Day: April 29, 2022

Residents of Pyongyang who were forced to participate in a parade to mark the founding of North Korea’s army this week waited for nearly an entire day before the event began, disrupting their work and leaving them exhausted, sources said Friday.

On the evening of April 25, Pyongyang commemorated the 90^th anniversary of the founding of the Korean People’s Revolutionary Army – the predecessor to the Korean People’s Army, formed when the country was founded in 1948 – with an extravagant military parade, classified as a “No. 1 event” because it was presided over by the country’s leader, Kim Jong Un.

A city official told RFA’s Korean Service that tens of thousands of residents were forced to assemble well in advance of the event showcasing North Korea’s most advanced military equipment, including tanks, armored vehicles, and the Hwasong-17 intercontinental ballistic missile, which Pyongyang claims to have successfully tested last month.

“From the dawn on the 25th, about 100,000 Pyongyang citizens waited at Kim Il Sung Square for 17 hours to make the military parade possible,” said the official, noting that the start of the event was not made public until just before it began.

“They were all totally exhausted,” he added.

Sources told RFA that North Koreans have tried to avoid “parade duty” ever since Kim Jong Un came to power in 2011. The government has taken action to make sure parades are not sparsely attended, forcing them to practice watching or marching in the parade in the two months leading up to the actual event.

“Now the number of participants are assigned to each neighborhood watch unit and they are forcibly mobilized,” the official said.

“Pyongyang citizens mobilized for the event are complaining that their livelihoods are being disrupted as they were not able to do business during the two-month military parade practice period. There are many residents who think that it is better to pay $30.00 per month to drop out of practice so they can work instead.”

Those marching in the parade also sacrifice much for the highly publicized propaganda event.

“The authorities conducted a two-month training session for middle school students selected for the balloon group, but during this period, the children’s grades are bound to drop,” the official said.

Security for the event meant that certain people were kept away from the parade, even those who might have enjoyed watching it, a Pyongyang resident told RFA.

“On the day of the event, the members of No.1 event department checked the list of general citizens who were not eligible to participate in the military parade by their residence. General citizens, such as elderly and younger children, who were excluded from participating in the event, gathered in a certain place by residence until the end of the parade and their movement was restricted,” the resident said.

“Security agents with heavy firearms were stationed on the rooftop of an apartment building around the square, and strict security was maintained until the event was over… I don’t know what they are afraid of,” the resident said.

Citizens participating in the parade were instructed to wear black clothes to avoid being detected by satellites until just before the start of the ceremony,” the official said.

Sources said that authorities even blocked all mobile communications to ensure leader Kim Jong Un’s security, without providing details about the perceived threat.

“At the order of the Supreme Guard Command escorting the leadership, the operation of the mobile phone base station in Pyongyang was stopped, and mobile phone calls from and to Pyongyang citizens were blocked,” a second Pyongyang resident told RFA.

“Until now, whenever any No.1 events are held in Pyongyang, the event participants gathered at Kim Il Sung Square are inspected with metal detectors by members of the Ministry of State Security and are banned from possessing watches and mobile phones. It is the first time that the operation of the mobile phone base station has been stopped and the use of mobile phones in Pyongyang has been completely blocked,” he said.

Everyone involved in the parade was so unhappy about being selected to participate, including the soldiers, a stark contrast to the military parades of yesteryear when Kim Jong Un’s father and grandfather ruled the country, the first Pyongyang resident said.

“During the Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il eras, soldiers who participated in military parades were given considerable benefits such as commendations, 15 days of vacation, and gifts like televisions for their homes,” the first Pyongyang resident said.

“However, after Kim Jong Un came to power, the soldiers who participate in military parades are immediately returned to their military camp without any compensation.”

New weapons

Despite the fanfare, North Koreans said that the parade did little to improve morale.

North Korea showcased its most advanced military equipment during the parade, including its Hwasong-17 intercontinental ballistic missile, which it claims to have successfully tested last month.

To drive the point home, authorities forced residents to attend two-hour lecture sessions to educate them about the weapons that appeared in the parade, a resident of the northwestern province of North Pyongan told RFA.

“The purpose of this intensive lecture is to promote North Korea’s military power as the world’s strongest by showing off strategic and tactical weapons that appeared at the parade, and to calm the dissatisfaction of the people who are tired of living difficulties due to sanctions and the coronavirus,” he said.

The North Korean economy is still suffering from a pandemic caused two-year trade ban with China, as well as international nuclear sanctions.

“Residents mobilized for the lecture were skeptical about the speaker’s statement that we are standing tall as the world’s most powerful military power,” the North Pyongan resident said.

The lecture also promised an end to North Korea’s economic misery, a resident of the city of Chongjin in the northeastern province of North Hamgyong told RFA.

“Residents did not hide their disappointment, saying that no one believed the authorities’ propaganda.”

Translated by Leejin J. Chung Written in English by Eugene Whong.

Japan’s leader made a veiled but strong statement against Chinese assertiveness as he met Indonesia’s president on Friday at the start of a trip to Southeast Asia and Europe to promote a free and open Indo-Pacific and rally a regional response to the Ukrainian crisis.

Tokyo is also considering giving Indonesia patrol boats so its coast guard could strengthen maritime security, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said, amid Chinese pressure on Jakarta over its oil and gas drilling operations in its own exclusive economic zone in the South China Sea.

“I expressed a strong sense of protest against efforts to change the status quo unilaterally and economic pressures in the East China Sea and South China Sea,” Kishida said, after meeting with President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo in Jakarta.

The Japanese premier’s remarks were a pointed reference to concern over Chinese activities in the region.

Kishida’s eight-day tour will see him visiting “strategic ASEAN partners,” including Vietnam and Thailand.

The prime minister will then proceed to Europe, with stops in Italy and the United Kingdom, both members of the G7 grouping of industrialized countries that also comprises Japan.

Before embarking from Tokyo on his trip, Kishida said at the airport that he would like to “exchange frank opinions on the situation in Ukraine with each of the leaders and confirm their cooperation.”

Indonesia is host of this year’s Group of 20 summit in November, an engagement that has placed Jakarta in a diplomatic bind, amid opposition to the participation of Russia because of its invasion of Ukraine and alleged war crimes there.

On Friday, Jokowi confirmed that Indonesia had invited Ukraine’s president as a guest to the G-20 summit in Bali and that Russian leader Vladimir Putin would also attend.

Kishida said he and Jokowi “exchanged views openly” on the Russian invasion, “which is a clear violation of international law and which we say has shaken the foundations of the international order, including Asia, and must be strongly condemned.”

“Keeping in mind the U.N. resolutions agreed upon by the two countries, I and the president discussed this issue. We have one understanding that a military attack on Ukraine is unacceptable. In any area, sovereignty and territorial integrity should not be interfered with by military force or intimidation,” the Japanese leader said.

Jokowi, for his part, called for all countries to respect sovereignty and territorial integrity.

“The Ukraine war must be stopped immediately,” he said.

A regional ‘reluctance to take sides’

The war in Ukraine has been a divisive issue among members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN.

“Across the region there is a reluctance to take sides and an ambivalence about the concert of democracies lining up in support of Ukraine,” said Jeff Kingston, a professor and director of Asian Studies at Temple University in Tokyo.

Most Southeast Asian countries – Singapore being an exception – have been hesitant to condemn Russia or join international sanctions against Moscow. Japan hopes to consolidate their responses during the prime minister’s visit.

“Kishida will [also] seek to gain understanding of what is at stake and the potential implications for Asia in terms of China’s hegemonic aspirations,” Kingston said.

China’s increasing assertiveness in the East China and South China seas will be high on the agenda, and Kishida said he would discuss with Southeast Asian leaders further cooperation “toward realizing a free and open Indo-Pacific,” and maintaining peace and order.

Stops in Hanoi, Bangkok

In Vietnam, where Kishida will spend less than 24 hours over the weekend, he will meet with both the Vietnamese prime minister and president.

Bilateral talks will focus on post-COVID-19 and security cooperation, Vietnamese media said. Vietnam shares interests with Japan in safeguarding maritime security in the South China Sea where China holds expansive claims and has been militarizing reclaimed islands.

In Thailand, Kishida will hold talks with Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha. Thailand is the host of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum summit in November.

Bangkok and Tokyo are celebrating the 135th anniversary of diplomatic ties this year, and the two sides are seeking to sign an agreement on the transfer of defense equipment and technology to strengthen cooperation in the security field, according to the Bangkok Post.

Government spokesman Thanakorn Wangboonkongchana said it would be the first official visit of a Japanese prime minister to Thailand since 2013.

In March, Kishida visited India and Cambodia, his first bilateral trips since taking office in October 2021.

Later in May, he will host a visit by U.S. President Joe Biden and a summit of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or Quad.

