Month: April 2022

Chinese leader Xi Jinping has called on China’s young people to get behind the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in a recent visit to a university reminiscent of the Mao era, as “little red books” of his personal brand of ideology made an appearance in Guangxi.

In an April 25 speech to staff and students, Xi said young people should: “Unswervingly obey the party, follow its direction, and strive to grow into heirs of the era worthy of the important task of national rejuvenation.”

The visit came ahead of the anniversary of a century-old student-led May Fourth Movement (1919) previously lauded by Xi for its “patriotic spirit.”

The 100-year-old student-led movement was sparked by popular anger at the Treaty of Versailles and the concession of a huge tract of Chinese territory to Japan.

Describing the country’s youth as the “oar,” and Xi’s Chinese Dream slogan as the “sail,” Xi appeared to encourage young people to travel the country, as they did during the decade of political turmoil instigated by Mao and now known as the Cultural Revolution.

“Measure the motherland with your footsteps, discover the spirit of China with your eyes, listen to the voice of the people with your ears, and sense the pulse of the times with your hearts,” Xi told them, calling for “creative transformation and innovative development” stemming from traditional Chinese culture.

Yet, as he spoke, tens of millions of people remained under a grueling COVID-19 lockdown in Shanghai and other Chinese cities, while Xi addressed students without wearing a mask.

The visit came after authorities in the southwestern region of Guangxi announced the publication of a Mao Zedong-style “little red book” of Xi’s political ideology, an indication of the growing personality cult Xi is seeking to build around himself, analysts said.

Chen Lee-fu, vice president of the Taiwan Professors Association, leaders of dictatorial regimes, including North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and Russian president Vladimir Putin, rarely wear masks, believing that it is detrimental to their strongman image, and makes them look like a patient.

‘Red gene’

However, all of Xi’s entourage were masked, Chen said, sending the message that the country’s leader would be protected from COVID-19, which is currently ripping across the country.

State news agency Xinhua said the visit was significant because Renmin University, also known as the People’s University, was the first to be founded by the CCP.

Xi’s visit on the eve of May 4th was to emphasize that the university must inherit the “red gene,” and cultivate the next generation of socialists, the agency said.

Taiwan-based dissident Gong Yujian said the CCP, for all its idealization of the May Fourth Movement, wouldn’t tolerate any kind of actual protest by young people in real life.

“The CCP won power through rebellion, so no it fears a popular rebellion more than anything,” Gong said. “There are people in Shanghai openly calling for the overthrow of the CCP and of Xi Jinping, but the real threat is the secondary disaster and casualties caused by the inhumane lockdowns, in which people have lost their lives.”

“Only rioting will make Xi Jinping feel any real fear,” he said, speaking as teams of workers continued to put up steel fences blocking major thoroughfares in Shanghai, and walling people into their buildings.

Chen said Xi is currently seeking to build a groundswell of public support ahead of the CCP’s 20th Party Congress later this year, at which he will seek an unprecedented third term in office.

But he said there are key differences between Xi and his late predecessor, Mao Zedong.

“Back then, Mao Zedong called for the elimination of traditional Chinese bureaucracy and elite politics,” Chen said. “He gave young people a plan: to overthrow everything, and start over from scratch.”

“The big dream of young people in the Mao era was to surpass Britain and catch up to the United States.”

Xi’s Red Guards

Chen said the plan was unlikely to work for Xi, despite his recent calls for Chinese economic output to surpass that of the United States this year.

“They have lived through the good years before Trump and Xi Jinping, before the conflict between the US and China,” Chen said. “This is the generation of Alibaba, of free trade and studying overseas.”

“Now studying overseas isn’t an option, Belt and Road projects are failing, the whole country is under pandemic lockdown, and even expressing an opinion online can get you deleted or harassed,” he said. “All of this has happened in the last two or three years.”

“The students know very well that Xi Jinping’s growing power has entailed reductions to their power and freedoms, so there is no way they will truly support him,” Chen said. “How can China imagine it will displace the United States when all the cities are locked down and there’s no food to eat … foreign capital is leaving, and there are no jobs.”

He added: “Chinese universities are no longer places to nurture intellectuals and independent thought. They are the cradle of the CCP … places for Xi Jinping to cultivate his own army of Red Guards.”

