Author: ASEAN Tribune

North Korea “successfully tested” new long-range cruise missiles over the weekend, state media reported Monday, its first low-flying missiles capable of hitting targets in Japan.

Pyongyang has tested numerous ballistic missile systems in the past, but the new cruise missiles are much smaller and harder to defend against, analysts told RFA.

“The launched long-range cruise missiles traveled for 7,580 seconds [two hours, six minutes, 20 seconds] along an oval and pattern-8 flight orbits in the air above the territorial land and waters of the DPRK and hit targets 1,500 kilometers [932 miles] away,” the state-run Korea Central News Agency Reported.

“The 1,500-km range means that it can hit the entire Korean Peninsula and even U.S. military bases in Japan,” Jeong Chang-wook, head of the South-Korea based Korea Defense Research Forum, told RFA’s Korean Service Monday.

“If there is a move to reinforce the Korean Peninsula, it can be seen that North Korea can strike U.S. bases in Japan without hesitation,” Jeong said.

But it remains unclear if North Korea is capable of building smaller nuclear warheads that could be mounted on the new missiles.

“That turns on miniaturization and the miniaturization question turns on whether or not North Korea is actually able to create H-bombs, fusion weapons,” Bruce Bennett, a researcher at the California-based RAND Corporation think tank, told RFA’s Korean Service Monday.

“And so, the question is, can they physically create a nuclear weapon that is small enough to go on this weapon, on this cruise missile, both in terms of the size of the nuclear weapon and its weight?” Bennet said.

David Maxwell of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies told RFA that North Korea might lack the technological skill to miniaturize its nuclear payloads, but said the new missiles appeared to be a “capable system.”

“This is a low flying cruise missile perhaps similar to a U.S. tomahawk missile, but I have to wait for the intelligence analysis to be sure,” Maxwell said.

“THAAD and Patriot PAC 3 missiles cannot defend against it since it is very low flying.  It can be shot down by aircraft and other short range air defense weapons,” he said.

The news about the tests came a day before the U.S., South Korea, and Japan are scheduled to meet in Tokyo to discuss strategies to overcome stalled denuclearization negotiations with Pyongyang.

The analysts were divided on the effects that the tests might have future negotiations.

“This launch doesn’t help nuclear talks, but the ball is in the U.S. court in how it wants to handle this,” Ken Gause of the Virginia-based CNA thinktank said.

“If it decides to punish North Korea, it will show that the lines set down by the Trump administration have changed and it will set back talks,” he said.

Robert Einhorn, a former U.S. Department of State special advisor for nonproliferation and arms control, told RFA that the test would not derail efforts to bring Pyongyang to the negotiating table.

“The main reason for the test was North Korea’s desire to diversify and expand the nuclear and missile threat it poses to its neighbors. In addition to its ballistic missile capabilities, it now has tested a cruise missile that can reach much of Japan,” Einhorn said.

The RAND Corporation’s Soo Kim told RFA that the tests were a display of new weapons capabilities that would get the attention of the U.S.

“We’re seeing [North Korea’s] “portfolio” becoming fuller and more diverse. It’s unclear whether North Korea had intended for this, but the missile test basically allows North Korea to keep pressing its finger into our sides and reminds us of its growing nuclear and missile threat,” she said. 

The tests follow a “well-established pattern where Kim increases the pressure on Biden to engage and accept a limited nuclear deal,” said Anthony Ruggiero, former deputy assistant to the President for National Security Affairs.

“The Biden administration should respond with issuing the first North Korea sanctions of his presidency to address Kim’s continued development of these programs,” he said.

North Korea may strategically engage in provocations following this test, Kim Hyung-wook of the South-Korea-based Korean National Diplomatic Academy told RFA.

“North Korea continues to develop medium-range and long-range strategic weapons. There is also a demand to keep testing,” said Kim Hyung-wook.

