Think Positive, Think Asean Tribune
Vietnam has banned the release of the Warner Bros feature film “Barbie” because its trailer includes a crude cartoon map that Vietnamese netizens believed depicted China’s “nine-dash line” territorial claims in the emotive South China Sea maritime territorial dispute. The decision mystified the studio, which said the map that prompted Hanoi to pull the movie was a “child-like crayon drawing” that traced Barbie’s travels and carried no political message.
Beijing authorities are moving to ban the display of commercial advertising from buses on routes that pass through the iconic center of Communist Party rule – Beijing’s Tiananmen Square – not far from where crowds once flocked to first taste Kentucky Fried Chicken under the economic reforms of late supreme leader Deng Xiaoping.
The municipal government is planning to ban advertising on the sides of buses and trolley-buses passing through the square, which is home to communist monuments like the Great Hall of the People and the mausoleum of late supreme leader Mao Zedong as well as the front gate of the Forbidden City museum, from which Mao’s portrait looks down at passing traffic.
“We have friends all over the world!” proclaims one of the red and gold slogans next to Mao. “Long live the People’s Republic of China!” shouts the other.
Just along Qianmen Street from the southwestern corner of the square lies a multistorey branch of Kentucky Fried Chicken – an icon of the economic reform era ushered in by Mao’s successor Deng Xiaoping that saw people freed up to make money as fast as they liked, and the start of a burgeoning private sector.
But political commentators say the ruling Chinese Communist Party under Xi Jinping is once more turning against symbols of private commercial gain, in favor of “socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era.”
A Beijing-based journalist who gave only the surname Ma for fear of reprisals said this is the main reason for the new ban on advertisements.
“The leadership … basically rejects the private sector and commercial activities,” Ma said. “I think it’s in line with their thinking … that buses passing through Tiananmen Square won’t be allowed to carry advertisements.”
‘Forbidden Zone’
Draft revisions to regulations governing bus and trolley-bus advertising reported in the Beijing Daily on Monday detail a “forbidden zone” in Tiananmen Square, outside the Forbidden City where China’s emperors once ruled, and Zhongnanhai where the current government has its headquarters.
Any buses on routes passing down Chang’an Boulevard between Wangfujing shopping district to the east and Xidan to the west will be banned from displaying any advertising, the paper reported.
“Vehicle body advertisements should be rectified in a timely manner,” state broadcaster CCTV reported on the same day.
“It’s to create a uniform look, so that when you see TV footage or watch the news, all of the shots and images that you see will have been carefully controlled by the Communist Party,” social activist Lu Jun told Radio Free Asia on Tuesday.
Like Pyongyang
He drew a parallel with the banning of commercial advertising from buses in North Korea.
“[This will create] a clean look of extreme purity, with no whiff of commercialism anywhere,” he said. “The thinking is all about political correctness.”
Tiananmen Square, where Mao proclaimed the People’s Liberation Army to cheering crowds on Oct. 1, 1949, has been the venue for multiple mass protests over the past century, one of which ended in the June 4, 1989, massacre of civilians by the People’s Liberation Army.
Security was also tightened after a number of people pursuing grievances against the government attempted self-immolation and other forms of more recent protest.
A Beijing resident who lives near Tiananmen Square and who gave only the surname Zhang for fear of reprisals said security has gotten stricter and stricter in the area in recent years.
“There aren’t that many routes that go along Chang’an Boulevard – just the No. 1 and the No. 5,” he said. “So it’s pretty minimal.”
He said passengers on the subway system have to get out on side-streets, instead of taking the stairs up to Chang’an Boulevard, and need to show ID to enter Tiananmen Square.
But for Zhang, it’s scarcely a return to a pristine, socialist past.
“When I was a kid, you could wander in and out of Tiananmen Square at will,” he said. “Now you have to book in advance.”
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
A breach of Microsoft-hosted U.S. government email servers by a Chinese hacking group was detected and fixed “fairly rapidly,” National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said on Wednesday, despite Microsoft saying that the breach was only discovered after a month.
Microsoft on Tuesday revealed that the group, known as Storm-0558, had been caught forging digital authentication tokens to access federal government email servers hosted on its Outlook email platform.
The company said the breach was detected on June 16, and that it believed the hackers had first gained access around May 15. But Sullivan appeared to downplay the hack on Wednesday, telling a morning news program that the breach was remedied quickly.
“We detected it fairly rapidly and we were able to prevent further breaches,” Sullivan said on ABC’s Good Morning America. “The matter is still being investigated so I have to leave it there.”
