U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with his Philippine counterpart in Manila on Tuesday to lay the groundwork for a summit between the leaders of the United States, the Philippines and Japan next month.
U.S. President Joe Biden, Philippine leader Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will meet in Washington on April 11 for trilateral talks that will focus on protecting a “free and open” Indo-Pacific region, according to the White House.
Speaking at a press conference alongside Blinken, Filipino Foreign Secretary Enrique Manalo said the three-way summit aimed to capitalize on “complementarities” between the countries, notably in infrastructure, critical minerals, energy and maritime security.
Blinken said that collaboration on defense and economic issues would only result in all three countries becoming stronger. “So that’s what the summit is about, as well as our work together to uphold international law,” he said.
He and Manalo had discussed ways of streamlining the budding trilateral alliance “to make sure that even as we have this leaders’ summit, we have mechanisms in place to make sure there are things working together day in day out.”
Blinken’s visit comes at a crucial moment in bilateral relations between the two allies, who have ramped up defense cooperation amid increasing Chinese assertiveness in the South China Sea, including in waters that fall within the Philippine’s exclusive economic zone.
China claims nearly all of the South China Sea while dismissing the territorial claims of several Southeast Asian nations and Taiwan.
“The alliance has never been stronger, but we not only have to sustain that, we have to continue to accelerate the momentum,” said Blinken, who was making his second trip to Manila as America’s top diplomat. He first visited the Philippines in August 2022, weeks after Marcos took office as president.
Filipino activists protest at the Mendiola Peace Arch outside the presidential Malacañang Palace in Manila ahead of a meeting between President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on March 19, 2024. (Jojo Riñoza/BenarNews)
Manalo said he had thanked Blinken for Washington’s “consistent support,” particularly in regards to Chinese harassment of Filipino supply boats.
In the most recent incident, four Filipino sailorssustained minor injuries earlier this month when China Coast Guard boats intercepted a supply vessel and fired at them with water cannons.
“We discussed regional issues, especially the situation in the South China Sea, and I stated that the Philippines is committed to managing disputes in accordance with our national interests, the rules-based international order and international law, especially UNCLOS,” Manalo said, referring to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
“We reaffirmed our shared view that a strong and capable Philippines would make a formidable ally for the United States.”
Blinken reiterated Washington’s “ironclad commitments” to defend the Philippines from outside aggression.
He also said the two allies had shared concerns about Chinese “actions that threaten our common vision for a free and open Indo-Pacific,” including within the Philippine exclusive economic zone.
“Repeated violations of international law and the rights of the Philippines – water cannons, blocking maneuvers, close shadowing, other dangerous operations – these waterways are critical to the Philippines, to its security, to its economy, but they’re also critical to the interests of the region, the United States, and the world,” Blinken said.
On Tuesday, China’s foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian said the U.S. had no right to interfere in disputes between Manila and Beijing and China would take the necessary actions to defend its territory.
“Military cooperation between the United States and the Philippines should not harm China’s sovereignty and maritime rights and interests in the South China Sea, let alone be used to prop up the Philippines’ illegal position,” Lin told a regular briefing, according to a report from Reuters.
Blinken is expected to meet with Marcos later on Tuesday. The Philippine leader recently returned from a trip to Germany and the Czech Republic in which he criticized Beijing’s expansive territorial claims and sought support for a free and open South China Sea.
Camille Elemia contributed reporting from Manila.
BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Jason Gutierrez for BenarNews.
Long lines formed at polling stations across Russia’s 11 time zones in time for the “Noon Against Putin” protest against a presidential election expected to virtually gift Vladimir Putin another six years of rule, making him the country’s longest-serving leader.
Voting on March 17, the last day of the election held over a span of three days, took place with virtually no opposition to the long-serving incumbent.
Russians not in favor of seeing Putin serve yet another term settled on showing up at polling places simultaneously at midday in large numbers, with some taking steps to spoil their ballots.
Dozens of detentions were reported around the country as the vote took place under tight security, with Russia claiming that Ukraine, which it accused of launching a wave of air attacks that reached as far as Moscow, was attempting to disrupt voting.
Putin’s greatest political rival, Aleksei Navalny, died a month before the polls in an Arctic prison amid suspicious circumstances while serving sentences widely seen as politically motivated.
Other serious opponents to Putin are either in jail or exile or were barred from running against him amid a heightened crackdown on dissent and the independent media.
The situation left only three token rivals from Kremlin-friendly parties on the ballot — Liberal Democratic Party leader Leonid Slutsky, State Duma deputy speaker Vladislav Davankov of the New People party, and State Duma lawmaker Nikolai Kharitonov of the Communist Party.
Despite Navalny’s death, his support for the idea of using the “Noon Against Putin” action to show the strength of the opposition lived on. The protest, a workaround of Russia’s restrictive laws on public assembly, called on people to assemble at polling stations precisely at noon.
While it was difficult to determine voters’ reasoning for showing up to vote, many appeared to be answering the call to protest across the country as the deadline moved from Russia’s Far East toward Moscow, and from then to the western area of the country and parts of Ukraine occupied by Russia.
Videos and images posted on social media showed long lines of voters formed at noon in Novosibirsk, Chita, Yekaterinburg, Perm, and Moscow among other Russian cities.
“The action has achieved its goals,” said Ivan Zhdanov, the head the Anti-Corruption Foundation formerly headed by Navalny, on YouTube. “The action has shown that there is another Russia, there are people who stand against Putin.”
The protests were accompanied by a heavy police presence and the threat of long prison terms for those seen as disrupting the voting process.
The OVD-Info group, which monitors political arrests in Russia, said that more than 65 people were arrested in 14 cities across the country on March 17.
Twenty people in Kazan, in the Tatarstan region, were detained and later released, according to Current Time. One Ufa resident was reportedly detained for trying to stuff a photograph of Navalny into a ballot box. And in Moscow, a voter was detained after he appeared at a polling station wearing a T-shirt bearing Navalny’s name.
In St. Petersburg, a woman was reportedly arrested after she threw a firebomb at a polling station entrance, others were detained elsewhere in the country for spoiling ballots with green antiseptic into ballot boxes.
Some activists were reportedly summoned to visit Federal Security Service branches precisely at 12 p.m., the same time the protest was expected.
Outside Russia, Russian citizens also reportedly took part in the “Noon Against Putin” campaign, including in Tokyo, Istanbul, and Phuket. In Moldova, voting at the Russian Consulate in Chisinau was reportedly delayed after an apparent fire-bombing.
The Moscow prosecutor’s office earlier warned of criminal prosecution of those who interfered with the vote, a step it said was necessary due to social-media posts “containing calls for an unlimited number of people to simultaneously arrive to participate in uncoordinated mass public events at polling stations in Moscow [at noon on March 17] in order to violate electoral legislation.”
Lawyer Valeria Vetoshkina, who has left the country, told Current Time that if people do not bring posters and do not announce why they came to the polling station at that hour, it would be hard for the authorities to legitimately declare it a “violation.”
But she warned that there are “some basic safety rules that you can follow if you’re worried. The first is not to discuss why you came, just to vote. And secondly, it is better to come without any visual means of agitation: without posters, flags, and so on.”
The OVD-Info human rights group issued a statement labeled “How to Protect Yourself” ahead of the planned protest, also saying not to bring posters or banners and “do not demonstrate symbols that can attract the attention of the police, do not shout slogans. If you are asked why you came at noon, do not give the real reason.”
Russian election officials, officially, said that as of late afternoon on March 17 more than 70 percent of the country’s 114 million eligible voters had cast ballots either in person or online.
Observers widely predict that there was virtually no chance that Putin would not gain another term in office. A victory would hand him his fifth presidential term over a span of 24 years, interrupted only by his time spent as prime minister from 2008-2012.
Over the first two days, some Russians expressed their anger over Putin’s authoritarian rule by vandalizing ballot boxes with a green antiseptic dye known as “zelyonka” and other liquids, with Russian officials and independent media reporting at least 28 cases.
Incidents were reported in at least nine cities, including Moscow, St. Petersburg, Sochi, and Volgograd.
Ella Pamfilova, head of Russia’s Central Election Commission (TsIK), on March 16 said there had been 20 cases of people attempting to destroy voting sheets by pouring liquids into ballot boxes and eight incidents of people trying to destroy ballots by setting them on fire or by using smoke bombs.
On March 16, independent media reported that Russian police had opened at least 28 criminal probes into incidents of vandalism in polling stations, a number expected to grow.
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, now deputy head of the Security Council, on March 16 denounced election protesters as “villains” and “traitors” who are aiding the country’s enemies, particularly Ukraine.
“This is direct assistance to those degenerates who are shelling our cities today,” he said on Telegram. “Criminal activists at polling stations should be aware that they can rattle for 20 years in a special regime [prison],” he added.
Many observers say Putin warded off even the faintest of challengers to ensure a large margin of victory that he can point to as evidence that Russians back the full-scale war Moscow launched against Ukraine in February 2022.
Meanwhile, Ukraine stepped up attacks on Russia leading up to the election, including strikes deep inside the country.
On March 17, Russia’s Defense Ministry reported downing 35 Ukrainian drones overnight, including four in the Moscow region. Other drones were reportedly downed in the Kaluga and Yaroslavl regions neighboring the Moscow region, and in the Belgorod, Kursk, and Rostov regions along Russia’s southwestern border with Ukraine.
On March 16, Ukrainian forces shelled the border city of Belgorod and the village of Glotovo, killing at least three people and wounding eight others, Russian officials said.
The same day, a Ukrainian drone strike caused a fire at an oil refinery that belongs to Russian oil giant Rosneft in the Samara region, some 850 kilometers southeast of Moscow, regional Governor Dmitry Azarov said. An attack on another refinery was thwarted, he added.
Ukraine generally does not comment on attacks inside Russia, but Reuters quoted an unidentified Ukrainian source as saying that Kyiv’s SBU intelligence agency was behind strikes at three Samara region Rosneft refineries — Syzran, Novokuibyshevsky, and Kuibyshevsky, which is inside the Samara city limits.
“The SBU continues to implement its strategy to undermine the economic potential of the Russian Federation that allows it to wage war in Ukraine,” the news agency quoted the source as saying.
Russian authorities, who have accused Kyiv of launching assaults designed to disrupt voting, claimed that Ukraine on March 16 dropped a missile on a voting station in a Russian-occupied part of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhya region, although the report could not be verified.
With reporting by RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service, Reuters, and AP
A claim emerged on Korean-language posts that South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol used vulgar language during a January speech, citing a video as evidence.
But the claim is false. The subtitles of the video are fake and misrepresent what Yoon said. A review of the full clip of Yoon’s speech shows that he made no vulgar remarks.
The screenshots were shared on the popular South Korean online community Etoland on Jan. 18. Etoland users are typically backers of South Korea’s Democratic Party, known for its pro-China stance.
“Yoon Suk Yeol becomes huffy when a citizen mentions the R&D budget,” reads the claim in part. R&D, or Research and Development, involves innovating and improving products or processes, essential for competitive advantages.
The claim was shared alongside what appears to be screenshots of a video that shows Yoon’s speech.
A subtitle overlaid on the screenshot features Yoon’s face, seemingly transcribing his comments, stating: “Because you guys keep bullshitting about the R&D budget, we’ll significantly increase it. We only cut R&D by 5 trillion Korean won, so stop talking shit.”
Screenshot of Etoland’s post. Captured on Feb. 21, 2024
The same claim and screenshots were shared on Bobaedream, another popular online community in South Korea, as well as on YouTube.
But the claim is false.
Original video
A combination of keyword and image searches found the screenshots were taken from a video that shows Yoon’s policy briefing session on Jan. 4.
