Day: March 15, 2022

The United States and other democracies must think of new ways to challenge the rising threat of authoritarian governments across the globe, seen most dramatically in Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, according to testimony presented at a U.S. Senate panel today.

State Department officials and other foreign policy experts discussed the challenges presented by shifting geopolitical forces at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing titled “Combating Authoritarianism: U.S. Tools and Responses.”

“Over the past two decades, a new type of 21st century authoritarian support system has arisen,” committee Chairman Bob Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat, said to open the hearing. “Rather than working in despotic isolation, authoritarian leaders operate through networks of new kleptocratic financial mechanisms, disinformation professionals and an array of security services to protect one another from democratic pressures and to secure their repressive rule autocrats from Venezuela to Cuba, Belarus and Burma.

“We must combat the complex web of kleptocracy sustaining autocrats from around the world,” Menendez said. “We must cut off their lifeblood and impair their ability to buffer one another from sanctions. We must combat digital authoritarianism, including disinformation propaganda and censorship used to subvert democratic principles and advance autocrats’ interests.”

Sen. Jim Risch of Idaho, the panel’s top Republican, said Russia and China were the most egregious models of authoritarianism, followed by Iran, Venezuela, North Korea and Zimbabwe.

“Clearly, the United States and our allies need to step up our game against these regimes,” he said. “The Biden administration has made supporting democracy a focal point of its foreign policy.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and China’s attempt to redefine global norms in favor of authoritarianism are proof of the necessity for the U.S. to take bold action to fight authoritarianism, Uzra Zeya, under secretary for civilian security, democracy and human rights at the State Department, told the panel.

“Across the globe, authoritarianism — enabled by economic freefall, inequality, alienation and most recently pandemics — threatens democratic governments and societies,” Zeya said.

The U.S. is working with allies to counter the immediacy of Russia’s autocratic attack and on China’s rising influence, while reinvesting with America’s allies to ensure security, prosperity and freedom for Americans and the rest of the world.

Jennifer Hall Godfrey, the State Department’s senior official for public diplomacy and affairs, told the committee that authoritarian governments pose a threat to the global interests of the U.S. and other democracies by lying to their own people and exploiting freedom of expression and independent media to promote misinformation in more open societies.

“To this end, the department, working with interagency partners, maintains a full-spectrum approach to both counter the influence of authoritarian regimes, and — equally as important — to demonstrate in word and in deed the value of democratic governance, government transparency, and the rules-based international order,” she said.

“It is not enough to expose foreign disinformation and propaganda,” Godfrey said. “We must also engage global publics with honest and credible information about U.S. values, priorities, and policy objectives and the strengths of alternatives to authoritarian governance.”

Changing the rules of engagement

Anne Applebaum, a staff writer at The Atlantic and author of Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism, in her remarks called for a new strategy toward Russia, China and other autocracies “in which we don’t merely react to the latest outrage, but change the rules of engagement altogether.”

“We cannot merely slap sanctions on foreign oligarchs following some violation of international law, or our own laws: We must alter our financial system so that we stop kleptocratic elites from abusing it in the first place,” she said. “We cannot just respond with furious fact-checking and denials when autocrats produce blatant propaganda: We must help provide accurate and timely information where there is none and deliver it in the languages people speak.”

Daniel Twining, president of the International Republican Institute in Washington, told the committee that China’s ambition is based on ethno-nationalism and a pledge to return China to the center of global events, using its economic strength to bend other countries to its will.

“Political leaders around the world who have taken steps to stand up to PRC bullying and aggression have found themselves on the receiving end of economic coercion designed to turn their business communities against them,” he said.

Twining noted China’s repression in Xinjiang as an example of its authoritarian bent.

“The ongoing suffering of the Uyghur people of Xinjiang — and the feebleness of the international community’s response to what independent tribunals have determined is an ongoing genocide — show that in at least one important way, China has already succeeded in building a new world even if many people in Washington and other world capitals did not yet realize it,” he said.

Also on Tuesday, President Joe Biden signed into law an omnibus spending bill to fund the government, including RFA’s parent organization, the United States Agency for Global Media, for the rest of the fiscal year.