Not Falkland Islanders
State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said the U.S. government had not formally identified the source of the hack, but that officials were aware of Microsoft’s announcement pointing to the Chinese group.
“Last month, the State Department detected anomalous activity. We did two things immediately: one, we took immediate steps to secure our systems and, two, took immediate steps to notify Microsoft of the event,” Miller said during a press briefing. “As a matter of cybersecurity policy, we do not discuss the details of our response.”
Miller would also not say if officials were aware of the hack before Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s trip to Beijing, which also followed reports of a Chinese spy base in Cuba. Blinken arrived in Beijing on June 17, the day after Microsoft says the hack was discovered.
But the spokesman stressed there was no official determination about the hack’s origins. Pressed by a reporter, he ruled out only one origin.
“I do not believe it’s people from the Falkland Islands,” he said.
Cyber espionage
Microsoft said in its statement that the Storm-0558 hacking group “primarily targets government agencies” in Western Europe, but this time had “gained access to email accounts affecting approximately 25 organizations including government agencies” in the United States.
“Microsoft investigations determined that Storm-0558 gained access to customer email accounts using Outlook Web Access in Exchange Online and Outlook.com by forging authentication tokens to access user email,” it said. “Microsoft blocked usage of tokens issued with the key for all impacted consumer customers.”
In a blog post, the company also said the group were likely spies.
“We assess this adversary is focused on espionage, such as gaining access to email systems for intelligence collection,” Microsoft said. “This type of espionage-motivated adversary seeks to abuse credentials and gain access to data residing in sensitive systems.”
U.S. officials have over the past year intensified warning about the threats to American business and government posed by Chinese hackers. In July last year, FBI director Christopher Wray said Beijing was intent on exploiting cyber vulnerabilities to its advantage.
The comments followed another hack by a suspected Chinese hacking group, Hafnium, on email servers hosted by Microsoft Exchange.
“The Chinese government sees cyber as the pathway to cheat and steal on a massive scale,” Wray said. “Over the last few years, we’ve seen Chinese state-sponsored hackers relentlessly looking for ways to compromise unpatched network devices and infrastructure.”
Chinese response
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin used his press briefing on Wednesday to accuse the U.S. government of overseeing “the world’s No.1 hacking group” – the National Security Agency – but otherwise did not comment on the claims against Storm-0558.
Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, told Radio Free Asia that China condemned any hack, and reiterated Wang’s claims the United States was responsible for cyber attacks.
He said that the United States was “actually the biggest hacking empire and global cyber thief” and added that the U.S. government should stop “spreading disinformation to deflect public attention.”
“China is against cyber attacks of all kinds and has suffered from cyber hacking,” Liu said in an emailed comment. “Since last year, cyber security institutions from China and elsewhere in the world have issued reports to reveal [the] US government’s cyber attacks against China over the years, but the US has yet to make a response.”
Edited by Malcolm Foster.
About 30 police officers raided the Phnom Penh home of an outspoken opposition party member in what appears to be retaliation for not defecting to Prime Minister Hun Sen’s ruling party ahead of the July 23 election.
Khem Monykosal, the Candlelight Party’s chief for Pailin province, told Radio Free Asia that he wasn’t home on Tuesday when police conducted the two-hour search. Police left a handwritten note that said a mobile phone was taken by order of a prosecutor.
“I have not committed any wrongdoing. Why do they pursue me from Pailin province to Phnom Penh?” Khem said. “They neither showed the search warrant nor stated any reasons.”
The raid comes just two weeks before a parliamentary election that Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party is expected to sweep.
The Candlelight Party – Cambodia’s main opposition party and the only one capable of mounting a challenge to the CPP – has been blocked from appearing on the ballot. The National Election Committee ruled in May that it submitted inadequate paperwork.
Even so, Hun Sen and his government have continued to pursue Candlelight Party supporters in recent months. He’s persuaded dozens of opposition activists to switch their allegiance to the CPP, while others have been threatened with legal action.
Pailin proposal
Four ruling party officials who hold senior positions at Pailin’s provincial health department recently asked Khem Monykosal to join the CPP in exchange for reinstatement to a civil servant position at the department, he told RFA.
When he declined, the CPP officials threatened to have two pending court cases reviewed, Khem said.
One case relates to a Facebook post during the COVID-19 lockdown in which he criticized local quarantine officers. In the other case, he said on Facebook that a village chief in Pailin had tried to persuade Candlelight Party activists not to work as election observers during the 2022 commune election.
The Pailin court has yet to take any action on the cases.
