There’s a frenzied rush by the Australian political/media class to both propagandise Australians as quickly as possible into supporting preparations for war with China, and to ram through legislation that facilitates the censorship of online speech.
Australia’s Communications Minister Michelle Rowland is set to release draft legislation imposing hefty fines on social media companies who fail to adequately block “misinformation” and “disinformation” from circulation in Australia, a frightening prospect which will likely have far-reaching consequences for political speech in the nation.
Under the proposed laws, the authority would be able to impose a new “code” on specific companies that repeatedly fail to combat misinformation and disinformation or an industry-wide “standard” to force digital platforms to remove harmful content.
The maximum penalty for systemic breaches of a registered code would be $2.75 million or 2 per cent of global turnover — whichever is higher.
The maximum penalty for breaching an industry standard would be $6.88 million, or 5 per cent of a company’s global turnover. In the case of Facebook’s owner, Meta, for example, the maximum penalty could amount to a fine of more than $8 billion.
Those are the kinds of numbers that change a company’s censorship protocols. We’re already seeing social media censorship of content in Australia that the Australian government has ruled unacceptable; here’s what the transphobic tweets embedded in a right-wing article about Twitter censorship looks like when you try to view them on Twitter from Australia, for example:
These tweets were reportedly hidden from Australians on the platform at the behest of the Australian government. Australians could wind up seeing much more of this sort of Australia-specific censorship from social media platforms if this “misinformation” legislation goes through. Or they could just start censoring it for everyone.
The problem with laws against inaccurate information is of course that somebody needs to be making the determination what information is true and what is false, and those determinations will necessarily be informed by the biases and agendas of the person making them. I can substantiate my claim that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was provoked by NATO powers using an abundance of facts and evidence, for example, but there’s still a sizeable portion of the population which would consider such claims malignant disinformation with or without the supporting data.
When the government involves itself in the regulation of speech, it is necessarily incentivized to regulate speech in a way that benefits itself and its allies. Nobody who supports government regulation of online mis- and disinformation can articulate how such measures can be safeguarded in a surefire way against the abuses and agendas of the powerful.
Under a Totalitarian Regime, your government censors your speech if you say unauthorized things. Under a Free Democracy, your government orders corporations to censor your speech if you say unauthorized things.
At the same time, Australian media have been hammering one remarkably uniform message into public consciousness with increasing aggression lately: there is a war with China coming, Australia will be involved, and Australia must do much more to prepare for this war as quickly as possible.
Australians are remarkably vulnerable to propaganda due to the fact that ownership of our nation’s media is the most concentrated in the western world, with a powerful duopoly of Nine Entertainment and Murdoch’s News Corp controlling most of the Australian press.
Both of these media conglomerates have been involved in the latest excuse to talk about how more military spending and militarisation is needed, this time taking the form of a war machine-funded think tanker publishing a book about how we all need to prepare for war with China.
The “military expert” who warns of the need to prepare for an imminent war with China is a man named Ross Babbage, who as Knott notes is “a non-resident senior fellow at the Centre for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington.” What Knott fails to disclose to his readers is that the Centre for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments is funded by every war profiteer and war machine entity under the sun, the majority coming straight from the US Department of Defense itself.
As we’ve discussed many times previously, it is never, ever okay for the press to cite war machine-funded think tankers for expertise or analysis on matters of war and foreign policy, and it is doubly egregious for them to do so without at least disclosing their massive conflict of interest to their readers. This act of extreme journalistic malpractice has become the norm throughout the mainstream press, because it helps mass media reporters do their actual job: administering propaganda to an unsuspecting public.
All for a news story that (and I cannot stress this enough) is not a news story. A war machine-funded think tanker saying he wants more war is not a news story — it’s just a thing that happens when the war machine is allowed to pay people to be warmongers.
“War Machine-Funded Warmonger Wants More War.” That’s your headline. That’s the one and only headline this non-story could ever deserve, if any.
Propaganda and censorship are the two most important tools of imperial narrative control, and it’s very telling that Australia is ramping them both up as the nation is being transformed into a weapon for the US empire to use against China. Steps are being taken to ensure that the Australian populace will be on board with whatever agendas the empire has planned for us in the coming years, and judging from what we’re seeing right now, it isn’t going to be pretty.
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All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, throwing some money into my tip jar on Patreon, Paypal, or Substack, buying an issue of my monthly zine, and following me on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud or YouTube. If you want to read more you can buy my books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.
In the repertoire of foreign policy combatants in Washington’s corridors of power, there is a time-tested ploy: Conservatives in the military or intelligence bureaucracy leak damaging information to force the (usually Democratic) president into a more confrontational approach with a foreign adversary, derailing any effort to reduce tensions. The bureaucrats’ allies on Capitol Hill immediately…
That is pretty rich given that the US is arming Taiwan (which the present US administration confirms is a province of the People’s Republic of China), and certainly Taiwan’s location makes an excellently situated listening post for the CIA. Thus it appears more so, using Gaetz’s analogy, that Taiwan is being made to serve as a stationary US aircraft carrier right off the coast of Fujian. Nonetheless, China’s presence in Cuba does not violate American sovereignty. Contrariwise, the US’s meddling in Taiwan is viewed as objectionable and provocative by Beijing.
And where is the evidence for Gaetz’s claim?
Western media asked Wang Wenbin, spokesman for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, for comment on 9 June 2023:
AFP: Reports by US media outlets say that China and Cuba have agreed to set up a Chinese spy facility capable of monitoring communications across the southeastern part of the US. Officials in Washington and Havana have said these reports are not accurate. Does the Chinese foreign ministry have a comment?
Wang Wenbin: I am not aware of what you mentioned. It is well known that the US is an expert on chasing shadows and meddling in other countries’ internal affairs. The US is the global champion of hacking and superpower of surveillance. The US has long illegally occupied Cuba’s Guantánamo Bay for secretive activities and imposed a blockade on Cuba for over 60 years. The US needs to take a hard look at itself, stop interfering in Cuba’s internal affairs under the pretext of freedom, democracy and human rights, immediately lift its economic, commercial and financial blockade on Cuba, and act in ways conducive to improving relations with Cuba and regional peace and stability, not otherwise.
Prensa Latina: Although China and Cuba denied the recent reports, the US government said over the weekend that it had information about this alleged spy center that they say China has been operating in Cuba. What is your comment about it?
Wang Wenbin: I made clear China’s position on this last week. Over the past few days, we have seen self-conflicting comments from US officials and media on the so-called allegation of China building “spy facilities” in Cuba. This is another example of “the US negating the US.”
What is true can never be false, and what is false can never be true. No matter how the US tries with slanders and smears, it will not succeed in driving a wedge between two true friends, China and Cuba, nor can it cover up its deplorable track record of indiscriminate mass spying around the world.
Thus, Gaetz has once again revealed the absurdity/mendacity of American politicians. Besides, what does it matter if China is building a listening post in Cuba? Is there any country on the planet that believes that the US is not spying on them? What is it that the Five Eyes are doing? What are all those eyes in the sky doing? Do US embassies and consulates not function as intelligence gathering bases? The US collects intelligence on friends and foes alike.
It even surveilles its own citizens. Don’t Americans know this? That is why Edward Snowden faces arrest should he return home. It is a moral contradiction that a whistleblower who exposes government illegality would be arrested by that same government for exposing its illegal actions.
This plays into another US narrative of the Threat of China. (See Paolo Urio, America and the China Threat: From the End of History to the End of Empire, 2022. Review.) Fox News cites an unnamed Biden administration official on the awareness
of a “number of” efforts by the People’s Republic of China “around the world to expand its overseas logistics, basing, and collection infrastructure.” These outposts would allow the People’s Liberation Army “to project and sustain military power at a greater distance.”
That is the rules-based order writ large. The US can do whatever it pleases. It can build military bases around the world and listen in on whoever it wants. But there are rules for the rest of the world to obey.
What does Gaetz propose doing? He supports “an Authorization for Use of Military Force to take out the Chinese assets in Cuba.”
I support an Authorization for Use of Military Force to take out the Chinese assets in Cuba.
We should be a lot more concerned that China is functionally turning Cuba into a stationary aircraft carrier right off the coast of Florida. pic.twitter.com/rH0WIpU5rV
Is this what American citizens need now, another war with a powerful country their government chooses to regard as an adversary — all this while the US and its NATO minions are going down to ignominious defeat in Ukraine?
Beijing issued a “red” alert level Friday, a day after the city’s temperature soared to a record for June, weather authorities and local media said, as northern China suffers a scorching heat wave expected to extend into next week.
Already, several monthly heat records have been broken across China, which has prompted fears of a looming energy crisis.
On Thursday afternoon, Beijing’s temperature reached 41.1 degrees Celsius (105.9 F), a record since data collection started in 1961, according to the municipal weather observatory. It was also Beijing’s second-highest level in history, just below the 41.9 C (107.4 F) registered on July 24, 1999.
This week’s scorching heat has coincided with the annual Dragon Boat Festival holiday, which started on Thursday, when millions of Chinese travel to visit relatives or for tourism.
Authorities urged residents to remain indoors.
“Citizens and tourists are reminded to reduce the time for outdoor activities during high-temperature periods, pay attention to heatstroke prevention and cooling, and replenish the water frequently,” the state-owned China Weather Network said in a warning Friday.
Last summer, China faced its most severe heat wave and drought in many decades, resulting in extensive power deficits and significant food and industrial supply network disruptions.
Humans contributing
According to a scientific report last month, the record-breaking heat wave that hit parts of Asia in April was made at least 30 times more likely due to human-induced climate change.
The temperatures were at least 2 degrees Celsius hotter due to climate change, which has seen average global temperatures rise 1.2 degrees since 1900, the World Weather Attribution (WWA) study said.
Experts have said clear and dry conditions now have exacerbated the current heat wave.
A man and woman relax after swimming in a canal during a heatwave in Beijing, June 23, 2023. Credit: AFP
It was the first time that Beijing, home to more than 21 million people, issued a “red” alert in its four-tiered warning system since the new system was introduced in 2015.
On Friday, Beijing’s temperature hit 40.3 degrees C (104.5 F), the first time on record that China’s capital rose to more than 40 degrees, the Beijing weather observatory’s chief forecaster, Zhang Yingxin, told a press briefing, according to media reports.
China’s National Meteorological Center said temperatures in parts of Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei and Shandong rose rapidly over 40 C (104 F), with a total of 19 observatories in four regions reporting record-high temperatures, Zhang Fanghua, its chief forecaster said, according to CWN.
In the northern port city of Tianjin, the temperature reached 41.2 C (106.16 F), a record high for the region.
The temperature reached 43 C (109.4 F) in coastal Shandong on Thursday, according to the meteorological center.
Local authorities in northern and eastern Chinese cities have issued heatstroke and dehydration warnings, advising people not to work outdoors during the hottest parts of the day.
Meanwhile, in southern China, authorities issued the lowest “yellow” alert for rainstorms on Friday, with heavy rains projected to hit parts of Guangxi Zhuang, Fujian, Guangdong and Yunnan in the coming days.
Edited by Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Subel Rai Bhandari for RFA.
Voting in a western “democracy” is like that bit in the opening intro of The Simpsons when Marge is driving with the baby and the baby has a toy steering wheel. The baby thinks she’s driving the car but it’s just a fake toy to keep her busy and let her feel like she’s participating.
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All the worst atrocities in human history have been perpetrated or permitted by the government of the people who perpetrated them. None of the world’s most evil people are in prison. The law isn’t there to protect you from bad people, it’s there to protect bad people from you.
That’s why you should always, always, always be distrustful of all efforts to extend the law and expand government power over you. It’s not happening because your government wants to help you. Your government is not your friend.
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Republicans push war with China while sometimes acting as skeptics on Russia warmongering, Democrats push war with Russia while sometimes acting as skeptics on China warmongering. This creates the illusion of opposition while giving the war machine everything it wants.
Which happens to be the job of the two-party system: creating the illusion of having a democratic choice between two opposing parties while ensuring that both parties advance the same overall agendas.
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The best advice I can offer about US-China tensions is to ignore the words and watch the actions. Ignore what officials say about wanting peace and supporting the One China policy, and just watch all the US war machinery that’s being rapidly added to the areas surrounding China.
The US empire is better at international narrative manipulation than any power structure that has ever existed in human history, but what they can’t spin away is the concrete maneuverings of solid pieces of war machinery, because they are physical realities and not narratives.
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Trump’s recent comments about taking Venezuela’s oil are another good illustration of the real reason major factions of the imperial blob dislike Trump. It’s not because he’s “anti-war” or “fighting the Deep State” (he isn’t) — it’s because he’s a sloppy empire manager who makes the machine look as ugly as it is and can’t be trusted to keep the quiet parts quiet.
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Gotta hand it to the empire for successfully duping rightists into believing anti-communism is somehow an anti-establishment position and not the exact same pro-establishment position that was propagandized into their parents, their grandparents, and their great-grandparents.
“Oh you’re an anti-establishment rebel are you? What does that look like in practice?”
‘Hating communism, being mean to people whose sexuality is different from mine, and voting Republican.’
“Ah. So pretty much just being a conservative and supporting the establishment, then?”
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It’s actually kind of adorable how the Pentagon has gotten so comfortable sucking out funds for killing Russians that it’s now at a point where it just goes “Oh hey look, we just found a few billion dollars lying around on the ground! Oh well, might as well throw it at Ukraine!”
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Many people who are suspicious of our ruling power structures hold an assumption that our world is being micromanaged by a shadowy cabal of elite “Them”s whose sinister plans dictate every major event in our world, but it really doesn’t work like that. Conspiracies among the powerful happen of course, but most of the ugly things we see are more the result of a blind confluence of mutually reinforcing forces like capitalism, the US empire’s push for unipolar hegemony, war profiteering, and partisan politics.