The White House announced on Wednesday that President Biden would visit South Korea and Japan May 20-24 to advance a “commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific and to U.S. treaty alliances” with the two countries.

The trip will be Biden’s first one to Asia as president.

“In Tokyo, President Biden will also meet with the leaders of the Quad grouping of Australia, Japan, India, and the United States,” the statement said without disclosing the date.

The Quad is widely seen as countering China’s weight in the region.

China has been sneering at the formation of the Quad, calling it one of the “exclusive cliques detrimental to mutual trust and cooperation among regional countries.”

On Thursday, Chinese Foreign Ministry’s spokesman Wang Wenbin said that the Quad “is steeped in the obsolete Cold War and zero sum mentality and reeks of military confrontation.”

“It runs counter to the trend of the times and is doomed to be rejected,” he said.

Dandy Koswaraputra in Jakarta contributed to this report for BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service.

Human rights groups have hit out at China over ongoing restrictions being imposed on Taiwan businessman Lee Meng-chu, also known as Morrison Lee, following his release from jail.

Lee “disappeared” in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen after taking photos of troops gathering near the border during the 2019 Hong Kong protest movement and sending them back to contacts in Taiwan.

He later appeared making a “confession” on Chinese state television, before being sentenced to one year and 10 months’ imprisonment and two years’ deprivation of political rights.

Although Lee was recently released from prison at the end of his jail term, the authorities are preventing him from going home to loved ones on the democratic island of Taiwan, saying his “punishment” hasn’t been completed, as the two years’ deprivation of political rights has yet to expire.

“The Chinese government’s deprivation of political rights [sentencing] is in breach of international human rights law,” Eeling Chiu, secretary-general of Amnesty International’s Taiwan branch, said in a statement on the group’s website. “No prisoner should be deprived of their right to freedom of speech, let alone those who have served out their sentences.”

Chiu said Lee’s trial had been full of procedural flaws and hadn’t met international requirements to be judged a fair trial.

“The Chinese government should return Mr. Lee Meng-chu to Taiwan as soon as possible, and end its serious violations of his right to freedom of thought, expression, assembly and association,” Chiu said.

The rights group Safeguard Defenders said Lee had been held in a “secret jail” system known as Residential Surveillance at a Designated Location (RSDL) from August 2019 after taking part in the 2019 Hong Kong protest movement, which began as a mass protest against plans to allow extradition of alleged criminal suspects to face trial in mainland Chinese, and broadened to include calls for fully democratic elections.

Politically motivated

It said Lee’s prosecution was politically motivated, and that the same rules regarding deprivation of political rights hadn’t been applied to a more prominent Taiwanese activist, Lee Ming-cheh, who was allowed to leave China as soon as his jail term ended.

It said there are at least three other Taiwanese nationals currently in Chinese jails on “spying” charges: Shih Cheng-ping; Tsai Chin-shu and Cheng Yu-chin.

According to the Exit and Entry Administration Law of the People’s Republic of China (Article 12-2), Chinese nationals sentenced to criminal punishment are banned from leaving the country if the punishment has not been completed.

Taiwan has never been ruled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), nor formed part of the People’s Republic of China, but its nationals are regarded as Chinese citizens under another administration by Beijing.

The majority of Taiwan’s 23 million people say they have no wish to give up their country’s sovereignty or lose their democratic way of life under Chinese rule.

“By not allowing Morrison Lee to leave, Beijing is … violating the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which it signed in 1998, although not yet ratified,” Safeguard Defenders said in a statement.

“Safeguard Defenders urges China to respect its own laws and international rights norms and allow Morrison Lee, who has served his time, to go home and reunite with his family,” it said.

It added: “China also manipulates deprivation of political rights to prevent Chinese rights defenders from freely going home after release from jail, instead subjecting them to weeks, months, even years of continued illegal detention.”

No ‘political rights’

Ma Xiaoguang, spokesman for China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, told a news conference on Wednesday that Lee is currently serving “an additional sentence,” in a reference to the two years’ deprivation of political rights.

Shih Yi-hsiang, head of the Taiwan Association for Human Rights, said Lee Meng-chu would likely not even be able to exercise “political rights” in China, so the exit ban made no sense.

“The Taiwan Association for Human Rights believes that, in any case, Lee Meng-chu is not a Chinese citizen, but a Taiwanese citizen,” Shih said. “It is meaningless to insist on some additional sentence now.”

