Day: June 16, 2021

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin highlighted what he called China’s unlawful behavior in the South China Sea, while his Chinese counterpart said Beijing was determined to safeguard its core interests, at an ASEAN-hosted meeting on Wednesday.

Defense officials from the 10-member Association of the Southeast Asian Nations met virtually with counterparts from eight countries to discuss maritime security and other issues at the annual forum known as the ASEAN Defense Ministers’ Meeting (ADMM) Plus. 

In remarks to the gathering, Austin described the American vision for the Indo-Pacific region, “underscoring the importance of allies and partners, shared principles, and multilateral approaches to security challenges,” according to a statement issued by the Pentagon.

“He also highlighted unlawful PRC behavior in the South China Sea,” the statement said.

The annual gathering unfolded as an American aircraft carrier group conducted a “routine mission” in the South China Sea, the U.S. Navy said on Tuesday, and amid sharpening tensions over territorial competition in the strategic waterway.

Meanwhile, at the northern end of the South China Sea, Taiwan complained on Tuesday that 28 Chinese Air Force planes had entered its air defense identification zone, in what Taipei said was the largest in a recent series of provocative military maneuvers near the island. 

China regards self-ruled Taiwan as a renegade province waiting to be reunited with the mainland. Taiwan says it is a self-governing democracy formally named the Republic of China.

A statement issued in Beijing on Wednesday said Defense Minister General Wei Fenghe told the ADMM Plus meeting that China understood and respected the legitimate security concerns of other countries.

“China’s national interests must also be fully respected and safeguarded,” it quoted him as saying. “On issues related to Taiwan, Xinjiang, Hong Kong, and the South China Sea, China is determined to safeguard the country’s core interests.”

‘Coercion’

In early June, Malaysia said that 16 Chinese military planes had flown in formation across its maritime airspace above South China Sea waters north of Borneo Island, and come close to violating its territorial airspace. China said the planes were carrying out “routine flight activity.”

In April, Vietnam denounced China’s unilateral imposition of an annual fishing ban in the South China Sea. Vietnam said the ban violated its sovereignty over the Paracel Islands, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), and the Declaration of Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea agreed to in 2003.

Elsewhere, Beijing and Manila have been involved in a standoff since March when the Philippines said it had detected more than 200 ships manned by Chinese maritime militia at Whitsun Reef, in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone (EEZ).

Beijing claims that the reef is part of its “Nansha Islands” – China’s name for the Spratly Islands. Since then, China has maintained a presence in Philippine waters, prompting Manila to file multiple diplomatic protests with Beijing.

At the meeting on Wednesday, some participants also raised concerns about China’s new coast guard law, according to the Philippines.

“On the South China Sea, some Plus countries expressed concern on the ambiguous application of the Chinese Coast Guard Law (CGL), while stressing the importance of freedom of navigation and overflight and the early conclusion of a substantive Code of Conduct,” the Philippine Department of National Defense said in a statement.

“Plus countries” refer to non-ASEAN summit participants, which are Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, Russia, and the United States.

The law, adopted in late January, states that China’s coast guard and other maritime law enforcement agencies may use small arms, such as rifles, or shipborne-weapons such as deck-mounted guns, when handling foreign ships infringing upon waters that China claims as its own.

Japanese Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi urged all parties to make efforts to resolve maritime disputes peacefully and abide by international law, according to a statement released by his ministry.

“He pointed out that there are continued attempts to change the status quo by coercion in the East China Sea and the South China Sea,” the statement said, in an apparent reference to China.

Kishi, the statement said, underscored that the China’s coast guard law “should never undermine the legitimate interests of relevant countries.”

China and Japan have a long-running territorial dispute over the Senkaku Islands, which China calls the Diaoyu Dao. The uninhabited islets sit in the deep south of the East China Sea and are a recurring flashpoint between the two countries.

‘Very slow’

China has asserted what it claims is its jurisdiction through deployments of its coast guard and navy, both of which constitute the largest fleets of their kind in the world, according to the 2020 China Military Power Report by the U.S. Department of Defense.

