Researchers Detail Decline in Australia’s Environmental Health in 2023

SYDNEY — An annual university report said although Australia’s environmental scorecard deteriorated in 2023, the nation fared better than many other countries.

While 2023 was the hottest year on record globally, for Australia it was the eighth hottest year because of wet and relatively mild conditions.

The research is carried out each year by the Australia National University,  or ANU, and is contained in the Australian Environment 2023 Report.

Researchers use scientific information to give Australia a score out of 10. In 2023, it was 7.5, down from 8.7 the previous year.

The decline was mostly due to reduced rainfall compared to 2022.  They stress that the report card is not a reflection of the Canberra government’s policies, but a general assessment of the health of the environment.

Information about the weather data is used alongside satellite data on threatened species, biodiversity and water flows to calculate the annual score.

Australia’s biodiversity took a significant hit last year, according to the study. It states that a record 130 species were added to the Threatened Species List, compared with the average of 29 species added annually.

The university survey details how Australia’s population grew “rapidly” last year by 3.5%, its fastest growth in decades.

The study revealed that Australians are the world’s 10th worst greenhouse gas emitters per person, just after Saudi Arabia.

Professor Albert Van Dijk from the Australian National University’s Fenner School of Environment told VOA the country’s greenhouse gas emissions increased for the first time in five years – mainly because domestic air travel picked up after COVID.

“While our emissions per person are very slowly going down – a lot more slowly than in most, you know, industrialized countries, but they are going down slowly – but our population is growing so fast,” he said. “It is growing faster than our emissions are going down.  So, you know, we are not achieving the emissions reductions as a country that we need to achieve.”

Overall, the annual ANU report states that Australia is the world’s 15th largest emitter of greenhouse gases, contributing 1% of global emissions.

Van Dijk believes as a wealthy nation, Australia should be doing more to combat the impact of climate change.

“If you look at the uptake of electric vehicles, if you look at the use of renewables, we are still a laggard internationally,” he said. “We have got the 10th highest emissions per person globally; three times the global average, two times the average Chinese person.”

He said countries like the United Kingdom are doing more to reduce the emission per person.

“Australia needs to really step up its game. I think we should be very worried about the state of the environment globally, and especially about climate change.”

Australia’s government has for the first time legislated a target to cut carbon emissions by 43% from 2005 levels by 2030 and to achieve net zero emissions by 2050.

 

your ad here

North Korea: Kim Jong Un Supervised Tests of Artillery Systems Targeting Seoul

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un supervised a live-fire drill of nuclear-capable “super-large” multiple rocket launchers designed to target South Korea’s capital as he vowed to boost his war deterrent in the face of deepening confrontations with rivals, state media said Tuesday.

The report came a day after the South Korean and Japanese militaries said they detected North Korea firing multiple short-range ballistic missiles toward waters off its eastern coast, adding to a streak of weapons displays that have raised regional tensions.

Experts say North Korea’s large-sized artillery rockets blur the boundaries between artillery systems and ballistic missiles because they can create their own thrust and are guided during delivery. The North has described some of these systems, including the 600mm multiple rocket launchers that were tested Monday, as capable of delivering tactical nuclear warheads.

Photos published by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency showed at least six rockets being fired simultaneously from launch vehicles and flames and smoke blanketing what appeared to be a small island target.

The KCNA said North Korean troops following the salvo launches also conducted a separate test that simulated a midair explosion of an artillery shell at a pre-set altitude. The report didn’t specify whether that test was to rehearse how a nuclear weapon would be detonated over an enemy target.

Kim called the 600mm multiple rocket launchers as key parts of his growing arsenal of weapons that are supposedly capable of destroying the South Korean capital of Seoul if another war breaks out on the Korean Peninsula.

“(Kim) said that it is necessary to further impress upon the enemies that if an armed conflict and a war break out, they can never avoid disastrous consequences,” the KCNA said. He called for his army to “more thoroughly fulfill their missions to block and suppress the possibility of war with the constant perfect preparedness to collapse the capital of the enemy and the structure of its military forces.”

North Korea’s launches came days after the end of the latest South Korean-U.S. combined military drills that the North portrays as an invasion rehearsal. It was unclear whether the North timed the launches with a visit to Seoul by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who on Monday attended a democracy summit and held talks with South Korean officials over the North Korean threat.

Tensions on the Korean Peninsula have risen since 2022, after Kim used Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a distraction to accelerate his testing of missiles and other weapons. The United States and South Korea have responded by expanding their combined training and trilateral drills involving Japan and updating their deterrence strategies built around strategic U.S. assets.

There are concerns that North Korea could further dial up pressure in an election year in the United States and South Korea.

In a fiery speech to Pyongyang’s rubber-stamp parliament in January, Kim declared that he was abandoning North Korea’s long-standing goal of reconciliation with the South and ordered the rewriting of the North’s constitution to cement its war-divided rival as its most hostile adversary. He said the new charter must specify North Korea would annex and subjugate the South if another war broke out.

your ad here

Biden to Host Japan PM Kishida, Philippines President Marcos

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden will host Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. for a White House summit next month amid growing concerns about North Korea’s nuclear program, provocative Chinese action in the South China Sea and differences over a Japanese company’s plan to buy an iconic American steel company.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre in a statement on Monday said the first-ever U.S.-Japan-Philippines leaders’ summit is an opportunity to highlight the countries’ “growing economic relations, a proud and resolute commitment to shared democratic values and a shared vision for a free and open Indo-Pacific.”

The three leaders have no shortage of issues to discuss.

The announcement came as North Korea’s state media reported that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un supervised a live-fire drill of nuclear-capable “super-large” multiple rocket launchers designed to target South Korea’s capital. The North Korean claim followed the South Korean and Japanese militaries reporting on Monday that they had detected North Korea firing multiple short-range ballistic missiles toward waters off its eastern coast, adding to a streak of weapons displays that have raised regional tensions.

The U.S.-Japan relationship is facing a rare moment of friction after Biden announced last week that he opposes the planned sale of Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel to Nippon Steel of Japan. Biden argued in announcing his opposition that the U.S. needs to “maintain strong American steel companies powered by American steelworkers.”

Nippon Steel announced in December that it planned to buy U.S. Steel for $14.1 billion in cash, raising concerns about what the transaction could mean for unionized workers, supply chains and U.S. national security.

Meanwhile, long-running Philippines-Chinese tensions have come back into focus this month after Chinese and Philippine coast guard vessels collided in the disputed South China Sea.

The Chinese coast guard ships and accompanying vessels blocked the Philippine coast guard and supply vessels off the disputed Second Thomas Shoal and executed dangerous maneuvers that caused two minor collisions between the Chinese ships and two of the Philippine vessels, Philippine officials said.

A small Philippine marine and navy contingent has kept watch onboard a rusting warship, the BRP Sierra Madre, which has been marooned since the late 1990s in the shallows of the Second Thomas Shoal.

China also claims the shoal lying off the western Philippines and has surrounded the atoll with coast guard, navy and other ships to press its claims and prevent Filipino forces from delivering construction materials to fortify the Sierra Madre in a decades-long standoff.

Close U.S.-Philippines relations were not a given when Marcos, the son and namesake of the former Philippines strongman, took office in 2022.

But both Biden and Marcos have thrown much effort into strengthening the historically- complicated relationship between the two countries, with the two leaders sharing concerns about aggressive Chinese action around the region.

A U.S. appeals court in 1996 upheld damages of about $2 billion against the elder Marcos’ estate for the torture and killings of thousands of Filipinos. The court upheld a 1994 verdict of a jury in Hawaii, where he fled after being forced from power in 1986. He died there in 1989.

The elder Marcos placed the Philippines under martial law in 1972, a year before his term was to expire. He padlocked the country’s congressional and newspaper offices, ordered the arrest of many political opponents and activists and ruled by decree.

The younger Marcos made an official visit to Washington last year, the first by a Philippine president in more than 10 years. The U.S. made the announcement of Marcos’ coming trip to Washington as Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Manilla.

Jean-Pierre said that in addition to the leaders’ summit Biden will hold one-on-one talks with Marcos. She said the leaders would discuss efforts to expand cooperation on economic security, clean energy, people-to-people ties, human rights and democracy.

Biden is set to honor Kishida a day before the leaders summit with a state visit. The White House announced the state visit in January.

your ad here

Australian Lawmakers Probe Impact of Fire Ants

SYDNEY — A federal parliamentary in Australia is examining the threat from invasive fire ants, which can kill people and livestock and potentially pose more of a danger to Australia than rabbits, cane toads, foxes, camels, wild dogs and feral cats combined.  

Lawmakers were holding a public meeting in Canberra Monday to discuss the aggressive insects, which are native to South America and are thought to have entered Australia in shipping containers.  

They were first found in Brisbane in 2001 but had probably been undetected in the country for years.   

 

They attack as a swarm.  Experts have said they are a danger to people, pets, livestock and wildlife.  The ants lock their jaws onto their victim’s skin and inject venom through a spike on their abdomen.  Their bite causes a burning sensation, which gives the ants their fearsome name.

A parliamentary inquiry by the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee in Canberra is investigating their impact on health, agriculture and the environment.

There is disagreement about the impact of efforts to destroy ant colonies.

The Queensland state government said its eradication programs are “world class.”

Critics, though, have insisted that Australia has mismanaged the threat. The Invasive Species Council, a non-government environmental organization, insists that Australian authorities “underestimated fire ants for 20 years and underfunded our response to them.”

 

Pam Swepson, a former Community Liaison and Policy Officer at the National Fire Ant Eradication Program, told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.  that the ants can be extremely aggressive.

