Day: July 13, 2023

Renewed calls from the U.S. State Department and a U.N. working group for the release of Cambodian-American lawyer Theary Seng are a violation of Cambodia’s sovereignty, the spokesman for the country’s ruling party said on Thursday.

“Our court jurisdiction is under the laws of Cambodia as an independent and sovereign state,” said Sok Ey San, spokesman for the Cambodian People’s Party.

“The court convicts [any person] based on the laws and the facts. She caused chaos in Cambodia for being a holder of foreign nation’s passport. She stirred chaos in Cambodian society.” 

In June 2022, Theary Seng was sentenced to six years in prison on treason charges, prompting condemnation from rights groups and the U.S. government. 

Her conviction was “a direct result of her exercise of her right to freedom of expression, which is protected under international law,” a U.N. working group of independent human rights experts said in a report released on Wednesday.

“Her detention resulted from her long-term, high-profile criticism of the prime minister and her pro-democracy activism,” the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention said in the 17-page opinion. 

State Department comments

Asked about the working group’s report, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said the United States continues to condemn the conviction and sentence of Theary Seng, who holds dual Cambodian and U.S. citizenship. 

When pressed by a reporter, Miller said the department still hasn’t determined whether she is “wrongfully detained” – a designation that could involve the department’s Office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs.

“With respect to this case, there is no higher … pressure we can bring to bear than the secretary of state himself personally raising a case with his counterparts,” Miller said at Wednesday’s daily briefing.

In August 2022, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken pressed Prime Minister Hun Sen to free Theary Seng and other activists during a visit to Phnom Penh.

Other U.S. officials, including Under Secretary of State Uzra Zeya, USAID Administrator Samatha Power and Ambassador W. Patrick Murphy, have also called for her immediate and unconditional release. 

Theary Seng was sentenced along with 50 other activists for their association with the banned Cambodia National Rescue Party, once the main opposition in the country before it was dissolved by the Supreme Court in 2017.

The specific charges stemmed from abortive efforts in 2019 to bring about the return to Cambodia of opposition leader Sam Rainsy, who has been in exile in France since 2015. Theary Seng and the other defendants denied the charges.

Foreign intervention fears

Last month, Hun Sen said he wouldn’t pardon Theary Seng or opposition party leader Kem Sokha, who was sentenced in March on treason charges widely condemned as politically motivated.

Hun Sen said the decision was necessary in light of recent foreign intervention in Cambodia. He added that even though Theary Seng has dual citizenship, her case applies only to Cambodian law.

In recent months, the prime minister has frequently invoked the specter of national security threats at public appearances ahead of the July 23 parliamentary elections, which he has framed as a referendum on who can best maintain Cambodia’s sovereignty. 

“From now on, those who seek foreign intervention will stay in prison,” he said last month. “We don’t release you. Don’t include them in prisoners who will be pardoned or have a reduced prison term. We are stopping foreign intervention in Cambodia.”

Theary Seng’s case was submitted to the U.N. working group by the Perseus Strategies, Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights and Freedom House organizations, which represent her pro bono.

“Theary Seng’s case is emblematic of the many people jailed in Cambodia for exposing human rights abuses, advocating for free expression, and calling for free and fair elections,” said Margaux Ewen, director of Freedom House’s political prisoner’s initiative. 

“The Working Group’s judgment comes at a critical time. As democracy and internet freedom are under threat globally and in Cambodia, we need the international community’s support of brave individuals like Theary Seng – and the rights for which they fight.”

Translated by Sovannarith Keo. Edited by Matt Reed and Malcolm Foster.

China won’t surrender its status as a “developing nation” any time soon due to the benefits it confers, U.S. climate envoy John Kerry said Thursday ahead of a trip to Beijing, even as he acknowledged the designation had poor optics given China is the world’s largest carbon polluter.

Kerry also told lawmakers that concerns about human rights abuses in China should not stop cooperation to mitigate climate change.

Appearing before the House Foreign Affairs Committee ahead of talks in Beijing next week, Kerry was asked by Chairman Michael McCaul, a Republican from Texas, whether he would push Chinese officials to surrender the self-designation of “developing nation.”

