Day: April 15, 2022

Authorities in Myanmar arrested nearly 100 people in the country’s two largest cities and the Myawaddy township in Kayin state in the first 10 days of April as part of a pre-Thingyan crackdown, according to data compiled by RFA’s Myanmar Service.

Of the 99 people arrested in the lead up to the April 13-16 New Year Water Festival, 47 were from the commercial capital, Yangon, 43 from Myanmar’s second city, Mandalay, and nine from Myawaddy on the country’s border with Thailand, an investigation found. Some of those detained had joined anti-coup protests, while others were accused of being members of Yangon-based anti-junta paramilitary groups, including the People’s Defense Force (PDF).

A total of 15 people, including Thiri Wai — the mother of 3-year-old Thant Phone Wai Yan, who was taken by security forces from a kindergarten in Yangon’s Ahlone township on April 5 — were arrested “in possession of explosives,” pro-junta dailies reported on Wednesday.

A member of the Pazundaung and Botahtaung Townships Youth Strike Committee, a Yangon-based anti-junta group, told RFA that city authorities had tightened security and stepped up arrests in response to increased activities by the armed opposition ahead of Thingyan.

“In the past, if one of your comrades was arrested, you still had time to escape or go into hiding. But now it’s becoming very difficult,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity due to security concerns.

“Now, if a close contact is arrested, you must be extra careful. People who normally want to hide us are also becoming reluctant because if the military finds out, these people will get into big trouble. The security situation is becoming very difficult.”

In Mandalay, Nyein Chan Aung, a member of another anti-junta group known as the Mandalay Strike Committee, told RFA that security forces had arrested several young protesters during a pre-Thingyan campaign that he likened to “a military operation.”

“They are making arrests in a crackdown just like a military operation, locking down the towns as soon as they get information about us,” he said.

“If they catch a person, he is immediately interrogated. If they don’t get what they want to know, they beat and torture him, before continuing their interrogation. Once they get information, they immediately move to a new location and begin making more arrests.”                         

Nyein Chan Aung said the junta has employed a variety of new tactics to sweep Mandalay and tighten security ahead of other recent holidays, including Union Day on Feb. 12 and Armed Forces Day on March 27.

One such tactic is to increase the presence of army informants and pro-junta militia forces to monitor for any would-be protesters and in areas where urban resistance groups are believed to be operating, he said.

9 killed in Myawaddy

Meanwhile, sources reported that on April 6, a combined force of junta Border Guard Forces (BGF) and military troops in Kayin state’s Myawaddy township shot dead nine youths who were sending supplies to a PDF group in the area.

A spokesman for the Kayin State PDF, who declined to be named, said that since the incident, the military has placed Myawaddy under a state of near-total lockdown.

“We know that they have sentries hiding in all parts of the township. Some of them are in civilian clothes — mostly BGF members,” he said. “The BGF and other [pro-junta] groups are also patrolling around. The military is now in control of most areas in and around the township.”

Attempts by RFA to contact junta spokesman, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, went unanswered on Thursday.

Nan Lin, a spokesman of the University Old Students Association veteran activist group, said no number of arrests would stop the people from working to unseat the military regime.

“Taking advantage of Thingyan, the junta is making more arrests and killing people unnecessarily,” he said. “Our conviction has become stronger, and we will try harder in every way.”

According to the Thailand-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, junta troops have killed at least 1,751 civilians and arrested more than 10,200 others since the Feb. 1, 2021, power grab — mostly during peaceful anti-coup protests.

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

JAKARTA – Police in the Indonesian capital Jakarta, have deployed personnel to secure the city’s cathedral for the Easter commemoration being held till Sunday, to prevent criminal or terror acts.

Situated in Central Jakarta’s sub-district of Sawah Besar, the cathedral will be safeguarded by at least 100 joint security personnel, including those from the police and the military, Chief of the Sawah Besar Police, Commissioner Maulana Mukarom, told reporters yesterday.

Visitors will have to pass through a metal detector and X-ray machine before entering the worship place, he said.

“The current safeguarding scheme is still similar to what we did here last year,” Mukarom added.

Some churches in Indonesia had suffered terror attacks in the past. In Mar last year, two suicide bombers attacked a cathedral in the city of Makassar in South Sulawesi province, when a Palm Sunday service was being conducted.

Around 20 people were wounded, while the two bombers, who were a couple, died at the scene.

