Day: March 1, 2022

Less than three weeks after Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping met at the Beijing Winter Olympics and declared their friendship has “no limits,” China was caught off-guard by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Beijing has responded with heavy censorship of news from Ukraine, pro-Putin propaganda in state media, and disinformation by its diplomats. As Beijing struggles to maintain Moscow’s collapsing Ukraine narrative, analysts wonder if the swiftness and severity of global financial sanctions imposed on Putin will affect Chinese thinking on Taiwan, which China claims as its territory and has threatened to take by force.

Two groups of Vietnamese scholars, attorneys, and representatives from civil society organizations voiced support for Ukraine in its fight against Russia’s invading army, striking a markedly different tone than their government, which has largely been silent on the war.

In a letter to Nataliya Zhynkina, Ukraine’s top diplomat in Vietnam, three dozen Vietnamese declared themselves to be “freedom lovers” and urged Ukrainians to resist Russia in defense of their “young democracy,” which emerged from an authoritarian past.

Among the signatories were members of the Civil Society Forum, Nguyen Trong Vinh Club, Le Hieu Dang Club, Lap Quyen Dan, and Vietnam Independent Writers Initiative.

They noted that while Vietnam is a communist country, many Vietnamese believe that independence and democracy — values that Ukrainians are protecting — are important.

The letter and a second one a group of attorneys wrote to Russia President Vladimir Putin circulated among closed groups on Facebook. They stand in sharp contrast to the Vietnamese government’s overarching passivity to the conflict.

As Russia’s closest partner and ally in Southeast Asia, Vietnam issued a tepid call for restraint, after the invasion, although state media have been extensively covering the conflict, without much of their usual pro-Russia bias. News reports include quotes from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and points of view of both nations and their allies.

Mac Van Trang, an expert on sociopolitical issues in Vietnam, told RFA that he had signed the letter to Zhynkina because Vietnam can relate to Ukraine’s plight: a small country defending itself against a much larger one.

China occupied and colonized Vietnam for years and initiated the 1979 war between the two nations. China also took Vietnam’s Paracel Islands and Johnson Reef in the South China Sea from Vietnam, Trang noted.

“Therefore, when witnessing Russia, led by Putin, threatening, harassing and bringing tanks, cannons, and missiles to invade Ukraine in order to establish a puppet government and turn Ukraine into its vassal state, we found this war to be unjust and meaningless,” he said.

“As they are bravely defending their sovereignty, independence and freedom, the government and people of Ukraine are great examples for us to admire and learn from,” he added. “We have to support them.”

The group of lawyers in Vietnam in their open letter to Putin also called for an end to what they said was an unjust war.

Attorney Tran Dai Lam told RFA that the great losses and horrible consequences of war that the Vietnamese had experienced during past conflicts prompted him to sign the letter.

“Our Vietnamese people have been through a lot of wars and along with them were death, economic destruction, and consequences for the future,” he said. “As a result, I don’t want to see Ukrainian and Russian people fire at each other.

“Ukrainian children are innocent, and they should not bear the devastating consequences of war like what we, Vietnamese people, had experienced,” he said.

By sending troops into Ukraine, Russia breached international law, Lam said. He said he feared Vietnam would face a similar threat from China in the future.

“In my viewpoint, Russia invades Ukraine, and this is an unjust war,” he said. “Russia has violated international laws and conventions. I strongly denounce Russia’s act of invasion of Ukraine.”

‘Stupid and narrow-minded’

The two letters also criticized Vietnamese who support Putin’s actions in Ukraine.

“Given invasion threats from China, as Vietnamese people, they should have empathized with Ukrainian people instead of supporting Putin’s invasion,” Trang said about the pro-Russia stance of several Vietnamese groups. “How stupid and narrow-minded they are!”

“One day when China attacks or invades part of our waters or islands in the East Sea [South China Sea], what basis and arguments could we then use to talk about our legitimate protection of our fatherland?”

Vietnamese in general seem split about Russia’s actions.

Huong Giang, who is living in Russia, told RFA that war between Russia and Ukraine broke out because of the country’s different viewpoints.

“In general, I don’t want that because the two nations are at war with one another, and the people in the crossfire will suffer damages,” she said.

