Day: June 30, 2023

Chinese authorities in Xinjiang detained two Uyghur men for participating in religious activities, Radio Free Asia has confirmed, shedding light on the reason for their detention for the first time.

The names of both men – Osmanjan Tursun, now about 35 years old, and Qeyum Abdukerim, believed to be 55 – appeared in the “Xinjiang Police Files,” confidential documents hacked from Xinjiang police computers that contain the personal records of 830,000 individuals.

The files had pointed to other reasons for their detention.

The files date from 2017 to 2018, the height of one of China’s “strike hard” campaigns, during which hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities were sent to the “re-education” camps. They provide more evidence of Beijing’s human rights abuses in Xinjiang, which the Chinese government has repeatedly denied.

Files from police in Kashgar’s Konasheher country, a subset of records from the larger cache, indicate that authorities deemed Tursun “dangerous and emotionally unstable.” In 2017, he was sentenced to seven years in prison because authorities previously imprisoned five people from his family, including his mother, a sister, two brothers and a sister-in-law.

But during a phone interview on the fate of detainees listed in the Xinjiang Police Files, a police officer in Zemin town, who declined to be identified, said Tursun and his relative had been sentenced “because they engaged in illegal religious activities in 2014.”

Although the Kashgar Konasheher police files indicated that authorities arrested Tursun because of the previous arrests of his family members, police actually accused him of disturbing public order and conspiring with others, according to the police officer. The records did not contain details of his purported crime such as how, when, and where he disturbed public order or with whom he conspired, however.

Police contacted by RFA also confirmed that Abdukerim, another detainee mentioned in Kashgar Konasheher police files, was still in prison. The files said he was about 48 years old when he was apprehended, but provided no further information.

But police told RFA that authorities sentenced Abdukerim to a 10-year prison for engaging in “illegal religious activities.”

Abdukerim’s “crime” was “watching illegal religious videos and attending illegal religious sermons,” an officer said.

A 2018 article by Chinese researcher Qiu Yuan Yuan from the Communist Party School in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region shed light on why authorities targeted the family members of Uyghurs who had been arrested and detained in “vocational skills education and training centers,” as the Chinese called the “re-education” camps.

He noted that following the Chinese government’s brutal attack against Uyghur “terrorists” during 2014-2015 and 2016, the number of counterattacks declined sharply.

But because the number of people in Xinjiang punished was so large, their family members harbored a hatred of the central government, so that they were deemed dangerous people.

To protect the “results of the three-year war on terror,” Chinese authorities had to confine the family members of those punished and “educated” them, he wrote.

Chinese authorities later removed Yuan’s article from from the Party School’s website.

Translated by the Uyghur Service. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.

In the Western vernacular there’s a warning about tails wagging dogs. And the Buddhist adage dictates that when the sage points at the moon, only the fool looks at his finger. The point of both is not to confuse the object for the subject. For years, we’ve been warned that Laos has been ensnared in a Chinese “debt trap.’ What if Laos has equally caught Beijing in a “creditor trap?”

According to the World Bank’s latest estimates, Laos’ national debt has probably surpassed 110 percent of GDP, with more than two-fifths of that owed bilaterally to China. (It accounts for around half of Laos’ external debt.) Others reckon the percentages are actually much higher. And as things stand, Laos’ public debt will remain above the 100-percent-of-GDP mark until 2030, according to a baseline scenario of an IMF report published last month.  

China and Laos rarely make these things public, but the IMF reckons known deferrals of debt servicing to China amounted to $220 million in 2020, $450 million in 2021, and $610 million last year. By one estimate, China’s short-term debt relief in the form of deferrals accounted for nearly 8 percent of Laos’ GDP by the end of 2022. Delaying makes sense. It frees up Vientiane’s finances in the short term. Because most of Laos’ debt is in U.S .dollars and the Lao kip has depreciated so badly since early 2022, payment now would be far more costly to the state than if China was paid back in a few years time (when the kip would have presumably rallied). 