“North Korea will try to choose a point in time to align this with its foreign strategy, which must be done at some point in the timetable for weapons development,” he said.

The U.S. Indo-Pacific Command released a statement Monday saying the tests highlighted North Korea’s “continuing focus on developing its military program and the threats that poses to its neighbors and the international community,” and reaffirmed Washington’s defense commitments to Seoul and Tokyo.

A spokesperson for the EU, meanwhile told RFA that the missile launches went against “international efforts and willingness to resume dialogue and engage in actions to help the people of that country.”  

“We call on the DPRK to respond constructively to the readiness for diplomacy expressed by the United States and the Republic of Korea and engage in a sustained diplomatic process aimed at building trust,” the spokesperson said.

Maxwell criticized North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for testing missiles while blaming the country’s worsening economic situation and food shortages on external factors like international nuclear sanctions and the coronavirus pandemic.

“It is Kim’s deliberate decision making to prioritize his nuclear and missile programs and military modernization over the welfare of the people… The bottom line is Kim is the biggest cause of his own problem and he is solely responsible for the suffering of the Korean people,” Maxwell said.

North Korea’s cruise missile tests came less than a week after South Korea became the first non-nuclear power to successfully test a submarine launched ballistic missile (SLBM).

Korean War hostilities ended in a 1953 armistice agreement, but the two Koreas remain technically at war as no peace treaty has ever been signed.

Reported by Soyoung Kim, Albert Hong, Sangmin Lee, Do Hyung Han and Yong Jae Mok for RFA’s Korean Service. Translated by Leejin Jun and Jinha Shin. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

The commander of a U.S. aircraft carrier deployed in the South China Sea has told RFA it aims to ensure the “freedom of all nations to navigate in international waters” — a mission that saw it pass just 50 nautical miles from a Chinese survey ship operating in Indonesia exclusive economic zone (EEZ) this weekend.

Global marine traffic records show early on Sunday, the USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70) was sailing in the Natuna Sea off Indonesia, near where the Chinese survey vessel Haiyang Dizhi 10 has been operating since late August.

Unusually, the U.S. super carrier also broadcasted its location, a move that analysts say would be intended to show that it is operating freely in international waters. China claims most of the South China Sea for itself.

In an exclusive interview with RFA on Saturday, the commander of the Carl Vinson Strike Group, Rear Adm. Dan Martin, said: “Our operations in the region are really the expression of our willingness to defend both our interests and the freedoms enshrined in international laws.”

The carrier strike group including the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70) and three other military vessels entered the South China Sea last week to conduct “maritime security operations”.

Just a few days earlier, the Chinese Maritime Safety Administration announced that all foreign vessels, including aircraft carriers entering what China considers to be its territorial waters had to notify Beijing and submit to Chinese supervision.

Under international law, territorial waters are the 12 nautical miles of sea extending from a country’s terrestrial territory. But China also includes waters around its newly-reclaimed artificial islands in its maritime jurisdiction despite protests from other countries in the region.

 “Any coastal state law or regulation must not infringe upon navigation and overflight rights enjoyed by all nations under international law,” Martin said.

“Unlawful and sweeping maritime claims including in the South China Sea pose a significant threat to the freedoms of the seas, including freedom of navigation, overflight and lawful commerce.”

“We’re not going to be coerced or forced to cede the international norms,” he said.

‘People’s Liberation Army on alert’

U.S. naval and air forces periodically conduct so-called Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOPs) to challenge China’s maritime claims in the South China Sea, where a third of global maritime trade transits each year. China has repeatedly denounced these FONOPs.

The Global Times, part of China’s official mouthpiece People’s Daily, has also called the USS Carl Vinson’s deployment “provocative.”

This is the sixth time a U.S. aircraft carrier has been deployed in the South China Sea this year, but the first time with the advanced capabilities of F-35C stealth fighter and the new CMV-22B Osprey tiltrotor aircraft, the Global Times noted.