But Trung Tho, who lives in Ha Tinh province, called Russia a “democratic, peaceful nation” and until now “a defender of peace.”

“Ukraine is so close to Russia but takes sides with the USA to oppose Russia,” he said. “How can Ukraine be right? The fact that Ukraine lets the USA and Western nations deploy weapons is clearly to destroy Russia.”

Netizen Nguyen Le Minh, who also supports Russia and Putin, wrote on his Facebook account that “Putin is aggressive, it’s OK.”

Russia cannot accept a neighboring country that joins other nations in turning its back on Russia, retired Vietnamese General Trịnh Văn Quỳnh wrote on Facebook.

“Russia cannot be betrayed many times, so it needs to take measures prevent and eliminate the risk of bringing war to the country,” he said.

Major General Le Van Cuong, former director of the Institute of Strategy and Science at Vietnam’s Ministry of Public Security, told Nghe An newspaper on Monday that Putin’s actions in Ukraine did not amount to an invasion.

“President Putin announced first that Russia was not invading, was not taking any land from Ukraine; second, that Russia was not attacking the Ukrainian people because Ukrainians and Russians are the same people, sharing the same ancestors and blood,” he said. “I believe such an announcement is reasonable and that Putin has done exactly what he said.”

Meanwhile, Vietnam’s major airlines are ready to repatriate citizens on flights from most countries bordering Ukraine, after the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam (CAAV) requested on Monday that they submit plans to bring back Vietnamese citizens living and working in the Eastern European nation.

Three major carriers — Vietnam Airlines, VietJet Air, and Bamboo Airways — have issued plans to fly to six destinations to pick up Vietnamese citizens: Warsaw, Poland; Bucharest, Romania; Budapest, Hungary; Bratislava, Slovakia; Minsk, Belarus; and Moscow.

According to the government, about 7,000 Vietnamese citizens and legal entities live and operate in Ukraine.

Reported by RFA’s Vietnamese Service. Translated by Anna Vu. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

North Korean authorities waited days to tell the nation about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, first informing only members of the ruling Korean Workers’ Party in private meetings, who later spread the word, government officials told RFA.

In North Korea’s one-party state, membership in the Workers’ Party is reserved for the privileged or for exemplary soldiers who complete long mandatory stints in the armed forces.

The Russian military began its large-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, but it wasn’t until two days later that Pyongyang told the party members.

“Yesterday, each regional party committee in the province informed all the party members that our strong ally Russia was at war,” an official from the northwestern province of North Pyongan told RFA’s Korean Service Feb. 27.

“International relations are strained with Russia at war, so the regional party committee demanded that everyone be ready to be mobilized at all times,” the source said.

The Soviet Union helped establish North Korea in 1948 after occupying the northern half of the Korean peninsula following Japan’s defeat in World War II, installing as leader the grandfather of current leader Kim Jong Un. Under Vladimir Putin, Russia moved in 2000 to revitalize ties with Pyongyang that had fallen off with the USSR’s collapse.

The central party leaders delivered the Ukraine news to each provincial party committee, ordering them to tell party members at their weekly meeting, where they confess political errors and reaffirm their commitment to be loyal to the country and its leaders.

“The news came privately during self-criticism on Saturday,” said the source. “The party members were told to be ready to mobilize at any time.”

The party members were not surprised, but still wondered why the authorities were keeping news of the invasion private, according to the source.

“The party members, of course, already knew from their Chinese acquaintances …that war had begun, but they were more interested in what caused Russia to invade Ukraine,” the source said.

After the news was broken to party members in the northeastern province of North Hamgyong, it began spreading rapidly among the public, a resident there told RFA.

“They not only stated that Russia is at war, they also ordered us to be prepared to enter into war immediately under any circumstances,” said the second source.

“In response, some residents showed a radical reaction, saying they wish that war would break out and this disgusting system we are living under would come to an end,” the second source said.

The second source said that some residents recognize the hypocrisy of the government siding with Russia while it invades an independent country.

“The authorities are always quick to criticize the United States as an aggressor, repeatedly asserting the independence of Korea, and the U.S.’ interference in our internal affairs,” the second source said, referring to Washington’s military presence in South Korea, which North Korea considers to be an occupation of its sovereign territory.