Sweden-based Zhang Yu, secretary-general of the Independent Chinese PEN Association, said the reappearance of the little red books in Guangxi are evidence of a nationwide propaganda campaign encouraging the cult of personality around Xi ahead of the 20th Party Congress.

“With this mass propaganda movement in Guangxi, they are stepping up the praise of Xi and his so-called ideology in China ahead of the 20th Party Congress,” Zhang told RFA. “They absolutely want to try to recreate the collective hysteria of the Cultural Revolution [1966-1976].”

“The nightmare, it seems, has begun.”

Zhang said the move comes despite a ban on personality cults in the CCP charter, inserted after the fall of the Gang of Four and the death of Mao in 1976.

Little red book

Fellow independent PEN member Zhao Dongji said in an open letter of protest to the the CCP’s disciplinary arm that Guangxi party secretary Liu Ning had breached the party charter, calling for an investigation.

Repeated attempts to call Liu, Guangxi officials and Zhao were unsuccessful at the time of writing.

The propaganda department of the Nanning municipal party committee in Guangxi did not respond to a request for comment.

New York-based activist Hu Ping said Guangxi was likely only a dry run for the little red book, which he said he expects to see rolled out nationwide in the coming months.

“Guangxi must be loyal to the leader, further enhance the cult of personality around Xi Jinping and create immortals, as well as plagiarizing Mao’s little red book,” Hu told RFA.

“By the 20th Party Congress, other regions will launch similar movements to further deify Xi Jinping … a lot of these practices are very similar to those of Mao Zedong during the Cultural Revolution,” he said.

But he said it’s now hard to find true believers in Xi, his brand of political ideology, or in communism generally, among the crowds gathering to idolize him in public, unlike the Cultural Revolution.

“What pithy quotes has Xi ever said that everyone remembers?” Hu said. “At least there was some degree of sincerity in the Mao era and in the personality cult around Mao.”

“Xi Jinping’s personality cult relies on direct suppression [of dissent], and he is constantly putting out fires,” he said. “It’s ridiculous.”

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

Indonesia has asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to be a guest at the G-20 summit, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo said Friday, belatedly confirming an invitation to the war-torn European nation’s leader that the United States had urged him to extend.

The Indonesian president also said that Vladimir Putin, the leader of G-20 member Russia whose military invaded Ukraine in February, had agreed to attend the same summit in Bali in mid-November, although the Kremlin had not confirmed his participation. Indonesia hold this year’s presidency of the grouping of the world’s top 20 economies.

“We know that the G-20 plays the role of catalyst in the global economic recovery and the two things are affecting the global economic recovery in a major way: COVID-19 and the war in Ukraine,” Jokowi said in a speech broadcast on YouTube. 

“It is in this context that I invited President Zelenskyy to attend the G-20 summit,” he said of his call Wednesday with the Ukrainian president.

Meanwhile in Washington on Friday, the Pentagon’s press secretary said that Putin “absolutely shouldn’t be” welcomed at the G-20 summit.

“He isolated Russia by his own actions and should continue to be isolated by the international community … [as one of the] consequences of his actions in Ukraine,” John Kirby told CNN.

A day earlier, when asked whether President Joe Biden would attend the G-20 summit were Putin to attend as well, a White House spokeswoman indicated that a decision had yet to be made.

“[T]he President has been clear about his view: This shouldn’t be business as usual, and that Russia should not be a part of this,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters.

“But, again, [the G-20 summit] six months away; we don’t even have confirmation of these reports [about Putin’s attendance].  So I’m certainly not going to get into a hypothetical in this case.”

Southeast Asia analyst Derek J. Grossman said Indonesia’s invitation to Ukraine reflected its stated foreign policy.

“The nonaligned path in action,” the senior defense analyst at the Rand Corp., a U.S. think-tank, said on Twitter.

Ukraine is not a G-20 member, but Indonesia, as the holder of the group’s presidency, can invite leaders of non-member countries as guests. Zelenskyy on Wednesday pre-empted Indonesia by announcing via Twitter that Jokowi had invited him to the summit.

His attendance at the G-20 summit would “depend mainly on the situation in the battlefield,” Vysotskyi Taras, a senior Ukrainian government official, was quoted by Reuters as saying on Thursday.

‘War must be stopped immediately’

Jokowi, however, said he had turned down a request by Zelenskyy that Indonesia send weapons to Ukraine. 

“I reaffirmed [to Zelenskyy] that in line with our constitution and our independent and active foreign policy, we cannot send arms support to other countries, but we are prepared to send humanitarian aid,” Jokowi said. 

The Indonesian leader also said he had called for an end to the war, in his telephone conversation with Putin on Thursday.   

“It should be underlined that the war must be stopped immediately and peace negotiations be given a chance. Indonesia is ready to contribute to achieving that goal,” Jokowi said.

“President Putin expressed gratitude for the invitation to the G-20 summit and said that he would attend,” he added.

In Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia would prepare for the summit but did not say whether Putin would go to Bali.

“Putin wished success for the Indonesian G-20 presidency and assured that Russia will do everything necessary and everything possible to contribute to it,” Peskov was quoted as saying by the Russian news agency TASS.

But, Peskov said, “it is premature to talk about any other modalities of our participation.”

Last month, President Biden said Ukraine should be able to participate in the G-20 summit, if the grouping did not expel Russia, the country that invaded its smaller neighbor and former Soviet socialist republic next-door on Feb. 24.

Washington went a step farther on April 6, saying that it would boycott some of the group’s meetings if Russian officials attended, which it then did later in the month. 

On April 20, several nations, including Ukraine and the United States, walked out when Russian officials addressed a G-20 meeting convened by Indonesia in Washington. Indonesia had invited all members, including Russia, to attend the group’s meeting of finance ministers and central bank chiefs that day.

Shailaja Neelakantan in Washington contributed to this report for BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service.

Learning to identify and defuse explosives is something Anastasiia Minchukova never thought she would have to do as an English teacher in Ukraine. Yet there she was wearing a face shield, armed with a landmine detector and venturing into a field dotted with danger warnings.

Russia’s war in Ukraine took Minchukova, 20, and five other women to Kosovo, where they are attending a hands-on course in clearing landmines and other dangers that may remain hidden across their country once combat ends.

“There is a huge demand on people who know how to do demining because the war will be over soon,” Minchukova said. “We believe there is so much work to be done.”

The 18-day training camp takes place at a range in the western town of Peja where a Malta-based company regularly offers courses for job-seekers, firms working in former war zones, humanitarian organizations and government agencies.

Kosovo was the site of a devastating 1998-99 armed conflict between ethnic Albanian separatists and Serbian forces that killed about 13,000 people and left thousands of unexploded mines in need of clearing. Praedium Consulting Malta’s range includes bombed and derelict buildings as well as expanses of vegetation.

Instructor Artur Tigani, who tailored the curriculum to reflect Ukraine’s environment, said he was glad to share his small Balkan nation’s experience with the Ukrainian women. Though 23 years have passed, “it’s still fresh in our memories, the difficulties we met when we started clearance in Kosovo,” Tigani said.

Tigani is a highly trained and experienced mine operations officer who served as an engineer in the former Yugoslav army during the 1980s. He has been deployed in his native Kosovo, Sri Lanka, Uganda, Congo, Rwanda and Kenya, and conducted training missions in Syria and Iraq.

During a class last week, he took his trainees through a makeshift minefield before moving to an improvised outdoor classroom featuring a huge board with various samples of explosives and mines.

While it is impossible to assess how littered with mines and unexploded ordnance Ukraine is at the moment, the aftermaths of other conflicts suggest the problem will be huge.

“In many parts of the world, explosive remnants of war continue to kill and maim thousands of civilians each year during and long after active hostilities have ended. The majority of victims are children,” the International Committee of the Red Cross testified at a December U.N. conference.

“Locating (unexploded ordnance) in the midst of rubble and picking them out from among a wide array of everyday objects, many of which are made of similar material is a dangerous, onerous and often extremely time-consuming task,” the Red Cross said.

Mine Action Review, a Norwegian organization that monitors clearance efforts worldwide, reported that 56 countries were contaminated with unexploded ordnance as of October, with Afghanistan, Cambodia and Iraq carrying the heaviest burdens, followed by Angola, Bosnia, Thailand, Turkey and Yemen.

Thousands of civilians are believed to have died in Ukraine since Russia invaded Feb. 24. Russian forces have bombed cities and towns across the country, reducing many to rubble.

Military analysts say it appears Russian forces have employed anti-personnel and anti-vehicle mines, while Ukraine has used anti-tank mines to try to prevent the Russians from gaining ground.

With Ukrainian men from 18 to 60 years old prohibited from leaving their country and most engaged in defending it, the women wanted to help any way they could despite the risks involved in mine clearing.

“It’s dangerous all over Ukraine, even if you are in a relatively safe region,” said Minchukova, who is from central Ukraine.

Another Ukrainian student, Yuliia Katelik, 38, took her three children to safety in Poland early in the war. She went back to Ukraine and then joined the demining training to help make sure it’s safe for her children when they return home to the eastern city of Kramatorsk, where a rocket attack on a crowded train station killed more than 50 people this month.

Katelik said her only wish is to reunite with her family and see “the end of this nightmare.” Knowing how to spot booby-traps that could shatter their lives again is a necessary skill, she said.

“Acutely, probably as a mother, I do understand that there is a problem and it’s quite serious, especially for the children,” Katelik said.

Minchukova, wearing military-style clothes, said she was doubtful that normal life, as they all knew it before the war, would ever fully return.

“What am I missing? Peace,” she said. “I’m dreaming about peace, about sleeping in my bed not worried about going to bomb shelters all the time. I miss the people I lost.”

The Kosovo training center plans to work with more groups of Ukrainian women, both in Peja and in Ukraine.

“We’re planning as well to go to Ukraine very soon and start with delivery of courses there, on the theater” of war, Tigani said.

Source: Voice of America

KABUL, Like other aspects of daily life in Afghanistan, the U.S. sanctions slapped on the country’s new administration has also undermined Afghans’ abilities to get preparation for the Eid al-Fitr celebration.

Abdul Sabir is a Kabul resident, who visited a local market to buy dried fruits and clothes for his children, to celebrate a joyful Eid al-Fitr, but returned home empty-handed.

“I couldn’t buy anything for Eid al-Fitr, even couldn’t buy clothes for the children, because the prices of everything, including the dried fruits have gone up beyond our power purchase. The bazaar has drastically lost the hustle-bustle in compare with last year and people can’t buy what they want,” he said.

Traditionally, as part of their culture, the faithful Afghans buy fresh and dried fruits, cookies, confectioneries, and different kinds of dishes during the three-day Eid al-Fitr festival, to mark the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan, which begins on Monday this year.

After the military withdrawal from Afghanistan, the United States has slapped sanctions on the war-torn country and frozen over 9.5 billion U.S. dollars of its assets in U.S. banks. “America has imposed sanctions on our country and has blocked our money in its banks,” a dried fruit seller, Ahmad Jawad, said.

Lamenting the skyrocketing prices of dried fruits in the market, Jawad said, “The price of one kg almond was 650 afghanis (7.55 U.S. dollars) last year, but it costs 850 afghanis (9.88 USD) now.”

Echoing a similar feeling, a dried fruit shopkeeper named Mohammad Omar, said that, his business had been greatly affected by the increasing poverty among the Afghans, impacted by the U.S. sanctions.

“Last year, ahead of Eid al-Fitr, I used to earn up to 25,000 afghanis (290 USD) every day, but this year I can hardly sell dried fruits worth 10,000 afghanis (116 USD) a day, although the number of buyers reaches its peak,” he said.

Source: Nam News Network

TOKYO, The Japan Coast Guard said yesterday that, the tourist boat that went missing six days ago, with 26 people on board, was found underwater off Hokkaido in northern Japan.

The 19-tonne Kazu I, was located yesterday, after the Maritime Self-Defence Force conducted a search with an underwater camera, off the Shiretoko Peninsula, in north-eastern Hokkaido.

So far, the bodies of 14 people have been retrieved, since the boat went missing on Apr 23. Twelve people remain unaccounted for.

The tourist boat was discovered at a depth of around 100 metres near the Kashuni Falls, a popular scenic site near the tip of the peninsula, where the boat reported, it took in water and issued a distress call.

The Japan Coast Guard sent out patrol boats to the area where the boat reported the emergency and later conducted a search and rescue.

The Kazu I was sailing to the Shiretoko Peninsula, which was designated as a UNESCO World Natural Heritage site in 2005, despite bad weather forecasts and warnings.

Source: Nam News Network