Day: March 28, 2022

New Zealand’s leader voiced grave concern Monday over a draft security agreement between China and the Solomon Islands that, if approved, could see Beijing establish a military base in the South Pacific.

Australia’s prime minister also reiterated his nation’s concern about the planned agreement that was leaked online last week.

The security pact would allow Beijing to set up military bases and deploy troops in the Pacific island nation, “marking the start of a much sharper military competition than anything we’ve seen in the region for decades,” said David Capie, director of the Centre for Strategic Studies at the Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Adern said on Monday that her country sees the pact as “gravely concerning.”

“We see such acts as a potential militarization of the region and also see very little reason in terms of the Pacific security for such a need and such a presence,” Adern told Radio NZ when asked about a possible stationing of Chinese military ships in the Solomon Islands.

Meanwhile, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison was quoted by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation as saying that the agreement was a “reminder of constant pressures and threats that present in our region to our own national security.”

Morrison was due to speak to leaders of Papua New Guinea and Fiji on Monday to discuss the matter which he called “an issue of concern for the region, but it has not come as a surprise.”

Capie said that if approved by the Solomon Islands’ cabinet, the agreement “would allow the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to deploy police and military personnel to Solomon Islands with the consent of the host government, and potentially provide for refueling and support of Chinese ships.

‘Clear evidence of Beijing intention’

According to Capie, there have been a lot of reports in recent years about China looking to improve its access to South Pacific states and “possibly seeking some sort of military or dual-use facility.”

“Some of the stories seemed pretty fanciful, but this draft agreement is clear evidence of Beijing’s ambitions,” he said.

China has denied any ulterior motives beyond promoting “regional peace and stability.”

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said: “As two sovereign and independent states, China and Solomon Islands conduct normal law enforcement and security cooperation on the basis of equality and mutual benefit.”

“We hope relevant sides will look at this in an objective and rational light and refrain from reading too much into it,” Wang said.

China has growing interests in the region including trade, investments, a sizeable diaspora and a large deep water fishing fleet.

But Capie noted that China “also wants to be able to operate its rapidly growing navy out in the wider Pacific, complicating U.S. plans in the event of a future conflict.”

“A base in the Pacific would let People’s Liberation Army Navy vessels operate far away from their home ports for longer and in the future might also be used for intelligence gathering and surveillance,” he said.

The draft agreement would still need to go through the Solomon Islands cabinet and “there will be plenty of twists and turns before this is a done deal, if it ever is,” the New Zealand analyst said.

Junta chief Snr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing vowed to crush the country’s opposition in an address marking Armed Forces Day over the weekend, but observers said Monday that the regime must negotiate if it hopes to maintain its grasp on power.

Speaking in Naypyidaw on Sunday, Min Aung Hlaing condemned the shadow National Unity Government (NUG) for trying to unseat him and said the junta will not take part in a dialogue with the group.

“We, the military, are fighting internal insurgency and terrorism to bring peace and stability to the whole country,” he said.

“We will not negotiate with these groups or their minions who are killing innocent people and government servants and threatening the nation’s peace and stability,” he added, referring to People’s Defense Force (PDF) paramilitary units that have aligned with the NUG and are fighting government troops throughout the country.

Min Aung Haing’s delivered his ultimatum a year to the day that security forces killed as many as 163 anti-coup protesters in what is thought to be the bloodiest day of violence in Myanmar since the military seized power in a Feb. 1, 2021, coup.

His comments also came four days after a March 21-23 visit by Prak Sokhonn, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ (ASEAN) special envoy on the situation in Myanmar. Although he traveled to the country with the goal of meeting all the country’s stakeholders, Prak Sokhonn did not meet with anyone from the NUG during his trip. He said that a request to speak with Aung San Suu Kyi, the detained head of the deposed National League for Democracy (NLD), was blocked by the junta.

Since the coup, authorities have killed more than 1,700 civilians and detained nearly 9,950 others — mostly during peaceful anti-junta protests, according to the Bangkok-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. However, the junta has faced tough resistance since launching offensives against ethnic insurgents and branches of the PDF loyal to the NUG in the country’s remote border regions.

