Day: October 28, 2022

A pro-democracy publishing house in Thailand was approached by a Chinese businessman who wanted to pay it to shut down to boost his relationship with Beijing in the wake of the ruling Chinese Communist Party congress, its editors said in a statement.

A private investigation agency contacted Sam Yan Press in May with an offer of two million baht from a Chinese businessman who wanted to buy the company in order to shut it down, the publishing house said in a statement on its website dated Oct. 26.

“They said that the Chinese businessman was keen to make good relations with the Chinese government. We were in utter disbelief and thought it was a fraud. Therefore, we completely ignored the messages from the agency and continued with our causes,” the statement, signed by the press’ editorial board, said.

By September, the approaches had gotten far more persistent, with agency staff tracking Sam Yan Press founder and prominent Thai democracy activist Netiwit Chotiphatphaisal down at his home and at a Buddhist temple where he was in retreat as a monk.

“Our team members also received calls from the agency and more messages stating the urgency of this offer,” the statement said. “This posed a serious threat to our independence, security, and freedom of expression.”

The agency told the editors at Sam Yan Press in a face-to-face meeting that a Chinese businessman named as Huang Chengde was offering them two million baht in cash for an official letter stating that the press had been dissolved.

“We strongly rejected the offer, making it unmistakably clear that we would not be co-opted for the money,” the editors said, adding that they will continue to translate and publish works in line with their core values of promoting democracy in Thailand.

“We encourage all press, media, and international publishing sectors to stand up against the regime’s attempt at censorship and resist the manipulation and domination of independent organizations,” the statement said.

Chinese business owners in foreign countries have cropped up in the past as unofficial representatives of Beijing, especially where the Chinese Communist Party hopes to wield covert influence beyond its borders.

In 2019, Sweden’s foreign ministry recalled its ambassador to China after she was accused of holding a meeting between two unnamed Chinese businessmen and the daughter of detained Hong Kong bookseller Gui Minhai without official authorization.

Ambassador Anna Lindstedt was later charged by Swedish prosecutors with “arbitrariness during negotiations with a foreign power,” specifically linked to a meeting with Angela Gui during which she was “in contact with persons representing the interests of the Chinese State.” 

Screenshots of the initial email to Sam Yan showed that it included the possibility of the publishing house restarting six months later under a new name.

The main motivation for the purchase was Huang’s desire for “good relationship” with the Chinese government.

RFA contacted the Chinese embassy in Thailand for comment on the story, but no reply had been received by the time of writing.

Sam Yan was founded by a group of college students in 2017, and was a participant in the regional Milk Tea Alliance of pro-democracy movements and anti-Beijing protests.

It has published books by Hong Kong, mainland Chinese and Taiwanese authors, including 2014 Hong Kong protest leader Joshua Wong, late 2010 Nobel peace laureate Liu Xiaobo and jailed Uyghur academic Ilham Tohti.

Standing in solidarity

Milk Tea Alliance supporter Ken Wu, vice president of the Los Angeles chapter of the Formosan Association for Public Affairs (FAPA), said progressive organizations should stand in solidarity with Sam Yan.

“Organizations like Sam Yan that promote democracy, freedom and human rights, and support anti-authoritarian movements like the Milk Tea Alliance are going to be rejected by a totalitarian state like the Chinese Communist Party,” Wu told RFA.

“If totalitarian states get that powerful, they don’t stop at limiting freedom of speech in their own country,” he said. “They also extend their clutches overseas and try to totally eliminate anything that could threaten their stability.”

Wu said Beijing likely fears regional publishers with a progressive bent, for fear that their books will find their way back to China.

China has jailed or detained several Hong Kong booksellers including Gui Minhai in recent years for selling political books banned in China to its citizens. Gui turned up in police custody in China after disappearing from his holiday home in Pattaya, Thailand.

Wu said that given the fact that Southeast Asian countries are typically economically dependent on Beijing, the attempt to take down a progressive Thai publishing house was “worrying.”

