Category: Key Issues

MANILA 31 January 2023 – More than 100 representatives from 40 national government agencies gathered for the Inter-Agency Briefing on the United Nations Sustainable Development Framework (UNSDCF) hosted by the Department of Foreign Affairs’ Office of the United Nations and International Organizations (UNIO) at Makati Diamond Residence on 27 January 2023.

UNIO convened the briefing in preparation for negotiations on the new UNSDCF this year ahead of the expiry of the current cooperation framework in September 2023. The UNSDCF, formerly known as the Philippines-UN Partnership Framework for Sustainable Development (PFSD), is a nationally-driven agreement that guides country-level engagements between the Philippines and the UN.

The UNSDCF is crafted through a series of consultations between the Philippine government and the UN. During the consultation process, the Philippines and the UN identify development areas where the UN’s support is needed to help achieve the Philippine Development Plan 2023-2028 and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

“I urge all national government agencies to work closely together and play an active role in shaping this document,” said UNIO Assistant Secretary Kira Christianne D. Azucena. “The UNSDCF is more than just an agreement between the Philippines and the UN. It identifies areas where the capacities of the UN will have the greatest impact in achieving the Philippines’ development goals.”

In addition to the Assistant Secretary, other UNIO representatives also briefed the participants. Deputy Assistant Secretary Jesus Enrique G. Garcia II provided an overview of the UN System and the Philippines’ priorities in the UN while Desk Officer Glady Brojan and Acting Director Stacy Danika Alcantara-Garcia discussed the UN Development System and the UN Country Team, respectively. The briefing concluded with a comprehensive discussion on the negotiations process for the UNSDCF and the proposed areas for cooperation discussed by National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) Chief Economic Development Specialist Calixto Mangilin Jr. and Assistant Secretary Sarah Lynne Daway-Ducanes.

Source: Republic of Philippines Department Of Foreign Affairs

The U.N. special rapporteur for Myanmar warned Tuesday that two years after its coup, Myanmar’s military will try to legitimize its hold on power through sham elections this year, and he urged the international community not to recognize or engage with the junta.

“They have been unsuccessful in securing legitimacy,” Tom Andrews said of the military leadership during a news conference on the eve of the anniversary of the coup, which ousted the democratically elected National Unity Government.

“So, what they are attempting to do is create this faux/fake election, in which it looks as if there’s going to be a legitimate, democratically elected government formed so that the page can be turned and they will have the legitimacy after the so-called election that they are failing to get now,” he said.

Andrews, an independent human rights expert whose mandate comes from the U.N. Human Rights Council, said the conditions for valid elections do not exist in the country, where opposition members are arrested, tortured and executed, the media is prohibited from doing its job, and it is a criminal act to criticize the military regime.

“These are not the conditions for a free and fair election, these are conditions for a fraud that is going to be attempted to be perpetrated against the people of Myanmar, and a fraud the junta hopes that the international community will buy into,” the special rapporteur warned.

He said the junta would try to spin a narrative to the population that the international community is accepting their regime, their power is inevitable, and opposition is futile.

The special rapporteur said he had sent his report to the Myanmar military rulers but has not received any response.

The military grabbed power on February 1, 2021, alleging massive election fraud in the November 2020 election, which saw Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) secure 396 of the 498 contested parliament seats, while the military’s political party won only 33. The military was also guaranteed a bloc comprising 25% of the seats, enabling it to prevent any constitutional amendment.

Regional response

In April 2021, the 10-member ASEAN bloc came up with a “five-point consensus” plan to end the fighting and move to dialogue. Myanmar military chief Min Aung Hlaing agreed at the time to the package of proposals but has failed to implement it.

“As a result of his actions and the junta’s actions, and I think as a result of the continuing deterioration of conditions inside of Myanmar and the impact that has on the region, you have more and more ASEAN countries speaking out,” Andrews said.

He cited Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines for criticizing the junta, reducing their diplomatic engagement with the State Administration Council and calling for a stronger stand by ASEAN on enforcing the five-point consensus.