Beijing claims almost all of the South China Sea region as its own, while the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Taiwan have their own territorial claims.

Indonesia does not regard itself as a party to territorial disputes over the South China Sea, but Beijing claims historic rights to parts of the maritime region that overlap Indonesia’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ).

China and ASEAN have undertaken protracted negotiations for a code of conduct (CoC) that would govern behavior between claimants in the South China Sea.

Last week, Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi called on ASEAN and China to immediately resume the negotiations, calling the progress “very slow”.

Malaysian Defense Minister Ismail Sabri, for his part on Wednesday, called on the parties in the South China Sea “to be more moderate in their behavior.”

Ismail also stressed that “Malaysia will not compromise on its national security and sovereignty,” said a statement issued by his office.

Commenting on the territorial competition, Teuku Rezasyah, a lecturer in international relations at Padjadjaran University in Bandung, Indonesia, said that China was not contributing to security in the region.

“It is rather difficult to pinpoint which party is good or bad. But right now, the U.S. and its allies are not the parties that are causing problems in ASEAN. China, despite its economic influence, has no contribution to security in the region,” Rezasyah told BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service.

Dewi Fortuna Anwar, an analyst at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), said the South China Sea dispute was unlikely to be solved any time soon.

“I don’t think this issue will really be resolved, because the situation has become a zero-sum game, and I don’t think anyone is in the mood for a compromise,” Dewi told BenarNews.

Dewi said a code of conduct on the South China Sea would prevent the situation from deteriorating into conflict.

“The most possible thing to do now is to manage potential conflict so as not to create open friction. For this reason, COC is very important for ASEAN,” she said.

Scant mention of Myanmar

Addressing Wednesday’s summit, Lloyd Austin, the U.S. defense chief, also called on the Myanmar military to “change course,” the Pentagon statement said, referring to the Feb. 1 coup in that country and the subsequent killing of hundreds of civilians.

Burmese security forces have killed at least 863 people in violent crackdowns on mass anti-coup protests and detained, charged, or sentenced 4,880 since Feb. 1, according to the Thailand-based rights group Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.

The coup was reportedly discussed Wednesday, and at a gathering the day before of ASEAN defense chiefs, attended by General Mya Tun Oo of Myanmar, the junta-appointed defense minister.

Joint statements for the meetings, which were posted on the website of Singapore’s Ministry of Defense, did not mention the crisis in Myanmar.

Reported by BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service.

Newly elected members of Tibet’s India-based exile parliament were sworn into office in two separate groups on June 8, with each group now  denouncing the other’s oaths as invalid, Tibetan sources say.

During the oath-taking ceremony, 21 MPs took their oath of office from a temporary speaker of the parliament while 22 took their oath before a portrait of Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama.

All had been elected in an April 11 election held in Tibetan communities worldwide that saw former parliamentary speaker Penpa Tsering voted in as political leader, or Sikyong, of the Dharamsala, India-based Central Tibetan Administration (CTA), Tibet’s government in exile.

Following the ceremony, though, the CTA’s Election Commission disqualified the oaths taken by the second group, with that group still refusing to take its oaths before the pro-tem speaker, Dawa Tsering, saying Tsering had taken his own oath of office before a formerly ousted Chief Justice now occupying his post, they said, unlawfully.

Speaking on June 15 in an RFA TV talk show, Dawa Phunkyi—a member representing Tibet’s historical region of U-Tsang who took his oath before the pro-tem speaker Dawa Tsering—said that a solution to what is now being called a constitutional crisis in the Tibetan exile community remains uncertain.

“At the moment, the issue is about the legitimacy of both of the oath-taking ceremonies,” Phunkyi said. “However, I believe that the May 27 swearing-in ceremony of the new Sikyong Penpa Tsering in the presence [virtual] of His Holiness the Dalai Lama could have shown us the way forward.”

“As elected MPs, we could have just gone ahead with the process and then resolved the constitutional crisis later,” he said.

Also speaking to RFA, newly elected MP Dorji Tsetan, who took his oath of office before the portrait of the Dalai Lama, called the current disagreements among the MPs typical of the controversies that can arise in functioning democracies.