 The paper quoted a Chinese military expert as warning that the Chinese army has been put on alert, and “China is fully capable of and confident in dealing with such provocations.”

However, according to the commander of the Carl Vinson Strike Group, “all our interactions thus far with the Chinese navy have been professional and safe. As we sail around, we do have some escorts but I haven’t seen any aggressive maneuvering either on the sea or in the air that would give me concerns.”

An RFA review of ship-tracking data showed that as the Carl Vinson passed through the southern part of the South China Sea, it was at one point about 50 nautical miles from the Haiyang Dizhi 10 – one of China’s fleet of survey vessels that periodically conduct research in disputed waters.

The area where the Haiyang Dizhi was operating Sunday is within the 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone of Indonesia. Jakarta does not regard itself as a party to the territorial disputes in the South China Sea, although Beijing claims historic rights to parts of that maritime region overlapping Indonesia’s EEZ.

Martin said that due to COVID-19 restrictions, it’s unlikely that the USS Carl Vinson would be able to make any port call on its mission, but the aircraft carrier’s open-ended deployment should “show our partners and allies that we stand with them.”

He reiterated the U.S commitment to defend South China Sea claimant the Philippines should it come under attack, describing it as “our oldest treaty ally in Asia.”

“An armed attack against the Philippine armed forces, public vessels or aircrafts in the Pacific, including in the South China Sea would trigger an obligation under the U.S.-Philippine Mutual Defense Treaty,” Martin said.

Philippine Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana was in Washington, D.C., last week to meet U.S. officials. According to a Philippine statement, “both sides agreed to work on a bilateral maritime framework that advances cooperation in the maritime domain.”

Speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank last Wednesday, Lorenzana said Manila was seeking to “upgrade and update” the U.S. alliance. He pressed for a clearer “extent of American commitments” under the treaty, which was signed by the two allies 70 years ago.

Cambodian authorities have arrested more than 30 villagers during a violent roundup of land protesters in Kandal province where they were protesting against an airport being built by a company owned by a tycoon with ties to the country’s autocratic leader, provincial police and villagers said.

The land at Kampong Talong village in Kandal’s Beung Khchang commune was taken three years ago by the Overseas Cambodia Investment Corporation (OCIC), a private Cambodian firm, for construction of the U.S. $1.5 billion airport project.

Around 330 families living on the disputed land refused compensation for their fields, saying the amounts offered in payment by the firm were too low.

Police beat the protesters who rallied Sunday, and 31 were arrested for alleged involvement in violence against authorities during the demonstration.

The land dispute between 330 families and the Overseas Cambodia Investment Corporation (OCIC) owned by Neak Oknha (honorific) Pung Khieu Se, an affluent business tycoon close to Prime Minister Hun Sen led to authorities to make the arrests.

Villager Nai Phon, who was monitoring the situation, said that authorities arrested three of his family members — his wife, Khim Chetra, and sisters Nay Phea and Nay Phol, and that police were still searching for and arresting other villagers.

“As a land grab victim, it has been three years since I begged the head of government to help solve this land dispute by giving us fair compensation so that we can accept it, Nai Phon said.

“And now we do not dare to claim the market price. We can accept a reasonable price to end the confrontation and have all the detainees released.”

RFA could not reach Kandal’s police commissioner, Chhoeun Socheth, for comment.

‘It is not a good way’

Am Sam Ath, deputy director of monitoring at Cambodian human rights group Licadho, said that this is the first time in the history of land disputes in Cambodia that authorities have arrested such a large number of people.

“We still insist on not choosing that way, and it is not a good way,” said Am Sam Ath, who condemned the resort to mass arrests.

“First, it affects both sides and draws more criticism over the issue of the land dispute as well as other allegations,” he said. “And if the people are imprisoned, their suffering will be doubled. This means that their families will face more problems.”