A separate search found the full version of the clip posted by South Korea’s state-run KTV on its YouTube channel on Jan. 5.
The scene seen in the screenshots with fake subtitles starts at the video’s one-hour, 17-minute and 12-second mark.
“I will drastically increase the R&D budget during my tenure.” Yoon said. “However, for now, we have reduced it a little, but not by a lot.”
A review of the original video shows Yoon made no vulgar comments during his speech.
False Narrative
In 2022, Yoon was accused by a local broadcaster MBC of swearing after a brief meeting with the U.S. President Joe Biden at the Global Fund in New York.
In September 2022, MBC released a video of Yoon with the subtitles saying, “If those [expletive] do not pass it in the [parliament], [Biden] will lose face,” while leaving the Global Fund’s Seventh Replenishment Conference.
However, the presidential office said then that the actual word used was “nallimeun,” the Korean word for “throw out,” rather than “Biden.” It said that Yoon’s actual words were:
“If they do not pass it in the [parliament], [then] throw [the bill] out.”
Yoon’s office sued MBC, claiming it had misrepresented comments caught on a hot mic in which he appeared to insult the United States.
In January, a Seoul court ruled in favor of Yoon, finding his comments were not clear due to background noise.
Separately, the Korea Communications Standards Commission, an institution of the South Korean government that regulates communications including film, television, radio and internet, decided to fine MBC on Tuesday over its coverage of Yoon’s 2022 remarks.
“It is fair to say that the media escalated the president’s private conversation to a diplomatic issue by reporting Yoon’s words between its advisers and staff,” said standing commissioner Hwang Seong-wook.
Since MBC’s 2022 report, however, critics have frequently scrutinized Yoon’s public speaking abilities and demeanor, labeling him as “not suitable” for public addresses. Some have even falsely speculated that dementia impedes his ability to speak effectively in public.
Edited by Malcolm Foster.
Asia Fact Check Lab (AFCL) was established to counter disinformation in today’s complex media environment. We publish fact-checks, media-watches and in-depth reports that aim to sharpen and deepen our readers’ understanding of current affairs and public issues. If you like our content, you can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and X.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Taejun Kang for RFA.
North Korean state-run media outlets have minimized their coverage of Cuba after the longtime ally since the Cold War established diplomatic ties with South Korea on Feb. 14.
The Rodong Sinmun, the North’s state-run daily, for instance, has not reported anything about Cuba since Feb. 15 when it briefly covered the Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez’s condemnation of Israel’s attack on Palestinians, as part of a summary of international news items.
Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency has also not mentioned Cuba for more than a week.
Cuba was not even mentioned in KCNA reports on Feb. 23 and 24 on celebrations at diplomatic missions and U.N. representations in 26 countries and a series of congratulatory visits by dignitaries to mark the 82nd birthday of the former leader Kim Jong Il.
It is usual for North Korean media to omit Cuba when reporting national events such as the former leader’s birthday.
South Korea’s presidential office said on Feb. 15 that the country’s move to establish diplomatic relations with Cuba would deal a “political and psychological blow” to Pyongyang, whose diplomatic footing is largely dependent on a small number of Cold War allies.
South Korea did not have diplomatic ties with Cuba for 65 years.
Meanwhile, Cuba continues to maintain close relations with North Korea, which were established in 1960, with their shared socialist ideology and their hostility towards the United States. Cuba maintains an embassy in Pyongyang.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has called the late Cuban leader Fidel Castro a “comrade-in-arms,” as cited by its state media. North Korea even observed three days of official mourning in 2016 when Castro died at the age of 90.
Edited by Elaine Chan.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Staff.
Prabowo Subianto’s foreign and defense policies have come under the spotlight after the former army general and current defense minister claimed victory in Indonesia’s presidential election this week.
Prabowo won almost 60% of the votes, according to several polling agencies drawing attention to his policies amid rising tensions in the South China Sea and China-United States rivalry.
Indonesia is not a party to the South China Sea dispute but it has a strategic and economic interest in maintaining peace and stability there as its exclusive economic zone overlaps with several neighboring countries, as well as with the so-called nine-dash line that Beijing uses to claim China’s historic rights over most of the sea.
The South China Sea dispute has become one of Indonesia’s most important security issues and it could also spark a major conflict between the United States and China, according to Aristyo Rizka Darmawan, a senior researcher at the Center for Sustainable Ocean Policy at the University of Indonesia.
Prabowo’s campaign documents state that Indonesia needs to prepare for future conflicts and plan how to reduce potential risks.
“Prabowo’s narrative on the South China Sea has been more about how we [should] have a strong defense capacity,” Darmawan told BenarNews, a news service affiliated with Radio Free Asia.
People protest outside the Chinese embassy following reports that China has encroached on Indonesia’s maritime area in the South China Sea, in Jakarta, Indonesia, December 8, 2021. (Reuters)
Muhammad Zulfikar Rakhmat, a researcher at the National University of Singapore (NUS), said that the former general “has had a history of advocating for a more assertive and independent foreign policy for Indonesia.”
“His victory in the election might lead to a recalibration of Indonesia’s approach to the South China Sea issue and regional security,” Zulfikar told RFA. “Prabowo may prioritize strengthening Indonesia’s military capabilities in the disputed waters.”
Aristyo Rizka Darmawan said Prabowo would likely focus on building up the naval forces as a deterrent in the waters around the Natuna islands, where encroachments by Chinese fishing vessels and patrols have become regular.
“Defense and maritime capabilities of the Indonesian navy are important. With such a strategy, Prabowo would most likely implement a more assertive policy in the North Natuna Sea,” the senior researcher from the University of Indonesia said.
Strategic continuity
Indonesia is a founding member of ASEAN and under its chairmanship in 2023, the bloc and China embarked on a new round of draft agreement discussion for a Code of Conduct (COC) in the South China Sea.
However, Prabowo “has not offered any new ideas for promoting dialogue or accelerating the COC negotiations,” Darmawan said.
“Relying solely on military capabilities would not help much in maintaining peace and security in the contested waters. To show leadership in ASEAN, Indonesia should not only think of itself but also think of a bigger role in helping the region avoid escalation and conflict,” he added.
The new president will take a middle-of-the-road position on the South China Sea dispute without offering anything new, according to Muradi, a military analyst and professor of political and security studies at Padjadjaran University.
“It is clear that his politics will be more focused on domestic affairs. This is the characteristic of a soldier who was born and raised in the Cold War era,” Muradi, who goes by one name, said.
A China Coast Guard ship is seen from an Indonesian Naval ship during a patrol at Indonesia’s Exclusive Economic Zone in the north of Natuna island, Indonesia, January 11, 2020 . (Antara Foto/M Risyal Hidayat/via Reuters)
The analyst warned that the situation in the South China Sea is evolving and so is the threat from China to ASEAN. China’s military modernization is expected to be completed by 2027 and many predict that by then Beijing would be confident enough to wage an open conflict in the region and the U.S. would have to intervene to support its allies.
“This requires more fundamental steps, not just saying we need this or that but concrete actions,” he said.
Zulfikar from the NUS, meanwhile, said Prabowo’s stance on China and the U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy may not be straightforward.
“While he has expressed interest in cultivating closer ties with China, particularly in terms of economic cooperation, Prabowo has also emphasized the importance of maintaining Indonesia’s sovereignty and independence in its foreign policy,” Zulfikar said.
That may see Prabowo “seeking to enhance regional cooperation with ASEAN countries and other regional powers to address security challenges.”
“Prabowo may adopt a pragmatic approach, seeking to balance Indonesia’s relations with both China and the United States to maximize its own interests.”
“Regarding the U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy and AUKUS grouping [between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the U.S.], he may approach them cautiously, emphasizing Indonesia’s non-alignment stance while exploring potential benefits and risks associated with increased engagement with these initiatives,” the NUS researcher added.
Huong Le Thu, Asia deputy director at the International Crisis Group said that she doesn’t “expect major changes in foreign policy as Prabowo takes over, not in the early days, at least.”
The former general repeatedly promised to continue the domestic and foreign policies of his predecessor, the widely popular president Joko Widodo.
“After all, ‘continuity’ was among the main aspects of his campaign,” she said, “If anything, I would expect more of the old – and old old – than of the new.”
Edited by Mike Firn and Elaine Chan.
BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Pizaro Gozali Idrus for BenarNews and RFA Staff.
An exhaustive, 10-year survey of 6,351 North Korean escapees about their former lives in the isolated country paints a bleak picture: Food and energy are both scarcer, and government surveillance and crackdowns are stricter.
Women now play a more elevated role in families and society – though not because of a heightened sense of equality, but rather out of economic necessity, those interviewed said. They have become the main breadwinners, setting up stalls in makeshift markets that now are the main source of food and other basics for daily life.
The results of the report, compiled between 2013 and 2022 by the South’s Unification Ministry and released Tuesday, opens a window into the lives of ordinary North Koreans, and clearly indicates that the quality of life has worsened since Kim Jong Un came to power in 2011 after the death of his father.
Han Songmi, who was 19 when she escaped in 2011, is one of more than 30,000 people who have fled the North over the years. Now living in South Korea, she imagines what her friends and peers are experiencing, since she has virtually no way of communicating with them.
“They are probably in their late 20s now, and they are probably living with more anger than they did back then,” said Han, who was not interviewed for the survey.
When she lived in North Korea, Han said she and her friends were aware that the government controlled every aspect of their lives, but they were not allowed to discuss such things freely.
A North Korean woman plays accordion to entertain others while they plant rice in a field on the outskirts of Pyongyang, May 13, 2014. (David Guttenfelder/AP)
“The authorities were cracking down on kids for their clothing and hairstyles,” she told RFA Korean. “The kids would be saying ‘We can’t do this’ among ourselves, but we couldn’t say that in front of adults. Adults would always say, ‘Be careful, your parents can get arrested because of you.’”
Authorities also restricted the kinds of clothes people could wear.
“We had to wear a black skirt and a white top, but I witnessed some in Pyongyang being cracked down on for wearing South Korean-style jeans or wearing earrings,” she said.
Economic shocks
The survey results show economic conditions in North Korea have worsened, and that women have become main providers for their families.
Until the 1990s, people could rely on the government to provide their food under a rationing program, but this changed dramatically when the Soviet Union collapsed and aid from Moscow dried up.
The centrally planned economy could not cope with the sudden shock, resulting in a famine between 1994 and 1998 that killed more than 2 million by some estimates in what has become known as the “Arduous March” – a defining period in the country’s history.
The rationing system became no longer viable. The Ministry of Unification’s report showed that among respondents who fled North Korea between 2016 and 2020 more than 72% of those interviewed said they had never received food rations.
The system changed somewhat to allow people to access a rationing system at their government-assigned jobs. People could expect to be paid a salary that they could then use to buy food at discounted prices.
‘Barking dogs’
But in reality, state-assigned jobs became less and less a means of support.
Among those who fled before 2000, 33.5% said they had received neither food rations nor wages at their official workplace. For those who fled between 2016-2020, some 50.3% said the same.
With government jobs – mostly held by men – paying almost nothing, housewives have had to make money to survive, and have started running tiny businesses in markets, buying and selling things such as vegetables and packaged foods and various products smuggled in from China.
Since Kim Jong Un began his rule, 70.5% of the respondents said they have had to rely on these local markets for survival, the survey showed.
The salaries paid to men, meanwhile, have become so miniscule that the men are unable to provide for their families, so men are increasingly referred to by slang terms like “barking dogs” or “daytime lamps,” suggesting they are insignificant and generally useless.
