The inhabitants of Mae Sam Lab say life in this Thai village along the frontier with Myanmar used to bustle with tourists and a vibrant cross-border river trade.
As the people here struggle to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic violence from attacks by Burmese junta forces nearby have made things worse, they say.
“The doldrums started with the COVID-19 pandemic. Tourists – Thai, Chinese, Japanese and Korean – were gone. Boat operators, local guides, souvenir shops have been badly affected,” said Chai Pongpipat, an official with the Tambon Mae Sam Lab administration.
In the months since the February 2021 coup in Naypyidaw, troops belonging to the Burmese military regime and Border Guard Force have clashed with ethnic resistance forces including in the Karen State, which lies across the Salween River from Mae Sam Lab.
“Over two years of enduring COVID, people seemed to be able to adapt to its effects, but the slight COVID recovery was worsened by the clashes between Myanmar forces and ethnic fighters in the areas. The trade activities have stalled,” Chai told BenarNews.
Meanwhile, fishermen say their catches have been falling. They’re afraid to fish when it’s dark on the river, which separates the two countries, because of nighttime clashes on the Myanmar side.
“Lately, there have been a handful of small boats from the nearby village coming here to buy stockpiles of food and necessities as the fighting is unpredictable,” Chai said.
Amazon’s Kindle e-publishing platform has been flooded with poorly written books pushing Beijing’s line on Taiwan, according to a U.K.-based publisher.
A wave of e-books using the keywords “Nancy Pelosi” and “China and Taiwan” laying out China’s claim on the democratic island has appeared on Kindle since the start of the month, when U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi first indicated she would visit Taiwan, sparking days of military exercises by China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA).
“New disinformation push on Amazon?” U.K. independent publisher Michael Cannings tweeted, along with a screenshot of the Kindle titles.
“A torrent of new low quality ‘books’ about Taiwan has appeared; a quick Google shows at least some of the content is plagiarized, and the names of the authors appear to be fake. I count 61 of these under one search term alone,” Cannings wrote.
He later told RFA it was unclear whether the flood of new titles, many of which contain grammatical errors and consist of scraped content with changed wording to evade anti-plagiarism software, was a state-backed propaganda drive or simply the work of unethical people trying to cash in on global headlines.
“The possibilities to use this for disinformation are strong,” Cannings said. “I just can’t be sure whether in this case is really somebody trying to do that, or if it’s just unethical people trying to make money.”
“[But] it shows how it could be done by a state operation,” he added.
Cannings said the use of keywords and the flood of recent titles means that the books show up at the top of Amazon and Google searches for those keywords.
He said most of the titles were likely uploaded to Amazon’s Kindle Desktop Publishing platform, and, apart from automated plagiarism checks, weren’t subject to any editorial quality control.
“I think the danger for readers is that you don’t know what’s real and what’s not,” Cannings said. “I mean, some of these books don’t look great, but some of them are quite convincing, so a reader who’s not familiar with the subject might not know that this is not … properly researched.”
“The secondary danger is that these books then become cited by people further down the line… so then the disinformation gets into the wider ecosystem,” he said.
U.K. independent publisher Michael Cannings called attention to the Kindle titles in a series of tweets on Twitter.
Vulnerable to disinformation campaigns
RFA was able to roughly replicate Cannings’ search results on Amazon, and found that the ebooks sell for around U.S.$10 or less.
Amazon told RFA in an emailed response that the company does have content guidelines for books self-published on the Kindle platform, and will investigate and remove books that don’t comply with them.
Daniel Kapellmann Zafra, senior technical analysis manager at the cybersecurity company Mandiant, said that whether or not the flood of books on Taiwan from Beijing’s point of view are actually backed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the platform is vulnerable to disinformation campaigns.
“As long as there is a platform for sharing information, it can be leveraged to drive these types of narratives,” Zafra told RFA. “It’s basically a creative avenue that could … enable an actor to share information.”
Zafra’s own research for Mandiant has identified an information operations campaign linked to the Chinese public relations firm Shanghai Haixun Technology, with content published to at least 72 suspected inauthentic news sites.
“Narratives promoted by the campaign criticize the U.S. and its allies, attempt to reshape the international image of Xinjiang due to mounting international scrutiny, and express support for the reform of Hong Kong’s electoral system—a change which gave [China] more power over vetting local candidates,” the report, coauthored by Zafra, said.