This arrest and violent crackdown erupted Sept. 12 after hundreds of authorities prevented farmers from accessing the land. They set fire to the rubbish in front of the security barricades used by local police and military police to block the road to their farmland now under the control of OCIC.

In response, Kandal Provincial Hall accused residents of causing acts of violence involving the use of sticks, stones, rubber bullets, and petrol bombs that injured 13 police officers.

Authorities called on residents to stop what they said were illegal activities and return to efforts to resolve the land dispute peacefully.

Acting on behalf of CIOC, Kandal provincial authorities have offered villagers U.S. $8 per square meter for their land, but villagers say that is much lower than the U.S. $70-80 per square meter estimated market price.

Van Sophat, land monitoring officer for the Cambodian Center for Human Rights, previously told RFA that OCIC had failed to conduct a proper assessment of their project’s environmental impact or to consult Kampong Talong villagers on the proposed development.

The villagers hold title to their land and deserve justice and fair compensation, he said.

Hundreds of police officers blocked villagers on Sept. 7 from visiting rice fields seized to build an airport, though no injuries were reported.

Villagers stopped cultivating their land three years ago, but had to start farming again because business shutdowns caused by the spread of COVID-19 pandemic in Cambodia have left them without other ways to survive, a villager told RFA in an earlier report.

Reported by RFA’s Khmer Service. Translated by Sum Sok Ry. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

The final round of a tribunal investigating whether China’s treatment of its ethnic Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims constitutes genocide ended in London Monday after four days of hearings and testimony provided by nearly 40 witnesses and experts, with a nonbinding verdict expected at the end of the year.

The nine-member tribunal chaired by prominent British lawyer Geoffrey Nice conducted the first set of hearings in London known as the Uyghur Tribunal in early June, during which the panelists heard accounts from internment camp survivors describing abuses such as systematic rape, other forms of gender-based violence, torture, and killings.

During the second round of hearings from Sept. 10-13, nine witnesses and 28 experts testified about their experiences with and research findings on the Uyghur crackdown. The tribunal has no state backing or powers of sanction or enforcement, and any judgments issued are nonbinding on any government.

China has come under criticism for heavy-handed policies targeting the 12 million predominantly Muslim Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in the far-western Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR).

Alleged abuses include the demolition of mosques; the imprisonment of Uyghur intellectuals, artists and business leaders; the replacement of Uyghur with Chinese as the main language in schools; the use of a pervasive and intrusive surveillance system to monitor Uyghurs’ move; forced labor at factories and farms; and forced birth control and the sterilization of Uyghur women.

China has held up to 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in a network of detention camps since 2017. Beijing has said that the camps are vocational training centers and has denied widespread and documented allegations that it has mistreated Muslims living in Xinjiang.

The U.S. and the legislatures in several European countries have deemed the treatment of Uyghurs and others in the XUAR as constituting genocide and crimes against humanity.

Intimidation of Uyghurs abroad

During the final day of the session, Laura Harth, campaign director for Spain-based Safeguard Defenders, focused in her remarks to the panel on Beijing’s public campaign to intimidate Uyghurs living abroad to prevent them from speaking out on alleged abuses in Xinjiang.

“The so-called counter-evidence that Beijing and local authorities have sought to posit to the world over the past years bear all the hallmarks of yet more human rights violations and seemed to have the sole purpose of intimidating, discrediting, and silencing individual witnesses overseas,” she said.

Barrister Rodney Dixon told the panel that he and two colleagues had submitted a report on crimes committed against Uyghurs in Xinjiang to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague on behalf of the East Turkestan government in exile and the Uyghur people.

They gathered evidence about Uyghurs being targeted by Chinese authorities in ICC member states, such as Tajikistan and Cambodia, “in order to arrest them and bring them back into China where they are never heard from again and where they are effectively disappeared,” Dixon said.

The report urges the ICC to open a full investigation of the crimes, he said. The ICC can investigate and prosecute war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and the crime of aggression.

