Day: April 1, 2022

Public satisfaction with the media in Hong Kong has hit rock bottom, according to a recent public opinion survey.

Satisfaction with the performance of the news media in general hit an all-time low since records began in 1993, according to a survey of 1,004 Cantonese-speaking adults carried out by the Hong Kong Public Institute Research Institute (PORI).

Meanwhile, satisfaction with the freedom of the press in Hong Kong fell by 23 percentage points … its lowest point since records began after the 1997 handover to Chinese rule, PORI said in a report published on Friday.

Just 28 percent of respondents expressed satisfaction with the level of press freedom in Hong Kong, a new low since this question was first asked in September 1997, while 51 percent said they were dissatisfied, the highest level since October 2020.

In addition, a record 46 percent felt that the Hong Kong news media didn’t make full use of what freedom of speech it did have, while 63 percent said the media held back on criticisms of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP), while 51 percent said it avoided criticizing the Hong Kong authorities.

Senior journalist Chris Yeung said the figures were a reflection of an ongoing crackdown on public dissent and political opposition under the CCP’s draconian national security law, which has seen several pro-democracy news outlets forced to close and senior journalists arrested under the law.

“The trend is obvious,” Yeung told journalists on Friday. “At the very least, it’s very clear that the public believes the media has reservations and self-censors when dealing with matters relating to the central government.”

“Many Hong Kong matters now include the point of view of the central government, from the national security law to COVID-19 policy and even the recent [China Eastern] air crash,” Yeung said.

“The media are also careful how they handle other news that isn’t ostensibly political, like the case of Peng Shuai,” he said.

Yeung said the poll results were “absolutely” related to the closure of a number of media outlets including the pro-democracy Apple Daily newspaper and Stand News, Yeung said.

“Diversity of media voices is an very important element of press freedom,” he said, adding that there is really only room for pro-government voices in the Hong Kong media now.

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte said he would meet next week virtually with his “friend,” Chinese leader Xi Jinping, as Filipino and U.S. forces conduct one of their largest joint exercises in years in the Southeast Asian nation bordering the disputed South China Sea.

The presidential office in Manila announced the upcoming meeting while troops, during the Balikatan (“shoulder-to-shoulder”) exercise, participated Thursday in a drill simulating an attack response on a remote beach on the northern tip of Luzon Island that fronts China and Taiwan.

“China is good,” Duterte said, according to transcripts released to the media on Friday. “April 8. Xi Jinping wants to talk to me. We are friends.”

Additional details of the planned meeting were being firmed up on Friday and Duterte’s office had not yet released topics to be discussed by the two leaders.

“[T]his meeting is still in the preparatory stage,” Communications Undersecretary Kristian Ablan said. “So what specific issues will be discussed by the world leaders will be known in the coming days.”

Although the Xi-Duterte meeting will be virtual, it is customary for a Philippine president to visit allies before leaving office. Duterte’s single six-year term ends on June 30.

The 2022 version of Balikatan is the biggest joint exercise involving Philippine and U.S. troops in seven years. About 9,000 troops are involved in the war games, which are schedule to end on April 8, the same day Duterte is to meet with Xi.

The exercise began shortly after the Philippine Coast Guard reported a March 2 “close distance maneuvering” incident involving one of its ships and the China Coast Guard near Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea. Philippine officials said the Chinese ship sailed within 21 meters (69 feet) of the Philippine ship and accused Beijing of violating 1972 international regulations on preventing collisions at sea.

Balikatan comes two months after the Biden administration in the United States introduced a new strategy to increase security engagements in the Indo-Pacific region amid growing concerns about China.

Duterte’s relationships

At the beginning of his term in 2016, Duterte drifted away from traditional ally Washington in favor of China and Russia. Instead of enforcing an international court ruling that invalidated China’s expansive claims to the nearly all of the South China Sea, the president pursued friendlier ties with Xi, leading to increased Chinese investments in the Philippines.

While admitting in 2021 that the court ruling was binding, Duterte continued to emphasize his friendship with the Chinese leader, noting that Manila was indebted to Beijing for providing COVID-19 vaccines in the early days of the pandemic. 

In March 2021, Duterte said he planned to visit China, a country he traveled to six times, to personally thank Xi for the vaccines. Those visits are the most by any Philippine president while in office to a foreign country but Duterte has never visited Washington, according to officials. 

Duterte last traveled to China in August 2019 on a five-day official visit when he raised the landmark arbitral ruling for the Philippines on the South China Sea. 

China has rejected the ruling and insisted on its historical claims over virtually the entire sea region, which the court ruled as having no basis under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

Aside from China and the Philippines, five other Asian governments – Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam – have territorial claims. While Indonesia does not regard itself as a party to the South China Sea dispute, Beijing claims historic rights to parts of the sea overlapping Indonesia’s exclusive economic zone.

Manila has grown critical of Beijing’s actions during the past year, including Chinese fishing boats swarming near the Spratly Islands and Scarborough Shoal. In early March, the Philippines protested a Chinese navy reconnaissance ship’s “illegal incursion” in the Sulu Sea – a move that Beijing said did not break international law.

In a rare move in November 2021, Duterte expressed “grave concern” after a China Coast Guard ship fired water cannon on Filipino supply boats in the disputed waters. 

“We abhor the recent event in the Ayungin Shoal and view with grave concern other similar developments,” Duterte said at the time. 

BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news service.

A university in Italy is investigating allegations of bullying by a Chinese lecturer following a classroom dispute about the status of Taiwan, local media reported.

Complaints were made after Politecnico di Milano architecture lecturer and Chinese national Chen Zhen admonished a student from the democratic island of Taiwan, which has never been ruled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) nor formed part of the People’s Republic of China, for failing to register as “Chinese.”

“I will talk something to Wang, but this is nothing related to the other two Iranian students, so I’m going to speak in Chinese with him, OK?” Chen is seen saying in English at the start of a video clip that he initially posted to his own account on the Chinese social media account WeChat.

The clip was later picked up by Australia-based asylum-seeker Wang Lebao and amplified on Twitter.

Chen continues in Chinese: “So, Wang, it’s not about your thesis. This has nothing to do with the other two students, so I’m going to say this in Chinese … I gave everyone a thesis template, asking them to fill out which city and which country they’re from. You wrote Taipei, Taiwan.”

“The first thing I want to say is, the whole European Union, including Italy, sees Taiwan as a part of China,” he said. “You should know that not a single EU government, nor many others, officially recognizes Taiwan as a country.”

“Your government may like to play word games to fool the people, but they’ve never amended the constitution,” he said.

Taiwan was part of Japanese territory for the first half of the 20th century, before being handed over the 1911 Republic of China under Chiang Kai-shek at the end of World War II. The islands of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu are still governed as a sovereign state under its constitution.

‘Unification’ widely rejected

Recent opinion polls have shown that the majority of its 23 million population don’t identify as Chinese, and have no wish to be governed by Beijing, which has threatened to annex Taiwan by military force to achieve its idea of “unification.”

The “paternalistic and aggressive tone” of Chen’s comments prompted the university investigate, the Today.it news website reported.

Taiwan’s foreign affairs ministry condemned the treatment of Wang as “an abuse of power,” and said it had asked its representative office in Italy to follow up on the matter.

University rector Ferruccio Resta confirmed to the office that the university’s disciplinary committee has begun an investigation into the incident to determine whether Chen’s actions had violated the school’s code of ethics and conduct.

Lee Hsin-ying, Taiwan’s representative in Italy, told Taiwanese students in the country that what had happened was “very wrong,” and a bid to quash any sense of national identity among them.

Article 2 of the code requires the university to “prevent and combat all kinds of discrimination, both direct and indirect,” banning words, actions and procedures that discriminates against people based on gender, ethnic or national origin, sexual orientation, religion, personal or political views, abilities, social background or age,” the website said.

“The Polytechnic should consider it of primary importance not to allow the promotion of the Chinese Communist Party’s world view or propaganda in an Italian university,” the Today.it website said in the commentary article.

“Pending further developments, we ask ourselves: will this lecturer continue to teach at the university, and promote [CCP leader] Xi Jinping thought on socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era?” the article said.

Chinese ‘bullying’ blasted

Italian politicians also hit out at the incident, saying it was “bullying.”

“The Polytechnic of Milan should suspend this teacher should suspend this teacher who attacks and bullies a Taiwanese student by imposing on him a geopolitical lesson using the worst of Chinese propaganda-speak,” Gianni Vernetti, a former senator and deputy minister from the center-left Democratic Party, said via his Twitter account.

And far-right Brothers of Italy senator Lucio Malan accused Chen of trying to “re-educate” the Taiwanese student, saying he would demand an explanation from the relevant government minister.

Milan’s il Giornale newspaper also weighed in with an editorial on Monday noting that Taiwan still has formal diplomatic ties with the Vatican, and is for all practical purposes a sovereign state.

The row came after the 59th Bologna Children’s Book Fair succumbed to pressure from the Chinese government to change the country of origin of Taiwanese artist Pei-Hsin Cho to “Taiwan, China.”

Taiwan’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Joanne Ou condemned the move, and accused China of trying to smear the island for political reasons.

Cho had been holding a solo exhibition at the book fair after winning an award there last year.

“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Taiwan reiterates that Taiwan is a sovereign state of the Republic of China and is not subordinate to the People’s Republic of China,” Ou said.

“The Chinese government has never ruled Taiwan for a day, and naturally has no right to claim to represent Taiwan in the international arena or to devalue the name of the country used by the people of Taiwan to participate in activities.”

“Taiwan and Italy share universal values such as democracy, freedom, and human rights; Taiwan solemnly calls on relevant Italian departments to show courage and reject China’s inappropriate bullying,” she said.

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

Japan plans to hold so-called “two-plus-two” meetings with the Philippines and India to discuss maritime security including in the South China Sea, a move analysts say could send a message to Beijing about Tokyo’s determination to foster ties with like-minded partners.

“Two-plus-two” are ministerial-level meetings that involve both foreign and defense ministers of participating countries.

Unnamed diplomatic sources were quoted by Kyodo News Agency as saying that arrangements are being made for Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi and Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi to meet with their Philippine counterparts in early April, and their Indian counterparts in mid-April in Tokyo.

China’s growing maritime assertiveness is expected to be high on the agenda, and ministers are expected to renew their pledge to promote a “free and open” Indo-Pacific region.

Philippine Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin and Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana are expected to travel to Tokyo for the talks.

The Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed to RFA that Japan and the Philippines are considering the launch of a two-plus-two meeting but maintained that “the timing has not been decided yet.” Neither the Philippine nor Indian foreign ministries responded to requests for comment.

The talks are being planned amid a complex geopolitical backdrop. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, said Friday that he would meet with his “friend” Chinese leader Xi Jinping to discuss territorial disputes in the South China Sea on April 8. Duterte has had limited success in forging a more cooperative relationship with Beijing during his six-year term which ends in June.

China and the Philippines are both claimants in the South China Sea alongside four other parties: Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia and Taiwan. Beijing holds the most expansive claim. While Japan is not a claimant, it is a strategic rival of China, and the two powers have competing claims in the East China Sea.

Huynh Tam Sang, an analyst at Ho Chi Minh City University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Vietnam, said Tokyo’s plans for the two-plus-two talks “could send a nuanced message to Beijing about Japan’s determination to foster security ties with like-minded partners.”

“If Japan could bring the Philippines and India on board for maritime deterrence, it will be a big deal,” said Sang.

The Philippines filed a diplomatic protest this week over a Chinese Coast Guard vessel’s dangerous “maneuvering” in the South China Sea. Beijing rejected the accusation saying China has “sovereign rights and jurisdiction” over the waters.

Japanese and Philippine ministers are expected to discuss arms exports to the Philippines, Kyodo’s sources said.

Quad members

When Japanese Prime Minister Kishida visited India last month, Japan and India also agreed to hold what would be their second two-plus-two meeting “at an early date.” But the timing of the meeting has not been decided, either, Japan says.

Both Japan and India are members of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) and important players in the Indo-Pacific so “it is only natural for India to also interact with Japan for two-plus-two,” said Sana Hashmi, visiting fellow at the Taiwan-Asia Exchange Foundation.

“Two-plus-two talks demonstrate the level of engagement and the willingness to strengthen the partnership by both sides,” Hashmi said, adding: “Of course, China’s aggression is a factor in countries’ willingness to advance ties, but India-Japan relations are multifaceted and two-plus-two dialogue is a part of this multifaceted engagement.”

Besides the Philippines and India, Japan has held two-plus-two security talks with the United States, Australia, Britain, France, Germany, Indonesia and Russia.