The lack of a warrant for Tuesday’s raid of Khem’s home was a flagrant violation of the law, ADHOC President Ny Sokha said.
“A court warrant should have been shown and read aloud before such a search,” he told RFA. “They cannot violate this procedure.”
RFA attempted to reach Boeung Raing administrative police station chief Bun Pros, Phnom Penh Municipal Police spokesman San Sokseyha and National Police General Commissariat spokesman Chhay Kimkhoeun for comment on the raid on Wednesday.
Khem told RFA that he is taking refuge at a safe location and remains a firm supporter of the opposition.
‘I still feel terrified’
A Candlelight Party member who was arrested last week by Thai authorities on the streets of Bangkok had also posted critical comments on Facebook about Hun Sen and the CPP, and was also the target of a home raid.
Thol Samnang fled Cambodia on July 4, a day after police and government authorities visited his home in Kandal province seeking to detain him without a warrant.
The 34-year-old was arrested on July 7 by men in plainclothes as he made his way to the office of the United Nations refugee agency. He was being held at an immigration detention center in the Thai capital and could face deportation to Cambodia.
“Hun Sen is taking an opportunity of the transition government of Thailand to collude with his old conspirators to arrest and deport democrats who are hiding in Thailand,” said Meng Sotheara, an opposition activist who lives in Thailand.
So Dara, a former bodyguard of opposition leader Sam Rainsy, said he is worried he will also be arrested by Thai authorities and deported to Cambodia, where he could face a long imprisonment.
“I still feel terrified and dare not even leave my room,” he told RFA. “All other political refugees dare not go out either.”
Translated by Sovannarith Keo and Sok Ry Sum. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.
The ruling Chinese Communist Party has taken over responsibility for running the day-to-day affairs of Hong Kong from China’s cabinet, the State Council, in a move commentators said is likely linked to a recent bid to pursue the city’s democracy activists overseas and to harass their families.
The Hong Kong and Macao Work Office of the Communist Party’s Central Committee is headed by Xia Baolong, who also headed its predecessor, according to a brief account of its July 11 meeting posted to its official website.
Its remit – according to plans passed by the National People’s Congress in March – will be to “deploy the governing power of the central government” in Hong Kong and to “maintain national security,” under a security law imposed on Hong Kong in July 2020 that criminalizes public criticism of the authorities by anyone, anywhere in the world.
The office is also charged with “supporting” the integration of both cities with the rest of China.
Its first publicized meeting comes days after Hong Kong’s national security police issued arrest warrants and bounties for eight prominent overseas democracy activists, with the city’s leader John Lee vowing to pursue them “for life.”
The warrants were swiftly followed by five arrests in Hong Kong of people suspected of helping overseas activists, and the questioning of the parents and brother of U.K.-based former pro-democracy lawmaker Nathan Law.
U.S. response
As the office made its public debut, U.S. President Joe Biden extended the U.S. state of emergency with regard to Hong Kong.
In a July 11 letter to Congress, Biden said recent actions taken by Beijing “to fundamentally undermine Hong Kong’s autonomy … [continue] to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat” to U.S. national security.
Exiled former lawmaker Ted Hui, who is among the eight wanted activists, said the order to issue the arrest warrants had clearly come from Beijing.
“These concerted actions [the warrants, arrests and questioning of family members] were clearly ordered by Beijing,” Hui told Radio Free Asia. “They may not be able to arrest us, but they can make things tough for our families.”
“It’s political law enforcement that uses people as hostages in a kind of psychological warfare,” he said. “They’ve started by harassing Nathan Law’s family, sending the message that if he doesn’t submit to their will and keep quiet, they will take further action.”
Current affairs commentator Sang Pu said the new, party-run Hong Kong and Macao Office will likely be running a “rectification” campaign in Hong Kong, which could mean that some heads will roll in the local administration.
“It has the spirit of [political] struggle – the more communist the better,” Sang said. “Nobody in the Hong Kong government has said anything – they must think there’s a crisis coming.”
“Everything they do … will be about demonstrating loyalty – it’s a continuation of the spirit of the Cultural Revolution,” he said.
Losing its uniqueness
Chen Li-fu, vice president of the Taiwan Association of University Professors, said Washington appears to want to step up pressure on China to ease off its political controls over Hong Kong.
“[Biden’s] saying here that he doesn’t think they have seen the error of their ways, so he’s extending [the state of emergency] for one year … but not forever, hoping they’ll change their ways,” Chen said.
There are signs that not everyone in the Chinese political establishment agrees with the current approach to dissent in Hong Kong.
