Bangkok — The first group of refugees from Myanmar living in Thailand and eligible for a new resettlement program flew out of Bangkok for the United States last week, more than a year after the plan was first announced, U.S. and U.N. officials have told VOA.

Some 90,000 refugees now live in nine sealed-off camps inside Thailand along the country’s border with Myanmar, driven from their homes by decades of fighting between the Myanmar military and a number of ethnic minority armed groups vying for autonomy.

Some have called the camps home since the 1980s, put off from returning to Myanmar by the ongoing fighting and mostly barred by the Thai government from legally and permanently settling in Thailand. Most of the refugees from Myanmar, also known as Burma, are ethnic Karen.

Hoping to give them a viable way out, Thailand, the U.S. government and the UNHCR, the U.N.’s refugee agency, announced a new resettlement program in May 2023, allowing registered refugees in the camps to move to the United States.

“The first group left Thailand for the United States last week,” a U.S. Embassy official in Bangkok told VOA on Tuesday.

“Resettlement operations are ongoing in cooperation with the UNHCR and the Royal Thai government,” the official said. “The United States appreciates what Thailand has done to facilitate assistance.”

The Thailand office of the UNHCR said the group of 25 left the country on Thursday.

Photos posted online by the head of the UNHCR’s Thailand office, Tammi Sharpe, show Thai and U.N. officials at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport to see the group off.

“The value of the program could be felt,” she wrote. “Wishing those who will be on the receiving end my appreciation in advance.”

Aid groups working in the camps welcomed the start of resettlement.

“We are happy for these people because these people have been waiting to go to resettle for a long time, because along the Thai-Burma border … resettlement has been closed for many years,” Khyaw Paw, who chairs the Karen Women’s Organization, told VOA.

A previous resettlement program saw some 100,000 refugees from the camps resettled abroad between 2005 and 2015, according to the UNHCR, most of them in the U.S.

Democratic reforms that started in Myanmar in 2011 had raised hopes that most of the refugees could eventually return home. But a military coup in 2021 set off a full-scale civil war and has dashed those goals for the time being.

“They are not able to go home, and Thailand has not opened up integration within the country, so for many of the refugees who have been here for a long time, it’s a good opportunity,” Khyaw Paw said of the new program.

Refugee advocates say resettlement also can offer relief from what they describe as deteriorating conditions in the camps.

‘Growing sense of despair’

The Karen Women’s Organization says a growing sense of despair among the refugees over their future has been driving up everything from drug use to domestic abuse, gang violence and suicide.

Refugees are not allowed to work or study outside the camps, and they have told VOA of having meager schooling and job opportunities inside. They have little chance to earn a living on their own and must survive on an average of about $9 in food aid per person each month.

Some four decades after the first of the camps was established, most homes still lack running water or electricity and are little more than huts with bamboo walls and thatched roofs.

“The quality of life is very, very bad in my opinion, and I think if they have a chance [to resettle], I think it will be better for them. When I’m talking about the quality of life, I’m talking about health care, I’m talking about … education, I’m talking about crime,” said Rangsiman Rome, a lawmaker for Thailand’s opposition Move Forward Party.

As chair of the House of Representatives’ border affairs committee, he visited some of the camps a few months ago.

“I know the government tries to do good,” he said. “The problem is they don’t have freedom to go anywhere, so for me it’s abuse of human rights and … it’s better that they should have a quality of life better than this.”

Neither the U.S. Embassy nor the UNHCR would say how many of the roughly 90,000 refugees registered in the camps might ultimately be allowed to move abroad as part of the new resettlement program, or at what pace.

Khyaw Paw and Rangsiman both said UNHCR staff told them in meetings in late 2023 that up to 10,000 could be resettled per year. The UNHCR did not reply to a VOA request to confirm or deny the figure.

In any case, refugee advocates suspect the ultimate number resettled per year will be far less and that the refugees also need other options. They would like to see the Thai government let the refugees legally study, work and ultimately settle permanently in Thailand outside of the camps.

Rangsiman said some refugees looking for a permanent home outside of Myanmar may prefer to settle nearby to avoid the culture shock of moving farther afield, and that Thailand, which for the first time recorded more deaths than births in 2023, could use their labor.

“They have a lot of potential, and in Thailand we are an aging society, and we need human resource for our economy,” he said.

