Day: August 13, 2021

A China-financed hydropower project in Cambodia’s northeast has uprooted thousands of local indigenous and ethnic minority people since its completion in 2018, and the developer and the Cambodian government ignored their ethical responsibilities to facilitate its completion, Human Rights Watch said in a report this week.

The Lower Sesan 2 dam, one of Asia’s widest, created a flood basin in Stung Treng province, out of the convergence of the Sesan and Srepok Rivers in, both tributaries of Southeast Asia’s mightiest river, the Mekong. In the process, nearly 5,000 people who had lived near the dam site for several generations were relocated.

In “Underwater: Human Rights Impacts of a China Belt and Road Project in Cambodia,” Human Rights Watch (HRW) details how economic, social and cultural rights were all ignored to disastrous effect on the people living near the dam, as well as on the livelihoods of other people both upstream and downstream from it.

“The Lower Sesan 2 dam washed away the livelihoods of Indigenous and ethnic minority communities who previously lived communally and mostly self-sufficiently from fishing, forest-gathering, and agriculture,” said John Sifton, HRW’s Asia advocacy director in a statement.

“Cambodian authorities need to urgently revisit this project’s compensation, resettlement, and livelihood-restoration methods, and ensure that future projects don’t feature similar abuses,” Sifton said.

According to the report, the dam’s developer and Cambodia’s government were aware that they were ignoring the concerns of the affected residents, even pressuring them to accept compensation packages that were lower than they should have been and offering them inadequate housing and services at resettlement zones.

The report also said that people whose livelihoods were affected in other communities received no compensation at all.

The Sesan 2 dam is part of China’s “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI), Beijing’s worldwide infrastructure plan that it says is aimed at enhancing regional connectivity, but which critics say could saddle poorer nations with long term debt.

According to HRW, “Many of these projects in Asia and elsewhere have faced criticism for lack of transparency, disregard of community concerns, and negative environmental impacts.”

Sesan 2 is owned and operated by the China Hwaneng Group, a large Chinese state-owned company which also built the dam at a cost of U.S. $800 million, paid for through financing from Chinese government banks. A Vietnam state-owned company and Cambodia’s Royal Group own minor stakes.

“Cambodian government and company officials failed to genuinely consult with affected communities and made no attempt to obtain the “free, prior, and informed consent” of Indigenous peoples, as specified in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples,” HRW said.

According to the report, between 2011 and 2018 citizens opposed to the project lodged complaints with the company, the government, Prime Minister Hun Sen, and elsewhere, but their concerns were dismissed. As the government refused to discuss alternatives, it threatened and even jailed people who objected to the project.

“There were objections from us all. We told them that we didn’t want to see the development of the dam…,” a villager living near the dam told HRW in the report.

“In the consultation, they determined things for us. They didn’t ask us what we want or need,” the villager said.

At the dam’s completion ceremony in 2018, Hun Sen further dismissed their concerns, saying, “I wish to emphasize that the majority of local villagers here support the dam’s construction. Only a few people have caused trouble for this project. Those troublemakers have been incited by foreigners.”

Many people not displaced by the dam who rely on river fishing for their income are reporting drastically decreased catches as it prevents migration of certain species for spawning.

“Now fish are so scarce,” said a resident who lives nearby.

“We used to get fish for eating and selling, but [now] it has completely decreased. We sometimes don’t even have enough to eat.”

“The expensive fish species have disappeared,” he said. “We are left with cheaper and smaller fish… we end up getting enough fish just for the family to eat,” said another.

People who have relocated also complain that they have seen a drop in agricultural production because their new lands are less fertile.

Additionally, the developer did not establish a system for how disputes or complaints would be resolved, HRW said. None of the parties performed any meaningful benefit and impact assessment either.

Though they claimed the project could produce 1,998 gigawatt hours per yea, or 1/6 of Cambodia’s electricity production, tax revenues suggest that its actual production is closer to 1/12, according to the report.

The developer in May published a sustainability report that acknowledged many of the problems surrounding the Sesan 2 project but largely downplayed them, the HRW report says, even concluding baselessly that it improved the lives of the people it displaced. The sustainability report completely omitted any discussion about the effects on people either upstream or downstream from the flood basin.