A report released last week by the Myanmar Institute for Strategic and Policy Studies documented at least 3,302 clashes across the country in the 13 months after the military coup, a three-fold increase from prior to the takeover.

Kyaw Zaw Han, a military and national security analyst at the Australian National Security College, told RFA that the junta cannot end unrest in Myanmar through fighting alone and will eventually have to invite the NUG to the negotiating table.

“The military says it will not discuss peace [with NUG] because it is a terrorist organization, but this is wrong. Most governments, when they have the upper hand or want others to believe they have the upper hand, make comments like these,” he said.

“There are many examples of governments holding talks with organizations they declared terrorists,” he added. “Negotiations will eventually take place when there is a balance of power.”

Fighting expands

Naing Htoo Aung, permanent secretary of the NUG’s defense ministry, said that by pledging to crush the shadow government and the PDFs, Min Aung Hlaing is signaling that he intends to ratchet up repression of Myanmar’s public as well.

“He said he would crush the CRPH [Pyidaungsu Hluttaw Committee of Representatives], formed by people’s elected representatives, the NUG, which is recognized by the people as their government, and the PDFs, which were created by the people and enjoy their full support,” he said.

“This indicates he will continue oppressing the population. Therefore, we will continue our fight to reach our goal of establishing a democratic state.”

Min Zaw Oo, a security and military observer, told RFA’s Myanmar Service that the fighting is likely to worsen because of Min Aung Hlaing’s decision to rule out talks.

“The number of battles has increased [since the coup] and expanded to areas where there were no battles before,” he said.

“Large-scale battles are unlikely, especially this year, as the PDF forces do not have enough weapons or ammunition. However, there could be serious fighting in areas close to territories controlled by [insurgent groups].”

Prak Sokhonn’s visit last week was highly anticipated by observers who say that leaders of the NLD, which won Myanmar’s November 2020 election by a landslide, and other stakeholders must be given a seat at the table for any negotiations on the country’s political future.

Allowing the ASEAN envoy to meet with all parties is a key stipulation of the Five-Point Consensus agreed to by Min Aung Hlaing during an emergency gathering of the bloc in April last year. However, ASEAN operates under a policy of non-interference in the internal affairs of its member nations and such agreements are non-binding.

At the end of his trip, Prak Sokhonn acknowledged that the junta had failed to make any real progress on implementing the other points it agreed to in the 5PC, including ending the use of violence against civilians. He said ASEAN would refrain from inviting its representatives to bloc gatherings until it had done so, a policy that has been in place for months.

International arms trade

While ASEAN has attempted to work with the junta to end violence in Myanmar, other members of the global community have sought to force it to do so through sanctions and condemnation.

Nonetheless, the junta continues to enjoy support from some of its closer allies, including Russia and China, which have sold arms and attack aircraft to the regime.

On Sunday, the rights group Justice For Myanmar said in a statement that as a major supplier of arms and dual use goods to Myanmar’s military, Russia is “aiding and abetting the military’s genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity,” and called for international action to stop the trade.

It called for sanctions against 19 companies that it said have supplied Myanmar since 2018, including multiple subsidiaries of the Russian state-owned arms giant, Rostec, as well as manufacturers of missile systems, radar and police equipment. The group said many of the companies it identified have exported to Myanmar since the coup.

In its statement, Justice For Myanmar also urged the government of Singapore to take action against brokers who facilitate payments for the arms purchases from within its borders. 

“Russia’s arms industry earns big profits from the Myanmar military’s atrocities,” said Justice For Myanmar spokesperson Yadanar Maung.

“We call on the international community to … impose a global arms embargo on the Myanmar military junta and targeted sanctions on all Russian companies supplying the Myanmar military. It’s time to hold arms traders accountable for aiding and abetting international crimes.”

Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

Many of the 175 activists sentenced to death or long prison terms by the Myanmar junta’s secret military courts operating inside the country’s most notorious prison are between the ages of 23 and 27 — an apparent effort to undercut the youth activism driving the resistance to the country’s military rulers — according to data compiled by RFA.

