tokyo — Japan and India on Saturday decried remarks by U.S. President Joe Biden describing them as “xenophobic” countries that do not welcome immigrants, which the president said during a campaign fundraising event earlier in the week. 

Japan said Biden’s judgment was not based on an accurate understanding of its policy, while India rebutted the comment, defending itself as the world’s most open society. 

Biden grouped Japan and India as “xenophobic” countries, along with Russia and China as he tried to explain their struggling economies, contrasting the four with the strength of the U.S. as a nation of immigrants. 

Japan is a key U.S. ally, and both Japan and India are part of the Quad, a U.S.-led informal partnership that also includes Australia in countering increasingly assertive China in the Indo-Pacific. 

Just weeks ago, Biden hosted Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on an official visit, as the two leaders restated their “unbreakable alliance” and agreed to reinforce their security ties in the face of China’s threat in the Indo-Pacific. 

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi also made a state visit to Washington last year, when he was welcomed by business and political leaders. 

The White House said Biden meant no offense and was merely stressing that the U.S. was a nation of immigrants, saying he had no intention of undermining the relationship with Japan. 

Japan is aware of Biden’s remark as well as the subsequent clarification, a Japanese government official said Saturday, declining to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue. 

The official said it was unfortunate that part of Biden’s speech was not based on an accurate understanding of Japanese policies, and that Japan understands that Biden made the remark to emphasize the presence of immigrants as America’s strength. 

Japan-U.S. relations are “stronger than ever” as Prime Minister Kishida showed during his visit to the U.S. in April, the official said. 

In New Delhi, India’s External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar on Saturday also rebutted Biden’s comment, saying India was the most open society in the world. 

“I haven’t seen such an open, pluralistic, and diverse society anywhere in the world. We are actually not just not xenophobic, we are the most open, most pluralistic and in many ways the most understanding society in the world,” Jaishankar said at a roundtable organized by the Economic Times newspaper. 

Jaishankar also noted that India’s annual GDP growth is 7% and said, “You check some other countries’ growth rate, you will find an answer.” The U.S. economy grew by 2.5% in 2023, according to government figures. 

At a hotel fundraiser Wednesday, where the donor audience was largely Asian American, Biden said the upcoming U.S. election was about “freedom, America and democracy” and that the nation’s economy was thriving “because of you and many others.” 

“Why? Because we welcome immigrants,” Biden said. “Look, think about it. Why is China stalling so badly economically? Why is Japan having trouble? Why is Russia? Why is India? Because they’re xenophobic. They don’t want immigrants.” 

Japan has been known for a strict stance on immigration. But in recent years, it has eased its policies to make it easier for foreign workers to come and stay in Japan to mitigate its declining births and rapidly shrinking population. The number of babies born in Japan last year fell to a record low since Japan started compiling the statistics in 1899. 

India, which has the world’s largest population, enacted a new citizenship law earlier this year by setting religious criteria that allows fast-tracking naturalization for Hindus, Parsis, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains and Christians who fled to India from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan, while excluding Muslims. 
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Washington — The United States, boosted by allies and the private sector, is delivering for Pacific islands even if Washington alone cannot match China’s growing footprint, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said late Friday. 

Blinken spoke after lawmakers in the Solomon Islands, whose warming security relationship with China has sparked alarm in the United States and Australia, choose another Beijing-friendly prime minister.  

“China covers a lot of ground in the Pacific Islands, maybe more ground than we can cover ourselves,” Blinken told the McCain Institute’s Sedona Forum in Arizona. 

But he said that by partnering with like-minded Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Japan and India, “we cover a lot of ground.” 

“You’re seeing that play out in our ability to help deliver some of the things that people in those countries want,” Blinken said. 

“It is often more effective to say to a country — we’re not asking you to choose, we want to give you a better choice.” 

He pointed to an initiative — announced at a summit last year between U.S. President Joe Biden and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese — in which Google is building trans-Pacific cables to improve internet connectivity in South Pacific countries. 

The high-speed cables are an alternative to those on offer from China, whose tech companies have been increasingly active in the South Pacific. 

Tensions have eased between the United States and China, with Blinken last month visiting Beijing for the second time in less than a year, but the Biden administration has declared China to be the top long-term rival to U.S. global leadership.  
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OTTAWA — An official probe found evidence of foreign interference in Canada’s last two federal elections, but the results of the votes were not affected, and the electoral system was robust, according to initial findings released on Friday.