“The Chinese government needs to drastically reform Belt and Road infrastructure development financing to prevent abuses in other projects undertaken in countries like Cambodia, where the government has a long track record of violating its citizens’ rights,” Sifton said.

“The Cambodian government needs to reform its laws to require meaningful impact assessments for development projects and put in place more effective measures to prevent abuses.”

In the report, HRW recommended that the developer renegotiation resettlement and compensation packages for all impacted communities with transparency at the forefront of all plans.

It called on the Cambodian government to put pressure on the developer to that effect, as well as to enforce Cambodian laws for development projects and for the rights of minorities and indigenous people, while making efforts to ensure human rights and environmental protections.

For China, it recommended a transparent audit of the project, as well as standardizing regulations for Chinese companies operating outside of China. HRW also called for human rights to be part of the criteria for overseas investment.

HRW also recommended that the international community provide assistance to civil society groups and NGOs, as well as to the affected communities, and assist Cambodia with enforcing its own development laws.

Net Pheaktra, spokesman for Cambodia’s Environment Ministry, said the report was a “destruction of human rights” and “geopolitical interest” aimed at hindering Cambodian development.

“[The report] is an attempt to nurture conflict to serve a real political agenda. The construction of the Sesan 2 dam has brought many positive benefits to the national economy and the people of Cambodia, such as the project’s ability to generate 400 megawatts of electricity,” said Net Pheaktra.

“It is a large hydropower plant that considers renewable energy and encourages the use of such energy,” he said.  

The dam has indeed improved the lives of the people it displaced, Stung Treng provincial administration spokesman Men Kung told RFA.

“Obviously, the people have moved to new places where their lives are easier and their livelihood is better,” Men Kung said.

“Separately, a small number of people who did not go to live in the new villages, had asked the Royal Government, as well as provincial, district and commune authorities to live in a location nearby and we allowed them to live decently there,” he said.

The HRW report said that the government had harassed this group of people when they refused to relocate.

“There were no human rights violations there. There was no force to accept compensation. But we encourage people to participate in development, to accept what the Royal Government as well as the provincial impact committee determined,” Men Kung said.

Residents of an affected village became disheartened when the government demolished five of their houses, and floated their remains down the river.

“Provincial and district authorities said they have dismantled the houses and they will hand over building materials to the people,” Foot Khoeun a citizen representative told RFA.

Some of the people who saw their own houses floating away cried, according to Foot Khoeun, and authorities have yet to deliver on their promises.

“They didn’t bring us any wood from the houses. They just floated them away in the water,” he said.

In response, Stung Treng provincial hall spokesman Men Kung told RFA that the demolition of the houses did not result in any affect on the lives of the people, because the houses had already been submerged in the water and people did not live there.  

China has stepped in to wield significant influence in Cambodia in recent years as relations between Phnom Penh and Western governments have cooled amid concerns over the country’s human rights situation and political environment following a broad crackdown on the political opposition in 2017.

Chinese investment has meanwhile flowed into Cambodia, but Cambodians regularly chafe at what they call unscrupulous business practices and unbecoming behavior by Chinese businessmen and residents.

Reported and translated by RFA’s Khmer Service. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

A herd of elephants that has been trekking hundreds of miles across southwestern China is drawing global attention.

According to Time magazine, no one is clear why the 15 elephants left their home in a national nature reserve located near China’s border with Laos.

In its August 2-9 edition, Time reports that millions across China—and all around the world—have followed the elephants’ antics through 24-hour-long online images shot by a dozen swarming drones.

Highlights have included a calf trying to clamber out from under a snoozing adult.

In a few cases, farmers living near the elephants’ pathway fed them with grass and other food items.

At one point, an elephant wandered into a farmer’s house, apparently looking for food.

Ironically, the elephants appeared at first to be heading toward the city of Kunming, where the United Nations is set to hold a conference on biodiversity this year.

But then they began turning around and heading back to their nature reserve.

A joke has it that the elephants were heading for Kunming to launch a protest against pollution of their homeland.

And one theory has it that a loss of habitat in the nature reserve resulted from the opening of plantations, including rubber plantations, there.

Josh Plotkin, an expert on elephant psychology at Hunter College, City University of New York, told Time that the elephants were indeed likely to have left the nature reserve because of habitat loss and increasing human disturbances, which may have led to the decreasing availability of food and water.

