Day: September 13, 2022

Hundreds of people were waiting to cross into Bangladesh from Myanmar, a small group of newly arrived Rohingya told BenarNews, amid fierce fighting close to the border that has sparked diplomatic protests over reports of artillery and mortar shells landing in Bangladeshi territory. 

One of the new arrivals said he saw “several hundred” people clustered along a river that separates Cox’s Bazar district in southeastern Bangladesh from Myanmar’s Rakhine state, and who were trying to cross the frontier several days ago. It was not immediately clear what happened to those other people apparently displaced by intense clashes in recent weeks between Burmese junta forces and Arakan Army (AA) rebels. 

In Bangladesh, where the government has tightened security along the border amid the violence in Rakhine, authorities have not confirmed reports of any new refugee arrivals or influx into Cox’s Bazar. 

Meanwhile, a Rohingya leader said that at least five Rohingya fleeing Myanmar had arrived at a Cox’s Bazar camp in recent days. 

“Two Rohingya families of five people, including two infants, have taken shelter at the Lambasia camp in Ukhia,” Muhammed Jubair, secretary general of the Arakan Rohingya Society for Peace and Human Rights (ARSPH), told BenarNews. 

The adults were identified as Abul Wafa, his wife, Minara, and another woman, Dildar Begum. 

Wafa said they fled from Buthidaung in Myanmar on Sept. 6 as junta and AA forces clashed. 

“The junta started torturing the Rohingya in Buthidaung,” he told BenarNews. “That’s why we came to Bangladesh to save our lives, but we are also hiding here.” 

“When we were entering Bangladesh, we saw several hundred Rohingya people, mostly women and children waiting to leave near the Naf River,” Wafa said. 

Two days earlier, on Sept. 4, the Foreign Ministry issued a news release expressing “deep concern” over mortars that reportedly landed on the Bangladeshi side of the frontier the day before. The release noted that Myanmar Ambassador U Aung Kyaw Moe was summoned regarding the incident, just as he had been summoned on Aug. 21 and 28. 

“During the meeting, the ambassador was also told that such activities are of grave threat to the safety and security of the peace-loving people, violation of the border agreement between Bangladesh and Myanmar and contrary to the good neighborly relationship,” the ministry said. 

On Tuesday, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal said he expected firing inside Myanmar along the border to end soon. 

“We heard that a group called Arakan Army was fighting with the government forces inside Myanmar. When the government forces attack the Arakan Army, some shells land inside our territory,” he told reporters. 

“Our Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB), as well as Foreign Ministry, have strongly protested the incidents by calling the ambassador of Myanmar.” 

Refugees’ accounts 

Jubair said Wafa and the others sheltered with a relative after arriving in Bangladesh before moving into another camp. 

Wafa said his group gave a boatman a piece of gold jewelry to carry them across the Naf River because they had no money to pay him. 

Dildar Begum, 22, said her husband, Syed Ullah, was killed by the “Mogh army” a month ago. She was referring to the Arakan Army although “Mogh” is a term that Rohingya also often use to refer to the Burmese military. 

“I fled with Wafa’s family to Bangladesh as there was no other option for me,” she told BenarNews. 

In Rakhine state, an official with the AA rebels denied that the group was targeting members of the stateless Rohingya Muslim minority. 

“The allegations on AA targeting Muslims are not just wrong but baseless accusations, because the fighting [in the state between Arakan Army and junta troops] has been more than a month,” Khine Thu Kha, a spokesman for the rebel group, told RFA Burmese.

“We want to question back, did you guys see or hear any report of a Muslim killed or injured by the fighting? Did you hear any report or see anyone saying there was a shell or a bullet from AA falling in a Muslim village so far? Otherwise, it is just an accusation with other intentions to defame our organization.” 

Despite the claims made by the Rohingya, Md. Shamsud Douza, Bangladesh’s commissioner for Refugee Relief and Repatriation, said there was no official information about any new arrivals from Rakhine state infiltrating Bangladesh territory. 

