Day: March 3, 2023

Ruling Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping will be looking to eliminate high-profile rivals and other influential figures from the political scene, while taking a firmer grip of the country’s purse-strings at the forthcoming National People’s Congress annual session in Beijing, analysts told Radio Free Asia in recent interviews.

Xi is widely expected to announce thorough-going political restructuring that will give him still more concentrated power over the daily affairs of the country, including the downgrading of the State Council in favor of special committees controlled by the highest echelons of party leaders in Beijing.

He also presides over a flagging economy, a massive hole in public finances following three years of the zero-COVID policy and flatlining business confidence, amid an ongoing crackdown on private companies and prominent members of the financial elite.

Plans are underway to hive off the ministries of public security and state security from the government hierarchy, and run their portfolios under a party Central Internal Affairs Commission similar to the structure used by Moscow in the days of the Soviet Union, Hong Kong’s Ming Pao newspaper reported recently.

Other State Council functions could also migrate to direct party control, including the departments in charge of Hong Kong and Macau, and of managing ties with democratic Taiwan.

Independent political commentator Cai Shenkun said much of the expected restructuring, public details of which will likely emerge at the National People’s Congress, will be aimed at ensuring that no effective or popular political figure can rise to challenge Xi’s personal power and influence.

“Downgrading the State Council would actually make it impossible for anyone to rise to a place of prominence from within its ranks,” Cai said.

He said Xi may have succeeded in stacking the ruling party’s Politburo and its all-powerful, seven-member standing committee with officials loyal to him, but he still has a nagging worry that one of them could become powerful enough to bring him down.

“He won’t be totally trusting of those people, even of someone as loyal to him as Li Qiang,” Cai said, in a reference to the Politburo standing committee member widely expected to be made premier at the forthcoming National People’s Congress.

“This may now become the norm for China’s political structure, going forward.”

Financial challenges ahead

U.S.-based journalist Deng Yuwen, a former editor of Communist Party school publication, said Xi is likely more focused on gearing up for financial challenges, however.

“He has been in power for a long time now, so there isn’t anyone who could challenge his position,” Deng said. “Given the current environment, his top priority will be ensuring that certain problems don’t arise, such as in the financial sector.”

Deng said Xi had already taken much of the State Council’s power for himself during his last five-year term in office, taking the responsibility for running the economy away from his premier Li Keqiang, in a break with decades of collective leadership at the top of the party.

“The State Council is just an administrative department now,” Deng said, although he said Li Keqiang did have a seat on Xi’s powerful committees governing financial and economic affairs as well as state reforms, and that he expects that to continue under Li Qiang.

Scott Kennedy, senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said there are concerns that Xi is moving away from the tendency in recent decades to appoint economic technocrats to run the economy.

“For the last 30-plus years, China’s economic performance has depended on very smart, wise, economic bureaucrats who have [been] given political space to implement a whole variety of economic policies that are pragmatic,” Kennedy said. 

“There’s a worry that this era is coming to an end, certainly because of the overall direction and trajectory Xi Jinping wants to take the country, his emphasis on political loyalty above expertise,” he said.

He said the officials currently heading the central bank, banking regulators and security market regulars are all scheduled for retirement or redeployment, with their more powerful political mentors also expected to step down at this parliament.

“Their replacements, who have not been named yet, may understand math, but they may not understand economies, and they may understand who their boss is even more,” Kennedy said. “The economy looks really problematic – short term and long term.”

Jude Blanchette, who holds the Freeman Chair in China Studies at the same institution, said Xi will likely build on the significant restructuring he began at the 2018 National People’s Congress.

“We saw significant transfer of power vertically from the State Council up into the Communist Party,” Blanchette said. “So we saw party organizations take over roles that had previously been held by state council ministries and bureaucracies. “

Mounting debt burden

He said Xi has a tendency to elevate party-led “working groups,” which used to play a coordinating role within the party hierarchy, to the status of commissions, or ministries, in a significant expansion of their power.

“The indications are that the reform plan that’s going to be announced this year will be, roughly, equal in its importance,” he said.

