Day: April 23, 2023

The Philippines on Saturday raised concerns with China about soaring tensions related to neighbor Taiwan when the two countries’ top diplomats met in Manila.

The meeting between Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang and Foreign Secretary Enrique Manalo came amid heightened rhetoric over the Philippines recently granting the United States access to four additional military bases, two of them fronting Taiwan, which Beijing considers a renegade province.

“Manalo reaffirmed the Philippines’ adherence to the One China Policy, while at the same time expressing concern over the escalating tensions across the Taiwan Strait,” said a statement by the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) after a meeting of the two officials.

Manalo also told his Chinese counterpart that the Philippines continues to pursue “an independent foreign policy, which seeks to ensure stability and prosperity in the region,” according to a report by BenarNews, an affiliate of Radio Free Asia.

For his part, China’s Qin reminded Manalo of the “promises” the two nations have made to each other, in what appeared to be an oblique reference to the One China policy, which Beijing’s envoy to the Philippines brought up last week in not so delicate a fashion.

Qin called the situation “‘fluid’ and turbulent,” without elaborating.

“[A] healthy and stable China-Philippines relationship is not only meeting the aspirations of our two peoples, but also in line with the common aspirations of regional countries,” he said.

“We need to work together to continue our tradition of friendship, deepen mutually beneficial cooperation, and properly resolve our differences in the spirit of credibility, consultation, and dialogue, and keep our promises to each other so as to bring more benefits to our two countries and people and inject greater positive energy to the peace and stability of this region and the whole world,” Qin added.

Analysts had called expanded access to Philippine military bases “central” to Washington’s aim to deter any plan by Beijing to attack Taiwan.

China has said it amounted to interference.

But the latest controversy involving China was the warning of its envoy here to the Philippines.

Ambassador Huang Xilian had strongly advised Manila to “unequivocally oppose” Taiwan’s independence rather than fan the flames of conflict by offering the U.S. military additional access to bases. He also commented on the safety of 150,000 Filipino workers in Taiwan. 

The Philippine government and opposition slammed the Chinese envoy for his statements on Manila’s policy on Taiwan and its workers on the neighboring island, saying they will not brook any attempts at intimidation by Beijing.

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. later downplayed the Chinese envoy’s comments noting the latter’s speech released in English may have been “lost in translation.”

On Saturday Marcos met with China’s Qin and called the meeting “useful.”

“Some of the pronouncements that have been made recently by our two countries and many other countries might be misinterpreted,” according to a statement released by Marcos’ office. 

“So today it was really useful that we were able to speak with Minister Qin Gang, the Foreign Minister of China, so we can talk directly to one another and iron things out.”

South China Sea issue

Qin’s visit came even as the Philippines is hosting more than 12,000 American soldiers for the largest-ever joint exercises between the two long-time allies.

The exercises were for “maritime defense, territorial defense, [and] coastal defense,” a Filipino military official said last month, amid seemingly hostile actions by Beijing in the South China Sea, parts of which both countries claim.

During the meeting Saturday with the top Chinese diplomat, his Philippine counterpart Manalo raised the issue of the disputed waterway.

“Our leaders have agreed that our differences in the West Philippine Sea are not the sum total of our relations,” he said, referring to the part of the South China Sea that lies within the exclusive economic zone of the Philippines.

“These differences should not prevent us from seeking ways of managing them effectively, especially with respect to the enjoyment of rights of Filipinos, especially our fisherfolk.”

Manila has said that China has ramped up its presence in the Philippine Exclusive Economic Zone in the disputed sea and increased harassment of Filipino fishermen in recent years. 

At a high-level foreign department consultation last month on the sea dispute, the government reminded China that intimidation and coercion have no place in solving the issue. 

While there have been significant developments already after the bilateral consultative meeting, Manalo noted that much still needed to be done.

Philippine President Marcos on Saturday referred to the dispute saying more communication would help.

“As to the conflicts, we agreed to establish more lines of communications so that any event that occurs in the West Philippine Sea that involves China and the Philippines can immediately be resolved,” he said. 

“So we are currently working on that and are awaiting the Chinese response and we are confident that these issues would be worked out that would be mutually beneficial for both our nations.”

Manila had recently lodged a complaint about the swarming of more than 40 Chinese fishing boats, which were escorted by a Chinese Coast Guard ship and a People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy ship near Pag-asa (Thitu), one of the Philippine-occupied islands in the disputed waters.

In February, a CCG ship allegedly pointed a laser towards a Philippine Coast Guard vessel in Ayungin Shoal (Second Thomas Shoal).

Still, as the Philippines’ Foreign Secretary Manalo noted, China has remained the country’s top trading partner over the past few years, even amid the COVID-19 pandemic. And when Marcos visited Beijing in January, he took home investment pledges worth about U.S. $22.8 billion.

Meanwhile, Marcos is scheduled to make his second visit within a year to the U.S. on May 1, when he is set to meet with U.S. President Joe Biden in the White House.

The two leaders are expected to discuss deepening political and economic ties, Washington and Manila said on Friday.

And Biden is expected to “reaffirm the United States’ ironclad commitment to the defense of the Philippines.”

BenarNews is an online news outlet affiliated with Radio Free Asia.

The number of high net worth individuals in Hong Kong has fallen by nearly 30% in recent years, as the city’s ranking as a destination for the wealthy drops several places amid an ongoing erosion of the city’s promised freedoms under Chinese rule.

The number of millionaires living in Hong Kong fell by 27% between 2012 and 2023 to 129,000, as the city fell from fourth place globally to seventh place, immigration consultants Henley & Partners said in its World’s Wealthiest Cities Report 2023.

Meanwhile, the number of rich people living in Singapore rose by 40% over the same period, with the city-state overtaking Hong Kong to rise to fifth place in the global survey, it said.

The figures come as the Hong Kong authorities try to woo fresh talent to come to the city amid an ongoing exodus of highly qualified people, handing out free plane tickets to visitors and offering work visas to attract professionals to replace those who have left.

Net departures of permanent residents from Hong Kong totaled 113,000 for the whole of 2022, while the city’s population fell by 1.2 percent in the 12 months to August 2021, prompting calls from media backed by the Communist Party for the government to act to stem the brain drain.

Middle-class families have also been selling off property and voting with their feet, citing the curbs on freedom of speech and growing political interference in schools as driving factors in their decision to leave.

Veteran Hong Kong journalist and former Cable TV finance channel editor Joseph Ngan said there is now little to set Hong Kong apart from other cities in mainland China, with many fleeing the city for Singapore during the three years of lockdowns and port closures that marked the ruling Communist Party’s zero-COVID policy.

Becoming similar to the mainland

An ongoing crackdown on peaceful political opposition and public criticism of the government under a draconian national security law had also taken its toll on the city’s reputation among wealthy individuals, he said.

“Since the national security law took effect, the political and legal environment has become similar to that of mainland China,” Ngan said.

He said the recent rise of Singapore as a destination shows that many wealthy people from China are choosing to relocate there instead of to Hong Kong.

“If the rich in the mainland want to transfer funds overseas, they would rather go to Singapore than Hong Kong,” he said. “Also, Singapore’s political and economic environment is pretty stable.”

“Looking at the Forbes list from last year, we see that around half of Singapore’s billionaires hail from mainland China,” Ngan said. “A lot of mainland Chinese money is going direct to Singapore, and no longer passing through Hong Kong.”

Simon Lee of the Asia-Pacific Institute of Business at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said the city is facing both a brain drain and capital flight.

“The rich want to keep their wealth away from political issues, and Singapore can keep it away from tensions between other countries, like the United States, Europe, China or Russia,” he said in a written response to questions from Radio Free Asia.

‘Vibrant startup ecosystem’

By contrast, Singapore has been developing its private wealth management sector to compete with Hong Kong, to great effect, Ngan said, citing the Economic Development Bureau’s support for family offices.

According to the bureau’s official website: “For family offices with an interest in venture capital, Singapore has a vibrant startup ecosystem [providing] family offices with exciting opportunities to invest in up-and-coming industries in Singapore such as the fintech sector, which attracted a record high of S$1.2 billion in 2019.”

The scheme includes work visas for professional advisers and permanent residency for members of wealthy families “who intend to drive their businesses and investment growth from Singapore.” 

According to Ngan: “The most important thing for the wealthy isn’t the size of the financial market, but the extent to which their personal assets will be protected.”

“Singapore has done a good job in this regard,” he said.

By contrast, asset freezes, including that of jailed Next Digital media magnate Jimmy Lai, as part of “national security” investigations under the current political crackdown in Hong Kong have made a lot of wealthy people nervous.

“There have been a number of issues with assets in the past two or three years due to so-called national security issues,” Ngan said.

Property prices in Hong Kong fell by 15% last year, while Singapore’s property sector is booming, he said.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

The group of Uyghur students stood in awe of the ancient murals with Persian and Indian influences, fragments of text and other artistic objects from caves in northwestern China’s Xinjiang region.

With heads tilted upwards, the youths, aged 10-15, took in a reconstruction of a Buddhist cave temple dating from around the sixth century and spanning two levels of the gallery. The murals adorned the walls of Cave of the Ring-bearing Doves in Kizil, near Kucha, on the Northern Silk Road in what is now the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.  

But they were not seeing the cave art or temple in their original locations. They were viewing them more than 4,800 kilometers (3,000 miles) away at the Humboldt Forum, a Berlin museum dedicated to human history, art and culture. 

The wall paintings, whose once vivid colors have dulled with age, and other artifacts depicting both Buddhist legends and secular themes, are part of the history of ancient Xinjiang.

“We saw our motherland’s artifacts, such as ancient carpets and clothes,” Kamil, a Belgian-Uyghur participant, told Radio Free Asia. “I never thought that we had things in Europe. I felt proud when a gentleman told us the story about them and our ancestors.”

Kamil was one of the 26 Uyghur kids participating in a four-day trip to the German capital organized by the research center of the World Uyghur Congress, an advocacy group headquartered in Munich. 

The youngsters, who study at Uyghur-language schools in seven European countries, were learning about their history and culture through artifacts taken from their historic homeland by a German expedition team that made four trips to Xinjiang in the early 20th century, and are now kept in Berlin museums.

‘Returning to the Past’

The educational program called “Returning to the Past” was the first gathering of its kind for Uyghur teenagers in Europe to get together and learn about their heritage at a time when the Chinese government has been eradicate Uyghur culture in Xinjiang in an effort to Sinicize the restive region.

“Mr. Ablet explained to us the value of artifacts carted to Germany from our homeland exhibited in the museum,” said Atikem, a teacher at a Uyghur-language school in England, who brought six students to the event. She was referring to a Uyghur historian who is an expert on the artifacts displayed in the museum and who served as a guide for the group.

WUC program organizers sought to impart two lessons during the program: rebuilding destroyed cities and remaining strong as a persecuted people.

On the first day of the program, instructors introduced Berlin to the participants, said Abduweli Ayup, director of the WUC’s Research Center and an event organizer. 

They drew parallels between the destruction of the city during World War II and the demolition in recent years of parts of ancient Uyghur cities by the Chinese government, including mosques, cemeteries, old towns and marketplaces.

“At the beginning of the program, we explained to them that Berlin was destroyed during WWII, and similarly, Uyghur cities, Uyghur symbols and cultural relics are facing destruction now,” Ayup said. 

“Just like the German people rebuilt Berlin, we need to rebuild Uyghur cities in the future, so we should get inspiration from the rebuilding of Berlin,” he said.

Parallels

The program also drew parallels between the genocide of the Jews during the war and the genocide of the Uyghurs beginning in 2017, when Chinese authorities began detaining members of the mostly Muslim minority group in “re-education” camps and prisons where some were subjected to torture, sexual assaults, and forced labor.

The U.S. government, the European Parliament and the legislatures of several Western countries have declared that the maltreatment amounts to genocide and crimes against humanity.

During a visit to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, organizers highlighted the ongoing Uyghur genocide to the young people and expressed hope that Uyghurs would stand up to China one day just as did the Jews, Ayup said.

“By showing them the museum that depicts the history of Jewish people’s fight for liberty, we tried to explain to the teenagers how a nation of genocidal victims can rise and the possibility to rise,” he later told RFA.

In one discussion exercise, some participants compared the genocide of the Jews to the genocide of Uyghurs in Xinjiang. 

“I never thought they could make such comparisons,” Atikem said. “They told me that the Nazi government made Jewish people poor first and locked them in ghettos. They compared the Nazis’ behavior to that of the Chinese [who] locked up Uyghurs.” 

“The Jewish people stayed as one family in those ghettos and survived that oppression through family support,” the teacher said. “The Chinese separated kids from their parents and brought mental anguish to all of them. These kids said that to me.”  

“They missed their Uyghur identity, I think,” she said. “I also thought they longed for their people, culture and the opportunity to live as Uyghurs.”  

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