Day: February 6, 2024

The U.S. Senate on Tuesday confirmed President Joe Biden’s top Asia foreign policy aide, Kurt Campbell, as deputy secretary of state. 

Campbell, previously the Indo-Pacific Affairs coordinator on the White House’s National Security Council, was confirmed in an overwhelming 92-5 vote to replace Wendy Sherman, who retired in July.

During his confirmation hearing in December, Campbell said he would prioritize the strategic threat posed by China if confirmed, and coax the Senate to ratify the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea to help push back against Beijing’s expansive South China Sea claims.

“Even our allies and partners say, ‘Hey, wait a second. You’re holding China to account to something you yourself haven’t signed up for?’” Campbell said at the time. “We’ve gotten very close in the past; I’d love to get that over the finish line. It’ll be challenging. I’m committed to it.”

During the hearing, he was praised by Democrats and Republicans alike, with Sen. Bill Hagerty, a Republican from Tennessee who was the ambassador to Japan during the Trump administration, praising Campbell for his “most helpful, most insightful” guidance.

In the Obama administration, Campbell was credited as being the architect of the president’s “pivot to Asia,” which aimed to reorient U.S. foreign policy away from the Middle East toward East Asia. In the current White House, he has been credited with reinvigorating “the Quad” dialogue between the United States, Australia, India and Japan.

Campbell’s appointment shows the Biden administration’s increasing focus on China in its foreign policy. The longtime public servant was described as being possibly “the biggest China hawk of them all” by Politico upon his appointment to the White House in 2021.

However, he also led the charge in organizing last year’s high-profile summit in San Francisco between U.S. President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, which paved the way for the ongoing easing of diplomatic tensions between Washington and Beijing.

Edited by Malcolm Foster

Major automakers including Toyota, General Motors, Tesla, BYD and Volkswagen may be using aluminum made by Ugyhur forced labor in China and have failed to minimize this possibility, Human Rights Watch said in a report.

Nearly 10% of the world’s aluminum is produced in Xinjiang, in China’s northwest, where Uyghurs and other minorities are subjected to forced labor in detention centers or through Chinese government-backed labor transfer programs that Beijing says are to alleviate poverty, according to the 99-page report, “Asleep at the Wheel: Car Companies’ Complicity in Forced Labor in China.”

Engine blocks, vehicle frames, wheels, lithium-ion battery foils and other components may contain aluminum from these facilities or joint-ventures that these major carmakers have with Chinese companies, said New York-based Human Rights Watch, or HRW. 

The rights group acknowledged that the origins of aluminum from Xinjiang are difficult to trace because the metal is sent to other parts of China, where it is melted down and made into alloys that enter global supply chains undetected.

“Aluminum from Xinjiang ends up being mixed in larger quantities of aluminum, where then you can no longer trace the origin, and that makes traceability extremely difficult,” said Adrian Zenz, director of China Studies at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation in Washington. He was not involved in producing the HRW report.

“What the report indicates is that carmakers need to really consider divesting from China a lot of their production and sourcing because the Chinese supply chains are inevitably tainted,” he said. “The report indicates that carmakers are not taking not even close to taking the steps that are necessary to reduce the exposure to Uyghur forced labor.” 

Caved in

HRW said despite the risk of exposure to forced labor through Xinjiang’s aluminum, some car manufacturers in China have given in to government pressure “to apply weaker human rights and responsible sourcing standards at their Chinese joint ventures than in their global operations.” 

“Most companies have done too little to map their supply chains for aluminum parts and identify and address potential links to Xinjiang,” The rights group said. “Confronted with an opaque aluminum industry and the threat of Chinese government reprisals for investigating links to Xinjiang, carmakers in many cases remain unaware of the extent of their exposure to forced labor.”

Toyota said in an email to Radio Free Asia that its “core value of respect for people permeates all that we do, including deep regard for human rights and how we conduct business as a global enterprise.” It said it expects its suppliers to follow its lead to respect human rights, and that it would closely review the HRW report.

GAC Toyota Motor Co., Ltd., based in Guangzhou, and FAW Toyota Motor Co., Ltd., based in Tianjin, are Toyota’s auto manufacturing joint ventures in China.

General Motors, which produced 2.1 million vehicles in China in 2023, told RFA that it  recognizes the importance of responsible sourcing practices, as outlined in its Supplier Code of Conduct. 

“GM remains committed to conducting due diligence and working collaboratively with industry partners, stakeholders and organizations to continuously evaluate and address any potential violation in our supply chain,” the statement said.