Two years of a brutal crackdown have led to rising poverty and displacement. This year, 17.6 million people are projected to need humanitarian assistance in Myanmar.

“That is in contrast to 1 million who were in need of aid before the coup,” Andrews emphasized.

While several countries have imposed targeted sanctions on the military and its revenue sources, the special rapporteur’s call for an international arms embargo has gone unheeded.

Source: Voice of America

The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) informs the public that its Consular Office in San Nicolas, Ilocos Norte will be closed on 02 February 2023 (Thursday) following Proclamation No. 135 dated 24 January 2023, declaring 02 February 2023, a special non-working day in the Province of Ilocos Norte in celebration of its 205th Founding Anniversary.

For urgent consular services and other emergency concerns, CO San Nicolas may be reached by email at dfacosannicolas@gmail.com. Consular services will resume on 03 February 2023 (Friday).

Source: Republic of Philippines Department Of Foreign Affairs

Beijing has reached “temporary herd immunity” and its COVID-19 outbreak is nearing an end, a city health official said Tuesday, in another sign China’s virus wave is waning.

A torrent of cases has cascaded through the world’s most populous nation since the ruling Communist Party abruptly ended its zero-COVID policy last month.

The surge packed hospitals and crematoriums in major cities including Beijing, though the scale of the outbreak is hard to verify given that official data is believed to represent a tiny fraction of the true number of cases

But there have been indications that the surge has started to tail off, with authorities saying last week that the number of daily Covid deaths nationwide had fallen by nearly 80% since the start of January.

Wang Quanyi, deputy director of Beijing’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention, told local media on Tuesday that the city of 22 million had “established temporary herd immunity protection.”

“This wave of infections in Beijing has already peaked and is now coming to an end,” the Beijing News quoted Wang as saying.

The capital was “currently in a state of sporadic infections” with the virus exhibiting “relatively low risk of transmission,” Wang said.

The number of people seeking treatment for flu-like diseases at major Beijing hospitals fell by more than 40% between January 23 and 29 compared with the previous week, the newspaper reported, citing official data.

A nationwide decline in the number of infections suggested that the end of the Lunar New Year holiday would “not have too much of an impact” as people returned to Beijing from other parts of the country, Wang said.

He added that the city would survey thousands of residents in February and March to establish how many had antibodies against COVID in their blood plasma.

The survey will “comprehensively assess Beijing’s state of coronavirus infection” and “provide a reference for optimizing resource allocation in the future,” Wang said.

Source: Voice of America

China says it is “deeply concerned” over reports that the United States is moving to further restrict sales of American technology to Huawei, a tech company that U.S. officials have long singled out as a threat to national security for its alleged support of Beijing’s espionage efforts.

As first reported by the Financial Times, the U.S. Department of Commerce has informed American firms that it will no longer issue licenses for technology exports to Huawei, thereby isolating the Shenzen-based company from supplies it needs to make its products.

The White House and Commerce Department have not responded to VOA’s request for confirmation of the reports. But observers say the move may be the latest tactic in the Biden administration’s geoeconomics strategy as it comes under increasing Republican pressure to outcompete China.

The crackdown on Chinese companies began under the Trump administration, which in 2019 added Huawei to an export blacklist but made exceptions for some American firms, including Qualcomm and Intel, to provide non-5G technology licenses.

Since taking office in 2021, President Joe Biden has taken an even more aggressive stance than his predecessor, Donald Trump. Now the Biden administration appears to be heading toward a total ban on all tech exports to Huawei, said Sam Howell, who researches quantum information science at the Center for a New American Security’s Technology and National Security program.

“These new restrictions from what we understand so far would include items below the 5G level,” she told VOA. “So 4G items, Wi-Fi 6 and [Wi-Fi] 7, artificial intelligence, high performance computing and cloud capabilities as well.”