The findings in the interim report confirm Trudeau’s assertion that China tried to meddle in the elections to no avail. The commission will release its final report by the end of this year. Beijing has repeatedly denied any interference.

“Acts of foreign interference did occur during the last two federal general elections, but they did not undermine the integrity of our electoral system,” said commissioner Marie-Josee Hogue, who is leading the independent public inquiry.

The Foreign Interference Commission was set up last year by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government under pressure from opposition legislators unhappy about media reports on China’s possible role in the elections. The commission is mandated to investigate allegations of foreign interference in the 2019 and 2021 elections.

“Our system remains sound. Voters were able to cast their ballots, their votes were duly registered and counted, and there is nothing to suggest that there was any interference whatsoever in this regard,” Hogue said in a statement.

“Nonetheless, the acts of interference that occurred are a stain on our electoral process and impacted the process leading up to the actual vote,” she said.
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Bangkok — Global media watchdog Reporters Without Borders, or RSF, says press freedom in Asia continues to see a decline, with 26 out of 31 countries falling on its annual index.

According to the group’s latest press freedom index, Asia is the second-most difficult region for practicing journalism. Five countries in the region — Myanmar, China, North Korea and Vietnam — are among the world’s 10 most dangerous countries for media professionals in the 2024 rankings.

There are no countries in the Asia-Pacific region in the top 15 ranking for press freedom.

China, North Korea and Vietnam, three of the world’s remaining communist governments, have long been near the bottom of RSF’s press freedom index ranking of 180 countries. This year, China was ranked 172, Vietnam 174 and North Korea 177.

Overall, it’s the countries and territories that have shown a drop in press freedom in recent years that have contributed to East Asia becoming a difficult place for media to operate.

Hong Kong was once a model for press freedom in the Asia region, but the city’s ranking recently dropped from 80 to 148 following political unrest and new laws that affect media freedoms.

Since the Beijing-imposed national security law came into force in 2020, at least a dozen media outlets have closed. Beijing says the law has been necessary to stabilize the city following mass political unrest in 2019.

Aleksandra Bielakowska, an advocacy officer at RSF, said Hong Kong’s media freedoms still haven’t improved.

“The worst for Hong Kong is the political and legal factors. Hong Kong’s position is very low; the situation remains very difficult,” she told VOA.

Hong Kong is in the middle of two high-profile national security trials. Jimmy Lai, the media mogul and founder of the now-defunct Apple Daily newspaper, faces national security charges for “collusion with foreign forces” that could see him sentenced to life in prison. Stand News, which ceased operations in 2021 after a police raid, is also on trial, with its chief editors facing charges under Hong Kong’s colonial-era sedition law. The verdict was recently postponed until August.

Hong Kong’s Justice Secretary Paul Lam recently said that press freedom still exists in the city and that media can criticize the government.

But Emily Lau, a former journalist and former chair of Hong Kong’s Democratic Party, said many reporters are unsure whether that is the case.

“There is concern. I don’t know whether that is reassuring. Journalists themselves are concerned. People are not sure whether it is really true,” she told VOA.

Due to the sensitivity of the cases and concerns over press freedom, several media experts in Hong Kong declined to speak to VOA when requested.

Although RSF ranked Hong Kong up five spots to 135 in 2024, that doesn’t mean press freedoms have improved.

“The reasons for that are because of the movement of other countries inside the index itself,” Bielakowska said.

RSF said the deteriorated media environments in Afghanistan, Syria and Eritrea, which are the bottom three countries of the rankings, have pushed other countries further up the list.

The same can be applied with Myanmar. The new RSF rankings puts Myanmar up two places to 171, but it doesn’t mean press freedom is improving.

Today, the Southeast Asian country is the world’s second-worst jailer of journalists, only behind China, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Following a military coup led by General Min Aung Hlaing and his troops in 2021, Myanmar’s junta has been accused of arbitrary arrests, harassment and torture, while at least four journalists have been killed by the military, rights groups say.

At least a dozen media outlets have had their licenses revoked by the military government in three years, while hundreds of journalists have been arrested.

Media outlets who are allowed to legally report in Myanmar must be registered with the military government to operate. But registering for press accreditation means journalists must provide the junta with their personal details, which discourages them from doing so over fear of arrest. For the journalists who have continued to report, they have had to work “undercover” to avoid being targeted by military personnel.

Aung Naing Soe, a Myanmar reporter, said journalists are a “primary threat” toward the military’s attempts to rule.

“The junta arrests not only journalists but everyone against them. They see journalists as one of their primary threats since before the coup,” he told VOA.