“Usually, most women made a living by selling things in the market,” said Han. “Although their husbands worked at a company, the company did not provide rations or pay much. I think women’s voices gradually grew louder from that generation onwards because women had to feed their families.”
Corruption
Since North Korea’s economic collapse, corruption has become more of a problem, the survey showed.
While the ordinary people operate side-businesses to make ends meet, those in power use their status or position for economic gain, by collecting a percentage of these side-business’ profits, or by extracting bribes.
Of the survey respondents who escaped since Kim Jong Un came to power, 41.4% said they had been robbed of more than 30% of their monthly income, and among those who escaped between 2016 to 2020, 54.4% said they had paid bribes.
“As the authorities’ crackdowns intensify, residents have no choice but to pay bribes as part of whatever they are doing to make a living,” said Lee Hyun-Seung, who escaped from North Korea in 2014 and settled in the United States. She was not one of those interviewed in the survey.
“Because we do not have economic freedom, those who engage in economic activities cannot receive legal protection,” she said. “That’s why we pay bribes and receive protection or avoid punishment from people in power.”
Power shortages
Ordinary people also have less access to electricity, the survey showed, since the cash-strapped government prioritizes industry over the good of the people.
Prior to 2000, most residents got an average of 5 hours and 42 minutes of electricity per day in their homes. Since Kim Jong Un came to power, they’re getting about 90 minutes less, an average of 4 hours 18 minutes, the survey found.
“I can’t imagine how the situation can be worse now than when I escaped,” Kim Sookyoung, who escaped North Korea in 1998 and settled in the United States, told RFA.
“When I lived in North Korea, the day electricity came on was like a holiday,” said Kim, who was not among those interviewed by the Unification Ministry. “When the electricity came on, all the residents in my apartment building shouted with joy. The light itself was just a joy.”
She said there were some days when the electricity did not come on at all. So people would charge batteries so they would have light during those days.
“The first thing I did when the electricity came on was to charge the battery,” she said.
Heating the home in the dead of winter has also become more of a challenge. In years past, people could rely on electricity or gas for heat, but these days it’s all about firewood.
More than 69% of the respondents to the survey said they purchased firewood to heat their homes because it was more reliable.
Leadership
The survey asked several questions about the country’s leadership by members of the so-called Paektu bloodline, made up of national founder Kim Il Sung and his descendants, which include his son and successor Kim Jong Il and his grandson, the current leader Kim Jong Un.
Pedestrians walk beneath portraits of Kim Il Sung, left, and Kim Jong Il, at Kim Il Sung square in Pyongyang, North Korea, Aug. 11, 2017. (AP Photo)
The report said that 743 of the respondents were asked whether they supported the continuation of the Paektu bloodline leadership system prior to their escape from North Korea. Of those, 44.4% said they were against dynastic rule, while 37.8% said they supported it.
Support for the regime has waned over the years. Among the respondents who escaped from North Korea before 2011, only 29.9% said they had had negative feelings about the regime, whereas 52.6% of those who escaped after 2012 felt the same way.
Among those escaped between 2016 to 2020, this figure climbs to 56.3%.
During a press briefing on Jan. 29, Unification Ministry spokesperson Koo Byoung-sam said that it is not easy to confirm concrete signs of North Korean residents’ dissatisfaction with the regime they live under.
Translated by Claire Shinyoung Oh Lee and Leejin J. Chung. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Jamin Anderson and Lee Jeong Eun for RFA Korean.
A Russian Pacific Fleet warship has conducted an anti-submarine exercise in the South China Sea as part of the fleet’s training program, Russia’s ministry of defense confirmed in a news release.
The Marshal Shaposhnikov, assisted by a Ka-27 helicopter, was searching for an “enemy” submarine at an undisclosed location in the South China Sea before firing torpedoes and anti-submarine depth charges at it, according to the ministry.
The firing was conducted entirely in “a training manner” and did not use the frigate’s actual weapons, the ministry said.
Frigate Marshal Shaposhnikov, together with the Pacific Fleet’s flagship missile cruiser Varyag, is on a long-distance training mission to the Asia-Pacific.
The ships left the fleet’s home base in Vladivostok in Russia’s Far East on Jan. 22 and, besides training exercises, planned to make some port calls. The news release did not reveal the length of the mission or the countries the ship detachment plans to visit.
Before entering the South China Sea, the ships took part in several exercises against sea and air targets in the East China Sea and the Sea of Japan.
South China Sea presence
The Pacific Fleet is part of Russia’s Eastern Military District, with the Pacific Ocean as its main operation area.
Such training exercises have become regular as the Russian Navy asserts its presence in the region.
A similar anti-submarine exercise was conducted by another detachment from the Pacific Fleet in Oct., 2023, when destroyers Admiral Tributs and Admiral Panteleev were on a long-distance sea voyage to the Pacific.
South China Sea’s littoral states have yet to comment on the Russian drills, as they were likely “conducted as a user state’s exercise of high seas rights and no permission would have been required,” said Collin Koh, a Singapore-based regional military expert.
Other navies, including the U.S., have also been carrying out exercises and freedom of navigation operations in the area.
In this photo taken from a video released by the Russian Defense Ministry Press Service on Dec. 19, 2022, the Varyag missile cruiser of Russia’s Pacific Fleet sails off for a joint naval drill planned by Russia and China in the East China Sea. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP)
Russia has recently sought to bolster its presence in the Asia Pacific and forge a closer relationship with China. The two countries have conducted a number of joint exercises in the East China and South China seas.
Yet according to Koh, the Kremlin would be careful not to express explicit support for Beijing in the contested South China Sea.
“While I understand that bilateral ties are closer since the war in Ukraine, I don’t see why Russia doesn’t want to choose to assert itself as a power in its own right that pursues its own interest.
“Vietnam remains a key partner in Southeast Asia to Russia, so I’m leery of Moscow seeking to alienate Hanoi by showing support for Beijing in the South China Sea,” he said.
Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Staff.
Vietnam and the Philippines on Tuesday signed two memoranda of understanding on cooperation in the South China Sea during the visit by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to Hanoi, the Philippine Presidential Communications Office said.
One covered incident prevention and management in the South China Sea. The other was on maritime cooperation, the office said in a news release.
A memorandum of understanding, or MOU, is a non-binding agreement that clarifies the parties’ intentions and working relationships.
On incident prevention and management “the two nations agreed to enhance coordination regarding maritime issues bilaterally, within the ASEAN and with other dialogue partners, with both sides intensifying efforts to promote trust, confidence, and understanding, through dialogue and cooperative activities,” the office said.
The MOU on maritime cooperation is “aimed at strengthening the understanding, mutual trust, and confidence between the two parties through development of a Joint Coast Guard Committee” to discuss common issues and interests between the two coast guard forces.
A hotline will be established between them, it added. No further details were provided.
Both Vietnam and the Philippines are claimants in the South China Sea, alongside China, Brunei, Malaysia and Taiwan.
As the risk of escalation caused by competing claims arises, “the ability to resolve mutual disputes amicably demonstrates strength and non-interference of a third party,” according to Pooja Bhatt, an independent maritime security analyst.
“This is a good solid step even before you face a common challenge or threat,” she said.
“It will also set precedence for other similar maritime disputes that South China Sea littorals face,” added the Delhi-based analyst.
Risk of provoking China
President Marcos is in Hanoi on a two-day state visit, during which he’s set to meet with Vietnam’s top leaders – the president, the prime minister and the chair of the National Assembly – but not the general secretary of Vietnam Communist Party, Nguyen Phu Trong, who is believed to be in poor health.
Marcos is the first Philippine head of state to visit Vietnam in nearly a decade, after a visit by former president Rodrigo Duterte in 2016.
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., right, and Vietnamese President Vo Van Thuong inspect honor guards during a welcome ceremony in Hanoi, Vietnam Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2024. (Hoang Thong Nhat/VNA via AP)
Before leaving for Hanoi on Monday, the president said that maritime cooperation would be “one of the cornerstones of the strategic partnership which we are going to forge” with Vietnam.
The two countries in 2015 established a so-called strategic partnership, the only such association the Philippines has with an ASEAN member state.
Vietnamese media, while covering President Marcos’ movements in Hanoi extensively, have so far not reported on the maritime cooperation agreements, which analysts say may risk provoking China.
The official Vietnam News Agency only said that the two sides “pledged to maintain and foster peace, security, stability and freedom of navigation” in the South China Sea.
Beijing claims most of the South China Sea and Chinese vessels have recently had tense confrontations with Philippine coast guard ships near some atolls also claimed by Manila.
“You can see most of the statements about the South China Sea have been issued by the Philippines and not Vietnam,” said a Vietnamese analyst who wished to stay anonymous due to the sensitivity of the issue.
“Manila is keen to get Hanoi involved to form a united front [against China] but Hanoi does not want to publicly show that,” the analyst said.
Bilateral cooperation
Another Vietnamese analyst, however, hailed the agreements on maritime cooperation as “a clever move in breaking China’s dominance by peaceful means.”
“China has been stalling the negotiations for a Code of Conduct [COC] in the South China Sea but step by step Vietnam and other neighbors could cooperate to work out a COC for ASEAN,” Dinh Kim Phuc, a well-known scholar, said.
“Beijing may retaliate by increasing maritime patrols near Vietnam’s oil fields such as the Vanguard Bank, but I don’t think they will react more than that,” Phuc told Radio Free Asia.
Back in November 2023, President Marcos said during a livestreamed event that his country is seeking separate risk-reducing agreements with Southeast Asian neighbors.
“We have taken the initiative to approach those other countries around ASEAN whom we have existing territorial conflicts with, Vietnam being one of them, Malaysia being another and to make our own code of conduct,” the president said.
Chinese media, meanwhile, have warned of further risks of conflict should the cooperation between Vietnam and the Philippines “target a third party and harm others’ interests.”
The state-run Global Times said that “if Vietnam and the Philippines cooperate in certain areas to the detriment of China’s interests in the South China Sea, it will only irritate the situation in the South China Sea and make the risk of conflict higher.”
Chinese coast guard ships block Philippine coast guard BRP Cabra as it tries to head towards Second Thomas Shoal, locally known as Ayungin Shoal, in the disputed South China Sea during a rotation and resupply mission on Aug. 22, 2023. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)
In a related development, ASEAN foreign ministers meeting in Luang Prabang, Laos, on Monday also discussed the current situation in the South China Sea.
“We reaffirmed the importance of maintaining and promoting peace, security, stability, safety, and freedom of navigation in and overflight above the South China Sea,” the bloc’s ministers said in a joint statement.
Some of them expressed concern “on the land reclamations and activities, which have eroded trust and confidence, increased tensions, and may undermine peace, security, and stability in the region” without naming any country.
“We emphasized the importance of self-restraint in the conduct of all activities by claimants and all other states,” the statement said, calling on all countries “to pursue peaceful resolution of disputes in accordance with the universally recognized principles of international law, including the 1982 UNCLOS [UN Convention on the Law of the Sea].”
Edited by Mike Firn and Elaine Chan.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Staff.
Warships from the United States, Japan, Australia, Canada and New Zealand took part earlier this week in a multilateral exercise following a recent spat between China and the Philippines in the South China Sea.
Exercise Noble Caribou was held on Oct. 23 in the area between Indonesia and Malaysia “to improve our tactical capabilities and strengthen cooperation,” Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JDMSF) said in a statement.
Participating vessels included Japan’s JS Akebono, the U.S. Navy’s USS Rafael Perata, the Royal Australian Navy’s HMAS Brisbane, the Royal Canadian Navy’s HMCS Ottawa, and the Royal New Zealand Navy’s HMNZS Te Mana.