A Chinese national currently seeking asylum at UNHCR in Bangkok, who requested anonymity for security reasons, said there has been a huge spike in Chinese espionage activities in Southeast Asia in recent years.

The Thai authorities have proven themselves willing to cooperate with Beijing in repatriating exiled dissidents, where they have gone on to face trial. 

Australia-based rights activist Lu Ruichao said making such scandals public is the only way to respond.

“Keep the electronic evidence, and if that’s not available, take photos or video, and give it to the media and law enforcement agencies,” Lu said.

Lu said he had been followed by several Chinese consular officials in Perth after attending an event marking the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen massacre — a taboo topic for Beijing — in June 2020.

The officials had also tried to put pressure on local police to delete the report he made, prompting Lu to take the story to the local media.

Lu said he hasn’t experienced anything similar since blowing the whistle on the incident.

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

Myanmar junta soldiers are warning local residents and aid group workers against providing medical treatment to people who were injured during a bombing of a concert in Hpakant township, Kachin state, last weekend, or holding large prayer services for those who were killed in the attack.

“They aren’t allowing funeral services for the victims who died,” a Hpakant resident said. “They said that they were going to arrest anybody who gives medical treatment to the injured victims. They won’t even allow prayer services. They have issued strong orders that only family members can be with the dead, restricting other people from joining. Their orders are that vicious.” 

Troops threatened to arrest survivors or anyone who helped treat the injured under the country’s Unlawful Association Act, which carries a minimum two-year sentence, the resident said. 

RFA reached out to the junta’s local administration officials and officers at the area military base but received no response.

About 300 civilians and soldiers from the Kachin Independence Army were gathered at the event last Sunday night when junta planes attacked. The Kachin Independence Organization, the political association representing ethnic Kachins in northern Myanmar, reported this week that 63 people died in the attack.

An aid worker said the number killed had risen to 66 after three people later succumbed to their injuries. RFA Burmese reported that junta soldiers blocked access to the site of the attack, preventing the injured from being treated at a local hospital.

The junta has said the strike was in response to attacks against its forces in the region. The KIA is one of several ethnic armies in Myanmar that, along with dozens of militias known as People’s Defense Forces, are fighting the military junta, which deposed a democratically elected government in February 2021. 

Gruesome scene

Another Hpakant town resident who witnessed the bombing said that the number of casualties is expected to rise. He described a gruesome scene of victims in and around the concert stage where the audience had gathered to hear music in celebration of the KIA’s 62nd anniversary. 

“Some people were blown away in pieces. Flesh and heads were blown away, to over 100 feet in distance,” the witness said. ”Some people were blown apart too badly to identify who they were.” 

“Those who escaped that night, like me, are still in shock. We can’t believe what happened. Some even aren’t sure if they died or if their soul is alive – they are that traumatized by the attack.”

The relief volunteer who told RFA that three additional victims died on Oct. 26 said they may have lived had they been treated at a hospital. 

“The dead were civilians,” the volunteer said. “Even in our village, we are not allowed to have a big funeral service. We are not allowed to even assemble a tent for the funeral. We can only have a brief funeral service for a female victim who died in our village today.”

The KIO said they were continuing to try to identify victims and that the death toll could increase. 

Translated by Myo Min Aung. Written in English by Jim Snyder.

The bombing of a concert in Kachin state last weekend that killed more than 60 people showed the brutal advantage the Myanmar military retains in its struggling campaign for control of the country: its air power.

Junta forces have faced a number of setbacks since ousting the democratically elected government in a coup 20 months ago. Between 12,000 and 15,000 of its soldiers may have been killed, according to a Stimson Center report. Thousands of troops are believed to have defected. The country’s economy is in shambles, pushing poverty rates to a 10-year high. 

But the military’s superior arsenal, which includes heavy artillery in addition to its jets and attack helicopters, has made up for missteps on the ground and make it tough for rebel forces, including People’s Defense Force militias aligned with the shadow National Unity Government and anti-junta ethnic armies, to mount significant offensives of their own.