Though China has not joined the ICC, the court has jurisdiction to prosecute crimes committed on the territory of member states, even if those responsible are citizens of a country that is not a member of the court.

The tribunal also heard testimony from ethnic Kazakh Gulzire Alwuqanqizi, who was arrested in July 2017 when she entered Xinjiang from Kazakhstan at the Khorgas border checkpoint with the Kazakh equivalent of a green card and a Chinese passport.

Subsequently interned in four different facilities in Xinjiang over more than 14 months, Gulzire was made to take pills, give blood samples, have medical checks, including ultrasounds, and be injected with what she was told was a flu shot, leaving her unable to have children, she said.

Gulzire told the panel she had been kept in shackles for six months at one camp and had to work as a cleaner, bathing female detainees who had been tied to a bed and raped violently by Han Chinese men. She then had to mop up the floor after the sexual assaults took place.

“I saw that Uyghur women were brought to that room, and they were raped, and I had to wash them afterwards,” she said through a translator.

“I would hear them scream and shout and beg for help, but no one would do so,” said Gulzire, who testified that one of the men told her he had paid money to assault Uyghur women.

Involvement of central government organs

Adrien Zenz, a German researcher whose work first brought worldwide attention to the internment camp system, presented the panel with a new report detailing the strong involvement of China’s central government institutions in the mass incarcerations that began in Xinjiang in 2017.

New evidence shows that “three very important central government organs” — the Central Committee Xinjiang Work Coordination Small Group, the Legislative Affairs Commission of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress in Beijing, and the State Administration for Religious Affairs — were involved in the drafting of a March 2017 regulation that laid the foundation for the vocational skills education training centers in Xinjiang.

Those groups also helped pass revisions to regulations in October 2018 to fully legitimize the “re-education institutions,” said Zenz, whose new report will be released by the Washington-based think tank Jamestown Foundation on Tuesday.

Chen Quanguo, who has been Communist Party chief in Xinjiang since August 2016 and is considered the architect of the crackdown on Uyghurs, “was likely brought in as a ruthless and efficient implementer of a hatched plan that was outlined and approved by the central government,” Zenz told the panel.

Zenz previously issued reports on China’s internment camps in Xinjiang, the forced sterilization of detained Uyghur women, efforts to reduce population growth in Xinjiang thorough birth control and population transfer policies, and “population optimization strategy” to dilute the Uyghur majority in southern Xinjiang by raising the proportion of Han Chinese.

Chinese state media has vilified Zenz for his research. In March, he was one of 10 European individuals and four entities hit with travel and other sanctions by China in response to European Union penalties imposes on XUAR officials for abuses of Uyghurs.

There was no immediate comment from the Chinese government on the final day of the hearings.

A day before the second session of the tribunal began, the Chinese government asked UK officials to stop the event organizers from conducting the hearings, but to no avail.

“We were told by the British government that it is not part of the ‘tribunal,’ that the ‘tribunal’ is a nongovernmental entity, and that the organization has no legal authority,” said Zheng Zeguang, China’s ambassador to the UK, at a news conference on Sept. 9.

“But the point here is, you should not allow these people to continue to spread rumors about China, because when they do so, they are undermining the good will and trust between the peoples of our two countries,” Zheng told journalists.

The envoy condemned the panel as a “political manipulation aimed at discrediting China.”

“It is a nongovernmental entity funded by anti-China forces,” he said. “It is a fake and has no legal basis or validity whatsoever.”

The Uyghur Tribunal is expected to issue a final verdict on whether China is committing genocide or crimes against humanity in December.

China’s inclusion of Myanmar’s former ruling party in a regional summit is an indication that Beijing believes that the party ousted in a Feb. 1 military coup will continue to be a force in politics, analysts and party members told RFA.