“Clashes are occurring between two groups in Myanmar. It is very normal that it will create some tension on our border as a neighboring country,” he told BenarNews. “Our decision is very clear – we cannot allow even a single Rohingya to enter Bangladesh.” 

Robiul Islam, additional superintendent of police, said his unit was “not sure about a fresh entry of Rohingya but we are looking into the matter.” 

Sheikh Khalid Mohammad Iftekhar, a senior official of Border Guard Bangladesh, said the border police force had tightened security at the frontier to prevent any attempts by refugees to enter the country. From January to June, 478 Rohingya were denied entry and four were arrested, according to the BGB. 

Repatriation hopes 

A Rohingya who lives in Maungdaw, Myanmar, and asked to not be named for security concerns, said that the increasing conflict in the state had dampened Rohingya hopes for repatriation. 

“It will be difficult for them to return in this situation. The current situation will not allow them to come here,” the resident told RFA. 

“The situation here is not very good. There is no security. People here are fleeing to other areas because fighting is going on. In this situation, they will not be able to come back.” 

Fighting between the military and the AA resumed in July. Oo Maung Ohn, a resident of Maungdaw Township, blamed the resurgence in Rakhine State after a nearly two-year ceasefire on the junta. 

“Do you know why all this fighting resumed? They (the junta) closed the roads and started the fighting and they arrested many innocent people,” he told RFA. “They arrested village administrators, questioned them and hit them.” 

Rakhine State Attorney General Hla Thein, a junta spokesman, did not immediately respond to RFA requests for comment.

Regional army chief visit camps 

Meanwhile, top army officers from 24 countries, including the United States, China and India, who were taking part in a conference in Dhaka, took a side trip on Tuesday to visit the Rohingya refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar. 

The delegation, including Bangladesh Army Chief Gen. S.M. Shafiuddin Ahmed and Gen. Charles A. Flynn, the American army chief in the Indo-Pacific, spoke with Rohingya leaders at the camps. The U.S. military did not immediately release details of those discussions. 

While delivering the keynote address during the first day of the conference on Monday, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina warned that the prolonged stay of more than 1 million Rohingya in the crowded Cox’s Bazar camps had become a serious security and stability concern. 

Most of those refugees, about 740,000, fled from Rakhine state during a Myanmar government crackdown five years ago. Within months, Bangladesh and Myanmar officials agreed to repatriate the Rohingya, but none have returned to their homeland under the program. 

Ahammad Foyez in Dhaka and RFA Burmese contributed to this report by BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated news service.

North Korea is cracking down on South Korean culture infiltrating its military ranks after soldiers in a talent show were caught performing in ways that resemble the South’s flashy  television programs, sources in the country told RFA. 

Their performances in a country with staid, state-run TV sparked an investigation that led to nationwide countermeasures, a source from the northwestern province of North Pyongan told RFA’s Korean Service Sept. 5 on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

“During the show, some of them told jokes that resembled South Korean stand-up comedians, and others sang songs like South Korean singers,” said the source.

“The Central Committee judged it to be a serious breach of discipline and ordered a thorough investigation and punishment of those involved,” the source said.

North Korea has been vigilant about trying to prevent its youth from being swallowed up in the pop culture of the democratic and far more prosperous South. 

In late 2020, the government passed the draconian Elimination of Reactionary Thought and Culture Act, which punishes citizens for a wide variety of offenses, mostly related to watching, keeping or distributing media from capitalist countries, particularly from South Korea and the U.S. The law carries a maximum penalty of death for serious offenders.

The law has also been used to punish drivers for tinting their car windows, students for using South Korean-style speech and slang, and even dance instructors, for teaching youth to emulate the moves of foreign pop stars.

Because the soldiers involved in the talent show incident are in a unit under the Ministry of State Security, they are essentially police, and could one day be tasked with cracking down on South Korean and other “anti-socialist”  influences among the people, according to the source.

