Day: January 3, 2023

Two elderly men died when their houses were burned down by junta troops in a Sagaing region village, locals told RFA.

The men were too old to flee following a previous arson attack and were still living in Budalin township’s Shwe Taung village when a military column entered on Monday and torched 13 houses.

“A 92-year-old crippled man and another man who is over 100 years old and could not move were trapped in the fire,” said Min, the township’s communications officer. He said one of the men begged the troops not to set fire to his home.

Min, who goes by one name, said an anti-junta People’s Defense Force soldier was also killed while scouting in a nearby forest.

The troops who set fire to the village belonged to a battalion from the Yangon-based Air Defense Force, which had arrived to reinforce troops in Budalin township, residents said. RFA was unable to independently confirm the claim.

Locals said the junta cut internet and phone access in Budalin ahead of the attack.

Aye Lwin, the junta spokesman for Sagaing region said he was not aware of any attack and told RFA to contact the junta’s minister of security and border affairs.

The military’s national spokesman, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, told RFA junta troops had not set fire to houses in Shwe Taung.

More than 27,000 houses in Sagaing region have been burned down since the military seized power in a February 2021 coup, according to figures released last month by independent research group Data for Myanmar.

Translated by RFA Burmese. Written in English by Mike Firn.

The Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning and its strike group have left the West Pacific after the far-sea drills that saw it make a rare approach to the U.S. island territory of Guam.

The Japanese Ministry of Defense’s Joint Staff Office said in a statement Monday that the Liaoning strike group was spotted sailing through the Miyako Strait northward into the East China Sea on Sunday.

From Wednesday to Saturday, the Chinese carrier-based aircraft conducted some 60 take-offs and landings, the statement said. That means during the whole period Dec. 17 to Dec. 31, Chinese fighters and helicopters carried out about 320 take-offs and landings.

Japan scrambled military aircraft and vessels to monitor the strike group’s movements, the Joint Staff Office said.

The Liaoning and its escorting vessels began their latest deployment in mid-December, when Japan announced its new security strategy that named China an unprecedented “strategic challenge.”

On Dec. 25 the aircraft carrier was spotted 670 kilometers (416 miles) southeast of Okinotorishima, about 618 kilometers (384 miles) northwest of Guam – a rare approach that a Chinese Communist Party newspaper interpreted as a warning to the U.S. over Taiwan.

Guam is home to two key U.S. military bases hosting strategic bombers and submarines.

By approaching Guam, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has extended its reach well beyond the so-called First Island Chain onto the Second Island Chain.

The First Island Chain is a chain of main archipelagos surrounding the East Asian continental mainland, including Japan and Taiwan.

“It appears to be part of China’s rehearsal for a Taiwan contingency, when Beijing needs to cut off the supply lines to Taiwan from the east,” said Alexander Vuving, a professor at the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, a U.S. Department of Defense institute based in Hawaii.

“It served as a deterrent, however whether it can deter the U.S. is another question,” Vuving said.

The analyst told RFA that the Liaoning’s operation was “just a logical step after China has built its own aircraft carriers and consistent with China’s ambition of becoming a major maritime power.”

“I would expect China to deploy its aircraft carriers to farther waters, the Indian Ocean for example,” he added.

‘Soaring Dragon’

The Japanese Ministry of Defense’s Joint Staff Office also said that for two days in a row, on Sunday and Monday, China flew an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) WZ-7 through the Miyako Strait into areas around Japan.

The WZ-7 — dubbed ‘Soaring Dragon’ — is a high-altitude long endurance UAV and one of the most advanced drones China has developed. Japan scrambled fighter jets in response.

The WZ-7, used mostly for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), has been spotted around Taiwan but this was the first time Japan reported sighting the UAV. 

In another development, the Chinese military said a U.S. spy plane “engaged in dangerous maneuvers against a PLA Navy fighter jet,” responding to an accusation by the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM).

INDOPACOM said that on Dec. 21 a Chinese J-11 fighter pilot performed an unsafe maneuver during an intercept of a U.S. Air Force RC-135 aircraft, forcing the RC-135 to “take evasive maneuvers to avoid a collision.”

On Saturday, the PLA Southern Theater Command released its own version, supported by a video, saying “the U.S. intentionally misled the public.”

The command’s spokesperson, Senior Col. Tian Junli, said that “the U.S. military’s statement ignores facts and is nothing but slander and speculation.”

Tian said that the U.S. RC-135 aircraft “conducted intentional close-in reconnaissance in the vicinity of China’s southern coastline and the Xisha (Paracel) Islands” in the South China Sea.

“During the process, in disregard of repeated warnings from the Chinese pilot, the U.S. aircraft abruptly changed its flight attitude and forced the Chinese aircraft to the left,” the spokesman said.

The U.S. military has yet to respond to the Chinese accusation.

Vietnam’s Communist Party ended last year’s anti-corruption drive with 2022’s highest-profile dismissals, removing two senior leaders from its Central Committee.

Some commentators expressed surprise and regret over the Dec. 30 decision, which effectively ended Pham Binh Minh and Vu Duc Dam’s roles as deputy prime ministers. Minh was also excluded from the Politburo, the Party’s most powerful body.

Germany-based lawyer Nguyen Van Dai told RFA: “People consider these two men to be the last two decent people in the current Vietnamese Communist regime.” He said he didn’t see their removal as a fight against corruption but rather “a struggle for power.”

Vu Duc Dam served for seven years as secretary and assistant to Prime Minister Vo Van Kiet before going on to work as deputy director of the government’s international relations department and head of its ASEAN department.

When the COVID-19 pandemic tore through Vietnam in 2021 many blamed Dam — as deputy prime minister in charge of healthcare — for the deaths of tens of thousands of people locked down in southern provinces. And while the Communist Party never gave a reason for removing him from the Central Committee last month, he is widely-seen as the fall guy for the Viet A COVID test kit scandal. Viet A’s chief executive officer admitted to bribing officials the equivalent of U.S.$34 million in order to win contracts to sell substandard kits to hospitals at a 45% markup, earning his company U.S.$172 million in profits.

Pham Binh Minh followed the career of his father, the late Foreign Minister Nguyen Co Thach (real name Pham Van Cuong). Before becoming deputy prime minister Minh was in charge of foreign affairs and later took on some responsibility for domestic affairs.

As the deputy prime minister focusing on international issues, Minh was blamed for the ‘repatriation flights’ scandal, where Vietnamese officials were accused of taking bribes to repatriate citizens stranded abroad during the COVID pandemic.

“Pham Binh Minh is said to have not closely monitored the repatriation flights of Vietnamese citizens stranded abroad due to COVID-19,” Carl Thayer, a professor at the Australian Defense Force Academy in Canberra told RFA.

“An extensive network of foreign affairs officials has been implicated in accepting bribes in exchange for seats on these planes,” said the Vietnam expert, adding that Minh should be disciplined if he benefited personally and should also be held responsible if he knew nothing or did nothing about the bribery.

Vietnam’s National Assembly is expected to elect to new deputy prime ministers at its next scheduled meeting on Thursday.

Former head of the Central Committee for Mass Mobilization, Nguyen Khac Mai, told RFA the big question is whether the Party will dare to carry out radical reform in its selection of senior leaders or whether it will give the public more say in the selection of decision makers.

Article 4 of the Constitution stipulates that “The Communist Party of Vietnam is the sole force leading the State and society,” but Mai said there is no regulation forcing the Party to make decisions in isolation.

“Even when the Central Committee of the Party are responsible for Article 4 of the Constitution, they must be responsible to the people, to the nation,” he said. “All the people should have a voice in the election of state officials.”

Translated by RFA Vietnamese. Written in English by Mike Firn.