“That is why they are watching the government’s stance on the Russian invasion of Ukraine.”

The state-run Korea Central News Agency (KCNA) reported Monday that a spokesperson for North Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs blamed the U.S. and other Western countries for war breaking out in Ukraine.

“The U.S. and the West, in defiance of Russia’s reasonable and just demand to provide it with legal guarantee for security, have systematically undermined the security environment of Europe by becoming more blatant in their attempts to deploy attack weapon system [sic] while defiantly pursuing NATO’s eastward expansion,” the spokesperson said according to KCNA’s English version of the report.

“…Having devastated Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, [they] are mouthing phrases about ‘respect for sovereignty’ and ‘territorial integrity’ over the Ukrainian situation which was detonated by themselves. That does not stand to reason at all,” the spokesperson said.

Though it was the first official statement on Ukraine by Pyongyang, two days earlier a commentary published on the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs blamed Washington and its allies for “high-handedness and arbitrariness that are shaking international peace and stability at the basis,” as rendered in the English version of the commentary.

Penned by Researcher Ri Ji Song, its said that the U.S. was disregarding Russia’s demands for security and “unilaterally” expanding NATO to cause an imbalance of military power in Europe.

“The U.S embellishes its own interference in internal affairs of others as ‘righteous’ for peace and stability of the world, but it denounces for no good reason self-defensive measures taken by other countries to ensure their own national security as ‘injustice’ and ‘provocation,’ wrote Ri.

Translated by Claire Lee. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

The paths of Chinese survey vessels across the South China Sea for the past two years show a tangle of activity straddling disputed waters off the coasts of all its maritime neighbors in Southeast Asia.

A report published Tuesday by the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative uses automatic identification system (AIS) data transmitted by Chinese vessels to reconstruct where they have been conducting surveys.

These surveys – for marine scientific research, oil and gas exploration, and military research, according to the report – stretch across the South China Sea, which China claims virtually in its entirety. The surveys have regularly dipped into the exclusive economic zones (EEZs) of neighboring countries, like Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia.

The report, “Chinese Surveys in the South China Sea,” is aimed at providing “a better understanding of the scope of Chinese survey activities in the South China Sea” which have become an important tool for China to assert its maritime claims.

AMTI is part of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank.

A map provided by AMTI shows very busy patterns of Chinese survey activities in the South China Sea during 2020-2021. The report finds that the surveys have become a standard response by China to Southeast Asian offshore oil and gas activity in the South China Sea.

On numerous occasions, when a neighboring country began a new oil and gas activity in its EEZ, China responded by sending its own survey ships escorted by the China Coast Guard and maritime militia to the same location.

“The report highlights the scale and hypocrisy of China’s survey activities,” said Greg Poling, the AMTI director.

“Beijing conducts dozens of operations in its neighbors’ EEZs every year which, if civilian in nature, are illegal or, if military, are exactly what China claims other countries are not allowed to do in its own EEZ,” he said.

Surveying for marine scientific research or oil and gas exploration in another country’s EEZ is illegal under international law. Surveys done for purely military research purpose are not illegal but “run counter to China’s stated opposition to foreign military surveys within the EEZ,” the report says.

China promulgated a Law on the Exclusive Economic Zone and the Continental Shelf in 1998 after it had ratified the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) in 1996.

According to the Chinese EEZ Law, any maritime or scientific research in the EEZ and the continental shelf of China would be subject to approval by the Chinese authorities. This is also the usual practice under UNCLOS, though Chinese survey vessels often operate in other countries’ EEZs without permission.

When it comes to military activities, while most of the signatory states of UNCLOS support the view that military operations, exercises and activities have always been regarded as internationally lawful uses of the sea, including within the EEZs of other states, China continues to assert its right to regulate foreign military activities in its claimed EEZ.

A study by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, a congressional advisory body, found that “China’s position is based largely on its view that it has the right to prevent any activity that directly or indirectly threatens its security or economic interests.”

Lack of trust

A survey report entitled The State of Southeast Asia 2022, published by the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore, found that 41.7 percent of respondents view China as a “revisionist power” that “intends to turn Southeast Asia into its sphere of influence.”

