Seoul, South Korea — North Korea vowed Saturday to advance its nuclear capabilities, reacting to a report that the United States had revised its own nuclear strategic plan.

The country will “bolster up its strategic strength in every way to control and eliminate all sorts of security challenges that may result from Washington’s revised plan,” the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported.

The New York Times reported this week that a U.S. plan approved by President Joe Biden in March was to prepare for possible coordinated nuclear confrontations with Russia, China and North Korea.

The highly classified plan for the first time reorients Washington’s deterrent strategy to focus on China’s rapid expansion in its nuclear arsenal, the Times said.

KCNA said North Korea’s foreign ministry “expresses serious concern over and bitterly denounces and rejects the behavior of the U.S.”

It added North Korea vowed to push forward the building of nuclear force sufficient and reliable enough to firmly defend its sovereignty.

Pyongyang and Moscow have been allies since North Korea’s founding after World War II and have drawn even closer since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

The United States and Seoul have accused North Korea of providing ammunition and missiles to Russia for its war in Ukraine.

Pyongyang, which has declared itself an “irreversible” nuclear weapons power, has described allegations of supplying weapons to Russia as “absurd.”

However, it did thank Russia for using its United Nations veto in March to effectively end monitoring of sanctions violations just as UN experts were starting to probe alleged arms transfers.

China, also a key ally of North Korea, presents itself as a neutral party in Russia’s offensive on Ukraine and says it is not sending lethal assistance to either side, unlike the United States and other Western nations.

But it is a close political and economic ally of Russia, and NATO members have branded Beijing a “decisive enabler” of the war.

Moscow has looked to Beijing as an economic lifeline since the Ukraine conflict began, with the two boosting trade to record highs as Russia faces heavy sanctions from the West.
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Washington — China and Russia agreed to expand their economic cooperation using a planned banking system, which analysts say is aimed at supporting their militaries and undermining U.S.-led global order.

The two countries issued a joint communiqué agreeing “to strengthen and develop the payment and settlement infrastructure,” including “opening corresponding accounts and establishing branches and subsidiary banks in two countries” to facilitate “smooth” payment in trade.

The communiqué was issued when Chinese Premier Li Qiang met with Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin in Moscow on Wednesday, Russian news agency Tass reported the following day.

At the meeting, Mishustin said, “Western countries are imposing illegitimate sanctions under far-fetched pretext, or, to put it simply, engaging in unfair competition,” according to a Russian government transcript.

Mishustin also noted the use of their national currencies “has also expanded, with the share of roubles and RMB in mutual payments exceeding 95%,” as the two have strengthened cooperation on investment, economy and trade.

Li and Mishustin signed more than a dozen agreements on Tuesday on economic, investment and transport cooperation. Li was making a state visit to Moscow at the invitation of Mishustin.

David Asher, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, said, “This meeting between the Russians and the Chinese is important because it’s getting into a much widening aperture of cooperation” that would have “a bigger military dimension,” threatening U.S. national security.

Asher added that their bilateral cooperation could lead to “Russia’s assistance to China in the Pacific and the South China Sea” in return for Beijing’s support for Moscow’s economy and industry that aid Russia’s war efforts in Ukraine, “in defiance of the U.S.”

A spokesperson for the State Department told VOA Korean on Thursday that the U.S. is “concerned about PRC [People’s Republic of China] support for rebuilding Russia’s defense industrial base, particularly the provision of dual-use goods like tools, microelectronics and other equipment.”

The spokesperson continued: “The PRC cannot claim to be a neutral party while at the same time rebuilding Russia’s defense industrial base and contributing to the greatest threat to European security.”

“China is Putin’s only lifeline,” said Edward Fishman, an adjunct professor at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs who helped the State Department design international sanctions in response to Russia’s aggression in Ukraine.

“Chinese firms have taken advantage of Russia’s weak bargaining position and cut a slew of favorable deals,” Fishman said. “But these deals have more than just commercial significance. They keep Putin’s war machine going.”

The U.S. Treasury Department on Friday imposed sanctions on more than 400 entities and individuals that support Russia’s war efforts in Ukraine, including Chinese firms that it said were helping Moscow evade Western sanctions by shipping machine tools and microelectronics.

In response to a China-Russia plan to set up a financial system to facilitate trade, U.S. Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo told the Financial Times that Washington “will go after the branch they’re setting up” and the countries that let them.

Analysts said China and Russia could increasingly turn to alternative methods of payments to evade sanctions.

Russia in June suspended trading in dollars and euros in the Moscow Exchange, in response to a round of sanctions the U.S. had issued targeting Russia’s largest stock exchange. The move by Russia prohibits banks, companies and investors from trading in either currency through a central exchange.

Shortly before Russia invaded Ukraine, the U.S. cut big Russian banks off from the U.S. dollar, the preferred currency in global business transactions.

“There is clearly a desire in both Moscow and Beijing to build financial and trade connections that operate beyond the reach of U.S.-led sanctions,” said Tom Keatinge, director of the Center for Finance and Security at the London-based Royal United Service Institute.

“This includes the development of non-U.S. dollar payment and settlement mechanisms and a wider ‘insulated’ payment system that allows other countries in their orbit to avoid U.S. sanctions,” he continued.

Other possible methods of payments could involve central bank digital currencies as well as cryptocurrencies and stable coins, Keatinge added.

The Chinese yuan replaced the dollar as Russia’s most traded currency in 2023, when the U.S. imposed sanctions on a few banks in Russia that could still trade across the border in dollars, according to Maia Nikoladze, an associate director of the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center, in a June report.

Nikoladze told VOA that transactions made in renminbi and in rubles allowed Moscow to mitigate the effects of sanctions until Washington in December 2023 created an authority to apply secondary sanctions on foreign banks that transacted with Russian entities.

“Since then, Russia has struggled to collect oil payments from China,” with some transactions delayed “up to six months,” even as Moscow found a way to process transactions through Russian bank branches in China, Nikoladze said.

According to an article this month from Newsweek, the Russian newspaper Izvestia reported that as many as 98% of Chinese banks are refusing Chinese yuan payments from Russia.

Hudson Institute’s Asher said even more critical than the Russian use of yuan is the use of U.S. dollars in Beijing-Moscow transactions through the Hong Kong Monetary Authority’s Clearinghouse Automated Transfer Settlement System (CHATS), a payment system used by banks such as HSBC that trade “hundreds of billions of dollars a year.”

“It can settle transactions in a way that is not visible to the U.S. government,” Asher said. “I’m talking about U.S. dollar reserves that are not in the United States, that are not controlled by the U.S. government, that we don’t have good visibility on, and Hong Kong is providing that financial service.”

The Hong Kong government has said it does not implement unilateral sanctions but enforces U.N. sanctions at the urging of China, according to Reuters.

William Pomeranz, an expert on Russian political and economic developments at the Wilson Center, said that despite Beijing’s and Moscow’s talk this week about financial and economic cooperation, “China does not want to get onto the bad side of European and American markets” and will not risk its economic ties with the West “just to help Russia in a problem that, quite frankly, is of Russia’s own making.”
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BANGKOK — Press freedom in Hong Kong is at its lowest level in at least 11 years, according to the latest survey of its members and the public by the Hong Kong Journalists Association.

One of the biggest factors in that decline is the introduction this year of Article 23, which penalizes anything deemed as sedition or external interference, the association, known as the HKJA, found.

The law has “more severe restrictions on media” than previously existed, Selina Cheng, chair of the HKJA, told VOA. It includes substantially tougher penalties for sedition, which Cheng described as “the main legislation that’s been used against speech and media work” since the implementation of a new National Security Law in 2020.

The findings are part of an annual survey by the HKJA in conjunction with the Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute. The journalists association sent surveys to 979 members, and the research institute collected opinions from 1,000 phone interviews, selected at random.