Beijing might remain conservative. “Given the approach China has taken previously, it may offer short term relief, but only that,” Mariza Cooray, of the Lowy Institute’s Indo-Pacific Development Centre, argued last month. Beijing has moved much quicker to defer debt repayments for Laos compared to for the likes of Sri Lanka and Zambia, Cooray noted. But as with Sri Lanka and Zambia, she added, “China has also so far been unwilling to take a haircut on its debt, despite obvious signs that this will ultimately be necessary and to everyone’s benefit.” 

Speaking recently to several economists, however, most were of the opinion that at some point, perhaps in the next year or two, Beijing will have to take a bolder step. That may not be as simple as write-downs or debt forgiveness, although those aren’t beyond doubt. Writing off two or three billion dollars, for instance, would prick China’s overseas credit sheets but it would be a godsend to Laos’ coffers.  

Special case

Other debtor nations might cry foul. But unlike Pakistan, say, Laos has miniscule relations with the West, so slightly freeing Vientiane from this debt burden won’t see it suddenly realign with the United States or Western lenders. A majority of Laos’ debt is owed bilaterally to China, whereas most of Pakistan’s external debt is owed to multilateral institutions. That makes Laos a special case. 

More likely, though, Beijing will want some form of quid-pro-quo: a stake in Laos’ national assets or a geopolitical favor. It’s worth considering that Laos takes on the annually-rotating chairmanship of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 2024, and Beijing may lean on its geopolitical client to represent its interests. Vientiane, which isn’t overly fussed by how others perceive it, could demand something in return.

In any case, that will once again raise the hackles of those who proclaim Laos is ensnared in a Chinese “debt trap”. But Beijing cannot easily walk away from its commitments in Laos, either. Toshiro Nishizawa, who has advised the Lao government in the past, has argued that the scale of Laos’ debt may seem like “a default is inevitable” but “geo-economic factors mean that the concerns about Laos defaulting are unrealistic. China is unwilling to stomach the financial and political ramifications of a potential Laotian default.” 

Laos has also, in a way, trapped China. If Beijing allowed Laos to default, it would send a shock throughout the Global South. Because Beijing cannot afford to let Laos suffer too much, it’s compelled to offer Laos more relief than other lenders might have done. Neither does it want Chinese firms invested in Laos to be burdened by non-performing loans or for the local economy to collapse. 

Chinese gangsters might run mini-fiefdoms in northern Laos but it’s in Beijing’s interest for the ruling Lao People’s Revolutionary Party (LPRP) to maintain tight central power. It certainly wouldn’t help Beijing’s global interests if a political crisis erupts in its southern neighbor over the government’s inability to pay civil servants or fund basic services for the people, now increasingly the trend.   

Debt is trapping China in Laos

In September 2020, Électricité du Laos (EDL), the state-owned energy company that controls the power grid, partnered with China Southern Power Grid Company to create the Électricité du Laos Transmission Company  (EDL-T).  The firm, of which China Southern has a controlling share (reportedly 90%), will manage Laos’ power grid for the next 25 years, including decisions on buying and selling power locally. 

Anjali Bhatt, writing about this topic in the Diplomat, noted that this “means China Southern will effectively control the electricity imports and exports of Laos – the crux of the whole Southeast Asia battery ambition.” The direct control of critical infrastructure, she added, “gives China leverage. Though unlikely, Beijing could use the threat of interfering with energy exports as a way to influence Lao policy.”

However, that deal also meant that the Lao government was able to palm off to Beijing a state-owned enterprise that was hemorrhaging money. Before the merger, EDL was estimated to have been $8 billion in debt. (Much of Laos’ external debt has been taken on to finance its underperforming state-run firms, while a recent spate of bond issuances has gone to fund state-run banks.) How much of that remains on the Lao state’s books remains unclear but presumably China Southern may have taken on a proportion of that debt. Granted, it also means less revenue for the state but the Lao government now wants domestic taxation on private firms and individuals to be the main bulk of its revenue.

None of this is to say that the Laotian people benefit from the situation. Laos is a one-party, communist state. If it was a democracy, perhaps ordinary folk would rebel over how the current financial burdens will impact their children. National debt, after all, is a tax on the yet unborn generation. No-one benefits from this. Consider the question: Would Beijing prefer Laos to be a debt-ridden economic mess or to be more like Cambodia, another geopolitical partner but one with relatively low debt (less than 40 percent of GDP), good trade with the wealthy West and public finances to invest in its citizens? 

Patron-client relations aren’t one-directional and debt is also trapping China in Laos. Something must give. But it’s in Beijing’s court to decide. If the Belt and Road is China’s weltpolitik, a Laotian default on its debt would arguably be the biggest crisis yet to Beijing’s image as an honest creditor. Debt deferrals are only possible for a few more years. At some point, Beijing will surely have to offer forgiveness. 

David Hutt is a research fellow at the Central European Institute of Asian Studies (CEIAS) and the Southeast Asia Columnist at the Diplomat. As a journalist, he has covered Southeast Asian politics since 2014. The views expressed here are his own and do not reflect the position of RFA.

Jimuk will never forget the day dozens of national security police charged into the Apple Daily‘s editorial offices, separating staff from their computers, removing large quantities of confidential documents, freezing its assets and later arresting several executives and senior editors.

“The worst thing was that the day they arrested several high-level executives was actually my birthday, so I have felt very sad on my birthday these past couple of years,” he said. 

“I feel very bad that they have been sitting in jail for the past two years,” he said.

The Apple Daily, founded by pro-democracy media magnate Jimmy Lai, was raided by national security police on June 17, 2021, becoming one of the biggest casualties of draconian national security law imposed by the ruling Communist Party in a bid to suppress the 2019 protest movement.

Five days later, as the paper shut down for good, a group of editors and reporters gathered outside the headquarters of Lai’s Next Digital media empire, bowing to their readers to show gratitude for their support over the years. 

“We are the Apple Daily editorial team, including reporters, and we have something to say to the people of Hong Kong – thank you,” one said. 

The last edition of the paper sold a record-breaking 1 million copies, with people lining up on the street from the early hours to get their piece of Hong Kong history, making a bittersweet end to 26 years of the paper’s sensationalist, hard-hitting style and its cheery apple logo.

Two years later, the doors of Next Digital’s former headquarters are boarded up, and the company’s name has been erased from the bus stop outside. 

Leaving Hong Kong, journalism

Radio Free Asia caught up with four of its former journalists in recent weeks, marking the second anniversary of the raid. 

Not many former Apple Daily staffers – who once numbered around 600 – are still in journalism, while an estimated 1 in 10, have left Hong Kong for a new life overseas. 

Meanwhile, at least 15 other media outlets have since also shut down, either because they were also being investigated by the national security police, or as a pre-emptive decision. 

Of the former journalists who spoke to RFA Cantonese, some have changed careers, others have emigrated, and some have gone back to school. 

And some diehards have clung to their profession because they believe very strongly in the idea of a free press for Hong Kongers – wherever they are in the world.

Three former staff members, who gave only the pseudonyms Ah Y, Ah A, and Jimuk for fear of political reprisals against themselves or their loved ones, spoke to Radio Free Asia about their current plans and their memories of the crackdown, which proved so fateful not just for the Apple Daily, but for Hong Kong. 

A fourth – Taiwan-based Photon News website founder Leung Ka Lai – agreed to speak on the record.

More than a job

All are still struggling in their own way to come to terms with the loss of their paper, which was so much more than a job, and which has become a symbol of the crackdown on dissent and peaceful political opposition in Hong Kong since the protest movement tried to take issue with the erosion of the city’s promised freedoms.

“I worked for the Apple Daily for more than 20 years – that place took all of my blood, sweat and tears. Anyone who says they don’t miss the place is lying,” Ah Y said. 

For Ah A, it’s the openness of the interactions with colleagues he misses the most. 

“That open atmosphere made me very happy to go to work,” he said. “I miss that rapport with my colleagues, and I miss the feeling of everyone working together.”

Jimuk said he still treasures every moment he spent working there.  

“I haven’t forgotten anything about the paper over the last two years because I invested so much in it, both mentally and emotionally, and did some good work there,” they said. 

For Ah Y, who now lives in the United Kingdom, there seems to be little point in staying in the industry at all. “These days being a journalist seems pretty pointless,” he said, adding that he hadn’t planned on leaving the profession, and isn’t sure what to do now.   

“It’s not easy to just change careers after 20 years in journalism,” he said. “I’ve spent more than half of my working life doing this job, and I always thought I would keep doing it until I retired.” 

Ah Y now does manual labor in Britain.

 “Being a journalist has lost its meaning in this day and age,” he said. “It would feel like going through the motions, like a zombie. And there isn’t much of a future in it for young people.” 

Keeping the spirit alive

Jimuk is carrying out academic research into the Apple Daily in Taiwan, and teaching students from Taiwan and the rest of the world about the demise of press freedom in Hong Kong and about the 2019 protest movement. 

He feels that he’s still working as a communicator, only in a different venue and profession. 

“I often think about how to keep the spirit of the Apple Daily alive,” he said. “Also about how we can help preserve its history. My aim over the next few years is to create an academic archive detailing more than two decades of Apple Daily history.”

Ah Y has also written about Hong Kong for some Taiwanese news organizations, something he has been grateful for because he feels as if he is helping Hong Kong from overseas. 

Ah A decided to brave the chilly political climate and stay in Hong Kong, but hasn’t managed to find another reporting job, as his resume is now tainted by his association with his former paper.

Instead, he has worked in sales, data analysis and as an Uber driver since the paper’s demise. 

He said media organizations in Hong Kong now appear reluctant to hire him.  

“Journalists I have worked with from other media organizations have invited me to interview, and I went to more than one that was on the point of hiring me, but then didn’t get approval from the highest level,” he said. 

“Each time it was because I was one of the last journalists to leave the Apple Daily,” he said. 

Excluded

It seems that being a former Apple Daily journalist is now something akin to the Black Five Categories of the Cultural Revolution of 1966-1976 in mainland China – a recipe for vilification and exclusion, according to its former staffers.

Some former journalists at the paper have even been turned down for teaching positions in universities.  

“It’s a shame, because I would never have done this job for so long if I didn’t really love it,” said Ah A, who was a journalist for 16 years. “But the industry is changing so rapidly that I probably wouldn’t be able to bear it. I’m getting a bit long in the tooth for that.”  

“I prefer the challenge of trying a different career altogether,” he said. 

As the ruling Communist Party tightened its grip on Hong Kong in the wake of the 2019 protest movement, it “gutted” press freedom in the city, according to journalists and overseas rights groups. 

Since the national security law took effect on July 1, 2020, Hong Kong has plummeted from 18th to 140th in Reporters Without Borders’ annual press freedom index. 

Last hurrah

The 2019 protest movement, which was covered round-the-clock by a dedicated press corps who braved constant street battles between protesters and riot police, may have been its last hurrah. 

With daily drone footage, live-tweeting, live streams, running commentary, political debate and in-depth interviews with participants, Hong Kong’s journalists offered a depth and intensity of coverage that hasn’t been seen in the city since. 

That year, they really fulfilled their role as the fourth estate that holds governments to account and speaks truth to power.

But by the following year, the National Security Law had put an end to the activities of its once-intrepid press corps, barring the depiction of any scenes or slogans seen as “glorifying” the protesters or their aims.

Jimmy Lai, who was initially arrested and released on bail at the time of the national security raid, was taken back into custody, where he remains awaiting trial on national security charges. 

He was also convicted of “fraud” in connection with the alleged misuse of Next Digital premises under the terms of its lease agreement. 

Meanwhile, six former Apple Daily executives have pleaded guilty to “conspiring and colluding with foreign powers” under the national security law. 

Other casualties

Six months after the raid on the Apple Daily, the pro-democracy Stand News website was also forced to close, with two of its senior editors prosecuted. A month later, Citizen News followed suit, saying it needed to shut down to keep its journalists safe. 

“Four years on, the transformation has been shocking,” Leung Ka Lai said. “Nobody thought this could happen, not even people with more than a decade of experience in Hong Kong media organizations.” 

“I used to think it would be something like the frog in the gradually heating pan of water, but actually, things changed overnight,” she said. 

Leung, who worked for 16 years as a journalist in Hong Kong, the last three of them at the Apple Daily, tried to stay on after the paper closed, working as a citizen journalist covering protests and political opposition. 