Elephants can eat 440 pounds of food each day.

Growing herds, shrinking habitat

According to a website titled “rememberanimals.com,” a healthy elephant has a life span of 50 to 70 years of age.

Their tusks keep growing for their entire lives.

Elephants have at times proven difficult for humans to deal with.

Time reports that on their journey towards Kunming, the elephants have “pilfered mountains of corn and pineapples, and caused more than $1 million in damage as they amble slowly through farmland and villages.”

China’s wild elephants have doubled in number to more than 300 since the 1990s, according to the Time report.

But their habitat has shrunk by nearly two-thirds over the same period, it says.

China has harsh penalties for those caught killing elephants, but in the future the surviving elephants’ conflict with humans may only rise.

 China has in the past been the biggest consumer of ivory products, according to the National Geographic magazine.

But on Dec. 31, 2017, China, the world’s largest ivory market, banned all domestic ivory sales.

China’s ban on ivory

China deserved credit for shutting down the illegal trade in elephant ivory that contributed over the years to the killing of thousands of African pachyderms. But even then, some experts say that illegal trading continued.

John Gruetzner, the managing director of Intercedent, a Toronto-based, Asian-focused advisory group, said the Chinese decision to halt ivory imports was “partly a response to global pressure, including pressure from the United States.”

But, said Gruetzner, the decision also came as a result of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption drive as well as pushback from African nations whose elephant populations were dwindling.

According to Gruetzner, government indifference in recent years had permitted the carving of elephant ivory that contributed to the killing of some 33,000 African elephants a year.

Driving the demand for ivory in China have been members of a growing Chinese middle class who in the past could never have afforded to purchase carved ivory decorations. This was a luxury that was reserved in past generations for a rich minority.

But international nongovernment organizations have championed the elephants’ cause and raised public awareness of it in China.

On Dec. 31, 2017, China, the world’s largest ivory market, banned all domestic ivory sales.

Peter Knights, the CEO of WildAid, a San Francisco-based group, described China’s ban on ivory as “the greatest single step toward reducing elephant poaching.”

The announcement of the ban led almost immediately to the closing of 172 ivory-carving factories and retail shops in China.

Poaching in Kenya also went down from 390 elephants killed in 2013 to 46 reported last year, according to the Kenya Wildlife Service.

But the smuggling of ivory by international criminal gangs that also smuggle drugs and weapons has made any crackdown a challenging task.

Raising awareness

The number of elephants still alive in Asia and Africa is difficult to determine.

Ge Rui, an international animal welfare campaigner, has worked to raise awareness among Chinese of the illegal trade in ivory.

She said that determining the number of surviving elephants is difficult because the forests where the elephants shelter is so dense.

Many elephants live in the jungles of central and western Africa. This makes it hard to study them and examine their numbers.

But Rui said that the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) once found the bodies of some 600 elephants in a supposedly protected area in the central African state of Cameroon.

Public awareness in China of the need to protect endangered wildlife has risen in recent years thanks partly to NGO- sponsored publicity campaigns.

But a survey taken in China by IFAW in 2012 showed that many people in China once believed that ivory came from discarded elephant tusks and that elephants would grow new tusks if they lost their old ones.

According to Time, environmentalists are calling for the Chinese government to set up dedicated elephant nature reserves like the successful ones that China has created for pandas and leopards.

Dan Southerland is RFA’s founding Executive Editor.

At least 1,130 Myanmar soldiers were killed and 443 wounded in more than 700 clashes between junta forces and local militias across the country from June 1 to July 31, Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG) said in a report released on Aug. 9.

More than 350 civilians were killed, and nearly 140 wounded, during the same period, the NUG’s Defense Ministry said, adding that government losses occurred during armed clashes and in targeted assassinations of military informants and others working for the junta.

At least five junta soldiers were killed in Sagaing region’s Kalay township alone during fighting with the local People’s Defense Force (PDF) on Thursday, with villagers fleeing their homes near the scenes of fighting, local sources said.

Attempts this week to reach government spokesperson Maj. Gen. Zaw Tun for comments on the report were unsuccessful, but Thein Tun Oo—executive director of the Thayninga Strategic Studies Institute, a pro-military think tank based in Yangon—called the NUG figures for Myanmar military deaths exaggerated.