Both groups surveyed were asked to rank press freedom in Hong Kong. The 250 journalists who responded to the survey ranked it at  25 out of 100, with 100 being a perfect score. It is the lowest ranking since the annual survey was started 11 years ago. The public score came in at 42.

The survey findings came the same week that Hong Kong denied a work visa to journalist Haze Fan. The reporter for Bloomberg News was detained in Beijing on alleged national security violations in December 2020 and held for about 13 months. Bloomberg has said Fan will be transferred to its London office.

In the HKJA survey, 92% of the journalists who responded to the survey indicated press freedom had “significantly” been impacted by the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance, known as Article 23.

Passed in March, it prohibits acts of treason, secession, sedition, subversion and theft of state secrets, and prevents foreign political organizations from conducting activities or establishing ties with local political bodies in Hong Kong.

Penalties for sedition under the new law increased from two to seven years, or 10 years if a foreign force is involved.

Authorities have insisted that journalists are safe to carry out what they call “legitimate” reporting activities. But critics say the vaguely worded legislation creates uncertainty for journalists.

Cheng said the law’s reference to state secrets is wide, too, which could be a concern.

The law is using Beijing’s definition of state secrets, according to Human Rights Watch.

Under Article 23, what is deemed a state secret “encompasses [a] pretty wide spectrum of things, including information about economy, technology, society, so on,” Cheng said.

“It could be that the government considers the findings of a think tank or an academic institution a state secret, then that would become a crime of national security,” she said.

China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded to the HKJA findings, saying Hong Kong’s national security laws are not meant to target journalists who do not break the law.

Cheng noted that only about a quarter of HKJA members responded to the survey this year, which could be a sign of how the media environment is declining.

“The response rate is not great and is a reflection of the sort of self-censorship even when it comes to discussing or reflecting reporters’ views on press freedom,” she told VOA.

“At some organizations that might be seen as more pro-Beijing or pro-government reporters, the contact people we have at those organizations will worry if they might face retaliation if they send out [the] HKJA questionnaire. I think people are scared to do it, because they’re afraid of retaliation,” she said. 

Cheng believes she personally was retaliated against for her association with the HKJA. Her contract at The Wall Street Journal, where she covered the auto and electric vehicle industry, was terminated in July, in a move she said is connected to her being elected chair of the HKJA.

In a statement issued at the time, Cheng said she had been told by her supervisor that having Journal employees advocate for media freedoms would create conflicts of interest because the newspaper reports on related topics, including the ongoing trials of Hong Kong journalists and media organizations.

The Journal confirmed to VOA at the time that personnel changes had been made but said it could not comment on “specific individuals.”

Journalists also highlighted overt calls for journalists to use caution in their reporting.

In a note to columnists at the pro-Beijing Ming Pao newspaper, chief editor Lau Chung-yung urged people to be “prudent” and “law abiding” in their writing. His note was posted on social media on August 15 by one of the paper’s columnists.

Eric Wishart, the standards and ethics editor at Agence France-Presse in Hong Kong, says such comments concern journalists.

The Ming Pao note, he said, “is another example of the chilling effect that recent developments have had on journalism in Hong Kong.” 

Johan Nylander, a Swedish journalist in Hong Kong, said it is no surprise that press freedom is at a new low.

“The national security law and Article 23 have created an atmosphere of uncertainty and self-censorship among many reporters and media companies,” he told VOA.

“It’s quite clear where the trend is going. The situation regarding press freedom is very depressing in Hong Kong, and nothing indicates that it will get better anytime soon.”

Media groups such as the HKJA have been criticized by authorities and Chinese state media for allegedly having links to activist organizations.

But Wishart said it was important for the HKJA to continue.

“It’s important that the HKJA and other organizations continue to monitor the state of press freedom in Hong Kong and that media professionals continue to respond to these surveys,” he said.

Hong Kong’s ranking on the World Press Freedom Index has declined rapidly since the national security law was enacted in 2020.

