Washington — In early 2020, during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing lockdown in the Chinese city of Wuhan, a handful of citizen journalists emerged as voices from the epicenter.

Among them was Zhang Zhan, then a 36-year-old former lawyer who bravely chronicled the unfolding crisis in the city where the virus first surfaced.

Standing in front of a Wuhan train station in her final YouTube video on May 13, 2020, she voiced concerns about the human rights abuses she witnessed during the lockdown and criticized police involvement in enforcing containment measures.

Following “this last video,” she vanished, according to Jane Wang, a U.K.-based activist who launched the Free Zhang Zhan campaign.

“The date of her arrest should be 14th May, but it could have happened on the evening of the 13th, so we aren’t sure,” Wang told VOA. “The time she spent on the train escorted by police to Shanghai from Wuhan is in between.”

In December 2020, the Chinese government sentenced her to four years in prison for allegedly “picking quarrels and provoking trouble.”

On Monday, Wang posted a 28-second video to X, formerly known as Twitter, in which Zhang confirmed her release from prison on May 13 and wished well to the people who were concerned about her well-being.

“Hello, everyone, I am Zhang Zhan. At five o’clock in the morning on May 13, the police brought me to my brother’s home in Shanghai. Thank you all for your help and concern for me. Hope everyone is well. I really don’t have anything to say,” Zhang said in the video.

The video came one week after Zhang was expected to be released from Shanghai Women’s Prison on May 13, but she did not publicly surface for several days. On May 17, the U.S. State Department issued a statement expressing concern about her disappearance after her apparent release.

“The United States has repeatedly expressed our serious concerns about the arbitrary nature of her detention and authorities’ mistreatment of her,” the State Department said at that time. “We reiterate our call for the PRC [People’s Republic of China] to respect the human rights of Ms. Zhang, including by immediately ending the restrictive measures that she and all journalists in the PRC face.”

The State Department urged China to ensure the safety and freedom of journalists in the country, emphasizing the importance of enabling them to report freely.

Additionally, the State Department’s recently released human rights report on China pointed out “serious restrictions” on freedom of expression and media, including criminal prosecution of journalists, lawyers, writers, bloggers, dissidents, petitioners, and others.” It also cited the arrest of “countless citizens” for allegedly “spreading fake news.”

Several other citizen journalists faced disappearances like Zhang’s and later were sentenced to prison for documenting the initial stages of the pandemic in China.

Any expression of views differing from the government on pandemic-related matters continues to be a sensitive issue in China, according to Lin Shengliang, founder of the China Human Rights Accountability Database.

“The Chinese authorities often resort to both soft and hard tactics to the parties involved in order to silence them,” Lin told VOA.

According to Li Yong, a Wuhan citizen who shared the U.S. State Department’s statement on Zhang in a WeChat group, the Chinese State Security forces warned him not to share information about Zhang.

“The local community’s state security officer said, ‘These posts are no longer allowed. Be silent. Things involving Zhang Zhan are not allowed [to be shared].’ Anyway, I promised not to post it again,” Li told VOA.

According to Li, he befriended Zhang when she came to Wuhan in 2020.

“I advised her to take a step back [in her criticism of the government]. But she was a person of faith and was more persistent at that time,” Li said.

According to Wang, the U.K.-based activist, Zhang is a “devoted Christian” who openly expressed her faith.

“Her church was shut down [four years ago] and banned from gathering before she went to Wuhan,” Wang said. “It’s a big question mark whether she [currently] is allowed to travel to another city or even attend a church gathering in Shanghai.”

Wang said that Zhang’s situation may change “dramatically” when and if the authorities decide to step up surveillance against her.

“Right now, guards are watching her apartment, and she is being followed everywhere, but she still can leave her flat and has her phone and WeChat account,” Wang said, citing a friend of Zhan’s, whose name she didn’t want to disclose for safety reasons. “The worst is for plainclothes [police] to break in and stay in the home, taking her phone away.”
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Bangkok — Many of the more seriously injured people who were on the Singapore Airlines flight that hit severe turbulence need operations on their spines, a Bangkok hospital said Thursday.

