March 3, 2023 – Page 2 – Asean Tribune

March 3, 2023

Ai Weiwei’s lawyer among dissidents ‘disappeared’ ahead of parliament session

A human rights lawyer who represented Ai Weiwei against the Chinese government has “disappeared” after trying to board a train to the southern province of Guangdong, according to rights activists.

Liu Xiaoyuan was stopped by police on March 1 as he tried to travel to Zhuhai city from Ganzhou in the eastern province of Jiangxi, the Weiquanwang rights website reported.

“I was stopped by police from the Ganzhou West Railway Station public security station in Jiangxi province, en route to Zhuhai,” Liu wrote in a WeChat post before going incommunicado.

“I asked for a written record [of this interaction], but they refused.”

The incident comes as China has stepped up detentions of dissidents and religious figures ahead of the annual session of its rubber-stamp parliament, the National People’s Congress.

Liu, a former member of the now-shuttered public interest law firm Beijing Fengrui, went incommunicado on the eve of the annual session in Beijing, a time when the authorities typically target critics of the ruling Chinese Communist Party.

The lawyer previously represented Ai Weiwei when the globally renowned artist was detained in 2011. Ai once called him “the best lawyer in China”.

Other clients have included journalists and activists accused of subverting the Chinese Communist Party.

Stopped by rail police

Before going missing, Liu wrote that he had been stopped by rail police while attempting to travel.

The Civil Rights and Livelihood Watch website also reported concerns about Liu’s whereabouts, tweeting a message from the lawyer on the day of his “disappearance.”

“My ID card showed up as invalid when I went through the [automatic security] gates, and it wouldn’t let me through with just a train ticket,” Liu said in comments posted by the group to Twitter.

“Then four railway policemen surrounded me and wouldn’t let me go, and the duty supervisor even wanted to confiscate my ID card,” he wrote.

“[They said] they were assisting the state security police in my hometown of Suichuan county with their investigation,” Liu said.

ENG_CHN_DetainedDissidents_03032023.2.jpg — Police officers watch over passengers waiting for a public bus ahead of the annual National People’s Congress in Beijing, Thursday, March 2, 2023. Credit: Associated Press

A fellow rights lawyer who asked to remain anonymous confirmed the rights groups’ accounts.

“Liu [told me] last night that he didn’t eat, because he was waiting for them to give him an explanation,” the lawyer said. “I haven’t been able to contact him since [Wednesday] afternoon.”

“His mobile phone is switched on, but nobody is picking up,” he said.

He said Liu has been repeatedly harassed and persecuted by the government since he was targeted in a 2015 nationwide police operation that saw hundreds of lawyers, law firm staff and rights activists detained, hauled in for questioning and even jailed for subversion.

Stripped of license

Authorities in Beijing stripped Liu of his license to practice as a lawyer in October 2019 after he published a photo of himself selling insecticide as a street vendor – an image that could be considered “a kind of art…[and] a complaint against the abuse of power” by authorities who had forced the shutdown of his law firm he told RFA at the time.

An employee who answered the phone at the Ganzhou municipal railway police department declined to comment when contacted by Radio Free Asia on Thursday about Liu’s disappearance.

Meanwhile, veteran journalist Gao Yu has been taken to the eastern province of Shandong under police escort, while police in the southwestern province of Guizhou have placed more than a dozen members of the banned Guizhou Human Rights Forum under detention or house arrest, activists told Radio Free Asia.

Prominent dissidents Zha Jianguo and Ji Feng are both under house arrest or close surveillance, as is rights activist Li Wei, who posted that he was “going out to walk around and shop, with personal carers alongside,” in an apparent reference to state security police minders.

Guizhou rights activists Chen Xi, Li Renke, Liao Shuangyuan, and Shen Youlian have all been placed under close surveillance, while a local Protestant church member said Guizhou pastor Yang Hua is currently under travel restrictions that will likely end in mid-March, after the National People’s Congress closes.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Boer Deng and Malcolm Foster.

March 3, 2023

Myanmar opposition expels 4 top officials for allegedly assisting military junta

Myanmar’s deposed National League for Democracy on Friday expelled four top officials, including the party’s head of Yangon, for supporting the junta’s case against Chairwoman Aung San Suu Kyi and the military’s planned election for later this year.

The NLD said in a statement that it had permanently banned Yangon Chief Minister Phyo Min Thein and three other members of the Central Committee – Sandar Min, Toe Lwin, and Win Myint Aung – for bolstering “false evidence” of bribery against Suu Kyi and using the party’s name to back “sham” polls it claims the junta will use to justify its grip on power.