“They should be at the forefront of protecting the system,” the source said. “Anti-socialist phenomena have also emerged in other units. The Central Committee [of the Korean Workers’ Party] called for an emergency measure [nationwide] … ordering the eradication of socialism within the units.” 

“The reason this is so serious is because there were high-ranking officials at the talent show who saw what happened,” said the source. “Officers and soldiers are nervous because the Central Committee emphasized the severity of the incident.”

By emulating South Korean stand-up comedians and singers, the ministry considers the soldiers to have been helping the enemy, the source said.

“From Sept. 10, the unit, including its officers,  will attend a month-long large-scale ideological lecture series,” the source said.

The nationwide emergency measure order immediately went into effect after the investigation, and authorities in the northeastern province of North Hamgyong began education sessions for soldiers there, a judicial source from the province told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely.

“The Central Committee will greatly expand political and ideological projects for all soldiers and agents. This expansion will serve to block the channels of anti-socialist behavior that recently enlisted soldiers and officers could bring to their units,” the second source said.

“In addition, the soldiers and officials are prohibited from contacting ‘unhealthy’ civilians so that the ministry can establish a strict command system and strong military discipline within the social security forces,” the second source said.

Regardless of the measures authorities take, however, the attraction of the South’s culture will persist, the second source said.

“It’s nothing new that young soldiers are influenced by anti-socialist [media]. Whenever a problem was previously raised, the Central Committee took measures by making a fuss as if something was wrong, but this kind of behavior has not disappeared yet,” the second source said. 

“No matter how many long extensive lectures they hold, or how loudly they scold, it’s just a temporary measure. They cannot completely block the flow [of media] to curious people among the younger generation.”

Translated by Claire Shinyoung Oh Lee. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

More than 600 mostly young Uyghurs from a village in Ghulja were detained by authorities in Xinjiang on Monday after they ignored a strict COVID-19 lockdown and staged a peaceful street protest against a lack of food that has led to starvation and deaths, a local police officer said. 

The detention figure was much higher than China’s official number issued the same day on an official police website stating that only two people who violated the lockdown restrictions in Ghulja (in Chinese, Yining) city were sentenced to five days of detention.

Ghulja, a city of roughly a half-million mainly Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in Ili (Yili) Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture in the northern part of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), has been under lockdown since early August, prompted by outbreaks of COVID-19. 

Video posted by Uyghurs on Chinese social media last week showed that strict policies were denying them medical care and preventing them from getting food, leading to starvation in some cases. RFA could not independently verify the videos

The lockdowns, along with mandatory testing, are part of China’s “zero-COVID” approach to preventing the further spread of the highly contagious respiratory virus, but they have triggered exorbitant commodity prices, significant food shortages, and a lack of health care, especially for those living below the poverty line.

In response to the zero-COVID policy, the residents of Ghulja’s Karadong village walked en masse out of their homes and took to the streets.

“We came out because of the deaths, otherwise we would have remained silent,” a Uyghur protester said in a soundbite of a social media post on Monday. “Look at these people who took to the streets! We, the people of Karadong village of Ghulja city, took to the streets! They [the authorities] did not send any aid here; therefore, people took to the streets when they couldn’t endure it.” 

The villagers demonstrated despite warnings that aired on state-run Xinjiang TV warning citizens that authorities would punish them as “separatists” if they “spread rumors” about the wave of COVID-19 infection in the area. 

“Those who use the novel coronavirus pneumonia epidemic to create and spread rumors to split the country, harm the unity of the country, or incite the overthrow of the state regime and the socialist system, fall under Article 103, Section 2, and Article 105, Section 2 of the Criminal Law and will be prosecuted for the crime of inciting to split the country and to overthrow the state regime,” the announcement said.

When asked by RFA about the number of protesters arrested, an officer at the Karadong Town 2 Police Station said 617 people from Karadong village had been detained. He also said officers from his station arrested 182 people in the neighborhood for which they are responsible.