Twenty people remained in intensive care and a 73-year-old British man died after the Boeing 777, which was flying from London’s Heathrow airport to Singapore, descended following turbulent weather over the Andaman Sea on Tuesday.

A public relations officer for Samitivej Srinakarin Hospital, which has treated more than 100 people hurt from the ordeal, told The Associated Press that other local hospitals have been asked to lend their best specialists to assist in the treatments. He asked not to be named because of hospital policy.

Passengers have described the “sheer terror” of the aircraft shuddering, loose items flying and injured people lying paralyzed on the floor of the plane.

It remains unclear what exactly caused the turbulence that sent the plane, which was carrying 211 passengers and 18 crew members, on a 6,000-foot (around 1,800-meter) descent in about three minutes. The flight from London to Singapore was diverted to Thailand.

In one of the latest accounts of the chaos on board, 43-year-old Malaysian Amelia Lim described finding herself face down on the floor. 

“I was so afraid … I could see so many individuals on the floor, they were all bleeding. There was blood on the floor as well as on the people,” she told the online Malay Mail newspaper.

The woman who had been seated next to her was “motionless in the aisle and unable to move, likely suffering from a hip or spinal injury,” she added.

The ICU patients included six Britons, six Malaysians, three Australians, two Singaporeans and one person each from Hong Kong, New Zealand, and the Philippines, Samitivej Srinakarin Hospital said. It said it had provided medical care to a total of 104 people.

Thai authorities said the British man who died possibly had a heart attack. Passengers have described how the flight crew tried to revive him by performing CPR for about 20 minutes.

Most people associate turbulence with heavy storms, but the most dangerous type is so-called clear air turbulence. Wind shear can occur in wispy cirrus clouds or even in clear air near thunderstorms, as differences in temperature and pressure create powerful currents of fast-moving air.

According to a 2021 report by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, turbulence accounted for 37.6% of all accidents on larger commercial airlines between 2009 and 2018. The Federal Aviation Administration, another U.S. government agency, has said there were 146 serious injuries from turbulence from 2009 to 2021.

Tourism and aviation expert Anita Mendiratta, who is based in London, said the extreme turbulence was “extremely unusual.”

She said passengers should listen to instructions to keep their seatbelts on, ensure that hand baggage is put away safely when not in use, and reduce items stowed in the overhead compartments.

“When there is turbulence, those doors can open and all of the items up top, whether it’s our hand baggage, our jackets, our duty free items, they become movable and they become a risk to us all,” she told The Associated Press.
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TAIPEI, TAIWAN — China kicked off a two-day large-scale military exercise in the water and airspace around Taiwan on Thursday, emphasizing that it is “a strong punishment for the separatist acts of ‘Taiwan independence forces’” and “a stern warning” against provocation by external forces.

The Eastern Theater Command of the People’s Liberation Army will conduct drills in the Taiwan Strait, the north, south, and east of Taiwan as well as in areas near Taiwan’s outlying Kinmen and Matsu islands, according to China’s state-run Xinhua News Agency.

The drills, which involve the army, navy, air force, and rocket force of the Eastern theater command, will concentrate on joint sea-air combat readiness patrol, joint seizure of comprehensive battlefield control, and joint precision strikes on key targets, Eastern Theater Command spokesperson Li Xi said.

Some analysts say the exercise is part of Beijing’s display of anger toward Taiwan’s new president Lai Ching-te, who took office Monday.

The military exercise is “meant to be a warning to both the Lai administration and Washington that it can and will continue to put the squeeze on Taiwan if Lai does not return to a more moderate tone and approach” to cross-strait relations, Amanda Hsiao, a senior China analyst at International Crisis Group, said.

However, despite the attempt to push the new Taiwanese government to soften its position, Hsiao said Beijing’s forceful response may have the opposite effect.

“Given the Lai administration’s deep distrust of Beijing and the domestic pressures they are currently facing, Taipei may hold even firmer to their cross-strait line,” she told VOA in a written response.