The party won Myanmar’s 2020 general election in a landslide, receiving more than 82% of public support. But the military staged a coup in February 2021 after accusing the NLD of election fraud – claims it has yet to provide evidence of more than two years later.

Bo Bo Oo, who prior to the military takeover represented Yangon’s Dala township as an NLD lawmaker in the National Assembly, said the decision demonstrates the party’s ironclad opposition to military rule.

“The NLD has proved with this statement that it is going to stand firmly against the sham election that the terrorist military junta is preparing to hold because the people who have been expelled are believed to have approached and cooperated with the military on its upcoming election in the hope of getting whatever position of power they can,” he said.

The NLD’s announcement follows Phyo Min Thein’s testimony last year as a witness for the prosecution that Suu Kyi accepted 11.4 kilograms (402 ounces) of gold and cash payments from him totaling U.S.$600,000.

Suu Kyi, 77, had dismissed the claims as “absurd,” but in April a military court found her guilty of violating the country’s Anti-corruption Law and sentenced her to five years in jail.

It was the first of 11 corruption cases brought by the junta against the Nobel laureate, who served as Myanmar’s state counsellor from 2016 up until the military’s February 2021 coup.

In December, a junta court sentenced Suu Kyi to another seven years in prison on five counts of alleged corruption, bringing the total number of years she must serve in detention to 33.

Suu Kyi was arrested with former President Win Myint in Naypyidaw shortly after the military seized power. She had already spent 15 of 21 years under house arrest following her detention by the military State Peace and Development Council government in 1989 until her release in 2010.

The NLD’s announcement on Friday also followed reports that Suu Kyi refused requests by Sandar Min and Toe Lwin to visit her at Naypyidaw Prison in November.

Attempts by RFA to reach NLD representatives for comment on the decision to expel the four party leaders went unanswered, as did attempts to reach the banned members.

According to the NLD’s Human Rights Documentation Team, in the two years since the coup authorities have killed 84 party members, including three former lawmakers, and arrested at least 1,232 others.

Translated by Myo Min Aung. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.

March 3, 2023

Saigon Heat to meet Singapore Slingers in semi-finals of ABL 2023

Saigon Heat will meet Singapore Slingers in the semi-finals of the ASEAN Basketball League (ABL) 2023 at Nguyen Du Gymnasium in Ho Chi Minh City.

Saigon Heat finished top of the league with 11 wins and three losses for the first time in history. Behind them, in second to fourth, were NS Matix, Hongkong Eastern and Singapore Slingers, respectively.

With this result, Saigon Heat will avoid facing NS Matrix of Malaysia, who were unbeaten in 10 consecutive matches.

Saigon Heat and Singapore Slingers will compete in the best-of-three series.

The team with two wins will enter the final. The first match between the two teams will take place on March 6, while the second will be on March 8. If the score is 1-1, the two sides will play a third match on March 9 to determine the final result.

For Saigon Heat, the clash with Singapore Slingers will not be an easy match. Defensive play and heavy physical factors often make Saigon Heat difficult, especially when they do not have many tall players playing in the central position.

Singapore Slingers’s CJ Gettys is 2.13m tall and specialises.

However, the strength of Saigon Heat comes from their stability and three points ability.

Along with the home-field advantage, the Heat are expected to complete their goal of entering the final for the first time in their history.

The opportunity to make history is even more possible thanks to outstanding players like Nguyen Huynh Phu Vinh, Vo Kim Ban, Du Minh An, Tim Waale (Dinh Khai Tam) who have been with the team for many years.

These players contributed greatly to helping the team become the first in the Vietnamese Basketball Association (VBA) history to win three consecutive championships (2019, 2020 and 2022)./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

March 3, 2023

Bac Giang: new rural area building in tandem with digital transformation

Bac Giang will focus on removing obstacles to raise the efficiency in the implementation of the National Target Programme on New-Style Rural Area Building in the northern province.

According to the provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, from now to 2025, Bac Giang will priortise the building of advanced and model new-style rural communes, and model new-style villages to vastly improve the look of its living areas.

The rural building efforts will go in tandem with digital transformation, towards the formation of smart village and commune models, and with tourism development, aiming to raise income of local residents, the department said.

At the same time, the province will step up agricultural restructuring to develop a sector of sustainability, with greater attention to be paid to product quality.

Bac Giang will continue effectively implementing the “One Commune One Product” (OCOP) programme by utilising its major products and potential, and work to improve the performance of cooperatives.

To accelerate the shift of labour structure, the province will push other sectors like industry, services and trade, and implement the three breakthroughs of rural security and order, waste collection and treatment, narrowing the gap in new rural area building between localities.

