Day: August 29, 2022

UPDATED at 2:10 p.m. EDT on 8-29-2022

More than 6,600 armed clashes have broken out across Myanmar since the military seized power in the Feb. 1, 2021, coup, an independent think tank reported Monday.

Kayin (Karen) state saw the highest number of clashes, with 3,993 recorded in the past 19 months, 3,734 of them in Hpapun township alone, according to the Institute for Strategy and Policy-Myanmar (ISP-Myanmar).

Sagaing region, which has become a key hub of the conflict between the Myanmar military and pro-democracy resistance forces, saw 641 clashes. Fighting also broke out in central Myanmar’s Magway region and border areas with different ethnic groups, such as Kachin, Kayah and Chin states.

Kayin state is no stranger to conflict. Ethnic armed groups like the forces of the Karen National Union have been fighting for more autonomy against central rule for more than seven decades. But violence has intensified since the coup, as the KNU has provided sanctuary to opponents of the junta and has joined forces with anti-junta People’s Defense Force militia.

Less predictable was the upsurge in violence in the previously peaceful Sagaing region in northwestern Myanmar, where more than 20,000 homes have been reported burned down in a scorched earth campaign by junta forces. The U.N. says 470,000 people have been displaced.

Junta forces have also come under widespread attack. Junta leader Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing said last week there had been more than 4,000 “violent incidents” in Sagaing.

ISP-Myanmar senior research officer Kyaw Htet Aung told RFA that fighting had erupted in most of Sagaing’s townships.

“In some townships fighting broke once or twice,” he said. “There are 37 townships in Sagaing region and 34 townships have seen fighting. The only townships with no battles are Nanyun, Lay Shi and Lahe townships, which are very remote. Many local People’s Defense Forces (PDFs) have been established in Sagaing region. Therefore, the fighting has become widespread. There are more battles because there is more resistance.”

RFA’s calls to State Administration Council spokesman Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun went unanswered on Monday.

Nya Gyi, the battalion commander of PDF Battalion 2 in Sagaing’s Pale township, told RFA that resistance is rising because most people supported the previous National League for Democracy (NLD) government.

“Sagaing Region is a strategic place. It is a place with both plains and mountains,” he said.

“The NLD won control of most of the 37 townships in Sagaing region. People don’t like the military dictatorship. Sagaing has a lot of farmers who are an oppressed class and they do not accept the state of things. They have learned that armed revolution must be achieved along with political knowledge. Therefore, a lot of people have got involved in the revolution.”

Military analysts told RFA in the past Sagaing was previously peaceful, so it only had one army battalion and one division based at the regional military headquarters. They said this is why the military junta cannot control the region.

At the same time, observers and regional PDFs said the military is making use of its land, naval and air forces to crack down on its opponents in Sagaing.

This story has been updated to clarify data and add background

Two U.S. warships made a transit through the Taiwan Strait on the same day China flew 23 aircraft into areas around Taiwan in a continuous attempt to “normalize” such activities. 

In addition to Sunday’s U.S. and Chinese maneuvers, China said it had conducted combat training exercises around the island last week, though the activities have not been reported in Taiwan.

Since U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has been conducting daily sorties into the island’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ), where foreign aircraft are tracked and identified before venturing further.

An increasing number of the aircraft have also crossed the median line dividing the Taiwan Strait, which serves as de facto maritime border between the island and China’s mainland. 

Twice this month, on Aug. 18 and Aug. 27, the PLA deployed Xian H-6 strategic bombers during incursions into Taiwan, with PLA Air Force’s spokesman Col. Shen Jinke saying that such deployments have become “forceful evidence of normalized patrolling.”

The strategic bomber has nuclear strike capability and is capable of attacking U.S. carrier battle groups and priority targets in Asia, according to Military Today, a popular website on modern warfare. 

Experts and analysts say China is trying to “salami slice their way into a new status quo” in the Strait and the region.

The China Power Project at the U.S. Center for Strategic and International Studies said in a recent report that “China is specifically seeking to erase the notion of the median line” and Beijing “also seeks to establish a new normal in which the PLA no longer respects Taiwan’s claims to a separate airspace and territorial waters.”

U.S. Undersecretary of Defense for policy, Colin Kahl, said during a briefing on Aug. 8 that “it’s clear that Beijing is trying to create a kind of new normal, with the goal of trying to coerce Taiwan, but also frankly, to coerce the international community.”

“I think you should expect that we will continue to do Taiwan Strait transits, as we have in the past, in the coming weeks,” said the undersecretary.

 

Routine transit 

U.S. Navy’s 7th Fleet said that two of its Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruisers, the USS Antietam and USS Chancellorsville, were “conducting a routine Taiwan Strait transit August 28 (local time) through waters where high seas freedoms of navigation and overflight apply in accordance with international law.”

“These ships transited through a corridor in the Strait that is beyond the territorial sea of any coastal State,” the 7th Fleet said in a statement, adding that the transit “demonstrates the United States’ commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific.”

Taiwan’s Defense Ministry confirmed the transit, saying the U.S. cruisers sailed from North to South of the Taiwan Strait and “the situation is normal.”

Meanwhile PLA Eastern Theater Command’s spokesman Sr. Col. Shi Yi said his command “conducted security tracking and monitoring of the U.S. warships’ passage in the whole course and had all movements of the two U.S. warships under control.”

PLA troops “always stay on high alert and get ready to thwart any provocation,” Shi added.

Chinese observers were quick to point out that the two U.S. warships, both commissioned in the late 1980s, are near the end of their service. The U.S. Navy announced in April that it plans to retire all Ticonderoga-class cruisers by 2027.

Since the beginning of this year, American warships have conducted Taiwan Strait transits every month, apart from June when the U.S. Navy sent a P-8A Poseidon reconnaissance airplane through the Strait on June 24 instead.

Changing situation

As the “new normal” appears to have been slowly established on both sides, the PLA Eastern Theater Command said it “has in the past few days carried out joint combat-readiness security patrols and combat training exercises involving troops of multiple services and arms in the waters and airspace around the Taiwan Island.”

The information was announced on the Command’s official account on WeChat on Aug. 26.

“This is a normalized military operation organized according to the changing situation in the Taiwan Straits,” it said.

Both the Taiwanese and U.S. militaries have yet to respond to these newly announced drills.

The same Eastern Theater Command was responsible for carrying out an earlier week-long military exercise around Taiwan in response to Nancy Pelosi’s visit.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping and the Communist Party of China, “having responded the way China has done so with Pelosi’s visit, have set the bar higher for themselves and future responses to perceived Taiwan and U.S. transgressions,” said Collin Koh, a Research Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore. 

“One possible likelihood is that hawkish factions within the Chinese political and military establishment may now have the justification to push for intensified efforts to modernize the PLA with an eye on a greater possibility of forceful reunification,” Koh said.

China considers the self-ruled democratic Taiwan one of its provinces and vows to “reunify” with the mainland, by force if necessary.

“All in all, we are likely to face heightened risks of conflict in the Taiwan Strait,” the military analyst said.

Hanoi People’s Court has sentenced six Vietnamese to a total of 81 years in prison for trafficking children abroad.

Ringleader Huynhh Thi Hong and her five accomplices all pleaded guilty at last Thursday’s hearing.

Hong was sentenced to 19 years in prison, the others received terms of between five and 16 years for the crime of “trafficking in persons under 16 years of age.”

The group operated by joining the “Association of Giving and Adopting Children,” on social networks.

They used the information to find people who wanted to put their children up for adoption and then profited by selling them.

After receiving the babies, Hong’s group looked for resellers, contacting a Chinese group to sell babies for as much as VND 170 million (U.S.$ 7,400) for a boy and VND 70 million (U.S.$ 3,000 for a girl.

The court heard that Hong’s group bought 10 babies between Nov. 2018 and Jan. 2019 and sold them for between U.S.$ 2,100 and U.S.$ 7,400. Hong, alone, earned U.S.$ 14,000.

State media reported that police were alerted to the trafficking ring in Jan., 2019 when a man driving down a street in Hanoi heard the sound of a crying child. He discovered that a girl had been abandoned on the steps of a house.

Human trafficking worsened in Vietnam over the past year, according to a report last month by the U.S. State Department.

The annual Trafficking in Persons Report placed the country in its lowest ranking alongside 21 other countries including Cambodia and China.

“The Government of Vietnam does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking and is not making significant efforts to do so, even considering the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on its anti-trafficking capacity; therefore, Vietnam was downgraded to Tier 3,” the report said.

On the positive side, the report said Vietnam’s government had brought in: “formal child-centered investigative policies that aimed to address long standing insufficiencies in preexisting law; increasing international law enforcement cooperation; initiating a process to evaluate a preexisting anti-trafficking law for eventual amendment; achieving the first modest increase in victim identification in five years; and assisting more victims than in 2020.”

However, the report said that even though Vietnamese authorities identified more victims than the previous year, the first increase in five years, the government reported a decrease in convictions for the fifth year in a row.

Jawa Barat, Indonesia

Event Date : Sat, 27 Aug 2022

AHADID : AHA-FL-2022-000909-IDN | GLIDE Number :

Impact Update Date : Sat, 27 Aug 2022 17:30:00

AFFECTED AREA/S

Bogor

DESCRIPTION

Cause: Heavy rainfall, strong wind, and unstable soil condition

Location:

Flood

? Kec. Bogor Selatan, Kel. Cipaku, Kel. Katulampa

? Kec. Bogor Timur, Kel. Baranangsiang

Landslide

? Kec. Bogor Utara, Kel. Ciluar, Kel. Cimahpar

? Kec. Bogor Selatan, Kel. Muarasari, Kel. Lawang Gintung, Kel. Pakuan, Kel. Cipaku.

? Kel. Bogor Tengah, Kel. Gudang

? Kel. Bogor Timur, Kel. Tajur

Strong wind

? Kec. Bogor Selatan, Kel. Pakuan

? Kec. Bogor Timur, Kel. Katulampa

Source: ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance

Kalimantan Barat, Indonesia

Event Date : Sun, 28 Aug 2022

AHADID : AHA-FL-2022-000907-IDN | GLIDE Number :

Impact Update Date : Sun, 28 Aug 2022 04:00:00

AFFECTED AREA/S

Ketapang

DESCRIPTION

Cause: Moderate to heavy rainfall and overflowing of the rivers

Location:

? Kec. Jelai Hulu

• Ds. Riam Danau Kanan

• Ds. Pasir Mayang

Source: ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance