he said.



    Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Qian Lang for RFA Mandarin, Lee Heung Yeung for RFA Cantonese.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • China to cut tariff exemptions on 34 agricultural items from Taiwan

    China will suspend tariff exemptions on 34 agricultural items imported from Taiwan, including fresh fruits, vegetables and aquatic products, effective from Sept. 25, China’s finance ministry said, a decision Taipei called “economic coercion.”

    “Taiwan’s unilateral adoption of discriminatory measures such as bans and restrictions on the export of mainland products has seriously impeded cross-Strait economic and trade cooperation,” the ministry said on Wednesday, adding that tariffs on these items would be implemented in line with existing regulations. 

    Citing 2023 statistics, Taiwan’s Minister of Agriculture Chen Junne-jih said the annual tariff exemptions on these agricultural and aquacultural goods was nearly US$1.08 million.

    Chen Binhua, a spokesperson for China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, said that since 2005, the tariff exemptions had helped Taiwanese farmers and fishermen expand their access to the Chinese market, bringing them “tangible benefits.”

    But he blamed the administration led by President Lai Ching-te in Taiwan, for its “stubborn adherence” to a pro-independence stance.

    Lai is a member of Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, which Beijing accuses of harboring separatist aspirations.  

    He came to power after winning a January election despite Beijing’s fierce opposition to his bid. He ran on a platform of promoting peace in the Taiwan Strait while not compromising on claims of Taiwanese sovereignty. 

    In response to China’s decision to suspend tariff exemptions, Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council, or MAC, said the cutting of the tariff exemptions represented a “weaponization” of trade and would harm the interests of farmers and fishermen on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.

    Calling it “economic coercion,” the MAC added: “This only leads to resentment among Taiwan’s farmers, fishermen and the general public, and does not contribute to the long-term development of cross-strait relations.”

    The council said it was clear China was weaponizing trade and using preferential measures as tools of coercion, and it warned that the Chinese Communist Party’s “goodwill” had political motives and could be revoked at any time.

    China’s decision came after it announced sanctions on nine U.S. military-linked firms for their sale of equipment to Taiwan and denounced what it called the “dangerous trend” of U.S. military support for the democratic island.

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    On Monday, the U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency announced the sale of aircraft spare parts and related logistics and support worth about US$228 million to Taiwan, adding that the spare parts would boost the island’s “ability to meet current and future threats.” 

    Washington’s arms sales to Taipei “seriously interfered in China’s internal affairs, and seriously damaged China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” said China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Wednesday. 

    China regards Taiwan as a renegade province that should be reunited with the mainland, by force if necessary. The democratic island has been self-governing since it effectively separated from mainland China in 1949 after the Chinese civil war.

    Despite their lack of formal diplomatic ties, the U.S. has long been a key supplier of arms to Taiwan. Washington is bound by U.S. legislation, the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, to provide the island with arms for its defense.

    Edited by Mike Firn.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Taejun Kang for RFA.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Too many Americans ‘unjustly’ jailed in China, lawmakers say

    U.S. lawmakers on Wednesday urged the Biden administration to do more to bring home Americans unjustly imprisoned in China, as family members of the prisoners begged for help to secure their release.

    The appeals were made at a hearing of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, which came just three days after China’s government released one American prisoner who had been imprisoned for almost two decades – the 68-year-old pastor David Lin. 

    “We’re overjoyed for the Lin family,” said the chair of the commission, Rep. Chris Smith, who is a Republican from New Jersey, before noting estimates there are some 300 more Americans in Chinese prisons.

    “This is absolutely unacceptable,” he said. “If the Chinese government wants to improve relations with the United States, they should release Americans who are wrongfully imprisoned without condition, and end the use of exit bans, a form of de facto hostage taking.”

    The commission heard from family members of those still imprisoned in China, each of whom said they felt “joy” upon hearing of the release of Lin on Sunday, even if it ultimately left them with a bittersweet feeling.

    “Each time we get this news, it’s a really complex mix of emotions,” said Harrison Li, the son of Kai Li, a Chinese-born naturalized U.S. citizen from Long Island, New York, who was arrested in Shanghai in 2016 for “espionage” on a trip to mark his mother’s death.

    Li pointed to the recent release of Britney Griner and Paul Whelan from Russian prisons – as well as lower-profile cases of U.S. citizens being brought home from prisons in Afghanistan, Iran, Niger and Venezuela

    “Of course, we’re just so thrilled for these families,” he said. “We know, of course, what it’s like to have a loved one unjustly missing for so long, and to know that the family is finally being made whole.”

    “But at the same time,” Li told the hearing, “it begs the question for us, ‘What about my dad? When will it be his turn?’” 

    Lin’s release ‘not a coincidence’

    Others told the hearing they believed American officials were not always doing enough to secure the release of their loved ones.

    Peter Humphrey, a British former journalist and private investigator imprisoned in China from 2013 to 2015 for obtaining the private data of elite business people in China, said it was clear Beijing cared about its reputation and could be persuaded to release unjustly held Americans. 

    Lin was released by China on Sunday, he explained, “probably because of this imminent hearing on the calendar, which China was very well aware of,” calling the timing “not a coincidence at all.” 

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    If U.S. officials more forcefully called out Beijing for arresting Americans for political, business or other illegitimate reasons, he said, Beijing could be forced to release more people.

    “The U.S. government must end its policy of non-intervention in these judicial cases in China, and should intervene in them all,” Humphrey said, adding Washington alone could hold such sway over Beijing. 

    “It has a duty of care to protect its citizens against abusive dictatorships, and their so-called judicial systems,” he said. “It can lead the world in this pushback like no other country can.”