“They are one of the world’s worst invasive species,” she said. “They can walk, they can fly, they can swim. They have never been eradicated from any country that they have invaded. If a littler toddler falls onto a nest, which just looks like a pile of dirt, the ants will swarm them and sting them repeatedly and if the person happens to be allergic to their sting, they can go into anaphylaxis and die.”

Monday’s federal hearing in Canberra included submissions from Australia’s National Farmers Federation, government scientists and representatives from the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry.  Two previous hearings have been held in eastern Australia.

Lawmakers are due to report their findings by April 18.

Australia has had a catastrophic experience with some imported flora and fauna.

The National Fire Ant Eradication Program has warned that “fire ants have the potential to surpass the combined damage done each year by our worst pests: feral cats, wild dogs, foxes, camels, rabbits and cane toads.”

Invasive fish and weed species have also caused great environmental damage.

Experts have said that fire ants expand their territory at the rate of about 50-80 kilometers per year in China and the U.S.

your ad here

North Korea Fires Ballistic Missiles as Blinken Visits Seoul

Seoul, South Korea — North Korea fired short-range ballistic missiles into the sea on Monday for the first time in two months, as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Seoul for a conference hosted by President Yoon Suk Yeol on advancing democracy.

South Korea’s military said several short-range missiles flew about 300 kilometers (186 miles) after being fired between 7:44 a.m. and 8:22 a.m. from Pyongyang, the North’s capital, landing off the east coast.

It condemned the launches as a “clear provocation” and said it was sharing information on them with the United States and Japan.

Japan’s defense ministry said three missiles were launched and traveled about 350 kilometers, with a maximum altitude of 50 kilometers.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida condemned the launches after his country’s coast guard also reported the firing of what it said appeared to be a ballistic missile and specified that it had already ended its flight.

Japan later said that it had detected what appeared to be a second ballistic missile launch by the North, and that both fell outside its exclusive economic zone area.

“North Korea’s series of actions threaten the peace and security of our region and the international community, and are absolutely unacceptable,” Kishida said, calling the launch a violation of U.N. resolutions.

North Korea’s military has been conducting exercises using conventional weapons in recent weeks, often personally overseen by the isolated state’s leader, Kim Jong Un.

The show of force by Pyongyang comes just after the militaries of South Korea and the United States finished 10 days of large-scale annual joint military drills last Thursday.

On Sunday, the South Korean military also mobilized marines, attack helicopters and amphibious assault vehicles in drills aimed at surging troop numbers to reinforce western islands near the sea border with North Korea. The North shelled the islands in 2010.

Blinken is among senior officials from around the world attending the Summit for Democracy conference, which opens on Monday. He will also meet his South Korean counterpart, foreign minister Cho Tae-yul.

The summit is an initiative of U.S. President Joe Biden aimed at discussing ways to stop democratic backsliding and erosion of rights and freedoms worldwide.

In its last ballistic launch on Jan. 14, North Korea fired what it said was an intermediate range hypersonic missile using solid fuel on to test new booster engines and a maneuverable warhead.

A month later, it launched multiple cruise missiles off its east coast, including what it said was a new anti-ship missile.

your ad here

Tutoring the Elderly Is Growing Fast in China

Hong Kong/Beijing — China’s rapidly aging population is fueling a promising and fast-growing market for companies providing recreational classes and activities for the elderly middle class, from yoga to African drumming and smartphone photography.

The growth potential of the industry contrasts sharply with the decline of the after-school private tutoring sector following a government crackdown in 2021 aimed at boosting record low birth rates by lowering education costs.

“Education industries are transitioning to the silver economy,” said Qiu Peilin, the Beijing head of Mama Sunset, an elderly learning business which has opened five centers in the Chinese capital since launching in April 2023.

Consulting firm Frost & Sullivan expects China’s senior learning market to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 34% by 2027 to $16.8 billion, up from $3.8 billion in 2022.

It’s a numbers game.

Over the next decade, roughly 300 million Chinese will enter retirement – the equivalent of almost the entire U.S. population. One in every two people aged over 65 in the Asia-Pacific region will live in China by 2040, Euromonitor estimates.

While China’s demographic crisis is threatening its industrial base, government finances and poverty alleviation efforts, some investors see the growing pool of elderly as a sure bet.

Mama Sunset, which offers 20 different classes to thousands of Chinese aged 50-plus, is in talks with domestic investors to expand to 200 franchised centers across the country in the next three years, when it wants to list on the Hong Kong exchange.

Nasdaq-listed Quantasing, the largest online elderly learning provider in China according to Frost & Sullivan, plans to hire more tai chi and traditional medicine tutors to add to existing classes ranging from memory training to video editing.

It also plans to leverage its customer base to sell products such as moxa sticks, used in traditional medicine, or Baijiu, a Chinese liquor.

Quantasing’s revenues grew 24.7% year-on-year for the final quarter of last year to $136.2 million, while its total registered users shot up 44.6% year-on-year to 112.4 million at the end of 2023.

“It’s a real sunrise industry,” the firm’s CEO Matt Peng said.