“There’s no need to just relocate them to the U.S.; it [Thailand] could be a choice for them,” he added.

Rangsiman said talks with the government were under way on proposals to resume Thai language courses in the camps, where most instruction now is in Burmese and Karen. He said teaching the refugees to speak Thai, as well, would help them transition to higher education and jobs outside the camps, if someday allowed, and to possibly settle in Thailand for good.

Khyaw Paw has voiced hope the refugees will get more rights to study and work outside the camps.

“If we compare [with] the last parliament, no one talked about refugees,” she said. “So, I think there is progress.”
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Vienna — European experts watching China’s Third Plenum say this week’s high-level meetings are unlikely to touch on political reform but will likely introduce several measures to reverse the nation’s economic downturn.

“Any measures to be announced on China’s key economic problems will be moderate and gradual, like Chinese medicine, as opposed to a shock therapy,” said Alicia Garcia-Herrero, a senior researcher at the Belgian think tank Bruegel.

The Spanish economist listed eight key problems facing the current Chinese economy: stagnation in real estate; tight local government finances; deflationary pressure; sluggish consumer consumption; an aging population; a decline in foreign investment in non-manufacturing industries; increased social security costs, such as pensions and medical care; and the failure to achieve transformation and upgrading of the manufacturing industry.

The state-run Xinhua News Agency has said decisions on such matters are expected from this week’s Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, which is to address policy matters spanning the next decade.

Garcia-Herrero said China’s possible approaches include providing modest subsidies to low- and middle-income households to stimulate consumption; structural measures to slow down the aging of the population; opening up investment access to attract foreign investment; increasing local government taxes to make up for shortfalls caused by falling land prices; delaying retirement; and reducing government administrative costs to achieve fiscal balance.

Chinese policymakers will need to make some hard choices. A lack of social benefits prompts people to save for future emergencies, which reduces private consumption. Stimulating consumption will require greater government spending, including a better social welfare system, but this will hurt an already deteriorating fiscal position.

It remains to be seen to what extent China’s economic decision-makers agree on establishing a social safety net and carrying out consumption-oriented structural reforms.

Garcia-Herrero said that in the long term, the way to solve China’s economic woes is to expand local fiscal autonomy and develop high-end manufacturing, although neither seems likely in the short term.

The plenum is expected to focus on reforming the fiscal and taxation systems, and specific measures may include transferring consumption tax and value-added tax from the central government to local governments.

President Xi Jinping has stressed the importance of vigorously developing “new quality productivity” and promoting China’s industrial upgrading and “high-quality development.”

Alexander Davey, an analyst at MERICS, told VOA, “The past reforms of investments of vast resources and personnel into modernizing China’s industrial system and promoting scientific and technological innovation will continue.”

But he said it is uncertain whether those investments “will negatively impact the extent to which Beijing can allocate resources for local governments to service health care, education, infrastructure, government employee wages, etc.”

Analysts say the Chinese modernization development model, which relies on high-end manufacturing exports to drive the economy, could exacerbate trade disputes between China and its major export destinations. The United States and Europe have recently accused China of “overcapacity” of electric vehicles and have imposed anti-dumping investigations and tariff measures.

Davey said Chinese-style modernization “could be used as pretext for how Beijing decides to retaliate [against] Brussels’ tariffs on Chinese EVs, among other EU de-risking actions towards China. Beijing may target European imports like brandy, wine, and certain types of cars, framing them as unnecessary luxury goods in its march towards common prosperity, imposing tariffs accordingly.”

The China watchers also said specific plans for personnel changes at the top level of the People’s Liberation Army are expected.

Two former Chinese defense ministers, Wei Fenghe and Li Shangfu, were expelled last month from the party and the military.

Francesco Sisci, an Italian Sinologist, told VOA, “We know the focus will be the PLA and the economy. The domestic economy is not doing well with private consumption shrinking and the military is under immense stress for the unprecedented purge of two ministers of defense. The PLA seems in disarray, which is extremely dangerous.”

Adrianna Zhang  contributed to this report.
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washington — North Korea and China are watching for possible regional impacts from Japan’s recent enhanced security cooperation with Germany.

This weekend, Japan will hold joint drills with Germany around the Chitose Air Base in Hokkaido, Japan’s northernmost main island. Spain is slated to join them there, while France will join Japan next week for drills over Hyakuri Air Base in Ibaraki Prefecture bordering the Pacific Ocean.