    Fake contest

    The commission also heard from Tim Hunt, the brother of Dawn Michelle Hunt, who said his 53-year-old sister was tricked both into thinking she won a contest to visit China and then into agreeing to take luggage out of the country that was lined with methamphetamine.

    20240918-IMPRISONED-AMERICANS-CHINA-003.jpg
    Dawn Hunt. (Courtesy of the Hunt Family)

    The scam started, he said, when she received an email that said she had won an “all-expenses paid trip to Hong Kong.” After traveling to Hong Kong and enjoying the trip, she was invited to mainland China. There, she was asked if she wanted to extend her trip to Australia.

    “She was told that she had also won some designer purses,” he said, noting the purses were lined with drugs. “It was at the airport, waiting to board her Australian flight, that she was called by airport security.”

    “This could happen to a lot of people,” said Hunt, a retired Chicago police officer. “She was duped, she was scammed. She trusted the wrong people, but she doesn’t deserve this. My sister is trusting and believes people are good.”

    Through tears, Hunt, whose father last week told The New York Times that he believed his daughter had been mistreated and raped in the prison, said the case “isn’t political.”

    “I’m just asking, as a brother, just bring my sister home,” he said.

    A similar case was detailed by Nelson Wells Sr., the father of Nelson Wells Jr., who was sentenced to 22 years in prison after being caught trying to leave China in 2014 with baked goods containing drugs.

    20240918-IMPRISONED-AMERICANS-CHINA-002.jpg
    Nelson Wells, Jr. (Friends & Family of Nelson Wells, Jr. via Facebook)

    Wells Sr. said his son agreed to take the baked goods out of China as a favor for a friend, who asked him to relay them to another friend.

    “For that one mistake – that one betrayal – none of our lives will ever be the same,” Wells Sr. said, adding he had not seen his son since.

    “We are asking, we are pleading, with this commission, with Congress, with the administration and with the Chinese government, to work together on behalf of our son to create a pathway for outright release, or prisoner transfer to a home prison,” he said.

    High priority

    Smith, the chair of the commission, said the cases of the prisoners should be made a priority for the Biden administration in its dealings with Chinese President Xi Jinping and other officials in Beijing.

    “The release of American citizens should be the first thing President Biden says to … Xi Jinping whenever they talk,” Smith said. “Their names should be said so often that Xi Jinping memorizes them.”

    Sen. Jeff Merkley, a Massachusetts Democrat who co-chairs the commision, said he hoped for more good news in the near future.

    “We’re joyful that David Lin has been released,” Merkley told the hearing, “but we want a celebration for each of your families.”

    Edited by Malcolm Foster.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Alex Willemyns for RFA.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Japanese-Uyghur lawmaker urges Tokyo to take firmer stand on China

    A Japanese lawmaker of Uyghur descent has called on Tokyo to take a stronger stand against China’s human rights abuses against the 12 million mostly Muslim ethnic group living in northwestern China.

    “Egregious human rights violations occurring in the Uyghur region is one of the greatest, and certainly a generation-defining, human rights crises of our time,” Arfiya Eri, a 35-year-old member of Japan’s more powerful lower house of parliament, told Radio Free Asia.

    “The international community, including Japan, must do its part to ensure that we do not set a precedent where such violations go unaccounted for under our watch,” she said, echoing comments she made earlier this month at the Sydney Dialogue, hosted by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. The annual summit in Sydney focuses on critical, emerging and cyber technologies.

    In 2023, Eri was elected to Japan’s Diet, or parliament, as a member of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party representing a district just east of Tokyo. Raised in Japan, she is the first Japanese of Uyghur background to be elected to the Diet. 

    Eri’s perspective carries personal and symbolic weight, highlighting the experiences of those directly affected by human rights abuses in Xinjiang and underscoring a moral imperative for Japan to act, Uyghur activists say.

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    For the past decade, China has severely repressed the 12 million mostly Muslim Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities who live in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, subjecting them to heavy surveillance, restricting their religious practices and detaining them in internment camps and prisons. 

    Eri’s call comes amid greater demands by Uyghur activists for the international community to take concrete steps to punish China for its rights abuses against the Uyghurs in Xinjiang.

    In February 2022, Japan’s Lower House adopted a resolution expressing concern over the human rights situation in China, including the plight of the Uyghurs, and called on Beijing to take measures to address the situation. 

    But Eri said nothing has really changed in Tokyo’s stance toward Beijing on this issue.

    She said that Japan, “as the strongest democratic economy in Asia, and as a country that holds the values of democracy, human rights, and rule of law as fundamental to its identity, can and must do more for peace, democracy, and human rights worldwide.”

    As a board member of a multiparty alliance on human rights diplomacy in Japan, she is engaging her colleagues to “do more in resolving human rights and humanitarian crises worldwide,” Eri said.

    Fluent in English, Japanese and Uyghur, Eri previously worked for the Bank of Japan and the United Nations. 

    Translated by RFA Uyghur. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Mamatjan Juma for RFA Uyghur.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • China sanctions 9 US firms over military sales to Taiwan

    China imposed sanctions on Wednesday on nine U.S. military-linked firms for their sale of equipment to Taiwan and it denounced what it called the “dangerous trend” of U.S. military support for the democratic island.

    On Monday, the U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency announced the sale of aircraft spare parts and related logistics and support worth about US$228 million to Taiwan, adding that the spare parts would boost the island’s “ability to meet current and future threats.” 

    The sale included both classified and unclassified components for the aircraft, as well as related engineering, technical and logistics support services.