It currently ranks 135 out of 180 on the Reporters Without Borders index, where number 1 represents the best environment. In 2019, the year before the national security law took effect, Hong Kong ranked 73.
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Bangkok  — A court in Buddhist-majority Thailand decided Friday to try seven former military and police officials for their roles in the deaths of 85 Muslim men at a protest that took place 20 years ago.

The seven are charged with murder, attempted murder and unlawful detention. The statute of limitations on the charges expires in late October, exactly two decades after the events of the so-called Tak Bai Massacre.

“I feel relieved that the duty of the lawyers and the duty of the plaintiffs is accomplished,” Pornpen Khongkachonkiet, a human rights activist and lawyer representing one of the plaintiffs in the case, told VOA after the court announced its decision.

“We [were] hugging each other … and I think they are very happy,” she said of the other plaintiffs as well.

Lawyers for the accused could not be reached for comment.

The case concerns the events of October 25, 2004, in Tak Bai district, Narathiwat province, in Thailand’s predominantly Muslim and ethnic Malay deep south.

Soldiers and police shot and killed seven people while responding to a protest demanding the release of suspected Islamic militants. Human rights groups say the officers forced many more protesters into police trucks destined for a military camp some 140 kilometers away, leaving them packed inside and forced to lie on top of one another for hours. Seventy-eight of them died.

A state inquest later determined that they had suffocated. It also concluded that security forces used inappropriate measures to disperse the protesters and that commanding officers failed to adequately supervise the movement of the detainees. But authorities did not pursue charges and police claimed force majeure, a legal term referring to events beyond their control.

No one was ever previously charged over the deaths or injuries.

Hoping to change that, 48 survivors and relatives of the dead filed a lawsuit with the Narathiwat provincial court in April against nine officers, all since retired, involved in the security forces’ response to the protest.

Pornpen said the court on Friday decided against taking two of the nine to trial on the grounds they were not responsible for use of force.

Even so, she said the court’s decision to put the other seven on trial was a welcome surprise in a country where senior police, military and government officials are widely seen to act with impunity.

“We had so many times in history that the call for democracy, call for change, anything like [a] protest always ends up with violence and no one is [held] responsible,” she said. “So, to bring the perpetrator to justice according to Thai law is not easy, and I think we did it.”

In a statement, Amnesty International called Friday’s decision an overdue but “crucial first step towards justice” for those who suffered what it called the “excessive use of force” at the 2004 protest.

“The victims and their loved ones have spent almost two decades waiting for justice and accountability for the heinous crimes committed,” the rights group said. “Thai authorities must immediately enforce the court decision and take necessary measures to ensure the case’s statute of limitations does not expire.”

Amnesty International said at least one of the defendants must be brought to court to hear the charges by October 25 for the case to proceed to trial.

Pornpen confirmed that the defendants must still appear in court before the statute of limitations runs out for the trial to proceed.

She said the court would issue subpoenas ordering the accused to appear on September 12, but was concerned they may try to stall and avoid an appearance until the statute of limitations runs out.

Anchana Heemmina, director of the Duay Jai Group, a non-profit that monitors human rights abuses in Thailand’s deep south, said she also worried the accused may yet avoid a trial.

But she welcomed Friday’s decision nonetheless and said it could begin to restore some faith in the courts among southern Thailand’s Muslims.

“They feel like the Thai government, or the military don’t want to protect Malay Muslims who are civilians in the country and feel like we are the second class,” said Anchana.

“Now, for today, for the Tak Bai case, it’s a little bit first step that makes the people believe or trust the justice system,” she added.

Once the seat of a Muslim sultanate, the southern provinces of modern-day Thailand were deeded by the British to the then-kingdom of Siam in 1909. Rejecting the transfer, several armed ethnic Malay Muslim groups have waged a long-running guerrilla war against the Thai state in hopes of winning independence for the provinces.

More than 7,000 people have died in related violence since fighting intensified in 2004.

While bombings, assassinations and shootouts across the south continue to occur alongside police raids and arrests, the pace of the violence has waned over the years, and the government is in talks with some of the rebel groups over terms of a possible cease-fire.
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