“Most of them are misguided youths — 17, 18, 19 [years old] or even younger,” he said. “Some of them I have spoken to. They all said they did wrong and acknowledged the [Chinese Communist] Party’s and the government’s benevolence. During the interrogations, they all expressed remorse.”

The officer said officials are helping impoverished families during the lockdown implemented since early August 

“Village and township cadres are visiting and distributing flour, oil and meat,” he said. “Economically well-off families in the village are also helping the poor.”

An officer at the Ghulja Yengihayat Police Station contacted by RFA said he did not know how many people involved in the protest were arrested

“Those handling the case know this. We don’t know. They haven’t informed us yet,” he said.

 An officer at the Ghulja City Police Command Center declined to provide information about the protesters over the phone. 

“Please ask the relevant offices,” he said. “We cannot provide information about this. There is data published by the police department about this, look it up online.”

But when RFA pointed out to him that there was a difference between the information posted online and what the officer from the Karadong Town 2 Police Station said, he replied: “I don’t know how many cases have been filed in this case. The prosecutors know that.”

‘Terrible things are transpiring’

Many Uyghurs have posted short videos of the starvation they are experiencing on China’s Douyin video-hosting service, though some of them, including some Han Chinese, complained that censors were deleting their videos. 

A warning in the Uyghur language telling residents not to post any information about the COVID lockdown on social media appeared on Douyin on Monday. 

“Starting today until Sept. 18, nobody is allowed to share any news, any graphic with news written on it, or images of desperate expressions or videos on social media, especially in separate chat rooms because our country will hold its National Congress on October 18,” the message said. “We’re all fully aware of it. That is why we must strictly abide by this.”

The Chinese government wants to prevent large-scale COVID outbreaks in Xinjiang and other parts of China in the run-up to the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, when the party’s national policy goals for the next five years will be set and its top leadership elected.

Meanwhile, Uyghur residents have complained that their residential management offices are charging exorbitant fees to deliver for food donated from outside the area, while Uyghurs from outside Ghulja say housing manager have refused to accept food they wanted to donate to help those in the city environs who need it. 

Members of Uyghur organizations abroad demonstrated peacefully over the weekend to protest the starvation of Ghulja in front of Chinese embassies and consulates around the world, in the United States, Canada, Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Australia and Turkey. 

Adrian Zenz, a researcher at the Washington, D.C.-based Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation and expert on the Xinjiang region, tweeted Monday, “terrible things are transpiring from Uyghur regions, including severe and potentially life-threatening conditions caused by lockdowns.” 

“My heart very much goes out to the Uyghur community at this time, praying for strength in the face of what appear to be depictions of utter desperation and even death amid a ruthless COVID lockdown,” he tweeted. “Years of oppression have left Uyghurs in the region utterly helpless.”

As many as a dozen people in Ghulja country have died from starvation or lack of access to medicine since the coronavirus lockdown was imposed by Chinese authorities, RFA reported on Sept. 9, citing information from residents and local officials.

At the end of August, the United Nations’ human rights chief issued a report on Xinjiang, saying that China’s arbitrary detention and repression of Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in the region “may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity.”

Translated by Mamatjan Juma for RFA Uyghur. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen has stated that he will continue to lead the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP), and thus remain in power, even after he one day retires from the government.

Having ruled the Southeast Asian country since 1985, Hun Sen has teased the idea of stepping down several times in recent years amid speculation that he is grooming his son Hun Manet to take over.

The CPP recently passed amendments to the Cambodian constitution that analysts have said make it easier for a transition of power from father to son to occur.

But even if that happens, Hun Sen would still be CPP president and would have final say on major decisions, he said.

“I would have the right to review prime ministerial and minister activities, so if you don’t perform well, the party president will fire you,” Hun Sen said during a public gathering Tuesday in the northwestern province of Siem Reap.

“Some people might criticize me for being a remote control giving orders from behind [the scenes]. In Cambodia, voters vote for the party and then the party appoints the prime minister,” he said.