The U.S. carmaker has 10 joint ventures, two wholly-owned foreign enterprises and more than 58,000 employees in China. The joint ventures sell passenger and commercial vehicles under the Cadillac, Buick, Chevrolet, Wuling and Baojun brands.

Genocide

The United States and other Western countries have determined that China is committing genocide against the predominantly Muslim Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples who live there. As a result, the United States, the European Union and other countries have enacted or are considering laws banning the import of products linked to forced labor.   

Because of the size of China’s domestic auto market and the need to compete, the five named carmakers have “succumbed to Chinese government pressure to apply weaker human rights and responsible sourcing standards at their Chinese joint ventures than in their global operations, increasing the risk of exposure to forced labor in Xinjiang,” the report said.

HRW mined open-source, online materials, including company reports, Chinese government documents, state-run media reports and social media posts to find links between Xinjiang, aluminum producers and labor transfers.

China, the world’s largest car exporter in 2023 and a manufacturing and supplier base for domestic and global car brands, produced and exported more cars than any other country in 2023 as well as made and exported billions of dollars of parts used by international carmakers.

Volkswagen, which has a 50% stake in a joint venture with Chinese carmaker SAIC and operates a distribution center in Xinjiang’s capital Urumqi, said in an email statement to RFA that it takes “its responsibility as a company in the area of human rights very seriously worldwide — including in China.”

“The Volkswagen Group adheres closely to the U.N. Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights,” it said. “These are part of the company’s Code of Conduct. Volkswagen takes a firm stand against forced labor in connection with its business activities worldwide.”

Seeks compliance

The automaker also said it works to ensure compliance with these values along the supply chain and has a careful global partner and supplier selection process and monitoring measures in place.

“Suppliers in the People’s Republic of China that are commissioned directly by the Volkswagen Group are already in the scope of sustainable procurement measures and are committed to complying with our Code of Conduct for Business Partners,” the company said.

“Serious violations, such as forced labor, can lead to termination of the contract with the supplier if no remedial action is taken,” it said. “We are therefore actively reviewing and using our existing procedures and looking for new solutions to prevent forced labor in our supply chain.”

Tesla, whose factory in Shanghai produces vehicles for the Chinese market and for export, told the rights group that it had mapped its aluminum supply chain in several cases but had not found evidence of forced labor. However, the company did not specify how much of the aluminum in its cars remains of unknown origin.

Unlike other foreign carmakers that operate in China, Tesla wholly owns its Gigafactory in Shanghai—the first such arrangement allowed by the Chinese government. The company has land-use rights for an initial term of 50  years.

Neither Tesla nor China’s BYD, headquartered in Shenzhen, replied to RFA’s requests for comment.

Companies involved in joint ventures have a responsibility under the U.N. Guiding Principles to use their leverage to address the risk of forced labor in the joint venture’s supply chain, HRW said.

The responses by the car manufacturers are “very inadequate,” said Maya Wang, the associate director in HRW’s Asia division.

“Because of the environment of political intimidation and harassment and surveillance, it’s really difficult to conduct due diligence because [if] you talk with the workers [about whether or not they are subjected to forced labor, could they possibly respond without fear?” Wang asked. 

“What we want to see are laws and regulations from governments like the EU, which currently has due diligence legislation to exactly deal with state-sponsored or state-organized forced labor,” she said.

With reporting from Jilil Kashgary for RFA Uyghur. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

Village leaders and residents barged into a private home in southern Laos to stop several families gathered there from holding a Christian worship service on Sunday, several eyewitnesses told Radio Free Asia.

The incident was the latest in a string of similar assaults and legal moves against Christians in the one-party communist state with a mostly Buddhist population despite a national law protecting the free exercise of their faith.

“The village authorities came here and tore down our home at around 10:30 a.m. Sunday morning,” a person who attended services at the makeshift church in Kaleum Vangke village in Savannakhet province’s Xonboury district, told RFA Lao, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons like all other unnamed sources in this report.

“The authorities, including the village chief, village security guards and senior members of the village attacked us suddenly and destroyed our place of worship,” the eyewitness said.

The mob burned Bibles and other documents during the attack, the eyewitness said. 

“They tore down our home because they don’t want our Christian brothers and sisters to worship God,” a second eyewitness said. “We’ve reported the attack to the district authorities who said that they’re trying to solve the conflict.”

Xonboury district police confirmed to RFA that they were addressing the incident.

A third believer said that prominent members of the village last month summoned the six Christian families that lived there and told them to stop practicing their religion, or more specifically, to stop holding Sunday services. If they refused to comply then authorities would tear down their building.