Military tribunals inside Insein Prison in the outskirts of Yangon have sentenced most of the young adults held there, many of whom are university students, to the harshest possible punishments since the junta overthrew the elected government in a February 2021 coup, said the families and colleagues of the detainees.

The RFA tally shows that in all, 103 civilians have been sentenced to death and 72 others have received long jail terms, including life in prison, for allegedly leading anti-junta protest leaders and having ties to terrorist groups.

Across the country, the junta has arrested nearly 13,000 people since the coup, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a Thailand-based rights group. Insein, the most prominent and notorious detention center of Myanmar’s 56 penitentiaries, has been the primary destination for many.

Min Han Htet of the Dagon University Students’ Union said authorities arrested and tried 35 students from his university, seven of whom were sentenced to 10 years in jail, life imprisonment or death.

“They are trying to make people realize that if you go out on the streets and protest against them, you could get a death penalty or jail sentences of 10 years or more,” he said. “They hope that parents or elders will become frightened and stop their children or family members from joining the protests.”

But most young people will not be deterred by the possibility of arrests and harsh sentences, he said.

Saung Le Pyae, a chemistry student at Dagon University, was accused of assassinating a high school teacher in Yangon’s North Okkalapa township and sentenced to death on March 17. Another student, Naing Aung, received a life sentence the same day in connection with the alleged shooting death of a ward administrative official in Hlaingthaya township, according to their families and activists.

The mother of 23-year-old Wai Yan Phyo Moe, the vice chairman of the All Burma Federation of Student Unions who was sentenced to five years and one month in prison, said she was worried about all the young detainees.

“They have joined the protests of their own will because they could not stand this kind of oppression,” she told RFA. “When they were outside before the arrests, we worried. Once inside the prison, we still have to worry what might happen next. The military did whatever they wanted because there has been no such thing as a rule of law after the military takeover.”

When the Wai Yan Phyo Moe’s mother saw him in Insein prison in February, she said he looked like he had been severely beaten. But he told her that his injuries were not serious, she said.

No leniency

Khin Maung Myint, a veteran lawyer who has represented many detainees, said the judiciary is now under the full control of the military council, whose courts are handing down an unprecedented level of maximum sentences to detained protesters.

“They never consider leniency or take into consideration all the salient facts surrounding the cases,” he said.

The relatives of prisoners who have been tried by the courts at Insein say the courts appear to take orders from top divisional military commanders. That reduces the chances of successfully appealing a decision, given that the highest authority in the military tribunal system is the chairman of the State Administration Council, the formal name of the junta-run government under Senior General Min Aung Hlaing.

Myanmar’s Supreme Court, though the highest civilian court in the country, cannot intervene in cases tried by military tribunals under the Defense Services Act of 1959.

A junta spokesman said that the military tribunals are not inflating jail sentences but are issuing rulings based on the charges brought against defendants.

“Nothing is done outside the law,” said military council spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun. “If they committed a crime, they will be punished accordingly. No one can erase their guilt and their convictions. No one can trump up the charges. According to the laws, judges can only decide whether or not to impose the maximum or minimum sentences.”

Aung Myo Min, who is human rights minister in the cabinet of Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government, said the junta’s hatred for protesters and others who oppose its rule has been clearly visible in military tribunal verdicts.

“The military is acting on the basis of hatred and oppression against all the people who oppose it,” he told RFA. “This hatred is more reflected in the courts’ proceedings and verdicts. There is a tendency to retaliate without any fair judgment against those who oppose them.”

The military council declared martial law on March 15 in six townships in Yangon region — Haingthaya, Shwepyitha, South Dagon, North Dagon, Dagon Seikkan and North Okkalapa — where there is strong popular opposition to the junta. All cases in the townships are being tried by military tribunals.

Of the 45 cases being tried by Yangon region military tribunals, more than 20 are being tried in in Insein Prison, according to RFA’s tally.