Since the junta attempted to rule, ousted politicians formed a civilian-led government, while civilian defense forces and ethnic political groups have taken up arms against the military.

But Aung Naing Soe, who is also the filmmaker of the documentary “Undaunted” —about the uprising against military rule — added that the difficulties in reporting come from both sides.

“Everybody knows the risks from the military’s intimidation. We expected a little bit of press freedom from the revolutionary groups, but lately we’ve started seeing some [rebel] groups attempt to control the media,” he said.

“Like everyone else in the country, Myanmar journalists are getting tired. Sometimes we don’t have any energy left to write a short story or make a short interview. We’re all emotionally drained.”

There was some encouraging news for media freedom in East Asia. Thailand saw the biggest jump in the 2024 rankings, moving up 19 spaces to 87. Thailand’s security performance was one of the main reasons for the jump, according to Bielakowska.

“There was less violence than in other years, and the electoral campaign for the general elections of May 2023 did not result in demonstrations of violence against journalists,” she said.

On the other hand, she said that despite the political transition, there has not been notable improvement in the overall political environment.
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TAIPEI, Taiwan — China on Friday launched a lunar probe to land on the far side of the moon and return with samples that could provide insights into differences between the less-explored region and the better-known near side.

It is the latest advance in China’s increasingly sophisticated space exploration program, which is now competing with the U.S., still the leader in space.

China also has a three-member crew on its own orbiting space station and aims to put astronauts on the moon by 2030. Three Chinese lunar probe missions are planned over the next four years.

Free from exposure to Earth and other interference, the moon’s somewhat mysterious far side is ideal for radio astronomy and other scientific work. Because the far side never faces Earth, a relay satellite is needed to maintain communications.

The rocket carrying the Chang’e-6 lunar probe — named after the Chinese mythical moon goddess — lifted off Friday at 5:27 p.m. as planned from the Wenchang launch center on the island province of Hainan. About 35 minutes later it separated entirely from the massive Long March-5 rocket — China’s largest — that had slung it into space, as technicians monitoring the launch from ground control smiled and applauded.

Shortly afterward, launch mission commander Zhang Zuosheng took to a podium at the front of the room and said the launch had gone off exactly as planned and the spacecraft was on its set trajectory. “I declare this launch mission a complete success,” Zhang said to further applause.

The Philippine Space Agency issued a statement saying expected debris from the rocket launch was “projected to have fallen within the identified drop zones.”

China in 2021 was forced to defend its handling of a rocket booster that burned up over the Indian Ocean after the administrator of the American space agency and others accused Beijing of acting recklessly by allowing its rocket to fall to Earth seemingly uncontrolled after the mission.

Huge numbers of people crowded Hainan’s beaches to view the launch, which comes in the middle of China’s five-day May Day holiday. As with previous recent launches, the event was televised live by state broadcaster CCTV.

After orbiting the moon to reduce speed, the lander will separate from the spacecraft and within 48 hours of setting down it will begin drilling into the lunar surface and scooping up samples with its robotic arm. With the samples sealed in a container, it will then reconnect with the returner for the trip back to Earth. The entire mission is set to last 53 days.

China in 2020 returned samples from the moon’s near side, the first time anyone has done so since the U.S. Apollo program that ended in the 1970s. Analysis of the samples found they contained water in tiny beads embedded in lunar dirt.

Also in the past week, three Chinese astronauts returned home from a six-month mission on the country’s orbiting space station after the arrival of its replacement crew.

China built its own space station after being excluded from the International Space Station, largely because of U.S. concerns over the Chinese military’s total control of the space program amid a sharpening competition in technology between the two geopolitical rivals. U.S. law bars almost all cooperation between the U.S. and Chinese space programs without explicit congressional approval.

Faced with such limitations, China has expanded cooperation with other countries and agencies. The latest mission carries scientific instruments from France, Italy and the European Space Agency in cooperation with Sweden. A small Pakistani satellite is also on board.

China’s ambitious space program aims to put astronauts on the moon by 2030, as well as bring back samples from Mars around the same year and launch three lunar probe missions over the next four years. The next is schedule for 2027.

Longer-term plans call for a permanent crewed base on the lunar surface, although those appear to remain in the conceptual phase.

China conducted its first crewed space mission in 2003, becoming the third country after the former Soviet Union and the U.S. to put a person into space using its own resources.

The three-module Tiangong, much smaller than the ISS, was launched in 2021 and completed 18 months later. It can accommodate up to six astronauts at a time and is mainly dedicated to scientific research. The crew will also install space debris protection equipment, carry out payload experiments, and beam science classes to students on Earth.