It’d probably actually be better for us if the world really was being tightly controlled by a small cabal of elites instead of being blindly driven by a convergence of unthinking power interests, because at least such a cabal wouldn’t be imperiling their own lives by pushing nuclear brinkmanship and environmental destruction like a bunch of idiots.
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Inner work is a social responsibility for everyone who is capable of it. Humanity’s evolutionary and historical heritage has left us all full of trauma and dysfunction, and if you’ve got the time and resources to help clear your share of that from our species you really should. I’m not saying you have to spend years in the Himalayas, or even go to therapy if that’s not where it’s at for you, but you ought to do something to bring consciousness and healing to your inner processes rather than just letting unconscious conditioning pilot your whole life.
It also happens that working on yourself and clearing your unconscious bullshit will make you a lot happier and lead to much wiser decisions and a much better life. So there’s really no reason you should keep coasting along and still be the same person ten years from now that you are today.
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All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, throwing some money into my tip jar on Patreon, Paypal, or Substack, buying an issue of my monthly zine, and following me on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud or YouTube. If you want to read more you can buy my books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.
On 3 April 2023, deputy Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh announced the United States expanding into four new military sites in the Philippines.
“In addition to the five existing sites, these new locations will strengthen the interoperability of the United States and Philippine armed forces and allow us to respond more seamlessly together to address a range of shared challenges in the Indo-Pacific region, including natural and humanitarian disasters,” said Singh.
A day later, 4 April, the US embassy in the Philippines announced a joint US-Philippines military exercise, Balikatan-2023, to be held from April 11 to 28. It was billed as the largest military manoeuvres in the history of the Philippines, with more than 5,000 Philippine troops and more than 12,000 US troops taking part.
To anyone familiar with the world map, it jumps out immediately that the Philippine’s geographical proximity to Taiwan and the South China China is exactly what the US is looking for in its Pivot to Asia (specifically China): a location where the US can try and impose containment on China.
This realization was clear to China, and China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Yi responded guardedly: “China has sent a signal to the Philippines to not allow third parties to sabotage the friendly relations between the two countries.”
Helping Those in Need
More recently, on 16 June, the Philippines news website Inquirer.netran a piece on a request put out by Philippines president Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr to help his country procure affordable fertilizer.
Did the US step up?
China stepped up and donated 20,000 metric tons of urea fertilizer to the Philippines.
“This donation that came from China was a product of our request from all our friends around the world during the crisis when fertilizer — well, what we are still feeling now when fertilizer prices went up and the availability was also because of the supply chain problems that we are experiencing with our usual suppliers and China did not think twice and immediately came up,” said Marcos.
Relationships Based in Dialogue
China does not base its relationships with other countries through force of arms.
Regarding disputed territory in the South China Sea, China seeks to solve this through negotiation. One point of contention is a dispute over fishing in the South China Sea. China says the fishing ban from May to August is to sustain fish stocks and improve the marine ecology. The Philippines is opposed to this imposition.
Regarding this, Marcos said, “We already have coordination with them (China) when there is a fishing ban so there won’t be a sudden fishing ban. At least we can have a plan. We are making some progress in that regard.”
A stark Difference between the US and China vis-a-vis Philippines
Following the Spanish-American War, the US sought to recolonize hitherto Spanish colonies, one of which was the Philippines. The Philippines resisted US imperialism. So the US waged a bloody war against the Philippines from 1899 to 1902. The estimates of Filipino fatalities ranges from 200,000 to 3 million.
200,000 to 300,000 dead just can not be correct. A People’s History of the United States (1980) [by Howard Zinn, p. 308] cites 300,000 Filipinos killed in Batangas [a province in Luzon, south of Manila] alone, that alone proves the figures wrong, William Pomeroy’s American Neocolonialism (1970) cites 600,000 Filipinos dead in Luzon alone by 1902. This is backed up by General Bell himself, who said “we estimated that we killed one-sixth of the population of the main island of Luzon — some 600,000 people.”
How Was a Marcos Returned to Malacanang Palace?
During the period when I lived in the Philippines in 2000, a Filipino colleague who had worked at the US naval base in Subic Bay expressed approval at the US departure, citing the breakdown in cultural morale and rampant prostitution. Now US service personnel are returning to Subic Bay as a result of Marcos’s renewed ties with US militarism.
Yet, the election of Marcos is puzzling. His father, the dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr, had been toppled by a People Power Revolution. The kleptocratic family was sent into exile in Hawai’i.
The current president, however, refuses to apologize for the sins of his father. Fair enough if he had no part in his father’s sins. But he could and should deplore the atrocities of his father’s regime. People of good conscience deplore atrocities regardless of who the perpetrator is. Bongbong doesn’t. Neither has the ill-gotten wealth of the Marcos family been returned to the Filipino people.
It is an electoral conundrum that speaks more to the psyche of the masses. When the masses are mired in poverty and hold illusions of better times under martial law, then logic often goes out the window. Sadly, the admonition about people who don’t remember their history bodes ill for the poor masses.
It is difficult to make sense of many events these days. France’s behaviour, for instance, is hard to square. On the one hand, French President Emmanuel Macron changed his mind to support Ukraine’s entry into the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). On the other hand, he said that France would like to attend the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) summit in South Africa in August. Europe is, of course, not an entirely homogeneous continent, with problems afoot as Hungary and Turkey have refused to ratify Sweden’s desire to enter NATO at its annual summit in Vilnius (Lithuania) in July. Nonetheless, the European bourgeoisie looks westward to Wall Street’s investment firms to park its wealth, yoking its own future to the regency of the United States. Europe is firmly wedded to the Atlantic alliance with little room for an independent European voice.
At the No Cold War platform, we have been carefully studying these elements of Europe’s foreign policy. Briefing no. 8, which will form the bulk of this newsletter, has been drafted along with European Parliament member Marc Botenga of the Workers’ Party of Belgium, or PTB–PVDA. You will find it below.
The war in Ukraine has been accompanied by a strengthening of the US’s grip and influence on Europe. An important supply of Russian gas was replaced by US shale gas. European Union (EU) programmes originally designed to fortify Europe’s industrial base now serve the acquisition of US-made weapons. Under US pressure, many European countries have contributed to escalating war in Ukraine instead of pushing for a political solution to bring about peace.
At the same time, the US wants Europe to decouple from China, which would further reduce Europe’s global role and run counter to its own interests. Instead of following the US’s confrontational and damaging New Cold War agenda, it is in the interests of Europe’s people for their countries to establish an independent foreign policy that embraces global cooperation and a diverse set of international relations.
Europe’s Growing Dependence on the US
The Ukraine war, and the ensuing spiral of sanctions and counter sanctions, led to a rapid decoupling of EU-Russia trade relations. Losing a trade partner has limited the EU’s options and increased dependence on the US, a reality that is most visible in the EU’s energy policy. As a result of the war in Ukraine, Europe reduced its dependence on Russian gas, only to increase its dependence on more expensive US liquefied natural gas (LNG). The US took advantage of this energy crisis, selling its LNG to Europe at prices well above production cost. In 2022, the US accounted for more than half of the LNG imported into Europe. This gives the US additional power to pressure EU leaders: if US shipments of LNG were diverted elsewhere, Europe would immediately face great economic and social difficulty.
Reza Derakhshani (Iran), White Hunt, 2019.
Washington has started pushing European companies to relocate to the US, using lower energy prices as an argument. As German Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Action Robert Habeck said, the US is ‘hoovering up investments from Europe’ – i.e., it is actively promoting the region’s deindustrialisation.
The US Inflation Reduction Act (2022) and the CHIPS and Science Act (2022) directly serve this purpose, offering $370 billion and $52 billion in subsidies, respectively, to attract clean energy and semiconductor industries to the US. The impact of these measures is already being felt in Europe: Tesla is reportedly discussing relocating its battery construction project from Germany to the US, and Volkswagen paused a planned battery plant in Eastern Europe, instead moving forward with its first North American electric battery plant in Canada, where it is eligible to receive US subsides.
EU dependence on the US also applies in other areas. A 2013 report by the French Senate asked unambiguously: ‘Is the European Union a colony of the digital world?’. The 2018 US Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data (CLOUD) Act and the 1978 US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) allow US companies extensive access to EU telecommunications including data and phone calls, giving them access to state secrets. The EU is being spied on continuously.
Rising Militarisation Is Against the Interests of Europe
EU discussions on strategic vulnerabilities focus mostly on China and Russia while the influence of the US is all but ignored. The US operates a massive network of over 200 US military bases and 60,000 troops in Europe, and, through NATO, it imposes ‘complementarity’ on European defence actions, meaning that European members of the alliance can act together with the US but not independently of it. Former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright famously summarised this as ‘the three Ds’: no ‘de-linking’ European decision-making from NATO, no ‘duplicating’ NATO’s efforts, no ‘discriminating’ against NATO’s non-EU members. Furthermore, in order to guarantee dependence, the US refrains from sharing the most important military technologies with European countries, including much of the data and software connected to the F-35 fighter jets they purchased.
For many years, the US has been calling for European governments to increase their military spending. In 2022, military spending in Western and Central Europe surged to €316 billion, returning to levels not seen since the end of the first Cold War. In addition, European states and EU institutions sent over €25 billion in military aid to Ukraine. Prior to the war, Germany, Britain, and France were already amongst the top ten highest military spenders in the world. Now, Germany has approved €100 billion for a special military upgrading fund and committed to spend 2% of its GDP on defence. Meanwhile, Britain announced its ambition to increase its military spending from 2.2% to 2.5% of its GDP and France announced that it will increase its military spending to around €60 billion by 2030 – approximately double its 2017 allocation.
This surge in military spending is taking place while Europe experiences its worst cost of living crisis in decades and the climate crisis deepens. Across Europe, millions of people have taken to the streets in protest. The hundreds of billions of euros being spent on the military should instead be redirected to tackling these urgent problems.
Decoupling from China Would Be Disastrous
The EU would suffer from a US-China conflict. A significant part of EU exports to the US contains Chinese inputs, and conversely, EU goods exports to China often contain US inputs. Tighter export controls imposed by the US on exports to China or vice versa will therefore hit EU companies, but the impact will go much further.
The US has increased pressure on a variety of EU countries, companies, and institutions to scale down or stop cooperation with Chinese projects, in particular lobbying for Europe to join its tech war against China. This pressure has borne fruit, with ten EU states having restricted or banned the Chinese technology company Huawei from their 5G networks as Germany considers a similar measure. Meanwhile, the Netherlands has blocked exports of chip-making machinery to China by the key Dutch semiconductor company ASML.
In 2020, China overtook the US’s position as the EU’s main trading partner, and in 2022, China was the EU’s largest source for imported goods and its third largest market for exported goods. The US push for European companies to restrict or end relations with China would mean limiting Europe’s trade options, and incidentally increasing its dependence on Washington. This would be detrimental not just to the EU’s autonomy, but also to regional social and economic conditions.
Georgi Baev (Bulgaria), Name, 1985.
Europe Should Embrace Global Cooperation, Not Confrontation
Since the end of the Second World War, no single foreign power has wielded more power over European policy than the US. If Europe allows itself to be locked into a US-led bloc, not only will this reinforce its technological dependence on the US, but the region could become de-industrialised. Moreover, this will put Europe at odds not only with China, but also with other major developing countries, including India, Brazil, and South Africa, that refuse to align themselves with one country or another.
Rather than follow the US into conflicts around the world, an independent Europe must redirect its security strategy towards territorial defence, collective security for the continent, and building constructive international links by decisively breaking away from paternalistic and exploitative trade relations with developing countries. Instead, fair, respectful, and equal relationships with the Global South can offer Europe the necessary and valuable diversification of political and economic partners that it urgently needs.
An independent and interconnected Europe is in the interests of the European people. This would allow vast resources to be diverted away from military spending and towards addressing the climate and cost of living crises, such as by building a green industrial base. The European people have every reason to support the development of an independent foreign policy that rejects US dominance and militarisation in favour of embracing international cooperation and a more democratic world order.
The No Cold War briefing above asks an important question: is an independent European foreign policy possible? The general conclusion, given the balance of forces that prevail in Europe today, is no. Not even the far-right government in Italy, which campaigned against NATO, could withstand pressure from Washington. But, as the briefing suggests, the negative impact of the Western policy of preventing peace in Ukraine is being felt daily by the European public. Will the European people stand up for their sovereignty or will they continue to be the frontline for Washington’s ambitions?
The defence cooperation agreement talks of reaffirming a strong defence relationship based on a shared commitment to peace and stability and common approaches to addressing regional defence and security issues.
Money that Marape ‘wouldn’t turn down’ University of PNG political scientist Michael Kabuni said there was certainly a need for PNG to improve security at the border to stop, for instance, the country being used as a transit point for drugs such as methamphetamine and cocaine.
“Papua New Guinea hasn’t had an ability or capacity to manage its borders. So we really don’t know what goes on on the fringes of PNG’s marine borders.”
But Kabuni, who is completing his doctorate at the Australian National University, said whenever the US signs these sorts of deals with developing countries, the result is inevitably a heavy militarisation.
“I think the politicians, especially PNG politicians, are either too naïve, or the benefits are too much for them to ignore. So the deal between Papua New Guinea and the United States comes with more than US$400 million support. This is money that [Prime Minister] James Marape wouldn’t turn down,” he said.
The remote northern island of Manus, most recently the site of Australia’s controversial refugee detention camp, is set to assume far greater prominence in the region with the US eyeing both the naval base and the airport.