Most of the young adults who have received severe punishments in the past 13 months have been prosecuted have been prosecuted under Section 302 of the Penal Code, pertaining to murder, and under the country’s Counterterrorism Law.

In August 2021, Min Aung Hlaing signed an amendment to the Counterterrorism Law, introducing harsher penalties for supporting anti-junta activities.

Reported by RFA’s Myanmar Service. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

The company responsible for Laos’ worst ever dam collapse more than three years ago announced last week that its rebuilt dam would begin releasing water, scaring downstream residents, including survivors of the disaster.

On the night of July 23, 2018, billions of cubic feet of water from a tributary of the Mekong River poured over a collapsed saddle dam at the Xe Pian Xe Namnoy (PNPC) hydropower project following heavy rains in Laos’ Champassak province.

The disaster wiped out all or part of 19 villages, leaving 71 people dead and displacing 14,440.

Since then, a new saddle dam has been completed, and some of the survivors have settled back into areas downstream.

Many of the returned residents were shaken on Friday by PNPC’s announcement that it would start discharging water the next day, forcing many of them to temporarily uproot their lives once again to get to higher ground.

“Oh, we were panicking and we were so worried that the dam would collapse again. They should’ve warned us at least one week earlier,” a resident of Tam Mayor Village, one of four villages downstream in Sanamxay district, home to many survivors of the 2018 disaster, told RFA’s Lao Service.

“Many people didn’t know anything about the warning because they weren’t at home. Most of them were at farms or rice fields,” said the source, who requested anonymity for security reasons.

“As soon as we received the warning, we moved immediately to the hills nearby,” another survivor told RFA.

A third downstream resident told RFA that they did not get the warning from the PNPC but did get a warning from the provincial authorities.

An Attapeu province official confirmed that the PNPC released water Friday.

“They, the company, are working on some repairs to the saddle dam. The water discharge will last for a week. The river water level is rising about a meter,” the official said.

The official said that PNPC called local and provincial authorities to inform residents who live close to the Xe Pian River to move to higher ground.

An employee of the PNPC told RFA that the company was not ready to explain why the dam released water suddenly.

“We can’t say anything much right now. We’re in the process of inspecting. The management team may or may not reveal information,” the PNPC employee said.

The problem could be related to a malfunction in a flood gate, Bryan Eyler, co-lead of the Mekong Dam Monitor project run by the Stimson Center think tank in Washington, told RFA. Satellite imagery suggests the gate has been spilling water since March 25 through at least March 27, he said.

“The flow rate from the flood gate does not appear to pose an immediate threat to downstream communities, but the reservoir is losing water due to the equipment malfunction. Until the gate is closed, the dam company will incur significant income losses to current and future hydropower production,” Eyler said.

 “This saddle dam was built to replace the saddle dam that burst in 2018. Typically saddle dams, which are used to shore up and reinforce the side of a reservoir, do not have flood gates, but I assume the dam operator installed a flood gate in the rebuilt saddle dam to mitigate risk if conditions similar to the 2018 dam burst were to appear to happen again,” he said.

According to records from RFA’s Lao Service, the new saddle dam D was completed in October 2019 and is located one kilometer north of the old one.

The Xe Pian-Xe Namnoy Dam can now produce 410 MW of electricity, 90 percent of which is sold to companies in Thailand.

The $1 billion dam was developed by South Korea’s SK Engineering and Construction and Korea Western Power, Thailand’s Ratch Group and the Lao power state enterprise, Electricite du Laos.

Laos has staked its future on power generation in a controversial bid to become the “Battery of Southeast Asia,” exporting electricity from more than 50 large and small-scale dams on the Mekong River and its tributaries.

Though the Lao government sees power generation as a way to boost the country’s economy, the projects have faced criticism because of their environmental impact, displacement of villagers and questionable arrangements.

Translated by Max Avary. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

Authorities in the North Korean capital Pyongyang are on the look-out for residents who have illegally moved from the city’s outskirts to downtown in search of the good life, sources told RFA.