“There may have been military casualties, but to say these were in the thousands is too much. Frankly, this makes it look as if an entire army division had been wiped out,” he said, adding, “These numbers have been inflated.”

NUG Defense Minister Ye Mon was unavailable for comment on the report. A spokesman for the NUG’s People’s Defense Force in southern Myanmar’s Bago region said however that figures for the report were taken from official media outlets and reports from PDFs across the country.

“The death toll on our side is precise. The toll on the military side was the closest and most accurate we could work out. We can guarantee more than 90 percent accuracy,” he said, adding that the high death toll for government soldiers was due to local civilians’ and PDF forces’ will to fight and knowledge of their local terrain.

Fighting is likely to intensify over the next few months, said Khun Thomas, a spokesperson for the Karenni National Defense Force (KNDF), which is waging a war against government troops in eastern Myanmar’s Kayah state.

“There was a clash yesterday. And on the previous day, on Aug. 11, fighting broke out near Ngwe-daung village in Phruso township. The military was using heavy weapons. There is also fighting in Pekon township.”

“The fighting is not going to stop. In fact, I’d say it will gradually get worse,” he said.

Five killed in Sagaing

In northwestern Myanmar’s Sagaing region on Thursday, at least five government soldiers were killed and a local militia member wounded when fighting broke out about 15 miles from Kalay town, a member of the Kalay People’s Defense Force told RFA.

Clashes broke out when about 70 soldiers entered three villages in the township looking for PDF fighters, the fighter said.

“There was fighting from 2:30 p.m. to 7:20 p.m., and five [government soldiers] were killed. One of our people was hit by shrapnel from a mortar shell, but he’s not in serious condition. Another was hit by a rock that flew out from an explosion,” he said.

Local villagers said that soldiers fired heavy weapons and searched houses in the villages, forcing more than 5,000 people to flee their homes.

“People have not been able to go back to their homes yet. The soldiers are still there,” said one resident of Kalay’s Natchaung village, speaking on condition of anonymity for reasons of security. “More fighting could break out at any time, and so everyone is taking shelter outside the village waiting for them to leave.”

A resident of Kalay town said that security was tightened in the town on Thursday after an explosion and gunfire were heard at around 9:00 p.m.

“It’s always like that. They come out in force every time they hear gunfire, and in the evening they drive around in cars with automatic weapons at the ready, even when nothing is happening,” he said.

“The bomb was pretty powerful,” he added. “Even our house was shaken, and about 20 minutes later we heard gunshots.”

‘Junta fully responsible’

Hla Kyaw Zaw—a Myanmar political analyst based in Beijing—told RFA that Sen. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing and his military, which overthrew the country’s democratically elected government in a Feb. 1 coup, bear full responsibility for the escalating conflict in the country and growing numbers of civilian deaths.

“It’s not wrong to use violence against those who brutally crack down on well-behaved and peaceful protesters,” Hla Kyaw Zaw said. “Therefore, the ruling Military Council, which represents the military dictatorship, is totally responsible for this problem.”

“It looks like it’s going to be a long fight,” he said.

“More and more people will get hurt or killed because they, the military, have the more advanced weapons. But if the people can gradually stage a revolt with whatever weapons they can get hold of, they can overthrow this dictatorship,” he said.

Writing in the Asia Times last week, Myanmar analyst Anthony Davis noted that PDFs have risen from beginnings as a few “ill-organized groups” in Sagaing and neighboring Chin state in April to about 125 separate urban and rural groups by late July. 

“At ground level, the impact of PDFs has been palpable though hardly decisive,” he wrote.

Davis said the PDFs’ prospects against the better armed and trained Tatmadaw, the Burmese name for the military, depends greatly on how well they can work with longstanding ethnic insurgent groups that have fought the Myanmar army for decades.

“Building a capacity for sustained resistance aimed at exploiting the Tatmadaw’s weaknesses confronts both the NUG and PDFs with a daunting array of challenges,” he wrote.

“Not least is the need to develop a strategy for protracted guerrilla conflict aimed initially at survival over the coming year, denying the Tatmadaw the consolidation of its coup and eroding the morale of its personnel at field level.”

On Feb. 1, Myanmar’s military overthrew the country’s democratically elected government, claiming voter fraud had led to a landslide victory for Aung San Suu Kyi’s NLD party in the country’s November 2020 election.