“The junta is reliant on its airpower and its artillery to offset the limitations of its infantry forces, and it relies on bombardments and airstrikes to drive the PDFs and the EAO forces away from its main bases and cities,” says Lucas Myers, who has written about the conflict as program coordinator for the Wilson Center’s Asia Program in Washington. 

Rebel forces are “struggling to be able to take ground when faced with artillery and airpower,” he added. “That’s their main limitation on the battlefield.”

Kachin strike

The Oct. 23 strike in Kachin state in Myanmar’s far north killed at least 66 attendees of the concert to celebrate the anniversary of the Kachin Independence Organization, according to a KIO statement. The group is the political wing of one of Myanmar’s most powerful ethnic insurgencies, which has been fighting for greater autonomy for the region for decades. 

Most of the dead were KIO officers, but 17 civilians were also killed, according to the group, which said the death toll could rise. At least 61 people were initially wounded in the attack, which the State Administration Council (SAC), as the junta calls itself, said came in retaliation for Kachin fighters and PDF militias attacking military forces in the area. A few of the wounded later died as residents said roadblocks set up by military forces hampered aid efforts.

Analysts said the strike is part of the military’s ruthless counterinsurgency strategy, which has seen it target civilian supporters of anti-junta forces through a scorched earth campaign. More than 36,000 homes have been burned down, at least 1 million people have been displaced, and more than 2,000 civilians killed. 

But airstrikes like the one in Kachin haven’t overpowered the junta’s many enemies, and in some cases seem to have spurred on resistance, leaving an uncertain balance of power between an expanding, though fractionalized, opposition and a more heavily armed military.  

Myanmar’s air arsenal

Myanmar’s air force has more than 100 combat-capable aircraft and is looking to acquire more, according to Akhil Kadidal, an analyst at Janes, a defense intelligence firm based in the United Kingdom.

Its fleet includes Mi-35 gunships, attack helicopters built by Russia that can ferry troops in and out of combat, and small jets like Russian Yak-130s and Chinese-made K-8s and Nanchang A-5Cs. The strike in Kachin state reportedly was carried out by Yak-130s, which are typically used as training aircraft. About 70% of its air arsenal are planes, according to Kadidal.

Myanmar received two, more capable Sukhoi SU-30SM fighters from Russia earlier this year, with another four still to be delivered. The junta reported that the leader of the SAC, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, visited the Irkustsk Aviation plant in Russia last month, itself an indication of the value the junta places in its air power. 

In Myanmar’s past conflicts, the military has hedged its use of air power against rebel groups, which have historically been arrayed in border regions, Kadidal said. Bombardments risk sparking a mass exodus into neighboring countries – Thailand, China, Bangladesh and India — or striking civilians in those countries. 

Pressure from all sides

But the SAC now relies on its air power as it fights on several fronts at once. It has battled Rakhine, Chin, Kachin, Shan, Karenni and Karen ethnic forces and dozens of pro-democracy militias recruited from Myanmar’s ethnic Burman majority. Previously safe supply routes in the country’s interior are now routinely attacked. 

Airpower allows the regime to exert its offensive power over long distances, Kadidal said. Military pilots flew 13 air combat operations in October, Kadidal said.

“The result has been the aerial bombardment of locations not under the control of the regime’s ground forces,” he said.

Zachary Abuza, a U.S. National War College professor who specializes in Southeast Asian politics and security issues, said during an online presentation on Myanmar presented by the Stimson Center think tank, that National Unity Government and affiliated ethnic groups control about 50% of the country.

The SAC’s main air advantage comes from its attack helicopters, which can fire its weapons at close range and transport troops in and out of fights, Abuza said.

While the Oct. 23 attack in Kachin state is thought to have resulted in the single-most casualties from an air attack since the coup, helicopters have been the source of numerous atrocities in the conflict.