US fighter jets now (21.06.23) at Jacksons International Airport, Port Moresby.
Kabuni said Manus was an important base during World War II and remains key strategic real estate for both China and the United States.
“So there is talk that, apart from the US and Australia building a naval base on Manus, China is building a commercial one. But when China gets involved in building wharves, though it appears to be a wharf for commercial ships to park, it’s built with the equipment to hold military naval ships,” he said.
Six military locations
Papua New Guineans now know the US is set to have military facilities at six locations around the country.
These are Nadzab Airport in Lae, the seaport in Lae, the Lombrum Naval Base and Momote Airport on Manus Island, as well as Port Moresby’s seaport and Jackson’s International Airport.
According to the text of the treaty the American military forces and their contractors will have the ability to largely operate in a cocoon, with little interaction with the rest of PNG, not paying taxes on anything they bring in, including personal items.
Prime Minister James Marape has said the Americans will not be setting up military bases, but this document gives them the option to do this.
Marape said more specific information on the arrangements would come later.
Antony Blinken said the defence pact was drafted by both nations as ‘equal and sovereign partners’ and stressed that the US will be transparent.
Critics of the deal have accused the government of undermining PNG’s sovereignty but Marape told Parliament that “we have allowed our military to be eroded in the last 48 years, [but] sovereignty is defined by the robustness and strength of your military”.
The Shiprider Agreement has been touted as a solution to PNG’s problems of patrolling its huge exclusive economic zone of nearly 3 million sq km.
Another feature of the agreements is that US resources could be directed toward overcoming the violence that has plagued PNG elections for many years, with possibly the worst occurrence in last year’s national poll.
But Michael Kabuni said the solution to these issues will not be through strengthening police or the military but by such things as improving funding and support for organisations like the Electoral Commission to allow for accurate rolls to be completed well ahead of voting.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
Tibetans would willingly accept Chinese rule if granted true autonomy by Beijing, the leader of Tibet’s government-in-exile said Wednesday.
“If those kinds of autonomies are granted to the Tibetans, they will be happy to live under the framework of the People’s Republic of China’s constitution,” said Sikyong Penpa Tsering, the head of the Central Tibetan Administration, referring to the status of Scotland and South Tyrol within the context of British and Italian rule.
“It is not a matter of who rules; it is the quality of the rule,” he said, speaking to the Australian National Press Club in Canberra on “resolving Sino-Tibet conflict and securing peace in the region.”
Penpa Tsering reiterated the Central Tibetan Administration’s commitment to resolving the Sino-Tibet conflict through the “Middle Way Approach” formulated by Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama. The strategy promotes true autonomy for Tibetans under Chinese rule, as written in China’s constitution.
But he highlighted the historically independent status of Tibet and said that unless that status is recognized, China would have no reason to negotiate with the CTA.
Embassy lobbying efforts
Penpa Tsering’s hour-long address, which also touched on the Chinese government’s attempts to control the reincarnation process of the Dalai Lama, surveil Buddhist monasteries and restrict the movement of Tibetans, took place despite Beijing’s best efforts.
Earlier this month, Chinese Embassy representatives met with press club chief Maurice Reily and voiced their opposition to Penpa Tsering’s appearance at Wednesday’s event, requesting that his invitation be revoked.
China has controlled Tibet since it invaded the region in 1949, and rejects any notion of a Tibetan government-in-exile, particularly the legitimacy of the Dalai Lama, who lives in Dharamsala, India. Beijing has also stepped up efforts to erode Tibetan culture, language and religion.
Speeches given at the National Press Club are broadcast on Australian TV and attended by prominent members of the press, and observers suggested Beijing may have lobbied Reily because it was worried about the wider exposure Penpa Tsering would get.
“I want to thank the Chinese government for always being the best publicity agent,” Penpa Tsering said at Wednesday’s event, implying that Beijing’s efforts did more harm than good.
Visit to parliament
Earlier on Wednesday, Penpa Tsering delivered a speech on the geopolitical significance of Tibet at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.
On Tuesday, the Sikyong observed proceedings at the Australian parliament, where lawmakers Sophie Scamps and Susan Templeman detailed the situation inside Tibet under Chinese rule. He also met with several Australian MPs.
Speaking to RFA Tibetan, Kalsang Tsering, the president of the Australian Tibetan Community Association, welcomed Penpa Tsering’s visit on behalf of the estimated 2,500 Tibetans living in Australia.
“The honor that Sikyong Penpa Tsering has received here in Australia and in the Australian parliament has been overwhelming and it is evident that there is so much support from the parliamentarians for the Tibetan cause,” he said.
Translated by Tenzin Dickyi. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Tibetan.
Legislation passed by the U.S. House of Representatives and a Senate committee in the first half of this year seeks to change China’s label of developing country used in the World Trade Organization (WTO). Chinese officials have responded by reaffirming that China is still a developing country under international law.
Asia Fact Check Lab (AFCL) found that there is no clear and uniform definition of a “developing country” within the international community. Different classifications systems used by the UN and World Bank refer to China respectively as a “developing economy” and an “upper middle-income country,” while the WTO allows countries to self-identify as a “developing country.”.
In addition, China’s classification as a “developing country” in certain international treaties does not imply that there is a universal set of international laws which define China as a “developing country.”
In Depth
The U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations approved the Ending China’s Developing Nation Status Act on June 8. The bill requires the State Department to attempt to “stop China from being classified as a developing nation by international organizations” and specifies the World Trade Organization (WTO) as one international organization in which the People’s Republic of China (PRC) receives “beneficial treatment” as a result of its status as a developing country.
Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Wang Wenbin responded to the bill at a press conference on June 9, saying that “China’s status as the world’s largest developing country is rooted in facts and international law” and that “the rights that China is lawfully entitled to as a developing country” will not be deprived by US politicians.
The WTO does not provide specific definitions for “developed” and “developing” countries. It is up to individual members to declare their own categorization. However, other members have the right to question the decision of a member country to utilize provisions meant for developing countries.”
How do the World Bank and the UN classify China’s economy?
Both the UN and the World Bank use gross national income（GNI） per capita as the defining criteria to measure a countries’ economic development.
The UN World Economic Situation and Prospects report classifies different countries’ economies into four categories: developed, developing, least developed and economies in transition. China’s economy is classified as developing.
China’s economy is classified as “developing” by a UN report and as “upper-middle income” by the World Bank. Credit: AP
Does international law entitle China to remain a developing country?
The Chinese foreign ministry claims that the basis of China’s status as a developing country in international law cannot be denied. The ministry pointed to the recognition of such status in international treaties such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Montreal Protocol as proof of its acceptance by the international community. Wang’s statement that the U.S. was attempting to “deprive China of its developing country status” would seem to further imply that China’s status as a developing country is permanent.
Such claims are misleading.
“There are no authoritative definitions of ‘developing country’,” Steve Chanozits, an associate professor of law at The George Washington University, tells AFCL. “There is no consensus definition in international law. Countries can self-assess their own progress toward their development goals and the international community can also make such an assessment.”
While there are many international treaties which divide countries into different categories based on income, with each category bearing different obligations, Charles Kenny,a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development, told AFCL. These categories and their cutoff points are determined after negotiation amongst the relevant parties, Kenny says.
Therefore, China’s status is not permanent or “lawfully entitled” as China’s foreign ministry indicated, but it has a certain time limit and must undergo regular review or redefining by member states in the institutions, Chen-en Sung, an expert on international law and director of the Taiwan Constitutional Foundation, told AFCL. China’s developing status shouldn’t be generalized, but must instead be viewed in light of the respective provisions of the cited treaties, along with the rights and obligations of countries labeled under different statuses.
Why does it matter whether a country is labeled as developed or developing?
In certain international organizations such as the WTO, the designation of being a developing country allows a country to seek (but not necessarily to obtain), “special rights or extra leniency.”
“Various categorizations are used for purposes including who gets financial support to achieve various global objectives, or who gets greater leniency when it comes to international trade rules or who is eligible for ODA [Official development assistance], there are reasons why countries might want to put themselves in the ‘developing’ category,” Kenny says.
Furthermore, the label of a “developed” country often carries a responsibility to help poorer countries in tough economic straits and to abide by more stringent regulations on issues of global importance such as climate change.
Being designated as a “developing” country allows countries to request “special rights or extra leniency” in the WTO. Credit: AP
“The PRC often uses its status as a middle-income country to excuse itself from global responsibilities – including fighting climate change and in the provision of debt relief in the current debt crisis. However, the sheer size of the PRC’s economy means that it is impossible to deliver global public goods in climate or in staving off the current debt crisis in many developing countries if it continues to avoid its responsibilities or adherence to international norms,” aUnited States Agency for International Development spokesperson told AFCL.
Conclusion
AFCL found that China’s economy qualifies as developing and upper middle income according to the respective standards set by the UN and the World Bank. Currently, within the WTO organization, China is recognized as a “developing country.”
However, the status in the WTO is based on self-declaration, and it may be subject to uncertainty in the future due to its own development or challenges from other members, according to WTO rules.
China’s foreign ministry’s statement that China’s status as a developing country “rooted in facts and international law” is misleading.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Shen Ke.
Indonesia is moving the first planned military exercise with other Southeast Asian nations away from disputed South China Sea waters, where Beijing has increasingly been asserting its sweeping territorial claims.
The Indonesian military announced Wednesday a change of location for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations exercise, scheduled for Sept. 18-25. The non-combat drills were originally planned to take place in the North Natuna Sea, which lies within Indonesia’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) but parts of which China claims.
Indonesia is this year’s holder of the rotating ASEAN chairmanship.
The new ASEAN exercise locations “include Batam [near Singapore] and the waters of South Natuna that are part of Indonesia’s archipelagic sea lane,” military spokesman Col. Suhendro Oktosatrio said. He was referring to designated areas where foreign ships are allowed passage while transiting through those waters innocently.
These new locations were chosen because they were suitable for non-combat drills such as joint maritime patrols, medical evacuation and disaster relief, said another Indonesian military official, Rear Adm. Julius Widjojono.
“Priority is given to areas that are prone to [natural] disasters,” he said.
Indonesia renamed the southern reaches of the South China Sea the North Natuna Sea in 2017, to emphasize its sovereignty over those waters, which encompass natural gas fields.
Indonesia does not have any territorial disputes with China, but it has repeatedly lodged protests against Chinese fishing boats and coast guard vessels entering its EEZ near the Natuna Islands.
China has claimed “traditional rights” over fishing resources in the area. China claims nearly the entire South China Sea, including waters within the exclusive economic zones of Taiwan and ASEAN member-states Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam.
In 2016, a U.N. arbitration court ruled that China’s nine-dash line, a boundary used by Beijing on Chinese maps to illustrate its claim, was invalid. But Beijing has rejected the ruling and insisted it has jurisdiction over all areas within the dashed line.
Chinese officials said back then that the nine dashes were “for security and order at sea.”
China has built artificial islands and military installations on some reefs and shoals in the South China Sea, raising concerns among other claimants and the United States.
The United States has regularly conducted “freedom of navigation” operations in the South China Sea to challenge China’s claims and has urged ASEAN countries to stand up to Beijing’s assertiveness.
Indonesia’s military commander Adm. Yudo Margono, who proposed the ASEAN drill during a meeting of the bloc’s defense forces chiefs in Bali earlier this month, said the joint drills would enhance regional stability and “boost our countries’ economy.”
‘Afraid of clashing’
But Cambodia and Myanmar, two ASEAN members with strong ties to China, did not take part in an initial planning conference for the exercise on Monday, according to military spokesman Suhendro. It was not clear whether they would join the drills.
The Indonesian military said it sent official invitations for the planning meeting to the Cambodian and Burmese defense attachés in Jakarta but got no response.
Myanmar, which has been wracked by violence since the military ousted an elected government in 2021, is persona non grata at major ASEAN meetings.
Cambodia’s defense ministry said earlier this month it had not decided on participation in the ASEAN joint exercise, saying that it was still waiting for more information from Indonesia, according to media reports in that country.
Arie Afriansyah, an expert in international sea law at the University of Indonesia, said there could be many reasons for the change of the locations, such as safety and security considerations.
“Maybe they are afraid of clashing with other countries. If it is conducted in South Natuna, Indonesia has full control in that area,” Arie told BenarNews.
“It would be a shame if fear of China is the reason, because this exercise is a way for ASEAN countries to show their unity on the North Natuna and South China Sea issue, which Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines also support,” he said.
The joint ASEAN drill is planned as an effort to maintain regional stability, Khairul Fahmi, a military and security observer from the Institute for Security and Strategic Studies, told BenarNews.
“The message will not come across well if some ASEAN countries are not on board,” he said.
BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news organization.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Tria Dianti for BenarNews.
China scores better on food, health and housing, while crackdowns have worsened Hong Kong’s ratings
China has been ranked as the worst country in the world for safety from the state and the right to assembly, in a human rights report that tracks social, economic and political freedoms.
The Human Rights Measurement Initiative (HRMI), a New Zealand-based project, has been monitoring various countries’ human rights performance since 2017.
Chinese Communist Party officials appear to be distancing themselves from detained gambling tycoon She Zhijiang, whose casinos have been linked with massive human trafficking and online scam operations in the region, and who faces imminent repatriation to China after being arrested by Thai police in August 2022.
She, who owns property and gaming ventures in Cambodia, Myanmar and the Philippines, stands accused of “running illegal online gambling operations,” and will likely face repatriation very soon coinciding with the expiration of his 30-day appeal period, according to an official statement and a person familiar with the case.
A deputy spokesman for Thailand’s Supreme Prosecutor’s Office announced that the court had issued a deportation order for She on May 25. However, the order allowed 30 days for She to appeal the decision.