    Washington’s arms sales to Taipei “seriously interfered in China’s internal affairs, and seriously damaged China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” said China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Wednesday. 

    China regards Taiwan as a renegade province that should be reunited with the mainland, by force if necessary. The democratic island has been self-governing since it effectively separated from mainland China in 1949 after the Chinese civil war.

    A spokesperson for China’s foreign ministry on Wednesday also urged the U.S. to immediately stop the “dangerous trend” of arming Taiwan. 

    “Stop conniving and supporting Taiwan independence, and stop undermining peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait,” said Lin Jian at a regular press briefing.

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    Taiwan proposes biggest ever defense spending of US$19.7 billion

    The steps taken against the firms, including Sierra Nevada Corporation and Stick Rudder Enterprises LLC, come into effect on Wednesday and will freeze their property within China, the foreign ministry said in a statement.

    It described the sanctions as countermeasures and said they also applied to Cubic Corporation, S3 Aerospace, TCOM Ltd Partnership, TextOre, Planate Management Group, ACT1 Federal and Exovera.

    Organizations and individuals within China are prohibited from engaging in transactions with the firms, the ministry added.

    China previously sanctioned and banned firms, including units of Lockheed Martin, for selling arms to Taiwan.

    The latest sales were the 16th military sale to Taiwan authorized by the administration of President Joe Biden.

    Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry expressed its appreciation for the U.S.support for Taiwan’s security while its Ministry of National Defense highlighted the strategic importance of the sale, noting that China’s gray zone tactics – a tactic using the threat of force to create fear and intimidation – had affected Taiwan’s training and operational readiness. 

    The aviation-related equipment would enhance the combat readiness and security of Taiwan’s air force, the ministry said.

    Edited by Mike Firn.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Taejun Kang for RFA.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • North Korea executes 2 women who fled and were forcibly repatriated from China

    Read a version of this story in Korean

    North Korea has executed two women who had been forcibly repatriated from China for helping other North Koreans in China escape to South Korea, a human rights organization told Radio Free Asia.  

    Charged with human trafficking, a 39-year-old woman surnamed Ri and a 43-year-old surnamed Kang were executed Aug. 31 after a public trial in the northeastern port city of Chongjin, according to Jang Se-yul, head of Gyeore’eol Unification Solidarity, based in Seoul.

    Nine other women were sentenced to life in prison on the same charges.

    All 11 women were among a group of around 500 North Koreans which China forcibly repatriated in October 2023.

    “These two women were executed because they had sent North Korean escapees from China to their enemy country, South Korea,” Jang told RFA Korean. 

    “When they first escaped, they were sold to a Chinese adult entertainment business,” he said. “When other North Korean women working there said they wanted to go to South Korea, they made arrangements to send them there.”

    This is the first report of executions since the resumption of forced repatriation of North Korean escapees in China in October. 

    Escapees in South Korea and elsewhere have urged China not to send North Koreans back, saying they would face severe punishments. China says it has an obligation to repatriate them under bilateral agreements it has with Pyongyang.

    Women at risk

    Women make up the majority of North Korean escapees in China. While there, they are often at the mercy of Chinese handlers who can sell them into servitude, either to work in prostitution, or to be the “wives” of Chinese men. 

    Since the end of the Korean War in 1953, more than 34,000 North Koreans have escaped to South Korea. Of these, around 72% were women.  

    Jang said that he learned of the trial and execution through Freedom Chosun an online media outlet run by North Korean escapees. 

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    ‘Some of them will be sent to … camps,’ some ‘may be executed’ 

    Residents in North Korea confirmed that the trial and execution occurred.

    A resident of the Chinese border city of Hoeryong told RFA that he witnessed the trial while visiting Chongjin, about 44 miles (70 kilometers) away. He said it started at 11 a.m. Aug. 31 and lasted an hour, and hundreds of residents and merchants at the marketplace were in attendance.

    The trial concluded when the Social Security Bureau of North Hamgyong Province decided to execute the women on the same day, and put the 11 women in a convoy to send them away, he said.

    The family of a North Korean escapee in South Korea, also confirmed (to him/her) that two people were executed in Chongjin. 

    Suzanne Scholte, chairwoman of the Virginia-based North Korea Freedom Coalition, confirmed to RFA Sept 11, that the trial and executions were discussed at a recent meeting of the organization.

    Helping escapees

    Jang said he had spoken with the younger sister of one of the executed women, who told him that she was able to escape to South Korea with her sister’s help.

    She said that her sister was caught by a Chinese broker while she was trying to escape to the South herself, Jang explained. She had been helping North Korean women escape by running a business with her Chinese husband in Longjing, Jilin province, China.

    “She cried a lot,” said Jang. “It seems like her sister had rescued a lot of North Korean escapees and sent them to South Korea.”

    Translated by Claire S. Lee. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Jamin Anderson for RFA Korean.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • North Korea sends 500 workers to China in violation of sanctions

    North Korea has dispatched 500 workers to China – a violation of international sanctions – in the first such deployment since the pandemic, residents in China told Radio Free Asia.

    The 500 workers were sent at the end of August. Prior to the pandemic, North Korea routinely sent workers abroad to countries like Russia and China to earn foreign currency for its cash-strapped government.

    All of that was supposed to have ended in late 2019, when UN Security Council Resolution 2397 – aimed at pressuring North Korea to end its nuclear program – kicked in, saying that all North Korean workers were to return home and no new work visas for North Koreans were to be issued.

    But when the pandemic hit and North Korea shuttered all its borders, many of the overseas workers became stranded abroad. 