China has also said that it eventually plans to offer access to its space station to foreign astronauts and space tourists. With the ISS nearing the end of its useful life, China could eventually be the only country or corporation to maintain a crewed station in orbit.

The U.S. space program is believed to still hold a significant edge over China’s due to its spending, supply chains and capabilities.

The U.S. aims to put a crew back on the lunar surface by the end of 2025 as part of a renewed commitment to crewed missions, aided by private sector players such as SpaceX and Blue Origin. They plan to land on the moon’s south pole where permanently shadowed craters are believed to be packed with frozen water.
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pentagon — U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin was in Hawaii on Thursday to meet with leaders from Australia, Japan and the Philippines amid increasing concerns about Chinese military aggression in the Pacific.

Defense officials said the talks would continue the allies’ “historic progress” on cooperation in their defense industries and military activities, including air and missile defense.

Bradley Bowman, senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, called the quadrilateral group an “anti-aggression coalition” whose efforts protect “many countries around the world who depend on the ability for commercial vessels to sail freely and unimpeded through the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea.”

“The single biggest reason for what we’re witnessing in Hawaii this week is the increasingly aggressive behavior of the People’s Republic of China,” Bowman told VOA.

 “I think Japan, Australia and the Philippines understand that investments in deterrence are far less costly than dealing with a war that could have been prevented, and they understand that deterrence will be much stronger and more effective if they work with the United States and they work with each other,” he said.

Austin was to meet with Australian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defense Richard Marles on Thursday following Australia’s commitment last month to increase defense spending by 20% over the next decade.

Austin also planned to meet with Japanese Minister of Defense Minoru Kihara. During an April state visit in Washington, U.S. President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced deepening military cooperation, including creation of a trilateral air defense architecture with Australia and trilateral exercises with the United Kingdom.

Trilateral session

The U.S., Japan and Australia were to convene a trilateral meeting following the bilateral talks, where a senior defense official said they were expected to sign a new trilateral agreement on strategic research and development.

Austin then planned to host a quadrilateral meeting with Filipino Secretary of National Defense Gilberto Teodoro and their Japanese and Australian counterparts.  It will be the second such meeting of the four countries’ defense ministers.

A senior defense official, speaking to reporters ahead of the meeting, said talks would  focus on deterring actors from activities that could “undermine peace and stability in the region, whether it’s in East Asia, the East China Sea, South China Sea or the Pacific Islands.”

Tensions have risen between China and the Philippines in the South China Sea, with China’s coast guard using water cannons last month to threaten Filipino fishing ships. China has also used collision and ramming tactics, undersea barriers and a military-grade laser to stop Philippine resupply and patrol missions.

Bowman said he expected Beijing to complain about the talks as an attempt to form a coalition like NATO in the Pacific.

“I think as a general rule, the People’s Republic of China wants to deal with everything in the region in a bilateral way that allows Beijing to take advantage of power asymmetries. … The bully on the playground … doesn’t want to deal with four or five kids at the same time,” he said.

Last month, Austin spoke with Chinese Admiral Dong Jun in the first dialogue between the two countries’ defense chiefs in nearly 17 months.

The Pentagon said Austin and his Chinese counterpart discussed “defense relations” and global security issues ranging from Russia’s unprovoked war in Ukraine to recent provocations from North Korea. A Pentagon press release said Austin stressed the importance of “respect for high seas freedom of navigation as guaranteed under international law, especially in the South China Sea.” 

Beijing has asserted its desire to control access to the South China Sea and bring Taiwan under its control, by force if necessary.

Biden has said U.S. troops will defend the democratically run island from attack.
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Seoul, South Korea — South Korea’s government raised its terror alert level for five diplomatic missions Thursday, warning North Korea could attack South Korean diplomats overseas. 

The country’s terror watch level was raised to “alert” status, the second-highest level in a four-tier system, indicating a “high possibility of a terrorist attack,” according to a statement from South Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 

The statement said the decision was made during a Thursday meeting of South Korea’s Counter Terrorism Center. 

South Korean officials recently received intelligence that North Korea was planning to harm South Korean diplomats, it added, without disclosing the exact nature of the alleged threat.  

The targeted diplomatic missions include South Korean embassies in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, as well as consulates in the Far Eastern Russian city of Vladivostok and the northeastern Chinese city of Shenyang.  

South Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not immediately respond to VOA’s request for more details. 