Shortly afterwards, Thailand’s Provincial Electricity Authority said it would cut off the power supply to Shwe Kokko, the site of She’s $15 billion real estate and casino mega-project that has become notorious as a bastion of illegal activity, including drug trafficking, amid violence and unrest in post-coup Myanmar.
Meanwhile, officials linked to Beijing’s international outreach and influence operations are now claiming he has no connection with a key organization carrying out its “United Front” work among overseas Chinese.
While official reports show She attending top-level meetings in Beijing in 2019 hosted by the All-China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese, a known United Front organization, officials at the body said they had “no knowledge” of She’s case when contacted by Radio Free Asia, and that it fell under the remit of the China Federation of Overseas Entrepreneurs instead.
However, an official at the entrepreneurs’ organization said She, as a former high-ranking officer in the organization, would still be the business of the All-China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese.
As Chinese officials appeared pass the buck on She, a Thailand-based dissident who shared a detention center cell with him in Bangkok told Radio Free Asia that the former gambling tycoon is desperate to avoid repatriation to China amid an ongoing crackdown on human trafficking and online scams that have netted thousands of victims across the region in recent years.
According to court documents shared with the dissident by She, he had once been a valued collaborator for the Chinese authorities, and was put in touch with state security police in the southern island province of Hainan and given a handler to provide intelligence for Beijing.
United Front darling
She, a former Cambodian national who was granted Chinese citizenship during his 2019 Beijing trip, now fears that his most basic human rights won’t be protected and is calling on the international community to help prevent his repatriation to China, the dissident, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals, said.
She wouldn’t be the first former darling of the United Front system to face repercussions back home amid an ongoing anti-corruption and anti-espionage campaign that typically nets people who have fallen out of political favor under general secretary Xi Jinping, or who are considered insufficiently loyal to China’s supreme leader.
In May, a court in the eastern city of Suzhou handed down a life sentence to 78-year-old American citizen John Leung, who headed a Beijing-backed overseas Chinese community group, after finding him guilty of “espionage.” Leung had also previously been photographed alongside high-ranking Communist Party officials.
“She Zhijiang made his name and fortune in Myawaddy, an extremely sensitive area in the hands of the Chinese,” the dissident said, referring to an area in southeastern Myanmar’s Kayin state, where She’s Yatai Corp is a major investor in the Shwe Kokko Special Economic Zone.
A youth being forced to work at the Casino Kosai in Myanmar is tied to a column and tased [left]. Injuries to his back are seen at right. Credit: Screenshots from video provided to RFA
While the Shwe Kokko mega-project along the Thaungyin River was initially promoted as a way to spur economic growth and deliver material benefits to the local community, it has gained notoriety more as a bastion of illegal activity, according to a report by the Washington-based Center for Advanced Defense Studies, C4ADS, an independent research outfit that studies transnational organized crime networks.
According to the dissident, She believes that his army of some 5,000 mercenaries and his deep connections in the local area should protect him from the worst form of political retaliation on his return to China. Yet he still fears he could receive the death penalty.
“I told him he has been abandoned by the Communist Party, who can easily deal with other people under his command,” the dissident said, adding that She had handed over copies of hundreds of pages of court trial records and other documents and asked him to make them public.
Much of the material details close cooperation between She and Chinese Communist Party officials, including his recruitment as an agent by the state security police.
They also allege that he paid up to two million yuan in bribes to An Chen, secretary-general of the China Federation of Overseas Entrepreneurs.
Personal fiefdom
According to the dissident, She ran afoul of Beijing after he grew extremely powerful in Myawaddy, and wanted to run the Asia-Pacific City complex in the Shwe Kokko Special Economic Zone as his personal fiefdom, something that the Chinese Communist Party couldn’t countenance owing to the strategic importance of the area, which is close to the border with Thailand.
Chinese state media reports from the time of She’s arrest described She as the “Asia-Pacific City online scam king,” whose operation in Myawaddy had attracted more than 100 casino and scam companies to Asia-Pacific City.
“Amid a vast network of vested interests and transactions, crimes like smuggling, kidnapping, human trafficking, fraud, assault, extortion are densely intertwined and span Southeast Asia and China,” the August 2022 Phoenix News report on She’s arrest said.
“She Zhijiang, who has changed his nationality and who has multiple pseudonyms, rules the roost like an emperor.”
According to the dissident, none of these activities could have taken place in Myanmar without the knowledge and collusion of the Chinese Communist Party.
“You can’t do this stuff with no backing – behind them are governments and warlords,” he said. “The Chinese Communist Party controls 100% of this place.”
Another person familiar with organized crime in the region agreed that the Chinese government is heavily involved with organizations carrying out criminal activities in the region, including in Myawaddy, Sihanoukville and the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone, a gambling and tourism hub catering to the Chinese and situated along the Mekong River where Laos, Myanmar and Thailand converge.
“There’s a man called Zhao Wei in the Golden Triangle SEZ who has leased a piece of land for 99 years, and the place is full of gray-to-black operations,” the person said. “The entire area is under his control … and he is engaged in scams, human trafficking and wild animal trafficking around there.”
“Basically 80% of the scamming industry in Southeast Asia is run by people from Fujian [province],” he said.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Paul Eckert.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Chen Jun for RFA Cantonese.
Authorities in Beijing have stepped up their harassment of rights attorney Wang Quanzhang and his family, cutting off power to their new apartment and forcing his wife and child to leave.
Forced to leave their old apartment in the middle of the academic year and find somewhere else to live, the family thought they had finally found a new home in a Beijing suburb, but instead the harassment escalated.
The family has been watched and harassed by a group of unidentified men since they relocated to the northern Beijing suburb of Changping after being forced to leave their previous apartment, according to video clips posted to Wang’s Twitter account.
“Are you telling me what to do?” says one, when Wang opens the front door to find them outside. “Yes of course, because this is our front door,” Wang replies.
“So is this your private property? You are violating my right to privacy,” the man retorts.
Overseas activists have called on the authorities to stop, saying it is a continuation of an operation targeting rights lawyers and public interest law firms that began in 2015.
Wang’s wife Li Wenzu said via her Twitter account that the power to the apartment was cut off on Sunday, and that the power company had refused to reconnect it.
“I called the power supply bureau at 1800 on June 19, 2023, to file a request for repairs,” Li wrote on Monday. “At 1830, a member of staff from the Changping supply station called me back and promised to deal with it immediately.”
“But when I called them back at 1900, they told me the property management company had said this was an internal matter … I told them this should be their responsibility.” she wrote.
24-hour siege
Li told Radio Free Asia that she has now left the apartment and has sent the couple’s child to stay with friends for the time being.
“They’ve cut off our power again, and the door of the meter box has been sealed with a big lock,” she said. “There are many unidentified men in front of the building every day.”
“We are under 24-hour siege, and couriers can’t get through to deliver anything — they are constantly escalating their harassment of us, using different methods to stop us from living a normal life,” she said.
Li Wenzu, Wang Quanzhang’s wife, told RFA that the meter box for their apartment has been locked [shown]. Credit: 709liwenzu Twitter
Li said the constant stress and fear has taken a toll on their son, Wang Guangwei.
“We kept moving around during the month when we were forced to relocate, and there have been frequent incidents of violence and intimidation such as the police coming to our door in the middle of the night, which left the kid severely frightened, and he became ill during that time,” she said.
“I felt desperate and powerless with all of that happening every day, I could even live the most basic normal existence, and our son couldn’t attend school,” she said. “And now he has to be separated from us.”
Li said she expects the water and gas to be cut off next.
An overseas-based rights group called on the authorities to end the official harassment of Wang Quanzhang and fellow rights attorney Li Heping and their families.
“The authorities are requested to implement and guarantee the implementation of the Civil Code and … immediately stop all inappropriate and illegal acts that smear and trample on the law,” the China Human Rights Lawyers Group said in a statement dated June 19.
Petition to end harassment
It called for an investigation into officials and police officers who had entered the lawyers’ homes illegally.
Luo Shengchun, wife of jailed rights lawyer Ding Jiaxi, said she had signed a petition calling for an end to the harassment of rights lawyers and their families.
“They have forced Li Wenzu and [Li Heping’s wife] Wang Qiaoling to leave their homes, and my anger is indescribable,” Luo said. “Government agencies in China have degenerated to the point where they just hire a group of thugs to do this stuff — it’s crazy. They don’t treat ordinary people as human beings, and it’s getting worse.”
U.S.-based rights activist and legal scholar Teng Biao said the persecution dates back to a 2015 police operation that targeted hundreds of rights lawyers, fellow activists and their families, during which many were jailed for subversion, with Wang Quanzhang “disappearing” for around three years.
“A lot of lawyers got their licenses revoked during the July 2015 crackdown, and many were sentenced,” Teng said. “Now they want to totally silence any defenders of human rights, and so they are using these thuggish methods.”
“China has now upgraded to a high-tech totalitarian system with total disregard for the rule of law and the most basic standards of human rights,” he said.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Paul Eckert.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Chen Zifei for RFA Mandarin and RFA Cantonese.
The 53rd session of the UN Human Rights Council started 19 June (to end on 14 July 2023). Thanks to the – as usual – excellent documentation prepared by the International Service for Human Rights (ISHR) I will highlight the themes mostly affecting HRDs.
To stay up-to-date you can follow @ISHRglobal and #HRC53 on Twitter, and look out for its Human Rights Council Monitor. During the session, follow the live-updated programme of work on Sched.
Here are some highlights of the session’s thematic discussions
Human rights of migrants
The Council will consider a resolution on the human rights of migrants this session, where a big problem is the criminalisation of the provision of solidarity and support, including rescues at sea, by migrant rights defenders.
Reprisals
..States raising cases is an important aspect of seeking accountability and ending impunity for acts of reprisal and intimidation against defenders engaging with the UN. It can also send a powerful message of solidarity to defenders, supporting and sustaining their work in repressive environments.
Anexa Alfred Cunningham (Nicaragua), a Miskitu Indigenous leader, woman human rights defender, lawyer and expert on Indigenous peoples rights from Nicaragua, who has been denied entry back into her country since July 2022, when she participated in a session of a group of United Nations experts on the rights of Indigenous Peoples. States should demand that Anexa be permitted to return to her country, community and family and enabled to continue her work safely and without restriction.
Vanessa Mendoza (Andorra), a psychologist and the president of Associació Stop Violències, which focuses on gender-based violence, sexual and reproductive rights, and advocates for safe and legal abortion in Andorra. After engaging with CEDAW in 2019, Vanessa was charged with ‘slander with publicity’, ‘slander against the co-princes’ and ‘crimes against the prestige of the institutions’. She has been indicted for the alleged “crimes against the prestige of the institutions” involving a potentially heavy fine (up to 30,000 euros) and a criminal record if convicted. States should demand that the authorities in Andorra unconditionally drop all charges against Vanessa and amend laws which violate the rights to freedom of expression and association.
Kadar Abdi Ibrahim (Djibouti) is a human rights defender and journalist from Djibouti. He is also the Secretary-General of the political party Movement for Democracy and Freedom (MoDEL). Days after returning from Geneva, where Kadar carried out advocacy activities ahead of Djibouti’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR), intelligence service agents raided his house and confiscated his passport. He has thus been banned from travel for five years. States should call on the authorities in Djibouti to lift the travel ban and return Kadar’s passport immediately and unconditionally.
Hong Kong civil society (Hong Kong): Until 2020, civil society in Hong Kong was vibrant and had engaged consistently and constructively with the UN. This engagement came to a screeching halt after the imposition by Beijing of the National Security Law for Hong Kong (NSL), which entered into force on 1 July 2020. States should urge the Hong Kong authorities to repeal the offensive National Security Law and desist from criminalizing cooperation with the UN and other work to defend human rights.
Maryam al-Balushi and Amina al-Abduli (United Arab Emirates), Amina Al-Abdouli used to work as a school teacher. She was advocating for the Arab Spring and the Syrian uprising. She is a mother of five. Maryam Al Balushi was a student at the College of Technology. They were arrested for their human rights work, and held in incommunicado detention, tortured and forced into self-incriminatory confessions. After the UN Special Procedures mandate holders sent a letter to the UAE authorities raising concerns about their torture and ill treatment in detention in 2019, the UAE charged Amina and Maryam with three additional crimes. The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention found their detention arbitrary and a clear case of reprisals for communicating with Special Procedures. In April 2021, a court sentenced them to three additional years of prison for “publishing false information that disturbs the public order”. States should demand that authorities in the UAE immediately and unconditionally release Maryam and Amina and provide them with reparations for their arbitrary detention and ill-treatment.
Other thematic reports
At this 53rd session, the Council will discuss a range of civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights through dedicated debates with the mandate holders and the High Commissioner, including:
The Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association
The Independent Expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity
The Special Rapporteur on the right to freedom of expression
The Special Rapporteur on the right to health
The Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary of arbitrary executions
The Special Rapporteur on promotion and protection of human rights in the context of climate change
The Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance
The Working Group on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises
The High Commissioner on the importance of casualty recording for the promotion and protection of human rights
The Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on the Prevention of Genocide
In addition, the Council will hold dedicated debates on the rights of specific groups including:
The Working Group on discrimination against women and girls
The Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, its causes and consequences
The Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants
The Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially women and children
The Special Rapporteur on independence of judges and lawyers
#HRC53 | Country-specific developments
Afghanistan
The Human Rights Council will hold its Enhanced Interactive Dialogue on Afghanistan, with the Special Rapporteur on the situation in Afghanistan and the Working Group on Discrimination against Women in Law and Practice. The joint report of the two mandates follows up from an urgent debate held last year on the situation of women and girls in the country. Their visit to the country concluded that there exist manifestations of systemic discrimination violating human rights and fundamental freedoms in both public and private lives. ISHR has joined many around the world to argue that the situation amounts to gender apartheid, and welcomes the call of the two mandate holders to develop normative standards and tools to address this as “an institutionalised system of discrimination, segregation, humiliation and exclusion of women and girls”. The gravity and severity is urgent, and requires that States act on the ongoing calls by Afghan civil society to establish an accountability mechanism for crimes against humanity.