The legislation increases RFA’s funding by 30 percent, to $62.3 million from $47.6 million, a record increase for the 25-year-old digital news outlet.

“We are absolutely thrilled by this momentous development,” RFA President Bay Fang said in an email to employees. “It is the result of a constant effort over the last year to showcase our amazing journalism and our great potential.

“With autocracy and media repression on the rise around the world, RFA’s mission to bring accurate news and information to people who can’t otherwise get it is more important than ever,” she said.

The spending bill also increased the budgets of RFA’s sister organizations Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and the Open Technology Fund that collectively provide accurate information to audiences around the world in support of freedom and democracy.

The U.N. is asking Beijing not to repatriate seven detained refugees from North Korea who escapee rights groups say would face severe retribution from the government if returned to their home country.

In a letter to the Chinese government, the U.N. human rights officials also ask for information about the detainees, one of whom is reportedly in poor health, and the charges they face, their legal status and the measures Chinese authorities are taking to protect them.

Although the Chinese government has pledged to adhere to the U.N. convention forbidding countries to return refugees to their home countries if they will face serious threats to their life or freedom, Beijing claims it must return North Koreans found to be illegally within Chinese territory under two bilateral border and immigration pacts.

“We are concerned that these seven refugees are facing the risk of forcible repatriation in violation of the principle of non-refoulement. We are also concerned about the information that [name redacted] health condition is not good,” the letter stated.

It was signed by Tomás Ojea Quintana, the U.N.’s special rapporteur on North Korean Human Rights, and Nils Meltzer, the special rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

The letter was dated Feb. 15 and released by the U.N. on March 11. The names of the detainees and the places of their arrests were obscured to protect their identities.

The two U.N. officials emphasized that there were multiple appeals to the Chinese government to prevent the repatriation of North Korean refugees in China. Forced repatriations endanger people’s lives and can destroy families, they said in the letter.

Deporting the seven refugees would be a clear violation of international law, Su Bo Bae of the Seoul-based Database Center for North Korean Human Rights, told RFA.

She said that North Korean refugees returned home have been tortured and sexually assaulted, although there is some indication the government may be moving away from relying on violence as a means of punishment in these cases.

“There was a guidance that came down from the top telling the Security Department, the Ministry of Security, or the officials in each detention facility not to torture or beat the repatriated people. Perhaps that’s why the most recent testimonies regarding serious human rights violations, such as forced abortions and infanticide, are decreasing,” Su said.

The issue of North Korean refugees in China is a wide-ranging international problem, not just concerning China, North Korea and South Korea, said Kim Youngja, director general of the Seoul-based Citizens’ Alliance for North Korean Human Rights.

“The South Korean government must tell the Chinese government that it intends to protect North Korean refugees in China in any positive way,” Kim said. “The international community, including the United Nations, should actively speak up and not let the attention fade.”

Last month’s letter echoes one U.N. rights officials sent to the Chinese government in August asking them to provide information on at least 1,170 North Korean refugees known at that time to have been detained in China. They feared that those refugees were facing the risk of forcible repatriation.

The Chinese government replied in September, arguing that the “principle of non-refoulement” did not apply to these cases because the persons were illegal immigrants and not refugees.

RFA reported in July 2021 that 50 North Koreans were loaded onto buses in the Chinese border city of Dandong and taken across the Yalu River. Sources said Chinese onlookers were hostile to the police, warning that they were effectively sending the refugees to their deaths.

Hundreds of thousands of North Koreans fled to China to escape a mid-1990s famine, with about 30,000 making their way to South Korea. As many as 60,000 North Koreans remain in China, despite having no legal status. Some have married Chinese nationals.

RFA reported in August that police had begun actively arresting North Korean spouses of Chinese nationals after a long period of time during which they were treated leniently.

Translated by Claire Lee and Leejin Jun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

Thugs with steel pipes attacked members of the Yao ethnic minority community in Vietnam’s Lao Cai province on Monday as they protested the construction of a hydropower plant they said would block the water source they rely on for salmon farming.