A post by mainland Chinese blogger Jinghaihou — a former columnist for a Beijing-backed newspaper in Hong Kong — calling for an easing of the political crackdown in the city was recently allowed to remain online.
In it, the blogger argues that Hong Kong is losing its uniqueness under the national security law, saying there are fears the city has lost its luster, and that it’s neither special nor a particularly attractive destination, and has been marginalized on the international stage.
The post cites the recent removal of books from the shelves of the city’s public libraries, including work by revolutionary Chinese author Lu Xun.
“Since the implementation of the National Security Law in Hong Kong, a small number of people have gotten into the habit of overdoing the implementation of some policies … of mechanically implementing the government’s decisions … to the point where Lu Xun is being taken off library shelves, and movies that have nothing to do with politics are no longer being shown,” the blogger wrote.
“They always seek left over right, regardless of the consequences,” the post said, blaming the local government for its “frivolous” use of the law to scare people.
The pro-China Sing Tao Daily newspaper also published an article on July 11 hitting out at local officials for their “excessive leftism” and calling for a balance between national security, and the need for investment, human rights and freedom.
“Some people [within the Chinese government] feel pessimistic and lack confidence in a Xi Jinping-style model for governing Hong Kong,” mainland Chinese commentator Si Ling told Radio Free Asia.
“The fact that this article was published is a rebuke to Xi Jinping and a call for change, and also speaks to the influence of those whose views are represented in it,” he said.
Current affairs commentator Johnny Lau said one or two articles are unlikely to change much, however.
“Unless there is a long period of easing back, one or two articles are hardly going to change anyone’s perception of tightening controls,” he said.
“Even if there are people in the central government who think a better balance needs to be found, those further down the hierarchy haven’t gotten the memo,” Lau said.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie; edited by Malcolm Foster.
Russian authorities are on the lookout for North Korean college student Kim Tae Sung, who went missing in the far eastern city of Khabarovsk on July 8, leading to speculation that he may be seeking to avoid returning to his homeland, residents living there told Radio Free Asia.
Kim, 25, had been an exceptional student in North Korea and had been attending Khabarovsk’s Far Eastern State Transport University.
Sources said he may have been able to escape the watchful eyes of other North Koreans around him by leaving while those who monitor the overseas North Korean community were in a state of mourning on July 8, the anniversary of the 1994 passing of national founder Kim Il Sung.
If Kim’s intent is to escape, it would be the latest of several similar cases of North Koreans sent to Russia before the pandemic seemingly fleeing in advance of an anticipated post-pandemic border reopening between the two countries.
In another recent case, RFA reported last month that a North Korean diplomat’s wife and son went missing in Vladivostok and local media reported that it could have been a possible defection.
Reports that Kim had disappeared and that authorities were looking for him appeared in the July 9 edition of the Komsomolskaya Pravda daily newspaper, a resident of Khabarovsk, who requested anonymity for personal safety, told RFA’s Korean Service on Tuesday.
“The [newspaper] released the details of a missing person’s report that included Kim Tae Sung’s physical description and identification at the time of his disappearance,” he said. “The young man was last seen on July 8th in Yashin Street.”
The report also described Kim as 170 centimeters (5 feet 7 inches) tall with an average build, and said he had been wearing a white T-shirt, gray shorts and black rubber slippers at the time of his disappearance, the resident said.
Russian public security authorities left a phone number to call “but they still haven’t found him,” the resident said.
Liga Spas, a volunteer organization in Khabarovsk that helps locate missing people, are also raising awareness about Kim, another resident in the city told RFA, on condition of anonymity for security reasons.
“A post looking for the missing Kim was posted on Liga Spa’s account on Russian social media,” the second resident said. “It’s been two days since Kim Tae Sung went missing but his whereabouts remain unclear. If the purpose was to escape, it can’t be ruled out that they may have already left the immediate area.”
Kim had come to Khabarovsk to study before the pandemic, he said.
“I know that he was a promising, outstanding student who completed the best education course in North Korea,” the second resident said.
North Korean authorities frequently request help from the Russian police whenever one of theirs goes missing, he said.
“It seems that North Korea is expressing its will [to North Koreans in Russia] that it will block their [attempts to] escape, even by employing the investigative power of local authorities,” the second resident said.
RFA was not able to confirm whether North Korean authorities are charging Kim with criminal activity. However, in the past, they have been known to make false accusations of murder, rape or theft against missing people, in order get the local authorities to open criminal investigations, which are of a higher priority than missing persons cases.
Translated by Leejin J. Chung. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.