Algeria
On 15 June, fifteen activists and peaceful protesters will face trial in Algiers on the basis of unfounded charges which include ‘enrolment in a terrorist or subversive organisation active abroad or in Algeria’ and ‘propaganda likely to harm the national interest, of foreign origin or inspiration’. The activists were arrested between 23 and 27 April 2021, and arbitrarily prosecuted within one criminal case. If convicted of these charges, they face a prison sentence of up to twenty years. This case includes HRDs Kaddour Chouicha, Jamila Loukil and Said Boudour who were members of the LADDH before its dissolution by the Administrative Court of Algiers following a complaint filed by the Interior Ministry on 29 June 2022. We urge States to monitor the prosecution closely, including by attending the trial. We also urge States to demand that Algeria, a HRC member, end its crackdown on human rights defenders and civil society organisations, amend laws used to silence peaceful dissent and stifle civil society, and immediately and unconditionally release arbitrarily detained human rights defenders.
China
The recent findings of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in March, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women in May, and the seven key benchmarks on Xinjiang by 15 Special Rapporteurs add up to wide range of UN expert voices that have collectively raised profound concern at the Chinese government’s treatment of Uyghurs, Tibetans, Hong Kongers and HRDs in mainland China. Seldom has the gap between the breadth of UN documentation on crimes against humanity and other grave violations and the lack of action by the Human Rights Council in response to such overwhelming evidence been so flagrant: the Council’s credibility is at stake. ISHR calls on the Council to promptly adopt a resolution requesting updated information on the human rights situation in Xinjiang, and a dialogue among all stakeholders on the matter. Governments from all regions should avoid selectivity, put an end to China’s exceptionalism, and provide a meaningful response to atrocity crimes on the basis of impartial UN-corroborated information.
The recent convictions of prominent rights defenders Ding Jiaxi and Xu Zhiyong to 12 and 14 years in jail respectively, and the recent detention of 2022 Martin Ennals awardee Yu Wensheng and his wife Xu Yan for ‘subversion of State power’ a year after his release, point to the need for sustained attention to the fate of HRDs in China. States should address in a joint statement the abuse of national security and other root causes of violations that commonly affect Uyghurs, Tibetans, Hong Kongers and mainland Chinese HRDs. States should also ask for the prompt release of human rights defenders, including human rights lawyers Chang Weiping, Yu Wensheng and Ding Jiaxi, legal scholar Xu Zhiyong, feminist activists Huang Xueqin and Li Qiaochu, Uyghur doctor Gulshan Abbas, Hong Kong lawyer Chow Hang-tung, and Tibetan climate activist A-nya Sengdra.
Egypt
Since the joint statement delivered by States in March 2021 at the HRC, there has been no significant improvement in the human rights situation in Egypt despite the launching of the national human rights strategy and the national dialogue. The Egyptian government has failed to address, adequately or at all, the repeated serious concerns expressed by several UN Special Procedures over the broad and expansive definition of “terrorism”, which enables the conflation of civil disobedience and peaceful criticism with “terrorism”. The Human Rights Committee raised its concerns “that these laws are used, in combination with restrictive legislation on fundamental freedoms, to silence actual or perceived critics of the Government, including peaceful protesters, lawyers, journalists, political opponents and human rights defenders”. Egyptian and international civil society organisations have been calling on the HRC to establish a monitoring and reporting mechanism on the human rights situation in Egypt, applying objective criteria and in light of the Egyptian government’s absolute lack of genuine will to acknowledge, let alone address, the country’s deep-rooted human rights crisis.
Israel and OPT
Civil society continues to call on the OHCHR to implement, in full, the mandate provided by HRC resolution 31/36 of March 2016 with regards to the UN database of businesses involved in Israel’s illegal settlement industry. The resolution mandated the release of a report containing the names of the companies involved in Israel’s settlement enterprise, to be annually updated. The initial report containing a list of 112 companies was released by the OHCHR in February 2020, three years after the mandated release date and despite undue political pressure. Since then, the UN database has not been updated. UN member states should continue to call on the OHCHR to implement the mandate in full and publish an annual update, as this represents a question of credibility of the Office of the High Commissioner and the Council.
The Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel will present its second report to the Council on 20 June. Member states should continue to support the work of the CoI to investigate the root causes of the situation in line with its mandate with a view to putting an end to 75 years of denial of the Palestinian’s people inalienable rights to self-determination and return. As the Palestinian people commemorate 75 years of Nakba (the destruction of Palestinian homeland and society), the CoI needs to address the root causes of the situation, including by investigating the ongoing denial of the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination and the return of refugees, as well as the ongoing forcible displacement of Palestinians on both sides of the Green Line in the context of Israel’s imposition of a system of colonial apartheid.
In addition, on 10 July, the Council will hold an interactive dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967.
Saudi Arabia
In light of the ongoing diplomatic rehabilitation of crown prince and de facto ruler Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi authorities’ brazen repression continues to intensify, as ALQST has documented. Some notable recent trends include, but are not limited to: the further harsh sentencing of activists for peaceful social media use, such as women activists Salma al-Shehab (27 years), Fatima al-Shawarbi (30 years and six months) and Sukaynah al-Aithan (40 years); the ongoing detention of prisoners of conscience beyond the expiry of their sentences, some of whom continue to be held incommunicado such as human rights defenders Mohammed al-Qahtani and Essa al-Nukheifi, and; regressive developments in relation to the death penalty, including a wave of new death sentences passed and a surge in executions (47 individuals were executed from March-May 2023), raising concerns for those currently on death row, including several young men at risk for crimes they allegedly committed as minors. We call on the HRC to respond to the calls of NGOs from around the world to create a monitoring and reporting mechanism on the ever-deteriorating human rights situation in Saudi Arabia.
Nicaragua
Continued attention should be paid by States at the HRC to the steadily worsening situation in Nicaragua. On 2 June, the spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights raised ‘growing concerns that the authorities in Nicaragua are actively silencing any critical or dissenting voices in the country and are using the justice system to this end’. The OHCHR reports 63 individuals arbitrarily detained in May alone, with 55 charged with ‘conspiracy to undermine national integrity’ and ‘spreading false news’ within one single night, without access to a lawyer of their choosing. States should express support for the monitoring and investigation work of the OHCHR and the Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua (GHREN), and call on the Nicaraguan government to release the remaining 46 political prisoners, revoke its decision to strip deported political prisoners off their nationality, and take meaningful measures to prevent, address and investigate violence by armed settlers against Indigenous Peoples and Afro-descendants.
Russia
Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine has also been accompanied by a domestic war of repression against human rights defenders, independent journalists and political dissent. Most recently, Russia has adopted a sweeping new law criminalising assistance to or cooperation with a range of international bodies, including the International Criminal Court, ad hoc tribunals, foreign courts and arguably even the UN Human Rights Council itself. This law is manifestly incompatible with the right to communicate and cooperate with international bodies, and a flagrant and institutionalised case of reprisal. With Russian authorities having been found by a UN-mandated Commission of Inquiry to be possibly responsible for crimes against humanity and war crimes, and having a closed and highly repressive environment for civil society (ranking 17/100 in the CIVICUS Monitor), Russia is plainly unfit to be elected to the UN Human Rights Council and should be regarded as an illegitimate candidate. States should support and cooperate with the mandate of the new Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Russia, as well as with the Commission of Inquiry into human rights violations and abuses associated with Russia’s illegal war of aggression against Ukraine.
Sudan
Since the beginning of the war in Sudan on 15 April 2023, increasing numbers of Sudanese WHRDs are receiving threats and subject to grave danger. WHRDs are facing challenges in evacuating from Sudan and face further protection risks in neighboring countries. Sudanese women groups and WHRDs are risking their lives to provide support, solidarity, and report on the rising numbers of sexual and gender-based violence crimes. Many survivors are trapped in fighting areas unable to access support, and the occupation of hospitals by RSF is hindering women’s access to health services. The Council must urgently establish an international investigation in Sudan with sufficient resources, including to investigate the threats and reprisals against WHRDs for their work, and to document sexual and gender-based violence. During the debate with the High Commissioner and designated expert on Sudan on 19 June, we urge States to condemn sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV). States should highlight the impacts of the war on women and girls, including sexual and reproductive health as well as lack of support services for survivors of SGBV. States should reaffirm the importance of participation of women and their demands, and amplify the critical work of WHRDs on the ground despite the imminent risks to their lives and safety. States should also condemn the increasing threats against WHRDs and demand their effective protection.
Venezuela
On 5 July, the High Commissioner will present his report on the human rights situation in Venezuela, which will include an assessment of the level of implementation of UN recommendations already made to the State. The Council focus on Venezuela remains critical at a time when some States’ efforts to normalize relations with Venezuela risk erasing human rights from key agendas. Council members and observers should actively engage in the interactive dialogue with the High Commissioner to make evident that the human rights situation in the country remains at the heart of their concerns. The human rights and humanitarian situation in the country remains grave. Human rights defenders face ongoing and potentially increasing restrictions. We urge States to:
Express concern about the NGO bill, sitting with the Venezuelan National Assembly, and call for it to be withdrawn. The potential implications of this bill are to drastically shrink civic space, including by criminalising the work of human rights defenders;
Call for the release of all those detained arbitrarily – including defender Javier Tarazona who has been held since July 2021 and whose state of health is deteriorating;
Call for the rights of human rights defenders and journalists to be respected including during electoral periods, with a mind to Presidential elections next year; and
Call on Venezuela to engage fully with all UN agencies and mechanisms, including OHCHR, and develop a clear plan for the implementation of UN human rights recommendations made to it.
Tunisia
Civil society organisations have raised alarm at the escalating pattern of human rights violations and the rapidly worsening situation in Tunisia following President Kais Saied’s power grab on 25 July 2021 leading to the erosion of the rule of law, attacks on the independence of the judiciary, a crackdown on peaceful political opposition and abusive use of “counter-terrorism” law, as well as attacks on freedom of expression. The High Commissioner has addressed the deteriorating situation in the three latest global updates to the HRC. Special Procedures issued at least 8 communications in less than one year addressing attacks against the independence of the judiciary, as well as attacks against freedom of expression and assembly. Despite the fact that in 2011 Tunisia extended a standing invitation to all UN Special Procedures, and received 16 visits by UN Special Procedures since, Tunisia’s recent postponement of the visit of the Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, is another sign of Tunisia disengaging from international human rights mechanisms and declining levels of cooperation. The upcoming session provides a window of opportunity for the Council to exercise its prevention mandate and address the situation before the imminent risk of closure of civic space in Tunisia and regress in Tunisia’s engagement with the HRC and its mechanisms is complete.
Syria
On 5 July, the Council will hold an interactive dialogue with the Commission of Inquiry on Syria. In a report to the Human Rights Council in 2021, the Commission of Inquiry on Syria called for the establishment of a mechanism to reveal the fate of the missing and disappeared. On 28 March 2023, during the 77th session of the UN General Assembly, the Secretary-General and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights briefed UN Member States on the situation of the missing in Syria, and the findings of the study conducted by the Secretary-General as mandated by Resolution UNGA 76/228. The study concluded that in order to address the situation of the missing in Syria and its impact on families’ lives, it is necessary to create an institution to reveal the fate and whereabouts of the disappeared and to provide support to their families. As discussions are taking place in the UNGA to adopt a resolution establishing a humanitarian institution to reveal the fate and whereabouts of the disappeared, civil society, led by the Truth and Justice Charter, urges States to support the families of the missing to know the truth about the fate and whereabouts of their loved ones by voting in favour of the resolution at the UNGA.
Other country situations
The High Commissioner will present the annual report on 19 June. The Council will hold an interactive dialogue on the High Commissioner’s annual report on 20 June 2023. The Council will hold debates on and is expected to consider resolutions addressing a range of country situations, in some instances involving the renewal of the relevant expert mandates. These include:
Interactive Dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on Eritrea
Interactive Dialogues with the High Commissioner and the Special Rapporteur on Myanmar
Interactive Dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on Burundi
Interactive Dialogue with the High Commissioner on Ukraine
Interactive Dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on Belarus
Interactive Dialogue with the Fact-Finding Mission on Iran
Interactive Dialogue with the Independent Expert on Central African Republic
Appointment of mandate holders
The President of the Human Rights Council has proposed candidates for the following mandates:
Special Rapporteur on minority issues (Mr Nicolas Levrat, Switzerland)
Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants (Ms Anna Triandafyllidou, Greece)
Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism (Mr Ben Saul, Australia).
Resolutions to be presented to the Council’s 53rd session
At the organisational meeting on 5 June the following resolutions (selected) were announced (States leading the resolution in brackets):
Human rights situation in Syria (Germany, France, Italy, Jordan, Netherlands, Qatar, Turkey, USA, UK)
New and emerging digital technologies and human rights (Austria, Brazil, Denmark, South Korea, Morocco, Singapore)
Civil society space (Chile, Ireland, Japan, Sierra Leone, Tunisia)
Independence and impartiality of the judiciary, jurors and assessors, and the independence of lawyers – mandate renewal (Australia, Botswana, Hungary, Maldives, Mexico, Thailand)
Human rights of migrants (Mexico)
Mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Belarus – mandate renewal (EU)
Mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Eritrea – mandate renewal (EU)
Business and human rights – mandate renewal (Russian Federation, Ghana, Argentina and Switzerland)
Extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions – mandate renewal (Finland, Sweden)
Situation of human rights of Rohiynga muslims and other minorities in Myanmar (Pakistan on behalf of OIC)
Adoption of Universal Periodic Review (UPR) reports
During this session, the Council will adopt the UPR working group reports on Argentina, Benin, Czechia, Gabon, Ghana, Guatemala, Japan, Pakistan, Peru, Republic of Korea, Sri Lanka, Switzerland and Zambia.
Panel discussions
During each Council session, panel discussions are held to provide member States and NGOs with opportunities to hear from subject-matter experts and raise questions. 5 panel discussions are scheduled for this upcoming session:
Panel discussion on the measures necessary to find durable solutions to the Rohingya crisis and to end all forms of human rights violations and abuses against Rohingya Muslims and other minorities in Myanmar
Annual full-day discussion on the human rights of women [accessible panel]. Theme: Gender-based violence against women and girls in public and political life
Annual full-day discussion on the human rights of women [accessible panel]. Theme: Social protection: women’s participation and leadership
Annual panel discussion on the adverse impacts of climate change on human rights [accessible panel]. Theme: Adverse impact of climate change on the full realisation of the right to food
Panel discussion on the role of digital, media and information literacy in the promotion and enjoyment of the right to freedom of opinion and expression [accessible panel]
China’s cultivated meat front-runner, CellX, has successfully procured $6.5M in a Series A+ funding round.
Shanghai-based CellX’s new funding comes by way of a collection of strategic investors. The funding propels CellX toward the pilot-scale production of its cultivated meat products. To date, the company’s funding totals over $20 million — making it China’s highest-funded cellular agriculture startup.
CellX, which launched in 2020, is focused on constructing platform technologies with a multi-species approach. The company is actively collaborating with leading global universities and companies to expedite the commercialization of cultivated meat, particularly in the APAC region.
”Production at low cost and at scale is key’
“Meat is a commodity that needs to be consistently produced at a competitive cost and large scale,” Ziliang Yang, Co-founder and CEO of CellX, said in a statement. “Each year, China alone consumes 100+ million tons of meat, more than a quarter of global meat consumption. For cultivated meat to have a meaningful impact on our global food supply chain, production at low cost and at scale is key.”
CellX cultivated meat | Courtesy
Established in 2020, CellX has constructed R&D platforms across four crucial technological sectors of lab-grown meat: cell line development, media optimization, innovative bioprocess design, and end product creativity. Earlier this year, CellX revealed its intent to construct China’s premier pilot production facility for lab-grown meat, housing several thousand-liter bioreactors.
“We have successfully developed 10+ cell lines from various species, adapted 5+ of them into suspension culturing, and the leading cell line has now entered pilot stage,” Dr. Chen, the R&D Director at CellX, says. “Besides, we have also developed multiple serum-free media and improved the yield significantly, enabling us to drastically reduce the production cost. We are currently working on scaling up to 2,000L.”
Partnerships for a sustainable food system
CellX’s forthcoming pilot production facility is a joint venture between CellX and Tofflon, a public biotech and food equipment company. Apart from accommodating multiple thousand-liter bioreactors, the facility will also act as an interactive zone for customers to sample CellX’s demonstration products. This initiative will inaugurate China’s first “transparent food space” dedicated to cultivated meat R&D, pilot production, and public tasting.
China’s First Cultivated Meat Pilot Plant. Source: CellX
“Unfortunately, no company in our space has fully cracked the puzzle of production at low cost and scale, yet,” Yang said. “This is where CellX and China can add value. Thanks to China’s booming biopharma industry and fermentation sector, there is already a good ecosystem in place, including media and equipment at competitive pricing, as well as a large pool of talented bioprocess engineers. All of which enables companies to produce cultivated meat at a significantly lower cost in China.”
CellX says cultivated meat companies that have pilot production facilities operating at a thousand-liter scale are becoming more important to China’s future due to the critical role they play in carbon reduction and food security.
At the start of 2022, cultivated meat and “future foods” were included in China’s 14th 5-Year plan by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs. President Xi also emphasized China’s need to adopt “a ‘Greater Food’ approach” to nutrition during his address at the annual session of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, underlining the importance of ensuring a stable supply of all staple food groups.
Yang sees a strong future for globalization in cellular agriculture. “At the end of the day, carbon and sustainability are global issues that humanity faces together. It’s one of the few areas where there is common understanding.”
Papua New Guinea’s Trade Minister Richard Maru has complained that his country’s trade deal with Australia has been skewed in Canberra’s favour for decades, and suggests the country will trade more with China.
Minister Maru said Beijing should be PNG’s focus for trade and investment opportunities because not enough was being done to assist PNG’s agriculture exports to Australia.
Maru is particularly unhappy with agriculture exports, which account for less than two percent of PNG’s exports to Australia, while minerals dominate.
“Enough is enough,” he said. “Starting this year, we are moving on. We will partner with whatever country that will help us achieve that.
“We are friends to all and enemies to none. We are not interested in geopolitics.
“Our main priority is securing the future of our people.”
Australia is supporting bolstering PNG’s agriculture exports, with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese earlier this year promising assistance to improve the biosecurity regime that would enable farmers and producers to access international markets.
To deepen trade with China, a feasibility study is underway to assess the possibility of a free trade agreement (FTA).
While Australia is PNG’s largest trade partner, China is a close second, coupled with PNG enjoying the largest trade surplus of any of its other trade partners.
Australia is also pursuing an FTA with Port Moresby, with its own feasibility study to be concluded this month.
Bougainville flexes legal muscles Meanwhile, the President of the autonomous Papua New Guinea region of Bougainville says his government will not allow foreign investors to breach its laws to exploit its people and resources.
President Ishmael Toroama made the statement as the Bougainville Executive Council refused to grant a mining licence application for a joint-venture involving Wyndale Holdings and its local partners.
The joint venture wanted to mine in the Eivo/Torau areas as well as the Jaba River middle to lower tailings areas.
The Bougainville government said in a statement that Wyndale was a private Australian company with links to Australian Nic Zuks which, it said, claimed to have been issued mining licences by the autonomous government.
President Toroama said the applicants failed to meet the requirements provided by the Bougainville Mining Act 2015.
He said the ABG would not entertain companies and individuals which used “duplicitous means” to exploit Bougainville’s mineral resources.
The President also cautioned investors to be wary of being misled and that the ABG would not be held liable for losses incurred as a result of fraudulent misrepresentations.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
During the economic crisis in 2008, the United States sought China’s aid. US treasury secretary Hank Paulson conferred with Chinese officials, and China agreed to increase the value of the RMB and to stop selling US T-bills which it had been doing at that time.
Paulson said, “It is clear that China accepts its responsibility as a major world economy that will work with the United States and other partners to ensure global economic stability.” But the notion that China was acting in a selfless fashion was also dispelled by Paulson who stated China helps when it is in their own interest.
That same attitude was repeated by the US State Department in March 2021 during the first face-to-face meeting with president Joe Biden’s administration in Anchorage, Alaska: “America’s approach will be undergirded by confidence in our dealing with Beijing — which we are doing from a position of strength — even as we have the humility to know that we are a country eternally striving to become a more perfect union.” [emphasis added]
Given the baleful US shenanigans against China, Chinese high-ranking officials were ill-disposed to meet with their American counterparts. Chairman Xi Jinping was not interested in meeting with Biden after the US shot down a Chinese weather balloon. The Pentagon sought a meeting between defense secretary Lloyd Austin and China’s minister of national defense Li Shangfu, but the latter reportedly ghosted Austin in Singapore.
Finally, secretary of state Antony Blinken managed to secure a meeting with his Chinese counterpart Qin Gang in Beijing. The official readouts for each country, however, reveal a glaring gap between them.
The Chinese readout noted that “China-U.S. relations are at their lowest point since the establishment of diplomatic ties…” Other excerpts read:
China has always maintained continuity and stability in its policies towards the United States, fundamentally adhering to the principles of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence, and win-win cooperation proposed by President Xi Jinping. These principles should also be the shared spirit, bottom line, and goal that both sides uphold together.
Qin Gang pointed out that the Taiwan question is at the core of China’s core interests, it is the most significant issue in China-U.S. relations, and it is also the most prominent risk. China urges the U.S. side to adhere to the one-China principle and the three China-U.S. Joint Communiqués, and truly implement its commitment not to support “Taiwan independence”.
That the US and China were not on the same page was clear from the oft-heard banality in the American readout:
The Secretary made clear that the United States will always stand up for the interests and values of the American people and work with its allies and partners to advance our vision for a world that is free, open, and upholds the international rules-based order.
That the US side made no comment on China’s core interest was a glaring brush off. Instead the US side pushed its “international rules-based order,” which is about rules defined by the US for others to follow. In other words, China does not decide what rules apply to its province of Taiwan.
The readouts made crystal clear that China and the US view the world through different lenses.
China is about peaceful development and win-win trade relations. The US is about waging war, sanctions, bans on trading, and an immodest belief in its indispensability. Because of this, China and Russia with the Global South are each forging their own way, a way that respects each country’s sovereignty. In future, it will be increasingly difficult for the US to use loans to impoverish other nations and plunder their wealth through the IMF’s financial strictures. Sanctions, freezing assets, and blocking financial transactions through the SWIFT system have pushed countries away and toward de-dollarization, joining BRICS, taking part in the Belt and Road Initiative, and using other financial institutions such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank based in Beijing. Even companies in countries nominally aligned with the US are pulling back from the harms of adhering to US trading bans. The US pressure tactics have resulted in blowback, and there is sure to be growing apprehension within empire.
The US is a warmaker. It flattened Iraq, Libya, and would have done the same to Syria had not Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah intervened at the invitation of the Syrian government. Nevertheless, the US still illegally occupies an enormous chunk of Syria and plunders its oil, revealing its true nature to the world.
China is a peacemaker; for example, the Saudi-Iranian rapprochement, the Syrian-Arab League reunion, a ceasefire between Yemen and Saudi Arabia, a proposal for peace between Russia and Ukraine that was rejected by the US, and currently China is playing an honest broker to try and solve the Israeli-Palestinian impasse, something the US has failed miserably at solving (not that it was ever interested in solving this besides, perhaps, a brief interregnum under Jimmy Carter).
China has stood steadfastly with Russia during its special military operation in Donbass and Ukraine. China knows that if the US-NATO would succeed in their proxy war, the plan is “regime change” and a carve up of Russia to exploit its resource wealth. This would pave the way for further “regime change” in China.
The Blinken-Qin meeting has been an abysmal failure in diplomacy. Communist China is ascendant, and the capitalist US is in economic decline, but it still believes that it can bully and fight its way to the top by keeping the others down.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with leading Chinese officials, including President Xi Jinping, in Beijing on Monday in what was portrayed by both sides as an effort to ease increasingly dangerous tensions between the two nuclear-armed powers. Blinken met with Xi for roughly 35 minutes on Monday after speaking to Wang Yi, China’s top foreign policy official, for several hours earlier in…
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken started a high-stakes visit to China on Sunday, meeting top Chinese officials for talks Washington hopes can reopen regular communications with Beijing after years of rising tensions.
Blinken is the first secretary of state to visit China in five years, amid China’s strict coronavirus pandemic lockdowns and strains over the self-governing island of Taiwan, Russia’s war in Ukraine, Beijing’s human rights record, assertive Chinese military moves in the South China Sea and technology trade.
The top U.S. diplomat began two days of meetings with extended talks with Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang and other officials and a working dinner at Diaoyutai State Guesthouse. Neither Blinken nor Qin made any substantive comments as they began their talks.
Blinken is slated to have further talks with Qin, as well as China’s top diplomat Wang Yi, director of the Central Foreign Affairs Office, on Monday. Observers see a possible meeting with President Xi Jinping as a barometer of Beijing’s willingness to re-engage with Washington after years of frosty ties.
The visit comes after almost a year of strained relations between the Biden administration and Beijing, which began with then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan in August.
Other irritants include China’s diplomatic and propaganda support for Russia for its war against Ukraine, and U.S. allegations that Beijing is attempting to boost its worldwide surveillance capabilities.
Blinken postponed a planned February trip to China after a suspected Chinese spy balloon flew over U.S. airspace and was shot down. This visit went ahead despitethe revelations early this month of a multibillion-dollar Chinese spy base in Cuba.
‘Legitimate differences’
Blinken told reporters before leaving Friday that Washington wants to improve communications “precisely so that we can make sure we are communicating as clearly as possible to avoid possible misunderstandings and miscommunications.”
President Joe Biden told White House reporters Saturday he was “hoping that over the next several months, I’ll be meeting with Xi again and talking about legitimate differences we have, but also how … to get along.”
U.S. defense officials say Chinese officials have refused phone calls since Blinken canceled a planned trip to Beijing in February due to the Chinese spy balloon. Beijing asserts it was a weather balloon.
Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu also declined to meet with U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore earlier at the start of the month, with Li instead using the forum to accuse the United States of “double standards.”
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken (2nd R) and China’s Foreign Minister Qin Gang (2nd L) meet at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing on June 18, 2023. Credit: Leah Millis / POOL / AFP
There have been recent high-level contacts, including a trip to China by CIA chief William Burns in May, a visit to the U.S. by China’s commerce minister, and a meeting in Vienna Austria between Wang and Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan.