“But solutions can always be found for any issue through dialogue,” Tsetan said.

Constitutional crisis

“This is a constitutional crisis, but both sides are trying to protect and uphold the Tibetan Charter,” which sets out guidelines for the legitimacy of parliamentary procedures, Tsetan said.

“We did hold discussions to find a solution before the oath-taking ceremony was held, but each side was adamant about its position.”

On March 25, the exile government’s Chief Justice Minister Sonam Norbu Dagpo and two other justice commissioners, Karma Damdul and Tenzin Lungtok, were dismissed by the parliament then seated, following accusations that the trio had interfered in the internal proceedings of the legislature.

The justices resumed their duties after a two-month hiatus, and speaker of parliament Pema Jungney—who had led the firing of the justices—resigned both as speaker and as a member of parliament on April 8.

Confirmed on May 14 after the April vote and installed on May 27, Tibet’s new exile political leader PenpaTsering replaced Lobsang Sangay, a Harvard-trained scholar of law, who had served two consecutive five-year terms as Sikyong, an office filled by candidates elected since 2011 by popular vote.

The May 14 election results also named 45 members of the unicameral exile parliament for its 17^th session, with 10 candidates representing each of Tibet’s three traditional provinces—U-Tsang, Kham, and Amdo—and two representatives from each of Tibet’s four major schools of Buddhism and the pre-Buddhist Bon religion.

Two members were voted in to represent each of the exile Tibetan communities in North and South America and Europe, and one from Australia and Asia, excluding India, Nepal, and Bhutan.

The Tibetan diaspora is now estimated to include about 150,000 people living in 40 countries, mainly India, Nepal, North America, and in Europe.

Formerly an independent nation, Tibet was invaded and incorporated into China by force 70 years ago, following which the Dalai Lama and thousands of his followers fled into exile in India and other countries around the world.

Chinese authorities maintain a tight grip on the Tibetan region, restricting Tibetans’ political activities and peaceful expression of cultural and religious identity, and subjecting Tibetans to persecution, torture, imprisonment, and extrajudicial killings.

Reported by Tashi Wangchuk for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Translated by Tenzin Dickyi. Written in English by Richard Finney.

 Four elderly villagers in central Myanmar were killed when a fire tore through their village, destroying about 250 houses and sending 1,000 people fleeing to safety in nearby mountains, residents said Wednesday.

Residents of Kin Ma village in Magway region told RFA that the military set the fire Tuesday night, with one saying troops torched the village after up to 15 soldiers were killed in a shootout with a local militia.

Junta-controlled TV said troops were trying to clear “terrorists” from Kin Ma and found the village burning. The report said troops helped extinguish the fire.

“I heard that there were four people who died in the fire, a very old man and three old ladies. They were in their 80s and 90s,” said a resident of a nearby village of Pauk, who identified the man as Mya Maung.

“These elderly people were all sick and bedridden and couldn’t run. The soldiers got into the village unannounced and we didn’t have time to do anything,” the witness said.

“No one had expected them to set fire to the houses. We tried to rescue as many as we could,” the villager added.

A resident of Kin Ma village, who spoke to RFA’s Myanmar Service on condition of anonymity, said as many as 15 soldiers were killed in a shootout Tuesday with local militias, one the many fighting forces that have sprung up across Myanmar to fight junta troops after the military seized power on Feb. 1.

“Between seven and 15 soldiers were killed in a clash between the local defense forces and the military in Kyaukkwe, just east of Kin Ma village,” the villager said.

“Later, as the local forces retreated from the scene and while the villagers were fleeing to safety, the military set fire to Tin Win’s house, just across the street from the school in the south of Kin Ma village. The fire then spread to other houses until late into the night,” he said.

About 250 houses, two-thirds of Kin Ma village, were burnt to the ground and over a thousand people who were displaced are now hiding in the nearby mountains, the villager said.

Some people returned to the village Wednesday morning but ran back to safety when they saw soldiers in three trucks returning to Kin Ma village, villagers said.

