Day: March 20, 2023

The UN refugee agency has acknowledged it transported Myanmar junta officials aboard unmarked UN boats to Bangladeshi refugee camps last week, a move that has been criticized as risky to humanitarian workers and a “serious breach” of UN neutrality. 

UNHCR “supports efforts that could lead to the verification of all refugees and pave the way for eventual return,” the agency said in a statement on Sunday. “This most recently included providing logistical support to members of the Myanmar delegation to cross into Bangladesh for the technical verification process.”

The agency reiterated its previous assessment that conditions in Myanmar’s Rakhine state are “currently not conducive to the sustainable return of Rohingya refugees.”

UN boats – with UN markings removed from them – were used to carry officials from Myanmar’s ruling military junta to Cox’s Bazar in southeastern Bangladesh on Wednesday. 

Junta officials have recently been negotiating a pilot project that would repatriate about 1,000 Rohingya refugees from Bangladesh to Myanmar. Wednesday’s trip in the unmarked boats was made so that officials could engage in further talks and meet with refugees who could return under the pilot program.

Last week’s trip was made “in support of efforts to preserve the right to return” among the Rohingya, the UNHCR said in Sunday’s statement.

Consultation and dialogue with Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh by all parties is “important to enable refugees to make an informed choice about return and build confidence amongst the community,” the agency said.

‘Reputational risk’ for UN

The UN’s resident coordinator in Myanmar, Ramanathan Balakrishnan, said in an email sent to colleagues on Thursday that the UNHCR and the World Food Program provided the boats “at the very firm request” of Myanmar junta officials. He also said he was worried the trip created a “reputational risk” for all UN agencies and could jeopardize staff security. 

The email was obtained by the Myanmar Accountability Project and sent to Radio Free Asia. 

Chris Gunness, a former UN official who is now the director of the London-based NGO, said last week that it was “extraordinary” that the UN officials, on the one hand, would make statements saying that the conditions in Rakhine are unsafe while also playing a supporting role in the junta’s pilot project.

Removing UN markings from the boats was “a serious breach of UN neutrality,” Gunness said.

“It puts in danger UN convoys across Myanmar,” he told RFA last week. “If rebel groups, if opposition groups and others feel that these transports, these aid convoys are being used by the junta to be transported, they may come under attack. And that puts at risk the lives of humanitarian workers across Myanmar.”

The Cox’s Bazar area, which borders Myanmar, houses about 1 million refugees from the persecuted Rohingya minority, including about 740,000 who fled Myanmar following a military crackdown in Rakhine state beginning in August 2017. 

Edited by Malcolm Foster.

However, if the world implements “deep, rapid and sustained” greenhouse gas emissions reductions, faster and long-term sea level rise would be limited.

“Evidence of observed changes in extremes such as heatwaves, heavy precipitation, droughts, and tropical cyclones, and, in particular, their attribution to human influence, has further strengthened” since the last Assessment Report in 2014, according to IPCC.

1.5°C warming is most likely to occur

“Approximately 3.3–3.6 billion people live in contexts that are highly vulnerable to climate change,” the IPCC report said.

Global warming “will continue to increase in the near term” between 2021 and 2040, primarily because of continuously increasing greenhouse gas emissions, it said.

The experts said global warming is “more likely than not” to reach 1.5°C during this time, even under the very low greenhouse gas emissions scenario, and “likely or very likely” to exceed 1.5°C under higher emissions scenarios.

Mark Howden, a climate change professor at The Australian National University (ANU), also said that “in almost all emission scenarios,” global warming will reach 1.5°C in the first half of the 2030s.

According to some scenarios, global warming “declines back to below 1.5°C by the end of the 21st century,” with the best estimate of warming for 2081 –2100 at 1.4°C in case of “very low” greenhouse gas emissions, the report said.

The worst-case scenario would see a 4.4°C warming by the end of the century.

In a press statement, IPCC said that the “pace and scale of what has been done so far, and current plans, are insufficient to tackle climate change.”

Catastrophic effects of warming

The IPCC report warned that “every increment” of global warming will escalate multiple and concurrent hazards.

“More intense heatwaves, heavier rainfall, and other weather extremes further increase risks for human health and ecosystems,” IPCC said.

“In every region, people are dying from extreme heat. Climate-driven food and water insecurity is expected to increase with increased warming,” the report said, warning other adverse events, such as pandemics or conflicts, would make it unmanageable.

“A child born now is likely on average to have or experienced three to four times as many extreme climate events in their lifetime as their grandparents did,” said Howden, who was a vice-chair for a previous IPCC working group and review editor for the current synthesis report.

Former Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou plans to visit China from March 27 until April 7, becoming the first former or sitting leader of the democratic island to visit the Chinese mainland, his office confirmed.

He will embark on the trip amid tensions across the Taiwan Strait as China intensifies pressure on Taiwan ahead of the next presidential election there, in January 2024. 

Ma served as president of the Republic of China from 2008 until 2016 and remains a senior member of Kuomintang, or KMT, which ruled Taiwan for a long time and now is the main opposition party. The Republic of China (ROC) is the official name of Taiwan.

