Day: May 13, 2022

Beijing has slammed the U.S.-proposed Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF), calling it an attempt by Washington to lure Southeast Asian countries to “decouple from China.”

U.S. President Joe Biden has been hosting a special two-day summit with leaders from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) that ends Friday. At the summit, it’s expected that the U.S. will share more details of the framework, which is likely to get its official launch later this month when Biden visits South Korea and Japan.

It’s not a free trade pact in the mold of the Trans-Pacific Partnership that the Obama administration championed and negotiated for years as part of its foreign policy ‘pivot’ to Asia, only to see the Trump administration ditch it. An iteration of the same deal was later adopted by other Pacific Rim nations.

But the IPEF does seeks to foster ties with economic partners in the Indo-Pacific by setting trade rules and building a supply chain, without China.

In the words of President Biden at the East Asia Summit last year, the IPEF involves “trade facilitation, standards for the digital economy and technology, supply chain resiliency, decarbonization and clean energy, infrastructure, worker standards, and other areas of shared interest.”

On Thursday, Beijing warned Washington that the Asia-Pacific is “not a chessboard for geopolitical contest” and any regional cooperation framework should “follow the principle of respecting others’ sovereignty and non-interference in others’ internal affairs.”

The Chinese Foreign Ministry’s spokesperson Zhao Lijian said China rejects “Cold War mentality” when it comes to regional groupings.

The People’s Daily, the mouthpiece of China’s Communist Party, said in an editorial that the IPEF is designed to “make up for the shortcomings of Washington’s previous engagement with Southeast Asia, which focused only on security and ignored the economy.”

“The U.S. holds profound political and strategic objectives aimed at forcing countries to decouple from China,” the paper quoted some analysts as saying.

The gathering in Washington is the second U.S.-ASEAN special summit since 2016, when then-President Barack Obama hosted leaders of the bloc in Sunnylands, California.

ASEAN leaders, minus Myanmar and the Philippines, attended a White House dinner with Biden on Thursday and met with a host of U.S. political and business leaders, but had no bilateral meetings with the U.S. president. Leaders were meeting with Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday at the State Department.

There are 10 ASEAN member states but Myanmar’s junta was not invited to the summit and the Philippines, which held a presidential election last weekend, only sent its foreign minister.

ASEAN’s cautiousness

Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong was the first ASEAN leader to welcome the IPEF.

Speaking at an engagement with the U.S.-ASEAN Business Council and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on Thursday, Lee said that the IPEF “needs to be inclusive and provide tangible benefits to encourage wider participation.”

“We encourage greater ASEAN participation in the IPEF and we hope the U.S. will directly invite and engage ASEAN member states in this endeavor,” he said.

At present, it’s understood that only two of the 10 ASEAN countries – Singapore and the Philippines – are expected to be among the initial group of counties to sign up for the negotiations under IPEF.

“Most ASEAN members have remained hesitant to voice support for Biden’s IPEF, which is, to their perceptions, a counterweight against China’s Belt and Road Initiative in specific and Beijing’s economic coercion in general,” said Huynh Tam Sang, a lecturer at Ho Chi Minh City University of Social Sciences and Humanities (USSH) in Vietnam.

“Given the economic proximity to China, ASEAN member states have sought to avoid provoking Beijing, let alone getting embedded in the Sino-U.S. competition,” Sang said.

Yet judging from prepared statements and initial feedback from ASEAN leaders on the prospects of ASEAN-U.S. economic cooperation and the IPEF, “they do not only value the substance of the relationship but are eager to see it grow,” according to Thomas Daniel, a senior fellow at Malaysia’s Institute of Strategic and International Studies.

“Unfortunately, Washington is still unable to fully grasp or address the desire in Southeast Asia for practical dimensions that will bring an immediate and tangible benefit to local economies and communities,” he said.

On Thursday, Malaysian Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob urged the U.S. to adopt a more active trade and investment agenda with ASEAN countries. He pointed to the Chinese-backed Regional Economic Comprehensive Partnership, which took effect this year, as an important tool to invigorate regional business and economic activity through reduced trade barriers.

Seeking to offer concrete benefits at the summit, Biden offered US$150 million for ASEAN infrastructure, security, pandemic preparedness and other efforts.

More division in the bloc?

Details of the IPEF remain vague but policymakers in Washington have said that they’re designing a framework to prioritize flexibility and inclusion, with a pick-and-choose arrangement for participating countries, allowing them to select the individual areas where they want to make more specific commitments.