‘Harassed again’

The Lao government recognizes only four religions, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam and Baha’i. The house church in Kaleum Vangke is affiliated with the Lao Evangelical Church, the only Christian denomination recognized by the government – but it was still attacked.

“It’s sad seeing our fellow Christians being harassed again,” a member of the denomination told RFA. The church member explained that on the day of the attack, several Chrisitan families from a neighboring district were visiting the church to hold services together with the families in Kaleum Vangke.

Kaleum Vangke is not new to religious conflict. In March 2020, RFA reported that Pastor Sithong Thipphavong was arrested from the village and forced to denounce his Christian faith. When he refused, he was charged and found guilty of causing a social disorder and breaking up the village unity. 

He was jailed for a year and fined 4 million kip (US$200) and he was freed in April 2021.

Crackdowns like Sunday’s are happening more often in Savannakhet, another member of the denomination said.

“At the district and provincial levels, our party and government allow us to believe or not to believe in any religion. But at the village level, it’s the opposite,” the second church member said. 

“For example, those who believe in spirits say that the Christian faith is against their tradition and culture,” the member said. “They don’t want Christians to bury their dead bodies in their cemetery.”

Translated by Max Avary. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.

Freezing wintry weather across central and eastern China is putting a damper on the mass Lunar New Year travel rush, as hundreds of millions of people take to the roads, railways and air to make it home in time to welcome the Year of the Dragon on Feb. 9.

Highway traffic in the central provinces of Hunan and Hubei slowed to a crawl as freezing rain, snow and ice lashed the region, with hundreds of trains canceled and flights delayed, state media reported.

The weather comes at the peak of the New Year travel rush, with an estimated nine billion journeys predicted by transportation authorities over the 40-day Lunar New Year holiday period. 

Jiemian News reported that Wuhan’s Tianhe Airport was only operating at 20% of capacity on Feb. 4, with hundreds of flights delayed at short notice.

At least two people have died in accidents due to the snowy conditions, according to state media cited by Reuters. Both were crushed under market awnings that collapsed under the weight of recently fallen snow.

Social media users uploaded video clips of conditions as people tried to make it home for family reunions on Lunar New Year’s Eve, with one clip showing passengers trapped on a train for hours after it suffered a power outage in freezing temperatures.

“It’s snowing harder now, and I’m stuck in the highway service area on my way home,” said one driver in a clip uploaded to the Zhangwen Video channel on the video-sharing platform Bilibili. 

The driver, who was making an 800-km (500 miles) trip from Wuxi back to his family home in Henan’s Puyang, said a trip that should only have taken 10 to 11 hours wound up taking 17 due to the weather.

A driver surnamed Wang on the Jingzhou section of the Shanghai-Chongqing Expressway told The Paper news site that he had been stuck there for 18 hours.

“I got here at 5 p.m. [on Feb.  3] and it hasn’t moved at all since then,” the driver said. “In terms of fuel, I’m not doing too badly, with three-quarters of a tank left in a car like mine. I still have a small amount of snacks, but no water.”

Stranded for several days

A truck driver surnamed Kang told the Home of the Webmaster social media account that he had started boiling snow after being stranded on the Jingshan section of the Xuguang Expressway for more than 30 hours.

The Ministry of Transport said that more than 200 stretches of highway had been shut down across 16 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities as of 8 p.m. on Feb. 4, affecting more than 13,800 kilometers of highway.

The China Youth Daily reported on the plight of Li Ke, en route from Shenzhen for Hubei who had been stuck on the highway for nearly 70 hours, until late on Feb. 4.

“I didn’t expect the freeze to be so serious this time,” she told the paper.

Another driver was reportedly trapped in a car for three days amid the travel chaos, according to the Yicai news service.

China’s Ministry of Emergency Management has called for “all-out efforts” to deal with sudden disasters and prevent casualties and major property losses due to the weather, the Global Times newspaper reported.

The National Meteorological Center issued an orange blizzard warning on Saturday, warning of heavy snow and freezing rain in some parts of southeastern Henan, most of Hubei, central and northern Anhui, central Jiangsu, northern Hunan, eastern Chongqing, and northern Guizhou.

It followed that up with warnings of strong winds, heavy fog and freezing temperatures on Sunday, according to the agency’s official social media accounts.

The authorities have shipped out 40,000 items of central disaster relief materials including padded coats and quilts, to Hubei and Anhui provinces to help those affected by the sudden drop in temperatures, the paper said, adding that the weather conditions are the worst in around 15 winters.