China’s government is also getting involved, announcing in January tax incentives and financial support for products and services for the elderly. Premier Li Qiang pledged in March further efforts to develop “the silver economy,” without elaborating.

The provincial government of Hebei provided the land and space for Mama Sunset’s Cangzhou branch as part of a poverty alleviation program.

Some analysts warn, however, that a flood of investment into industries targeting the elderly may get ahead of itself if China cannot make the leap that other aging societies have made, escaping the middle-income trap first.

Low retirement incomes and insecurities related to basic needs including healthcare in a society where many of the elderly are reliant on their child for financial support will limit the industry’s potential, analysts say.

Rachel He, research manager at Euromonitor, said China’s elderly population was a promising consumer base but it was questionable whether it would match the significance of the market in Japan and South Korea in the near term.

She cited “deep income inequality” and more conservative attitudes among Chinese elderly who were less inclined to spend money on themselves.

Average monthly urban pensions range from around $422 in less-developed provinces to about $845 in Beijing. Nomura estimates 160 million Chinese receive rural pensions of only around $14 per month.

One class at Mama Sunset costs $7-$8, while a 36-class package costs $278. At Quantasing, one- to three-month packages range between $278 to $520.

Cui Chunyun, a 60-year-old retired accountant in Beijing, takes Mama Sunset’s dance classes to stay fit to keep pace with her five grandchildren and delay going into a nursing home.

“I want to be able to move, even people older than 70 can still dance, we have to move to live,” she said.

your ad here

Vietnam Faces $3B Annual Crop Losses From Rising Saltwater Levels

Hanoi, Vietnam — Vietnam faces nearly $3 billion a year in crop losses as more saltwater seeps into arable land, state media reported Sunday, citing new research.

The damage would likely center on the Mekong Delta region, known as “Vietnam’s rice bowl,” because it provides food and livelihoods for tens of millions of people, research from the country’s environment ministry showed.

Saltwater levels are often higher in the dry season, but they are intensifying due to rising sea levels, droughts, tidal fluctuations, and a lack of upstream freshwater.

The resulting crop losses could amount to 70 trillion dong ($2.94 billion), state media VnExpress reported, citing new research from the Water Resources Science Institute, which is under the environment ministry.

The research found among the most impacted parts of the region would be the southernmost Ca Mau province, which could lose an estimated $665 million.

Ben Tre province could face roughly $472 million in losses, according to the study, which was presented Friday at a conference on water resource management.

“With the current scenario, fruit trees account for 29 percent of the damage in Mekong Delta, while crops account for 27 percent, and rice accounts for nearly 14 percent,” according to the findings.

“The fisheries industry accounts for 30 percent, equivalent to more than 21,000 billion dong ($840 million),” it added.

Greater losses were forecast for the region in the future, rising to over $3.1 billion, the study said.

Earlier this month, the Department of Water Resources warned saline intrusion could impact around 80,000 hectares of rice and fruit farms in the Mekong Delta.

Salt intrusion in the area between 2023-2024 was higher than the average, according to the National Center for Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting.

The delta suffered an unusually long heatwave in February, leading to drought in several areas and low water levels in the region’s canals.

your ad here

Vietnam’s Parliament to Meet Over ‘Personnel Issues,’ Says Letter to Legislators

Hanoi, Vietnam — Vietnam’s parliament is set to meet Thursday to discuss unspecified “personnel issues,” according to a letter sent to legislators seen by Reuters, amid speculation of a reshuffle of the Communist-ruled country’s top leadership.

Multiple Vietnamese officials and diplomats said the possible resignation of the country’s President Vo Van Thuong may be one of the personnel matters the parliament will discuss.

A Vietnamese official informed about the matter confirmed the meeting but press offices for Vietnam’s foreign affairs ministry and the parliament did not immediately reply to requests for comment.

The letter signed by the general secretary of the national assembly Bui Van Cuong and sent to members of the parliament, a copy of which was seen by Reuters, said, “The National Assembly Standing Committee decided to convene the 6th extraordinary session of the 15th National Assembly to consider and decide on personnel issues.”

It was unclear what decisions would be made at the special session, which comes after a state visit to Vietnam by the Dutch royal family slated for next week on Thursday was postponed “due to domestic circumstances,” according to a statement from the Dutch Royal House.

The National Assembly had last year convened a special meeting in January to accept the sudden resignation of the then President Nguyen Xuan Phuc, who quit amid a wide and long-running campaign against corruption, which critics said could be used for political infighting.

Thuong, 53, was elected president in March 2023 and is regarded as being close to Nguyen Phu Trong, General Secretary of the Communist Party and Vietnam’s most powerful figure.

The president holds a largely ceremonial role but is one of the top four political positions in the Southeast Asian nation.

your ad here

Indigenous Australians Cast Ballots in Historic Rights Vote

sydney — Voting takes place Saturday for Australia’s first state-based First Nations Voice to Parliament. The body will advise the South Australian government and lawmakers on Indigenous issues.