“It just continues to baffle me that the second-largest economy in the world is somehow treated as a developing nation,” McCaul said, complaining that it both lets Beijing access cheaper World Bank loans and commit to less stringent carbon-reduction goals.

China, he noted, plans to continue increasing carbon emissions until 2030 and then start a program of reductions to reach carbon neutrality by 2060, despite already being the world’s leading annual emitter.

“I talk to my constituents back home and say, ‘Yeah, you know, Secretary Kerry’s going over there trying to save the world. It’s great, but hey, guess what? China doesn’t have to comply till 2060, because they lie and say they’re a developing nation,’” McCaul said.

“The United States,” he continued, “we’ve got to comply almost immediately. The American people understand fairness. And honestly, sir, they do not see this as fair.”

Be realistic

Kerry replied that he understood the poor optics of the designation.

“I can’t disagree with that. They do not see it as fair,” Kerry said, adding it was not only McCaul’s constituents who were “concerned about this differential in the designation” with the United States.

“With respect to this developed/developing [question] it should confound anybody at this point in time – and it’s one of the topics I’ve raised this with my counterpart in China and others,” Kerry said.

Kerry said he believed the United Nations would “revisit” the issue of development designations next year, but that he did not expect Beijing to surrender “developing” status next week due to U.S. pressure.

“Let me just be frank with you: That’s not going to happen,” the climate envoy said. “It’s just not going to happen on this visit. But the Chinese government understands that this is a growing issue of concern.”

Big but developing

China is by far and away the world’s largest carbon emitter, according to the latest World Bank data, emitting more carbon dioxide each year than the next seven-placed countries – the United States, India, Russia, Japan, Iran, Germany and South Korea – do combined.

But the question of the development status of the world’s second-largest economy is complicated. 

While the United Nations allows countries to self-designate their status – to the chagrin of lawmakers like McCaul – other institutions have more concrete metrics, and China is only just reaching the top tier.

The World Bank, for instance, puts in its top bracket of “high income countries” only those that have a per-capita annual gross national income of above US$13,205. Last year, China fell a few hundred dollars short of that – at $12,805 – and was far behind most Western countries. The United States, by comparison, reached $76,370.

When it comes to responsibility for climate change, China has also emitted less in total than the United States over the course of history, due to the much earlier industrialization of the Western world.  

That has not gone unremarked upon by Chinese officials.

“Requiring a country that has only been developing for a few decades to shoulder the responsibilities of those industrial countries who have developed for hundreds of years, this itself is unfair,” China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, said during a press conference in 2019.

Uyghur slave labor

During the hearing, Kerry was also pressed over an interview he gave to Bloomberg last year in which he appeared to downplay the treatment of Uyghurs by Beijing, which the United States has termed a genocide.

Kerry was asked in the interview if he had concerns about negotiating climate change mitigation given China’s rights abuses.

“Well, life is always full of tough choices in the relationship between nations,” he replied, pointing out that U.S. President Ronald Reagan met Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev in the 1980s to seek deals on nuclear weapons despite calling the Soviet Union as “the evil empire.” 

“The point I’m making is that, even as there were egregious human rights issues, which Ronald Reagan called them out on, we have to find a way forward to make the world safer, to protect our countries and act in our interests. We can do and must do the same thing now.”

On Thursday, Kerry reiterated that point, after being asked by Rep. Cory Mills, a Republican from Florida, if he thought it was a “tough choice” whether the United States should import solar panels “built on the backs of Uyghur slaves” in order to reduce carbon emissions.

He replied he often brought up concerns about the treatment of Uyghurs in China during his talks, but that it would be “malpractice of the worst order” for the United States not to engage the second-largest economy on climate change due to its human rights concerns.

“We don’t have to wrap [our priorities] up,” Kerry said, “so one becomes hostage to the other, where you don’t make progress.”

North Korean authorities are cracking down on women for smoking in public, saying they are promoting capitalist culture and extinguishing socialist morals, residents in the country told Radio Free Asia.

But the same thinking does not seem to apply to men. The country’s supreme leader, Kim Jong Un, for example, is a chain smoker often seen in state media holding a lit cigarette.

In North Korea, it is natural for men to smoke, but frowned on for women to do the same, sources told RFA.

