Day: March 20, 2024

Chinese authorities are collecting genetic data from the country’s Muslim Uyghur minority as part of a forced organ-transplant program marketed to Muslim medical tourists from Gulf states, experts told a U.S. congressional committee hearing on Wednesday.

The medical tourists are willing to pay premiums for organs from fellow Muslims who abstain from pork and alcohol, the experts said, with DNA-matched Uyghur “donors” being rendered brain-dead and flown from Xinjiang in the country’s west to hospitals in the east.

Chinese authorities insist that forced organ harvesting of executed prisoners has been banned in the country since January 2015.

Testifying to the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, Ethan Gutmann, a research fellow at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation and the author of “The Slaughter”, a book about forced organ harvesting, said Uyghurs aged in their mid-20s to early 30s are being taken from mass internment camps and killed for their organs.

While China’s organ harvesting industry began a decade ago using adherents of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement, he said, it switched focus to Uyghurs and other Muslims interned in Xinjiang around 2017 due to demand from Middle Eastern medical tourists.

“On the assumption that Gulf state organ tourists prefer Muslim donors who don’t eat pork, [China] has tried to capitalize on the switch from Falun Gong to Uyghur sources,” Gutmann said, noting that “transplant hospitals” advertised Muslim prayer rooms and halal menus. 

But the researcher said there was a “logistical challenge” in keeping the organs viable when switching from Falun Gong adherents in heavily populated coastal areas of China to instead target Uyghurs some 4,000 kilometers (about 2,500 miles) to the west in Xinjiang.

To solve that problem, Gutmann said, medical personnel started to use portable “ECMO machines,” which can oxygenate an incapacitated person and their organs for hours. That allowed them to keep Uyghurs in a state of brain-dead “suspended animation” for long enough to be transported east for transplants to paying foreign customers.

The machines, he said, also allowed surgeons to “harvest as many as four healthy organs from a single person” instead of only one, he said, “turning a person from $100,000 into half a million or more.”

DNA collection

Medical authorities also established databases of Uyghurs whose organs could one day be forcibly harvested, the experts said.

Texas state Rep. Tom Oliverson, a doctor who now chairs his state’s House Committee on Insurance, said his own work with Uyghur and Falun Gong survivors of “Chinese detention camps” stemmed from his efforts to prevent Texans accessing forcibly harvested organs.

“They spoke of undergoing a series of medical tests not for their benefit, but to assess their overall health and tissue type,” Oliverson said, explaining that both groups believed they were targeted “because of their healthy lifestyles and abstinence from alcohol.”

The medical tests were often promoted as free “health check-ups,” he said, but those who were tested never received any results.

Meanwhile, the tests doubled as genetic-sequencing opportunities, said Matthew Robertson, a doctoral candidate at the Australian National University in Canberra and the co-author of “Execution by Organ Procurement: Breaching the Dead Donor Rule in China.”

That allows doctors to determine which forced “donors” have organs least likely to be rejected by their recipients’ bodies, he explained.

“Beijing has conducted mass blood-typing and DNA testing on vast parts of its Uyghur population under the banner of ‘health checkups,’” Robertson told the hearing. “There is no institutional constraint on this data being put to predatory uses, such as organ matching.”

He said an analysis of thousands of hacked files from the Xinjiang police revealed that more than 200,000 of about 500,000 Uyghurs registered in two regions of Xinjiang had blood samples taken for DNA collection up until 2018, when the leaked files were dated.

“On their own, these findings obviously cannot prove that Uyghurs are being harvested for their organs,” Robertson acknowledged. 

“But blood type is a necessary precondition to organ matching, and DNA data allows for better organ matches,” he said, calling the practice of sequencing genetic data of Uyghurs “highly concerning” given China’s “history of killing prisoners for their organs.”

Big business

Organ transplants can be lucrative, the commission was told.

Maya Mitalipova, the director of the Human Stem Cell Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, testified that China’s DNA database was “the world’s largest” and had cost “billions of dollars” to build.

She said she believed there was a clear reason for investing so much money: The country’s organ-transplant industry carries out at least 60,000 operations a year, with the “least expensive” kidneys costing about $70,000, and other organs fetching up to $500,000.

“In free countries like the USA and in Europe, organ-donor recipients are on wait lists for years … for matching donor organs,” Mitalipova said. “In China, matching donors can be found in a few weeks.” 

Crucial to that was DNA testing “at just a few specific locations in the genome of the transplant recipients and their organ donors,” she said, with the fewest amount of genetic differences meaning there is a “better chance of long-term acceptance of the new organ.”

The Chinese Embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment from Radio Free Asia. However, China formally banned the harvesting of organs from prisoners in January 2015, and authorities say that all transplants since have involved volunteer donors.

Rep. Chris Smith, a Republican from New Jersey who chairs the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, said Wednesday he did not believe the reports of continued organ harvesting are “all lies” and reiterated a plea to be allowed to visit Xinjiang to investigate.

“We have repeated that offer over and over and again today at this hearing,” Smith said. “I’m asking the Chinese Embassy to allow me to lead a [congressional] delegation to Xinjiang immediately.”

Edited by Malcolm Foster.

A 16-year-old Cambodian girl who said she was tricked by job brokers, sold to a Chinese man who held her against her will in Zhejiang province arrived back in Cambodia on Wednesday.

“I am releasing this video to show that I have arrived in Cambodia safely,” said the girl, whose name Radio Free Asia is withholding because she is a minor, in a short video she posted on Facebook.

In the video recorded at Phnom Penh International Airport, she thanked Cambodian President Hun Manet, the Cambodian consul general in Shanghai and police who helped facilitate her return.

The trafficking of Cambodian girls and women to China as brides has increased in recent years, according to Human Right Watch’s 2024 World Report, an annual review of human rights practices and trends around the globe. 

Brokers have increasingly targeted teenagers as brides, the report said. Many are tricked or forced into marriages with Chinese men, who may subject them to abuse and sexual slavery, hold them prisoner, force them to perform labor and pressure them to have babies, the report said. 

Following the girl’s return, her mother told RFA that her daughter quit school in early 2023 to work in a factory to help the family financially, but then she lost contact with her. She urged other parents to beware of human trafficking schemes.

“Since I have lost my child, I have lost my mind,” she said. 

Girl posted video seeking help

The rescue operation began when Chinese police went to the man’s home in Zhejiang province on March 10 after the girl posted a video and a written message on Facebook seeking help from Cambodian authorities, RFA reported earlier. 

Cambodia’s consul general in Shanghai informed police and accompanied authorities to the home.

The girl, from eastern Tbong Khmum province, cooperated with Chinese investigators and was kept in a safe place under the care of consulate officials. 

She later told RFA via Facebook Messenger that the man regularly beat and insulted her, locked her in a room at times, and forced her to have sex to try to impregnate her. 

Chum Sounry, spokesman for Cambodia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, told RFA via the Telegram instant-messaging service on Wednesday that authorities sent the girl to Hagar International, a Swiss-based global humanitarian NGO founded in Cambodia in 1994 that assists people who have escaped sexual slavery and human trafficking. 

The spokesman discouraged other Cambodians from seeking employment overseas where they could be sold as brides.

In August 2023, brokers told the girl and three of her friends that they could work at a market in China and earn US$700 a month — about four times the average monthly earnings in Cambodia.

The brokers drove the girls from Phnom Penh, through Vietnam and into China, where they were put in a room with other Cambodian and Vietnamese girls and women, the girl previously said. 

The Chinese man paid money for her, while her friends were sold separately.

Moeun Tola, executive director of the Center for Alliance of Labor and Human Rights, said authorities have been able to rescue many Cambodians trafficked to China because they spoke out about their predicaments via social media or other means. 

He urged the government to provide trafficking victims with job training so they do not leave Cambodia again and risk revictimization. 

Translated by Yun Samean for RFA Khmer. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster. 

North Koreans have been ordered to donate strips of cloth so that soldiers can wrap them around their feet to keep them warm, suggesting the government is not adequately supplying the “invincible” Korean People’s Army, residents told Radio Free Asia.

Though most modern militaries supply their soldiers with socks, North Korean soldiers have never officially been issued socks. Instead, they have wrapped their feet in 30×30-centimeter squares (about 1-square-foot) of cloth, a technique that had been used by the Soviet Army, which the Russian Army did not phase out completely until 2013.

North Korean propaganda lionizes the military, calling it an “all-out, all-powerful, invincible revolutionary force,” but the cash-strapped government is apparently not able to provide enough cloth for the wraps.

“We can clearly see the reality of the ‘invincible’ army,” a resident of the central northern province of Ryanggang told RFA Korean on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

Asking the people to donate supplies to the military is nothing new. 

In previous years, the people have been asked to donate food, underwear, winter boots and gloves. Last year they even asked people to make rifle straps by hand. But asking for foot wraps was a first, the resident said.

“The support item we need to raise this time is, absurdly, the foot wraps worn by the troops.”

Each neighborhood watch unit issued instructions from the Ministry of Defense for each home to offer a single piece of white cotton cloth measuring 30 square centimeters.

“Some residents are protesting, saying, ‘There are no scrap cloths to cover the torn clothes for us, where will we get the foot wrap for the military?” she said.

It is common to see emaciated soldiers on the streets of her town, with their thin necks and bulging bellies, she said, adding that it is a stark contrast to the scenes of mighty soldiers training for war that are shown on state TV every day. 

Some of the residents are worried that they don’t have any cloth to donate, so they will have to tear down their bedsheets and pillowcases, a resident of the northeastern province of North Hamgyong, told RFA on condition of anonymity for personal safety.

“Fortunately, they are not asking for new cloth,” he said. “At the same time, even if the foot coverings were defined as white cotton cloth, the cloth offered by each household would be various colors.”

The idea of soldiers wearing foot wraps of different colors made some of the residents laugh, he said.

Translated by Claire S. Lee. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.

Vietnam’s president has resigned after just a year in the job, taking responsibility for a corruption scandal involving regional government officials, state-controlled media reported Wednesday.

Vo Van Thuong, 54, was relieved of his position “per his personal request,” which was approved by the Communist Party Central Committee.

The move comes as no surprise, as it had been widely rumored on social media after the government called an emergency meeting for Thursday to discuss “personnel issues.”

Thuong will also leave the Politburo, Party Central Committee and quit his position as president of the defense and security council.

A statement from the Central Committee said Thuong had violated Party regulations.

“Vo Van Thuong’s violations and flaws have negatively affected public perception, as well as the reputation of the Party and the state,” the statement read. 

“Being aware of his responsibilities before the Party, the state and the people, Thuong has sent in his resignation from his positions.”

Carl Thayer, Emeritus professor at the Australian Defence Force Academy, said Thuong was forced to resign for his failure to exercise proper supervision over officials in Quang Ngai province during his tenure as provincial party secretary from 2011-14.

“Thuong signed off on a decision to award the Phuc Son Group responsibility to develop the Tra Phuc South Bank River Road Project,” he explained.

“On 8 March this year, the Ministry of Public Security, after an investigation, arrested and detained provincial officials from Quang Ngai province for receiving bribes during Thuong’s tenure as provincial party secretary.”

Thuong became president on March 2, 2023 following the resignation of Nguyen Xuan Phuc, who quit to take responsibility for COVID scandals on his watch.

Vice president Vo Thi Anh Xuan will assume the position of acting president until a permanent replacement for Thuong is appointed.

There are two likely contenders for the job, according to Vietnam-watcher Thayer, Minister of Public Security To Lam and Permanent Member of the Secretariat Truong Thi Mai. 

The president’s role is one of the top four political positions in Vietnam.

Edited by Elaine Chan and Taejun Kang.

Rebel defense groups killed two administrators in vigilante slayings and are threatening the lives of more, according to resistance organizations.

Since the country’s 2021 military coup d’etat, significant defeats for the junta have driven coup leader Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing to enact the People’s Military Service Law. Subsequent widespread panic from Myanmar’s youth has pushed them into hiding, across the Thai border in droves, with one even taking his own life. The law would require men and women between 18 and 35 to serve in the country’s military for two years and skilled professionals for longer terms. 

In two regions in central Myanmar, Wundwin Township Revolution Force and Salin People’s Defense Force have taken action into their own hands. The groups admitted to gunning down two local administrators in Magway’s Salin township and Mandalay’s Wundwin township, according to the defense forces.

Salin People’s Defense Force told Radio Free Asia they murdered 50-year-old Myint Htoo on Monday at 10:30 p.m. after he took a loudspeaker to the village’s streets to encourage young people in Pu Khat Taing to serve in the junta’s military. Radio Free Asia could not independently confirm details about Maung Pu’s death, but a Salin People’s Defense Force official reported that both village administrators were armed with hand-made guns. 

An official of the Salin People’s Defense Force who spoke on the condition of anonymity for security reasons told RFA they plan to continue targeting administrators who support conscription.

“We have made a list of local administrators, officials from the general administrative department and immigration officials who are taking advantage of political instability to threaten people and seek their own interests,” he told RFA on Wednesday. “We still have to continue to take action individually.”