Ship-tracking data analyzed by Radio Free Asia also shows two other U.S. naval ships – the USNS Rappahannock and USNS Henson – were also operating nearby, adding to the impressive show of force.
U.S. vessels USNS Rappahannock and USNS Henson were operating near the area of Exercise Noble Caribou. Credit: MarineTraffic
A day earlier Manila summoned the Chinese ambassador to the Philippines over two incidents near the Second Thomas Shoal, in which Chinese coast guard ships were accused of “dangerously maneuvering,” causing collisions with Philippine ships.
China said Philippine vessels “trespassed” into its claimed waters.
“The participating countries in the exercise [Noble Caribou] are maritime nations with long coastlines in the Pacific Ocean, and are like-minded nations that seek to maintain an international order based on the rule of law in order to realize a Free and Open Indo-Pacific,” Commanding Officer of JS Akebono Togawa Hisato said.
“We believe that through this multilateral exercise, we were able to improve our tactical capabilities and strengthen cooperation with the navies of the participating countries, as well as embody their strong will and ability to create a security environment that does not tolerate unilateral changes to the status quo by force,” Togawa added.
The naval exercise “was likely planned long before the recent incidents but it is part of the US’s anti-China strategy,” said Mark Valencia, a senior research fellow at China’s Huayang Institute for Maritime Cooperation and Ocean Governance.
“Countries should show more restraint in their actions, particularly in their military displays of power,” Valencia told RFA, adding “I am not optimistic as this has become an ever deepening and spreading modus vivendi and will likely end badly.”
China’s position
The U.S. quickly spoke out in support of Manila over the incidents at the weekend, vowing to stand “with our Philippine allies in the face of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) Coast Guard and maritime militia’s dangerous and unlawful actions … in the South China Sea.”
Washington said Article IV of the 1951 U.S.-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty “extends to armed attacks on Philippine armed forces, public vessels, and aircraft – including those of its Coast Guard.”
After the U.S. comments, France, South Korea, and Japan also voiced their support for the Philippines.
Caption: Soldiers from participating ships at Exercise Noble Caribou, Oct. 23, 2023. Credit: Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JDMSF)
“In the South China Sea, China has actually exercised a lot of restraint,” said retired Chinese Senior Col. Zhou Bo, who now serves as a senior fellow of the Center for International Security and Strategy at Tsinghua University in Beijing.
“We have been too soft on the Filipinos,” Zhou told an international conference on the South China Sea in Ho Chi Minh City on Wednesday.
Chinese maritime experts have been critical of what they call “external forces” in South China Sea disputes.
Another Chinese analyst – Wu Shicun, president of China’s National Institute for South China Sea Studies – said at the same conference in Vietnam that the U.S. and U.S.-led security groupings all “clearly target China.”
“Removing the interference of external factors is the only way and only choice if we are to realize long-term peace and stability in the South China Sea,” Wu said.
Retired Senior Col. Zhou shares a more hawkish view that China is the only country that would “respond militarily to American provocations.”
“Probably China and the United States can only cool down after another collision at … sea or in the air, which I don’t look forward to but there’s no other answer to this problem,” he said.
Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Staff.
The United States and South Korea have issued an alert to the international community on North Korean hackers posing as non-North Korean job seekers, whose objectives are to undertake cyber missions that could accelerate Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions.
The authorities from the two countries issued a joint public service announcement late Wednesday that these hackers impersonate “IT workers” and non-DPRK nationals, who could potentially infiltrate global companies.
“DPRK IT workers continue to take advantage of demand for specific IT skills such as software and mobile application development while fraudulently obtaining employment contracts around the world, including in the United States. This action leads to companies unwittingly hiring DPRK IT workers,” the U.S. Department of State said in a statement, referring to the North’s formal name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
The State Department added that it was closely collaborating with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, as well as the South’s of Foreign Ministry, National Police Agency, and National Intelligence Service (NIS) to tackle the issue.
This initiative followed the similar warnings issued in May and December last year. The latest warning provided an update of clearer guidelines on how the North Korean covert hackers operate.
“Hiring or supporting DPRK IT workers – knowingly or unknowingly – poses many risks, ranging from theft of intellectual property, data, and funds, to reputational harm and legal consequences, including under U.S., ROK, and UN sanctions,” the statement said, referring to South Korea’s formal name.
The authorities noted that North Korean IT workers’ potential hacking may aid Pyongyang’s development of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs.
On Thursday, South Korea’s foreign ministry reinforced the statement and elaborated on particular red flags associated with North Korean IT workers. The ministry said that unusual requests, such as seeking alternative payment methods instead of the usual account details for salaries or using a freight forwarder’s address instead of a personal home address for deliveries, could be key indicators of suspicious activity.
“Collaborating with North Korean IT experts not only jeopardizes a company’s reputation but also poses the threat of unauthorized access to its confidential data and potential asset theft,” the ministry warned.
The warning came amidst the COVID-19 pandemic and ongoing U.N. sanctions, which continued to push North Korea’s economy downwards. The statement said hacking has turned into a major stream of revenue for North Korea. The North Korean regime has recently not only been targeting financial institutions and cryptocurrencies, but also seek to exploit vulnerabilities across various sectors, including manufacturing companies.
Earlier this month, South Korea’s spy agency, NIS, revealed that it has identified numerous instances where North Korean hacking groups targeted key shipbuilding firms in the South.
North Korea has also turned to hacking as a means of advancing its technology capabilities, seeking to bridge the gap with advanced nations. It had attempted to steal information on COVID vaccines via hacking Pfizer, the NIS told South Korean lawmakers in 2021.
Edited by Elaine Chan and Taejun Kang.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Lee Jeong-Ho for RFA.
North Korea appears to have a military connection to Hamas, and weapons and tactics used in the Palestinian militant group’s attacks this month on Israel are likely North Korean in origin, the South Korean military said Tuesday.
“Hamas is believed to be directly or indirectly linked to North Korea in various areas, such as the weapons trade, tactical guidance and training,” a senior member of the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff, who did not want to be named, told reporters at a special press briefing in Seoul.
The official further suggested that North Korea could use similar tactics to Hamas in an attack on the South.
“There is a possibility that North Korea could use Hamas’ attack methods [in the event of] a surprise invasion of South Korea,” he said.
Radio Free Asia reported last week that a video shared on social media showed a Hamas fighter holding what appeared to be a North Korean F-7 rocket propelled grenade launcher or RPG.
The military official confirmed that the F-7 is another name for the North Korean RPG-7 high-explosive fragmentation rocket, but did not elaborate on whether the weapon reached Hamas in direct trade with North Korea or via a third party.
The official said that spent 122-millimeter artillery shells discovered near Gaza’s border with Israel are likely North Korean exports, because they were marked in Korean letters “Bang-122,” and shells with this marking have been used in North Korean artillery attacks of the South.
North Korean state media last week denied that Hamas was using North Korean weapons, calling the idea a ”groundless and false rumor” spread by “reptile press bodies and quasi-experts” in the United States.
Invasion tactics
Hamas’ attack on Israel used paragliders and drones, a tactic that has been employed by North Korea, leading to speculation that Pyongyang could have given tactical information to Hamas, he said.
In 2020, North Korea practiced an attack on a replica of the Blue House, South Korea’s former presidential office and residence. Commandos rode paragliders to a landing point near the replica and staged an assault.
Israeli soldiers and journalists gather around a damaged powered paraglider allegedly used by Palestinian militants in Kfar Aza, south of Israel bordering Gaza Strip, on Oct. 10, 2023. Credit: Thomas Coex/AFP
Speaking at a different press briefing on Tuesday, Lee Sung Joon, the spokesperson for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who was not the official who spoke at the special press briefing, said that the military was analyzing and evaluating weapons and tactics used by Hamas.
“In addition, we are closely monitoring North Korea using joint ROK-US surveillance and reconnaissance assets and are maintaining a thorough readiness posture for North Korean provocations,” he said.
‘No surprise’
A military connection between North Korea and Hamas is very likely, Bruce Bennett, a Senior Fellow at the U.S.-based RAND Corporation think tank, told RFA Korean.
“For many years, North Korea has sent its military personnel overseas to help train foreign military personnel in many countries, so it should be no surprise to find North Korean military trainers in Gaza supporting Hamas,” said Bennett.
“North Korea almost always denies its involvement in other countries, so North Korean denial of its weapons being used by Hamas is exactly what we would expect,” he said.
Bennett said that North Korean trainers would be most comfortable with North Korean weapons.
“So why would anyone be surprised that North Korea has provided Hamas with some of the weapons that Hamas used to attack Israel, including everything from small arms to artillery munitions?” he said, adding that the weapons could have first been sold to parties in Iran and then transferred into Gaza through tunnels from Egypt.
Cooperation with North Korea by buying weapons or military training is a violation of U.S. and U.N. sanctions, Anthony Ruggiero of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies told RFA.
“The Biden administration should increase its enforcement of North Korea sanctions to reduce Pyongyang’s revenue generation,” he said.
Additional reporting by Kim Soyoung for RFA Korean. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Eugene Whong for RFA.
After the South Korean prime minister visited China last month, a claim circulated in Korean-language posts that Chinese media outlets “did not cover the prime minister’s visit at all” in protest against Seoul’s recent efforts to strengthen ties with the United States and Japan.
But the claim is false. Keyword searches found Han Duck-soo’s visit was widely covered by Chinese media, including the People’s Daily and Xinhua News Agency. His meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping also garnered significant media attention in China.
The claim was shared here on Facebook in a group with more than 70,000 members who mostly maintain anti-U.S, pro-China view.
“South Korean media outlets have been heavily promoting the S Korean PM’s visit to China as if it’s a big deal. But there is zero coverage by the Chinese media. Nothing. If S Korea wants a proper summit with China, Yoon [referring to the South Korean President] must apologize to China first for upsetting it [with latest moves to cement ties with the U.S. and Japan],” reads the post.
It was shared by a user who claims to be a head of South Korea-based NGO “Green Transport Policy Institute.” Further searches found the user has often spread Chia-related misinformation online.
Similar claims have been shared in other Korean-language Facebook posts that claimed both Xinhua News Agency and People’s Daily did not cover South Korean Prime Minister Han Duck-soo’s visit to China.
Screenshot of the misleading Facebook post, taken on Sept. 27, 2023
The claim began to circulate after Han arrived in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou on Sept. 23 to attend the opening ceremony of the Asian Games and meet Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the sporting event.
During his two-day visit, Han attended a luncheon hosted by Xi for the leaders of countries competing in the Asian Games and held talks with Xi ahead of the opening ceremony later in that day.
South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency reported that Xi, who has not visited South Korea since 2014, told Han that he will seriously consider visiting South Korea as part of efforts to support peace and security on the Korean Peninsula.
Han was the first high-level South Korean official to meet with Xi since President Yoon Suk Yeol met with him on the sidelines of a Group of 20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, in Nov. 2022.
But the claim is false.
Keyword searches of Han’s Chinese name in simplified Chinese, used in mainland China, show Chinese media outlets have been heavily covering Han’s visit to China and his meeting with Xi as seen on CCTV, China News Agency, Xinhua, etc.
Screenshots of reports from People’s Daily and Xinhua News Agency, captured on Sept. 27, 2023
Yoon, a conservative, has endeavored to align Seoul’s foreign policy with that of the United States in order to counter global challenges such as North Korea’s nuclear ambitions. Yoon has prioritized strengthening its military and economic cooperation with Washington and Tokyo to this end.
South Koreans are largely divided on Yoon’s policy, with conservatives applauding the approach because they believe it could effectively promote North Korea’s denuclearization. Liberals, including the main opposition Democratic Party, contend that such an approach exacerbates tensions on the Korean Peninsula, citing the possibility of jeopardizing relations with China.
