Day: November 25, 2022

Taiwanese voters go to the polls on Saturday in local elections that will likely see a swing toward the opposition pro-China Kuomintang amid growing dissatisfaction over the government’s handling of the pandemic and the economy. 

There’s also a perception among some that Democratic Progressive Party President Tsai Ing-wen has exacerbated tensions with Beijing with her emphasis on defending democracy and the island’s sovereignty.

Recent opinion polls show that the majority of district, municipal and county council seats, as well as magistrate, mayoral and village chief posts, could go to the KMT in an apparent rejection of the ruling DPP’s focus on defending the island against growing Chinese aggression, based on recent opinion polls by Channel News Asia and other outlets.

Political opinion tracker DailyView has projected that the Kuomintang could win 15 out of the 22 mayoral and county magistrate seats, with ruling party candidates winning just five, the report said.

The issues at stake in the weekend’s elections are more local than international, and the KMT typically outperforms the Democratic Progressive Party at this level, according to this argument.

“Based on the last three local and national elections, I have a theory that a new block of voters has emerged in Taiwan following the 2014 Sunflower Movement, what I refer to as ‘conservative, safe bet’ voters,” columnist Courtney Donovan Smith wrote in the Taiwan News on Nov. 24.

These voters support pro-China candidates in local elections as the safe bet based on the assumption they will be better administrators, but for the ruling DPP in national elections as the safe bet “because they are viewed by these voters as more trustworthy and reliable on national security and managing the China threat,” Donovan Smith wrote.

Better cities and neighborhoods

But while candidates have been asked by campaigners to sign a pledge of “no surrender” in the event of a Chinese invasion, the issues they are being asked about on the campaign trail have more to do with making better cities and better neighborhoods rather than the forging of future war heroes in defense of the island’s democratic way of life.

“These elections will make Taiwan better, and Taipei better,” DPP candidate and former health minister Chen Shih-chung told voters on the Taipei mayoral campaign trail. “They’re about striving for ways to make Taipei progress.”

KMT candidate Chiang Wan’an, the great-grandson for late KMT president and authoritarian leader Chiang Kai-shek, hit out at Chen for not delivering rapid testing or vaccines quickly enough during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic in the city.

“After the DPP became dominant, they seized power, and there is nothing they dare not do,” Chiang said. “They never admit their mistakes when they make them, nor apologize, nor correct them.”

Independent candidate Hwang Shan-shan was more concerned with urban development, focusing on plans for a “Rive Gauche”-style cultural plaza on the banks of the Tamsui River.

The rhetoric is a far cry from the sense of existential threat and Beijing-backed disinformation campaigns that characterized the 2020 presidential race between Tsai Ing-wen, who won on a platform of defending Taiwan’s democracy, and the KMT’s Han Kuo-yu.

When DPP lawmaker You Si-kun told voters that a vote for the DPP would stop “Xi Jinping from coming calling,” he was dismissed by Taichung mayoral candidate Lu Hsiu-yen with a shrug. 

“Is he really so godlike?” she said with a smile.

Chinese threat

However, there was still plenty of military and strategic awareness among Taiwanese citizens who spoke to RFA in the run-up to the vote, and commentators said the shadow of China’s territorial claim on the island was always present to some degree.

“You can’t claim that Taiwan belongs to mainland China,” a businessman who gave the surname Hsieh told RFA. “We’ve been independent for so long, and we, the people, have to support Taiwan against the Chinese Communist Party.”

A breakfast-shop owner who gave the surname Wang said they don’t want war, but that there may be little choice.

“If our young people have to become soldiers, the country will be ruined, but if we don’t defend our country, we will get bullied by others,” Wang said. “We won’t cause trouble, but we’re not afraid of it either.”

A resident who gave the nickname Vivian said that China is always a major election issue.

“For some, yes,” she said. “For me, it’s always been an issue.”

Peng Hwai-en, adjunct visiting professor of journalism at Taiwan’s Shih Hsin University, said President Tsai Ing-wen’s 2020 landslide victory came largely off the back of the citywide crackdown on the 2019 protest movement in Hong Kong, which lost the freedoms promised under the “one country, two systems” arrangement that Beijing wants Taiwan to accept as well.

“Two years ago, the theme of protecting Taiwan from China was very influential, especially due to what was happening in Hong Kong at the time,” Peng said.

“However, the Russian invasion of Ukraine at the beginning of this year has had some impact, mainly because young people want to serve in the armed forces,” he said.

Less propaganda

Wu Chien-chung, associate professor at Taipei Ocean University, said there has also been a relative lack of Chinese propaganda or disinformation in Taiwan during the current elections, providing less for voters to push back against.

“I personally observed the power and capabilities of the Chinese Communist Party’s mobilization [back in 2020], but these … are local elections, and Beijing hasn’t expended so much energy on them,” Wu said.

“These elections are mostly being influenced by domestic political factors … and it’s more of a test of personal integrity rather than offensive-defensive sparring,” he said.

President Tsai, who won two presidential elections after vowing to protect Taiwan from China, has naturally been keen to remind everyone that Beijing has repeatedly refused to renounce the use of force to achieve what it terms “unification.”

“This is the first election we’ve had since the 20th National Congress [of the Chinese Communist Party,” she told voters on Chen Shih-chung’s campaign. “Now the whole world is paying attention to Taiwan, which is on the front line of freedom and democracy.”

“It is also the most critical link in the global semiconductor supply chain, and all of the actions and decisions we take here will affect how the world sees Taiwan,” Tsai said.

Taiwan has never been ruled by the Chinese Communist Party, nor formed part of the 73-year-old People’s Republic of China, and opinion polls have repeatedly shown that the island’s 23 million people have no wish to give up their sovereignty or democratic way of life to be ruled by Beijing.

She reminded voters that the KMT’s “excessively pro-China line” was why they had suffered a massive defeat to Tsai’s DPP in 2016, while “8.17 million Taiwanese showed their determination to defend freedom and democracy in the 2020 general election,” she said.

“We defended Taiwan’s democracy, and didn’t allow Taiwan to become Hong Kong, and together defended Taiwan from the pandemic — we didn’t allow it to become Wuhan either,” she said. “Taiwan is for the Taiwanese.”

More aggressive stance

KMT lawmaker Chen Yu-chen responded that while Tsai hadn’t allowed Taiwan to become another Hong Kong or Wuhan, her resistance to Beijing’s political rhetoric had turned it into a “gunpowder store.”

“While China may be at fault, the ruling party is incapable of delivering a comfortable environment in which to live and work, and of attracting foreign investment,” Chen said.

“Back when the Kuomintang was in power, mainland Chinese came here to Taiwan, and every plane was full of tourists,” he said. “Now they are sending military planes, and we’re all talking about army recruitment and how to hide in air-raid shelters.”

“If a war happens, a whole generation will be lost,” said Chen, claiming that the KMT’s policy of detente with Beijing was the best way to maintain the status quo.

Wu Se-chih, a researcher at Taiwan’s Cross-Strait Policy Association, said preparations for war have inevitably entered into local government election campaigns.

“Clashes in the Taiwan Strait could break out at any time,” Wu said. “Local leaders are the commanders of local civil defense corps, police, firefighters, and medical staff. So defending Taiwan against China has been discussed in the localities to a certain extent.”

U.S.-based Chinese rights activist Zhou Fengsuo said he remembers visiting Taiwan to observe the 2020 presidential election, and said he has been struck by the maturity of the island’s democracy during the current campaign season.

“This time round, it’s clearly a very mature democratic system,” Zhou told RFA. “The threat from the Chinese Communist Party still casts a huge shadow, even though these are only local elections.”

“Taiwan’s democracy is precious, and hard won, and is even more worthy of defense in the future,” he said.

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

For the first time last week, North Koreans got a glimpse of Kim Jong Un’s daughter when newspapers splashed photos of the two holding hands as they watched the country’s latest missile test.

Pictures of the child – identified by South Korean intelligence as 9-year-old Kim Ju Ae, his second child – piqued far more public interest than any news about the successful launch of the Hwasong-17 missile, sources told Radio Free Asia’s Korean service.

Reactions varied widely, the sources said, amid speculation over Kim’s motives for revealing the daughter at this particular time.

Some saw a positive break with the secrecy surrounding the Kim dynasty children that enhanced their humanity, a resident of the northern province of Ryanggang told RFA’s Korean Service on condition of anonymity for security reasons. Kim’s Jong Un was almost unknown to his people during the rule of his father, Kim Jong Il.

“Just as there are no parents who do not appreciate a daughter who looks just like them, the residents say that Kim Jong Un, like any normal parent, simply wants to show his cute daughter the launch of a new kind of missile,” the source said.

“Everyone is amazed that Kim Jong Un’s daughter resembles her father, just as Kim Jong Un resembles Kim Il Sung,” the source said, referring to his grandfather and the founder of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in 1948.

Others were critical of Kim, saying that showing his daughter the missile test exposed her to his violent, immoral side, the source said.

The state-run Korea Central News Agency had a different take. 

It declared that the father-daughter appearance at the missile launch epitomized Kim’s devotion to his country and family: Kim had come to personally guide a “historic major strategic weapon test-fire, a crucial milestone in bolstering up the nuclear forces of the DPRK, together with his beloved daughter and wife.”

Distraction?

Some speculated that the daughter’s emergence may have meant to distract the public and tamp down resentment over the missile tests, which are viewed widely – but secretly – as a waste of resources, the source said.

Feelings toward Kim have soured as he focuses on improving the country’s military capabilities while the people struggle to survive in an economy that has not yet recovered from harsh coronavirus restrictions and is still subject to international nuclear sanctions.

“This time, people only talked about his daughter, not the missile,” the source said. “It seems intended to divert residents’ anger and antipathy toward the missile launch.”

Women in the northwestern province of North Hamgyong were quite interested in Kim Ju Ae’s apparel, a resident there said on condition of anonymity to avoid reprisal.

“Women who have children of the same age as Kim Jong Un’s daughter were also interested in the white cotton clothes and the shoes she wore,” she said.

The second source said that people are now contrasting Kim Jong Un and his father, and curiosity is growing as they wonder how many more children he might have. 

“It is not easy to know the information about the great leader’s family,” she said. “Even if you know something, it is a secret that you should never tell others. In breaking this convention, there must have been a purpose to [Kim] revealing his daughter himself.”

The public appearance might have been to reveal Kim Ju Ae to the international community, and to normalize missile launches to the North Korean public to the point that they are events that can be attended by children, South Korea’s Unification Minister Kwon Young-sae told a Seoul-based media outlet.

Translated by Claire Shinyoung Oh Lee and Leejin J. Chung. Written in English by Eugene Whong. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

Tibetan writers gathered in northern India to mourn and remember poet Sonam Tenpa, who was more widely known by his pen name Chen Metak – which meant “Fire Spark from Chentsa,” a reference to his hometown – and celebrate his work to preserve Tibetan culture through his poetry.

“Through his poems Chen Metak expressed the political and social messages of the society and demonstrated a strength of understanding, so that many Tibetan youths liked his works,” said Bhuchung D. Sonam, a Tibetan author and co-founder of Tibet Writes, which organized the ceremony on Nov. 20 in Dharamsala, where the Tibetan government-in-exile and the residence of the Dalai Lama, Tibetan’s spiritual leader, are located. 

“We are very sad about his passing away,” he said. “I believe that paying respect and tribute to the legacies of Tibetan writers and artists from inside Tibet is our most important responsibility,  and doing such will bridge the gap between us and them.”

Chen Metak died on Sept. 20 at age 52 in Xining, capital of China’s Qinghai province.

He was last employed as a teacher in a middle school in Golog Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in the southeastern corner of Qinghai province. Some of his poems are included in school curricula.

Tibetans inside Tibet and those living abroad in exile expressed their condolences on social media. 

Gyalo, a former professor at Northwest Normal University in Lanzhou, China, who currently resides in Canada, noted the late poet’s efforts to preserve Tibetan culture through his poetry amid efforts by China to separate Tibetans from their language, culture and Buddhist faith. 

“Since the 1980s, Tibetans have worked really hard to preserve Tibetan identity, beliefs and willpower through their writings,” he told Radio Free Asia. “All those poets and intellectuals have made a huge contribution to the preservation of Tibetan culture and language.”  

 

“Chen Metak’s artistic expression through his poetry showed him to be a great poet who strongly influenced contemporary Tibetan poetry,” said Ajam, a Tibetan poet and former professor at the Dalai Lama Institute for Higher Education in India, who now lives in the United States.

Bhuchung D. Sonam translated six of Chen Metak’s poems into English for the anthology of poems titled “Burning the Sun’s Braids: New Poetry from Tibet,” published in 2017 by Blackneck Books, an imprint of TibetWrites.

The volume contains a short introduction to Chen Metak in which the poet says that the relationship between writing and society is one of “blood and flesh, sword and arrow, father and son,” according to a 2018 article by the High Peaks, Pure Earth blog, which provides commentary on Tibet-related news. 

 

Translated by Tenzin Dickyi for RFA Tibetan. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

Authorities in the central Chinese city of Zhengzhou have placed the city’s 6 million residents under COVID-19 lockdown following clashes between workers and police at Taiwan-invested iPhone maker Foxconn’s huge factory on the city’s outskirts.

Eight districts of Zhengzhou have been designated high risk, with residents told to stay home and barriers and checkpoints across major streets and outside apartment complexes, Agence France-Presse reported.

The five-day order comes despite just 145 confirmed COVID-19 cases in the city as of Nov. 23, and after riot police were deployed at the Foxconn campus to quell protests by hundreds of newly arrived migrant workers who said they were getting paid less than the amount promised during the recruitment process.

Dozens of workers, who had been hastily recruited by the government to replace hundreds of workers who quit last month due to lack of food or medical care during a COVID-19 outbreak, left the factory on Thursday, taking the proffered 10,000 yuan payouts, AFP cited social media video clips as saying.

Meanwhile, workers who have yet to start at the factory are now stuck in quarantine hotels outside the factory, the report said.

Foxconn, formally known as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co, declined to comment, while Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday, Reuters reported, confirming reports that some of the new hires were already leaving.

“The incident has a big impact on our public image but little on our (current) capacity. Our current capacity is not affected,” the agency cited a source at the company as saying, adding that labor issues have nonetheless meant the plant has lost around 30 percent of its former capacity in recent months.

It said the world’s largest Apple iPhone factory has been grappling with strict COVID-19 restrictions that have fuelled discontent among workers and disrupted production ahead of Christmas and January’s Lunar New Year holiday, as many workers were either put into isolation or fled the plant.

French complaint

Chang Meng-jen, convener of the diplomacy and international affairs program at Taiwan’s Fu Jen Catholic University, said the French Embassy had issued a complaint about the zero-COVID policy on behalf of French businesses in China, shortly after the Foxconn clashes, which were also prompted by dissatisfaction over quarantine arrangements, according to social media posts.

The French Embassy said via its official Weibo account that a directive from the Central Committee earlier this month announcing the easing of some requirements under the zero-COVID policy hadn’t delivered the expected results.

“French companies welcomed China’s announcement on Nov. 11 of [the new measures], as something that would greatly reduce the negative impact of disease control and prevention on economic activities and people’s lives,” the embassy said.

“However, the French Chamber of Commerce and Industry has noted that the actual implementation [on the ground] hasn’t met the expectations of French companies,” it said. “The Chamber of Commerce calls on the Chinese government to truly implement the [measures] and to cancel unnecessary and excessive restrictions.”

It said French companies were hoping for an end to the zero-COVID policy “as soon as possible.”

Chang said the timing of the statement was politically very sensitive.

“It just so happens that the Foxconn protests in Zhengzhou have intensified over the past few days,” Chang told Radio Free Asia. “Maybe the French foreign ministry saw the police beating up protesters with batons at the Zhengzhou plant, and dispersing the … workers.”

He said the unrest at the Foxconn plant was due at least in part to unhappiness with pandemic restrictions.

“Now they’re at it again”

However, New York-based labor activist Li Qiang, who heads the rights group China Labor Watch, said Foxconn’s quasi-military management style has led to labor issues in the past, too.

“They have done similar things before, using hidden clauses to get out of paying previously promised bonuses,” Li said. “Now they’re at it again.”

Yen Chen-sheng, an international relations researcher at Taiwan’s National Chengchi University, said European businesses find the zero-COVID policy hard to accept, given that most countries have abandoned mandatory disease control and prevention requirements now.

“Many workers from European companies with factories in China are unable to go to work due to zero-COVID,” Yan told RFA. “Europeans, like Americans, are not able to accept long-term isolation constraints.”

“The problem now is that this policy is unlikely to change, given that it has been extended beyond the party congress [in October],” he said.

European Council visit

Several European media outlets reported on Friday that European Council President Charles Michel will visit China next week to meet with Xi Jinping, the first such meeting since 2018.

Chang said it remains to be seen whether Michel will bring up the zero-COVID policy with Xi during that meeting, although some human rights issues are on the agenda.

He said German companies could wield considerably more influence in China than French companies, but the sheer size of their investments in the country could be holding them back.

“The five German giants account for one third of investment coming from EU member states in China,” Chang said. “Germany has always said it can’t decouple from China, so it wouldn’t be possible for Germany to be the first to stand up and criticize zero-COVID.”

“France is throwing the message out there first, then waiting until President Macron visits China … which may happen early in the new year,” Chang said.

Li Hengqing, director of the Washington-based think tank, the Institute of Information and Strategy, said Foxconn is hugely important to local authorities in Zhengzhou.

“Foxconn’s production … will drive a large number of other related or supporting industries,” Li told RFA. “So the Chinese authorities will naturally be looking to work with the company to keep up tax revenues.”

Apple said in a Nov. 6 statement that the ongoing production difficulties at Foxconn’s Zhengzhou plant have affected the global supply of the latest iphones.

Neither the Henan provincial government nor the Zhengzhou municipal government had responded publicly to the Foxconn clashes at the time of writing.

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

The Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone in northern Laos is a haven for criminal activities including prostitution, scamming and drug trafficking, but Lao authorities are essentially powerless to stop it, workers in the zone and police told Radio Free Asia.

The zone is a gambling and tourism hub catering to Chinese citizens situated in Bokeo province along the Mekong River where Laos, Myanmar and Thailand meet. It has been described as a de-facto Chinese colony.

Due to the special nature of the zone, Lao authorities have limited access to it, and they require permission from officials at the Chinese-run Kings Romans Casino, the zone’s crown jewel, which is owned by the Hong Kong-based Dok Ngiew Kham Group. The group holds an 80 percent interest in the 3,000 hectare (11.6 square mile) zone, while the Lao government has a 20 percent stake in it.

“Suppose workers have a problem in the zone,” one such worker told RFA’s Lao Service. “They have to call authorities from the zone only, and Bokeo police cannot help them because they aren’t in control.”

A Bokeo police official confirmed that Lao and foreign workers employed in the zone who need help must contact authorities within the zone, as it is effectively under their control only. 

“Normally there are special economic zone units, and they are the ones who solve problems on the inside. If there are serious cases, they report to higher level authorities inside the zone,” the police official said.

“Transnational criminal organization” 

The Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone, or SEZ, was established in 2007 and is run by the Dok Ngiew Group and its Chinese Chairman Zhao Wei. SEZs are business areas that are exempt from most national-level economic regulations, and often receive tax breaks and are governed by different labor laws. 

In 2018, the U.S. Treasury Department declared Zhao Wei’s business network a “transnational criminal organization” and sanctioned Zhao and three other individuals and companies across Laos, Thailand and Hong Kong.

Zhao’s business “exploits this region by engaging in drug trafficking, human trafficking, money laundering, bribery and wildlife trafficking, much of which is facilitated through the Kings Romans Casino located within the [Golden Triangle] SEZ,” a Treasury statement said.

The Golden Triangle area got its name five decades ago for its central role in heroin production and trafficking in Laos, Thailand and Myanmar, and the SEZ and the surrounding area is still rife with drug-related crimes, Chanphonephet Khamsy, the deputy police chief of Bokeo Province told RFA.

In the past 12 months, Bokeo province police arrested 393 drug smugglers, seized 23 million meth pills, 866 kilograms of crystal ice, and 60 kilograms of heroin, Chanphonephet Khamsy said. In the previous 12-month period, police seized 49 million meth tablets.

“More and more drugs are being trafficked in the region; it’s very challenging for us,” said a Bokeo police officer on condition of anonymity to speak freely.

He said smugglers move their drugs into and out of the area in large trucks and in increasingly larger amounts.

“They smuggle the drugs from [Myanmar] into [Bokeo] and then to the capital Vientiane,” the officer said, adding that there are so many routes, including through thick jungles that are not accessible to authorities.

A member of the Bokeo anti-narcotics unit confirmed on condition of anonymity that the drugs come mostly from Myanmar, from armed ethnic groups that fight the country’s military junta.  Laos is a more attractive route than Thailand, because recently Thai authorities have been cracking down harder on drug trafficking, he said.

A Bokeo resident said the Golden Triangle SEZ was one of the main destinations for the drugs because Lao authorities do not have access to it.

Three-way meeting

Last week, Lao, Thai and Myanmar law enforcement officials met in the northern Lao town of Luang Prabang to discuss anti-narcotics cooperation. Thai officials confirmed to RFA that the meeting was limited to tackling the drug problem, but Thai authorities offered their cooperation in human trafficking cases.

Recently, companies inside the zone have lured workers from Laos, China, and other countries using a bait-and-switch scam in which they promise well-paying call center jobs.

But once the workers arrive in the zone they rack up debt to their employers for their travel expenses and training, and their bosses set impossibly high sales quotas designed to make the workers fail, according to several RFA reports. 

Some workers caught in the scam have escaped but at great personal risk, and often without help from any authorities.

Another Lao worker inside the zone told RFA that even though foreign governments are privy to the scam and do what they can to help their citizens in the zone, the problem still persists.

“There are still call centers and they’ll never eradicate them all. There are many companies that recruit Lao, Thai and other foreign workers,” the individual said. “They recruit everyone. There are Indians, Malaysians and others.”

Scamming investors

A third Lao worker in the zone said that the call center scam involves cheating investors but the Lao police can do nothing to crack down on them. “The police cannot fine or arrest them because outside authorities cannot enter the zone,” the worker said. “So they can’t investigate anything.”

Residents living near the zone said they wanted authorities to more effectively deal with rampant crime inside it, but they doubt it is a high priority for Laos and its neighbors.

“Many Laotians want the government to crack down on all the crime … but they have been ignoring it for years,” a resident living near the zone said.

On Oct. 1, Zhao, the Chinese chairman, received a medal of courage from the Lao government, saying it recognized his contributions to national defense and public security within the zone.

The surrounding governments just “talk and talk,” said another resident. “If they really wanted to crack down on crimes, why would the Lao government award a medal of courage to Zhao Wei … and praise him publicly?” 

“The whole world knows [Laos] won’t crack down on him.”

Translated by Sidney Khotpanya. Written in English by Eugene Whong. Edited by Malcolm Foster.