The junta has yet to provide evidence of its claims and has violently suppressed nationwide demonstrations calling for a return to civilian rule.

According to the Bangkok-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, at least 968 civilians were killed by police and soldiers between Feb. 1 and Aug. 13.

Reported by RFA’s Myanmar Service. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Richard Finney.

Myanmar’s wealthy are hoarding immunosuppressive and antiviral medications to treat the coronavirus, paying thousands of dollars for them in the country’s poorly regulated pharmaceutical market, while ordinary citizens struggle to buy the drugs, drug sellers and medical professionals told RFA.

Panic buying has caused prices of the immunosuppressive Tocilizumab and the antiviral Remdesivir to skyrocket and triggered shortages, in the face of a third wave of the virus that is surging six months after a military coup plunged the country into turmoil and crippled its already weak health-care system.

As of Friday, the country of 54 million people recorded 348,186 confirmed COVID-19 cases, including 3,456 new ones, and 12,879 deaths, including 212 new fatalities, according to figures from the Ministry of Health and Sports.

Medical doctors told RFA that the drugs being bought and sold illegally were only for use by patients in intensive care units (ICUs) with a physician’s prescription.

Affluent people in Myanmar have paid up to 50 million kyats (U.S. $30,000) for Tocilizumab since the second week of July, when the death tolls from third wave of the pandemic reached a record high, doctors said.

The medicine usually costs less than 1 million kyats (U.S. $582), but panic buying and hoarding have caused the price to shoot up, said a doctor who declined to be named for security reasons.

“The medicine is used for ICU patients with severe COVID-19-related conditions. It should not be used for outpatients. As for me, I don’t give this medicine to my patients,” he told RFA’s Myanmar Service.

The physician said that the patients he is treating don’t need Tocilizumab and Remdesivir, medicines, which should only be used in critical cases.

Naing Pyho Aung Win, a physician treating coronavirus patients, said besides significantly reducing the body’s immunity, Tocilizumab aggravates pre-existing diseases and can reactivate viruses such as hepatitis B or tuberculosis that are present in the body, he said.

“All in all, Tocilizumab is not an antibiotic medicine. It should be used only with a doctor’s prescription,” said Naing Pyho Aung Win.

The regular cost of a vial is about 770,000 kyats (U.S. $463), he said. But online shopping platforms that formerly sold mainly clothing are now selling Tocilizumab without supervision, and the price has increased by 25 million kyats or even 50 million kyats per vial.

Naing Pyho Aung Win expressed similar concerns about people misusing Remdesivir, a U.S. drug originally used to treat the Ebola virus, which he said should be administered only to patients over 60 years of age or to people with diseases such as diabetes, renal or liver failure, and HIV/AIDS.

“If the patient is not from one of these risk groups, then Remdesivir should not be used,” he said.

As companies in Myanmar that import medicine from abroad begin to reopen their businesses, medical professionals say they expect to see price drops in a few days, said a third doctor who declined to be named for security reasons.

Some companies had to shut down amid borders closed to trade because of the pandemic, while others shut down due to a lack of supplies or restrictions by local authorities to control the market.

“Many medicine companies are reopening their businesses this month,” he said. “They are now importing many medicines. I think everything will be back to normal in a week or 10 days, [and] the prices will be down to the normal level.”

“Patients are now trying to buy the medicines, when they don’t have enough for food and other living expenses,” the third doctor said.

“There are businessmen who are hoarding the medicine. They stockpiled the medicine and caused price gouging. This is very evil.”

Reported by RFA’s Myanmar Service. Translated by Ye Kaung Myint Maung. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

China’s new ambassador to the United States, Qin Gang, met with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman in Washington Thursday, in the first senior diplomatic meeting between China and the U.S. since Qin took up his post in the U.S. capital in July. Qin, 55, had served as vice-minister of foreign affairs since 2018, and from 2011-14, was spokesman for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Rita Cheng of RFA’s Mandarin Service spoke briefly to Qin after his meeting with Sherman, which comes amid the highest level of friction between Beijing and Washington in decades. He said he reiterated China’s longstanding positions on Taiwan, a self-governing island over which China claims sovereignty.

RFA: The meeting took more than one hour. How was it?

Qin: It was fine.