Should the Commerce Department follow through with the ban, there will likely be pushback from U.S. companies whose revenues will be directly affected, Howell said. Currently Intel and Qualcomm still sell chips used in laptops and phones manufactured by Huawei.

Undercutting the revenue of these technology companies, which reduces R&D budgets and can lead to layoffs, must be carefully balanced by clear national security gains, said Paul Triolo, senior vice president for China and technology policy lead at the business advisory firm Albright Stonebridge Group.

“In the current climate of U.S.-China relations, that balancing act is being abandoned in favor of viewing technology transactions between the U.S. and China as largely zero sum,” he told VOA.

Huawei and Beijing have denied that they are a threat to other countries’ national security. Foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning accused Washington of “overstretching the concept of national security and abusing state power” to suppress Chinese competitors.

“Such practices are contrary to the principles of market economy” and are “blatant technological hegemony,” Mao said.

China has in the past held back on trade retaliations on U.S. actions targeting Huawei, Triolo noted.

“Any actions China would take now targeting the foreign business community would not align with moves towards opening up after zero-COVID policies were dropped, and portraying China as now more open for business,” he said.

Outcompeting Chinese tech

The latest U.S. move on Huawei is part of a U.S. effort to outcompete China in the cutting-edge technology sector.

In October, Biden imposed sweeping restrictions on providing advanced semiconductors and chipmaking equipment to Chinese companies, seeking to maintain dominance particularly on the most advanced chips. His administration is rallying allies behind the effort, including the Netherlands, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan – home to leading companies that play key roles in the industry’s supply chain.

U.S. officials say export restrictions on chips are necessary because China can use semiconductors to advance their military systems, including weapons of mass destruction, and commit human rights abuses.

The October restrictions follow the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022, which Biden signed into law in August and that restricts companies receiving U.S. subsidies from investing in and expanding cutting-edge chipmaking facilities in China. It also provides $52 billion to strengthen the domestic semiconductor industry.

Beijing has invested heavily in its own semiconductor sector, with plans to invest $1.4 trillion in advanced technologies in a bid to achieve 70% self-sufficiency in semiconductors by 2025.

TikTok a target

TikTok, a social media application owned by the Chinese company ByteDance that has built a massive following especially among American youth, is also under U.S. lawmakers’ scrutiny due to suspicion that it could be used as a tool of Chinese foreign espionage or influence.

CEO Shou Zi Chew is scheduled to appear before the House Energy and Commerce Committee on March 23 to testify about TikTok’s “consumer privacy and data security practices, the platforms’ impact on kids, and their relationship with the Chinese Communist Party.”

Lawmakers are divided on whether to ban or allow the popular app, which has been downloaded onto about 100 million U.S. smartphones, or force its sale to an American buyer.

Earlier in January, Congress set up the House Select Committee on China, tasked with dealing with legislation to combat the dangers of a rising China.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is meeting his Chinese counterparts next week in Beijing, his first visit since 2018, to maintain open lines of communication amid rising U.S.-China tensions.

Source: Voice of America

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s upcoming trip to Beijing does not mean the United States is heading toward a substantial change in its relationship with the People’s Republic of China, according to U.S. analysts.

Blinken would be the first top U.S. diplomat to visit Beijing since 2018.

Meanwhile, officials from the two countries are preparing for another in-person and pull-aside meeting between their leaders this year, according to a U.S. official who spoke to VOA on the condition of anonymity.

But expectations are low that Blinken’s meetings with senior PRC leaders would result in large deliverables or reset the fraught relationship between the two countries.

“I don’t think there should be many expectations that we’re going to see anything significant breakthroughs for the trip,” said Jude Blanchette, the Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

“I also don’t think that’s a bad thing, given how far the relationship has deteriorated over the last five years,” Blanchette told reporters during a telephone briefing on Monday evening.

This month, Blinken told an audience at University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics that open lines of communication can put guardrails on U.S.-China ties amid rising tensions, adding temperature has been lowered after then-Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in August of 2022.