In a pre-meeting phone call between Blinken and the Chinese foreign minister on Wednesday, however, Qin indicated China would not budge on its “core interests,” including that the self-governing island of Taiwan will be reunited with the mainland, according to a readout issued by China’s foreign ministry.
Qin said Washington should “show respect, stop interfering in China’s internal affairs and stop undermining China’s sovereignty, security and development interests,” the readout said.
Autumn summit opportunities
Reuters news agency quoted a senior State Department official as telling reporters during a refueling stop in Tokyo that Washington and Beijing understand they need to communicate more.
“There’s a recognition on both sides that we do need to have senior-level channels of communication,” the official said.
“That we are at an important point in the relationship where I think reducing the risk of miscalculation, or as our Chinese friends often say, stopping the downward spiral in the relationship, is something that’s important,” the official said.
“Hope this meeting can help steer China-U.S. relations back to what the two Presidents agreed upon in Bali,” tweeted Chinese assistant foreign minister Hua Chunying.
Biden and Xi met face-to-face on the sidelines of a summit of the Group of 20 big economies in November and agreed to try to restore dialogue despite sharp differences.
The two leaders have opportunities to meet later this year, including at the Group of 20 leaders’ gathering in September in New Delhi and at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in November in San Francisco.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Paul Eckert for RFA.
An ethnic Mongolian herder has been sent to hospital after being hit by heavy machinery amid clashes over the sale of collectively owned grazing land in China’s northern region of Inner Mongolia.
A video clip shared to Twitter showed a mechanical digger plowing into a group of people on grassland near Ar-Hundelen (in Chinese, Arikunduleng) township in Inner Mongolia’s Zaruud banner, a county-like administrative division, as onlookers shout.
The incident comes amid ongoing migration of majority Han Chinese to the region, as well as repeated land grabs by government-backed corporations, whose shift towards large-scale industrial farming in the region has turned huge swathes of the ecologically sensitive grassland to desert.
The digger was hired by the company that had recently bought the land from the township government in the face of widespread opposition from herding communities over the loss of their grazing lands, rights activists told Radio Free Asia.
Some of the herders were also beaten up as they tried to block access to the land, they said.
“On June 12, ethnic Mongolian herders were severely beaten and suppressed in Ar-Hundelen … as they were protecting their pastures,” Japan-based Mongolian rights activist Khuubis said. “This happened because township officials … unilaterally sold the land to Han Chinese buyers without consulting the herders or getting their consent.”
“When the Han Chinese who claimed to have bought the land tried to force their way onto the land, the herders resisted, and [the buyer] ran into them with heavy machinery, seriously injuring one person,” Khuubis said.
‘Chinese invaders’
In the video clip, the digger is also shown crushing some of the herders’ motorcycles and scooters, as onlookers rush to surround the injured man and call an ambulance to take him to hospital.
Herders told Radio Free Asia that a livestock breeding farm under collective ownership had sold off one area of grazing land to a Han Chinese businessman from outside the region for two million yuan, in the face of strong local opposition.
The New York-based Southern Mongolian Human Rights and Information Center quoted a statement from the herders as saying: “The Chinese buyer is now bringing truckloads of cows and other animals to the land, attempting to graze them in disregard of our protest.”
It quoted one herder as saying in a WeChat group that local officials “are ganging up with violent Chinese invaders … The lives of Mongolians are worthless here.”
Repeated calls to two local herders rang unanswered on Tuesday and Wednesday.
An official who answered the phone at the Ar-Hundelen government offices didn’t deny the incident had taken place.
“I don’t know — you can ask the propaganda officer,” the official said when asked how the injured herder was doing, then hung up.
Ecological damage
The Southern Mongolian Human Rights and Information Center quoted the local police department as saying that the violence was “a dispute that escalated to a conflict between a herder and the bulldozer driver, Mr. Lu, and the accountant Ms. Lu, resulting in an injury to the herder Mr. Wu.”
Overseas-based ethnic Mongolian activist Xi Haiming said heavy machinery and vehicles driving on the grassland can do serious ecological damage to the grasslands.
“This causes huge harm to the Mongolian herders,” Xi said. “This incident being reported today is the latest in a string of similar incidents that have been going on for a long time.”
“In this case, the Chinese officials were claiming that grazing the land put too much of a strain on the grassland, and was accelerating its degradation, even desertification,” Xi said, adding that local people have been herding cattle on the land sustainably for thousands of years.
He said the spread of large-scale pig farms in the region — owned by Han Chinese investors — had actually caused far more ecological damage, as the effluent from the farms poisons the grasslands.
In 2016, hundreds of residents of Ar-Hundelen protested over pollution from alumina plants near their traditional grazing lands they said had left local people with higher cancer rates, herders with piles of dead livestock and poisoned the soil and water.
Police later detained Ar-Hundelen herder Nasanulzei, who goes by one name, after he spoke out about the pollution and shot video of poisoned sheep.
Ethnic Mongolians, who make up almost 20 percent of Inner Mongolia’s population of 23 million, increasingly complain of widespread environmental destruction and unfair development policies in the region.
Clashes between the authorities or Chinese state-backed mining or forestry companies and herding communities are common in the region, which borders the independent country of Mongolia.
But those who speak out about the loss of their grazing lands are frequently targeted for harassment, beatings, and detention by the authorities.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Gu Ting for RFA Mandarin.
On 14 June 2023 FORUM-ASIA announced the upcoming 2023 Human Rights Data Release by affiliate member, the Human Rights Measurement Initiatives (HRMI) based in New Zealand. HRMI will this June unveil the latest findings on civil and political rights, economic and social rights (ESR), and human rights in East Asia. On June 22nd, HRMI will present the civil and political rights data, including the measurement of Freedom of Religion and Belief in nine countries, as well as scores for Bangladesh, Thailand, and the Maldives. On June 29th, they will reveal the economic and social rights data, highlighting the crucial role of ESR data in increasing investment in low-income countries and its correlation with wealth improvement. Furthermore, on June 28th, HRMI will delve into the human rights situation in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, exploring topics such as the evolving freedom of opinion and expression and the impact of Hong Kong’s National Security Law. Esteemed guest panelists will share their valuable insights and provide context to the scores.
2023 civil and political rights data, including measuring Freedom of Religion and Belief in 9 countries, producing scores for Bangladesh, Thailand, and the Maldives, producing people at risk data about sex workers, and much more.
You can register for the zoom webinar here, it will also be livestreamed on Youtube here.
2023 economic and social rights (ESR) data, including the role of ESR data in increasing investment in low income countries, how improving ESRs increases wealth, and much more.
You can register for our zoom webinar here, it will also be livestreamed on Youtube here.
China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan’s 2023 human rights data, including how freedom of opinion and expression are evolving in these countries, the impact of Hong Kong’s National Security Law on human rights, and much more.
You can join the zoom webinar here (no registration required), it will also be livestreamed on Youtube here.
Canada has frozen ties with China’s Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank after the bank’s Canadian communications head resigned, explosively accusing the organization of having “one of the most toxic cultures imaginable” on his personal Twitter account.
Chrystia Freeland, Canada’s finance minister and deputy prime minister, told reporters on Wednesday, the Canadian government would “immediately halt all government-led activity at the bank,” while it reviewed the allegations and Canada’s “involvement” with the AIIB.
Bob Pickard, the Canadian director-general for communications of the Beijing-headquartered AIIB, said he flew to Tokyo on Wednesday, two days after formally resigning, out of concern for his personal security.
“I’ve been advised not to set foot in China anytime soon. From a country where the two Michaels were kidnapped by the government, we’re maybe a little more sensitive or concerned about such things,” he said in a phone call toReuters, referring to two Canadians arbitrarily detained in China for nearly three years from 2018 to 2021.
The Party holds the cards
“The Communist Party hacks hold the cards at the Bank. They deal with some board members as useful idiots. I believe that my Government should not be a member of this PRC instrument. The reality of power in the bank is that it’s CCP from start to finish,” Pickardwrote in a tweet.
He added, “I saw with my own eyes the extent to which Communist Party hacks occupy key positions in the bank, like an in-house KGB or Gestapo or Stazi.”
The AIIBsaid in a statement, “Mr. Pickard’s recent public comments and characterization of the Bank are baseless and disappointing.”
The Wall Street Journal reported having seen an email by Jin Liqun, the bank’s president and a former Chinese deputy finance minister, which said to staff on Wednesday, “We acknowledge the uncertainty these comments can cause for all of us that work at AIIB. We hope that you will join us in wishing Bob well for the future.”
Jin has been busy burnishing the AIIB’s reputation, distancing the bank from the likes of Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative, which is seen by many critics as simply an extension or a tool of China’s foreign policy.
“We are proud of our multilateral mission and have a diverse international team representing 65 different nationalities and members at AIIB, serving our 106 members worldwide, many of whom have been with us since our formation in 2016,” the AIIB’s official statement on Pickard’s resignation said.
The allegations and the reaction by the Canadian government are likely to be an embarrassment to the AIIB, which has been representing itself as a transparent alternative to multilateral organizations such as the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
It also underscores tensions between the West and China over international development lending, with China frequently being forced to deny accusations of “debt diplomacy” involving its Belt and Road initiative.
But Austin Strange, a specialist in China’s international-development finance at the University of Hong Kong, told the Wall Street Journal ina separate report that unless further member-states raise similar concerns it is unlikely there will be any major consequences for the bank.
‘Nothing but a lie’
The Chinese embassy in Ottawa told Reuters in an email: “The claim that ‘AIIB is controlled by the Communist Party of China’ is nothing but a lie”.
A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Canada said in a statement that Pickard’s comments were purely “a sensational publicity stunt.”
Meanwhile, Pickard told theFinancial Times from Tokyo, “These people are like an invisible government inside the bank and this is what I can’t be part of.”
Although the response from the AIIB has been measured, Pickardclaims that China’s wumao bots – state-sponsored internet commentators – have been accusing him online of variously being an “Imperialist” and a “spy,” but nobody has suggested that such messages are coming from the AIIB itself.
Zichen Wang, a senior Beijing-based reporter for Xinhua, in his widely readPekingnology blog on Friday noted inconsistencies in Pickard’s statements about the inner workings of the AIIB, and also noted that some AIIB employees said in media reports that Pickard’s claims “came as a surprise.”
Wang further cited the fact thatIndia is AIIB’s biggest beneficiary despite the fact that “China-India ties have dived after the unfortunate 2020 border clash, which killed 20 Indians and 4 Chinese soldiers,” as evidence of the bank’s independence from China’s foreign policy.
Edited by Mike Firn.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Chris Taylor for RFA.
Bi-khim Hsiao, Taiwan’s Representative in the United States, is a familiar figure in the halls of power but she does not often make public speeches. So a recent talk and press conference by Ms. Hsiao deserve some attention.
The One China Policy, endorsed by the US and UN, does not recognize Taiwan Island as an independent country but as part of China, with the government in Beijing providing the official ambassadors to the US and UN. Hence Hsiao is not an “ambassador” but a “representative,” and her organization is known as the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO). Her presence and activities in the US are sensitive points in the US-China relationship, which is why she does not often make public appearances.
We might expect therefore that Hsiao had something of considerable consequence to communicate to an American audience. And so she did, but her message did not center exclusively on Taiwan. Hsiao and the reporters in attendance wished to discuss a country over 8000 km away from Taiwan, almost at the opposite end of Eurasia – Ukraine.
The “Tragedy” of Ukraine in the eyes of Taipei’s Representative
In her opening remarks, Hsiao stated: “The Ukraine war has actually generated a lot more attention and interest in … Taiwan’s defense needs. And so there has been an increase in… initiatives to find ways to support Taiwan so that that tragedy will not be repeated in our scenario.”
“Tragedy” indeed. Hsiao, like everyone else in the world, is well aware of the devastation that has been visited on Ukraine as a result of Biden’s cruel proxy war on Russia using Ukrainians as cannon fodder. The “tragedy” of Ukraine has focused not only Hsiao’s mind but mightily distressed all the people of Taiwan Island. This led to the landslide defeat in the 2022 local elections of Hsiao’s Party, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which is the home of secessionist sentiment and hostility to Beijing. The DPP was soundly thrashed by the Kuomintang (KMT), the Party that wishes to maintain the status quo with the mainland, leave in place the “strategic ambiguity” of the One China Policy and take a peaceful approach to Beijing.
The first thing that struck me about the press conference was the unreality of Hsiao’s purpose, bordering on insanity. Here we had Taiwan’s envoy discussing war with Mainland China which has the largest PPP-GDP in the world and 18% of all of humanity. Taiwan’s population is 24 million, and it is the size of Maryland.
The bureau chief of the Christian Science Monitor, and host of the event, expressed a similar incredulity, asking in the opening question: “Russia versus Ukraine is one thing, but China versus Taiwan is a much more extreme example in terms of proportions…. How do you fight back against that?” The unstated assumption is that Taiwan can succeed with the support of the US. But just how true is that? How sound is Biden’s support for Ukraine?
Asked whether she was “satisfied” with Biden’s commitment to Taiwan, Hsiao demurred
Was she “satisfied” with Joe Biden’s commitment to defend Taiwan, queried another reporter. Hsiao demurred, did not answer “yes,” but instead opined that “in the long run, nothing is ever completely satisfactory.” Here Hsiao seemed to be channeling Volodymyr Zelensky, always demanding more, ever disappointed. Such is the unenviable position of a proxy whose function in the end is to be used, not championed.
Hsiao sounded very much like someone who had doubts about US support – doubts perhaps aroused after the resounding and very bloody defeat of the US proxy, Ukraine, in Bakhmut. We can be sure that the same doubts are cropping up in the minds of the Taiwan electorate. And such doubts are likely to play a decisive role in the upcoming elections in 2024 for President and Legislative Yuan, the unicameral legislature for the entire island. Will the more pacific policies supported by the electorate in the 2022 local elections prevail again in choosing island wide officials in 2024?