‘Terrible crimes’

One villager said the attack by junta troops stemmed from a shooting about 12 miles from Kin Ma village Saturday, when someone opened fire at the house of the administrator of Dee Dot Kwin village. Soldiers found a motorcycle that was left behind.

“In connection with that, they thought one of the gunmen was from Kin Ma village and came to attack us,” said the villager, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Civilian resistance fighters from Pauk township had clashed with regime troops near Kin Ma village on May 31, the online news outlet The Irrawaddy reported Wednesday.

The British embassy in Yangon issued a statement deploring the military’s attacks on innocent civilians.

“Reports that the junta has burned down an entire village in Magway, killing elderly residents, demonstrate once again that the military continues to commit terrible crimes and has no regard for the people of Myanmar,” the mission said in a tweet.

RFA called the Deputy Minister of Information Major General Zaw Min Tun for reaction and comments on the incident but the calls were not answered.

The Thailand-based rights group Assistance Association for Political Prisoners says that since the Feb. 1 coup, security forces have killed 865 people in violent crackdowns on mass protests and detained, charged, or sentenced 4,911.

Local militias. or People’s Self-Defense Forces, meanwhile, claim to have killed more than 100 regime troops in guerilla warfare across the mountainous country of 54 million people.

In Magway’s neighboring Sagaing region, at least 4 junta troops were killed in clashes between local militia group and a joint force of regime forces and supporters of the pro-military Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) supporters Tuesday, local fighters said.

Two clashes in Mingin township broke out between the People’s Defense Force and the military accompanied by USDP members and militia early Tuesday.

“They retreated and then it broke out again in the afternoon. Four of them were hit and one was found dead outside the village. At least four will die,” said a member of Mingin Township People’s Defense Force.

“We can’t go to look for them. They were at the bottom of the hill and we were from higher ground. There were no casualties on our side,” the fighter added.

USDP abets junta troops

He said the military which used to get reinforcements from Yinmabin and Kani in Sagaing region, are now in Mingin Township and are pillaging and destroying villages, having driven more than 1,000 people from six villages into hiding.

“There isn’t any food left at home even if we want to go get it. The soldiers have taken away everything. Chickens, pigs, everything,” said a local resident, who said fellow villagers fled their villages in fear of shellings by the military.

“Vendors dare not come to the village and no shops are open. The health situation for the elderly is worrisome,” added the villager.

RFA has not been able to independently confirm the Mingin militia account that four soldiers were killed. Calls to Deputy Information Minister Zaw Min Tun to ask about casualties went unanswered Wednesday.

The Mingin Township People’s Defense Force PDF said Tuesday it had declared the USDP a terrorist group because some of its members wore military uniforms when it joined junta troops in raids on villages on June 12.

Mingin has been a strong base for USDP, a military proxy party which lost badly in November elections to the ruling National League for Democracy (NLD), who victory was nullified by the junta’s Feb. 1 takeover, on unsupported claims of election fraud. 

“USDP members are wearing military uniforms. People in Mingin had earlier thought that the coup was a problem between NLD and the military,” said a member of the Mingin militia.

The fighter identified San Win of the USDP as leader of the forces helping regime troops.

“His men have been provided with weapons and are moving around villages at night,” said the Mingin militia member.

USDP spokesman Nanda Hla Myint told RFA both on telephone and through an online chat that he could not immediately comment as he has no authorization from higher levels.

USDP has said at least 60 of its members have been killed in the past four months in Sagaing region.

“Full exercise of the right to self-defense becomes an indispensable option for personal security if the rule of law is not fully reliable,” said a statement on the USDP’s official Facebook page on May 28.

Reported by RFA’s Myanmar Service. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Paul Eckert. 

A court in Cambodia Wednesday upheld an 18-month jail sentence against a rapper convicted last year for his songs critical of the government, disappointing his supporters who say he was merely expressing himself.

Authorities arrested Kea Sokun and fellow rapper Long Puthera in September 2020 in the northwestern province of Siem Reap after they released songs that claimed that the government mishandled a border dispute with Vietnam and that Prime Minister Hun Sen’s lack of leadership led to Cambodia’s economic decline.