The state of South Australia’s First Nations Voice to Parliament will be a representative, elected body for the state’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and made up of members of those groups.

In October, Australians overwhelmingly rejected a national proposal to change the constitution to recognize First Nations people and create a body for them to advise the federal government.

In South Australia, officials have said it would give First Nations communities the chance to have their say at “the highest levels of decision-making … including to Parliament on matters, policies and laws that affect them.”

The state Parliament passed laws last year to set up the advisory body. South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas said then that it was a powerful show of respect toward Australia’s First Nations people.

Unlike the defeated nationwide proposal, the South Australian Voice to Parliament will not be incorporated into the state constitution and so it could be scrapped by future governments.

South Australia Attorney General Kyam Maher told local media the body will advise the state Parliament on policies affecting First Nations Australians.

“It won’t have the power to vote in Parliament,” Maher said. “It won’t have the power to veto anything. But what it will have the power to do is not just give advice to Parliament but speak within our Parliament.”

Unlike other local, state and federal elections, where voting is compulsory, the South Australian Voice to Parliament ballot is voluntary and open only to about 30,000 registered Aboriginal voters.

Travis Nash, an Aboriginal voter, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation he was looking forward to having his views heard by lawmakers in the state capital, Adelaide.

“We are going to be having country people representing country people,” he said. “The people that will be appointed is my neighbor, in a way, instead of going to Adelaide [where] when I talk to people they are in suits and expensive shoes.”

Supporters said the plan would unite Australia and help address disadvantage. First Nations Australians have a lower life expectancy than non-Indigenous people and suffer high rates of poverty, incarceration and unemployment.

Opponents of the national Indigenous Voice to Parliament said the idea was divisive and would create special “classes” of Australian citizens, in which some were more equal than others. The debate in South Australia has been muted because the State Voice does not involve changing the state’s constitution and the vote is only open to registered First Nations people.

First Nations people make up just over 3% of Australia’s population and nearly 2.5% in South Australia, according to official data.

Voters will choose from 113 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander candidates for 46 positions.

Results are expected late this month, after the return of mail-in votes from remote areas.

your ad here

Post-pandemic, Young Chinese Seek Studies Abroad, Just Not in US

WASHINGTON — In Shanghai, two young women seeking an education abroad have decided against going to the United States, a destination of choice for decades that may be losing its shine.

For Helen Dong, a 22-year-old senior studying advertising, it was the cost. “It doesn’t work for me when you have to spend 2 million [yuan] [$278,000] but find no job upon returning,” she said. Dong is headed to Hong Kong this fall instead.

Costs were not a concern for Yvonne Wong, 24, now studying comparative literature and cultures in a master’s program at the University of Bristol in Britain. For her, the issue was safety.

“Families in Shanghai usually don’t want to send their daughters to a place where guns are not banned — that was the primary reason,” Wong said. “Between the U.S. and the U.K., the U.K. is safer, and that’s the biggest consideration for my parents.”

With an interest in studying abroad rebounding after the pandemic, there are signs that the decadeslong run that has sent an estimated 3 million Chinese students to the U.S., including many of the country’s brightest, could be trending down, as geopolitical shifts redefine U.S.-China relations.

“International education is a bridge”

Cutting people-to-people exchanges could have a lasting impact on relations between the two countries.

“International education is a bridge,” said Fanta Aw, executive director of the NAFSA Association of International Educators, based in Washington. “A long-term bridge, because the students who come today are the engineers of the future. They are the politicians of the future; they are the business entrepreneurs of the future.

“Not seeing that pipeline as strong means that we in the U.S. have to pay attention, because China-U.S. relations are very important.”

Aw said the decrease is more notable in U.S. undergraduate programs, which she attributed to a declining population in China from low birthrates, bitter U.S.-China relations, more regional choices for Chinese families and the high costs of a U.S. education.

But graduate programs have not been spared. Zheng Yi, an associate professor of mechanical and industrial engineering at Northeastern University in Boston, has seen the number of Chinese applicants to one of the school’s engineering programs shrink to single digits, compared with 20 to 30 students before the pandemic.

He said the waning interest could be partly due to China’s growing patriotism that nudges students to attend Chinese institutes instead.

Andrew Chen, chief executive officer of Pittsburgh-based WholeRen Education, which has advised Chinese students in the U.S. for the past 14 years, said the downward trend is here to stay.

“This is not a periodic wave,” he said. “This is a new era.” The Chinese government has sidelined English education, hyped gun violence in the U.S., and portrayed the U.S. as a declining power. As a result, Chen said, Chinese families are hesitant to send their children to the U.S.

China’s criticisms of the U.S.

Beijing has criticized the U.S. for its unfriendly policy toward some Chinese students, citing an executive order by former President Donald Trump to keep out Chinese students who have attended schools with strong links to the Chinese military.