The IPEF looks to foster economic cooperation by establishing trade rules across “four pillars” – trade resiliency, infrastructure, decarbonization and anti-corruption.

An analysis by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) said while the IPEF holds promise, “it will need to be well engineered and managed.”

“Wherever possible, the framework should seek to advance binding rules and hard commitments that go beyond broad principles and goals,” the CSIS said.

At the same time, “the Biden administration will need to offer tangible benefits to regional partners, especially less-developed ones,” according to the analysis.

There are warnings that the proposed framework, if not carefully considered, may even create a bigger gap between countries in the Southeast Asian region.

“Middle and small powers in Southeast Asia are likely to embrace a prudent approach when coming to great powers’ proposed initiatives, especially when these multilateral frameworks could undermine ASEAN centrality,” said Sang from Vietnam’s USSH.

Countries like Singapore, the Philippines and Malaysia may seek to join some “pillars” that could serve their pragmatic interests but “China may seek to discourage regional small states about forging ties with Washington through partaking in the IPEF.”

Sang said that could in particular pose a dilemma for Laos and Cambodia, which may not want to left out, but have deep and growing economic ties with China.

Judicial authorities across China are setting up “people’s legal struggle militias” to aid law enforcement, recruiting lawyers 18-45 “in good physical condition,” according to official notices posted online.

A notice issued by bureaus of justice in Shanghai, Guangdong, Hubei and other locations said the militias would be formed in support of “our online forces.”

“Plans are under way to set up legal struggle militia and report to the armed forces department of municipal government before the end of May,” the notice said.

“We are recruiting … lawyers or paralegals from city law firms. Recruitment criteria: Aged 18-45 years old, in good physical condition. [Ruling] Chinese Communist Party (CCP) members, veterans preferred,” it said.

Chinese criminal lawyer Mo Shaoping said he had never heard any mention of “legal struggle” in his career.

“It seems like a coined expression; I’ve never heard it before,” Mo told RFA. “I haven’t seen any definition of ‘legal struggle’ in any legal dictionary.”

Current affairs commentator Zha Jianguo said the use of the word “struggle,” which has roots in the political “struggle sessions” of the post-1949 era and the kangaroo courts of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), suggested a move away from the rule of law and judicial channels.

“It means a kind of intense conflict and tension between people,” Zha said. “It’s a neologism, which means they want to fight, but to use the law as a weapon, but without any specific legal basis.”

“It’s about cloaking artificial ‘struggles’ … in a legal veneer.”

Dangerous indicator

Political scientist Guo Wenhao said the creation of militias is a dangerous indicator of what is to come, now that the power to “enforce the law” has been delegated beyond government departments and law enforcement agencies.

China empowered local officials at township, village, and neighborhood level to enforce the law under an amended administrative punishment law that took effect in July 2021, as well as operating a vastly extended “grid management” system of social control in rural and urban areas alike.

“[Officials at] township, village and neighborhood [level] shall be given administrative law enforcement powers … while existing law enforcement powers and resources shall be integrated,” according to a high-level opinion document dating from April, but not published by state news agency Xinhua until July 11.

Government will be based on a “grid” system of management, a system of social control that harks back to imperial times, and which will allow the authorities even closer control over citizens’ lives, the opinion document issued jointly by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) central committee and the country’s State Council said.

According to directives sent out in 2018, the grid system carves up neighborhoods into a grid pattern with 15-20 households per square, with each grid given a dedicated monitor who reports back on residents’ affairs to local committees.

Neighborhood committees in China have long been tasked with monitoring the activities of ordinary people in urban areas, but the grid management system turbo-charges the capacity of officials even in rural areas to monitor what local people are doing, saying, and thinking.

“Now that the power of law enforcement has been delegated to townships and sub-districts, and institutions without any legal knowledge or powers of law enforcement have been given the power to enforce the law, there will be widespread abuse of this power of law enforcement,” Guo said.

“And such phenomena have a tendency to intensify.”

Cultural Revolution enforcement style

He said the militias suggest that China is indeed heading towards a Cultural Revolution enforcement style where the government no longer has a monopoly on political violence.

“I get the impression that a completely absurd system has emerged, outside of traditional personnel structures,” Guo said.

“The government allows them to do bad things, then they can deny [doing them].”

Gansu scholar Zhang Ping said the militias will be under the command of local government militias, in a manner similar to the grassroots militias of the Cultural Revolution.

“Granting the militia a lot of law enforcement power is tantamount to having an armed reserve outside of the military and police force, with greater freedom than the police or armed police,” Zhang told RFA.