The two Koreas have remained technically in a state of war since their 1950s conflict ended in a truce instead of a peace treaty. However, it has been decades since major sustained hostilities have arisen. OK?

North Korea has a long history of terror attacks and political assassinations against South Korea. In 1983, North Korea bombed a hotel in Rangoon, Burma, now Yangon, Myanmar, during a visit by South Korea’s then-president Chun Doo-hwan. Although Chun survived, 21 others were killed. In 1988, North Korean agents blew up a South Korean civilian airliner, killing 115 people.  

After the airliner attack, the United States formally placed North Korea on its list of state sponsors of terrorism. Pyongyang was removed from the list in 2008 amid negotiations over North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.  

In 2017, the United States reinstated North Korea on the terror sponsor list after American college student Otto Warmbier died shortly after being released from North Korean custody.  

That year, North Korea also assassinated Kim Jong Nam, the half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, during a brazen attack at a Malaysian airport.  

North Korea has denied involvement in any terrorist activities. It has not commented on the South’s latest accusations.  
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SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea’s National Assembly voted Thursday to approve a bill backed by the ruling and opposition parties to launch a fresh probe into the deadly Halloween crowd crush in the capital Seoul in 2022.

An earlier bill, which was backed the opposition-led parliament without the support of the ruling People Power Party (PPP), was vetoed by President Yoon Suk Yeol in January.

The latest bill is a compromise that removes granting full investigative power to the panel, which Yoon had objected to, according to his office.

Under the bill, a committee made up of members recommended by two major parties and a chair chosen by them through consultations will look into the tragedy.

The passage of the bill comes after Yoon met opposition leader Lee Jae-myung of the Democratic Party for talks on Monday following the PPP’s crushing general election defeat last month.

It also comes amid growing pressure on authorities, including from relatives of the victims, to hold those responsible to account.

A spokesperson for Yoon on Wednesday welcomed the agreement reached between the ruling and opposition parties on the bill as indicating a return to cooperation in politics.

The Halloween crowd crush in Seoul’s Itaewon district in 2022 killed nearly 160 people and relatives of the victims as well as the United Nations Human Rights Committee have since called for an independent inquiry.

A police investigation published early last year concluded that a lack of preparation and an inadequate response were the main factors behind the deadly crush.

In January, South Korean prosecutors indicted the former head of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency, charging him with contributing through negligence to the crush.

No senior government figures, including the interior and safety minister, have resigned or been sacked so far over the crush.
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Berlin — It’s a cold, overcast afternoon, but Su Yutong is in a cheerful mood as she walks in a Berlin park.

Her hat askew and hair in pigtails, the 47-year-old proves popular among the animals. A French bulldog runs over to greet her. Swans and ducks paddle close.

Swinging her sequined purse as she walks, Su brags to me about how well she plays ping pong. Her manner is a contrast to the Berliners hurrying by on this windy day.

But the journalist’s seemingly carefree attitude belies something darker.

Heading back to her apartment, Su says the buildings look different in the daylight. As someone targeted frequently by the Chinese government, the Radio Free Asia reporter prefers to walk at night.

“Because in the evening, no one knows me,” she said.

You don’t have to hear much of Su’s story to understand why she prefers anonymity.

Held under house arrest in China before fleeing to Europe, the journalist is still targeted for her coverage of human rights and politics. From smear campaigns and people sharing her address on an underground sex website, to false bomb threats made in her name, the harassment has left a deep mark.

“I keep telling the truth, so they want me to shut up, including by threatening me,” she said, in reference to the Chinese government, which she and others say is behind the attacks.

For more than a decade, Beijing-backed harassment has been the reality for Su. China ranks among the worst perpetrators of what is known as transnational repression, but even by those standards, Su’s case is extreme, experts say.

 

“The everyday implications of transnational repression are vast,” said Gözde Böcü, a researcher at the Citizen Lab. The University of Toronto group focuses on digital threats to human rights.

There’s the immediate effect, but the daily fallout is more severe. Long-term consequences include paranoia, depression and isolation, which experts say can also give perpetrators what they want most: silence.

Over the past decade, at least 26 governments have targeted journalists abroad, according to Freedom House. The harassment against Su underscores a broader pattern in which authoritarian governments are increasingly comfortable reaching across borders to target their critics.

Neither China’s Foreign Ministry nor its embassy in Berlin replied to VOA’s multiple emails requesting comment for this story.

It’s been more than 10 years since Su last set foot in China, but Beijing is still home. Born and raised in the country’s capital, Su decided to pursue a career in journalism because of the lack of free-flowing information there.

“China blocks the truth. It needs to have a lot of journalists to tell the real stories, tell the real events and the truth, so I decided to become a reporter,” Su said.

She worked at Radio Beijing but left in 2004 due to government censorship.

In 2010, Su made a fateful decision: She distributed Li Peng Diary, a book by the former premier about Tiananmen Square that’s banned in China.

“I had to make it public,” she said. “After it was published, I became very dangerous.”

Authorities raided Su’s home and detained her, but public pressure pushed authorities to place Su under house arrest. During the Dragon Boat Festival in June that year, only one officer was left guarding Su’s house. The journalist seized the opportunity to escape.

“I called my mom on a public phone. I didn’t say goodbye. I didn’t tell her I was leaving,” she said. “It was a very painful and sudden decision.”

With the help of colleagues and friends, Su fled to Hong Kong and then on to Germany.

More than 7,300 kilometers lie between Berlin and Beijing, and for a while that distance helped Su feel safe. Slowly rebuilding her life, she worked first at the German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle before moving to VOA’s sister outlet Radio Free Asia.

“When I arrived in Germany, at least I was able to write freely,” she said. “I thought Germany was very safe.”

 

But the distance began to shrink. And that, says Mareike Ohlberg, is often the goal.

Ohlberg researches China at the German Marshall Fund think tank in Berlin. From her office, with a view of the Reichstag, she said, “The basic tactics of transnational repression are usually geared towards showing people that they can’t get away from the Chinese government. To show that we can get you anywhere, we can find you anywhere.”

What’s known in China as the “three afflictions” helps explain why Beijing’s harassment is so aggressive, according to Ohlberg. Under Mao Zedong, China no longer had to worry about being bullied by foreign powers. In turn, Deng Xiaoping addressed poverty and hunger. As this narrative goes, Ohlberg said, the last main affliction is criticism of China, and it’s President Xi Jinping’s responsibility to root it out.

“The Party can shut up criticism inside of China. But is it really a strong country if it can’t do the same overseas?” Ohlberg said about Beijing’s mindset. “That is a big part of what we’re seeing.”

In 2011, Su led a solidarity campaign for Ai Weiwei after the artist was secretly detained in China. In response, a Chinese-run news site posted doctored photographs appearing to show Su naked and falsely referring to her as Ai Weiwei’s mistress.

From there, the harassment escalated.

Government-run outlets including the Global Times launched campaigns against her. On the social media platform X, then known as Twitter, insults like “prostitute” and “dog” were common. Death and rape threats were frequent, too. Deepfake pornographic images spread on social media.

Su says she was surveilled at protests outside the Chinese Embassy in Berlin, and on multiple occasions, Chinese authorities offered her large sums of money to stop work.

In a more unsettling case, in 2022, men began ringing the doorbell to her apartment, saying they were responding to a sex worker advertisement on an underground website. Su suspects Chinese operatives posted her address to the site.

“I felt very disgusted and very humiliated,” Su said, adding, “I was afraid to walk down the street.”

The sexualized harassment mirrors broader strategies that repressive governments use to target women abroad, says the Citizen Lab’s Böcü. It’s “a devastating practice that can silence female journalists,” she said.

The fake advertisement isn’t the only time Su’s identity was stolen and used against her.

In February 2023, unknown people began booking rooms at luxury hotels around the world, from Houston to Istanbul, under the names of Su and two other activists. They then called in fake bomb threats in a process known as swatting. Again, the Chinese government is the prime suspect.

At the time, a spokesperson from China’s Washington embassy told VOA they were aware of the specifics of the case but that China “firmly opposes” the U.S. smearing its reputation.

“The accusation of ‘transnational repression’ is totally made out of thin air. The U.S. attempt to hype up ‘China threat’ and tarnish China’s reputation is doomed to fail,” the spokesperson said via email.

Transnational repression is typically either digital or physical. The former is easier and cheaper to perpetrate, according to Ohlberg. By contrast, what Su has faced is more expensive and time-consuming to carry out.

“That tends to be reserved for people that are at the top of the Chinese government’s list,” Ohlberg said. “Pretty much anything goes — anything that the party-state thinks it can get away with internationally.”

Following the harassment directed at Su, Berlin police recommended she change her address.

It’s been 10 months since Su moved, and her new apartment is still mostly empty.

White walls meet high ceilings with ornate crown molding.