The Chinese foreign ministry also has protested that a number of Chinese students have been unfairly interrogated and sent home upon arrival at U.S. airports in recent months. Spokeswoman Mao Ning recently describing the U.S. actions as “selective, discriminatory and politically motivated.”

State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said fewer than “one tenth of 1%” of Chinese students have been detained or denied admission.

Another State Department official said Chinese students selected for U.S.-funded exchange programs have been harassed by Chinese state agents. Half of the students have been forced to withdraw, and those who participated in the programs have been faced with harassment after returning to China, the official said, speaking to reporters on the condition of anonymity.

The U.S.-China Education Trust acknowledged the predicament facing Chinese students. “Students from China have been criticized in the U.S. as potential spies, and in China as too influenced by the West,” the organization said in a report following a survey of Chinese students in the U.S. between 1991 and 2021.

Still, many young Chinese, especially those whose parents were foreign educated, are eager to study abroad. The China-based education service provider New Oriental said the students hope degrees from reputable foreign universities will improve their career prospects in a tough job market at home, where the unemployment rate for those 16 to 24 stood at nearly 15% in December.

But their preferences have shifted from the U.S. to the U.K., according to EIC Education, a Chinese consultancy specializing in international education. The students like the shorter study programs and the quality and affordability of a British education, as well as the feeling of safety.

Wong, the Shanghai student now studying in the U.K., said China’s handling of the pandemic pushed more young people to go abroad. “After three years of tight controls during the pandemic, most people have realized the outside world is different, and they are more willing to leave,” she said.

The State Department issued 86,080 F-1 student visas to Chinese students in the budget year ending in September, up nearly 40% from the year earlier. Still, the number remains below the pre-pandemic level of 105,775.

your ad here

China Gives Warnings on Vietnam-Australia Strategic Relationship

washington — A new, closer diplomatic relationship between Australia and Vietnam is drawing warnings from China against forming “exclusive circles” in the Indo-Pacific region.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said at Monday’s daily news briefing, “To advocate bloc confrontation and build exclusive circles goes against the trend of the times and the common aspiration of regional countries.”

Although Wang did not mention Vietnam or Australia by name, he was responding to a question posed by one of China’s official media outlets, Shenzen TV, about an agreement the two nations signed March 7.

Longtime observers of Vietnam’s diplomacy say Beijing’s response to the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership (CSP) reveals its unease with Hanoi’s push to upgrade ties throughout the region. 

In August, Vietnam signed a CSP with the United States, China’s rival.

A CSP is the highest level in Vietnam’s diplomatic hierarchy, a relationship Hanoi maintains with China, India, Japan, Russia and South Korea. A CSP commits partners to cooperation on a wide range of concerns and typically contains a military dimension. 

A joint statement issued March 7 by Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese emphasized that the nations share a common vision of a peaceful, stable, independent and prosperous Indo-Pacific region.

It also mentioned a joint commitment to the “settlement of disputes, including those in the South China Sea, by peaceful means without resorting to the threat or use of force, in accordance with international law.” China’s increasingly aggressive claim of sovereignty over those waters has met challenges from Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam.

Pham Thu Hang, spokesperson for Vietnam’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said Thursday at a news conference, “The upgrade of Vietnam-Australia relations to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership is a natural development step and in line with the level of relationship between the two countries after more than 50 years of establishment and development, for the common interests and aspirations of the people of the two nations and for peace, stability, cooperation and prosperity in the region and the world.”

The Australian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade did not respond to VOA’s request for a comment on Wang’s remarks. Instead, the ministry referred to Albanese’s statement from the day the CSP was signed.

“Australia and Vietnam share an ambitious agenda across climate change and sustainability, digital transformation and innovation, defense and security, economics and trade, and education,” he said, adding that the CSP reflects “our cooperation, our strategic trust and shared ambition for our region.”

“China is of course concerned,” said Ha Hoang Hop, an associate senior fellow with Singapore’s ISEAS Yusof Ishak Research Institute. Speaking on the telephone with VOA Vietnamese from Hanoi on Monday, he said, “China may, in fact, be concerned that Vietnam may move closer to the United States and its allies. But China cannot be offended because Vietnam first aims to create a security balance.”

The CSP “is both beneficial for Vietnam and beneficial for our comprehensive strategic partners, including China. … The establishment of partnerships is not intended to create factions or cause trouble for countries in the region,” said Ha. “Everyone is aware that it only creates a better environment for development cooperation, and more broadly, ensuring peace and prosperity for the Asia-Pacific region.”

The agreement with Australia reflects Vietnam’s “bamboo diplomacy” as its ruling Communist Party tries to navigate rising regional and global tensions. The reference is to the bamboo plant’s qualities of adaptability and resilience. 

Vu Duc Khanh, a law professor at the University of Ottawa who follows Vietnamese politics, told VOA Vietnamese via email on Monday that although he can understand China’s reactions, he believes it is too early for Beijing to be overly concerned by Vietnam’s latest CSP. He pointed to Hanoi’s endorsement in December of China’s “community of common destiny” with objectives of “common development” and “common security.” 