A representative from Wundwin Township Revolution Force said they are monitoring the behavior of local officials backing the junta.

“Anyone who continues to work for the military service law according to the junta council must go the same way as Maung Pu,” he said. He agreed to speak about the group’s actions under the condition of anonymity. 

RFA contacted Magway and Mandalay junta spokesmen Myo Myint and Thein Htay for comments on the deaths, but they did not respond.

Nationwide threats

As military recruitment begins in Yangon, five guerilla groups issued a statement on Tuesday night with warnings that they would take “severe action” against administrators supporting the law.

The joint statement was issued by the Yangon Region People’s Defense Force, Yangon Urban Guerrillas, Yangon UG Association, Yangon Army and Yangon Guerrilla Army, who called the conscription system “a flagrant violation of human security.”

Junta officials began their registration and recruitment operations to bolster army numbers on March 12.

Still a deeply junta-controlled region, the vast majority of township and neighborhood-level officials are carrying out the orders, a Yangon resident said.

“The current enumeration and enlistment are being led by the chairs of administration and administrators,” he said, asking to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals. “They have to send the lists to the township-level administration and carry it on, step by step. It looks like many of the lists have already reached their hands.”

Yangon region’s junta spokesperson Htay Aung told RFA Wednesday that these procedures were not necessarily in connection with the conscription law, but merely business as usual.

“Security is normal for us. Yangon is calm and peaceful as usual,” he said. “Normal procedures are being carried out in accordance with the law.”

Twenty-one local administrators of Rakhine state’s Thandwe township submitted their resignations on March 18 after junta officials asked them to recruit a militia and compile lists of potential recruits.

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

Taiwan, which has confronted years of mainland Chinese disinformation, says it is striving to build a platform that is internationally scalable and can transform into a global system to combat cognitive warfare.

Numerous counter-disinformation organizations in the government, private sector and community have sprung up over the years. Their effective collaborations have most recently been seen during January’s presidential elections. But a structural approach that integrates entities to create a whole that is greater than the sum of the parts is currently lacking within and among government agencies.

With the Cognitive Warfare Research Center that it established in January, the Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau is taking the first step to building an island-wide government system that could develop into a global platform stringing together other countries with common standards and enforcement.

“The whole world’s understanding of what cognitive warfare is like telling you about ghosts. What does a ghost look like, no one can tell; so cognitive is like a mess,” said Wen-Ping Liu, member of the ministry’s research committee in an interview with Radio Free Asia.

“If you can’t tell me, you can’t concretize it,” Liu said, adding that the center’s first step is to “concretize cognitive warfare,” in other words, give it a form and definition. 

“After you feel it out, you can do the next thing – guard against ghosts that can harm you. You must at least know what a ghost is.” 

After combining its internal strengths, the bureau wants to integrate all forces and capabilities across Taiwan such as the coast guard, police and the defense ministry. Eventually, the objective is to elevate and transform the platform into an international facilitating network of control.

Over the years, China has infiltrated Taiwan’s information ecosystem with misconstrued narratives and conspiracy theories to undermine its democracy and sow discord among its 23 million population. The disinformation campaigns are usually most intense around election periods.

In the recent presidential elections, one widely circulated narrative was the “yimeilun,” or U.S. skepticism, designed to convince Taiwanese people that America is an unreliable partner and domestically unstable. It would serve Chinese propaganda goals as closer ties between Taiwan and the U.S. would be associated with steering the island towards war with China. Closer relations with China, on the contrary, would be seen to mean peace.

Nonetheless, the ramped-up pre- and-mid-election disinformation offensive didn’t prevent Beijing’s loathed Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) from winning an unprecedented third term.

The University of Gothenburg in Sweden has identified Taiwan as the society most impacted by disinformation originating from beyond its borders. Inevitably, that compelled Taiwan to build, arguably, one of the world’s most mature communities of fact checkers, government support and educational efforts to raise public skepticism to sniff out falsehood and fend off China’s disinformation onslaught.

Liu said the battle will continue, and the pace of attacks and therefore, the speed needed in response will only increase with advancement of technology and artificial intelligence. The narratives will also change, though what and how remains to be seen.

The Chinese Communist Party is looking for other ways and narratives, Liu believes. “We are still observing what exactly it is going to use.”

Economic enticement is a well-tried tactic but China’s slumping economy may have made this less viable. It will still be used, nevertheless, he added.

Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.