    According to a report by the U.N. North Korea Sanctions Panel of Experts published earlier this year, approximately 100,000 North Korean workers are still earning foreign currency in some 40 countries, including China and Russia.

    Though Pyongyang ordered many of those workers home, this is the first time since the pandemic that it is sending out new workers. 

    On Aug 28 and 29, the workers arrived by bus in the city of Hunchun, just across the Tumen river from North Korea’s North Hamgyong province, a Chinese citizen of Korean descent told RFA Korean on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

    “A clothing company in the garment industrial park …  hired 150 of the dispatched workers,” the resident said. “The company is run by local Chinese people. North Korea will start sending workers on a large scale starting from now.” 

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    North Korea to Replace 10,000 Workers Dispatched to China

    Coronavirus Strands North Korean Workers in China, Kills Job Offers

    According to the resident, among the 3,000 or so workers who returned from China to North Korea since 2022, most were recalled because they got sick or showed signs of mental illness. 

    “They also repatriated those who caused problems during group living in China,” he said. “They withdrew workers who could no longer earn party funds and sent new workers to China starting at the end of August.”

    ‘Huge demand’

    But many who have been there since before the pandemic are going to stay and work for the companies they are already contracted with, he said.

    “Currently, North Korean workers are dispatched to some companies here in Jilin Province, but it seems that they will gradually be dispatched throughout China,” the resident said. “There is a huge demand in China for young workers who can live and work inside factories and increase productivity indefinitely.” 

    A resident of the Chinese city of Dandong, which lies across the Yalu River from North Korea’s Sinuiju, told RFA that the 500 workers will be working in three different companies in Hunchun. 

    “There are several clothing processing companies in Hunchun, including the Border Economic Cooperation Zone,” he said. “About 200 North Korean workers were dispatched to Hunchun Rabboni Garment Co., Ltd. on August 29.”

    Companies in China that utilize North Korean labor are relieved at the news, he said. They had been worried that once the workers return home, North Korea would not send new ones to replace them, but the new deployment is reassuring.

    “North Korea workers are initially dispatched to the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in Jilin Province, but they are expected to expand to many companies in all three northeastern provinces in the future,” he said, referring to Jilin, Liaoning and Heilongjiang provinces, often referred to as China’s Rust Belt due to recent decline of population and economic growth in what had been China’s most vibrant industrial region.

    According to the Dandong resident, the region’s manufacturing sector  is experiencing a serious shortage of workers, as many young Chinese avoid employment in rural areas and factories. North Koreans cost less and can pick up the slack, he said.

    Translated by Claire S. Lee. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Kim Jieun for RFA Korean.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Philippine coast guard ship leaves disputed shoal in South China Sea

    The Philippine coast guard vessel at the center of a standoff with China in the South China Sea has left the disputed Sabina Shoal, according to vessel tracking data obtained by RFA.

    Radio Free Asia tried to contact Philippine government agencies for comment on why the vessel had left the shoal, which is about 140 km (85 miles) west of Palawan island, but did not receive a response by time of publication. China has not commented.

    Data provided by the website MarineTraffic, which uses automatic identification system (AIS) signals to track ships, show that the BRP Teresa Magbanua (MRRV-9701) is back in the Sulu Sea near the Philippines’ Balabac island, about 200 km (125 miles) to the south of the shoal.

    Ship tracking specialists told RFA the 2,200-ton coast guard flagship left the hotly disputed shoal, known in the Philippines as Escoda, at around 1 p.m. on Friday.

    The shoal is claimed by both countries but is entirely within the Philippine exclusive economic zone, or EEZ, where the Philippines holds rights to explore for natural resources.

    BRP Teresa Magbanua is one of the largest and most modern vessels of the Philippine coast guard. It was first deployed to Sabina Shoal in April to monitor what the Philippines fears is a Chinese plan to reclaim land at the shoal, as China has done elsewhere in the South China Sea.

    Philippine officials insisted that the vessel could remain there for as long as necessary but China denounced what it saw as the “illegal grounding” of the BRP Teresa Magbanua and deployed a large number of ships there to keep watch. The Philippines denied that the vessel had been grounded.

    The standoff resulted in several collisions between Philippine and Chinese vessels, especially during Philippine resupply missions to the BRP Teresa Magbanua, raising fears of a more serious conflict between the Philippines, a close U.S. ally, and an increasingly assertive China.

    Beijing feared that by maintaining the vessel’s semi-permanent presence at the shoal, Manila aimed to establish de-facto control over it, similar to what it has done at the Second Thomas Shoal, where an old Philippine warship, BRP Sierra Madre, was deliberately run aground to serve as an outpost.

    For its part, the Philippines is worried that without the presence of its authorities, Chinese ships will swarm the area and effectively take control of it, as happened at Scarborough Shoal – another disputed South China Sea feature – where China has had control since 2012.

    Sabina Shoal is close to an area believed to be rich in oil and gas, and also served as the main staging ground for resupply missions to the Sierra Madre at the Second Thomas Shoal.

    Ship location.png

    Lower the tension

    “The parallels are unavoidable,” said Ray Powell, director of the U.S.-based SeaLight project at Stanford University, referring to what China did at the Scarborough Shoal.

    “China is also likely to declare victory – hard to avoid that conclusion,” said the maritime security analyst who monitors developments in the South China Sea, referring to the withdrawal of the Philippine ship.

    On Sept. 12, Philippine Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Maria Theresa P. Lazaro met China’s Vice Foreign Minister Chen Xiaodong to discuss the situation at the shoal. 