Aung Sang Suu Kyi’s democratically elected National League for Democracy government was deposed in a coup d’état, but the NLD was one of four Myanmar political parties invited to an inter-party event on economic development hosted by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

China in June referred to coup leader Sr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing as “the leader of Myanmar,” a move that The Diplomat magazine said was a step toward “de facto recognition” of the junta. Beijing is among countries that have not publicly condemned the military takeover.

Under its Belt and Road Initiative of global infrastructure spending and lending, China has invested more than $21 billion in Myanmar, and has long been concerned about the stability of its southern neighbor.

Beijing has had contacts with the NLD since the coup. The NLD sent a congratulatory letter when the CCP marked its 100^th anniversary on July 1, and received a letter of thanks from Beijing on July 21.

In a message to junta leaders last month, Chinese officials said they wanted to see the NLD continue to exist as a political party, in response to the military regime’s recently revealed plan to dissolve the NLD, The Irrawaddy online newspaper reported.

Political analysts told RFA’s Myanmar Service that China invited the NLD to the meeting because Beijing is aware that the ousted political party still has strong support among Myanmar’s population of 54 million.

“This just shows that China recognizes the NLD’s continued presence in Myanmar politics. It also shows that Beijing did not accept the military’s attempt to dissolve the NLD,” said Hla Kyaw Zaw, a Myanmar political analyst based in China’s Yunnan province across the border from Myanmar.

“I think the Chinese idea is to have a comprehensive dialogue to resolve the issues peacefully between the military council, the NLD and all the major organizations in the country. China is urging them to find a negotiated solution,” Hla Kyaw Zaw said.

While China has sided with previous military regimes in Myanmar, it has not forgotten the lessons of the past, Ye Tun, a Myanmar lawmaker turned political analyst told RFA.

“China seems to think the NLD will win the elections in August 2023. In reality, we can see that our country’s politics without the NLD will be very difficult to achieve stability.

A U.S.-based analyst of Chinese foreign policy, however, saw only modest significance in Beijing’s gesture to the NLD.

“I don’t think China’s meeting with the four political parties, including NLD, is hedging the bet,” Yun Sun, Director of the Washington-based Stimson Center’s China Program told RFA.

“This is party-to-party diplomacy, rather than state-to-state relations. The NLD is neither disbanded nor declared illegal,” she said. China’s ruling party “faces no constraints to engage the NLD,” Sun added. 

But including the NLD in the meeting does show that China is adjusting to the situation on the ground in Myanmar, a local NLD leader in Myanmar’s largest city Yangon told RFA.

“China must have thought during the first couple of months that the military would gain complete control over the country. But now, seven months after the coup, we have been forced to take up arms and reclaim our territory,” said lawmaker Bo Bo Oo, who represented the NLD at the online meeting and is responsible for the party’s communications with China

“The junta also has no control over the economy. Diplomatic relations with other nations have also plummeted. Under these circumstances, the future of the military council is uncertain,” he said.

“Beijing has changed its perception due to this uncertainty. In my view, Beijing’s analysis of the current situation is closer to the truth than ever before,” said Bo Bo Oo.

Myanmar remains strategically important to China, according to Zin Ma Aung, foreign minister for the shadow National Unity Government (NUG), made up of ousted NLD lawmakers.

“Myanmar is a close neighboring country to China, and the NLD is a major political party. As China adheres to the principles of the Chinese Communist Party, it is more likely that it will continue to engage in inter-party relations,” Zin Ma Aung told RFA.

The other three Myanmar political parties that joined the regional meeting were the military-aligned Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), the Arakan National Party (ANP), and the Lisu National Development Party.

A USDP spokesperson attributed the CCP’s inclusion of the NLD and the other parties to Beijing’s broad political vision.

“As the Chinese Communist Party turns 100 years old, its political ideology has broadened,” said Thant Zaw Lwin, deputy head of the USDP Youth Affairs Committee.

Reported by RFA’s Myanmar Service. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Eugene Whong.