Han’s visit to China has become a source of disinformation among pro-China online users who support the DP. In addition to the false claim that Chinese media outlets ignored Han, users claimed that Xi was intentionally rude to Han to “teach him a lesson” and that Chinese authorities “mistreated” South Korean delegates in a protest against Yoon.
Edited by Malcolm Foster.
Asia Fact Check Lab (AFCL) is a branch of RFA established to counter disinformation in today’s complex media environment. Our journalists publish both daily and special reports that aim to sharpen and deepen our readers’ understanding of public issues.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Taejun Kang for RFA.
Five years ago, when leaders of the two Koreas exchanged a historic handshake in Pyongyang, the Korean people looked on with hope, wishing that this masterpiece of diplomacy may finally put an official end to the seven-decade-long war on the peninsula.
But as time surges forward, the once-celebrated inter-Korean agreement stands vulnerable, overshadowed by North Korea’s escalating nuclear threats, and its leader, Kim Jong Un reinforcing ties with his fellow authoritarian leader Vladimir Putin of Russia. Now, South Korea grapples with a growing divide on whether to uphold that deal.
The debate is set to intensify on the back of former South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s attendance of the commemorative event of the fifth anniversary of the September 19 Pyongyang Joint Declaration in Seoul on Tuesday.
“The [current] government and the ruling party have expressed their intentions to reconsider or possibly scrap the military agreement,” Moon said at the event. “However, it’s crucial to note that the inter-Korean military agreement has been instrumental in preventing military confrontations between the two Koreas.”
Moon’s comments are largely seen as a warning against the administration of President Yoon Suk Yeol for its hardline policy on North Korea.
“It would be irresponsible to remove the last safety pin in place,” Moon added. “As relations between the two Koreas deteriorate and military tensions escalate, it’s imperative for both sides to uphold the agreement.”
His remarks may potentially improve public opinion of South Korea’s progressives before the general election in April. Should that happen, it would conversely work against Yoon’s hardline policy on Pyongyang.
Under the 2018 inter-Korean military deal, the two Koreas agreedto “end hostility” and to “take substantial steps to make the Korean Peninsula a permanent peace zone.”
“Military accords should be honored and respected to the fullest extent to ensure dialogue continues and to prevent dire consequences,” Moon said.
The former president was supported by key officials from his administration – his foreign minister Kang Kyung-wha and unification minister Kim Yeon-chul at the event.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un with South Korean President Moon Jae-in inside the Peace House at the border village of Panmunjom in Demilitarized Zone, South Korea on April 27, 2018. (Credit: AP)
South Korea’s progressives see consistent engagement with North Korea as a potential catalyst for altering Pyongyang’s hostile behavior and its actions of violating human rights. They believe that integrating North Korea into the international stage would foster transparency, open avenues for dialogue, and gradually shift the North’s stance towards global norms and values.
Conservatives, on the other hand, have long protested against what it defined as far-fetched engagement, saying that excessive aid to North Korea despite its continued provocations would only foster its nuclear ambitions. The conversative Yoon administration is thus adopting a hawkish policy on North Korea, aimed at pressing Pyongyang to forfeit its nuclear weapons.
The ongoing debate is set to gain its momentum, as Yoon’s Defense Minister nominee Shin Won-sik has opined about his inclination to scrap the inter-Korean military deal last week.
Some analysts consider the deal invalid, with North Korea returning to its brinkmanship diplomacy after its high-stakes summit with the United States collapsed in Hanoi February 2019. For instance, in November 2019, North Korea fired coastal artillery near the maritime buffer around the border island of Changlin-do.
In May 2020, North Korea fired gunshots towards a South Korean guard post at the inter-Korean border, and in September 2020, a South Korean civilian was shot dead at the maritime border by the North and subsequently incinerated.
Further complicating matters is North Korea’s amplified nuclear and missile threats. The threats are expected to further intensify with Putin vowingto aid North Korea in developing its satellite technology.
Rocket technology can be used for both launching satellites and missiles. For that reason, the UN bans North Korea from launching a ballistic rocket, even if it claims to be a satellite launch.
South Korea’s internal disagreement surrounding its North North Korea policy could potentially undermine that of the allies. The lack of a unified stance – be it hardline or dovish policy – risks disabling Seoul and Washington to form a coherent strategy that could be implemented in the long-term.
Experts, however, noted that the main reason for this policy inconsistency is due to Kim Jong Un’s altered stance on his diplomacy after the fallout in Hanoi in 2019.
“North Korean inconsistency is what leads to South Korea having to change its policy. If Pyongyang had continued to engage post-Hanoi summit, I think that both, Moon first, and Yoon now would have probably sought to try to accommodate this. Alas, this hasn’t been the case,” said Ramon Pacheco Pardo, Professor of International Relations at King’s College London and the KF-VUB Korea Chair at the Brussels School of Governance of Vrije Universiteit Brussel.
“Likewise, I think that it was domestic instability in North Korea in the late 2000s, due to Kim Jong Il’s health condition, and then the transition process to Kim Jong Un, [being] the main reason behind the end of the inter-Korean engagement. So liberals and conservatives may not fully agree on how to approach North Korea, but I actually think that Pyongyang is the main reason why Seoul changes its policy.”
Edited by Elaine Chan and Taejun Kang.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Lee Jeong-Ho for RFA.
South Korea’s President Yoon Suk Yeol has issued a fresh warning to North Korea Monday, urging Pyongyang to halt its nuclear program if it wants to avoid regime instability.
“North Korean authorities are wasting scarce financial resources on the development of nuclear and missile capabilities,” Yoon said in a written interview with the Associated Press. “Consequently, the hardships faced by North Koreans in their everyday lives are worsening, and its economy continues to register negative growth.
“Amid such circumstances, unless North Korea stops its nuclear development, the regime’s instability will continue to increase.”
The South Korean leader on Monday also pressed China to take “constructive efforts to denuclearize North Korea.” He added that Beijing must realize Pyongyang’s nuclear provocations pose “a negative effect on China’s national interests by further disrupting regional order among other things.”
Yoon’s remarks came on the heels of North Korea’s simulated strike on the South on Saturday, in what Pyongyang called a “tactical nuclear attack” drill to bolster its nuclear capability against Washington and Seoul.
North Korea launched two cruise missiles carrying mock nuclear warheads towards the West Sea of the Korean peninsula. The missiles traveled about 1,500 kilometers (932 miles) for more than two hours, before detonating at an altitude of 150 meters, the official Korean Central News Agency said. While firing cruise missiles isn’t prohibited by the U.N., they present a significant threat to U.S. troops stationed in South Korea.
General view of a simulated “tactical nuclear attack” drill at an undisclosed location in North Korea. Credit: KCNA via Reuters
The North’s repeated nuclear provocations, combined with U.S.-China rivalry, have placed the Korean peninsula at the forefront of the ideological clash between democracy and authoritarianism. While Pyongyang’s provocations have strengthened trilateral security cooperation among the U.S., South Korea and Japan, both China and Russia are defending North Korea on the international stage, with the North reciprocating this backing.
“The international community must clearly demonstrate that its determination to stop North Korea’s nuclear program is much stronger than North Korea’s will to continue developing it,” Yoon, who is set to attend ASEAN and the G20 summits this week, said.
Cruise missiles pose a major security challenge to Seoul and U.S militaries stationed in South Korea, said Cheon Seong-whun, a former security strategy secretary for South Korea’s presidential office.
“They are challenging to intercept, and arguably, there’s no current defense system entirely adequate against them,” Cheon noted. “Given North Korea declaring its intention to deploy nuclear warheads on the cruise missiles, the allies must strategize and respond accordingly.”
“The allies must address this issue within the NCG framework agreed upon by the United States and South Korea,” the former aide continued.
Saturday’s launches also coincided with the end of the U.S. and South Korea’s 11-day training exercises, which North Korea had labeled as invasion rehearsals.
The U.S. and South Korea held their inaugural Nuclear Consultative Group (NCG) meeting in July, where they discussed “information sharing, consultation mechanisms, and joint planning and execution to enhance nuclear deterrence against North Korea,” according to South Korea’s presidential office.
The NCG framework was announced during the bilateral summit in Washington in April against the backdrop of growing demands in South Korea for its nuclear armament in light of Pyongyang’s escalating nuclear threats.
North Korea has been ramping up its nuclear provocation over the past few weeks. The country disclosed that it had performed a “scorched earth” nuclear strike simulation targeting South Korea on Thursday. Earlier in the same week, Kim Jong Un characterized the heads of the U.S., South Korea, and Japan as “gang bosses,” in an apparent derision to the three leaders’ summit on Aug.18 in Camp David, Maryland.
In response, the U.S. and South Korea imposed sanctions on individuals and entities implicated in illicit financing for weapons of mass destruction programs.
Edited by Elaine Chan and Taejun Kang.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Jeong-Ho Lee for RFA.
Vietnam has banned distribution of “Barbie” because the Hollywood movie includes a map showing China’s territorial claims in the disputed South China Sea, state media reported, as angry netizens called for a boycott of a tour by the popular K-Pop group BlackPink for the same alleged offense.
The planned July 21 release of the Warner Brothers feature film, starring Margot Robbie as Barbie and Ryan Gosling as her boyfriend Ken, has been scrapped by the Central Council of Feature Film Evaluation and Classification, state media reported, citing Vi Kien Thanh, head of the Vietnam Cinema Department.
“‘Barbie’ is banned from screening in Vietnam for featuring a map depicting the illicit ‘nine-dash line’ that China uses to illegally claim its sovereignty over most of the East Vietnam Sea,” the Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper said.
“Vietnam had earlier either blocked many films or removed some from cinemas as these movies, mainly produced by China, contain the illegal nine-dash line map,” the English-language report said. All cinema chains across Vietnam had pulled the movie, it added.
Attempts by Radio Free Asia to reach Warner Brothers for comment were unsuccessful.
The nine-dash line is a boundary used by Beijing on its maps to demarcate territorial claims over most of the South China Sea, including sections of the waterway that fall within areas claimed by Vietnam, the Philippines and other countries.
For example, the line – often literally consisting of nine dashes on a map encompassing the entire South China Sea – includes the Paracel Islands claimed by Vietnam and the Spratly Islands claimed by the Philippines. And it wasn’t immediately evident what role the map played in the movie.
K-Pop group BlackPink arrives at MTV Video Music Awards in Newark, Aug. 28, 2022. Angry netizens called for a boycott of a tour by BlackPink for including a “nine-dash line” map of the South China Sea, showing China’s territorial claims. Credit: Evan Agostini/Invision via AP
The problem has emerged before. In 2019, Vietnam halted showings of the DreamWorks film “Abominable” over a scene that showed the “nine-dash line” and drew an outcry among viewers. Netflix offerings including “Pine Gap,” “Madam Secretary,” and “Put Your Head on My Shoulder” also ran afoul of Hanoi over the sea map.
The dust over the Barbie row had barely settled when angry Vietnamese netizens started calling for boycotting a concert by the South Korea K-Pop band BlackPink, after they said concert promoters of the “Born Pink World Tour Hanoi” scheduled for late July also had shared the “nine-dash line” map of the South China Sea.
State media quoted Le Thanh Liem, chief inspector of the Vietnam Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, as saying on Wednesday that a ministry department was conducting checks to verify the reported use of the map on the homepage of iMe Entertainment Co. and its Vietnam fan page.
The map or related links could not be seen on the websites on Wednesday.
The Philippines might follow suit
Following Vietnam’s ban of “Barbie” on Tuesday, the Philippine Movie and Television Review and Classification Board said it was also reviewing whether to approve the release of the film in cinemas. Last year, the film review board pulled the Hollywood action movie “Uncharted” from Philippine cinemas over a scene showing the “nine-dash line.”