Cai agreed that the financial sector is going to be a key priority for Xi, noting the recent detention of China Renaissance private banker Bao Fan, who is “assisting the authorities with an investigation,” according to a company notice filed with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

“Xi Jinping wants to set up a new Central Financial Work Committee,” he said. “It may be that he thinks that Li Qiang isn’t up to the job of cleaning up the financial system, or that Xi has reservations about him.”

Official figures released ahead of the National People’s Congress showed that China’s public revenue totaled more than 20 trillion yuan last year, while expenditure topped 26 trillion yuan, an increase of 6.1% on the previous year, finance minister Liu Kun told a March 1 news conference in Beijing.

Cai said he estimates that around one third of public expenditure last year went on the rolling lockdowns, mass quarantines and compulsory daily COVID-19 testing programs of Xi’s zero-COVID policy.

The policy has left local governments struggling with an ever-mounting debt burden, prompting officials to borrow more to pay back old debts, and to raid the coffers of medical insurance funds to make ends meet, resulting in cuts to medical benefits and mass protests in major cities last month.

“Local governments and officials were forced into borrowing desperately so as to lock down their cities, without regard to cost,” Cai said. “Local officials were fired … in Guangdong … for failing to implement the zero-COVID restrictions.”

“According to my understanding, a lot of local governments have been dipping into medical insurance funds, so they have been unable to make normal payouts for medical insurance as in previous years,” he said. “This year’s medical insurance reforms were fueled in large part by the fact that much of that funding has been leached away.”

Costly pandemic policies

Finance minister Liu Kun warned on March 1 that the government would continue to insist that party and government officials “keep a tight rein” on their finances.

Hu Jianjun, a resident of a small city in the eastern province of Shandong, said the zero-COVID policy had sparked a huge amount of waste.

“A lot of money was wasted,” Hu said. “For example, in my residential community, where one of the leaders is a friend of mine, that small community was spending 500,000 yuan a day just on pandemic restrictions.”

“Communities in bigger cities spent even more frightening amounts.”

Bloomberg cited official data in a Feb. 27 report as saying that at least 17 of China’s 31 provinces and municipalities are facing severe fiscal deficits, with local borrowing exceeding 120% of income, which the ministry of finance set as a “warning level” for local government debt in 2020.

Xie Tian, ​​a professor at the Aiken School of Business at the University of South Carolina, said 10 provinces currently have a debt-to-income ratio of more than 200%, with one running at more than 300%.

U.S.-based economist Li Hengqing said local governments have also had to deal with increased tax reductions, exemptions and early tax refunds, while the ongoing downturn in the real estate industry has led to a sharp drop in land transfer fees, which once accounted for 40% of local fiscal revenues.

“Every tax rebate is a form of expenditure, which is made to maintain the overall economy and to comply with requirements from the central government,” Li said.

“The other cost is the pandemic, with local governments bearing most of the costs of pandemic restrictions, especially where it relates to local organization and the hiring of personnel like pandemic prevention staff and police and community workers who maintained order,” he said.

But he said there is currently little scope to boost government finances through overall economic growth.

“There isn’t much likelihood of an economic recovery in China, which means there isn’t much likelihood that local governments will be able to pay back their debts, either,” he said.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie.

The U.S. Department of Commerce on Thursday added to its export blacklist 28 Chinese and three Burmese entities, accusing them of supplying security equipment to the militaries of Iran and Myanmar and helping to promote Beijing’s “military modernization.”

The new additions to the Entity List means U.S. firms need licenses to export goods to the companies, which are rarely if ever granted. The entities are accused of taking part in activities “contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the United States.”

A Commerce Department press release says 18 of the 28 Chinese firms were blacklisted “for acquiring and attempting to acquire U.S.-origin items in support of [China’s] military modernization efforts, and for supplying or attempting to supply a sanctioned entity in Iran.” 

But the blacklisted firms also include cloud computing giant Inspur and BGI Research and BGI Tech Solutions (Hongkong) Co., Ltd., two subsidiaries of genetics company BGI, which has been accused of working with China’s military to secure DNA data of American citizens. 

The Burmese entities are the country’s Department of Transport and Communications, as well as the surveillance firms FISCA Security & Communication Co. and Naung Yoe Technologies Co., Ltd., both of which the listing accuses of aiding Myanmar’s military junta.