Residents are trying to block construction of the project because they say it has contaminated water on a nearby spring, killing their fish, and Vietnamese project developer May Ho Energy Company Ltd. has not offered inadequate compensation to cover their losses.

“The company has been carrying out the construction work without paying [enough] compensation to local residents,” a resident surnamed Lo told RFA by text message.

But when members of the Dao Do (Red Yao) community gathered to stop work on the plant in a hamlet of Sa Pa town, the company hired thugs to “suppress them,” Lo said.

“Being beaten, the residents had to resist,” he said. “Because the thugs all used steel tubes, the residents had to pick up bricks [to throw] to fight back.”

A video shot by a protester shows dozens of people in plainclothes with steel tubes approach and attack local residents who had gathered peacefully.

The incident quickly escalated and turned into a clash when the locals fought back.

Vuong Trinh Quoc, who is the chairman of the town’s People’s Committee, told state media that locals assaulted construction workers, leaving eight workers injured.

Many residents, including Lo, denied the report and said they were not the instigators. He expressed anger about the incident on social media after seeing Quoc’s statement in the media.

Another resident who gave her name as May also said that those who had assaulted locals were thugs hired to attack them.

RFA could not reach Quoc for comment, but later contacted Pham Tien Dung, vice chairman of the town’s People’s Committee, who said he was not authorized to speak with the media about the incident.

RFA could not reach the local representative of the May Ho Energy Company for comment, despite making several calls.

The private company registered in April 2017 received a project license for construction of the hydropower plant in May 2021. Building work began the following month.

The project falls under a category that allows the state to appropriate land for the purpose of national development, according to a report by state-run Vietnam News Agency.

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

As the war in Ukraine drags on, with no clear-cut Russian victory in sight, we are seeing important parallels with the conflict in Myanmar, which has fallen from the headlines.

The Russian offensive in Ukraine has faltered, and there has been a heavier reliance on indiscriminate air attacks with non-precision guided munitions and artillery. The Russians don’t have sufficient forces to capture and hold cities, so they surround them and use long-range artillery fire.

They are intentionally targeting civilians, apartment blocks, and hospitals. Like Myanmar’s military, Russian forces have laid siege and prevented humanitarian convoys from reaching civilians. There can be no pretense that this is simply collateral damage.

The Tatmadaw, as the Myanmar military is known, has razed villages, burning down at least 6,700 homes, according to the group Data for Myanmar. It’s a punitive act because they cannot hold territory. And yet their ruthless “Four Cuts” strategy – employed for decades to deny insurgents support from local people – has not deterred the public from supporting the shadow National Unity Government since last year’s coup.

Both Russia and Myanmar rely on poorly trained, conscript militaries, with low morale. As Russian forces have been depleted through deaths, injury or desertion, we are seeing the leadership call up mercenaries from Chechnya, Syria, and their own Wagner Group, a Russian paramilitary organization. In Myanmar, where the Tatmadaw has been slowly hollowed out, there is greater reliance on the pro-junta Pyu Saw Htee militia.

Both regimes have stepped up arrests of dissenters. Russia has imposed almost a total blackout of media not under state control, forcing most foreign reporters from its borders. Russia is transforming its internet into a Chinese-style intranet. In Myanmar, there have been attempts to shut down the internet in the conflict-wracked regions like Sagaing to prevent evidence of government atrocities, while policing social media to target dissent. In both countries, the assaults and arrests of journalists continue apace. As in the towns and cities that the Russians occupy, the Myanmar military has been summarily executing civilians.

The leadership of both countries believe that if they act with enough violence they can submit the civilian population to their will and will be able to evade all accountability. In recent fighting in Myanmar, over five dozen civilians were burnt to death. Neither government tries to hide their war crimes; indeed they want them there for all to see, as a warning of things to come.

There is a shared belief that they can weather international sanctions and both governments are displaying callous disregard for the economic crisis that they are causing their populations. Both have quickly reversed over a decade of economic progress. The junta in Myanmar oversaw an 18 percent contraction of the economy in 2021, and more than half the population now lives in poverty. Both regimes are sanctioned, and have seen much of their trade diminish. Today the citizens of Yangon are experiencing electric shortages and a lack of water.