In 2016, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague ruled in favor of the Philippines and threw out China’s expansive claims in the waterway, but Beijing has never recognized the ruling.
Australian actor Margot Robbie walks during an event to promote the Warner Bros. film “Barbie” in Seoul, July 2023. Credit: Jung Yeon-je/AFP
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told reporters that “China’s position on the South China Sea issue is clear and consistent.”
“We believe that the countries concerned should not link the South China Sea issue with normal cultural and people-to-people exchanges,” Mao said at a daily briefing on Tuesday.
Despite Mao’s assertions, China has a history of pressuring foreign retailers, fashion firms, hotels and airlines over perceived misrepresentation of its borders, including that with self-governing Taiwan, over which Beijing claims sovereignty.
Although some voices in Vietnam said banning Barbie over the map was oversensitive, South China Sea expert Dinh Kim Phuc told RFA Vietnamese that Hanoi had to act in order to prevent China from propagating its claims in the contested waterway.
“If (authorities) let it be shown throughout the territory of Vietnam, China would make a point that Vietnam has accepted the nine-dash line–that is to say, accepted China’s sovereignty claims in the South China Sea,” said Phuc.
Phuc, a former lecturer at the Open University of Ho Chi Minh City, said Vietnam reacts sharply to seemingly small slights in order to drive home the point that it does not accept the nine-dash line, to win international support for the 2016 Permanent Court of Arbitration ruling, and to protect its sovereign rights and jurisdiction in the South China Sea.
Vietnam expert Carlyle Thayer called the Vietnamese moves “an overreaction, and it distracts the public from China’s aggressive behavior that has been taking place.”
“If Vietnam kept quiet, how would anyone know?” asked Thayer, emeritus professor at the University of New South Wales in Canberra, Australia.
The Liaoning aircraft carrier is accompanied by navy frigates and submarines conducting an exercise in the South China Sea in 2018. Credit: Li Gang/Xinhua via AP
Translated by RFA Vietnamese. Written by Paul Eckert. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Vietnamese.
Radio Free Asia sat down for a chat with Raymond Powell, a 35-year veteran of the U.S. Air Force who retired in 2021 and now runs Project Myoushu. Part of Stanford University’s Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation, the project seeks to develop tools to counter Beijing’s “gray zone” tactics in the South China Sea.
The following has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
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Radio Free Asia: Project Myoushu is about China’s “gray zone tactics” in the South China Sea. Can we start by defining that?
Raymond Powell: We are talking about activities of a state actor – in this case, we’re talking about China – that can’t be directly attributed to them, or which fall in a nebulous legal area where they can act without being directly seen, or noticed, or publicly held accountable.
What makes the South China Sea a hotbed of gray zone activity is that most of what happens there happens outside the public eye. If China, for example, harasses a Filipino fisherman, or points a laser at a Philippine Coast Guard ship, they can attempt to say “That didn’t actually happen, you’re making that up. How do you know it was us?” So what the Philippines has been doing with releasing photos and videos of incidents has been trying to illuminate this gray zone.
Our hypothesis is that if you illuminate gray zone activity, you do two things: You build resilience into your own society against that activity, so that people begin to expect and give you room to push back. And then, also, in the long-term, you hope to deter that activity because now, the gray zone actor – China – is paying a reputational cost.
Raymond Powell runs a project that seeks to develop tools to counter Beijing’s “gray zone” tactics in the South China Sea. (Provided by Raymond Powell)
RFA: Beijing has claimed the South China Sea for a very long time. When did we first see gray zone tactics emerge?
Powell: It’s very hard to put a date on it. I would say that the real sea change in gray zone activities probably can be traced back to the Scarborough Shoal Incident in 2012 – where they essentially took the shoal from the Philippines – and then their island-building campaign, where we saw them turn reefs and rocks into islands and military bases and station Navy and Coast Guard militia ships at those places. They began patrolling around those places in a way that expanded the assertion of their sovereignty. So again it’s hard to put a date on it.
To back up for a second, when I first started looking at the South China Sea in the 1980s, it was very much about “features.” It was about this rock, or this reef, or this island. Everything was centered on who had had actual possession of a particular feature. Obviously, there were overlapping claims, but the thing that mattered was the features.
Now that China has these bases, it is able to project power outwards in a way that it’s very much more about the water, and who has a presence there. It’s about who has an actual military or paramilitary force that is able to push forward into the exclusive economic zones of its neighbors and take possession of things, either physically by rafting a whole bunch of malicious ships together or just by patrolling.
Even patrolling is a gray zone activity, because patrolling by a Chinese Coast Guard ship among Malaysia’s oil and gas activities is an assertion of jurisdiction. It’s saying “We have sovereign rights over your exclusive economic zone, because it falls within our nine-dash line.”
RFA: I’m curious to hear you’ve been looking into the South China Sea since the 1980s. What did it look like then in terms of China’s presence and how has it changed over the last 40 years?
Powell: Because it was mostly about “features,” China’s presence was not actually that noticeable. They had fewer features than, say, the Vietnamese. There was one major clash in 1988 over South Johnson Reef, in which a Chinese ship opened fire on 60 or so Vietnamese sailors who were standing on the reef – actually in the water – but it was very much about who had possession of which feature.
There was not a lot of patrolling happening back then. China simply didn’t have the assets to control all of that water. So that has really changed in the last 15 years, where they have vastly expanded their maritime militia, in particular and their Coast Guard. The Coast Guard and the maritime militia have become their instruments of power projection for the South China Sea. Their maritime militia’s activities are very much gray-zone because they’re very deniable.
They can say, “Well, they’re fishing ships.” But they don’t fish. They exist to patrol or simply to lay claim by sheer presence in an area.
RFA: What about the spate of near-accidents that we’ve seen in the last few years, and particularly in the past few months?
Powell: A similar thing occurred in 2018 with the USS Decatur, which was in the South China Sea doing a freedom of navigation operation. It was similar in that the Chinese ship attempted to cut off the United States ship, and in both cases they came very close to doing so. More recently, we saw a Philippine Coast Guard vessel that was outside of Second Thomas Shoal also nearly collide with a Chinese ship.
What is different now – in particular when you’re talking about the Philippines – is that the Philippines is releasing the photos and the video of the incidents. I think that is actually a quite effective deterrent measure, because part of China’s model for gray zone activity is that it’s just meant to be a message for the Philippine government, but now it’s exposed for the world and they have to recalculate its value.
An activist burns a flag of China during a protest to demand that the Chinese government pull out from the Scarborough Shoal during a rally in front of the Chinese consular office in Makati’s financial district of Manila, May 8, 2012. (Cheryl Ravelo/Reuters)
RFA: What is the message that they’re trying to send to the Philippines, and to the United States when it happens with U.S. ships and planes? How does publicizing it alter the calculus?
Powell: When it’s a gray zone activity, generally speaking, the message is to the government of the country involved, and the message is: “You don’t want to escalate this. You want to have your relationship with China be as uncomplicated as possible. So now that you know we’re the jurisdiction here, keep this between us.”
What publicizing the incidents does is impose a reputational cost on China for doing those kinds of things. For many governments, the temptation is to go along, be quiet and not publicize anything, because you want everything to go back to normal. The problem is that the creeping normal is becoming less and less and less favorable for the region and for the other Southeast Asian countries.
So the more you normalize the gray zone activity, the more they simply become expected, and eventually you will normalize yourself right out of all of your own legal and internationally lawful rights to your own exclusive economic zone. That is the tactic they call “salami slicing” – you take a slice of salami, another slice and another slice.
So every time they sail through your waters and do a survey or a petrol, or they harass your oil and gas operations, or they stop your fisherfolk from fishing, and you acquiesce, it brings into normalcy the fact that you are no longer in charge of your own waters.
RFA: It’s changing “the facts on the ground.”
Powell: Right. So bringing it back to the U.S., one of the things that China does not like at all is U.S. freedom of navigation operations. The entire reason the freedom of navigation operations exist – and have existed for over four decades – is for this exact circumstance.
Because if you allow a country to say “I’m going to draw a circle around this thing right here, which does not have a status under international law, but I’m going to say it belongs to me and nobody is allowed in here without my consent,” and we say, “Okay, the facts on the ground have now changed, even if the legal status has not,” then we have acquiesced. We’ve said that we will not go where you tell us not to go.
The problem with that is it doesn’t have a logical stopping point. So the reason that freedom of navigation operations exist is that we simply say we will go wherever international law allows us. If the law allows us to go, say, in a straight line through this area, or to do maneuvers in that area, we will do exactly that, simply as an assertion of our rights.
RFA: So when China says it’s provocative, that’s the point?
Powell: I used to have diplomatic friends on the Chinese side say, “But why do you have to go through these very sensitive areas? The South China Sea is so big, you can easily go to other areas.” But you can’t just say something is sensitive to you and make a circle around it, and deny other people their right to go there. Eventually what will happen is that international law has no meaning, and might simply makes right.
A freedom of navigation operation is a specific thing that is meant to counter excessive maritime claims. It’s very narrowly defined. The thing to remember is it’s not unique to the South China Sea or to China. We do freedom of navigation operations against excessive claims in the Mediterranean Sea, and against allies who have excessive claims. Some of them may write a protest letter to the embassy. We will file it and it goes unremarked on. Only China reacts the way that they do.
In this photo provided by the U.S. Navy, the USS Chung-Hoon observes a Chinese navy ship conduct what it called an “unsafe” Chinese maneuver in the Taiwan Strait, June 3, 2023, in which the Chinese navy ship cut sharply across the path of the American destroyer, forcing the U.S. ship to slow to avoid a collision. (Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Andre T. Richard/U.S. Navy via AP)
RFA: Do you think that part of the submarine sale to Australia under the AUKUS deal, in spite of the massive backlogs at U.S. shipyards, is meant to expand who’s doing these operations?
Powell: It’s very hard for a country to just start doing them.
RFA: But Australia does do freedom of navigation operations, even if not as frequently as the United States.
Powell: This is a technical question. Under the U.S. definition of a freedom of navigation operation, there are certain classifications. So, for example, Australia does not go within 12 nautical miles of a Chinese-held feature in the South China Sea. We do. Australia does not go through the Paracel Islands, around which China draws what we call straight baselines and says “You can’t go in here.” We do.
Oftentimes, my Australian friends would say, “Well, we do them, we just don’t go within 12 nautical miles.” But those are the ones that meet the technical definition of what our program calls “freedom of navigation operations.” So when my Australian friends would say “We do them,” I say that we’re using different definitions of the term.
Australia has operations in the South China Sea, which they will say asserts their freedom to navigate the South China Sea. They will not, though, go the next step of going within 12 nautical miles of a feature. I understand why – because the first time that they do, everyone will notice and will want to know who they did it against. And if they do it against China, then China will treat it very much as a provocation.
A Philippine flag is seen between Philippine Navy ships at the Philippine-claimed island of Thitu, locally known as Pag-asa island at the South China Sea, April 21, 2023. A Chinese navy ship shadowed the two Philippine patrol vessels in the darkness after midnight as they cruised near Subi, one of seven barren reefs that China has transformed into bases in the past decade. (Aaron Favila/Associated Press)
RFA: It sounds like you’re saying the “salami slicing” is working, if Australia is unable to go near these Chinese-held features?
Powell: Yes, you can say that China has – to every country in the world except for the United States – successfully been able to draw a 12 nautical mile circle around a number of claims, and say that nobody else can come close to them. They’ve sliced the salami that far.
RFA: How do you see this developing by 2030? What discussions will be taking place in Washington about the South China Sea?
Powell: If everything sort of stays on its current trajectory, the danger is that China consolidates its claims simply by increasing the number and frequency of its patrols, and essentially pushes its claim all the way to the edges of the nine-dash line, so that it becomes the effective sheriff, if you will, or the effective constabulary for the entire nine-dash line.
In some ways, they’ve already done that in many places. For example, the Philippines cannot fish at Scarborough Shoal except for in the way specifically allowed by China. China has not yet been able to entirely push that into, for example, hydrocarbon fields like Vietnam’s Vanguard Bank, or Malaysia’s of Luconia Shoals. But it has stopped any new exploitation there, if ever somebody wants to survey a new area.
There are a couple of flashpoints. One is that the Philippines is running out of natural gas from its existing gas fields, and it believes that it has exploitable natural gas at Reed Bank, which is within the nine-dash line. At some point, there will be an increasingly acute need to address that in some way that doesn’t violate the Philippines’ sovereignty.
Another is that the Philippines has a ship, the BRP Sierra Madre, which they ran aground in 1999 at Second Thomas Shoal. It effectively serves as their outpost there and asserts the Philippines’ claim over the shoal, which is in their exclusive economic zone. That ship is getting very old and increasingly rusted and brittle, and China has been very effective in not allowing repairs. At some point, that ship could easily begin to break up, or to slide off the shoal, which could provoke a crisis: What would the Philippines and its U.S. ally do about that?
RFA: Everything you’re saying is leading me to think that there’s two possible conclusions: Either China does take control over the nine-dash line area of South China Sea, or there will be some kind of conflict with the U.S. military. Is there a third option?
Powell: Even under President Xi Jinping, it is not in China’s national interests to be in a constant state of tension and conflict with every country, everywhere, all the time, over everything.
The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Milius (DDG 69) conducts routine operations in the South China Sea, March 24, 2023. China threatened “serious consequences” after a U.S. destroyer sailed around the disputed Paracel Islands in the South China Sea for the second day in a row. (Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Greg Johnson/U.S. Navy via AP)
At some point it has to decide which battles it really wants to fight. So it’s in the interests of each country along its periphery to see if they can push back to the point where China realizes it’s not in its interests to have constant tension and there is instead a settlement somewhere short of yielding sovereignty over the entire nine-dash line.
RFA: That sounds like a far way off.
Powell: Every country needs to be thinking in the long-term.
In the short term – and this goes back to the point of our program – countries like the Philippines can use transparency into gray-zone tactics as their friend. There is something to be gained, because it forces China to recalculate the cost/benefit of pushing that hard.
There’s an old saying that is attributed to Vladimir Lenin: “Probe with the bayonet. If you meet steel, withdraw. If you meet mush, press forward.” You need to have some steel in there, so that they know how hard they can push before you will start pushing back.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Alex Willemyns for RFA.
New York, July 3, 2023—In response to a South African High Court’s Monday judgment striking down a gag order against the amaBhungane Center for Investigative Journalism, the Committee to Protect Journalists issued the following statement:
“Today’s judgment is a massive victory for media freedom in South Africa and an important vindication of a journalist’s ethical duty to protect confidential sources in the public interest,” said Angela Quintal, CPJ’s Africa program coordinator. “Deputy Judge President Roland Sutherland’s judgment reaffirms that the country’s courts will not condone pre-publication censorship without appropriate notice and that investigative journalists have the right to hold and use leaked information in the public interest.”
Quintal has been an amaBhungane board member since October 2013.
A judge granted the original injunction against amaBhungane on June 1—following a secret application by the Moti Group, the subject of the outlet’s coverage—and the action was widely condemned as a threat to media freedom in the country. The injunction ordered the outlet to return leaked documents and refrain from publishing further articles based on them.
On June 3, amaBhungane launched an urgent application in the Johannesburg High Court to overturn the order, in which the parties agreed that the investigative outlet would not destroy or alter the documentation until the matter could be heard in open court.
AmaBhungane sought another urgent application seeking to overthrow the original order last week; the judgment in its favor was delivered Monday, July 3.
Sutherland called the Moti Group’s application an “abuse of the court process,” according to multiplenewsreports and a joint statement by the South African National Editors’ Forum, the Campaign for Free Expression, and Media Monitoring Africa, three local press freedom organizations who joined amaBhungane in its legal case. The judge ordered the Moti Group to pay amaBhungane’s and the three organizations’ legal costs.
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.
In a keynote speech at the annual Pacific Update conference the region’s major university, Fiji deputy Prime Minister Professor Biman Prasad has warned delegates from the Pacific, Australia and New Zealand that Oceania is not in good shape because of problems not of their own making.
Professor Prasad was speaking at the three-day conference at the University of the South Pacific where he was the former dean of the Business and Economic Faculty,
He listed these problems as climate change, geopolitics, superpower conflict, a declining resource base in fisheries and forests, environmental degradation and debilitating health problems leading to significant social and economic challenges.
Distant wars
In his keynote, Professor Prasad pinpointed an issue adversely affecting the region’s economic wellbeing.
“Our region has suffered disproportionally from distant wars in Ukraine,” he said. “Price rises arising from Russia’s war on Ukraine is ravaging communities in our islands by way of price hikes that are making the basics unaffordable.
“Even though not a single grain of wheat is imported from this region, the price increase for a loaf of bread across the Pacific is probably among the highest in the world.
“This is not unbelievable, not to mention unjust,” he noted, adding that this is due to supply chain failures in these remote corners of the world where the cost of shipping goods and services have spiralled.
Though he did not specifically mention the collateral damage from economic sanctions imposed by the West, he did point out that shipping costs have increased several hundred percent since the conflict started.
“In the backdrop of all these, or should I say forefront, is a runaway climate crisis whose most profound and acutest impacts are felt by small island states,” said Professor Prasad. “The impacts of climate change on our economies and societies are systematic; they are widespread, and they are growing”.
Rather than focusing on the problems listed by Professor Prasad, this year’s Pacific Update devoted a significant part of the event to the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) scheme, where Australia has opened its borders to thousands of workers from the Pacific island countries with new provisions provided for them to acquire permanent residency in the country.
Development aid scheme
Australia is presenting this as a development assistance scheme where many academics presenting research papers showed that the remittances they send back help local economies by increasing consumption(and economic growth).
Hiroshi Maeda, a researcher from ANU, said that remittances play a crucial role in the economy of the Kingdom of Tonga in the Pacific, a country of just over 106,000 people.
According to recent census data from Australia, New Zealand and the United States of America quoted in a UN report, 126.540 Tongans live overseas. According to a survey by Maeda, temporary migration has helped to increase household savings by 38.1 percent from remittances sent home.
It also increases the expenditure on services such as health, education and recreation while also helping the housing sector.
There was a whole session devoted to the PALM scheme where Australian researchers presented survey findings done among Pacific unskilled workers, mainly working in the farm sector in Australia, about their satisfaction rates with the Australian work experience.
Dung Doan and Ryan Edwards presented data from a joint World Bank-ANU survey. They said there had been allegations of exploited Pacific workers and concerns about worker welfare and social impacts, but this is the first study addressing these issues.
They have interviewed thousands of workers, and the researchers say “a majority of the workers are very satisfied” and “social outcomes on balance are net positive”.
Better planning needed
When IDN asked a panellist about PALM and other migrant labour recruitment schemes of Australia such as hiring of nurses from the Pacific and the impact it is creating — especially in Fiji where there are labour shortages as a result — his response was that it needs better planning by governments to train its workers.
But, one Pacific academic from USP (who did not want to be named) told IDN later, “Yes, we can spend to train them, and Australia will come and steal them after six months”. She lamented that there needed to be more Pacific academics who made their voices heard.
One such voice, however, was Denton Rarawa, Senior Advisor in Economics of the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) from the Solomon Islands. He pointed out that a major issue the Pacific region needed to address to reach the sustainable development goals (SDGs) was to consider reforms and policies that strike a balance between supporting livelihoods and reducing future debt risks.
“Labour Mobility is resulting in increasing remittances to our region,” but Rarawa warned, “It is having an unintended consequence of brain drain with over 54,000 Pacific workers in Australia and New Zealand at the end of last year.”
All Pacific island nations beyond Papua New Guinea and Fiji have small populations — many have just about 100,000 people, and some, like Nauru, Tuvalu and Kiribati, have just a few thousand.
Rarawa argues that even though “we may be small in land mass, our combined exclusive economic zone covers nearly 20 percent of the world’s surface as a collective, we control nearly 10 percent of the votes at the United Nations.
“We are home to over 60 percent of the world’s tuna supply — therefore, we are a region of strategic value”.
Rarawa believes that good Pacific leadership is needed to exploit this strategic value for the benefit of the people in the Pacific.
“The current strategic environment we find ourselves in just reinforces and re-emphasize the notion for us to seize the opportunity to strengthen our regional solidarity and leverage our current strategic context to address our collective challenges,” argues Rarawa.
“We need deeper regionalism (driven by) political leadership and regionalism (with) people-centred development (that) brings improved socio-economic wellbeing by ensuring access to employment, entrepreneurship, trade, finance and investment in the region.”
Dr Kalinga Seneviratne is a Sri Lanka-born journalist, broadcaster and international communications specialist. He is currently a consultant to the journalism programme at the University of the South Pacific. He is also the former head of research at the Asian Media Information and Communication Center (AMIC) in Singapore. In-Depth News (IDN) is the flagship agency of the non-profit International Press Syndicate.
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
A Cambodian court has charged two Chinese nationals with the torture and murder of a South Korean social media influencer whose body was found on the outskirts of Phnom Penh earlier this month.
Byun Ah-yeong, also known as BJ Ahyeong, was an influencer for popular South Korean streaming service AfreecaTV, and that she had more than 250,000 Instagram followers, Agence France-Presse reported. Media reports say she was 33.
Two Chinese, Lai Wenshao, 30, and Cai Huijuan, 39 were charged with murder, court spokesman Plang Sophal told local media.
Lai and Cai testified that Byun had gone into seizures and died while receiving treatment at their clinic on June 4, and they had abandoned her body, AFP said, citing a police report.
If they are convicted, they could face life in prison.
Lai and Cai’s clinic had been operating without a license, Sok Sambath, the governor of Phnom Penh’s Boeung Keng Kang district, told RFA’s Khmer Service.
“We shut the clinic down,” he said, but declined to answer questions inquiring as to how they could have been allowed to open without a license, only saying that they had started before he took office.
Police Chief Sar Thet told RFA that according to the police investigation, “the couple injected [something] into a South Korean lady and she died.”
The incident may have happened because of improperly administered anesthesia, Quach Mengly, a Cambodian physician, told RFA.
The Ministry of Health hasn’t effectively taken action against unlicensed medical clinics and this has caused several patient deaths as of late, Yong Kim Eng, president of the local PDP-Center NGO, told RFA.
He said that the incident could scare off foreigners who want to seek medical treatment in Cambodia.
“[Cambodians] are [also] afraid of using local clinics,” said Yong Kim Eng. “They seek treatment outside of the country, so we are giving money to foreign countries.”
Soeung Sengkaruna, spokesman for the Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association urged the authorities to conduct a thorough investigation to find the real cause of death to restore public trust in Cambodia’s medical services.
“The related authorities and the ministry of health need to investigate this case,” he said. “We want to find out whether it was a malpractice or the providers’ lack of skill.”
Translated by Samean Yun. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Khmer.