Statistics as recent as 2020 seem to confirm this trend, with 46.1 percent of North Korean men self-reporting that they have used tobacco –compared to zero women– according to a report by 38 North, a publication of the Washington-based Stimson Center think tank. 

But these days, more women are lighting up in front of other people, and authorities are enforcing anti-public-smoking laws on women but not on men.

“Even if the authorities try to [enforce a ban], it doesn’t stop men from smoking, but recently they are catching women smoking too,” a source in the northwestern province of North Pyongan told RFA on condition of anonymity for security reasons. 

“The authorities have been cracking down since early this month as more and more women smoke [in public], mainly in the city,” she said.

Anti-smoking laws

In 2005, North Korea passed the Tobacco Control Law, which made it illegal to smoke in hospitals and medical clinics, and on public transportation. This did little to prevent public smoking in other areas.

In a move that was publicized as beneficial for public health and the environment, the country introduced the Tobacco Prohibition Law in 2020, which regulated production and sales of cigarettes, designated more public spaces where smoking is banned, and laid out detailed punishments for smoking in public.

Manufacturers and male smokers were largely allowed to ignore the law, as the firms were responsible for generating revenue for the state, which is only possible if smokers can light up.

Plus, RFA reported in 2020 that North Koreans privately called the anti-smoking laws hypocritical because Kim Jong Un is often pictured in state media puffing away on cigarettes, including in front of children at an orphanage he was visiting around the time the law was passed.

But a recent rise in public smoking by women is the cause for the recent crackdown, which has police monitoring places like restaurants and marketplaces, the North Pyongan resident said.

“This is the first crackdown like this,” she said, and described a June 10 incident where two women in their 40s were fined 30,000 won (US$3.60) for smoking after eating a meal at a restaurant in the city of Sinuiju, which lies on the border with China.  

“The police warned them that if they are caught smoking again they will be fined 100,000 won ($12) and if they are caught a third time they could be imprisoned at a disciplinary labor center for a month,” the resident said. 

Targeting the wealthy

In the city of Anju, in South Pyongan province, police are even going undercover to try to catch women smoking, a resident there told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely.

“Since the beginning of this month, social security agents in civilian clothes have been visiting every restaurant near the provincial arts theater in Anju,” she said. “Many artists and rich people [go there] and many of the women smoke cigarettes.”

The South Pyongan resident said that until recently women who smoke did so secretly, but now they are smoking in front of others. She attributed the rise in female smoking to the greater stresses they face earning money to feed their families.

In the past, North Korean men could expect to support a family with the income from their government assigned jobs, but this became impossible after the economic collapse that led to the 1994-1998 North Korean famine.

Rapid inflation since then rendered the men’s salaries nearly irrelevant, so it has fallen on the women to make money by operating their own businesses, and a nascent market economy has since emerged.

Modern women

So now, women who smoke are seen as more modern than their counterparts of yesteryear, the South Pyongan source said.

Smoking among women is also a sign that women are rebelling against an oppressive society pressure that has consistently suppressed their desires, Yoon Bo Young, a researcher who focuses on North Korean women and society at South Korea’s Dongguk University, told RFA. 

“As women’s rights are expanded and women’s abilities are demonstrated, women act to break taboos,” said Yoon. “From that point of view, a woman who smokes should be recognized as a modern woman in North Korea. This is a society where hair must be neatly tied and women must wear appropriate clothes.”

Despite the obvious harmful health impact of smoking, doing so in public can be seen as a way for women to assert their independence.

Yoon noted that in Korean culture, smoking has traditionally been considered a male pastime, but now fewer female smokers are hiding their habit in South Korea as well. 

She predicted that women feeling comfortable enough to smoke in public will cause more cracks in North Korean social norms.

Translated by Claire Shinyoung Oh Lee. Written in English by Eugene Whong. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

The U.S. Marines showcased their aerial strength and capabilities during a joint exercise with their Philippine counterparts on Thursday by flying sophisticated warplanes over the South China Sea amid fresh tensions in the maritime region. 

Two Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II fighter jets flew over Zambales province as part of the Marine Aviation Support Activity (MASA), annual two-week drills involving more than 2,700 allied personnel. 

Apart from the training drills staged at Subic Bay in Zambales, exercises are planned for Cagayan, Tarlac, Palawan and Cebu provinces through July 21. Subic Bay is the site of a former U.S. Navy base that closed in the early 1990s, at the end of the Cold War.