President Joe Biden last met with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the margins of the G-20 Summit in Bali last November.

India will host this year’s G-20 Summit in New Delhi from September 9-10. The U.S. will host this year’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Leaders’ Summit in San Francisco in November.

Russia’s Ukraine invasion

February 24 of this year will mark one year since Russia invaded Ukraine. The United States said it has been very clear to PRC about the implications of providing security and material support to Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Last Thursday, the U.S. Treasury sanctioned a Chinese company — Changsha Tianyi Space Science and Technology Research Institute Co. LTD, also known as Spacety China — for providing satellite imagery of Ukraine to support the Kremlin-linked mercenary Wagner Group’s combat operations for Russia.

Spacety China’s Luxembourg-based subsidiary also was sanctioned.

U.S. officials and China watchers have said Russia’s war on Ukraine would be on the agenda during Blinken’s meetings in Beijing.

“The debate over China’s policy toward Russia and Ukraine within China is one of the most contentious issues that I encountered when I was there,” said Scott Kennedy, a senior adviser and Trustee Chair in Chinese Business and Economics at CSIS, who spent six weeks in China last fall. “A lot of people inside China in the expert community think that the Chinese made a strategic blunder.”

But in public, PRC officials stick with Beijing’s policy position and narrative.

“The U.S. is the one who started the Ukraine crisis and the biggest factor fueling it,” said Mao Ning, a spokesperson from China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Monday.

PRC visas

The Beijing government has suspended all 10-year multiple entry visas for Americans issued before March 26, 2020, when Beijing stopped issuing visas because of the coronavirus pandemic.

This runs counter to a reciprocal agreement that China made with former President Barack Obama’s administration, according to Dennis Wilder, professor of Asian Studies at Georgetown University. Wilder served from 2009 to 2015 as senior editor of the U.S. president’s Daily Brief.

Wilder told VOA that Blinken likely will press PRC officials to have the suspension lifted because it affects many Chinese Americans, as well as business and educational exchanges.

For its part, the PRC government said it will continue to adjust measures according to its pandemic situation and facilitate the recovery of international people-to-people exchange.

A spokesperson said the Chinese Embassy and Consulates General in the U.S. can issue free of charge a new two-entry, six-month valid visa to the applicants who hold a multi-year, multi-entry visa issued before March 26, 2020, that has been suspended. But visas for tourism and medical treatment in China are excluded.

While Americans can apply for new PRC visas, the extensive private information required in the visa application could be used against applicants or to pressure overseas dissent, said experts.

The current PRC visa application requires private information of applicants’ spouse, parents (even deceased) and children, such as their date of birth, country of birth, nationality, address and occupation. It also asks if applicants’ parents are in China.

In comparison, information of an applicant’s family members is optional in the previous four-page visa form.

There also is additional requirement for visa applicants who were born in Taiwan or Hong Kong to provide documents with their original names in Chinese characters, such as for their birth certificates.

PRC authorities are “looking for vulnerabilities” of overseas Chinese Americans, because such information can be used as a leverage to pressure applicants’ families living in China, said Wilder, citing examples of several Chinese American reporters who left the mainland China because of this type of pressures.

“I would be worried filling out all that information,” Bonny Lin, director of China Power Project at CSIS, told VOA.

“It would not be uncharacteristic of what we’ve seen in terms of the overall trend in China, in which China wants to have better control and increased surveillance on all activities within its border,” she said.

Asked if such private information provided by U.S. officials traveling to China can be used as a form of political intelligence, Lin agreed.

“Definitely yes, because they are collecting that information for use,” she said.

For PRC nationals applying for U.S. non-immigrant visas, while applicants are required to provide their family information, the requirement is not as extensive. Also, the U.S. does not ask for specific and private information about visa applicants’ children.

A U.S. State Department spokesperson declined to provide comments to VOA. A spokesperson from the PRC Embassy did not address questions regarding concerns over family information required in the visa application.

Source: Voice of America