Attack helicopters were part of a Sept. 16 strike on a village school in Sagaing that killed at least seven students between 7 and 16 years of age. “Two helicopters hovered above and attacked us from both sides. For an hour, there was nothing we could do,” one parent who witnessed the attack told RFA Burmese, speaking on condition of anonymity for safety reasons.

A January attack in Gahe village in Sagaing’s Indaw township killed 5, including four siblings, the youngest of whom was 5 years old, RFA Burmese reported.  

The following month a helicopter fired on a graduation ceremony for PDF recruits in Myinmu township’s Pa Dat Taing village. Terrified residents who scattered during the strike discovered 11 charred bodies upon their return. 

Calls for help

In February, a report from the U.N. special rapporteur on Myanmar accused the military of “bombing villages indiscriminately” and called for an arms embargo against the regime. It noted the delivery of Russian-made unmanned aerial vehicles and Chinese-made K-8 attack aircraft and transport planes that were delivered to the junta after the coup. According to the U.N., more than 40 member states, mostly Western nations, currently have arms embargoes against Myanmar.

The SAC’s air advantage has also led to calls for international assistance, through surface-to-air missiles — known as “manpads,” for man-portable, air defense systems — and a no-fly zone akin to NATO operations in the Balkans in the early 1990s.

But analysts say there is little appetite for either denying Myanmar’s military access to the air or arming rebels on the ground. A no-fly zone would require support from regional countries, all of which have hedged their bets in the conflict. 

Myers of the Wilson Center said that China, which has been a junta ally, would likely object to any arming of rebel forces by Western countries.

That leaves attacking air forces when they are stationary.

“The best way for an insurgent group to take out air assets is on the ground,” Abuza said at a Stimson Center event.

The NUG has been “doxing” military pilots — publishing their addresses – as part of an assassination campaign. Abuza said the house of a pilot was recently bombed. Rebel forces also need to attack junta supply routes, he said. The jet fuel the aircraft needs is transported over land on trucks, not via pipelines.

A diminished capability?

The strength of Myanmar’s air force may also diminish on its own, Abuza told RFA in a separate interview. Russia’s ability to provide spare parts for its helicopters, which break down frequently, are likely to be hard to come by, given the sanctions against it and its own equipment needs for the campaign in Ukraine.

Kadidal at Janes said the Myanmar military is “likely” to have acquired Kamov Ka-29 Helix utility-attack helicopters. The junta hasn’t officially announced a purchase, but a Ka-29 was photographed on Oct. 19 participating in combat operations in the Yinmarbin township in the Sagaing, he said.

Despite being outgunned, rebel groups remain optimistic about their chances, in part because they’ve noticed signs the SAC’s advantage in weapons may be dissipating, according to Michael Martin, an expert on Myanmar who for many years reported on the country for the Congressional Research Service in Washington. He met opposition fighters from several combatant groups on a trip this month to India and Thailand.

Soldiers from the Karen National Liberation Army in eastern Myanmar, the nation’s longest-running insurgency, are increasingly finding 500-pound bombs that haven’t exploded on impact.

“They’re duds,” said Martin, who is now an adjunct fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank in Washington. “And when examined, they find that they are using a cheaper and less effective fuse.”

Other fighters told him junta jets sometimes just fly overhead without dropping any munitions, which they take as a possible sign of supply issues, he said.

Even so, he said, they hope for better tools to strike back at the military’s air advantage.

“Each group fighting in each theater certainly would like to have better equipment, better weaponry — and particularly if they could deal with the aircraft that the SAC is sending out, they think victory is feasible in a not-too-distant future.”

Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping’s anointment to a third term as China’s paramount leader came exactly as forecast. But he raised eyebrows by purging the Politburo Standing Committee of senior officials associated with economic reform and moderate foreign policies, replacing them with hard-liners and Xi loyalists. Most striking was the removal of all officials associated with the party’s China Youth League faction. The once powerful league was the base of Xi’s predecessor Hu Jintao and of vice premier Hu Chunhua, who had been seen as a future top leader.