It says that 58.1 percent of the respondents – made up of policymakers, academics, researchers, businesspeople, media personnel, and civil society activists from 10 Southeast Asian countries – expressed little or no confidence in China to do the right thing to contribute to global peace, security, prosperity, and governance.

“This follows China’s military build-ups in the South China Sea in recent years and the intrusions into Southeast Asian claimant states’ EEZ, with the ambitious goal of militarily dominating the South China Sea,” the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak’s report said.

The new AMTI report hints at a similar goal through China’s use of survey vessels, ostensibly intended for research. “The immediate impact and apparent intention of these (maritime) surveys is to demonstrate Chinese control over waters it claims as its own.”

But there’s also a practical benefit. “Aside from their symbolic goals, these surveys also produce data on seabed conditions that hold value for both civilian and military purposes,” the AMTI report said.

“China’s pursuit of civil-military integration makes it likely that data obtained by Chinese survey vessels is shared among scientific, military, and commercial entities.”

China operates by far the largest fleet of government research vessels in the region.

According to the database of the International Maritime Organization, there are 64 registered Chinese survey vessels built in or after 1990, surpassing the U.S.’s 44 and Japan’s 23.

During 2019-2020, China deployed 25 government vessels in waters beyond its recognized national jurisdiction in the Indo-Pacific, compared to 10 from the U.S., according to AMTI.

The Chinese government has yet to say anything about the AMTI report, but Beijing has always maintained that its survey efforts are lawful operations in waters under its jurisdiction.

Experts say the surveys tend to respect the notional nine-dash line which roughly outlines China’s own territorial claim over virtually the entire South China Sea and which was rejected by a U.N. tribunal in 2016.

On Feb. 2, a French judge ordered two security aides for Cambodian prime minister Hun Sen to be tried for organizing a 1997 grenade attack against a political opposition rally in the capital Phnom Penh that left 16 people dead and at least 120 injured. On Feb. 22, Sovannarith Keo of RFA’s Khmer Service spoke to Brad Adams, Asia director of New York-based Human Rights Watch, about the French court’s action and what might happen next. The interview has been edited for clarity and length.

RFA: What does this French court’s order of indictment mean for Hun Sen’s bodyguard chief Hing Bun Heang and for Huy Piseth specifically, and what does it mean for Hun Sen himself?

Brad Adams: Well, I think that for the two individuals, Hing Bun Heang and Huy Piseth, they will never be able to travel in Europe again. They won’t be able to travel to North America. There should be a European arrest warrant put out through the European Union’s common procedure. There should be an Interpol Red Notice, which means they would be subject to arrest anywhere outside Cambodia. Of course, they should be subject to arrest in Cambodia, but we know the Cambodian government has already refused to arrest them. It could lead to enhanced sanctions against both of them.

Hing Bun Heang has been sanctioned in the past, and I expect that both of them will face additional sanctions that would affect their assets overseas and any companies that they’re involved in. And of course we know that in particular Hing Bun Heang is highly corrupt and would be subject in time to sanctions for that as well. So it would be illegal to trade with them or do business with them if you’re a foreign company based in certain jurisdictions.

For Hun Sen, the judgment of the court or the court order makes it clear that if he didn’t have immunity, he would have also been subject to an arrest warrant. So will Hun Sen be arrested? No, not right now, not unless his immunity is challenged and lifted by a French or other court. But I think it will be very hard for the European Union and other democracies at least to invite him for bilateral meetings or to participate in multilateral meetings, because we now have an independent court in a very well-established democracy concluding that the evidence shows that Hing Bun Heang and Huy Piseth organized and ordered the grenade attack, and that only one person could have given them permission to do that. And that was the prime minister.

This is something, by the way, that Huy Piseth acknowledged when he was questioned by the FBI in 1997. He said that only a prime minister could order this when agent [Tom] Nicoletti asked him why bodyguards would be present in that park on that day when they had never been present at any other protests before. And he admitted it.

RFA: You mentioned earlier that there will be enhanced sanctions against these two individuals and that there should be an Interpol Red Notice or a so-called European arrest warrant issued against both of them. Do you think the French court will likely move to request this kind of Interpol Red Notice or other international arrest warrant against these two individuals in the future?