As of the end of 2022, six out of 10 districts in Bac Giang were recognised as new rural areas that completed their task of building towards that goal. Some 145 out of 182 communes won the status, with 42 satisfying the criteria set for an advanced new rural commune. Quang Minh in Viet Yen district was the first model new-style rural commune in the province. The province counted a total of 239 model new-style villages.

Bac Giang: new rural area building in tandem with digital transformation hinh anh 2

Illustrative image (Source: VNA)

Bac Giang plans to earmark more than 1.12 trillion VND (47.41 million USD) for the rural building programme in 2021-2025, with over 735 billion VND for 2021-2023.

It has issued various mechanisms and policies to mobilise resources for the programme.

Apart from capital provided by central and provincial agencies, localities in Bac Giang have also used part of their budget to conduct work to complete the programme, and integrated it into their projects plan.

The new rural area building movement has received a warm response from rural residents who donated more than 35.4 hectares of land, 33,000 working days and more than 38 billion VND to build public facilities.

Since 2021, Bac Giang has upgraded more than 967km of motorways and maintained and upgraded 1,300 irrigation facilities.

All of the 182 communes in the province now have cultural houses, and 86.5% of them have cultural and sport establishments at village and commune levels.

Health facilities have been enhanced, and the quality of primary health care for the rural population has been improved. The number of hospital beds per 10,000 is approaching 31.8, higher than the national average.

Bac Giang will promote the transfer and application of scientific and technological advances in agricultural production, forestry and fisheries, according to the provincial People’s Committee.

The province attaches importance to the application of national and international good agricultural standards such as VietGAP and GlobalGAP, clean technology, biological technology, and organic farming. Bac Giang also attaches importance to food hygiene and safety and environmental protection.

Bac Giang authorities will encourage the building of environmentally-friendly agricultural production models in the direction of organic farming or circular agriculture.

Investment will be focused on key products of the province, with the aim of raising the production value of Bac Giang’s seven key products by an average 5% a year. Production in concentrated farming areas will follow food safety standards; forests will be protected and developed in combination with protecting water resources. The forestry economy will be developed in the direction of both protecting the forest and increasing incomes for locals.

Bac Giang plans to mechanise not only production but also harvesting, post-harvest preserving and processing in order to enhance productivity, and the quality and competitiveness of agricultural products. Attention will be paid to mechanization and automation of all links in the production process of products under the One Commune One Product (OCOP) programme./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

March 3, 2023

Thailand’s FDI attraction remains strong in 2022

Thai government spokesman Anucha Burapachaisri on March 2 said the country’s foreign direct investment (FDI) attraction remained strong in 2022, with FDI rising 36% to over 430 billion THB (12.3 billion USD).

Thailand’s Board of Investment (BoI) approved privileges for 2,119 investment projects worth a total 660 billion THB in 2022.

China was the biggest foreign investor, followed by Japan, the US, Taiwan (China) and Singapore.

The spokesman said the rise in FDI was attributed to several factors, including the new long-term resident (LTR) visa, and privileges for foreign companies moving their production bases to Thailand.

The BoI also promoted existing industries by strengthening supply chains and logistics, as well as boosting 3-5-year privileges for target industries of electric vehicle, electric digital, creative, and BCG (bio, circular, green) businesses.

He insisted Thailand remained an attractive investment destination compared to other countries in the region, citing infrastructure of international standard, a strong supply chain network, skilled workforce, and raw-material manufacturing.

The government will continue to promote strengths and provide investment privileges in key industries to attract future foreign investors, he added./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

March 3, 2023

Budget revenues from taxes up 16.7% in two months

The tax sector collected an estimated 325.78 trillion VND (13.73 billion USD) for the State budget in the first two months of 2023, a year-on-year rise of 16.7%, and equivalent to 23.7% of the yearly estimate, the General Department of Taxation has reported.

Of the total, domestic collection was nearly 315 trillion VND, equivalent to 23.7% of its estimate for the year, and up 16.8% compared to the same period last year.

Thirty-six out of the country’s 63 provinces and centrally-run cities have completed over 18% of their yearly estimates.

So far this year, nearly 3,600 tax inspections have been performed, reaching 4.49% of the plan set for 2023.

For e-commerce tax management, as of February 17, 46 foreign suppliers have registered, declared, and paid taxes through the portal for foreign suppliers.

This year, the tax sector is set to collect over 1.37 quadrillion VND for the state budget.

It has synchronously and drastically implemented solutions to strengthen tax revenue management and prevent tax losses, while accelerating administrative reform to create favourable conditions for businesses and taxpayers. It has also vigorously speeded up information technology applications, and enhanced inspection and dialogue with taxpayers./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency