Day: March 15, 2024

Myanmar civil society organization Blood Money has launched a campaign to stop the global sale of aviation fuel to the country’s junta, citing the deadly impact of military airstrikes on the civilian population.

In recent months, the military has increasingly turned to air power after suffering a number of losses on the ground in its fight against rebel groups around the country, often with devastating effect to communities caught in the crossfire.

Since the February 2021 coup d’etat until the end of December 2023, the military carried out more than 1,650 airstrikes, killing nearly 1,000 people and injuring more than 900, according to data from the Nyan Lin Thay research group. Around 30 hospitals and 75 schools were damaged in the attacks, the group said.

Blood Money kicked off its “Global Campaign” on March 10, urging individuals and organizations at home and abroad to join its fight to end aviation fuel sales to the junta.

A leading organizer of the campaign said he expects it will have a major effect on the junta’s ability to wage war. But he acknowledged that it would “have a gradual impact instead of immediate effect,” speaking to RFA on condition that he only be identified as “Mike” due to security concerns.

In addition to lobbying efforts to stem the flow of fuel to the junta, Mike said Blood Money will also work with local communities to prevent casualties from airstrikes.

The group joins efforts to ban fuel sales to the junta by the shadow National Unity Government, or NUG, whose spokesman Kyaw Zaw told RFA it hopes to spearhead a binding resolution at the United Nations Security Council.

“In addition to [targeting] the companies importing jet fuel to Myanmar, we are trying to put pressure on companies that sell insurance for jet fuel cargo vessels shipping to Myanmar,” he said.

Data compiled by RFA found that between the coup and the end of January this year, airstrikes and artillery attacks killed 1,429 people and injured 2,641 others. The figures include 149 civilians killed and 267 injured in January alone.

Attempts by RFA to contact junta spokesman Major Gen. Zaw Min Tun for comment on the campaign went unanswered Thursday. The junta has said it does not intentionally target civilians.

Air force ‘crucial’ for junta

On Aug. 23, 2023, the United States and Britain announced sanctions against companies that import jet fuel to the junta, but the military has continued to carry out airstrikes on a near-daily basis.

London-based rights group Amnesty International announced on Jan. 30 that its researchers had documented new ways that the junta is skirting sanctions. The group said that aviation fuel was shipped directly from Vietnam to Myanmar at least seven times last year.

Khin Ohnmar, the founder of Progress Voice, which is participating in Blood Money’s campaign, said that a shift in policy by governments and international bodies, such as the U.N. and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations,or ASEAN, is “vital for the movement to have effect.”

“We need to make clear their responsibilities in terms of political will and international law,” she said.

Other observers said that targeting fuel shipments will both help end the junta’s harming of civilians and loosen its grip on power.

“The air force is really crucial for the military regime, so [this] is a good targeted campaign,” said Thomas Kean, the International Crisis Group’s Brussels-based senior consultant on Myanmar.

Nonetheless, he acknowledged that ending fuel sales entirely will be difficult, due to nations such as Russia, China, Thailand, and India, which are unwilling to impose sanctions on the junta.

In February 2022, former U.S. Rep. Tom Andrews, who serves as U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, said in a report to the U.N. Security Council that countries should stop selling arms to the junta, citing a brutal crackdown on civilians since the coup.

The report called out permanent Security Council members China and Russia, as well as India, Belarus, Ukraine, Israel, Serbia, Pakistan and South Korea, for selling the weapons, which Andrews said are almost certainly being used by the military to kill innocent people.

Translated by Aung Naing. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.

A U.S. bill that if approved would force the sale of the video sharing platform TikTok has sparked mixed reactions from Chinese commentators, with some drawing parallels with Chinese internet censorship and others marveling at the heated debate around the app.

TikTok, whose parent company is China’s ByteDance, has 170 million monthly American users. It has sparked security concerns in Washington that Beijing would use the app for propaganda or to sway American public opinion, particularly leading up to November’s presidential election. 

The legislation passed Wednesday in the U.S. House of Representatives would ban the app in America if ByteDance doesn’t divest its controlling stake in the social media app. U.S. President Joe Biden has said he would sign the bill if it is approved by the upper house Senate.