“China’s comments [are] largely in line with its strategy of keeping Vietnam neutral,” said Vu Xuan Khang, a doctoral candidate at Boston College who specializes in international security.

“China does not want Vietnam to join any blocs made up of countries that China sees to be anti-China because Vietnam could then become a springboard for those countries to hurt Chinese interests,” Vu Xuan wrote to VOA via email on Monday.

“Vietnam thus needs to be careful and should not stoke too much Chinese suspicion to avoid unnecessary Chinese retaliations,” he added.

On March 9, the Vietnam News Agency quoted emeritus professor Carl Thayer of the Australian Defense Force Academy, University of New South Wales, as saying that upgrading bilateral relations to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership will create opportunities for more in-depth discussions on various issues between Vietnam and Australia, noting that most Australians support strengthening this relationship, especially in the field of education.

Thayer believes that Australia will prioritize cooperation with Vietnam and promote dialogue, helping both countries to deal with future challenges such as climate change, economic instability, and competition between world and regional superpowers.

your ad here

Japanese Bar Urges Tokyo to Halt Park Development

TOKYO — The Japanese bar association is urging Tokyo’s metropolitan government to suspend a disputed redevelopment of the city’s beloved park area, saying that its environmental assessment by developers lacked objective and scientific grounds.

The metropolitan government approved the Jingu Gaien redevelopment project in February 2023, based on the environmental assessment submitted by the developers, allowing the start of construction.

The plan involves razing a famous baseball stadium and rebuilding it as part of a vast construction project that critics say would threaten thousands of trees in a city of meager green space.

Hundreds of outside experts, including architects, environmentalists and academics, have demanded the suspension of the project in open letters and petition campaigns.

The developers are the real estate company Mitsui Fudosan, Meiji Jingu shrine, Itochu Corp. and the government-affiliated Japan Sports Council.

In the latest opposition to the project, the Japan Federation of Bar Associations issued a statement Thursday in which the lawyers’ group said the environmental assessment lacks sufficient data and used erroneous research methods.

In one example, the developers’ report failed to mention the status of gingko trees even though a United Nations-affiliated environmental group has detected deterioration in the health of gingko trees in the area, the statement said. Environmentalists have said that high-rise buildings planned as part of the development would come too close to nearby gingko trees.

Also, the Japan branch of the International Council on Monuments and Sites, which has issued a “heritage alert” for Tokyo’s Gaien area, was never invited to environmental assessment meetings, the bar association said.

“We do not consider the report objective or scientific,” the statement said.

It urged the Tokyo metropolitan government to suspend the project, ask the developers to resubmit their environmental assessment and have it reviewed by an investigative panel of experts.

Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike told a news conference Friday that she was unaware of details in the bar association’s statement but defended the metropolitan government’s 2023 approval of the development plans as appropriate.

Although the Tokyo government has never formally suspended the project, the developers have voluntarily delayed portions of it, including the felling of trees, presumably due to the outcry. The main developer, Mitsui Fudosan, has said it is reexamining the project’s effects on nearby gingko trees and is working to improve transparency and communication with the public.

The bar association also noted that a respected group, the International Association for Impact Assessments, urged the Tokyo governor in June 2023 to stop the project, but that the appeal was ignored.

your ad here

Reporter’s Notebook: Is China Really Opening to the World?

beijing — Over the last few weeks, China has gone to great lengths to give the impression that it is opening up to the world – whether for foreign businesses, tourists or journalists.

I can’t speak with certainty on these claims. I’m not a China specialist, but a regional reporter who covers what often feels like an impossibly large part of the world, including China.

But my recent experience on a short reporting trip to Beijing reveals the difficulties faced by foreign journalists working in the country. It’s an experience that goes against the official narrative of an “opening up” in China.

Recently, the Chinese government invited me to cover the country’s biggest annual political event, including a meeting of its National People’s Congress, which wrapped up this week in Beijing.

I hadn’t expected to get a visa. Journalists working for U.S. and many other Western news outlets have been mostly shut out of China since the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, when U.S.-China tensions spiked, and the country entered a severe three-year period of lockdowns and strict COVID controls.

No VOA journalist had been given a visa for China since 2020, other than a State Department correspondent who was part of a traveling press pool during a visit by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

By my count, China handed out at least seven short-term journalist visas for U.S. and European media to cover the week-long political gathering, known as the “Two Sessions,” during which China’s political elite delivered a consistently upbeat message about China’s struggling economy.

Mixed messages

It doesn’t take an expert to see that China faces a long list of problems. Even after lifting its COVID-19 lockdown at the beginning of last year, China’s economy has seen some of its slowest growth in decades. Foreign investment has plunged, amid geopolitical tensions and a series of high-profile detentions of Chinese and foreign businesspeople. And fewer tourists are coming to China compared to before the pandemic.