In December, the Siem Reap Provincial Court handed Kea Sokun, 22, an 18-month jail term and Long Putheara, 17, a five-month jail term, for “incitement to commit a felony or cause social unrest” under Article 495 of Cambodia’s Penal Code.

The appellate court in the western province of Battambang Wednesday ruled that Kea Sokun should serve the entire 18 months, nine of which he has already served. He is set to be released in the next two months, with the remainder of the sentence to be served in suspension.

Kea Sokun’s father Phal Kea told RFA’s Khmer Service Wednesday that his son did not commit any crimes and the verdict is unjust.

“We thought the Appeals Court would drop the charges or reduce the prison term but instead the court upheld the verdict,” he said.

“We are so disappointed. I am sad because it is very unjust, I cannot believe the court upheld this verdict,” said Phal Kea.

He said that he is not sure whether his son will appeal the appellate court’s verdict because his son is due to be released within the next two months. 

RFA was unable to reach Appeals Court Secretariat Teang Sambo for comment Wednesday. 

Am Sam Ath of local rights group LICADHO told RFA that he was saddened with the court’s decision. He said Kea Sokun simply expressed himself by rapping on social issues and that is not a crime.

“All of the songs he rapped on do not provoke or incite social unrest. The court’s verdict is only to intimidate youth to prevent them from rapping,” he said.

According to a recent report by the American Bar Association (ABA), Kea Sokun’s case is part of a “larger trend” of the Cambodian government silencing dissidents and others who openly criticize it.

“While Sokun’s case raises issues concerning his rights to fair trial and freedom of expression, it is not an aberration in Cambodia. It is one of many in a recent crackdown on young activists by the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP).” the report said.

“In recent years, the Cambodian government has intensified its curtailment of rights and civic freedoms and rapidly escalated its attempts to close civic space. Frivolous criminal charges are used to stifle dissidents and critical voices. Although Cambodia is a constitutional monarchy with an elected parliamentary body, one ruling party has dominated the political system for decades,” the ABA said.

Reported by RFA’s Khmer Service. Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Eugene Whong. 

Four independent journalists held in southern Vietnam’s Can Tho province for “slandering” government leaders in their investigative reports may soon face additional and more serious charges of revealing state secrets, state media said on Wednesday.

Police investigators on May 18 recommended that the four writers for the popular Facebook page Clean Newspaper (Bao Sach), which discussed Vietnamese social issues and has now been taken offline, be prosecuted for “abusing democracy and freedom to infringe on State interests” under Article 331 of Vietnam’s 2015 Penal Code.

The reporters—Truong Chau Huu Danh, arrested on Dec. 17 last year, and Nguyen Thanh Nha, Doan Kien Giang, and Nguyen Phuoc Trung Bao, arrested on April 20—had posted criticisms online of the Jan. 9, 2020 raid by security forces intervening in a land dispute at Dong Tam commune in which a village elder was shot dead by police.

They had also written articles criticizing the widely unpopular build-operate-transfer (BOT) highway schemes adopted by Vietnam in recent years that have sparked rare protests over toll collections described by motorists as unfair.

International human rights and media watchdog groups Reporters Without Borders, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the Committee to Protect Journalists have all condemned the arrests, calling for the journalists’ immediate and unconditional release.

A search of Truong Chau Huu Danh’s home has since uncovered government documents containing confidential material, though, state media reports said, and police in Can Tho are now calling for a new investigation into charges of “intentionally disclosing State secrets, appropriating, buying or selling or disposing of items or secrets of the State.”

The new charge under Article 263 of Vietnam’s Penal Code carries a possible sentence of death.

Harsh forms of persecution

With Vietnam’s media all following Communist Party orders, “the only sources of independently-reported information are bloggers and independent journalists, who are being subjected to ever-harsher forms of persecution,” the press freedoms watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) says in its 2021 Press Freedoms Index.

Measures taken against them now include assaults by plainclothes police, RSF said in its report, which placed Vietnam at 175 out of 180 countries surveyed worldwide, a ranking unchanged from last year.

“To justify jailing them, the Party resorts to the criminal codes, especially three articles under which ‘activities aimed at overthrowing the government,’ ‘anti-state propaganda’ and ‘abusing the rights to freedom and democracy to threaten the interests of the state’ are punishable by long prison terms,” the rights group said.

Vietnam’s already low tolerance of dissent deteriorated sharply last year with a spate of arrests of independent journalists, publishers, and Facebook personalities as authorities continued to stifle critics in the run-up to the ruling Communist Party Congress in January. But arrests continue in 2021.

Reported by RFA’s Vietnamese Service. Translated by Anna Vu. Written in English by Richard Finney.

The formerly Portuguese-run city of Macau, which has been under ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) control since 1999, is shutting down its representative office in democratic Taiwan, the city government said on Wednesday.

The Macau Economic and Cultural Office in Taiwan will suspend operations starting June 19, the Macau Special Administrative Region government said in a statement.

“A 24-hour telephone hotline … set up by the Macao Government Tourism Office will be – during the period of operation suspension – addressing general enquires, and providing other services and any assistance requested by Macau residents that are in Taiwan,” it said.

“The telephone hotline will also provide people in Taiwan with information about Macau,” it said.

The suspension will be for an indefinite time, with no reason given for the decision.

The move comes weeks after Hong Kong shut down its representative office in Taipei, responding to the Taiwan government’s setting up of an office to process applications for political asylum for Hong Kong residents fleeing a broadening crackdown on dissent and political opposition under a national security law imposed by Beijing from July 1, 2020.

That office provides a one-stop-shop service to Hongkongers wanting to study, do business, invest, or seek asylum in the country, as part of a humanitarian assistance project Taiwan offered to Hong Kong people in the wake of mass arrests during and since the 2019 protest movement against the rolling back of democratic freedoms in the city.

Hong Kong’s government has accused the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in Taiwan of “offering assistance to violent protesters and people who tried to shatter Hong Kong’s prosperity and stability.”

Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said the closure of Macau’s representative office had been a unilateral decision.

“The Macau representative office was set up under a mutual agreement in 2011,” MAC spokesman Chiu Chui-cheng told reporters.

“We are very sorry that the Macau government has unilaterally arrived at this decision,” Chiu said.

“As for the continued operation of our office in Macau, our staff will still stick to their posts and try their best to provide services to the people of Taiwan and Macau to look after the rights and well-being of those people.”

‘Coming from the top’

Exiled Hongkonger Lam Wing-kei, who runs the Causeway Bay bookstore in Taiwan, said the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is worried that Taiwan, which has never been ruled by the CCP, will become a base for the former Hong Kong opposition movement, attracting others who share their views to live and settle there.

Lam said he fully expects the CCP to minimize or terminate the operations of Taiwan’s representative offices in Hong Kong and Macau. Authorities in Hong Kong have already withheld visas for Taiwanese staff, who have been unable to take up their posts for several months.

“This is clearly coming from the top. Will they shut down Taiwan’s offices in Hong Kong and Macau? I think they may do this gradually,” Lam said. “That is the next thing they will deal with.”

He said ties were further strained by fears that the CCP will use residents of Hong Kong or Taiwan to infiltrate its political life.

“Taiwan announced a clause in its immigration rules a few days ago which means it now asks applicants if they have ever worked in government or taking part in CCP-related activities, and whether or not they have ever taken an oath of allegiance [to the CCP or the Hong Kong and Macau governments],” Lam said.

Cheng An-kuo, who was Taiwan’s first representative to Hong Kong after the 1997 handover, agreed, but said it was the wrong direction to be going in.

“I think this will have a negative effect on cross-straits relations and on the future direction taken by the current Taiwan government,” Cheng told RFA. “From Beijing’s perspective, it would be better if there were more ties between Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, not less.”

Reported by Chung Kuang-cheng for RFA’s Cantonese Service, and by Hwang Chun-mei for the Mandarin Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.