Some Chinese social media users criticized the move, saying it was similar to censorship.

“It’s the same over there [as in China], mutual bans on everything, just that the process is more cumbersome over there,” commented @LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLsm from Guangdong, in a reference to the blocking of Twitter and Facebook for users inside the Great Firewall of internet censorship.

“There’s going to be a rush of white people trying to get over the Great Firewall [into China] now,” quipped Hantang_Lengyue_1130 from Beijing.

“From a Chinese perspective, I hope TikTok can continue to exist in the United States,” another user, 1_lowkey_1 from Gansu, commented. “From another perspective, this gives me a feeling of confusion. Can this thing really get Americans so addicted? That’s powerful.”

Forced to give Beijing user data?

Lawmakers supporting the bill say that TikTok is required under Chinese law to expose American user data to Beijing upon request, and say it could be forced to alter its algorithms to promote Chinese propaganda.

TikTok has denied any interference from Beijing, and China’s foreign ministry has said there is “no evidence” of any threat to U.S. national security.

“I would prefer them to remove it than sell it — that way the American people will take up arms and fight the U.S. government to the end,” @Golden_Annunciation_Bird_999 wrote.

User @Xiao_Xianyu added from Beijing: “Rednecks are the angriest, because their main platform is about to be blocked.”

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin on Thursday accused the Washington of using “sheer robbers’ logic to try every means to snatch from others all the good things that they have.”

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs further hit back on Friday with a commentary titled, “The Truth About the So-Called Freedom of Speech in the United States.” 

The TikTok bill “violates the rights granted to the American people by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, suppresses and damages the freedom of more than 150 million American TikTok users, and sets a worrying precedent,” the op-ed piece said.

Protecting free speech

A U.S.-based Chinese student majoring in information technology who asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals said he doesn’t use the Chinese version of TikTok, Douyin, citing privacy concerns.

But he said he supported others who wanted to use the app’s equivalent in the United States, and appeared not to support a legal move against the TikTok: “The rights guaranteed by the First Amendment are very important,” the student said.

“If there are individual cases of data disclosure, they can just fine them, like they do Facebook,” he said.

In Zhejiang, @The_romantic_and_talented_Mi_Duoduo thought the potential forced sale wasn’t a good idea, either.

“Prohibition will only make it impossible for the people at the bottom, and there will be more and more social unrest,” they commented.

“[TikTok] has overturned American imperialism at its root, along with its hegemony over public opinion,” commented @na_jia丶 from Guizhou, 

Meanwhile, @not_a_thief added from Hubei: “The United States was founded on a platform of freedom of speech.” 

A Washington-based software engineer who hails from China, and who asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals, told RFA Mandarin that the best approach was to build a U.S.-company that could compete adequately with TikTok.

‘That’s not going to happen here’

James A. Lewis, senior vice president and director of the Strategic Technologies Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, recommended using a U.S. initial public offering, or IPO, to allow TikTok’s current owners ByteDance to cash out of the company and make a profit in doing so.

“An IPO on Wall Street would provide a vehicle for the Committee on Foreign Investment (CFIUS) to intervene and impose conditions on the IPO to mitigate risk,” Lewis wrote in a March 13 commentary on the Center’s website.

But he warned that there is “a larger and more complicated problem of Chinese software use in U.S. apps and networks,” calling on the Department of Commerce to investigate the scope of that problem.

“The United States should manage the risk created by deep technological connections to a hostile and untrustworthy nation that is undertaking the largest espionage campaign in history,” Lewis said.

While not all Chinese technology creates risk, genuine risks can be mitigated, including those attributed to TikTok, he said.

Xia Ming, professor of political science at New York’s City University noted that LinkedIn was forced to shut down in China last year, and that the TikTok bill could be seen as a retaliatory measure. 

“If you kick me, I have to kick you back,” Xia said. But he said freedom of speech is unlikely to be affected by the move.

“The fundamental difference is that, if you listen to the Voice of America or Radio Free Asia in China, the state security police will come for you,” Xia said. “That’s not going to happen in the United States.”

Translated with additional reporting by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

A 10-day battle in central Myanmar has left one city in ashes, residents told Radio Free Asia on Friday. 

Fighting between resistance groups, or People’s Defense Forces, and junta soldiers began in Sagaing region’s Kani city on March 2, locals said. 

Sagaing, an agricultural region in the heart of Myanmar’s dry zone, has faced the brunt of junta attacks since Myanmar’s 2021 coup began. 

Civilians region-wide have been subject to indiscriminate arson, arrests, shelling from heavy weapons and raids as rebel groups have proliferated in Sagaing’s central plains and neighboring Chin state. 

People’s Defence Forces have been trying to capture Kani since March 2, focusing attacks on the city’s police station, school and administrative office where junta troops are stationed. Kani city is the capital of Kani township. 

The result has been a city in ruin and full of bodies. The amount of casualties is still unknown since much of the city remains inaccessible, according to one local who wished to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals. 

“Much of inner Kani city has already been destroyed. There are corpses of civilians and junta soldiers. Civilians’ houses were burned down there,” he said. “We found that the houses of revolutionaries were torched initially. That’s all we can say at the moment.”

A People’s Defense Force soldier fighting in urban Kani told RFA the junta air force dropped 500-pound bombs during the battle.

After the rebel group captured a hill near Kani on March 7, the junta’s army retaliated with helicopters and fighter jets. The air force repeatedly targeted urban areas and rural villages around the city, according to defense force officials.

Junta troops regained control of the city and nearby Nyaung Pin Wun village on March 12, but both sustained severe fire damage in the following days, residents said.

Sagaing’s junta spokesperson told RFA that the arson was likely a defense tactic used by rebel armies.

“It is also possible that the burning was started by the People’s Defense Forces to disrupt the army. It could cause the army to not be able to chase [resistance fighters] while they were fleeing,” Nyunt Win Aung explained. He declined to comment on villagers’ accusations that bombs had been dropped by his administration’s army.

“Now the army can control the city completely. The People’s Defense Forces are no longer there. They fled again. If the people live in the city, they can come back.”

Kani has been deserted since fighting broke out, and nearly 10,000 residents from nearby villages have also fled to safety, according to the residents.

Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn.

China’s top securities regulator has released new guidelines to strengthen regulation after the collapse of Chinese stock markets in the first two months of the year, wiping off billions of dollars as the economy teeters.

The draft guidelines will see the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) increase its oversight and supervision of listed companies, brokerages and public fund companies, and accelerate the building of “first-class” investment banks, the regulatory agency’s vice chairman Li Chao said in a press conference Friday in Beijing.

By raising the entry bar for public listings, Li said it will be improving the quality of the companies from the “source”.

“We will strictly prohibit companies from blindly listing to make money, overfinance, fabricate financial reports or report false or fudge information. Such behaviors will be seriously and legally dealt with,” he said.

According to Yan Bojin, head of the CSRC’s public offering supervision, the increased regulations were a response to the findings that listing candidates have unsound internal control mechanisms, irregular corporate governance, and financial fraud in some companies.

Similarly, supervision of gatekeeper responsibilities of intermediaries like the stock exchanges will be strengthened, as will regulation of securities firms and public funds, Yan added.

The stock market has been roiled by frequent turmoil in the past few years, weighed down by a real estate crisis characterized by defaults along with Beijing’s crackdown on sectors like technology and private tuition services. While it isn’t the economy, it is a barometer of investors’ expectations and confidence level of China’s prospects.

Between December and early February, the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index fell nearly 11%. It only began to rebound, helped by Beijing’s recent measures to put a floor under share prices. 

It did so by pushing state-owned funds to invest in stocks, curb short selling that bets on price declines, and cracked down on trades by quant funds, which use computer algorithms to catch investment opportunities. 

Wu Qing, the newly appointed CSRC chairman also known as the “broker butcher,” has taken aim at quant funds that were blamed for worsening the slump in a stock market made up of mostly retail investors. The quant fund industry is estimated to have doubled in value in the past three years as punishing losses spread across the broader market.

Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.

Vietnam has requested that China respect international law and bilateral agreements with Hanoi after Beijing drew a new baseline in the Gulf of Tonkin. 

The baseline is deemed as “excessive” by analysts, with one suggesting the U.S. should conduct a freedom of navigation operation to challenge it.

Radio Free Asia was the first Western media to report the announcement earlier this month of a new baseline that defines China’s territory in the northern part of the area known in China as the Beibu Gulf.

This baseline, which Beijing said was set in accordance with Chinese law, did not exist before.

Vietnamese foreign ministry spokesperson Pham Thu Hang on Thursday said that “all coastal countries need to abide by the 1982 U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS)” when drawing the territorial baseline, used to calculate the width of the territorial waters and other maritime zones.

She highlighted the necessity for these baselines to  not affect the lawful rights and interests of other countries, including the freedom of navigation and the freedom of transit passage through straits used for international maritime activities.

The spokeswoman stopped short of rejecting the new Chinese baseline and instead called on Beijing to “respect and abide by the agreement on the delimitation of the territorial seas, exclusive economic zones and continental shelves of the two countries in the Gulf of Tonkin signed in 2000, as well as the 1982 UNCLOS.”

Beijing has yet to respond to Hanoi’s statement but the Chinese foreign ministry’s Department of Boundary and Ocean Affairs said on its official WeChat account earlier that the announcement of the baseline was a necessary act to exercise national sovereignty and jurisdiction.

Encroachment on shared waters

The Gulf of Tonkin, or Vinh Bac Bo in Vietnamese, is highly important to both Vietnam and China not only in terms of economic development but also defense and security.

After nine years of negotiation, in 2000 Hanoi and Beijing signed a Maritime Boundary Delimitation Agreement to clearly demarcate each other’s territorial seas, exclusive economic zones and continental shelves in the Gulf of Tonkin.

Some analysts say the new baseline won’t affect Vietnam’s economic interests much as long as the signed agreement is observed but some are concerned that Beijing would use it as a pretext to push Hanoi to renegotiate the boundary agreement.

“China’s announcement of its baseline in the Gulf of Tonkin is a step up the ladder of escalation in its strategy of ratcheting up assertiveness in the South China Sea,” said Alexander Vuving, a professor at the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Hawaii.

“The new baseline puts Vietnam’s before a fait accompli,” he said, “It gives reasons for China to question the agreement that Beijing and Hanoi signed off in 2000 and push the boundary closer to the Vietnamese coast.”

UNCLOS stipulates that the drawing of straight baselines “must not depart to any appreciable extent from the general direction of the coast, and the sea areas lying within the lines must be sufficiently closely linked to the land domain to be subject to the regime of internal waters.”

The new Chinese baseline at some points encroaches about 50 nautical miles (93 kilometers) on international waters and on average, “it represents an encroachment of 20 to 30 nautical miles upon international waters,” according to Vuving.

“China’s baseline in the Tonkin Gulf is not in line with UNCLOS and can be rejected by an international court,” the security expert said.

Challenging China’s excessive claims 

“China’s unilateral creeping excessive claims in other countries’ maritime and territorial domains even while a border resolution instrument is in existence, are becoming a regular event,” said Pooja Bhatt, an independent maritime security analyst.

Vietnam, as well as other countries in the same situation, should protest against this move, raise the issue at bilateral level and also bring international attention to it, she said. 

“Keeping silence to save immediate Chinese backlash will harm countries’ future territorial integrity and national interests.”

The new expansive baseline would affect freedom of navigation activities in the area as no foreign vessels or aircraft are allowed to make so-called innocent passage through a country’s internal waters inside the baseline.

China also requires permission or notification before a foreign warship can sail through its territorial sea, measured 12 nautical miles outward from the baseline. Beijing has repeatedly protested against U.S. warships’ sailing in waters near the Paracel and Spratly archipelagos, which Washington insists is conducted in accordance with international law.  

Vuving from the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security suggested that several other countries may dispute China’s new baseline and the U.S. “may conduct a freedom of navigation operation to physically challenge China’s excessive claims.”

Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.