“[The weather] is likely to place extra strain on travel for millions over the next few days during the Spring Festival travel rush,” it said.

‘Almost total paralysis’

U.S.-based current affairs commentator Tang Jingyuan said the government needs to do more to warn people of the dangers of traveling in extreme weather.

“There are huge issues with public management in China,” Tang said. “If there’s a snowstorm, or freezing rain, they should limit the flow of traffic at highway intersections to stop cars from getting onto the highway, while those already on the highway should be diverted or an emergency lane opened for them as soon as possible.”

“The [government] response is almost total paralysis when it comes to large-scale and serious disasters like this, both also previous responses to the pandemic, or to flooding,” he said.

Meanwhile, food prices were rising ahead of the New Year celebrations, residents of Beijing, Hebei, Shandong, Jiangsu and Hebei told RFA in recent interviews.

A resident of Beijing’s Fangshan who gave only the surname Tang said money is tight for a lot of people, who can’t afford too much festive cheer this year due to unpaid wages and other economic woes.

“Our landlord was saying that the Beijing police haven’t had last month’s salary yet,” she said. “There’s no festive atmosphere this year – it’s very depressing, and nobody is out buying stuff in the supermarkets.”

“I went to the supermarket the day before yesterday and bought seven catties of pork at eight or nine yuan a catty (0.6 kilograms), but I didn’t see anyone else buying it,” Tang said, adding that more expensive cuts of meat cost 15 yuan (US$2.11) a catty.

A resident of Wuhan surnamed Ge said things were similar where he lives.

“There are fewer people out shopping now, unlike before, when they would be laying a lot of New Year supplies,” he said. “Pork prices used to be 12-13 yuan/catty, but now they’ve risen to 15-16 yuan/catty.”

“I came back [from working elsewhere] 20 days early this year, and I didn’t make any money, so it’s impossible to have a good New Year. It’s good that I’m able to survive,” Ge said.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie.

An ethnic Hmong preacher and human rights activist released on bail from Bangkok’s Immigration Detention Center said a Vietnamese official threatened him when he refused to return to Vietnam, where he would likely face persecution.

Lu A Da, who was arrested and detained at the center in December on the charge of illegally entering and residing in Thailand, told Radio Free Asia on Tuesday that an official named Hai from the Vietnamese Embassy visited him at the facility on Dec. 28, where he issued the threat. 

The case is an example of Vietnamese authorities harassing ethnic Hmong – many of whom are Christians – for their beliefs. In Vietnam, the minority group often faces social exclusion, discrimination and even attacks. 

When the two of them met, Hai said that he would complete documents to send Lu home prior to the Lunar New Year, Lu said. But when Lu did not agree to return to Vietnam, Hai threatened to harm his relatives.

“He learned that I am an activist, so he said to me, ‘You are in Thailand, so you can do whatever you like, but you should think about your relatives in Vietnam.’” Lu said. “Hai used my relatives in Vietnam as a threat for me to not [engage in] activism.”

Lu said he did not know Hai’s position at the embassy, but that Hai and another official named Linh sometimes went to the Immigration Detention Center in Bangkok to work with Vietnamese detainees.

The Vietnamese Embassy in Bangkok did not respond to RFA’s email request for comment.

Arrested after denunciation 

Lu, a former missionary and preacher at the Northern Evangelical Church of Vietnam and head of the Hmong Human Rights Coalition, fled Vietnam with his family in 2020 to escape ethnic and religious persecution and entered Thailand illegally to seek official refugee status.

The latter group collects evidence of the Vietnamese government’s discrimination of Hmong on issues such as language, religion, land and identification. It provides support to Hmong people so they can learn Vietnamese law through lessons given by Boat People SOS, a U.S.-based organization.

Thai police arrested Lù at his rental home in Bangkok on Dec. 7. His arrest occurred two weeks after he publicly denounced the Vietnamese government’s “systematic suppression of Hmong communities in Vietnam.”

Lu’s lawyer paid 6,000 Thai baht (US$170) to bail him out of the detention facility on Feb. 2, and the Boat People SOS provided Lu with 50,000 baht (US$1,400) in support.

The U.N. High Commission for Refugees, or UNHCR, in Thailand previously rejected Lu’s application for refugee status, but granted it to him while he was in the immigration detention facility.

Lu told RFA that because of his activism in Thailand, Vietnamese authorities have made life difficult for his brother who lives in Vietnam’s Lai Chau province.