Several of the sites published articles critical of Pelosi on Aug. 1, in response to reports ahead of her Aug. 2-3 visit to Taiwan, it said.
“The articles assert that Pelosi should ‘stay away from Taiwan’ and highlight perceived tarnished relations between the U.S. and Taiwan.”
An article published on several sites, including one purporting to be a Taiwanese news outlet, claimed that former U.S. government official Mike Pompeo’s March 2022 visit to Taiwan was motivated by money and his alleged desire to run for U.S. president in 2024, according to the report.
A separate information operation, DRAGONBRIDGE, publishes comments, videos and photos across thousands of social media and forum accounts on authentic platforms, according to the report.
Shanghai Haixun uses inauthentic websites to disseminate content, with little obvious overlap between the two, it said.
‘Cognitive operations’
Taiwanese fact-checkers said they detected a 30-40 increase in fake reports online since Pelosi’s visit.
Maj. Gen. Chen Yu-lin, deputy director of the Political and War Bureau of Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense told journalists on Aug. 8 that China had begun a wave of “cognitive operations” even before the military exercises were announced.
Chen said the hybrid warfare campaign sought to create an atmosphere suggesting China might be invading Taiwan, to attack the public image of the government, and to disrupt civilian and military morale.
Hybrid warfare denotes a combination of conventional military action on the ground and hacks or disinformation campaigns designed to attack public morale and sow confusion.
National Taiwan University was hacked, with the words “there is only one China in this world” appearing on its official website.
Meanwhile, the National Palace Museum issued a statement denying online rumors that the government was preparing to send tens of thousands of rare artifacts overseas for safekeeping.
Last week, several convenience store branches and government facilities across Taiwan saw their digital signage hacked with messages slandering Pelosi.
Digital signage at a railway station in the southern port city of Kaohsiung and at a government office in Nantou county also displayed a message calling Pelosi “an old witch.”
The official website of Tsai’s Presidential Office was taken down for around 20 minutes by a cyberattack, after which full service was restored, while mainland Chinese website Baidu joined in the cognitive warfare, releasing maps of Taiwan for the first time, which went viral after social media users noticed that many streets in Taiwan’s cities are named for cities in mainland China.
Chinese officials and pro-CCP commentators have launched a global media offensive around Pelosi’s Taiwan visit, claiming that the island, which has never been ruled by the CCP nor formed part of the 73-year-old People’s Republic of China, is an “inseparable” part of Chinese territory.
CCP leader Xi Jinping has repeatedly said that Taiwan must be “unified” with China, and refused to rule out the use of military force to annex the island.
But Taiwan president Tsai Ing-wen, who was re-elected in a 2020 landslide after vowing to stand up to China on the issue, has said that Taiwan’s 23 million population have no wish to give up their sovereignty, a view that is borne out by repeated opinion polls.
Authorities in Xinjiang are threatening those who flout quarantine laws with as many as three weeks of detention amid a new outbreak of COVID-19 in the region that has seen infections rise sharply since the start of the month, sources told RFA Uyghur.
The warning comes as the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) capital Lhasa entered a three-day state of de facto lockdown amid a growing number of COVID-19 cases in the city.
On Friday, authorities announced that they had documented 410 new asymptomatic COVID-19 infections in Xinjiang, bringing the total to 1,727, as the region continues to grapple with a new outbreak that has led to strict lockdowns.
An official in Qorghas (in Chinese, Huocheng) county’s Langar township, who oversees 10 families in Yengiavat village, told RFA that authorities have been conducting street patrols to ensure that nobody is leaving their homes during an ongoing lockdown in the area and informing residents that they would be detained for up to three weeks if they do.
“We are informing the residents that those who violate the system, that is, those who go out on the streets, will be punished and sent to 15-20 days of ‘re-education,’” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, using a common euphemism for detention in the region.
The leader of the village Women’s Committee, who also declined to be named, told RFA that “medicine is being distributed to residents” by authorities, although she was unsure of what type.
“They are cream in color and are said to prevent disease,” she said.
Earlier this week, Chinese state media reported that authorities ordered residents to quarantine in the cities of Urumqi (Wulumuqi), Ghulja (Yining), Aksu (Akesu), Kumul (Hami), Chochek (Tacheng), Bortala (Bole), and Kashgar (Kashi).