Living in the capital is a privilege that affords residents better education and career opportunities, access to better food and medical care, and an overall better standard of living than their countrymen confined to the provinces.

Only the most residents deemed to be the most loyal — often those who are the most generous with their donations to the party — are issued permits to reside in Pyongyang.

But even within the capital itself, the gap between the haves and have nots depends on how close their homes are to the city center, and North Korean investigators are searching for residents who don’t belong in the city center, so-called “410ers.”

“The investigation is being conducted in accordance with instructions from the Central Committee to rectify the administrative order in the central district of Pyongyang, where the head office is located,” a resident of the city told RFA’s Korean Service March 22.

“As a result of the investigation, citizens designated as 410ers must return to their original residences on the outskirts of Pyongyang,” she said.

The source said that in her Potonggang district apartment near the city’s center, a resident was discovered to be a 410er from farther out Sadong district, and he was evicted.

“People who live in [the outskirts] cannot enter the city center. When they move to ‘the city’ they belong to the 410 category. … Just as the provincial people cannot live in Pyongyang, 410ers cannot live in the city center,” the source said.

The source said that Pyongyang citizens with residences outside the 10 central districts may have the same Pyongyang residence card, but they are essentially lower-class citizens.

Another Pyongyang resident told RFA the same day that she knew of a 410er who illegally bought an apartment downtown in Songyo district.

“He got caught by the authorities and evicted to his original residence. They confiscated his apartment,” said the second source, who requested anonymity to speak freely.

“But if you officially donate more than U.S. $10,000 in ‘loyalty funds’ to the Pyongyang People’s Committee, you will be allowed to live in the city center even if you are a No. 410 subject,” she said.

A third Pyongyang resident explained to RFA that the classification of people as No. 410 subjects dates back to the era when Kim Il Sung, the current leader Kim Jong Un’s grandfather, was in power.

“Some of the citizens of the outskirts of Pyongyang officially donate their loyalty funds and live in the central area if they can afford it. But, if they don’t have much money, they pay about $2,000 in bribes to law enforcement and People’s Committee officials and move to a central area to live,” she said on condition of anonymity for safety reasons.

“Now the authorities are trying to restore order in the central area and expelling 410s who have moved in illegally by paying bribes. The citizens are angry and complain that the authorities are trying to enforce the separation of the upper and lower classes,” she said.

Housing prices in the city center are 10 times as high as they are in the outskirts, reflecting the gap the availability of necessities like electricity and food, the third source explained.

All Pyongyang citizens receive basic food supplies each month, but central city residents get luxuries like sugar, oil and eggs in their rations.

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

Shanghai’s glitzy financial district on Monday entered the first part of a two-phase, citywide lockdown that will eventually affect most of the city’s 26 million residents, as the municipal government struggles to implement the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s zero-COVID strategy.

Pudong financial district and nearby areas will be locked down from Monday to Friday amid mass, compulsory testing gets, the government said. That will be followed by a five-day lockdown of the Puxi downtown area on the other side of the Huangpu River.

The move comes after a string of more targeted, localized lockdowns failed to curb the spread of infection, with a 3,500 fresh infections announced in the city on Sunday, the majority of which were asymptomatic.

Pudong residents must stay home and await deliveries of food and other essentials, eschewing any contact with the outside world, while “non-essential businesses” and public transportation services are being suspended, with supermarket shelves emptying fast on Sunday as residents scrambled to stock up in time.

People are also barred from visiting grave sites and cemeteries to mark the April 5 Qing Ming festival, with some enterprises, including the city’s stock exchange, allowed to keep working in a closed bubble.

A Taiwanese woman living in Shanghai, who gave only the surname Hsieh, said the notification had left people with scant time to prepare.

“There is basically nobody delivering takeout in Pudong right now,” she said. “I went to the new fresh food distribution center to try to do an early morning shop, and managed to get a few things, like Yakult, but I couldn’t get milk, vegetables or eggs.”

“Pudong is now shut down, and security is pretty tight [across the river] in Puxi,” Hsieh said. “The supermarkets have basically sold out of fresh food.”