The wars in both countries have seen incredible courage against all odds. We’ve witnessed valiant fighting by Ukrainians defenders as well as by Myanmar’s People’s Defense Forces (PDFs) and their allied Ethnic Armed Organizations (EAOs). But they are up against insurmountable odds. Even if the Tatmadaw has a smaller fighting force than is often suggested, it is still larger and better resourced than the PDFs, with the power of conscription.

Like the Russian army, the Tatmadaw is weaker and more poorly armed than budgets would suggest because of endemic corruption. Authoritarianism tends to weaken most institutions including the security services. When PDFs display captured equipment or army prisoners of war, it’s pretty shocking how poorly armed and equipped they are, given the military’s primacy and budget. But clearly much of the military budget goes to prestige items while young conscripts fighting the war remain poorly fed, armed, and equipped.

The PDFs continue to have significant challenges in raising funds and acquiring arms and ammunition. Recently we’ve seen several battles that have left about dozen PDF personnel killed having run out of ammunition. The NUG just announced that their PDFs will have a $30 million budget this year. While that’s significant amount for sub-state militia, it is paltry compared to the resources of the Tatmadaw. Just through their asymmetrical dominance in materiel, the Russian military and the Tatmadaw are able to grind out a long war.

Like the Ukrainian forces, the PDFs and their affiliated EAOs have high morale, relatively good discipline, and a just cause that they are fighting for. They hold themselves to higher standards on the battlefield in terms of trying not to commit war crimes, intentionally target civilians, or looting and pilfering. And unlike the Tatmadaw or the Russians, they enjoy overwhelming popular support.

The one thing that the PDFs and EAOs have not focused on sufficiently is targeting the Tatmadaw’s long and vulnerable supply lines. The Myanmar military has never fought on as many fronts simultaneously and they have never had to fight in the ethnic majority Bamar heartland. The Ukrainians have taken advantage of this vulnerability to a much greater degree. While the NUG may beg for the provision of manpads – portable, surface-to-air missiles – the best way to target the military’s air assets is by targeting the supply of jet fuel.

As much as we can root for the underdogs in Ukraine and Myanmar, neither is likely to win a clear-cut military victory. But they don’t have to. Guerrilla forces simply have to not lose. They have to wear down the occupying force, trap them in a war of attrition that forces them to further alienate the population through barbaric attacks and systematic human rights abuses. And in that regard the PDFs are doing admirably.

In both cases, the way the conflicts likely end is from within. In Russia, the oligarchs may not pose a challenge to President Vladimir Putin simply because they do not control any coercive instruments. The threat Putin faces comes from his own security services, which he appears to be scapegoating for the military’s poor performance.

The real threat to junta leader Min Aung Hlaing and his deputy Soe Win comes from lower-ranking generals and colonels who have not shared in the military regime’s spoils. These are the people who have to execute the war and who understand that given the rate of casualties and defections that they do not have the manpower to hold territory. These are the people that know how despised the military is and how little legitimacy its regime has. They are the people who know that the war is unwinnable and have an interest in protecting what’s left of the military’s political, economic, and institutional interests. They know they can only do that through a negotiated settlement and that is impossible with this senior leadership still in place.

Zachary Abuza is a professor at the National War College in Washington and an adjunct at Georgetown University. The views expressed here are his own and do not reflect the position of the U.S. Department of Defense, the National War College, Georgetown University or RFA.

An anonymous Twitter account has started translating online internet comment about the Russian invasion of Ukraine from inside the Great Firewall for readers outside China, in a bid to highlight online opinion about the war, which has been heavily influenced by ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) propaganda and a ban on criticism of Russia.

The crowd-sourced Great Translation Movement account @TGTM_Official on Twitter features online comments made on Chinese social media platforms rendered into English by volunteer translators, one participant told RFA.

The account started out in mid-February, amid growing tensions between Russia and Ukraine, with volunteers selecting and tweeting various examples of Chinese online comment using the hashtag #TheGreatTranslationMovement in various languages.

Most of the topics are selected by the volunteers and then submitted to the account, the volunteer said.

The account was later subjected to huge volumes of complaints to Twitter, as pro-CCP commentators tried to get it taken down, with some of its tweets blocked, and huge volumes of pro-CCP comments using its hashtag.

On the pandemic, the account has also made some revealing tweets, translating social media comments that agree with CCP claims that the SARS-CoV2 virus originated in the United States.

“This is the real view of the Chinese on Weibo, with the highest likes reaching 76k,” the account tweeted. “Almost everyone believes that COVID19 was deliberately created by the United States.”

The account has been criticized for portraying people in China in a poor light, and potentially sparking anti-Asian racism.

“We do not discriminate at all,” the volunteer said. “Because we are only translating their actual words.”,

“We leave that translated content for the public to make up its own mind,” he said.

Naked hatred

He said some of the content is shocking and involves people taking pleasure in acts of extreme animal cruelty, as well as showing naked hatred of people from Hong Kong and Taiwan.

“Some people lack awareness, and post content when they have no idea how horrible it is,” the volunteer said. “This is the sort of collective unconscious behavior that the CCP wants to cultivate; fanatical patriotism and love for the party.”

“If you’ve read George Orwell’s 1984, you’ll have some idea of this,” the volunteer said.

Taiwan-based dissident Gong Yujian said the Great Translation Movement account had indeed exposed the ugly workings of the Chinese internet under the CCP.

“I can actually say without hesitation that Chinese nationalism has that Wolf Warrior character that has become very belligerent, unfriendly, and irrational under the long-term deception and brainwashing of the Communist Party,” Gong told RFA. Wolf Warrior was a blockbuster movie whose blunt jingoism has been embraced by Chinese diplomats and keyboard warriors.

“Basically, in their eyes, Ukraine is the aggressor, while Russia has become the invaded country, the weaker party,” he said. “Their ideas are totally back to front.”

He said the translation movement had exposed content that is intended for domestic consumption to the international community.

“There is official Chinese internal propaganda and official external propaganda, and they are very clearly distinguished from each other,” Gong said. “This translation account has exposed what was considered internal propaganda to specific groups overseas.”

“For the CCP, it’s a very advanced form of subversion.”

Taiwan Democracy Lab chairman Shen Po-yang agreed.

“They don’t do much [propaganda] in English, which is left mostly to the official media, after [the propaganda department] sets the tone,” he said. “Such comments [as those translated] have a huge impact in China, but have been fairly low profile in the Western world.”

“[These translations] are letting everyone know China’s position, which isn’t very good for China,” Shen said.

Idolizing Putin

In one translated post from Chinese social media, a screenshot of Russian President Vladimir Putin standing in front of a crowd with the caption “Half the countries in the world are bullying this man” garners tens of thousands of comments from social media users in China.

“A glimpse inside how Putin is being idolized on Chinese Tiktok (Douyin),” the account comments, quoting one user as commenting “We. China. Are here for you. Hang in there.”

Other comments call Putin a “legendary figure who will go down in history,” while another tweet focuses on lewd comments made by accounts with profiles bearing photos of women about the Russian leader’s supposed masculine prowess.

“Sorry, we’ve translated something more vulgar that might make you uncomfortable,” the account quips.

It also posted a Putin fan video, translating the voice-over as saying “I admire Putin’s toughness,” and a tweet detailing how widely accepted the Russian claim that the U.S. is running bioweapons laboratories in Ukraine is inside China, where most people only have access to footage and storylines from the Russian media, via state news organizations who rebroadcast them as fact.

Social media users comment that the U.S. is guilty of “a very serious crime against humanity.” “Due to the deliberate guidance of CCTV news, Chinese hatred of Americans has reached a historical peak, and it is difficult to find a neutral reply,” the account commented.

Another video translated and tweeted by the account showed Chinese schoolchildren talking about the Russian invasion as a “special military operation” and repeating claims that the Russian army had destroyed the Ukrainian military within a couple of hours.

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

The United States has expressed concern over close ties between China and Russia, following several media reports that Beijing is open to Russian requests for military assistance.

Reuters, CNN and the Financial Times all reported that U.S. officials had told allies by cable that Beijing could help Russia out in a number of ways, with CNN reporting that the Kremlin had asked for Chinese military rations.

In a background briefing to journalists following a meeting in Rome between National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and senior Chinese diplomat Yang Jiechi, U.S. officials declined to confirm or deny the reports, but said they had concerns about the relationship.

“I’m just going to reiterate that we do have deep concerns about China’s alignment with Russia at this time,” a senior U.S. official told a White House conference call. “And the National Security Advisor was direct about those concerns and the potential implications and consequences of certain actions [during the meeting with Yang].” 

But he declined to comment further, saying Washington was in direct contact with Beijing.

“We’re not communicating via the press with China. We’re communicating directly and privately,” the official said.

International relations commentator Wu Qiang said that while China has no wish to see the collapse of Russian president Vladimir Putin’s government, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is likely to be far more concerned with minimizing the damage to China on the world stage than with supporting its “rock-solid” ally at all costs.

China has refused to criticize the Russian invasion of Ukraine since the war began, preferring instead to repeat calls for a diplomatic solution to both nations’ security concerns.

“[China’s] position on the Ukraine war has changed from defending Putin’s interests to defending China’s, since the start of the war,” Wu said. “However, geopolitical security is a secondary consideration.”

He said Beijing was unlikely to sign up for formal allyship on the lines of the Axis powers during World War II, but was highly likely to render assistance to Russia in a way that would avoid international sanctions.

“This war has put China in a similar situation to the Korean War in 1950,” Wu said. “They will be happy to follow that model so as to avoid sanctions and implication in the eyes of the international community … while helping to prop up Putin’s regime.”

If Putin falls, there will be a political backlash for Beijing, he said.

“Should Putinism fail, decline or the regime suddenly collapse, China will face an unpredictable chain reaction in its domestic political sphere,” Wu said. “It would be similar to the impact of on China after the collapse of the Soviet Union.”

Wang Hung-jen, associate professor at Taiwan’s National Cheng Kung University, said China has scant reason to cooperate with U.S. policy aims regarding Ukraine.

“Their relationship with Russia is better than their relationship with the U.S., so they have no reason to cooperate with U.S. policy,” Wang said. “I think the U.S. is worried about that.”

“Naturally, they don’t want to fall out with the U.S., nor do they wish to stand in confrontation with the entire Western world,” he said. “They want to try to please everyone and remain neutral, keeping a distance from the Ukraine issue, and extricating themselves as soon as they can.”

“I think they will still assist [Russia], but they may weigh up carefully how to do this,” Wang said.

China has banned any criticism of Russia from its tightly controlled internet. 

However, a March 5 essay by Hu Wei, vice-chairman of the Public Policy Research Center of the Counselor’s Office of the State Council and chairman of Shanghai Public Policy Research Association, said the Russian invasion had caused “great controversy” in China, with scant common ground between supporters and those who oppose it.

Hu, who’s essay has been deleted from China’s internet, describes Putin’s military action as “an irreversible mistake” that was unlikely to yield any sort of victory for Russia, whether on the battlefield or at the negotiating table.

Whatever the outcome, China risks becoming further isolated from the international community.

“If China does not take proactive measures to respond, it will encounter further containment from the U.S. and the West,” Hu warned. “China cannot be tied to Putin and needs to cut him off as soon as possible.”

Hu argued that China’s insistence on “playing both sides” and staying neutral was failing to help Russia, and had infuriated everyone else.

“The bottom line is to prevent the U.S. and the West from imposing joint sanctions on China,” he wrote.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian dismissed the media reports about military assistance to Russia as “malicious disinformation.”

“We have been playing a constructive part in promoting peace talks,” Zhao told a regular news briefing in Beijing on Monday. “The top priority at the moment is for all parties to exercise restraint, cool the situation down instead of adding fuel to the fire, and work for diplomatic settlement rather than further escalate the situation.”

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.