“We think this is ridiculous; the Chinese government has no reason to force Lee to stay in China, and we advocate his safe return to Taiwan,” Shih told RFA.

Yang Sen-hong, president of the Taiwan Association for China Human Rights, said the CCP makes a habit of arbitrarily arresting people.

“You have to be very strong when standing up to the CCP regime,” Yang said. “I hope that the Taiwanese government and its Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) will actively move to rescue Lee Meng-chu.”

The MAC declined to comment, saying it was respecting the stated wishes of Lee and his family.

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

The world’s longest glass-bottom bridge opened in Vietnam this month – suspended at a stunning height of 150 meters (490 feet) and spanning over 600 meters (1,970 feet) in length. The Bach Long bridge – meaning “white dragon” in Vietnamese – is a pedestrian bridge and tourist attraction that bends around a large valley centered between two peaks. Inspectors from the Guiness Book of World Records are expected to verify the bridge’s status next month. For now, the official longest glass-bottom bridge is in Guangdong, China.

After over two years of COVID-19 shutdowns, Vietnam is eager to woo tourists back to the country after ending mandatory quarantines for international visitors in mid-March. It also resumed 15 days of visa-free travel for citizens from 13 countries.

Credit: AFP

Tibetan exile leader Penpa Tsering has wrapped up his first official visit to Washington D.C. with a meeting on Thursday with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other congressional leaders and public talks scheduled for Friday evening.

Tsering — the Sikyong or elected head of Tibet’s India-based exile government the Central Tibetan Administration — began his visit on Tuesday with talks held with Uzra Zeya, the State Department’s Special Coordinator for Tibetan Issues. The Department also hosted a lunch for Tsering attended by ambassadors from the Czech Republic, Denmark, Canada, the United Kingdom and other countries.

Participating in Tsering’s meeting on Thursday with Pelosi were International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) board chairman Richard Gere and acting president Bhuchung Tsering; Zeegyab Rinpoche, abbot of the India-based branch of Tibet’s Tashilhunpo monastery; U.S. congressman Jim McGovern; and Namgyal Choedup, representative of exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama.

Speaking to RFA after the meeting, Choedup noted this week’s visit to Washington was the first by Tsering, a former speaker of Tibet’s exile parliament in Dharamsala, India, who won a closely fought April 11, 2021 election to become Sikyong held in Tibetan communities worldwide.

Choedup described Thursday’s talks as “decisive and constructive,” calling Tibetans grateful for Pelosi’s continued support. “The meeting also discussed collective decisions on future courses of action regarding how to resolve the Sino-Tibetan conflict,” Choedup said.

Formerly an independent nation, Tibet was invaded and incorporated into China by force more than 70 years ago, and Tibetans frequently complain of discrimination and human rights abuses by Chinese authorities and policies they say are aimed at eradicating their national and cultural identity.

“We are trying to burst the myths or narratives that the Chinese government has been presenting for many decades about Tibet being a part of China, which is not true,” said ICT board chairman Richard Gere, also speaking to RFA on Thursday.

“And we are trying to push for a genuine dialogue [between China] and His Holiness the Dalai Lama,” Gere added.

The Dalai Lama and Tibet’s India-based exile government the Central Tibetan Administration have proposed a “Middle Way” approach to talks with Beijing that now accepts Tibet’s status as a part of China but urges greater freedoms for Tibetan language, religious, and cultural rights.

Nine rounds of talks were previously held between envoys of exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama and high-level Chinese officials beginning in 2002, but stalled in 2010 and were never resumed.

Congressional supporters of the Dalai Lama “would love to have the Dalai Lama address a joint session of the U.S. Congress by video,” said representative from Texas Michael McCaul, a ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

”The American people stand with the Tibetan people and with the Dalai Lama, who is one of the greatest spiritual leaders of our time,” McCaul said.

Penpa Tsering ends his Washington visit Friday evening with a panel discussion held at George Washington University on the Tibet-China dialogue and a public talk with the D.C.-area Tibetan community. He will then visit Tibet communities in Philadelphia and New York before moving on to meetings in Canada.

Translated by Tenzin Dickyi for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Written in English by Richard Finney.

Recent arrests in Vietnam of business leaders amid a larger crackdown on corruption could cause some bumpy days on the stock market and hit the property sector, but a serious housecleaning will improve the overall business climate, analysts told RFA.

In late March, authorities arrested Trinh Ban Quyet, chairman of property and leisure company FLC Group and its subsidiary Bamboo Airlines, on charges of stock market manipulation, after he failed to report to authorities his sale of 74.8 million shares in the company in January.

In early April, authorities arrested Do Anh Dung, chairman of the Tan Hoang Minh property development group, on suspicion of fraudulent appropriation of assets, after the company issued private bonds between July 2021 and March 2022 while submitting false information and hiding other relevant information about the business.

International and local media called these arrests a signal that Vietnam’s largest companies were now a target of the Vietnamese Communist Party’s anti-corruption efforts.

“Big companies with long lasting business issues should be very nervous,” Nguyen Van Duc, the CEO of the Dat Lanh Real Estate Company, told RFA’s Vietnamese Service.

“This could trigger a collapse of the real estate market, especially in the area dealing with resorts and leisure. Many businesses have invested tens of thousands of billions of dong [hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars] in a resort development project, but purchasing power hasn’t been able to catch up,” he said.

Reuters reported that as of Wednesday, Vietnam’s benchmark index had fallen 13.8 percent this month, with investors and brokers partially blaming the recent arrests for the downturn.

The market had been steadily trending upward since hitting a low in March 2020 at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Despite the country’s relative success at keeping the number of cases down for 2020 and early 2021, the pandemic still had a major impact on the economy.

“Households still experienced lower incomes, job loss, and hardships. Inequalities, differences in abilities to cope, vulnerabilities, and policy implementation challenges… are cautionary signs and offer relevant lessons to consider as Vietnam faces a much more challenging phase of COVID-19 ahead,” the World Bank said in a report.

The turmoil in Vietnam’s economy due to the COVID-19 pandemic is pushing the government to tackle corruption in hopes of speeding a recovery, Duc said.

“They’d rather do it earlier than later to avoid an even more damaging collapse,” he said.

Authorities have tried to calm investors’ fears about the arrests.

The crackdown on questionable dealings of real estate tycoons would have the beneficial effect of easing the rise of real estate prices, said Duc.

“During Tan Hoang Minh Group’s case, the government discovered a plot to increase real estate prices in Ho Chi Minh City, and the country in general, when they offered a bid on a property that was 8.3 times higher than the initial offering,” he said.

“As a result the government decided to examine the entire company. I think this was a sound action of the government that prevented an unreasonable and dangerous price spike of real estate.”

Le Dang Doanh, the former president of Vietnam’s Central Institute for Economic Managment (CIEM), told RFA that the arrests of Dung and Quyet might represent a turning point for the country.

“In the short term, some investors will be worried about market fluctuation, but this will bring about a better business environment for the stock market in the long term,” said Doanh.

“I believe regulations to prevent corruption like we’ve seen in these cases will be created. For example, there are currently no regulations on bonds issued by enterprises, therefore we have not been able to effectively monitor this issue,” he said.

The Tan Hoang Minh group used bonds to raise money for a specific project but then used the acquired capital for other purposes, authorities allege.

“Many similar incidents have been discovered. I think that’s a positive sign for Vietnam’s business environment,” Doanh said.

More investigations into large companies and arrests of key personnel are likely as the Standing Board of the Central Steering Commitee on Anti-Corruption, under the Politburo, has set up eight inspection teams to detect corruption, local new outlet Vietnam+ reported.

During a meeting on Wednesday, members of the anti-corruption committee reviewed their response to FLC and Tan Hoang Minh, a major embezzlement scandal involving the Vietnam Coast Guard High Command, and a bribery case at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for spaces on COVID-19 rescue flights for Vietnamese citizens abroad, the report said.

Investigators have examined more than 1,200 cases involving more than 2,000 suspects. More than 700 cases involving more than 1,500 defendants have been brought to the court, Vietnam+ said.

Analysts have said that recent high-profile arrests are intended to demonstrate that Vietnam is getting tougher on corruption.

At the same time, the country’s government continues to punish citizens who discuss the cases publicly.

In mid-April,  authorities arrested Hanoi resident Dang Nhu Quynh for allegedly posting information on Facebook about the arrests of Trinh Ban Quyet and Do Anh Dung, and said that the Ministry of Public Security would continue prosecuting people and companies that are guilty of similar crimes.

Quynh was charged with violating state interests for publishing “unverified information.”

The law applied in Quynh’s case is designed to prevent the spread of false information that could damage the reputation of people and companies, legal experts said. But many people who have been punished were found guilty even if the information was true.

Translated by Anna Vu. Written in English by Eugene Whong.