Brad Adams: Yes. The way it works in the French system is that it’s up to the prosecutor to make that request. But the problem is that there is no transparency, so we will have to dig in, and maybe you as journalists can also dig, to find out if and when the prosecutor makes that request. They do not have an obligation to make that request in public. They can, but they don’t have to. So we don’t know when that will happen, but I can’t believe that it won’t happen, because the case is very serious It’s a case of attempted assassination, according to the French court, and attempted murder—the attempted assassination of Sam Rainsy and murder of the 16 people. And this is obviously a very, very serious crime.

RFA: Will your organization, Human Rights Watch, move to pursue the request of an Interpol Red Notice against them?

Brad Adams: Yes, of course we are going to push very hard for this. But in the end it is up to the French authorities. I will say the French authorities did pass the demand, the summons for Hing Bun Heang and Huy Piseth to appear in the French court from the French judge to the Ministry of Justice in France, to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in France, to the embassy in Phnom Penh, and to the Cambodian government. So, the system worked properly in France to pursue this case although the Cambodian government refused to make Huy Piseth and Hing Bun Heang available for questioning. And that’s the reason the arrest warrant was issued. The arrest warrant was issued when they failed to appear as requested by the French Court.

RFA: Can this order of indictment be appealed to the Supreme Court in France?

Brad Adams: No, there’s no way to appeal at this point. This case is now going to be set for trial sometime next year probably, at which point the evidence will be heard in court. And people like me will be called to testify. Hing Bun Heang and Huy Piseth will be entitled to appear and testify if they choose to. And the court would come to a conclusion about whether or not there is enough evidence beyond a reasonable doubt to convict them.

RFA: If the two are convicted by the French court in upcoming proceedings, as you mentioned, how likely will a sentence be announced against them?

Brad Adams: I can’t say that. I would expect in a case with this much death and this many injuries that it would be a very substantial prison sentence. That’s what would normally happen, but it’s impossible for me to say whether that would happen after a conviction. If there is a conviction, the court will have been convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that they had organized [the attack] and had planned to kill, and that that’s about as serious a charge as one could expect.

RFA: It seems that there will likely be a long way to go for the French court to begin hearing the merits of this case. Do we know of any exact date for this hearing?

Brad Adams: No, there’s no date. The estimate I’ve been given by the lawyers in the case is that usually it would be 12 to 18 months after the order by the investigating judge.

RFA: Sam Rainsy’s lawyer, Pierre-Olivier Sur, told the AFP on Feb. 2 that “French justice is closing in seriously if not dangerously against Prime Minister Hun Sen. If it weren’t for his diplomatic immunity, he would be the one in the dock instead of his subordinates.” How likely is it that Hun Sen could be summoned in the future to testify at the hearing on the merits of this case?

Brad Adams: I expect that will happen the day after Hun Sen leaves office, if he ever does. And, of course, we don’t know. Does he really plan to step down and have his son take over, or is he going to stay until he dies? We don’t really know. But I imagine that the day after he leaves office this lawyer will be back in court asking for Hun Sen to be summoned, and that his failure to appear would follow the same path as this case. He would then be subject to an arrest warrant. There’s no reason why the lawyers wouldn’t make that request. There’s no reason why the court, given its order, which suggests that Hun Sen was only protected because of his diplomatic status, would not make such a move.

RFA: So this means that if Hun Sen resigns from his position as prime minister and loses his immunity, an arrest warrant could be handed to him. In terms of international legal cooperation, it is likely in the coming month that as the chair of ASEAN, Hun Sen along with other ASEAN state leaders will be invited by the U.S. president to attend the ASEAN-U.S. Special Summit in the White House. Is it likely that the French court would issue a surprise arrest warrant and then send it to the U.S. for help in serving it?

Brad Adams: You know, I wish they would, because I believe he’s responsible for this horrific attack. But, no, they’ve made it clear that they would not. They think his diplomatic status provides immunity while he is in office. So I don’t think there’s any chance of that happening. However, it should be pointed out that this is the interpretation of the French government. It is not necessarily accurate that he has diplomatic immunity. This could be contested in court someday in France. You know, every country has to decide whether to give diplomatic immunity to a head of government when they travel. And most do, because they’re afraid that if they arrest one prime minister, their own prime minister might then get arrested when he travels. But it’s not the same as being an accredited diplomat where you have diplomatic immunity. And this is a choice that governments make, to give diplomatic immunity to traveling government officials.