Su is learning her way around. Coming home after a walk, she accidentally bumps a light switch in the foyer, triggering an unexpected display of disco lights. Erupting into laughter, Su says the previous owner left them.

Over the years, Su has left a trail of apartments in her wake.

There’s the old apartment she still owns in Beijing. She wants to sell, she said, but China has resisted giving her a document necessary for the sale. There’s also her other Berlin apartment.

Both still have their furniture and decorations: time capsules of periods of a life she can’t retrieve.

Being forced to move is one of the obvious effects of the harassment Su has faced. Other ramifications are subtler and deeper felt, like food. “I think everyone has memories of food as a child,” she said.

The German capital has a respectable Chinese food scene, but Su can rarely enjoy it.

Dining out increases the risk of running into officials from China’s Berlin embassy, she said. Another concern is that some Chinese restaurants around the world have been found to be secret overseas police stations run by Beijing, according to a report by the human rights group Safeguard Defenders.

Unable to enjoy the comforts of a meal in a Chinese restaurant, Su has become a skilled chef. “I slowly learned everything,” she said.

Over a conversation reaching into the night, Su whips up several dishes: fried rice, tofu, cucumber salad, fish, dumplings, sesame buns. Wearing a hat — she always wears a hat — she serves jasmine tea and red wine, the latter a gift from a German lawmaker.

The journalist alternates in and out of levity. She boasts that unlike Elon Musk, she can get into the exclusive Berlin club Berghain. (Vice reported in 2022 that bouncers turned the tech billionaire away. Musk tells a different version.) Su smirks at the comparison then switches to more serious matters, like how her suspicion about Chinese restaurants has given way to suspicion about Chinese people in general.

In her free time, Su likes to help fellow dissidents still inside China. But in Germany, she worries whether members of the diaspora are actually reporting back to Beijing.

“I became very, very cautious,” she said.

That wariness is common among those targeted by transnational repression, according to Böcü.

“People fear that other actors or individuals within the community could spy on them. And these fears are not unfounded,” she said. “Growing mistrust in these different communities is also a big problem.”

Su is doing better now, but for a two-year period she hardly left her apartment. And when she did, she said, “I kept checking to see if there were any suspicious people around me.”

But, says Su, fear is what she believes drives Chinese authorities. “They are afraid of information, afraid of the truth,” she said.

And while the harassment hasn’t stopped, Su says the harmful effects are waning. Through everything, Su never stopped reporting because backing down to the Chinese government was never even a consideration for her.

“They didn’t expect me to slowly come out of that shadow. I think they should be afraid, not me,” she said. “They can’t shut me up. They can’t achieve this goal.”

Reporter: Liam Scott; Editors: Jessica Jerreat, Holly Franko; Camera: Jonathan Spier
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Washington — A majority of Americans believe that China uses TikTok to shape U.S. public opinion, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted as Washington moves closer to potentially banning the Chinese-owned short-video app.

Some 58% of respondents to the two-day poll, which closed on Tuesday, agreed with a statement that the Chinese government uses TikTok, which is owned by China’s ByteDance, to “influence American public opinion.” Some 13% disagreed, and the rest were unsure or didn’t answer the question. Republicans were more likely than Democrats to see China as using the app to affect U.S. opinions.

TikTok says it has spent more than $1.5 billion on data security efforts and would not share data on its 170 million U.S. users with the Chinese government. The company told Congress last year that it does “not promote or remove content at the request of the Chinese government.”

TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

President Joe Biden last week signed legislation giving ByteDance 270 days to divest TikTok’s U.S. assets or face a ban.

TikTok has vowed to challenge the ban as a violation of the protections of free expression enshrined in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, and TikTok users are expected to again take legal action. A U.S. judge in Montana in November blocked a state ban on TikTok, citing free-speech concerns.

The Reuters/Ipsos poll found 50% of Americans supported banning TikTok, while 32% opposed a ban and the rest were unsure. The poll only surveyed U.S. adults and doesn’t reflect the views of people under age 18, who make up a significant portion of TikTok’s users in the United States. About six in 10 poll respondents aged 40 and older supported a ban, compared with about four in 10 aged 18-39.

The poll showed 46% of Americans agreed with a statement that China is using the app to “spy on everyday Americas,” an allegation Beijing has denied.

The app is ubiquitous in America. Even Biden’s re-election campaign is using it as a tool to win over voters ahead of the Nov. 5 presidential election. Biden’s rival, Republican Donald Trump, who has criticized a potential ban and is the majority owner of the company that operates his social media app Truth Social, has not joined.