At the Subic International Airport on Thursday, the U.S. Marines demonstrated loading 1,000-pound laser guided missiles on five F/A-18 Hornets. The Hornets were supposed to launch a mock attack to sink a ship about 12 nautical miles from San Antonio, a coastal town facing the South China Sea, but were hampered by storms. 

Second Lt. Madison Walls, U.S. Marines Corps 3rd Aircraft Wing spokesperson, said four Hornets were deployed in the exercises to integrate with Philippine assets in coordinated attacks. 

“This year’s drills are not targeted to specific concerns in the region. This is to strengthen our partnership with our allies,” Walls told reporters. 

The drills are taking place amid continuing Chinese harassment of the Philippine Coast Guard, according to the government in Manila.

They are also unfolding against the backdrop of tensions between China and the United States over Taiwan, which Beijing considers a renegade province.

As the Chinese military conducted military drills off Taiwan on Thursday, Chinese air force jets monitored a U.S. Navy plane as it flew through the Taiwan Strait, the Reuters news agency reported.

The joint U.S.-Filipino exercises came a day after the Philippines marked the seventh anniversary of an international arbitration court’s ruling for the Philippines, in a landmark case that Manila brought against Beijing in their territorial dispute over the South China Sea. 

Beijing has refused to abide by the ruling and claims nearly the entire South China Sea. This  includes waters within the exclusive economic zones of Taiwan, as well as Southeast Asian neighbors Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam. Indonesia has a separate conflict with China over the Natuna Islands. 

Earlier this week, Sen. Imee Marcos called on Philippine government agencies to monitor the presence of U.S. military aircraft and Chinese naval ships in the country “equally” as she questioned the presence of U.S. Air Force C-17 aircraft in Manila and Palawan. 

Sen. Marcos, who is the older sister of President Ferdinand Marcos, called on Philippine military, defense and foreign affairs officials to investigate whether undisclosed U.S. military flights have exacerbated volatile conditions in the region. 

“Too little is known about ongoing U.S. military activity in our territory while we constantly call out the presence of Chinese vessels in the South China Sea,” Sen. Marcos said in a statement on Sunday. 

“The same zeal in tracking any violations in our maritime territory and EEZ (exclusive economic zone) must also apply where Philippine air traffic rules and joint military agreements with the U.S. are concerned,” she said.

In February, the Marcos administration granted the American military greater access to bases in his country, alarming nationalist groups into suspecting that the Philippines may be drawn into a war if China invades Taiwan, a U.S. ally.

The allies have an existing Mutual Defense Treaty signed in 1951 binding them to aid each other if a foreign power attacks.

According to Philippine Air Force spokeswoman Col. Ma. Consuelo Castillo, all personnel involved in the joint exercises are covered diplomatically.

“As long as they are covered by diplomatic clearances and communicated to us by the DFA, there is no threat because it went through the proper process,” she said, referring to the Department of Foreign Affairs. “All those involved in the training went through the proper process of getting the proper diplomatic clearance.”

BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news service.

An online news site operated by a Vietnamese NGO will be suspended for three months as of Friday in accordance with a government decision as the publication focuses on “overcoming and thoroughly correcting shortcomings” to implement a government press directive.  

The Ministry of Information and Communications concluded in an inspection report that Zing News, also known as Zing News Online Knowledge magazine, had to stop its online service, though the publication did not cite a specific reason in a notice to its readers on Thursday.

The site, which covers economic, culture and political news in Vietnam, is run by the Vietnam Publishing Association, an entity that does not receive funding from the government or the Vietnamese Communist Party, but still must obey its orders. 

Zing’s announcement said it would focus on implementing a prime ministerial decision issued on April 3, 2019, for a master plan on press development and management nationwide through 2025. 

The government’s plan states that “the press is a means of information, a tool for propaganda, and a weapon” that is “important ideological fuel” for the party and the state. It also calls for continuous efforts to complete legislation for the government’s management and organization of the media and to eliminate the “overlapping situation” by reducing the number of newspapers.  

Though Zing did not state what the shortcomings are, it said it would continue to innovate content to ensure the implementation of the principles and purposes specified in its license and to promote an identity of “prestige information, impressive images” that better serves readers.