RFA: For my last question, how would this French court’s order of indictment affect Hun Sen’s international image overall, especially when he attends the ASEAN-U.S. Special Summit in the White House?

Brad Adams: Well, we’re going to be making the point to journalists such as yourself and the international media that the chair of ASEAN has been indirectly accused of committing mass murder by a French court. Now of course he’s been accused of this and many other things by many other people over the years. He’s been accused of being responsible for mass killings in the 1998 election and for the killings of journalists and activists, etc. There’s no lack of evidence and accusations against Hun Sen. But for a French court to make this order is very different from Human Rights Watch or a Cambodian NGO issuing a report. So I think it’s going to elevate the attention he gets. It’s going to be a black eye for ASEAN. It’s going to make Cambodia look bad, and it’s going to lead, I think, to a lot of governments thinking hard about how they should interact with Hun Sen. It can’t be business as usual for some governments. You know we don’t have much hope for ASEAN or for China or India. I mean, they’re going to do business with anybody. But we do hope that other democracies who say they put human rights at the forefront of their foreign policy will reconsider how they interact with Hun Sen.

More than 130 alumni of China’s most prestigious universities have condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, calling on the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to honor a mutual security pact it signed with Kyiv in 1994.

“We strongly condemn Russian aggression against Ukraine and resolutely support the just struggle of the Ukrainian people to resist it, and defend their country,” said the statement, signed by graduates of disparate departments from journalism to physics at Peking, Tsinghua and Renmin universities.

It cited a joint security pact signed between China and Ukraine that commits Beijing to “providing security guarantees” to Ukraine, in the event that Ukraine was the subject of foreign aggression.

Letter signatory Lu Nan, who graduated from the journalism department at Renmin University, said the letter was initiated by alumni of Peking University.

“We all have a common purpose, which is to oppose war and maintain peace,” Lu told RFA. “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a fundamental challenge to human conscience.”

“Ukraine didn’t invade Russia. It’s a sovereign country and its people are peace-loving,” he said.

Anger at ‘Little Pinks’

The letter came as video footage of civilian and military casualties in Ukraine circulated on Chinese social media.

“We are very angry at the large number of Little Pinks who support the use of violence in Russia in online comments,” Lu said. “This is no longer just about politics; it’s about humanity and conscience.”

An alumnus of Zhejiang University surnamed Ma said the letter was rare in today‘s China, where public speech is strictly regulated by CCP censors.

“It’s rare for alumni to make statement like this; the phenomenon may spread,” Ma said. “Other groups … will likely have the same point of view.”

Internet censors in China ordered news outlets and social media accounts to avoid posting anything critical of Russia or favorable to NATO after Russia began moving troops across the border into Ukraine last week.

All copy about the war is to be approved by the CCP’s propaganda department prior to posting, while social media platforms are required to delete “inappropriate” comments about the situation in Ukraine.

Meanwhile, some of the thousands of Chinese nationals currently in Ukraine have hit out at Chinese social media commentators for endangering them after “joke” comments circulated about the sexual availability of Ukrainian women if the men die in the war.

Evacuations begin

The Chinese embassy in Kyiv said it had started evacuating the first batch of 600 Chinese nationals by bus to neighboring Moldova on Monday afternoon.

A second group of nearly 1,000 students was evacuated on Tuesday, with Moldova granting temporary visa waivers for refugees crossing the border.

But the evacuation flights promised earlier by the embassy seem unlikely to materialize soon, an embassy official told RFA.

“Planes can’t leave, you can’t leave by plane, so it’ll have to be overland,” the official said. “We have to get people out in batches, and I don’t know about tomorrow.”

“It depends on whether we have transportation available,” the official said. “I can’t answer that right now.”

The official said the 24-hour hotline has been extremely busy.

“Basically, no sooner do I hang up on one call than another call comes in,” the official said, warning Chinese nationals in Ukraine to keep their phone on, pay attention to their personal safety, and not to identify themselves as Chinese if using a subway station to shelter from the fighting.

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.