At a joint press conference in Berlin late last week, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said defense cooperation will be enhanced by the planned visits of German aircraft and frigates to Japan and of a Japanese training fleet to Hamburg this summer.

North Korea slammed the security cooperation as “collusion” that crossed a “red line” and is “reminiscent of the Second World War,” according to North Korea’s state-run KCNA on Monday.

“The defeated war criminal nations are in cahoots to stage a series of war games escalating the regional tensions,” KCNA continued.

Kishida said Japan hopes to work with Germany “to deal with the deepening military cooperation between Russia and North Korea as well as China’s moves related to the Russian invasion of Ukraine,” according to Nippon.com, a news agency based in Tokyo.

Kishida and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz agreed in Berlin on Friday to boost their security cooperation after attending a NATO summit in Washington. It was Kishida’s first trip to Germany as prime minister.

Pact enters into force

Also on Friday, a military supply-sharing pact that aims to exchange food, fuel, and ammunition between Japan and Germany entered into force. The agreement was signed in January.

Beijing said the cooperation between Japan and Germany should not create tensions in the Asia-Pacific region.

Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, told VOA on Monday that “cooperation between countries, including military and security ties, should not target any third party or harm their interests.”

Maki Kobayashi, Japanese cabinet secretary for public affairs, told VOA’s Mandarin Service during the NATO summit that Japan has been working “very closely” with NATO countries on security issues and joint exercises.

“China has been saying there is an attempt at creating NATO in Asia, which is not correct,” she said.

Rather, she said, Japan has been seeking closer ties among like-minded countries “to share situational analyses and also align some policies” in support of an international order based on the rule of law.

In Berlin, Kishida and Scholz also agreed to enhance economic security including safeguarding the resilience of supply chains for key items such as critical minerals and semiconductors.

Cooperation seen two different ways

In Washington last week, the leaders of NATO and four Indo-Pacific countries, Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea, discussed how to ramp up their combined defense capacity.

“A union of defense industrial bases between NATO and IP4 countries would have significant and positive implications for international peace and stability,” said Matthew Brummer, professor at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo.

“Japan has recently moved to provide surface-to-air missiles to the United States, which then sends them to Ukraine,” he added.

In December, Tokyo agreed to ship Japanese-made Patriot guided missiles to backfill U.S. inventory after taking a major step away from its pacifist self-defense policies and easing its postwar ban on the export of lethal weapons.

“In general, the NATO-IP4 cooperation is a good thing, since it symbolizes the recognition that both the Indo-Pacific theater and the European theater are linked,” Elli-Katharina Pohlkamp, visiting fellow of the Asia Program at the European Council on Foreign Relations based in Berlin said via email.

However, she continued, “Strengthening NATO-IP4 ties could exacerbate tensions with China and Russia, who may perceive this cooperation as a containment strategy,” and encourage countries like North Korea to align more closely with them.

Adam Xu contributed to this report.
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BANGKOK — Police in Thailand say the bodies of six people were found Tuesday in a luxury hotel in downtown Bangkok and poisoning is suspected. 

Thailand’s Foreign Ministry said in a short statement that the dead were reported to be two Vietnamese Americans and four Vietnamese nationals. They were not identified further. 

The Thai newspaper Matichon showed photos of police at the Grand Hyatt Erawan Hotel investigating the deaths after being summoned by hotel staff at late afternoon. It said five bodies were found inside a room and one outside. 

Investigators said the bodies were found foaming at the mouth, an officer from the Lumpini police station said on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to release information. 

Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin went to the scene in the evening but did not provide any additional information to reporters gathered there. 
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Jakarta, Indonesia — Deforestation at one of Indonesia’s largest nickel processing hubs is threatening an Indigenous group that is among the country’s last uncontacted tribes, rights groups allege.

Nickel is a key component in the batteries of electric vehicles, and Indonesia is both the world’s largest producer and home to the biggest known reserves globally.

The government is keen to boost output, but there are growing concerns about the environmental consequences and impact on local residents.

Two NGOs told AFP that mining operations in North Maluku province are endangering the O’Hongana Manyawa people by stripping forests and pumping pollution into surrounding waters.

The Weda Bay nickel mine on Halmahera island — by some estimates the largest in the world — has left the Indigenous group encircled, said Syamsul Alam Agus, an advocate at the Association of Indigenous Peoples’ Defenders.

“They are surrounded… their territory is controlled,” he told AFP.

While some of the community have settled over decades, an estimated 300-500 people from the group maintain a nomadic, hunter-gatherer existence isolated from outsiders.

As they lose more land and sources of food, they are being forced into more human contact, potentially exposing them to novel diseases, experts said.

“The world has become apocalyptic for the O’Hongana Manyawa,” said Callum Russell, an advocacy officer at Indigenous rights NGO Survival International.

They are being “forced to essentially surrender” their lifestyle and “often come out to beg for food,” he told AFP.

‘This is our home’

Apparent encounters between the tribe and mine workers have recently circulated on social media, sometimes going viral in Indonesia.

In one, two men hold spears as they apparently face off against workers and a bulldozer. Another shows a man and two women appearing to approach mine workers to ask for food.

AFP could not immediately verify the videos but Dewi Anakoda, a local environmentalist who describes herself as a “companion” of the O’Hongana Manyawa, confirmed they are authentic.

“It’s not them entering the concession area but Weda Bay Nickel that entered their area,” she told AFP.

“They have always lived in the forest. They say, ‘this is our territory, this is our home. We never bother you, why do you disturb us?'”

Weda Bay began operations in 2019, with the deposits being developed by Indonesian company PT Weda Bay Nickel.

The firm is majority-owned by Strand Minerals, whose shares are divided between French mining giant Eramet and Chinese steel major Tsingshan.

According to Eramet, about 6,000 hectares of Weda Bay Nickel’s 45,000-hectare concession will be mined over a 25-year period.

It says around 2,000 hectares have been “exploited,” including for a nickel plant part of the sprawling Indonesia Weda Bay Industrial Park (IWIP).

NGO Climate Rights International (CRI) this year found that around 1,400 hectares of forest had already been lost inside Weda Bay Nickel’s concession.

Citing interviews with local residents, it alleged “people living near IWIP have had their land taken, deforested, or excavated by nickel companies and developers without their consent.”

It said sampling of local rivers and coastal waters found contamination from heavy metals believed to be linked to mining.

Deforestation

Weda Bay Nickel, Tsingshan, Indonesia’s Investment Coordinating Board and its Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry did not respond to requests for comment.

Eramet told AFP it is aware of the O’Hongana Manyawa and understands the “critical importance” of responsible mining and the well-being of Indigenous people.

It also touted the project’s economic benefits, including the creation of 14,000 direct jobs and more than $1.52 million in “community investment spending.”

Deforestation is a longstanding problem in Indonesia, and primary forest loss jumped 27 percent in 2023 after falling for several years from a peak in 2015-2016, according to the World Resources Institute.

Much of that is linked to fires or palm oil and wood pulp plantations, but mining-related deforestation accounted for the loss of about 10,000 hectares of primary forest last year, according to conservation start-up The TreeMap.

Concerns about Weda Bay’s environmental cost prompted a campaign urging German firm BASF to abandon plans with Eramet to build a nickel-cobalt refinery project in the area.

The $2.6 billion project was scrapped last month, though both firms said the decision was motivated by changing market conditions. The move does not affect existing operations.

NGOs have called on the government to set up protected areas for the O’Hongana Manyawa.

Dewi warned the development poses a threat to wildlife as well as humans.

It’s “not only the O’Hongana Manyawa tribe, there are Halmahera’s endemic birds, other birds, other habitats,” she said.

“I think in less than 20 years our forests will be completely cleared and we will feel the lasting ecological impact.”
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BEIJING — China posted lower than expected growth in the second quarter on Monday, with all eyes on how top officials gathering for a key meeting in Beijing might seek to tackle the country’s deepening economic malaise.

The world’s second-largest economy is grappling with a real estate debt crisis, weakening consumption, and an aging population.

Trade tensions with the United States and the European Union, which have sought to limit Beijing’s access to sensitive technology as well as putting up tariffs to protect their markets from cheap, subsidized Chinese goods, are also dragging growth down.

And on Monday, official statistics showed the economy grew by only 4.7 percent in the second quarter of the year.

It represents the slowest rate of expansion since early 2023, when China was emerging from a crippling zero-Covid policy that strangled growth.

Analysts polled by Bloomberg had expected 5.1 percent.

Retail sales — a key gauge of consumption — rose just two percent in June, down from 3.7 percent growth in May.