Source: Nam News Network

The war in Ukraine has put China’s rail connectivity to Europe at risk because most of its routes pass through Russia. It has also raised serious questions about the fate of China’s Belt and Road Initiative for building infrastructure across dozens of countries.

Even if the war were to end soon, neither China nor Ukraine would be interested in going ahead with the BRI projects in Ukraine, analysts said.

“BRI projects in Ukraine are basically off the table. Even China may not be interested to continue investing in a country with a seriously damaged economy,” Jacob Mardell, Research Fellow on global infrastructure and China’s foreign policy at the Mercator Institute of Chinese Studies, told VOA.

The BRI is the world’s biggest infrastructure program, with projects in European, Asian and African countries. China is estimated to have invested $59.5 billion in BRI projects last year alone, and more than $800 billion since the program was launched in 2013.

Just a week before the war in Ukraine began on February 24, France agreed with China to jointly build $1.7 billion worth of infrastructure in Africa, Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe. This plan may come under a cloud as some of the West’s anger toward Russia may spill over onto China, seen by some as a tacit supporter of Moscow.

The China-Europe Railway Express is a transit route for Chinese exports, though it also carries a smaller amount of goods from Europe to Chinese cities. The network has 73 routes, connecting China with Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus, Poland, Germany, the Czech Republic, France, and Spain. Freight trains moving along these routes made 3,630 trips in the first quarter of this year, according to official Chinese sources.

The number of these trips is expected to fall by half or more if European countries continue isolating Russia, which falls in the middle of these routes, experts said.

“It is very likely that Russian isolation will impact China’s plans for further developing its BRI rail to Europe, much of which crosses Russian land,” Dexter Roberts, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Asia Security Initiative, told VOA.

“That is almost certain to affect their willingness to accept large shipments of goods crossing Russian territory to and from European markets. And if Russia is being sanctioned, it is extremely unlikely it would allow European goods to transit its territory as well,” said Roberts, author of The Myth of Chinese Capitalism.

Besides existing train routes, China has several rail routes in Europe under construction or still on the drawing board that will also be affected.

“China’s enthusiasm for rail connectivity will have to be seriously curbed for now. Beyond the short term, China must bypass the Russian-Belarusian and maybe Ukrainian geography,” said Mohammadbagher Forough, a research fellow at the German Institute of Global and Area Studies in Hamburg, in an article in The Diplomat.

Alternative routes

Faced with challenges in Europe, China may focus on BRI’s Central Asia-West Asia corridor, which connects it with Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkey and other countries. The idea would be to move more Chinese exports via Central Asian countries, the Caspian region, Iran and Turkey.

There are problems with this route, though.

“The rail corridor through Turkey has limited capacity compared to the one passing through Russia, ” Mardell said. “Besides, it involves travelling a part of the journey by sea. On the whole, it is more time-consuming and expensive.”

For several years, Beijing has been hoping to strengthen the transit route in the China Pakistan Economic Corridor, which connects to the Gwadar port on the Arabian Sea.

Pakistan, though, has recently gone through political upheaval, resulting in the installation of a new prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif. The new government is expected to face a new election by the end of the year. In addition, Pakistan is experiencing a serious financial crunch and is seeking International Monetary Fund aid.

Political observers say Pakistan might delay or cancel some of the CPEC projects because it cannot afford to take on more Chinese debt. Also, the IMF may be less enthusiastic about supporting a country with high levels of debt.

Some analysts have a different view of the situation. “Prime Minister Sharif is known as being skilled at balancing geopolitical relationships. Even as he may try to move closer to the U.S., he almost certainly will work to continue to maintain or more likely to strengthen relations with China,” Roberts said.

Sharif might try to further strengthen CPEC because his Pakistan Muslim League party ushered in the project in 2013, he said.

Even if construction work on CPEC continues unabated, it will be a long time before the Gwadar port has the capacity to allow Chinese exporters to use the Arabian Sea route. It is not an answer to China’s immediate problem, which is European resistance to the flow of Chinese cargo via Russian territory by train.

Source: Voice of America

China said its military staged exercises Friday to reinforce its threat to use force to bring Taiwan under its control, as U.S. lawmakers visiting Taiwan made a pointed and public declaration of their support for the self-governing island democracy while issuing a warning to China.

The six lawmakers met with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen on Friday morning and were also scheduled to meet with the island’s defense minister.

The military drills conducted by the People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater Command in areas opposite Taiwan were “a countermeasure to the recent negative actions of the U.S., including the visit of a delegation of lawmakers to Taiwan,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said.