Vietnam ranks near the bottom of Reporters Without Borders’ 2023 Press Freedom Index – 178 out of 180 nations – for quashing dissent, controlling the public’s access to social media and prosecuting journalists on contentious charges, such as “distributing anti-state propaganda” and “abusing democratic freedoms.”  

As of May 2022, Vietnam had 815 news outlets, including 138 newspapers and 677 magazines, of which 29 operate only in electronic format, according to the Ministry of Information and Communications.

To implement the government’s plan, the online Tri Tri online newspaper (Zing.vn) of the Vietnam Publishing Association converted to an e-magazine model on April 1, 2020.

In 2022, the government suspended publication of two other websites for three months, Vietnam Law newspaper and the e-magazine Vietnam Business and Border Trade Journal.

The ministry determined that Vietnam Law Newspaper had 13 violations and was fined 325 million dong (US$13,720). The other publication, operated under the auspices of the Vietnam Association of Border Traders, was fined 70 million dong (US$2,960) for an administrative violation.

Translated by Anna Vu for RFA Vietnamese. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.

An influx of Chinese laborers at a potash mine in central Laos has pushed their number to about 3,000, far higher than Lao workers, which number about 100 – despite an agreement that mine operators must hire more domestic workers than Chinese, sources have told Radio Free Asia.

In recent months, some 1,000 Chinese workers have gone to the mine in Khammouane province, which has led to layoffs of Lao workers, many of whom have not been able to find jobs, residents and government officials say.

The 35-square-kilometer (13.5-square-mile) potash mine in Nong Bok district is operated by  Sino-Agri International Potash Co., Ltd.., a subsidiary of Asia Potash International Investment (Guangzhou) Co., Ltd., which is linked to entities directed by China’s governing State Council. 

Much of the potash – a soluble form of potassium, used for crop fertilizer – is exported to China, which has made acquiring more of the mineral a priority.

The Chinese laborers have work permits and are working legally at the potash mine, which has 152,000,000 tons of pure potassium chloride reserves, an official from Laos’ Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare said.

But the Lao government has been unable to control their numbers because Chinese investors who run the operations want to hire their own workers because they say Lao workers lack skills, a government official said.

The imbalance violates a memorandum of understanding that the Lao government signed with the Chinese mine owner, a government official said.

One Laotian who used to work at the mine accused the government of allowing the Chinese into the country to compete with unskilled Lao workers, who were subsequently laid off. As a result, some had to return to their home villages or find work in other places, making them vulnerable to human trafficking.

Most of the permanent workers at the mine are Chinese, while Laotians are hired as temporary laborers, said a Laotian who declined to be identified so as to speak freely.

“Chinese workers dig tunnels [and] build the infrastructure of the mine,” he said.

Laotians mostly work in construction, such as building roads, offices and camps for the permanent workers, but are laid off after the projects are completed, he added.

The temporary, unskilled Laotians working at the mine are mostly from other provinces because most locals don’t want to work there due to the low wages, said a local villager.

“Local laborers know that they pay low wages, so they don’t want to work in the mine and go to work somewhere else,” he said.

Laotians also are concerned about being exposed to chemicals, when they have no workers’ benefits or medical care under temporary contracts, sources said.

Unskilled Lao workers at the mine receive 5.4 million kip (US$280) per month, though the Chinese company that runs the mine pays skilled workers about 10,000-20,000 Thai baht (US$287-574) a month, said a Lao villager who used to work there.

Sino-Agri has come under fire by Lao residents who lived nearby and have accused the company of not properly compensating them for the loss of their homes and farms to the mine project, RFA reported earlier. 

In December 2022, authorities arrested and later released up to five villagers who protested against the company, saying they had not received any money for their property losses.

Locals who have been forced to give up residences and businesses to Laos’ infrastructure-heavy economic development efforts often complain that they have not been properly compensated. 

Sino-Agri signed a memorandum of understanding with the Lao government in March to build a “smart-eco industrial city” on 20 square kilometers of land in Nong Bok and Tha Khek districts, RFA reported. The move raised additional concerns among villagers living in the vicinity about negative impacts to their communities and their forest-based livelihoods.

Translated by Sidney Khotpanya for RFA Lao. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.