RFA: What are your expectations for the future of Sino-U.S. relations?

Qin: We had a deep and candid conversation, and we also exchanged views with each other comprehensively. Both sides recognized the importance of the China-U.S. relationship and agreed to make efforts on improving our relations.

We also agreed to keep up the dialogue and further communication in the future. Both sides will address the concerns based on the principle of mutual benefit.

RFA: What are the issues that concern China the most? Did you raise them during the meeting?

Qin: Certainly the concerns we have are things such as how to work together to overcome the difficulties, and how to promote the improvement and development on our bilateral relationship. We must try our best to reduce the troubles, manage our differences and expand cooperation. There are a lot of things to do. We should start step by step. 

Translated by Rita Cheng.

One year after her detention on “spying” charges, concerns are growing over Australian journalist Cheng Lei, who remains in detention with no access to a lawyer, the Australian government said on Friday.

“The Australian Government remains seriously concerned about Ms Cheng’s detention and welfare and has regularly raised these issues at senior levels,” foreign minister Marise Payne said in a statement.

“We are particularly concerned that one year into her detention, there remains a lack of transparency about the reasons for Ms Cheng’s detention.”

Payne said consular officials have been visiting Cheng regularly, most recently on July 26, and that the government is providing assistance to her and her family.

“We expect basic standards of justice, procedural fairness and humane treatment to be met, in accordance with international norms,” she said.

A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Canberra said the case would be handled “in accordance with [Chinese] law.”

“We firmly oppose the statement by the Australian foreign minister,” the embassy said in a statement on its website.

“China has repeatedly made clear its position on the case concerning Australian citizen Cheng Lei,” it said.

“The Australian side should respect China’s judicial sovereignty and refrain from interfering in any form in Chinese judicial authorities’ lawful handling of the case,” the spokesperson said.

Beijing-based lawyer Zhang Dongshuo said Cheng, who was initially held under “residential surveillance at a designated location (RSDL),” was being denied access to a lawyer because the charges are related to “national security.”

“If a lawyer wants to meet with a suspect during the investigation, the agency carrying out the investigation has to approve it,” Zhang said.

“Investigations can take a long time, depending on the particular crime [the suspect] is accused of,” he said.

Details still unclear

Feng Chongyi of the University of Technology Sydney said Cheng’s case is still mired in uncertainty, however.

“Exactly what kind of secrets did she leak, and to whom?” Feng said. “In the absence of specific evidence, there is no good reason to detain someone for such a long time.”

“Cheng Lei is the mother of two children, aged 10 and 12, who are now in Melbourne with their grandmother,” he said. “Detaining her like this is pretty inhumane.”

Feng said Cheng’s background as a former anchor for state broadcaster CCTV likely complicates matters.

“TV anchors in CCTV are pretty high-ranking,” he said. “She interviewed politicians in many other countries, and knows quite a few of the diplomatic corps in Beijing, as well as interviewing top executives in multinational corporations.”

“When the pandemic hit … she posted on Facebook about what was really happening … but people are also speculating that she and [former journalist] Yang Hengjun were arrested as a bargaining chip for bilateral ties after they turned cold,” Feng said.

Cheng, 46, was born in Hunan and moved to Australia with her parents as a child.

She once worked as an anchor on China Global Television News (CGTN), the international arm of CCTV.

She was detained in August 2020 and formally arrested in February 2021.

Tried for espionage

Yang Hengjun could face a lengthy jail term following his trial behind closed doors for “espionage” in Beijing on May 28.

Yang, 54, an outspoken Australian writer and political commentator who formerly held Chinese nationality, was detained on arrival at Guangzhou Airport on Jan. 19, 2019, then taken to Beijing by officers of the state security police.

Cheng’s detention came amid increasingly strained ties between Beijing and Canberra, which is taking steps to limit the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s propaganda outreach in the country, and which has barred Chinese telecoms giant Huawei from bidding for 5G mobile contracts.

Reports have also emerged that Canberra is investigating the extent of Chinese influence at Australian universities after the University of Queensland suspended undergraduate student Drew Pavlou for protesting its ties with China and Chinese rights abuses in Hong Kong, Tibet, and Xinjiang.

Billions of dollars flow into the country’s higher education institutions via the 150,000 Chinese students who flock there to study every year.

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.