“This is to prevent a so-called popular revolt … it’s about social control.”

A version of the directive issued by authorities in Gansu’s Pingliang city on April 28 said the plan aimed to “strengthen stability maintenance on a wartime footing” a nationwide system of surveillance and coercion that aims to prevent protests and petitions before they occur.

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

Organizers of an exhibition by dissident cartoonist Badiucao in the Czech Republic have refused to cancel the event despite pressure from the Chinese embassy, who said his work “slanders Chinese leaders and hurts the feelings of the Chinese people.”

Badiucao’s exhibit, which is touring the world under the title “MADe IN CHINA,” opened as planned on Thursday at the DOX Contemporary Art Center in Prague

It includes works referencing the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, the 2019 protest movement in Hong Kong, Chinese support for the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s genocidal policies targeting Uyghurs and the ongoing COVID-19 lockdowns under CCP leader Xi Jinping’s zero-COVID policy.

One work merges the faces of Xi and outgoing Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam, to express the erosion of Hong Kong’s freedoms under the CCP, while another merges Xi’s face with that of Russian president Vladimir Putin, the first work visitors see entering the exhibit.

The works have clearly ruffled feathers in Beijing.

On the afternoon of May 11, DOX Contemporary Art Center project director Michaela Šilpochová suddenly received a call from Hao Hong, a cultural affairs department official at the Chinese embassy, to her private cell phone.

Hao Hong said they were calling on the order of the Chinese embassy, and accused Badiucao’s work of “smearing the image of China’s leaders” and “hurting the feelings of the Chinese people” and warned that the exhibition would “destroy the relationship between the two countries.”

Šilpochová responded that the center wouldn’t cancel the show, with DOX Contemporary Art Center chief Leoš Válka saying that the Chinese embassy had tried to put pressure on him in the past, and his lack of cooperation was likely why they hadn’t called him again. He said DOX Art Center refused to tolerate “intimidation and threats.”

Hao Hong confirmed she had made the call when contacted by RFA.

“I expressed serious concern about this exhibition on behalf of the embassy, and told Šilpochová that they shouldn’t be putting on an exhibition that hurts the feelings of the Chinese people,” Hao said. “I heard that this exhibition had already been held in Italy, so we knew the content of this exhibition.”

“So we just had to express our opposition,” she said, accusing Badiucao of using politics to attract attention to himself.

“Do artists have to express their political views and become famous by hurting this country and its leaders? I think it may be in order to attract the attention of people who are less friendly to China, and to use art to achieve a political goal,” Hao told RFA.

Badiucao said he was no stranger to Beijing’s ire.

“The Chinese government regards all criticisms as smears,” he told RFA. “But all that stuff about hurt feelings and smears is just a pretext for them to avoid criticism and oversight.”

“My exhibition criticizes the Chinese government, and also praises the resistance of Chinese people faced with political dilemmas,” he said, citing late whistleblowing doctor Li Wenliang and late Nobel Peace laureate Liu Xiaobo.

“I am a Chinese person myself, and I have never discriminated against Chinese people or wanted to hurt the Chinese people’s feelings,” he said. “But this government doesn’t represent the people or speak for them, because it’s not democratically elected.”

He said politics and art mix well together.

“Art should intervene in politics,” he said. “I would rather a society where art interferes in politics than one where politics interferes with art.”

He hit out at the attempts by the CCP to silence him overseas.

“Stifling expression, censorship, and threats against artists are ridiculous in a democratic country,” Badiucao said. “The Czechs once also lived in an authoritarian society, and the memory of being censored is very strong for them. In doing this, the Chinese government is reactivating painful memories of their history,”

He said the exhibit was more likely to encourage more people to understand contemporary China, and arouse empathy for the Chinese people, than to smear China.

Zhou Fengsuo, chairman of Humanitarian China, was present during the phone call between Hao and Šilpochová.

“The Chinese embassy in the Czech Republic had a strong response, saying that it would endanger the relationship between China and the Czech Republic,” he said. “I heard the same thing when a statue of Liu Xiaobo was erected here three years ago.”

“On the one hand it is ridiculous, on the other hand it is hateful. The CCP is afraid of Badiucao’s work and tries to silence opposition anywhere in the world … but the Czech Republic has a tradition of supporting free expression and opposing authoritarian rule.”

Known as “China’s Banksy, Badiucao, 36, emigrated to Australia in 2009, where he has continued to produce political cartoons taking aim at the CCP’s human rights record.

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.