Hun Sen’s comments indicate that he would still babysit Hun Manet should the son step into his father’s shoes, and suggest that the son does not carry enough political clout himself to compete with opposition, even within his own party, exiled political analyst Kim Sok told RFA’s Khmer Service 

“It is clear that Hun Manet can only have power by doing what his father wants, because Hun Manet cannot be prime minister without CPP support,” Kim Sok said.

“He gets the power that his father robs for him,” he said, explaining that Hun Sen has been trying to put pressure on his own party.

In late August, Hun Sen also told Hun Manet that even he could be fired as prime minister if he refuses to meet his father’s expectations.

But for now, Hun Sen will remain prime minister for the foreseeable future, as the CPP elected him in late December to serve another 10 years.

Appeal denied

The latest remarks from the strongman ruler came as a court in Phnom Penh upheld convictions against 13 activists who were sentenced to five years for their involvement in the failed 2019 plot by self-exiled opposition leader Sam Rainsy to return to Cambodia.

Ouk Chanthy, the wife Yim Sareth, one of the 13 activists, told RFA that she was saddened with the verdict delivered Tuesday and that her husband and the others are innocent.

She said the verdict is unjust and proves that the court is not independent.

“The courts listen to politicians. If they don’t allow the court to release the activists then they won’t release them,” she said.

“Our family members would have been released two years ago if the court were independent because they are innocent,” she said. “I will continue to fight for justice for the activists.”

Based on the evidence, the court’s ruling is inappropriate, the activists’ lawyer Sam Sokong told RFA.

He said he would take the case to Cambodia’s Supreme Court, and urged the Ministry of Interior’s Prison Department ot transfer the activists to Prey Sar prison in Phnom Penh, because it is closer to their family members than where they are currently held, far away in Tboung Khmum Province in the southeast.

“As a lawyer, I am disappointed because the ruling doesn’t give justice to my clients,” he said.

“This is a political case. My clients continue to maintain their innocence,” said Sam Sokong.

The decision of the court was not surprising to Soeung Sengkaruna, spokesperson for The Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association (Adhoc), a local rights group, who told RFA that it was a politically motivated case.

“If Cambodia wants to avoid being criticized and condemned by the international community, [the government] should not persecute opposition activists by using the judicial system,” Soeung Sengkaruna said. 

“We need to end it and restore the democratic process and respect of human rights,” he said.

Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

Authorities in Beijing are ‘renovating’ a major mosque to remove traces of the Arabic language and Middle Eastern designs, so as to comply with the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s ‘sinicization of religion’ policies, RFA has learned.

Doudian Mosque, with its arabesque cupolae and minarets, was the newest and largest mosque in Beijing, and was built with funds donated by Beijing Muslims, according to a forum post on the online Muslim community website Ummah.

“The architecture and decoration of this mosque represents a hybrid of the classical Islamic form, with a healthy dose of indigenous architectural and decorative elements to satisfy the demand for a sinicized form of Islam,” academic Lloyd Ridgeon wrote in a 2020 edition of the Journal of Minority Muslim Affairs, referring to Doudian Mosque in the Beijing suburb of Fangshan.

“The recent fear of Islam has indeed resulted in mosque design increasingly reflecting a Chinese flavour than a typically Middle-Eastern one,” the article said.

“In Henan province … domes have been removed from mosques, along with crescent and star shaped symbols. Such actions reflect the push for sinicization of religions.”

China’s five-year plan for the sinicization of Islam, will focus on requiring mosques to to uphold “core values of socialism, traditional culture, laws and regulations,” according to a January 2019 conference organized by the CCP’s United Front Work Department.

Mosques have been told to “guide, mobilize and inspire” Chinese Muslims with lectures and training sessions on such topics, and which uphold the spirit of a sinicized Islam by using examples of notable figures.

Beijing-based religious scholar Xi Wuyi recently posted photos and descriptions of the renovations at the Doudian Mosque, adding that they show “the orderly progress of … sinicization of religion in China.”