A majority of Americans, 60%, said it was inappropriate for U.S. political candidates to use TikTok to promote their campaigns.

Biden’s signing of the law sets a Jan. 19 deadline for a sale — one day before his term is set to expire — but he could extend the deadline by three months if he determines that ByteDance is making progress on divesting the app.

The poll, which was conducted online, gathered responses from 1,022 U.S. adults nationwide and had a margin of error of about 3 percentage points.
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washington — State media in China, where social protest is strongly discouraged or punished, have been vocally supporting the pro-Palestinian protests on U.S. campuses while decrying what they describe as a heavy-handed crackdown on free speech by authorities.

“Can blindly using violence to suppress students be able to quell domestic dissatisfaction with the government?” wrote Jun Zhengping Studio, a social media account operated by the News Broadcasting Center of the People’s Liberation Army, in an April 26 commentary.

“If American politicians really have a sense of democracy and human rights, they should stop supporting Israel, stop endorsing Israel’s actions, and do more things that are conducive to world peace. Otherwise, the only one who will suffer backlash is the United States itself.”

The People’s Daily, China’s state-owned newspaper, said in a video that American students are protesting because they “can no longer stand the double standards of the United States.”

On social media platform X, formerly Twitter, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying echoed that comment and implied the U.S. government was cracking down on protests at home while supporting protests abroad.

She posted a clip of U.S. police arresting protesters with the question, “Remember how U.S. officials reacted when these protests happened elsewhere?”

The protests this month at scores of universities, including New York’s Columbia University and George Washington University in the U.S. capital, have opposed Israel’s war against Hamas militants in Gaza over the large number of civilian casualties. The student protesters are demanding that their schools divest from companies with ties to Israel and are calling for a cease-fire in Gaza.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the protests are a symbol of American democracy, but he criticized the protesters for remaining silent on the attack by Hamas militants in October that killed more 1,200 Israelis and sparked the conflict.

Critics say antisemitic rhetoric emerged at some of the protests, and there have been clashes with police.

As of Monday, more than 900 students had been arrested, mainly for trespassing because of protest camps they erected on university property.

In an email to all faculty members and students, American University stated that the school’s policy of supporting free speech has not changed, but it explicitly prohibits “disruptive” behavior such as setting up camps.

“Any demonstration that continues to interfere with university operations or violate policies after engagement and de-escalation will not be permitted, and those responsible will face conduct actions, disciplinary sanctions, or arrest as appropriate,” the email said.

Reactions differ

The handling of the protests has been in stark contrast with the Chinese authorities’ crackdown on domestic dissent and any form of street protest.

China’s strict zero-COVID measures and censorship of critical voices during the pandemic spurred street protests in many Chinese cities in November 2022 that became known as the White Paper movement. Protesters would hold up blank sheets of white paper to symbolize support for the protests while not actually saying or doing anything, in hopes of not getting into trouble.

Nonetheless, Chinese police arrested and surveilled those caught holding up white paper. Chinese Ambassador to France Lu Shaye accused “external anti-China forces” of being behind the protests and called them a “color revolution.”

Critics were quick to point out Beijing’s double standard when Chinese state media backed U.S. college protesters.

Sean Haines, a British man who worked for Chinese state media from 2016 to 2019, told VOA that Chinese state media’s extensive coverage of Western demonstrations is a consistent policy.

“At Xinhua, when we chose the running order for news, foreign protests were always promoted,” he said, “especially if it was around election times. ‘Look how scary foreign democracies are, aren’t you glad China doesn’t have this?'”

He said footage of protests is easy to find in places with a free press, such as the United States and the West, while there are almost no images of protests in China, a one-party authoritarian state where public demonstrations are quickly stopped.

“It’s ironic.” he said. “China is using [the] West’s free speech, openness, right to protest — against itself.”

Although Chinese authorities have not declared support for any side in the Israel-Hamas war, they were reluctant to condemn the militants’ October attack and repeatedly blamed Israel and the U.S. for the conflict in Gaza.

At the same time, antisemitic and anti-Israel sentiments, including conspiracy theories, have been allowed on China’s highly censored social media.

A popular claim is that U.S. support for Israel is not because of history and democratic values but because a Jewish cabal secretly controls U.S. politics and business.

Hu Xijin, a special commentator and former editor-in-chief of China’s state-run Global Times, posted on social media site Weibo on April 19 that all walks of life in the U.S. “cannot suppress the protests of college students everywhere, which shows that the Jewish political and business alliance’s control over American public opinion has declined.”

Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
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