New York, June 8, 2023—In response to the Wednesday, June 7,ruling by the Pietermaritzburg High Court prohibiting former South African President Jacob Zuma from continuing the private prosecution of journalist Karyn Maughan, the Committee to Protect Journalists issued the following statement urging the former president to accept the ruling:
“The unanimous ruling of three high court judges, including a punitive cost order, is a legal smackdown for former South African President Jacob Zuma and a massive victory for Karyn Maughan to continue her journalism freely without the sustained harassment campaign that Zuma, his family, and his supporters have waged both online and within the legal system,” said Angela Quintal, CPJ’s Africa program coordinator. “We urge the former president not to appeal the judgment. Zuma took an oath to uphold the Constitution when he became president, and he should accept the constitutional right to media freedom that the court has so eloquently upheld.”
The case began in September 2022, when Zuma’s legal team filed criminal charges which launched a private prosecution against Maughan in connection to her August 2021 News24 report on Zuma’s medical condition. The court found that the alleged confidential information that Zuma claimed was unlawfully given to Maughan was in fact public and had already been filed in court three times by the time she published them.
On Wednesday, the Jacob Zuma Foundation, the former president’s personal foundation,tweeted that he would appeal the “bizarre judgment.”
In their ruling, the judges labeled Zuma’s attempt at privately prosecuting Maughan an “abuse of process” and a violation of the right to media freedom recognized in the South African Constitution. The judges also noted that the media’s right to freedom of expression “is not just (or even primarily) for the benefit of the media: it is for the benefit of the public.”
“Such [a] right we agree encompasses the right of journalists to report freely on matters of public interest without threats and without intimidation and harassment,” the judges wrote. The judges said it was evident in Zuma’s affidavit and tweets by his associates and his daughter that the former president harbors “great hostility” towards Maughan.
Prosecutors have previously criticized Zuma for his “Stalingrad Strategy” in attempting to delay his trial over alleged corruption in an arms deal for nearly 20 years.
Southeast Asian nations will hold their first joint military exercises in the South China Sea, ASEAN chair Indonesia said Thursday, amid rising tensions between Beijing and Washington in the disputed waterway and Taiwan Strait.
The non-combat drills will take place near Indonesia’s Natuna Islands in September as a show of unity among the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Indonesian military officials said.
“All [ASEAN countries] have confirmed that they will attend,” Julius Widjojono, a spokesman for Indonesia’s armed forces, told BenarNews, adding the drill would be an annual event. However, there had been no confirmation from Myanmar on whether it would take part, Julius said. Strife-torn Myanmar is persona non grata at major ASEAN meetings.
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. While Indonesia does not regard itself as a party to the South China Sea dispute, Beijing claims historic rights to parts of that sea overlapping Indonesia’s exclusive economic zone in and around the Natunas.
Indonesia’s military commander Adm. Yudo Margono, who proposed the ASEAN drill during a meeting of the bloc’s defense forces chiefs on Wednesday in Bali, said the exercises would enhance regional stability.
“Indonesia will continue to promote a safe, peaceful and stable region free from any threats and disturbances that threaten the sovereignty of the states,” Yudo said in a statement Wednesday.
“A safe sea will automatically boost our countries’ economy.”
‘Strong message to the major powers’
The ASEAN drill, dubbed ASEAN Solidity Exercise, or Asec01N, will involve army, navy and air force units from the member-states, and Timor Leste, an observer state. The exercises will focus on maritime security and search-and-rescue operations.
Khairul Fahmi, a military and security analyst at the Jakarta-based Institute for Security and Strategic Studies, said the exercise was a good initiative by Indonesia.
“This is a concrete form of defense diplomacy to build trust, reduce concerns and misunderstandings between countries, especially ASEAN. Plus, there will be many challenges and threats to Indonesia’s national interests,” Fahmi said.
He said Indonesia’s initiative also affirmed its sovereign rights in the North Natuna Sea, which China claims as part of its historical rights marked by a nine-dash line that overlaps with other countries’ exclusive economic zones.
“This is part of ASEAN’s efforts to jointly play a more strategic role in maintaining regional stability,” Fahmi said.
“At the same time, it sends a strong message to the major powers that have interests in the region, especially in the North Natuna Sea, not to ignore ASEAN.”
China has built military installations on some of the islands and reefs it controls in the South China Sea. In 2016, an international tribunal ruled that China’s claims had no legal basis under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), but Beijing rejected the ruling and continues to assert its presence.
Indonesia, Vietnam and Malaysia have accused China of disrupting their oil and gas exploration activities with frequent incursions by Chinese coast guard and maritime militia ships, leading to confrontations. ASEAN and China have been negotiating a code of conduct for years to manage disputes peacefully, but progress has been glacial.
The United States, which is not a claimant but is in a defense treaty with the Philippines, has challenged China’s claims by conducting “freedom of navigation” operations in the waterway.
While officials from some ASEAN states have expressed worry about the possibility of war breaking out between the superpowers over Taiwan, Washington and Manila earlier this year struck a deal to give U.S. forces expanded access to military bases in the Philippines – a move that angered China.
BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news organization.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Tria Dianti for BenarNews.
New York, June 7, 2023—The Committee to Protect Journalists on Wednesday expressed concern that a South African high court judge’s temporary injunction, if made final, against the amaBhungane Centre for Investigative Journalism, a nonprofit investigative outlet, could imperil the country’s investigative journalism, journalists’ confidential sources, and whistleblowers.
In April, amaBhungfane published a series of articles based on leaked documents about South African businessman Zunaid Moti and the Moti Group of companies, which he led as CEO until resigning in March. The Moti Group alleged a former employee stole those documents.
On May 30, the Moti Group launched an urgent application to be heard in secret, in terms of a legal process where no notice needs to be given to the other party concerned, to force amaBhungane to return the documents in its possession and to bar it from any further reporting on the company. On June 1, Judge John Holland-Muter granted an interim order effectively gagging amaBhungane until the matter could be argued in open court on October 3 and ordering it to return the documents within 48 hours, according to a report by the outlet and a statement by the industry body South African National Editors’ Forum. AmaBhungane’s lawyer was only informed about the interim order after it was granted.
“We hope that when the matter is fully ventilated in open court, investigative journalism in the public interest and the protection of confidential sources that are key to exposing massive alleged corruption in South Africa and elsewhere will be vindicated and not eroded,” said Angela Quintal, CPJ’s Africa program coordinator. “Not to do so would mean any party can stop investigative journalists from exposing corruption or any other matter of public interest by claiming that the information relied upon is stolen, endangering the lives of whistleblowers or confidential sources by forcing disclosure.”
Quintal has been an amaBhungane board member since October 2013.
David Frankel, executive director of The Sentry, a U.S. outlet that collaborated with amaBhungane on its investigations into the Moti Group, in an email to CPJ described amaBhungane’s reporting as “public interest journalism of the purest kind.”
“Questions about Moti Group’s apparent payments to firms linked to the President and Vice President of Zimbabwe, a cozy relationship with an official at a major South African bank, and the financial motives behind donations to a Presidential candidate in Botswana–these are all important and appropriate subjects for investigative journalism,” Frankel said.
To protect its sources and not hand over the documents, as well as to continue reporting on the Moti Group, amaBhungane sought an urgent reconsideration of the order on Saturday morning, June 3, ahead of that evening’s deadline to return the documents.
Judge Stephan van Nieuwenhuizen dealt only with the order to return the documents and granted a variation of the order. As a result, amaBhungane would not be compelled to hand over the documents, although the bar on publishing further articles would remain until the case was eventually heard in court.
Van Nieuwenhuizen reportedly said he could not understand how Holland-Muter granted the interim order and criticized Moti Group’s legal representatives for being “unreasonable.”
“While we are disappointed that the gag order issued against us–unjustifiably and abusively in our view–remains in place for now, we will fight this in due course and believe today’s variation was necessary to protect our sources,” amaBhungane tweeted after the revised order was issued.
In its court papers filed on June 6 challenging the interim order, which CPJ reviewed, amaBhungane said that Section 16 of the South African Constitution permitted journalists to receive information from sources on a confidential basis.
“Regardless of the manner in which information has been obtained by a source, it is not unlawful for journalists to hold any information provided by a source, provided they do so in the public interest,” the outlet wrote in those court papers.
Journalists had a right and duty to keep their source material and the identity of anonymous sources confidential, the document said, adding that it was unlawful and unconstitutional to order a journalist to hand over their source material or identify a source to any other party.
“A prior restraint on journalist publication can only be granted in exceptional circumstances and never without notice,” the documents said, adding that it was “unlawful and unconstitutional to interdict a journalistic publication without notice, whether on an interim or final basis.”
AmaBhungane is expected to return to court within the next few weeks.
In an opinion article published Sunday, Zunaid Moti said the legal dispute was “in no way about supposedly ‘gagging’ media” but “preventing journalists from reporting upon stolen information.”
In that article, Moti accused amaBhungane of having “used the flimsy excuse of ‘public interest’ to participate in theft; published stolen, altered documents and convoluted conspiracy theories as fact; and has even gone as far as to share private banking details and other personal information on public platforms.”
This justification was repeated in a statement to CPJ by the Moti Group’s lawyer Ulrich Roux, which said the June 1 order was not a “gagging order” against the media and amaBhungane but had to be seen in the context of a “clear case of theft committed by an ex-employee,” who downloaded more than 4,000 “editable” Moti Group documents before resigning.
The statement said these documents included proprietary information and intellectual property, which could cause significant monetary damages to the group if confidentiality was not maintained, adding that the papers were not in the public interest and denied that the former employee was acting as a “whistleblower.”
In televisioninterviews, Moti said the secrecy of the June 1 hearing was necessary because he believed amaBhungane could have concealed or destroyed the documents if they had received prior notice about the group’s court action.
In an opinion column published Monday, William Bird, executive director of the local press rights group Media Monitoring Africa, labeled the June 1 interim court order a “travesty of justice” and said, “Even if we accept this argument, had amaBhungane sought to delete the documents, they could still have concealed the material even after the order was granted.”
A Chinese J-16 fighter jet last week carried out “an unnecessarily aggressive maneuver” near an American reconnaissance plane that was flying above the South China Sea, the U.S. military said on Tuesday.
The incident, which occurred Friday, follows a near collision of Chinese and American jets late last year over the same contested waters.
A video released by the U.S. military shows the Chinese fighter jet approaching the American plane at a high altitude before turning sharply, veering away suddenly and disappearing in the distance. The cockpit of the American plane appears to shudder as the Chinese jet passes.
The pilot of the Chinese jet “flew directly in front of the nose of the RC-135, forcing the U.S. aircraft to fly through its wake turbulence,” the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said in a statement, vowing to continue flying above the waters Beijing claims as sovereign territory.
“The United States will continue to fly, sail, and operate – safely and responsibly – wherever international law allows, and the U.S. Indo-Pacific Joint Force will continue to fly in international airspace with due regard for the safety of all vessels and aircraft under international law,” it said. “We expect all countries in the Indo-Pacific region to use international airspace safely and in accordance with international law.”
Beijing claims sovereignty over most of the South China Sea despite a 2016 ruling in a case brought by the Philippines at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague that rejected China’s expansive claims.
Six other Asian governments have territorial claims or maritime boundaries in the South China Sea that overlap with the sweeping claims of China. They are Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam. While Indonesia does not regard itself as party to the South China Sea dispute, Beijing claims historic rights to parts of that sea overlapping Indonesia’s exclusive economic zone.
The United States is officially neutral in the dispute but rejects China’s vast claim and has called for sovereignty claims to be resolved peacefully. U.S. forces also frequently carry out “freedom of navigation” operations through international waters in the sea, which includes shipping lanes in the South China Sea through which more than $5 trillion of goods pass each year.
RFA has sought comment from the Chinese Embassy in Washington.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Alex Willemyns for RFA.