A community official said that the new infections were thought to have been brought by Chinese tourists from Gansu province, and the first viral outbreak in Ghulja was found in Uchon Dungan village.
Daily lives impacted
On Friday, sources in Xinjiang told RFA that lockdowns in the region had begun to severely impact the daily lives of residents, with farmers unable to attend to their fields and grocery store owners unable to sell perishables or keep them fresh.
Videos posted on social media from the region appeared to show rotten produce in markets that had been shuttered as a result of the lockdown, while residents said they were unable to obtain fresh vegetables while confined to their homes.
RFA spoke with the security director of Ghulja’s Mazar village, who said that only farmers with “urgent irrigation and harvesting needs” are allowed to leave their homes.
“The doors [on village homes] are sealed,” he said.
“Farmers with urgent needs are allowed to go out on a rotating basis. The farmers first need to get the approval of the village officials in order to go to the fields.”
The security director said those found to have violated the lockdown face at least 24 hours of detention.
A government official in Ghulja’s Samyuzi village told RFA that farmers are being allowed to work on their fields “under supervision,” adding that security cameras had been installed throughout the area to monitor whether anyone was leaving their home without permission.
“If they want to go out for farming needs, they will be accompanied by village officials to the fields. They can go on a rotating basis,” she said.
“We have installed security cameras on every household [to ensure no one ignores the lockdown],” she added.
Residents undergo mass testing following a COVID-19 outbreak in Lhasa, Tibet Autonomous Region, China, Aug. 9, 2022. Credit: CNS via Reuters
De facto lockdown
In the TAR, where authorities say they had documented 20 symptomatic and 127 asymptomatic COVID-19 infections as of Friday, officials in the capital Lhasa ordered a citywide “disinfection” operation from Aug. 12-15, during which people are not to leave their homes.
Sources in the city said the order amounted to a de facto three-day lockdown, although officials have refrained from using the term.
Those who have been confirmed positive are being quarantined and public testing is underway, they said, although authorities have failed to ensure that residents maintain proper distancing when they do so.
“Since COVID cases are rising in Lhasa and a few other regions, people who stayed in hotels and lodges in these areas and may have contact with the infected are now quarantining for safety,” a source in Tibet told RFA Tibetan.
“People are being subjected to continuous testing, Potala Palace and other religious sites are shut down, schools have postponed their reopening, and people are stocking up on groceries and buying face masks.”
Meanwhile, the summer tourism season is in full swing in Lhasa – despite concerns that the outbreak there is linked to visitors to the region – with Chinese travelers arriving in droves by plane, train, and car from other parts of China, the source said.
“Tibetan religious pilgrims seeking to visit Lhasa from around the region are having difficulty obtaining travel permits, while Chinese tourists have no issue obtaining passes to visit Tibet,” he added.
People line up to undergo nucleic acid tests for COVID-19 on Aug. 9, 2022, in Lhasa, in China’s western Tibet Autonomous Region. Credit: CNS/AFP
Airports operational
Another source from Lhasa told RFA they are concerned that Tibet’s airports remain open, and could lead to the import of additional cases to the region.
“I understand that Lhasa will be under [a form of] lockdown from Aug. 12, but there has been no official notice from the government yet and Gonkar Airport remains open as usual,” the source said.
“During earlier COVID-19 surges, the Chinese government did not restrict tourists from entering Tibet, despite the concerns of Tibetans. Now, as we see a growing number of COVID-19 outbreaks and the situation remains uncertain, we are worried about what will happen in the next few days.”
According to local regulations, only travelers who are exiting Lhasa through Gonkar Airport must undergo testing for COVID-19 48 hours prior to their departure and provide evidence of a negative result before they can leave.
While the number of infections continues to rise in Lhasa, information about the outbreak has become increasingly difficult to obtain.
On Wednesday, a Chinese official in Lhasa sent out a notice warning people not to share any news related to COVID-19 in the area, and social media posts about the outbreak have since become rare.
On Friday, Chinese state media reported that five officials in Shigatse, Tibet’s second-largest city with a population of about 800,000 people, had been dismissed due to a botched response to the outbreak in the region.
The report said that the five officials were removed from their posts for “inadequate implementation of the novel coronavirus epidemic prevention and control work.”
The officials had served as cadres in counties that have been designated as either high-risk or medium-risk areas for the spread of COVID-19.