His brother, chief of San Phang Thap commune in a village in Tam Duong district, had an opportunity to be promoted to village officer, but after Lu and his family fled to Thailand, local residents did not trust his brother, and he had to move to Quang Ninh to make a living, Lu said.

Lu said he suspects that the Thai police who arrested him may be working with officials at the Vietnamese Embassy.

Prior to his arrest, Lu appeared in a video presented during a Boat People SOS session about Hanoi’s repression of ethnic minority communities. 

In the clip, Lu said Vietnamese authorities do not issue identification papers, birth certificates or marriage certificates to many Hmong. They also prevent them from accessing education, official employment and health care programs that the ethnic Kinh majority enjoys, he said.

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

A court in the eastern Chinese province of Shandong has handed down a three-year, eight-month jail term to feminist activist Li Qiaochu after finding her guilty of “incitement to subvert state power,” rights groups have reported.

The Linyi Municipal People’s Court announced the sentence on Monday, the Weiquanwang website reported, citing the China Human Rights Lawyers Group.

Li was detained in 2021 after posting to social media the details of torture allegations by her partner, the jailed rights activist Xu Zhiyong, and by fellow jailed rights lawyer Ding Jiaxi. 

Xu is currently serving a 14-year jail term for “subverting state power,” while Ding is serving a 12-year sentence.

According to the court judgment handed down following a closed-doors trial in December 2023, the case against Li was based on her relationship to jailed New Citizens’ Movement rights activist Xu Zhiyong, and was immediately criticized by rights groups as a case of “guilt by association.”

According to the court, Li was in a relationship with Xu and had been deeply influenced by his ideas. The court said she set up a blog and uploaded a number of his articles there in September 2019, which the prosecution said had “helped to spread and disseminate ideas that subvert state power” and were an attempt to “overthrow the socialist system.”

At her trial at the Linyi Economic and Technological Development Zone People’s Court on Dec. 19, 2023, Li’s defense lawyers argued that there was no subversive intent behind the blog.

Outraged activists

But rights activists have said Li’s detention came after she publicly shared details of her husband’s torture by state security police while in detention.

“Li has been ruthlessly targeted for expressing views the Chinese authorities would prefer to suppress – on the premise that her speech could somehow topple the government,” Amnesty International China director Sarah Brooks said in a statement on Monday. 

“It is shameful that the Chinese authorities have jailed Li for speaking out against torture and ill-treatment rather than properly investigating the allegations she made,” Brooks said, calling for Li’s immediate and unconditional release.

Ding Jiaxi’s wife, Luo Shengchun, said she was angry, and having trouble sleeping or eating after hearing the news of Li’s sentence.

“Even a day’s sentence would be criminal,” Luo said. “The only ‘evidence’ was that they were lovers.”

“She did a small favor for Xu because of that relationship – she shouldn’t have to take responsibility for his words, and which of Xu Zhiyong’s words subvert the power of the Chinese state?” she said.

“China’s laws aren’t worth the paper they’re written on, because nobody abides by them,” she said. “They use illegal proceedings to suppress law-abiding citizens.”

U.S.-based rights lawyer Wu Shaoping said the sentence was “outrageous,” and that Li had committed no crime at all.

“The civil rights advocated by Li Qiaochu are behaviors that are encouraged, supported and advocated by any good society,” Wu said. “In a normal society, nobody gets prosecuted for such things.”

He said the ruling Chinese Communist Party is obsessed with maintaining its grip on power, and will suppress any dissenting opinions to protect the regime.

“The likelihood of a fracture in this brittle Communist Party regime is only going to get higher and higher in future,” he said. “It could completely disintegrate and collapse overnight at any time.”

Dutch award

In December 2022, the Netherlands honored Li Qiaochu with the 2022 Embassy Tulip award in recognition of her dedication to women’s rights and labor rights.

Li has been held in Shandong’s Linyi city since her initial detention on Feb. 6, 2021, on suspicion of “subverting state power.”

Her lawyer raised concerns over her mental health after being permitted a rare visit with her in August 2021. Li, who was diagnosed with depression before her arrest, needs long-term medication.

The Dutch award came amid international calls for Li’s release, including from European Union officials attending the United Nations’ Human Rights Council in September 2022.

Li, now in her early 30s, is a long-term campaigner against gender-based violence and for labor rights.

In 2017, she volunteered to provide information and resources to affected migrant workers when Beijing authorities forcibly removed them from the city, and boosted the visibility of China’s #MeToo movement by compiling data on sexual harassment.

She also campaigned against a culture of long hours in the workplace.

Translated by Luisetta Mudie.