China would “continue to take strong measures to resolutely safeguard its sovereignty and territorial integrity,” Zhao added.

China is against any official exchanges between Taiwan’s government and other foreign governments because it claims Taiwan is part of its national territory and not an independent country. China and Taiwan split after a civil war in 1949.

The Eastern Theater Command described the exercises in a statement as “a necessary action based on the present security situation in the Taiwan Strait and the need to safeguard national sovereignty.”

“Taiwan is a sacred and inalienable part of Chinese territory. There is no room for any foreign interference on the Taiwan issue,” the statement said.

As part of the delegation of visiting U.S. lawmakers, Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey gave a speech Friday praising Taiwan’s democracy and its global status as a manufacturer of semi-conductor chips used in everything from cars to smartphones, and warned of consequences if that status were jeopardized.

“It is a country of global significance, of global consequence, of global impact, and therefore it should be understood the security of Taiwan has a global impact for those who would wish it ill,” said Menendez, the head of the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee, in a speech at Taiwan’s Presidential Office.

He emphasized that “we seek no conflict with China as I believe Taiwan seeks no conflict with China.”

The delegation, led by Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, also includes Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina, Sen. Robert Portman of Ohio, Sen. Benjamin Sasse of Nebraska and Rep. Ronny Jackson of Texas.

Tsai said she welcomed their visit and hoped it would help to further deepen US-Taiwan cooperation.

“Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has proven that democracies must bolster their alliances and collectively we can defend ourselves from the threats posed by authoritarian nations that seek to disrupt regional peace,” said Tsai.

The U.S. is the democratic island’s biggest unofficial ally and has stepped up weapons sales to Taiwan in past years. By law, the U.S. is bound to help Taiwan with arms that are defensive in nature. However, the question of whether the U.S. would intervene in the case of a military invasion by China remains open.

Source: Voice of America

Taiwanese rights activist Lee Ming-che returned to Taiwan Friday after completing a five-year prison term in China for criticizing China’s government.

After landing in Taipei Friday morning, Lee went straight into 10 days of mandatory quarantine, and will address the media after he is released.

Lee’s return to Taiwan brings an end to a lengthy saga that began in 2017, when he disappeared while visiting Macao, run by China, as is Hong Kong, as a special administrative region.

Lee later turned up in detention in China and was charged with “subverting state power,” a catchall term used in China to prosecute activists, human rights lawyers, and even ordinary citizens found guilty of criticizing the government.

Prior to his arrest, Lee was a member of Taiwan’s non-governmental organization community, with ties to the ruling Democratic People’s Party.

He may have come to Beijing’s attention when he criticized the Communist Party and promoted democratic ideas in private chat groups and on Chinese social media, according to Taiwanese media. He also sent books on similar topics to some of his contacts and reportedly helped the families of jailed Chinese dissidents.

Lee’s arrest in 2017 had a chilling effect on Taiwanese human rights activists because at the time he was a relatively low-profile activist with moderate views, said Yu-jie Chen, an assistant research professor at the law institute of Taiwan’s renowned Academia Sinica.

“It was really shocking to Taiwan. He wasn’t a pro-Taiwan independence element who went into China and got arrested because of his inflammatory Taiwan independence activities,” Chen told VOA by phone, describing his NGO work as “very normal activities, nothing provocative.”

Lee was formally sentenced to five years in prison in November 2017 in a trial that was closely watched by rights groups and international media.

His case was also noteworthy because he was the first foreign NGO worker to be convicted under a new law regulating the work of foreign nonprofits and similar organizations in China, according to Taiwanese state media.

While in detention, Lee became a cause célèbre in Taiwan as local NGOs and his wife worked continuously to raise awareness about his case, said Lev Nachman, a postdoctoral research fellow at the Harvard Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies.

Nachman told VOA that Lee has become a “symbol for what might happen to Taiwanese activists if they ever go to China.”

Since taking power in 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping has led a crackdown on human rights activists as well as lawyers. They may be charged with crimes from “subverting state power” to “picking quarrels,” or even colluding with foreign forces.

Taiwanese state media said Friday that following Lee’s release, four jailed Taiwanese businessmen and scholars are unable to return to Taiwan because they were charged with espionage.

Cases like Lee’s are also complex because China regards Taiwan as its sovereign territory. Xi has vowed to unify Taiwan either by peaceful means or by force.

Source: Voice of America