In response to the Chinese military’s announcement, Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense said Beijing’s “irrational provocation” will damage regional peace and stability and that it will take practical actions, including deploying Taiwan’s naval, air, and ground forces, to protect freedom and safeguard Taiwan’s sovereignty.

Some Taiwanese military analysts say the priority for Taiwan is to keep strengthening its defense capabilities and enhance Taiwan’s defense budget.

“The Chinese military exercise is part of Beijing’s long-term pressure campaign against Taiwan, so Taipei needs to ensure it has enough defense capabilities to withstand the growing pressure from Beijing and maintain peace in the region,” Su Tzu-yun, a military expert at the Taipei-based Institute for National Defense and Security Research, told VOA by phone.

A firmer assertion of Taiwan’s sovereignty

China’s large-scale military exercise around Taiwan comes after Beijing criticized Lai for his “downright confession of Taiwan independence” through his inauguration speech Monday.

“The speech fully demonstrated that Lai is ‘a traitor to mainstream public opinion on the island and a disruptor of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait,’” said Chen Binhua, the spokesperson of China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, which handles cross-strait relations.

He reiterated that “Taiwan independence is a dead end” and that attempts to pursue “Taiwan independence” through support from external forces will only backfire.

“However, in response to the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) authorities’ collusion with external forces to provoke and seek independence, we must counteract and punish them,” Chen said during a regular press conference on Tuesday, according to Xinhua.

During his inauguration speech on Monday, Lai urged Beijing to cease political and military intimidation against Taiwan and proposed that both sides could start cross-strait exchange through the resumption of tourism on a reciprocal basis or enrollment of degree students in Taiwanese institutions.

However, he also warned the Taiwanese people of China’s ambition to “annex Taiwan” and reiterated that “the Republic of China and the People’s Republic of China are not subordinate to each other.”

Hsiao, from the International Crisis Group, said what Lai said in the speech suggests a potential deviation from his predecessor Tsai Ing-wen’s more moderate approach to cross-strait relations.

“He didn’t reaffirm the conciliatory gesture that Tsai offered, that cross-strait relations would be conducted in accordance with the Republic of China’s constitution,” she told VOA.

During her inauguration address in 2020, Tsai said Taiwan would handle cross-strait affairs according to the Republic of China’s constitution and the Act Governing Relations between People of Taiwan and “the mainland area,” which she said had been the island’s consistent position to maintain the status quo across the Taiwan Strait. However, Lai didn’t reaffirm the same position in his inauguration speech on Monday.

In her view, while Tsai maintained some ambiguities in her characterization of cross-strait relations, Lai “appears resistant to doing so.” “He wants to state clearly and loudly that China and Taiwan are two separate states [and] his calculation may be that Tsai’s moderate approach didn’t pay off after all,” Hsiao added.

Some experts say since Thursday’s military exercise has been called the “Joint Sword 2024A,” this suggests that China could conduct more military exercises of the similar scale in the near future. “Since Beijing is extremely disappointed and even furious now, more strong responses will follow,” Zhiqun Zhu, a professor of political science at Bucknell University, told VOA in a written response.

During a speech on Thursday in the Australian capital Canberra, Deputy Commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command Lieutenant General Stephen Sklenka said China’s military exercises around Taiwan are “concerning” but not unexpected. He added that the Chinese military practiced maneuvers in the Taiwan Strait in 2023 that would be key to a potential invasion of the island.

Taiwan military analyst Su said China’s latest military exercise around Taiwan may create backlash for Beijing.

“Thursday’s exercise will only prove that China’s threat to Taiwan is real and it may convince like-minded democracies, especially the United States, to be more engaged in relevant efforts to deter Beijing from continuing such behaviors,” he told VOA.

Going forward, Hsiao said the dynamic between Taiwan and China “looks bleak.”

“[While] limiting the escalation of tensions is possible, it will require Beijing recognize that its pressures are unlikely to be effective and the Lai administration to see value in signaling a more moderate line,” she told VOA.

Additionally, Hsiao said she thinks Washington’s response may also affect cross-strait dynamics since there are no direct channels of communication between Beijing and Taipei.
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