‘Rectification’ work

It is understood that the “”rectification” work to remove visible links to Arab and Middle Eastern culture started last month and is expected to be completed on May 1, 2023.

Shih Chien-yu, a national security expert and researcher at Taiwan’s Society of Central Asian Studies, said there has been a tendency among Chinese Muslims since the economic reforms of late supreme leader Deng Xiaoping to lean towards more Arab-influenced designs in mosque architecture.

“It has all been done according to the way it’s done in the Arab world,” Shih told RFA. “Also a lot of the funds for construction have been donated by foreign countries.”

Completed in 2013, Doudian Mosque covers an area of ​​nearly 15,000 square meters and can accommodate 1,500 worshippers at the same time, making it the biggest mosque in northern China.

According to Shih, the design was approved by Wang Zhengwei, then director of China’s National Ethnic Affairs Commission.

“Wang Zhengwei was seen as a traditional supporter of autonomy for the ethnic minority regions, which is completely at odds with [current CCP leader] Xi Jinping’s attitude towards the issue, and towards religion,” he said.

“They are demolishing the foreign architectural styles of the mosques built during that time and restoring the more [Chinese] green tile, flying cornices mosque architecture,” Shih said.

In July 2021, authorities in the western province of Qinghai announced the “rectification” of the 700-year-old Dongguan Mosque in Xining.

Control is the goal

Wang Yang, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference advisory body, visited Qinghai two months ago, with footage of him visiting the mosque aired by state broadcaster CCTV at the time.

According to Shih, the Doudian Mosque is part of the same “sinicization” program.

“The authorities believe that this way, all the different religious beliefs in China can be placed under the control of the Chinese government,” Shih said. “Under the guidance [of the CCP], any ideas or interpretations from outside are illegal.”

“They are using this as a symbolic way to establish the idea that you have to follow the party,” he said.

World Uyghur Congress spokesman Dilxat Raxit said the move is part of a bid to eliminate religious beliefs, rather than making them more Chinese, however.

“China is … using administrative means to eliminate people’s religious beliefs in a planned and purposeful manner,” Raxit told RFA.

“As China’s political center, Beijing is sending a strong message to the world with its ‘rectification’ of mosques, which is that China will continue with the sinicization of Islam policy, and won’t be backing down due to external pressure,” he said.

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping will head to Central Asia this week on his first trip out of the country since the COVID-19 pandemic, attending the regional Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Summit in Uzbekistan, holding talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin and visiting neighboring Kazakhstan.

Xi’s trip is expected to focus on broad strategic concerns in response to the United States’ formation of the Quad alongside Japan, Australia and India in a bid to counter Beijing’s increasingly assertive foreign policy.

Xi and Putin will meet at the eight-member SCO Summit, which also includes Uzbekistan, India and Pakistan, with the president taking the trip at a time when Chinese citizens have been barred from non-essential foreign travel.

It also comes as his ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) gears up for its 20th National Congress on Oct. 16, during which Xi is widely expected to secure an unprecedented third term in office following constitutional amendments in 2018.

The last time Xi met Putin at the February 2022 Winter Olympics — shortly before Russian launched its invasion of Ukraine — the two leaders declared a “no limits” friendship that has seen China claim neutrality but decline to criticize the war, amid a large spike in its exports of electronics components and other raw materials to Russia since the war began.

Until now, Xi has taken part in other international engagement via video link, only making the trip to Hong Kong to mark the 25th anniversary of the city’s handover to China.

Formed under Xi’s predecessor Hu Jintao, the SCO is seen as a counterweight to U.S. alliances across East Asia to the Indian Ocean amid increasingly tense relations with Washington, Europe, Japan and India over trade, technology, security, Taiwan, Hong Kong, human rights and territorial conflicts at sea and in the Himalayas.

Rolling out his “Global Security Initiative” in April, Xi said he aimed to ”uphold the principle of indivisibility of security” and “oppose the building of national security on the basis of insecurity in other countries.”