Supplies low

The food shortages follow a string of more local lockdowns based on China’s compulsory traffic-light Health Code app, tracking cases and their close contacts.

Local resident Xu Huan said Pudong’s lockdown will end as Puxi’s begins, but there is already a shortage of fresh vegetables.

“We’ve been locked down for nine days, our PCR tests are all negative and we’re not sick [but the police] won’t let us out to take the air, so I may just jump from the building,” Xu said. “That’ll show them.

Minhang district resident Gu Guoping said his community has already been locked down for several days.

“It started a few days ago,” Gu said. “It has really messed up my life. There is a problem with the supply of vegetables, and we’re not allowed out to buy them.”

“There is also the issue of seeking medical treatment with the hospitals closed,” he said, adding that Baoshan resident Zhou Xuezhen had been detained after filming police shutting down a farmers’ market in her district.

Another Shanghai resident, Mao Hengfeng, said Zhou was detained for posted the clip to a social media group chat.

Relocating to factories

Lee Cheng-hung, president of the Shanghai Taiwanese Business Association, said the lockdown isn’t as total as that imposed on the central city of Wuhan in 2020, because the airport remains open, with international passenger and freight services still operating.

“Our factory has shut down production, and the people are staying on company premises, eating and sleeping there, without going out,” he said.

“I am currently sleeping in an office building — there are dormitories at the factory, and most of the factories have shower facilities,” Lee said. “We can buy in four days’ worth of supplies and store them.”

Employees at some companies had decided to move into their workplaces so they could remain in a “bubble” and keep production lines open, Lee said.

“Some people have brought their luggage over to Pudong from Puxi, getting ready to stay at the factory [for the duration],” he said. “Some employees really prefer to do this.”

Impact on chips

Shanghai is an important center for Taiwanese-invested chip foundries, packaging and testing facilities, as well as electric vehicle production, with Pegatron, Quanta, TSMC and ASE all having factories there.

TSMC’s Songjiang plant mainly produces 8-inch wafers, while packager and tester ASE has a large facility there. Laptop-maker Quanta also produces automotive electronic parts in Shanghai, while Pegatron assembles iPhones.

“TSMC is in full compliance with the [Chinese] government’s epidemic prevention measures, which are currently not affecting production,” the company said in a statement to RFA on Monday.

Liu Pei-chen, a researcher and industrial consultant at the Taiwan Economic Research Institute, said the combined revenue of TSMC’s Songjiang plant accounts for just 1.5 percent of TSMC’s overall operations.

“If their 8-inch fab and 2, 3, 5, 6, and 8 eight-inch wafer fabs in Taiwan can increase production, then the current changes in Shanghai will have little impact on TSMC’s operations,” Liu said.

“Taiwan’s overall foundry production accounts for 90 percent of global production, while China’s foundries currently account for 6 percent, while as much as 87 percent of packaging and testing is done in Taiwan,” he said.

Homegrown China Semiconductor (SMIC) also makes has 8-inch and 12-inch integrated chip factories in Shanghai.

‘Living with COVID-19’ strategy

Hsu Cheng-wen, who heads the Federation of Taiwan Enterprises, said the Shanghai lockdown will likely impact the entire domestic economy.

“Shanghai accounts for more than 50 percent of the transportation volume of all people and goods entering China from overseas, so once the city shuts down, the rest of China will also be affected, both economically and in other ways,” Hsu told RFA. “Right now, logistics and freight are still operating.”

“There won’t be a visible impact in the short term, but if it goes on longer, then the effect of this lockdown will be terrible,” he said.

He called on the authorities to move to a “living with COVID-19” strategy.

“Shanghai insists on zero-COVID … I hope we will see some reductions or exemptions in corporate income tax and value-added tax to offset the damage done by the pandemic,” Hsu said.

China detected 1,219 newly confirmed cases of COVID-19 on Sunday, more 1,000 of which were in the northeastern province of Jilin, along with 4,996 asymptomatic cases, the National Health Commission reported on Monday.

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.