Beijing considers Taiwan a Chinese province that should be reunified with the mainland but the island’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party considers Taiwan an independent and sovereign country and rejects the “One China Principle,” which says “there is only one China in the world.”

The Ma Ying-jeou Culture and Education Foundation confirmed on Sunday that Ma planned to visit several Chinese cities, including Nanjing, Wuhan, Changsha, Chongqing and Shanghai.

It said the main purpose of his trip to China was for Ma to worship his ancestors during the upcoming traditional Tomb Sweeping Festival, or Qingming Festival in Chinese.

Ma will also bring a group of Taiwanese students for an exchange program with their Chinese counterparts, as well as visit historical sites related to Sun Yat-sen, the founding father of the Republic of China, and the Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945).

Ma Xiaoguang, a spokesman for China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, told the media on Monday that Beijing welcomed Ma’s visit as “worshiping ancestors on Qingming Festival is a common custom of compatriots on both sides of the strait.”

“We will provide necessary assistance for Mr. Ma Ying-jeou’s visit and wish him all the best for his trip,” the spokesman said.

Ma Xiaoguang also said that strengthening exchanges between young people “can add new strength and inject youthful vitality into the peaceful development of cross-strait relations.”

Boosting peaceful cross-strait relations

According to Xiao Xucen, executive director of the Ma Ying-jeou Foundation, Ma Ying-jeou’s visit will help promote peace in the Taiwan Strait.

“Communications between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait have been frozen in recent years,” Xiao told a news briefing on Monday. “If young people are allowed to connect and get to know each other better, that will definitely reduce the current tension.”

The office of Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, meanwhile, said it has not yet received any report about Ma’s trip to China.

Chen Ting-fei, a lawmaker from Tsai’s ruling party, said Ma only could represent himself and not the 23 million people in Taiwan, adding she could not figure out what role Ma would play during his trip to China.

It is unclear whether Ma Ying-jeou will meet with President Xi Jinping or any senior Chinese official during the trip. Ma previously met with Xi in Singapore in 2015.

The KMT was defeated by the Communist Party in the Chinese Civil War and had to move the ROC government to Taiwan in 1949. The Kuomintang is considered to be supportive of a closer relationship between Taiwan and mainland China.

“Ma Ying-jeou’s visit may be intended to persuade voters that the KMT can promote dialogue and take the lead in easing cross-strait tensions,” said Yoshiyuki Ogasawara, a Japanese political scientist and expert on Taiwan’s politics.

“The Democratic Progressive Party will criticize Ma’s visit and amplify the narrative that ‘Kuomintang is pro-China.’ There is also a possibility that the United States, which takes a strong stance against China, will warn against the KMT,” said Ogasawara, a professor at the School of Global Studies at the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies.

“The impact on Taiwanese voters will depend on how Ma Ying-jeou’s visit is being analyzed and discussed. Most people in Taiwan are of the view that they reject unification [with the mainland] but support dialogue with China,” the analyst said.

Ma, who turns 73 in July, is “the only high-ranking Taiwanese official that has never been to mainland China despite being engaged in cross-strait relations for more than forty years,” said Ma Ying-jeou Foundation’s Xiao Xucen.

Under the provisions of Taiwan’s National Secrets Act, former presidents are subject to exit restrictions for five years after leaving office.

It has been more than five years in Ma’s case but according to the Cross-strait People’s Relations Ordinance, he must submit an application for a mainland visit two days before departure and submit a report within seven days after returning to Taiwan.

Eva Xia for RFA Mandarin contributed to this report from Taipei.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has landed in Moscow, beginning a state visit where, analysts said, economic ties and the war in Ukraine are expected to dominate the agenda.

This is Xi’s first foreign trip after being re-elected for a rare third term. Russia was also the first country he visited after he was elected president in 2013.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Friday that the two leaders would discuss the “further development of comprehensive partnership and strategic cooperation between Russia and China” during Xi’s trip, which lasts until Wednesday.

Military-technical cooperation and energy issues will be high on the agenda.

They will sign a joint statement on a plan to develop key areas of Russian-Chinese economic cooperation until 2030, according to Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov. 

The two sides also plan to sign “more than 10” documents on various areas of cooperation, Ushakov told a press briefing.

The international focus is on the Ukraine war as Beijing last month released a 12-point position on the political settlement of the Ukraine crisis.

President Xi’s visit “will uphold an objective and fair position on the Ukraine crisis and play a constructive role in promoting talks for peace,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said on Friday.

Also on Friday, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin for war crimes related to the suspected abductions of children from Ukraine.

Analysts say the warrant would not affect Xi’s visit in any significant ways because both Russia and China are not state parties of the Rome Statute and do not recognize the court’s jurisdiction.

Ukraine peace plan?

“The Ukraine war will no doubt be the top issue for the two leaders’ meeting,” said Baohui Zhang, professor of Government and International Affairs at Hong Kong’s Ling nan University.

“China should have concerns for the prospect of Russia’s eventual defeat and the following geopolitical consequences,” Zhang told Radio Free Asia (RFA).

“Moreover, China is sandwiched between Russia and the West regarding its roles in the Ukraine war. It is a quagmire that Beijing does not want.”

“[The] Chinese and Russian leaders will certainly talk about how to end the war as a cease of conflict is conducive to the interests of both,” the analyst said.

On Monday, two major newspapers in Russia and China simultaneously published two articles by Putin and Xi that reflected their approaches towards each other.

Putin’s article in the People’s Daily said Russia appreciated China’s “well-balanced stance on the events in Ukraine” and Moscow welcomed “China’s readiness to make a meaningful contribution to the settlement of the crisis.” 

The Russian president went on to condemn Western countries for “the irresponsible and outright dangerous actions that jeopardize nuclear security.”

“Russia is open to the political and diplomatic resolution of the Ukraine crisis,” Putin wrote, “Unfortunately, the ultimatum nature of requirements placed on Russia shows that their authors are detached from these realities and lack interest in finding a solution to the situation.”

“We reject illegitimate unilateral sanctions, which must be lifted,” the article said.

China’s 12-point blue print on the Ukraine crisis, on the other hand, does not offer concrete measures to end the conflict and “it’s difficult to say what Xi might say to Putin in private,” said Ian Storey, a Singapore-based scholar who has been studying China’s and Russia’s defense diplomacy in Southeast Asia.

“I don’t think he will try to persuade Putin to sign some kind of ceasefire agreement with Ukraine,” Storey said.

When it comes to the Ukraine conflict, “the key question is whether or not the Putin-Xi summit will lead to decisions on the part of China to open large-scale military and military-related supplies to Russia,” said Artyom Lukin, deputy director for research at the School of Regional and International Studies at Russia’s Far Eastern Federal University. 

“For Beijing to go ahead with weapons shipments to Russia, it must be confident in the strength and resilience of the Chinese economy that will likely be hit with massive Western sanctions,” Lukin told RFA.

“Judging from the list of Russian top officials who will be present at the Putin-Xi talks, the main topics on the agenda will be bilateral economic relations,” the analyst said.

China wary of Washington’s red lines

Amongst participants, there will be ministers of finance and transport, the Governor of the Central Bank Elvira Nabiullina, and the head of the State Nuclear Energy Corporation Rosatom Alexei Likhachev, as well as prominent businessmen.

“Even though Beijing keeps denouncing Western sanctions imposed on Russia, China has been careful not to cross the red lines drawn by Washington,” Lukin told RFA.

“Despite the overall considerable growth of bilateral trade last year, some areas of the Russia-China economic relationship, especially in financial and hi-tech sectors, have suffered,” he said.

In his opinion, Xi Jinping’s visit to Moscow can provide some answers to the key question of “whether China’s cautiousness in business dealings with Russia is transient or for the long haul.”

Storey,  a senior fellow at the ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute, pointed out that “increasingly Beijing will throw Moscow an economic lifeline” as Russia is an important country for China and “China cannot let Western sanctions against Russia succeed.”

“As time goes by, Russia’s dependence on China will deepen,” Storey said.

Among the agreements to be signed during President Xi’s visit to Moscow “one major indicator to watch will be a possible signing of a binding contract to supply gas from western Siberia to China via a pipeline that will traverse Mongolia before entering China,” according to Artyom Lukin.

“Natural gas that Gazprom seeks to supply to China through the projected pipeline is from the same deposits that had, until recently, fed Europe’s energy needs.”

“If Beijing hands this mega-contract to Moscow, this may signal Xi’s determination to develop durable links with Russia,” the Russian analyst said, adding that another big item on the economic agenda could be setting up a system to “bypass SWIFT and Western currencies in bilateral trade and investment.”

‘A tighter embrace’

The state visit, first of all, will reconfirm the “strategic trust, good neighborliness and cooperation” between Russia and China, both major countries in the world.

“While there has been much talk of the West trying to drive a wedge between Russia and China, this is just wishful thinking,” according to Storey.

“As both countries increasingly feel that they are the target of a U.S.-led containment strategy they have moved into a tighter embrace,” he said.

For that reason, the U.S. will “certainly be on the agenda of the meeting” between Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, according to professor Baohui Zhang from Lingnan University.

“The Sino-Russia strategic partnership is motivated by the U.S. primacy in international affairs,” Zhang said, “The U.S. support for Ukraine and the U.S. shift towards strategic competition against China have provided more momentum for Beijing and Moscow to tighten their diplomatic and security partnership.”

The Hong Kong-based academic also noted that Western countries are not united on this matter.

“Some major European countries, like Germany and France, tend to suggest that the West should treat China differently from Russia as China does not represent a direct security threat and treating China and Russia the same way would only motivate them to bind together as challengers to the West,” he added.

Over the past decade, Xi Jinping has made eight visits to Russia. 

Vladimir Putin, for his part, made 12 official visits to China since his first presidency in 2000. His last state visit to Beijing took place in February 2022.