    The Chinese side reportedly urged the Philippines to immediately withdraw its vessels while “Lazaro reaffirmed the consistent position of the Philippines and explored ways to lower the tension in the area,” the Philippines Department of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.

    It is not clear whether the BRP Teresa Magbanua withdrew as a result of that consultation.

    Philippine analyst Chester Cabalza, president of the International Development and Security Cooperation think tank, described the withdrawal of the ship as “anti-climactic,” adding that he thought both sides should withdraw from the vicinity of the shoal, which is in an important sea lane.

     Cabalza said if the Philippines and China had reached any agreement in their Sept. 12 consultation, that would become evident in the absence of any “swarming of Chinese armada” at the shoal.

    “The ball is with China now,” the analyst told RFA’s affiliate BenarNews.

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    https://www.rfa.org/english/news/southchinasea/china-sabina-shoal-report-08302024043714.html

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    https://www.rfa.org/english/news/southchinasea/china-philippines-shoal-clash-08262024023722.html

    *Jason Guterriez in Manila contributed to this report.”

    Editing by RFA Staff


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

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • China mulls national military training for children, college students

    China’s National People’s Congress is considering amendments to the law that would expand compulsory military training at universities and ‘national defense education’ in high schools.

    Under the amendments, branches of the People’s Liberation Army will be stationed in colleges, universities and high schools across the country to boost a nationwide program of approved military education and physical training to prepare young people for recruitment, state news agency Xinhua reported on Sept. 10.

    “The second draft of the revised bill clarifies that ordinary colleges, universities and high schools should strengthen military skills training, hone students’ willpower, enhance organizational discipline, and improve the level of military training,” the agency said in a summary of the amendments.

    China has long had a culture of military training in schools and universities, with military-style boot-camps for kids on vacation and ‘defense education bases’ catering to corporations and tour groups. The authorities in Hong Kong have also imposed such training on former young protesters, alongside “patriotic education.”

    People’s Armed Forces departments already exist at every level of government, in schools, universities and state-owned enterprises to strengthen ruling Chinese Communist Party, or CCP, control over local militias, guard weapons caches and find work for veterans.

    After decades of relative invisibility throughout the post-Mao economic boom, they are once more mobilizing to build militias in big state-owned companies and consolidate party leadership over local military operations.

    But analysts say the amendments, if adopted, will standardize these activities under guidelines laid down by the CCP’s military arm, in a bid to create more potential recruits as part of preparations for war. While Chinese citizens have an obligation to serve in the People’s Liberation Army on paper, this hasn’t been implemented since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949.

    ‘Glorious’ military service

    Under the planned amendments, high schools will also be obliged to teach children about military service, and create an atmosphere in which military service is seen as “glorious,” Xinhua said.

    Primary and junior high schools are included in the plan, which calls on them to “combine classroom teaching with extracurricular activities,” according to the China News Service.

    “Students in colleges and high schools are required to offer compulsory basic military training, while junior high schools may also organize such activities,” the report said.

    According to a report in the Legal Daily newspaper, the amendments aim to build a nationwide program of military training that connects schools at all levels and of all types.

    They also guarantee funding for these activities, which will include military camps and “national defense education bases,” the paper said.

    Primary school students wearing Red Army uniforms visit the Martyrs Cemetery in Yecheng, northwestern China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, ahead of the Qingming grave-tending festival, April 4, 2015. (Reuters)
    Primary school students wearing Red Army uniforms visit the Martyrs Cemetery in Yecheng, northwestern China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, ahead of the Qingming grave-tending festival, April 4, 2015. (Reuters)

    “They want students to know about national defense, an awareness of who the enemy is, at a much younger age,” Shan-Son Kung, an associate researcher at Taiwan’s Institute for National Defense and Security Research, told RFA Mandarin in a recent interview.

    “[They also] want kids to get basic military training, which is being extended lower down the system, so as to universalize basic military knowledge,” he said. “The aim is to step up preparations for a future war, so that there will be more conscripts available following the passing of the Mobilization Law.”

    The National Defense Mobilization Law of the People’s Republic of China took effect on July 1, 2010, with the aim of setting up a nationwide structure for national defense mobilization.

    Currently, the Chinese military mostly relies on recruitment, and most of the standing army are professional soldiers, Kung said.

    “In the next few years, we could see growing tensions between China and the United States, and China may look to strengthen its economic and military mobilization as well as the frequency and scope of exercises sooner rather than later,” Kung said. “They may be making advance preparations for a large-scale war.”

    ‘Educational brainwashing’

    China already requires graduates in fluid mechanics, machinery, chemistry, missile technology, radar, science and engineering, weapons science and other technical disciplines to join the People’s Liberation Army.

    Taiwan-based Chinese dissident Gong Yujian said the Chinese Communist Party is aware that it may face great difficulty in recruiting young people to the military, given the shrinking of that age group due to the one-child policy, so it’s stepping up pro-military propaganda while they’re still young.

    “They need to cultivate high school students to be loyal to the party and patriotic, and worship the People’s Liberation Army,” Gong said. “It’s educational brainwashing.”

    “That way, they can join up after graduation and boost the People’s Liberation Army’s recruitment figures,” he said.

    Gong said he still has memories of some military training exercises from when he was in high school.

    “When we were in school, we had seven days’ military training, but it was just a formality,” he said. “The local armed police force sent soldiers to our school to teach the students how to march, and how to fold a blanket.”

    “But we didn’t even so much as touch a firearm,” he said.

    Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Roseanne Gerin.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Hsia Hsiao-hwa for RFA Mandarin.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • War in Sudan: Both Sides Accused of Crimes Against Humanity as UAE, Russia, China, Serbia Send Arms


    This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • War in Sudan: Both Sides Accused of Crimes Against Humanity as UAE, Russia, China, Serbia Send Arms

    Seg1 sudanraidsbodies

    In Sudan, a recent United Nations fact-finding mission documented “harrowing” human rights violations committed by both the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, including indiscriminate attacks on civilians, schools, hospitals, water and power supplies. Civilians have also been subjected to torture, arbitrary detention and gruesome sexual violence. Over 20,000 people have been killed and 13 million displaced over the past 16 months. The war has also destroyed the country’s healthcare system and caused an outbreak of diseases like cholera, malaria and dengue. Sky News correspondent Yousra Elbagir, whose reporting helped uncover details of a June 2023 massacre of civilians by the RSF in North Darfur, says the world is showing “complete apathy and neglect” over the violence in Sudan today. We also speak with Jean-Baptiste Gallopin, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch, who says countries including Russia, China and Iran are supplying both sides with advanced weapons that are “very likely to be used to commit human rights violations and war crimes.”


    This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Samoa Observer: A slap across the face of media freedom

    EDITORIAL: The Samoa Observer editorial board

    The Samoan government’s attempt to control the media for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting is a slap across the face of press freedom, democracy and freedom of speech.

    It is a farce and an attempt by a dysfunctional government unit to gag local and overseas media.

    No international forum of such importance does this. The United Nations, the Pacific Islands Forum or other CHOGMs never had to deal with such dictatorial policies for journalism. What is the sub-committee thinking?

    Samoa Observer
    SAMOA OBSERVER

    We are not living under a dictatorship, neither are the media organisations coming to cover the event. The message to media organisations like the BBC, ABC, AFP and others is you will only publish and broadcast what we tell you to.

    To the people who came up with these policies, what were you thinking? This goes to show the inexperience of the press secretariat and the media sub-committee. It would have been good if you had involved experienced journalists who have covered international events.

    There is never a restriction on media to cover side events, there is never a restriction for photographers and cameramen to take pictures, and there are never restrictions for media to approach delegates for interviews or what content they can get their hands on.

    In any international forum, the state or the organisation’s media uploads their content, interviews, pictures and videos and makes it accessible for all to use. It is at the discretion of the media to choose to use it. In most cases, the media come with their issues and angles. To say that this will be dictated, makes it sound like this is not Samoa but China.

    Next thing, the sub-committee will announce prison terms for not following the policies set by them. The CHOGM is the biggest international event Samoa has ever hosted and this decision is going to cause an international nightmare. The media in Samoa is furious because this is choking media freedom.

    The hiring of a New Zealand company will not solve the matter. They can help the government as they have done sporting bodies for the Pacific Games but who are you to dictate to the media what to publish and what to report?

    Each of the heads of delegations will be followed by the media from their country including their state media. All these people will not be allowed at the closing and opening ceremony. ABC, Nine News and other Australian media will follow Anthony Albanese, RNZ, New Zealand Herald, and Stuff will be behind Christopher Luxon and the British media with the King.

    This is surely not a move proposed by the Commonwealth Secretariat. If anyone at the press secretariat or any of the state-owned media has covered international events like the COP, CHOGM, UN meetings or even the Pacific Island Forum Leaders Meeting, you will know that this is not how things work. To even recommend that overseas and local media work together to cover the event is absurd.

    Imagine the press secretariat journalist following Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mataafa is told at an international event, no stay away from the events she goes to because we will tell where you are allowed to go. That also begs the question, will state media from other countries be treated differently from media who are independent?

    Each media outlet has its priorities. They will cover what is relevant to their audience.

    Media are given access and the option to choose whichever side event they would want to be part of. Does this also mean that the itinerary or schedule of events will also be not made public?

    The prime minister needs to intervene as quickly as possible before this situation escalates into an international incident. Stifling the media is never a good thing and trying to control them is even worse. Let us hope that this is not the legacy of this government. The one that managed to control media from 54 countries. It would be an achievement marked on the international stage.

    This year, Samoa jumped into the top 20 in the latest press freedom index released by the global group Reporters Without Borders out of 180 countries and territories assessed.

    It is one of only two Pacific nations in the top 20 of the index with New Zealand the other state and ahead of Samoa in 13th position. The other Pacific states below Aotearoa and Samoa include Australia (27), Tonga (44), Papua New Guinea (59), and Fiji (89).

    This is not a reflection of that.

    To justify this action by saying it is being done for security reasons either shows that you expect journalists to kill delegates with their questions or the lack of security arrangements surrounding the event. Is this an attempt to hide the inadequacies of the preparation from the eyes of the world?

    The sub-committee even said this was done to safeguard information that cannot be released. If you have covered an event like this before, you would know how it works. The least you could have done was consult with the Commonwealth media team or Rwanda, the previous hosts. The media know which meetings are public.

    The CHOGM is not a private event. It concerns governments from 54 nations and a government is its people. Do not be responsible for breaking the communication between governments and their people. Do not be the people to go down in history as the ones who killed media freedom at CHOGM, because that is what has happened here.

    If this is allowed to happen for CHOGM, a dangerous precedence will be set for future local events.

    The Samoa Observer editorial on 12 September 2024. Republished with permission.

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • China in delicate dance with Myanmar’s rebel groups

    Read RFA coverage of this story in Burmese

    Nearly 2 million people in Myanmar’s northern Shan state are facing a shortage of medicine and other basic commodities after China shuttered its border, according to residents and ethnic rebels, who said prices for goods have “skyrocketed” in the region over the past two weeks.

    On Aug. 25, Chinese authorities closed border gates serving 20 Shan state townships and Myanmar’s junta began restricting trade routes, as a group of rebel factions known as the Three Brotherhood Alliance pushed the military out of major towns in the region.

    The alliance, which first launched an offensive against the military in October 2023, now controls 21 townships in northern Shan state, as well as five border gates in the townships of Kyin Sang Kyaut, Chinshwehaw, Yan Long Keng, Mone Koe, and Nam Hkam.

    Lway Yay Oo, the spokeswoman of one of the ethnic alliance members known as the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, or TNLA, told RFA Burmese that residents of areas under its control no longer have access to the basic necessities they had come to rely on through border trade.

    “Since China closed the border gates, and the junta has blocked trade routes, there is a serious shortage of medicine in our area,” she said.

    20240912-CHINA-BORDER-MYANMAR-TRADE-002.jpg
    People visit the first Myanmar’s Lashio-China’s Lincang border economic and trade fair in Lashio, Myanmar, Nov. 21, 2019. (Haymhan Aung/Xinhua via Getty Images)

    Residents of northern Shan state said they believe that China – one of the junta’s few international allies and the largest foreign investor in Myanmar – shut down the border as part of a pressure campaign to end armed conflict in the area.

    “Some pharmacies have tried to get medicine to sell, but it’s not enough,” said a resident of Kutkai township who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on condition of anonymity due to security concerns.

    “It is difficult to get medicine for the sick and vaccinate the children,” he said, adding that people in the area cannot afford to pay to have supplies delivered from Myanmar’s urban centers, such as Yangon, which are dealing with their own shortages amid the country’s civil war.

    Residents said that the prices of remaining stock have “skyrocketed” since the gate closures.

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    A pharmacy owner in northern Shan state, who also declined to be named, told RFA that since the junta cut off trade routes, only small quantities of the most important drugs are being transported within the region.

    “It is not easy to transport medicine, and we can only smuggle urgently needed supplies,” he said. “Chinese medicine is out of stock now, although we can get B-6 and B-12 [vitamin supplements].”

    Attempts by RFA to contact Khun Thein Maung, the junta’s minister of economy and spokesperson for Shan state, for comment on the situation went unanswered Thursday, as did efforts to reach representatives from China’s Embassy in Yangon.

    Protecting Chinese interests

    China’s border closure follows three separate meetings last month between Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Chinese Ambassador to Myanmar Ma Jia and junta representatives, during which Beijing sought assurances that the military regime would protect its projects and citizens in the country.

    In response, the junta pledged to prioritize the safety of China’s assets, according to a statement released by Chinese authorities.

    But amidst the intensifying conflict in Myanmar, control over at least 10 Chinese projects has shifted from the military to armed opposition groups, including ethnic rebels and the anti-junta People’s Defense Force, or PDF, according to an Aug. 19 report by the Institute for Strategy and Policy – Myanmar.

    20240912-CHINA-BORDER-MYANMAR-TRADE-003.jpg
    A woman works at a motorbike factory in China Yunnan Pilot Free Trade Zone Dehong Area in Dehong, southwest China’s Yunnan Province, Nov. 4, 2019. (Jiang Wenyao/Xinhua via Getty Images)

    They include the Muse Border Economic Cooperation Zone, Kunlong Dam, Kunlong Bridge, Chinshwehaw Border Economic Trade Zone, Naung Pha Dam, Lancang-Mekong Environmental Cooperation Center, Goteik Bridge and New Road Project, Sinn Shwe Li-2 Sugar Factory, Alpha Cement Factory and Takaung Nickel Factory, the group said.

    When questioned about the situation, TNLA spokeswoman Lway Yay Oo told RFA that all Chinese projects under her group’s control in northern Shan state are currently suspended.

    “Given the ongoing instability in the region, we have temporarily suspended all investments,” she said. “Moving forward, we are working to develop the necessary policies in order to resume operations when conditions allow.”

    Junta ‘no longer accountable’

    Nay Phone Latt, spokesperson for the Prime Minister’s Office of Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government, or NUG, told RFA that the junta no longer has the capacity to safeguard Chinese projects.

    “The current regime is in a position where it is unable to ensure its own security, let alone protect the citizens of the country,” he said. “I want to clearly state that it can no longer be held accountable for the safety of international investment projects, foreign workers, or the security of those involved.”

    Nay Phone Latt noted that the PDF is currently providing security for the Takaung Nickel Plant, a US$855 million Chinese-owned mining project. He said that while “discussions have taken place” between the NUG and China regarding the plant, he could not disclose details of the talks at this time.

    In addition to the China-Myanmar oil and natural gas pipeline, ethnic rebel groups may partially control railways, roads, waterways and trade routes within the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor, which forms part of China’s broader Silk Road infrastructure initiative.

    20240912-CHINA-BORDER-MYANMAR-TRADE-004.jpg
    Chinese farmer Yukan who sells vegetables at a market in Myanmar, queues to leave a border crossing in Menghai county, southwest China’s Yunnan Province, Jan. 11, 2020. (Hu Chao/Xinhua via Getty)

    According to the Institute for Strategy and Policy – Myanmar, at least nine Chinese investment projects in Kyaukphyu and Thandwe townships, located in Rakhine state, are now partially controlled by the Arakan Army, or AA.

    When asked for comment, AA spokesperson Khaing Thukha said that foreign investment projects will be protected. “All parties involved in the ongoing conflict in Myanmar have expressed the need to safeguard China’s interests,” he said.

    RFA contacted junta spokesperson Major General Zaw Min Tun regarding the Chinese projects now under the control of ethnic groups, but received no response.

    Translated by Kalyar Lwin and Aung Naing. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.


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

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • The Literature of Uyghur Disappearance

    Three recent books offer a searing portrait of the calculated brutality of the ongoing Uyghur genocide.

    This post was originally published on Dissent MagazineDissent Magazine.

  • Uyghur doctor Gulshan Abbas – Six years imprisoned by China | Radio Free Asia (RFA)


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

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Uyghur doctor Gulshan Abbas – Six years imprisoned by China | Radio Free Asia (RFA)


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

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • US lawmakers ask Biden to end China trade ‘loophole’

    More than 100 U.S. lawmakers have written to President Joe Biden requesting an executive order to close a “loophole” they say is allowing clothing made with Uyghur slave labor to reach American shores.

    The “de minimis” exception allows imports worth less than $800 to enter the United States without being subjected to tariffs or customs inspections. 

    Critics have labeled it a “loophole” that allows 4 million packages to pass without scrutiny through customs each day.

    In particular, they accuse Chinese low-price online retailers like Shein and Temu of exploiting the exception to sell clothing made with Uyghur slave labor directly to Americans. The exemption has also been blamed for allowing fentanyl to be imported through the postal system.

    A long-promised bill to end the exemption was promised as part of this week’s high-profile “China Week” flurry of China-related legislation by House Speaker Mike Johnson, but in the end was not included.

    20240911-DE-MINIMIS-TEMU-SHEIN-TRADE-002.jpg
    Workers produce garments at a textile factory that supplies clothes to fast fashion e-commerce company Shein, June 11, 2024 in Guangzhou in southern China’s Guangdong province. (Jade Gao/AFP)

    In an open letter sent to Biden on Wednesday, 126 lawmakers from the Democratic Party said that in the absence of legislative action, the U.S. president should use the “broad discretion” granted to him by existing trade law to restrict what items are eligible for the exemption.

    They ask Biden to “disqualify commercial shipments from de minimis treatment,” so such items “no longer evade inspection, information disclosure requirements, or the requisite tariffs and taxes.”

    In a press conference Wednesday, Rep. Tom Suozzi, a Democrat from New York who leads the Congressional Uyghur Caucus, said that short of legislation, executive action was the only way to ensure laws like the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act can be properly enforced. 

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    “Some very clever people from the Chinese Communist Party … have come up with ways to get around all the stuff that we’ve negotiated,” Suozzi said, adding that Chinese online retailers “figured out how to use the new e-commerce systems” to skirt U.S. trade laws.

    “They’re under $800 and they come in through the mail, not through the ports of entry – nobody inspects it, nobody pays any tariffs,” he said of the packages entering under the exemption. 

    “Nobody makes sure they’re not being made with forced labor in the Xinjiang region,” he said, where thousands of ethnic Uyghurs are believed to be trapped in factories producing everything from clothing to appliances.

    Uyghur slave labor

    Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro, a Democrat from Connecticut, said she believed it was “a near certainty” that clothing made with Uyghur slave labor was entering the United States under the exception.

    DeLauro said the practice was also harming the U.S. textile industry, with Chinese brands that rely on slave labor “undercutting the competitiveness of many American industries – especially small clothing manufacturers – while enabling human rights abuses.”

    20240911-DE-MINIMIS-TEMU-SHEIN-TRADE-003.jpg
    A woman uses fentanyl in Portland, Oregon, Jan. 23, 2024. (Patrick T. Fallon/AFP)

    Lori Wallach, the director of the Rethink Trade program at the Washington-based American Economic Liberties Project, said it would be preferable to have legislation to close the loophole forever.

    “But the good news is that Congress previously granted American presidents broad discretion and authority to determine what types of goods can enter using de minimis – explicitly, in a statute, and it did so to prevent unlawful imports,” Wallach told the press conference.

    Ending the ability of foreign retailers to send small packages directly to consumers would not “cut off” such imports, Wallach said, but would “force a different way” of doing business. Sellers would likely revert to container shipments that require advanced information to be filed with customs so items can “get pulled and inspected,” she said.

    The White House did not respond to a request for comment about whether Biden would comply with the lawmakers’ request.

    Logistical nightmare

    Not all industry leaders are united against the exemption.

    John Pickel, the senior director of international supply chain policy at the National Foreign Trade Council and a former trade official at the Department of Homeland Security, told Radio Free Asia that the “de minimis” provision was a necessary part of U.S. trade law.

    Customs officials are already empowered to inspect goods shipped under “de minimis” if they believed the sender violated the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, he said, arguing the exemption was otherwise cost-saving for both government and consumers.

    20240911-DE-MINIMIS-TEMU-SHEIN-TRADE-004.jpg
    A photo illustration shows the Temu app in the App Store reflected in videos of Temu consumers, in Washington, DC, on Feb. 23, 2023. (Stefani Reynolds/AFP)

    Removing it would require extensive further appropriations for customs officials to inspect more packages and collect duties, he said, and would cost consumers who would be forced to pay for the tariffs.

    “I led the team that implemented the UFLPA at DHS, and I haven’t seen any evidence of increased forced labor risk in the de minimis environment,” Pickel said, pointing to a study that showed ending the exception would impose costs of up to $30 billion a year.

    “Degrading de minimis would only raise import taxes on low-income consumers and small businesses and have no enforcement benefit at the border,” he said. “Instead of focusing on de minimis, policymakers should be looking for ways to validate information received by the government across all shipment values and entry environments.”

    Edited by Malcolm Foster.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Alex Willemyns for RFA.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.