US arms to Taiwan Island, a provocation to war, must end
Several reporters raised the question whether the US arming of Taiwan Island could be seen as a provocation. In itself this is a step forward for the US press which might be awakening to the fact that US tactics did indeed provoke the war as in Ukraine. Hsiao dodged that question by ignoring the US dimension and speaking instead of Taiwan’s efforts at increased militarization. Of course, little Taiwan acting on its own can scarcely be seen as a threat or serious provocation to China. But it is quite a different story when the weapons and personnel come from the US. After all the US has an enormous military presence in the region and has declared as a matter of policy that its aim is to bring down China. In this circumstance US weapons, military personnel and actions in Taiwan can be a serious provocation indeed.
Although Hsiao spoke in terms of defense not provocation, she herself undermined that way of regarding the US on Taiwan Island. Asked by another reporter whether there was any evidence for Chinese preparation of an invasion of Taiwan Island, Hsiao said there was none. This is hardly surprising since China’s policy is to re-unite peacefully with the Island, a long-term goal.
One clear and simple lesson of the Hsiao press conference is that Mainland China quite reasonably perceives the US arming of Taiwan as a threat and provocation. Thus, the way to peace is to end the US arming of Taiwan. This should be a top priority in the US peace movement, but unfortunately, it does not often receive so much as a mention.
In a slow-motion blow-up that has been underway since March, a diplomatic row between China and India over journalist visas has prompted each side to minimize the other’s media presence in their territories.
China claims to have just one journalist left in India due to bureaucratic obstacles. This month, it instructed the Press Trust of India’s Beijing-based reporter to leave the country, Bloomberg reported earlier this week.
The situation means that the world’s two most populous nations, each with 1.3 billion people and sharing a more than 3,440-kilometer border, have hardly any of their own journalists in the other country.
“The Indian side has refused to review and approve Chinese journalists’ applications for stationing in India and limited the period of validity of visas held by Chinese journalists in India to only three months or even one month,” Wang Weibin, a foreign ministry spokesman, said in a regular press conference on Monday.
“As a result, the number of Chinese journalists stationed in India has plummeted from 14 to just one,” he said. “As we speak, the Indian side still has not agreed to renew the visa of the last Chinese journalist in the country.
“For Indian media outlets, four have been stationed in China in recent years and one is still working and living normally in China,” he said.
Points to strained ties
The Times of India reported that New Delhi had rejected two visa renewals from journalists with Xinhua and China Central Television
“This will be the first time ever that India has no journalists based in Beijing,” Aadil Brar, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Taiwan Fellow and a columnist on China for The Print India, told RFA’s Tibetan service.
“We’ve never seen a scenario quite like this and this tells you how difficult relations between India and China are right now,” he added.
A settlement near Sela pass in Tawang district of India’s Arunachal Pradesh in April 2, 2023. Freshly laid roads, bridges, upgraded military camps, and new civilian infrastructure dot the Himalayan route to the Indian frontier village of Zemithang, which China renamed last month to press its claim to the area in the far northeastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, almost all of which Beijing insists falls under its sovereignty as “South Tibet.” Credit: Arun Sankar/AFP
Writing inThe Print, Aadil Brar said, “The issue of access to journalists was always tipped in favor of Beijing. Chinese state-backed and semi-independent news outlets such as CGTN and Phoenix TV continue to operate from India with locally hired staff.”
“With this, China will not have a single Indian journalist reporting from the country, down from four,” Brar said. “The other three journalists – from Hindustan Times, The Hindu, and Prasar Bharati – were either asked to leave the country or their visa renewal applications were denied.
No precedent
Brar noted that even during the Sino-Indian war of 1962, when the two countries clashed violently in two remote Himalayan border regions, Indian journalists were able to operate in Beijing.
Kanwal Sibal, former foreign secretary of India, told RFA’s Tibetan service that he did not expect any imminent breakthrough in relations that have been steadily eroding since renewed border clashes in 2020 in the Galwan Valley– a disputed section of their shared Himalayan border.
“I’m not sure what will happen at the G20 summit,” held in New Delhi on Sept. 9-10, he said.
“Let’s see if Xi Jinping comes,” Sibal said. “If there’s no dialogue between the two sides then it will be a disaster for both sides, [but] there can’t be a dialogue unless Xi Jinping comes.”
“The journalists that have been forced to leave won’t be going back anytime soon so that makes it difficult for Indians to learn about what’s going on in Beijing and similarly for Beijing to find out what’s going on in Delhi,” said Brar.
In a sign that China is not going to budge, on May 31 foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning warned, “As we speak, the Indian side still has not renewed the visa of the last Chinese journalist in the country.
“The number of Chinese journalists stationed in India is about to drop to zero.”
Edited by Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Chris Taylor and RFA Tibetan and Mandarin.
Belarus says Russia has begun transferring tactical nuclear weapons to the former Soviet state, which shares a nearly 700-mile border with Ukraine, escalating the risk of a nuclear confrontation in Europe. Meanwhile, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has urged allies to “dig deep” to provide more arms and ammunition to help Ukraine as it launches its counteroffensive against Russia. The Ukraine conflict has intensified the “new Cold War” between the United States and its allies, on one side, and Russia and China, on the other, says Gilbert Achcar, professor of international relations at SOAS University of London. He pegs the start of this new geopolitical standoff to the Kosovo War in 1999, which NATO entered without U.N. approval and over the objections of Russia and China. He says the United States had a “window of opportunity” in the 1990s to reshape the world for more cooperation and multilateralism. “Instead of going for peaceful options, options leading to a long-term peace in international relations and enhancing the role of the United Nations, it made the opposite choices,” including the expansion of NATO, says Achcar. His new book is titled The New Cold War: The United States, Russia and China from Kosovo to Ukraine.
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
For more than 200 years, peace conferences have not only resolved conflicts but regularly signaled the arrival at stage center of a new world power. In 1815, amid the whirling waltzes in Vienna’s palaces that accompanied negotiations ending the Napoleonic wars, Britain emerged for its century-long reign as the globe’s greatest power. Similarly, the 1885 Berlin Conference that carved up the continent of Africa for colonial rule heralded Germany’s rise as Britain’s first serious rival. The somber deliberations in Versailles’s grand Hall of Mirrors that officially ended World War I in 1919 marked America’s debut on the world stage. Similarly, the 1945 peace conference at San Francisco that established the U.N. (just as World War II was about to end) affirmed the ascent of U.S. global hegemony. More
The NDP is supporting the intelligence agencies/arms industry/US empire faction of Canada’s ruling class that is stoking tensions with China. The historically left-wing party has amplified childish Conservative attacks, ignored the views of party backers and supported provocative naval missions.
The NDP responded to the Liberals’ special rapporteur on foreign interference report by amplifying Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre’s attacks against the former Governor General David Johnston. (When Stephen Harper appointed Johnson to lead a public inquiry in 2007 Poilievre called him “very credible” and “very qualified”.) The party presented a motion in the House of Commons urging Johnston to step aside as special rapporteur and Jagmeet Singh raised the issue repeatedly. The NDP leader personally questioned Johnston during a recent parliamentary committee hearing and has boasted they helped prompt the special rapporteur to resign.
The NDP is angry Johnston poured cold water on CSIS’ fear mongering over Chinese interference and rejected a call for a public inquiry. The party leadership has been aggressively pushing for an inquiry for months. Still, NDP backers are ambivalent, according to an Angus Reid poll released May 26. Asked “Which of the two statements below is closer to your own point of view regarding a formal public inquiry?” 39% of NDP supporters said, “A public inquiry is NOT needed, it won’t tell us anything more” while 37% said, “A public inquiry is needed, there’s more to learn.”
That’s distinct from Conservatives. Supporters of that party backed an inquiry by 6 to 1. For their part, Liberal voters were 2 to 1 against holding an inquiry. So, is the NDP strategy to peel off Conservative supporters with their push for an inquiry or is it just a matter of getting sympathetic coverage from a pro-US empire Canadian press?
Unless there are clear electoral gains, why would a social democratic party hype a theme that strengthens the credibility of odious intelligence agencies, deepens political cynicism and diverts attention from far more significant obstacles to true democracy. Canada’s first-past-the-post electoral system, concentration of wealth and corporate domination of the media are far more significant barriers to democracy than anything China is accused of doing.
When it comes to foreign interference US power is infinitely greater than China’s. In fact, there is a good argument to be made that the frenzy about Chinese interference is a manifestation of US interference. As part of its close ties to its US counterparts, CSIS is hyping Chinese interference just as they previously obsessed about Muslims to assist the US-led ‘war on terror’.
Alongside hyping Chinese interference, the NDP is part of US-backed groups paving the way for conflict. NDP MP Jenny Kwan recently launched Hong Kong Watch Canada with Conservative party deputy leader Melissa Lantsman, Irwin Cotler and other politicians. British Conservative MP Benedict Rogers established the international branch of that organization to oppose Chinese policy towards Hong Kong, which London used to penetrate China for a century.
NDP foreign affairs critic Heather McPherson is a member of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, which is an “international cross-party group of legislators” claiming “the rise of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as led by the Chinese Communist Party is a defining challenge for the world’s democratic states.” On its site the alliance says, “IPAC is pleased to be funded by the following partners: The [George Soros controlled] Open Society Foundations. The [US government’s] National Endowment for Democracy. The [Taipei sponsored] Taiwan Foundation for Democracy.”
As part of her hawkish position, McPherson has sought to undermine Canada’s one-China policy. She also explicitly backed Ottawa’s Indo Pacific Strategy, which calls for expanding Canadian naval vessels in the region.
Last Sunday Chinese naval vessels intercepted a Canadian and US warship traveling through the Taiwan Strait. Ottawa claims its vessels near Chinese territorial waters operate “in full accordance with international law”. But they ignore the fact the US hasn’t signed the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
Two days earlier a US spy plane was “aggressively” intercepted by Chinese fighter jets. The increasing military action heightens the risk of a mistake that could lead to war.
US officials openly talk about war with China. Recently the commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, Admiral John Aquilino, told the National Committee on US-China Relations that the US was ready to win a war with China. Last week the Financial Times published a full-page article headlined “The US buildup in China’s backyard”, detailing what US strategists are calling the “tyranny of distance”, namely the distance between the US mainland and China.
Why is the US panicking about China?
The country’s remarkable economic rise threatens US hegemony. The Financial Times recently reported, “Chinese trade with Latin America has exploded this century from $12b in 2000 to $495bn in 2022, making China South America’s biggest trading partner.” Similarly, China is also the largest trade partner with many countries in Asia and Africa while its Belt and Road Initiative is deepening its economic influence. China is increasingly competing in leading technologies. Huawei is the world’s largest provider of 5G network and Chinese apps Temu, TikTok, SHEIN, and CapCut are among the hottest apps in the US.
Why is the NDP assisting the US bid to contain China’s economic rise and supporting military policies that could lead to an apocalyptic war?
Tibetan students who took China’s annual college entrance exam over the weekend had to do so completely in Mandarin, likely putting many at a disadvantage, residents in Tibet told Radio Free Asia.
The exams, held from June 7-9 across China, will go a long way toward determining the fates of more than 13 million students.
In previous years, ethnic minorities, including Tibetans, had been allowed to take the test in their native languages, but this year marks the first that the test was given only in Mandarin. Also, ethnic minorities no longer get five extra minutes to complete the test as they had in the past.
The Mandarin-only policy for the test is concurrent with other controversial educational policies meant to establish Mandarin as the medium of instruction within Tibetan schools–which Tibetan activists say is part of Beijing’s plan to eliminate Tibetan culture and Sinicize the region.
“In 2022, the Chinese government imposed the Model 2 Education System under which Mandarin was made the primary medium of instruction in all the primary and secondary schools across Golog, Kardze and Qinghai,” a Tibetan resident of Tibet told RFA’s Tibetan Service on condition of anonymity for security reasons.
“Now beginning this year, the Chinese government has imposed Mandarin as the medium for college entrance exams.”
Opponents to the Model 2 Education system argue that the policy will destroy Tibetan language and culture, and it has no basis in law.
“Due to the sudden shift on the Chinese government’s education reforms, Tibetan students are not as well prepared and proficient enough in Mandarin to compete with [Mandarin native speaker]students who have always been learning in Mandarin,” the resident said. “This is a disadvantage for Tibetan students over [native Mandarin speaking] students who score more easily and get admission in college. Hence, many Tibetan students will not get into good colleges.”
Removing the extra time for ethnic minority students is also problematic, another resident, who declined to be named, told RFA.
“[They] used to get five extra minutes, but now with the reforms, these extra minutes are revoked,” the second resident said. “These reforms have made it near impossible for Tibetan students to score well to get into college, and without a proper degree, it is impossible to get a decent job.”
The trend could be dangerous for the entire Tibetan community, the second resident said.
“We will see an incredible increase in the number of Tibetan students who cannot attend college and pursue a higher education.”
China’s educational reforms are a contradiction of its law on Regional National Autonomy, Pema Gyal, a researcher at the London-based Tibet Watch advocacy and monitoring group.
“The law states that minority schools should, if possible, use textbooks printed in their own languages, and lessons should be taught in those languages, and this contradicts with what the government is doing right now,” said Pema Gyal. “This is an attempt to Sinicize the education system in Tibet and therefore so many Tibetan students are not able to pursue higher education.”
Translated by Tenzin Dickyi. Edited by Eugene Whong.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Sangyal Kunchok for RFA Tibetan.
Walen Parange 
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