“The external environment is intertwined and complex,” the National Bureau of Statistics said.

“Domestic effective demand remains insufficient and the foundation for sound economic recovery and growth still needs to be strengthened,” it added.

‘A modest policy tweak’

From Monday, President Xi Jinping is set to oversee the ruling Communist Party’s secretive meeting known as the Third Plenum, which usually takes place every five years in October.

Beijing has offered few hints about what might be on the table.

State media in June said the delayed four-day gathering would “primarily examine issues related to further comprehensively deepening reform and advancing Chinese modernization,” and Xi has said the party is planning “major” reforms.

Analysts are hoping those pledges will result in badly needed support for the economy.

“The four-day meeting of the country’s top governing body couldn’t come soon enough,” Harry Murphy Cruise, an economist at Moody’s Analytics, said in a note.

But, he said, “while the case for reform is high, it’s unlikely to be a particularly exciting affair”.

“Instead, we expect a modest policy tweak that expands high-tech manufacturing and delivers a sprinkling of support to housing and households,” he added.

Reform not expected

The People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s official newspaper, appeared to confirm lower expectations when it warned last week that “reform is not about changing direction and transformation is not about changing color.”

Ting Lu, chief China economist at Nomura, said the meeting was “intended to generate and discuss big, long-term ideas and structural reforms instead of making short-term policy adjustments.”

The Third Plenum has previously been an occasion for the party’s top leadership to unveil major economic policy shifts.

In 1978, then-leader Deng Xiaoping used the meeting to announce market reforms that would put China on the path to dazzling economic growth by opening it to the world.

And more recently following the closed-door meeting in 2013, the leadership pledged to give the free market a “decisive” role in resource allocation, as well as other sweeping changes to economic and social policy.

Stubbornly low

Beijing has said it is aiming for 5% growth this year — enviable for many Western countries but a far cry from the double-digit expansion that for years drove the Chinese economy.

But the economic uncertainty is also fueling a vicious cycle that has kept consumption stubbornly low.

Among the most urgent issues facing the economy is the beleaguered property sector, which long served as a key engine for growth but is now mired in debt, with several top firms facing liquidation.

Authorities have moved in recent months to ease pressure on developers and restore confidence, including by encouraging local governments to buy up unsold homes.

Analysts say much more is required for a full rebound, as the country’s economy has yet to bounce back more than 18 months after damaging Covid-19 restrictions ended.
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BEIJING — China and Russia’s naval forces kicked off a joint exercise Sunday at a military port in southern China, official news agency Xinhua reported, days after NATO allies called Beijing a “decisive enabler” of the war in Ukraine.

The Chinese defense ministry said in a statement that forces from both sides recently patrolled the western and northern Pacific Ocean and that the operation had nothing to do with international and regional situations and didn’t target any third party.

The exercise, which began in Guangdong province Sunday and is expected to last until mid-July, aimed to demonstrate the capabilities of the navies in addressing security threats and preserving peace and stability globally and regionally, state broadcaster CCTV reported Saturday, adding it would include anti-missile exercises, sea strikes and air defense.

Xinhua News Agency reported the Chinese and Russian naval forces carried out on-map military simulation and tactical coordination exercises after the opening ceremony in the city of Zhanjiang.

The joint drills came on the heels of China’s latest tensions with NATO allies last week.

The sternly worded final communiqué, approved by the 32 NATO members at their summit in Washington, made clear that China is becoming a focus of the military alliance, calling Beijing a “decisive enabler” of Russia’s war against Ukraine. The European and North American members and their partners in the Indo-Pacific increasingly see shared security concerns coming from Russia and its Asian supporters, especially China.

In response, China accused NATO of seeking security at the expense of others and told the alliance not to bring the same “chaos” to Asia. Its foreign ministry maintained that China has a fair and objective stance on the war in Ukraine.

Last week, a U.S. Coast Guard cutter on routine patrol in the Bering Sea also came across several Chinese military ships in international waters but within the U.S. exclusive economic zone, American officials said. Its crew detected three vessels approximately 124 miles (200 kilometers) north of the Amchitka Pass in the Aleutian Islands, which mark a separation and linkage between the North Pacific and the Bering Sea.

Later, a fourth ship was spotted approximately 84 miles (135 kilometers) north of the Amukta Pass.

The U.S. side said the Chinese naval vessels operated within international rules and norms.
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