But she has since moved to the democratic island of Taiwan, where she founded Photon News, a service for Hong Kong readers anywhere in the world. 

‘Be water’

Leaving felt like the Bruce Lee maxim used by the 2019 protesters to denote a fluid approach to political opposition, “Be Water.”  

“I chose to leave because it turns out that there is some space to do my work here, enough freedom of expression,” she said.   

“Resistance takes many forms, and refusing to put up banners can be a form of resistance, if that’s what the regime wants you to do,” Leung said. “I don’t want to put up protest banners — I’m a journalist.” 

Yet Leung has found that self-censorship has dogged her shoestring news operation even in Taiwan, as people are reluctant to speak to the press due to risks under the national security law. There is also the need to protect her own employees. 

“We are now overseas, in a place that isn’t threatened by Hong Kong’s National Security Law, but still have to consider the safety of anonymous colleagues, and sometimes there are decisions to be made about which stories to run, and how they should be written,” Leung said. 

While some former colleagues have carried on reporting via social media, there are concerns about how effective an option this can be in the longer term.

“There are lot of like-minded colleagues in Hong Kong who have started their own news platforms, and there seems to be some room for them to do that,” Leung said, adding that while 12 media organizations have folded, 15 new services — albeit smaller and less well-funded — have sprung up to take their place. 

“But Hong Kongers are pretty picky, and won’t just accept anything you feed them,” she said, adding that the prospects for what little press freedom remains are looking grim, with the government planning further national security legislation.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

An internationally recognized gymnast from Yangon who was placed under surveillance by Myanmar’s junta after she was profiled by Radio Free Asia has been given a coaching position by the regime’s sports ministry and is now modeling for TV ads.

The June 13 report on 21-year-old Thae Su included footage of her performing acrobatic gymnastics and also described her family’s strained financial situation. 

The video on RFA Burmese’s Facebook page drew more than 6 million views in the first 24 hours and attracted wide attention from local media, businessmen and from Burmese around the world. The video has since reached more than 8 million views.

Well-wishers donated money to Thae Su’s family in the days after the broadcast, according to sources, and some Burmese people living abroad contacted RFA asking how to help her and her family.

The video has proved a mixed blessing. 

On June 15, administrative officials from Yangon’s Dala township, military intelligence and armed plainclothes officers entered her home as a local media crew was filming and ordered them to stop as they hadn’t received permission from junta officials. She was also told not to speak to any more reporters.

It was unclear why authorities cracked down on the family, and RFA had been unable to contact Thae Su for more than a week after the visit by officials.

But following a June 22 report on Thae Su’s situation, RFA learned that the young gymnast was appointed as a coaching assistant at a township sports and physical education center under the junta’s Ministry of Sports and Youth Affairs in Yangon. She told RFA that she would begin training for a team in July.

Acting opportunity

Additionally, after watching the video, popular comedian Moe Di invited Thae Su to join him as an actor in television commercials.

”When I saw her in online videos, I thought she was a Chinese or Korean athlete,” Moe Di told RFA. “But my friends told me that she was a Burmese girl living in Dala and knew that she had an interest in the performing arts. I told myself I could provide her with a good start and I’m glad I was able to discover her talent.”

Thae Su told RFA that she first became interested in sports in 2014 after going to a summer aerobics class – thinking it was a dance class – on the day of her fifth grade final exam.

Since then, she’s competed in physique gymnastics, acrobatic gymnastics, wushu and bodybuilding, winning at least 20 prizes at township, district and regional level competitions.

In 2019, she won first prize in the women’s fitness physique open category at the Southeast Asian Bodybuilding and Sports Competition in Myanmar. She also took third place at the World Bodybuilding and Fitness Competition in South Korea that same year. She was only 18 years old at that time.

While Thae Su acknowledged that some people have “criticized and blamed me for telling the truth about my situation,” she said that the response she received from the video has been overwhelmingly positive.

“Because of [RFA’s] coverage, everyone now knows about me, and many people have come and expressed their admiration to me,” she said. “I’ve received a lot of support and donations as well.”

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