Xi will visit Kazakhstan on Sept. 14, Kazakh foreign ministry spokesman Aibek Smadiyarov said on Monday, adding that the Chinese leader will meet Kazakh President Kassym Jomart Tokayev and sign a number of bilateral documents.

Westward expansion of Chinese influence

Taiwanese national security expert Shih Chien-yu said he expects to see ever-closer cooperation between China and its northern neighbor in the next few years.

“Let’s see if Kazakhstan and China cooperate or even go hand-in-hand [as allies] over the next few years,” Shih told RFA. “Kazakhstan will play a key role in the westward expansion of Chinese influence in the future.”

Shih said that while Kazakh-China ties are currently friendly, Kazakhstan also has very close ties with Moscow, amid a resurgence of U.S. interest in locating military bases and other major infrastructure projects in Central Asia.

Meanwhile, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan are deeply in debt to China, and are effectively its vassal states, Shih said.

Turkmenistan remains very closed to outside cooperation, while Uzbekistan is largely focused on agriculture, leaving Kazakhstan the key strategic battleground over which major powers will tussle, he said.

Taiwan think-tank analyst Chang Kuo-cheng said Xi’s trip also carries great symbolic meaning.

“China just recently conducted military exercises in the Taiwan Strait that were criticized by the U.S. and other Western countries, and were related to comments from the new British prime minister Liz Truss [who said China was a threat to national security],” Chang said.

“This visit have put to rest any concerns about [Xi’s] health, and show that … he is confident enough in the domestic political situation to travel overseas,” he said. “Thirdly, he’ll definitely be going to Kazakhstan with gifts and checks, showing that China is playing a more international role as a major power, at a time of war between Russia and Ukraine.”

Uyghur groups are watching Xi’s trip and the SCO summit for signs Beijing will use the meetings to add to pressure on the Uyghurs by gaining its neighbors’ support for tough Chinese policies, said Erkin Ekrem, strategic analyst and  vice-chair of the Germany-based World Uyghur Congress.

“The Uyghur issue is one of the most important issues discussed at each SCO summit. That is the main platform for China to demonize Uyghurs as ‘terrorists’ over the years in Central Asia and the Middle East in order to get the support of these countries against Uyghurs,” he told RFA.

“However, in recent years, the narrative on the Uyghur issue has dramatically changed as the Western nations are accusing China of committing genocide, crimes against humanity and use of forced labor against Uyghurs. The West wants to hold China accountable, whether in the U.S., EU or at the current UN General Assembly session. That is why the SCO meeting is highly relevant to China,” added Ekrem.

GDI & BRI

Xi could also be promoting his newly conceived Global Development Initiative (GDI), which experts described as a parallel development and lending initiative running alongside a more streamlined Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Samantha Custer, director of policy research at the Aid Data Lab at the College of William and Mary, told an online seminar run by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) that the BRI is risky for borrowers, because BRI construction projects often lack transparency, and lenders are concerned about defaults.

Diplomatically, Beijing also faces international criticism that it is setting up debt traps for developing countries, she said.

Joseph Asunka, CEO of pollsters Afrobarometer, told the seminar that Beijing has gotten far more conservative in its approach to its African investments since the pandemic and the war in Ukraine.

“Chinese lending to Africa tends to exacerbate debt levels on the continent,” Asunka said. “I do see some kind of shift, especially following this year’s … focus event in Senegal for China-Africa cooperation, where China seemed to be moving towards what they call small and beautiful.”
 

Anthea Mulakala, senior director of the Asia Foundation, said the GDI is now running parallel to the BRI, rather than replacing it.

“Definitely the BRI has been the dominant track, the dominant approach that people are aware of [while] the GDI has been introduced as more of a parallel track,” Mulakala said. “Since COVID … there has been a decline in BRI investments globally.”

“China’s approach now is to learn from experience to date, whether it’s good or whether it’s bad, and adapt and refine what they do going forward,” she said.

“They’re not taking on the gambling investments in Cambodia, or the heavy real-estate investments — it’s much more streamlined and focused now.”

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.