The 28 Chinese and three Burmese companies were among 37 new firms blacklisted, including others from Russia, Belarus and Pakistan. 

Regular cadence

Blacklisting of foreign firms came under the spotlight in Congress this week with House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Michael McCaul, a Republican from Texas, on Tuesday grilling Commerce undersecretary of state Alan Estevez about $23 billion in exports to blacklisted firms he said had wrongly been allowed to go ahead.

Estevez replied it was a matter of policing, and that companies found to have exported goods to Entity Listed firms would be prosecuted.

But the practice has also come under fire from Beijing, with new additions to the Entity List being made on an increasingly regular cadence in the years since the Trump administration’s high-profile blacklisting of Chinese telecoms giant Huawei in May 2019.

Speaking at the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s press briefing on Friday, spokesperson Mao Ning slammed the blacklisting of BGI and Inspur, in particular, saying they were “legitimate and lawful” companies.

“The U.S. is once again cracking down on Chinese companies under false pretexts through unfair means. China strongly deplores and firmly rejects this,” the spokesperson said, calling on the U.S. government to “respect basic facts, abandon ideological bias [and] stop suppressing Chinese companies under false pretexts.”

Edited by Malcolm Foster.

Setiwaldi Kerim was passionate about teaching Uyghur literature at a middle school in Atush, in China’s far-western Xinjiang region, where he worked his entire career.

He even collaborated with a group of educators who specialized in the Turkic language spoken by the more than 11 million inhabitants of the region to work on literature textbook project for middle-school and high-school students. Kerim worked with other scholars under the leadership of Sattar Sawut, the head of Xinjiang’s Education Bureau.   

Kerim, now about 52, loved teaching so much that he also wrote a book on his own titled My New Classroom, based on his classroom experiences while teaching the material in the textbooks at Atush’s No. 1 Middle School.

He also wrote stories for the Uyghur publication Kezilsu Literature and was a social activist who gave public talks on his book of recollections and teaching methods at literature and art events.

Just before Kerim was about to retire in 2017, his career came to an abrupt halt when authorities arrested him for promoting separatism in his books, local police told Radio Free Asia, without mentioning specific texts.

“Setiwaldi Kerim’s only so-called crime was his exemplary role of teaching these new textbooks,” said Abdulweli Ayup, a Norway-based Uyghur activist and linguist, originally from Xinjiang’s Kashgar, who maintains a database of detained Uyghurs. “He represented a group of teachers who supported the new textbooks.”

Attempts to erase Uyghur culture

In 2017, Chinese authorities intensified their crackdown on Uyghurs and other Muslim Turkic minorities and began detaining them in prisons or “re-education camps” to receive what they said was vocational training to prevent “religious extremism” and “terrorism” in the restive region. 

They targeted Uyghur intellectuals, including language and literature teachers, prominent businesspeople and Muslim clerics in a wider effort to erase Uyghur culture.

Kerim was sentenced to 19 years in prison, a public security employee in Atush, capital of the Kezilsu Kyrgyz Autonomous Prefecture in western Xinjiang, recently told Radio Free Asia.  

“We arrested him when he was about to retire in 2017,” said the person, who declined to be named so she could speak freely about Kerim.

“I cannot tell you why we arrested him,” she added.

The teacher’s name is included on the list of detained and missing Uyghurs compiled by Ayup’s Uyghuryar Foundation, an advocacy and aid organization also known as Uyghur Hjelp in Norwegian. The organization has identified more than 20 teachers and listed their names on a list of imprisoned Uyghur scholars.

“Setiwaldi Kerim was an outstanding implementer and interpreter of the newly compiled Uyghur literature textbooks,” said Ayup, the organization’s founder.

Kerim, who hailed from Otyagh village Ustunatush township began teaching at the middle school in Atush shortly after he graduated from Xinjiang University with a degree in literature, and taught the subject until his arrest.

Ayup said his detention was likely due to the Uyghur literature textbook project for middle-school and high-school students during the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Excellent teacher award

Kerim was an outstanding pedagogue who played an exemplary role in demonstrating the success of the newly compiled textbooks, Ayup said. Kerim even won an “Excellent Teacher” award at a conference on the new textbooks in Atush in 2004.

“The impact of the newly compiled textbooks had been deep and wide,” Ayup told RFA. “These textbooks became the Chinese government’s target because they described Uyghur history, culture and customs very well.”

“The Chinese authorities used these textbooks as an excuse to directly target and attack Uyghur scholars and writers like Setiwaldi Kerim,” he said. “People like him supported these textbooks, and they passionately taught their contents in their classrooms.”

As part of the widespread crackdown on Uyghurs in Xinjiang, Chinese authorities not only prohibited school textbooks they had previously approved, but also arrested scholars who participated in their writing and compilation. 

Chinese authorities also handed down jail sentences to Yalqun Rozi, Tahir Nasir and Wahitjan Osman, other Uyghur scholars who worked on the textbooks, according to Ayup. 

Authorities also imprisoned Abdurazaq Sayim and Alimjan Memtimin, former publishers who directed the compiling of the textbooks, while Sawut Sattar, head of Xinjiang’s Education Bureau, received a death sentence with a reprieve. 

Translated by RFA Uyghur. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.  

Reports are emerging that the Chinese government department in charge of Hong Kong will likely be placed under the direct control of the ruling Communist Party leadership in Beijing, who will then take a more active role in the day-to-day running of the former British colony.

Party leader Xi Jinping will table some of the restructuring plans at the first session of the country’s rubber-stamp parliament, the National People’s Congress, which opens in Beijing on March 5, state news agency Xinhua reported.

Hong Kong newspapers said the plan includes changes to the way Beijing exercises power in Hong Kong and Macau to allow stronger top-down leadership by the ruling party, despite promises that both former colonies would be left to govern their own affairs under Chinese rule.

“One proposal is to upgrade the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office from an institution, currently under the State Council, to a body directly under the party and the central government,” Hong Kong’s The Standard newspaper reported.

The Chinese-language Sing Tao Daily said the new arrangement would be “an upgrade and expansion” of the office’s power, while the English-language South China Morning Post said congress delegates, the vast majority of whom always vote for government proposals, would “deliberate” the proposals on Sunday.

It quoted experts as saying that the office would likely report directly to the Communist Party Central Committee, with Wang Huning or Ding Xuexiang — both of whom sit on the all-powerful Politburo standing committee — the most likely candidates to head the new body.

Commentators said the plan, if implemented, will mean that Beijing can respond at will to events in Hong Kong without having to justify its actions with references to the cities’ mini-constitutions, known as their Basic Law.

National Security Law

In 2020, Beijing imposed a draconian national security law on Hong Kong by inserting it into Annex III of the Basic Law, bypassing the need to have it pass in the city’s own legislature. 

By 2022, changes to Hong Kong’s electoral system had barred opposition candidates from running for the legislature, with a compliant Legislative Council ready and willing to nod through any government proposal.

Both those changes were implemented by the National People’s Congress standing committee, involving yet another high-ranking state body in the running of Hong Kong. The reported restructuring would likely streamline that process, commentators said.

Veteran journalist and current affairs analyst Ching Cheong said rumors that Beijing was planning such a move first began to emerge five years ago, around the same time that the National People’s Congress nodded through amendments to the Chinese constitution abolishing presidential term limits, paving the way for indefinite rule by Xi Jinping.

“Xi Jinping has quoted Mao Zedong’s words on a regular basis during the past few years … [saying that] the party should control everything, from the workers and farmers to businesses and the military,” he said. “Now it wants to get [directly] involved in the running of Hong Kong.”

While Hong Kong has long been expected to follow diktats from Beijing, officials have been somewhat limited by the legacy approach of the State Council, which relies on references to the Basic Law to justify any changes made in the city.

“It will be easier for them to govern at will if they can get rid of the constraints under the Basic Law,” Ching said. “The central government will then be able to govern Hong Kong more directly, and with more flexibility.”

Taiwan

Current affairs commentator Johnny Lau said the move could also mean that Beijing tries to control the relationship between Hong Kong and the democratic island of Taiwan, which it has threatened to annex with military force in the absence of moves towards peaceful “unification” under Chinese.

Taiwan, which has never been ruled by the Chinese Communist Party, nor formed part of the 73-year-old People’s Republic of China, has repeatedly said it has no wish to give up its sovereignty or democratic way of life under the “one country, two systems” that has led to a wholesale erosion of Hong Kong’s traditional freedoms.

“If there is military conflict across the Taiwan Strait … then Beijing would definitely expect Hong Kong to be involved,” Lau said.

“That’s why Hong Kong is now being brought under the direct management of the Chinese Communist Party, so it can better manage or control it,” he said.

Current affairs commentator Sang Pu said the restructuring, if implemented as reported, is tantamount to abolishing the promises that Hong Kong would retain its way of life under the “one country, two systems” framework promised by Beijing.

“Hong Kong still has a certain amount of residual value [to Beijing], particularly when it comes to financial integration and breaking through technology embargoes [imposed by the United States],” Sang said.

“But one country, two systems has long existed in name only, and I don’t think it will continue,” he said. “The residual value of Hong Kong lies in [opportunities] for money-making while maintaining security for party and country.”

He said if party ideologue Wang Huning is put in charge of a new body governing Hong Kong, it will likely herald a sharp turn to the left — away from market economics — in the way the city is run.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

Two teenagers found beheaded last week were two of the most gruesome victims of an escalating number of violent incidents that the United Nations’ special rapporteur says are “consistent with patterns of brutality” among forces affiliated with the military junta.

The teenagers were People’s Defense Force members who were trying to plant a mine while retreating after a battle with junta forces in the northern Sagaing region, the leader of a PDF Force force told Radio Free Asia. They were captured near Nyaung Pin Kan village on Feb. 25 and killed the following day in Myinmu township, the PDF leader said.

“We found their bodies on the morning of the 27th,” he said. “The scene suggested that they were beheaded alive by the military soldiers.”

The victims were 15-year-old La Min Sein, also known as Pho Sein, and 17-year-old Pho Ke. Photographs seen by RFA show the heads, along with other bloodstained body parts. The PDF leader said the two teens didn’t have any gunshot wounds.

He said he went to ask local villagers about the incident, but there was no one in the village following a military raid.

In a separate incident, another PDF leader told RFA that two soldiers from his force were found beheaded following a Feb. 27 battle with military troops. 

His forces had to retreat from the battle at Kan Taw village due to lack of ammunition. When they returned the next morning, they found the bodies of the two fighters with their heads left hanging on a fence post and from a bamboo hut, he said.

The two separate beheading incidents took place in the same general area.

Generating ‘fear and terror’

Mass killings suspected to be carried out by the military have increased significantly in 14 townships in Sagaing since martial law was imposed in February, according to local residents.

Tom Andrews, the U.N. special rapporteur for Myanmar, said in a statement on Friday that this pattern of brutality from the junta has included “using extreme violence to generate fear and terror, especially in areas where opposition to the junta is particularly strong.”

“Documentation of these and other atrocities is critical,” he said. “Those who commit war crimes and crimes against humanity must know that they will be held accountable.”

Earlier this week, junta troops razed an entire village in Sagaing region, leaving three people dead and nearly all the village’s 700 homes destroyed.

And in another incident in Sagaing, 14 bodies were found in Nyaung Yin village in Myinmu township. Military troops had abducted 15 civilians from the nearby Tar Taing village early on March 1.

Residents told RFA that a military force of nearly 100 soldiers took part in the raid on Tar Taing village.

“Tar Taing village and Nyaung Yin village in Myinmu are separated only by the Mu River,” said a resident, who refused to be named for security reasons. “Tar Taing villagers didn’t flee as they thought that the military forces would not come in their direction.”

Victims wore longyi and other civilian clothing

The bodies of five men were found in Nyaung Yin. The bodies of six men and three women were found at another location. They all appeared to be shot dead from behind, the resident said.

The 14 victims were all between the ages of 30 and 50. It was unknown if the final missing person was still alive, the resident said.

Military troops also mutilated and killed a local defense force leader during the March 1 raid on Tar Taing, according to local residents.

Junta spokesman for Sagaing region, Aye Hlaing, said that he wasn’t aware of the incidents when contacted by RFA.

A Telegram account controlled by pro-military writers reported that a battle broke out between military forces in Sagaing and PDF forces near Tar Taing village on March 1. The account reported that another fight broke out near Nyaung Yin village, and that 15 PDF members were arrested on March 2.

Locals said that those arrested and killed were innocent civilians.

According to video footage and photos of the victims circulating on social media, the bodies of the victims had civilian clothes, such as regular longyi (sarong) and shirts, and some of the victims had been shot in the head.

The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners said there have been 3,073 deaths due to arrests and killings of the junta forces since the 2021 military coup d’etat, according to statistics released by the group on March 1. 

Translated by Myo Min Aung. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.

Vietnamese authorities have barred relatives and legal counsel from meeting with a detained Facebook user under investigation for posting “illegal content,” prompting criticism from an international rights group, which called the move “a clear rights violation.”

Late last month, police in southern Vietnam’s Can Tho city arrested activist Le Minh The, 60, for posts on his Facebook page they allege were in violation of a vaguely worded law routinely used to suppress independent bloggers and journalists.

The was charged with “abusing the rights to freedom and democracy to violate the State’s interests and legitimate rights and interests of organizations and individuals” under Article 331, state media reported at the time. 

On Friday, The’s younger sister, Le Thi Binh, told RFA Vietnamese that guards at the Long Tuyen Detention Center had refused her family the right to see him, although they agreed to let them deposit money for him to buy food and other necessities, as well as deliver him some meals.

“On [Wednesday], I went to the detention center to see my brother The and send him some food,” she said. “However, the detention center’s staff said I could not see him while he is under investigation. I called the investigation team, but they did not answer.”

Binh, who completed a two-year jail term on the same charge in late 2022, said that the Binh Thuy District Police had yet to provide her family with any documents related to The’s arrest, including a report detailing a search of their home on Feb. 22.

RFA called Officer Ky, who is investigating The’s case, but he refused to confirm Binh’s claims and referred further inquiries to the Binh Thuy Police Department. A staff member at the Binh Thuy Police Department told RFA that a reporter would have to meet with senior officers in person for any information about the case.

State media reports detailing The’s arrest claimed he had posted “illegal content” on Facebook, but did not specify what post had violated the law. The last post on The’s Facebook account concerned U.S. President Joe Biden’s visit to Ukraine on Feb. 21, while other posts included content about Vietnam, a police summons for his sister, information about homegrown electric car maker VinFast, and a recent RFA article about a fortune teller-turned-priest.

“Looking at his livestreams and other content [on Facebook], I didn’t see anything against the State,” Binh told RFA, noting that most of the articles he shared were published by state media.

“He talked about some corrupt government officials who had already been arrested. He also livestreamed a video about polluted wastewater in his neighborhood.”

Prior sentence on same charges

The charges facing The are the same ones he was sentenced to two years in prison for in March 2019. He completed his jail term in July 2020, accounting for time spent in detention prior to his conviction.

Both The and his sister were refused visits from their families while they were under investigation for their earlier charges – a policy Hanoi Bar Association lawyer Ha Huy Son told RFA is only applicable to people accused of committing “offenses against national security,” which they were not.

Phil Robertson, deputy director for Human Rights Watch’s Asia division, said there is “no acceptable reason” for authorities to prevent legal counsel and relatives from visiting The.

“Every time the authorities commit such a clear rights violation, it undermines Hanoi’s claims to be providing free and fair trials to those it prosecutes in court,” he said in an emailed statement to RFA. “What’s clear is that the police believe they enjoy impunity to do whatever they want, and that laws do not necessarily apply to them.”

Robertson said the fact that The was arrested for expressing his opinions on his Facebook page demonstrates the Vietnamese government’s intolerance of dissent.

“Although freedom of speech is a universal human right and should not be criminalized, in Vietnam the authorities often harass, intimidate, and arrest anyone speaking up against government policy,” he said.

Anticipating another significant jail term for The, Robertson called on the international community to take action. “Foreign diplomats should be demanding that Hanoi stop these kinds of arrests, and immediately and unconditionally release Le Minh The,” he said. 

Translated by Anna Vu. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.