At the Two Sessions, China downplayed those challenges, setting an ambitious economic growth target of about 5% for the year. But while authorities promised to reduce barriers to tourism and foreign trade, they also tightened the Communist Party’s grip over the government and expanded national security laws that many foreign critics already saw as vague.

As a journalist, I also sensed inconsistent messaging. While China restored pre-COVID levels of media access at the Two Sessions, it canceled the usual press conference given by the premier at the end of the gathering. Many reporters felt conflicted about the cancellation; while it was clear the questions at this press conference were usually pre-selected, it was still a rare chance for journalists to engage with a senior Chinese leader.

Journalistic restrictions

Most of my challenges as a reporter began when I left Tiananmen Square, where the political meetings were held, and visited other parts of Beijing. For much of this month, the entire capital area has seen an increased security presence, as is typical during sensitive political moments.

But I figured the omnipresent police patrols would not prevent me from conducting basic journalistic tasks, such as getting video footage of major tourist areas and conducting brief, impromptu interviews with local residents.

My interview questions were innocuous. What do Chinese people think about the upcoming U.S. presidential election? Do they prefer Donald Trump or Joe Biden? Do they have any hope that U.S.-China ties will improve?

The questions generated a range of thoughtful responses, which you can see in the video below.

I didn’t experience any trouble until I returned to my hotel that evening, when I received a phone call saying I should appear immediately at a local office of the Ministry of Public Security, China’s main state policing agency that also monitors domestic political threats.

Upon arrival, I was escorted down a nondescript hall to a small conference room, where I was met by several officers, who proceeded to conduct an interrogation.

Why, the officers demanded to know, was I asking people about Trump and Biden, and not writing about the Two Sessions for which I had media credentials? The focus of my reporting trip, I responded, was on China’s policies, including its foreign relations.

Why, they wanted to know, had I not gotten permission before filming? I told them that not only was I in a public area, but I did also not shoot any interviews without first getting permission from the interviewees.

Their last question took the form of a rebuke: Why was VOA not more fair in telling China’s side of the story? Apparently, the officers had not appreciated the irony that I had been interviewing residents for a piece with the main goal of providing Chinese perspectives.

Pattern of abuse

In the end, I received only a mild scolding before I was allowed to leave. Other China-based reporters often experience far worse abuse, even if only counting very recent incidents.

The week before I arrived in China, a Dutch journalist covering a bank protest in the central city of Chengdu was shoved to the ground and had his equipment confiscated by police, who detained him and his cameraman for several hours while preventing them from making phone calls.

This week, a reporter for The Associated Press said he and a colleague were followed by plainclothes police, who at one point even trailed him into a bathroom. The AP reporters were in Chengdu speaking with elderly retirees who had invested in a trust fund that had gone bankrupt.

“Over a dozen plainclothes followed us, using tactics I’ve only seen in Xinjiang. They followed me into the bathroom and to the airport. They took photos of us,” the reporter, Dake Kang, said on social media website X. “This is Chengdu, one of the most liberal cities in China. Startling to see such tactics deployed here.”

Foreign journalists have often experienced harassment when visiting far-flung areas, such as Tibet or Xinjiang, where China is accused of severe human rights abuses, or while reporting on other politically sensitive topics, such as protests or natural disasters.

But if my experience, and that of many others, is any indication, it is becoming much more difficult for foreign journalists to do even the most non-controversial stories in the biggest of China’s cities.

Even China’s state-controlled journalists have faced increasing restrictions. Just this week, authorities in the city of Sanhe, 50 kilometers outside Beijing, harassed reporters from state outlet CCTV during a live broadcast near the scene of a deadly gas explosion.

The incident prompted a public backlash, even drawing a statement of concern from a Communist Party-affiliated association of journalists.

“The incident was a wake-up call to a problem suffered for decades by more professional news outlets in China that have attempted to do real reporting in the face of formal press restrictions from the Chinese Communist Party leadership above, and frequent intimidation down below,” wrote David Bandurski, in a commentary published in the China Media Project.

“Such acts of obstruction are not an exception but the very nature of media policy in China,” he added.

Open to the world?

So, how does all this relate to China’s official narrative that it is open to the world?

I obviously can’t say how all foreign investors feel about returning to China. But I’ve spoken with colleagues in business and academia who no longer feel comfortable traveling to the country, citing fears of arbitrary detention.

I can’t speak for foreign tourists, either. But I can tell you how difficult it was as a newcomer to accomplish even the simplest tasks – such as booking a taxi, paying for a meal with a foreign bank account and checking Facebook, Instagram or virtually any other Western social media app – given China’s insistence on placing a digital firewall between its people and the rest of the world.

What I can say with certainty is that I felt welcomed by Beijing residents, who seemed eager to interact with VOA, despite a state-backed campaign portraying foreign journalists as potential spies and dangerous troublemakers.

But at one point during last week’s meetings, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told gathered media that his government is “opening its door wider” to the world. At another point he insisted “more foreign friends are welcome to join us” in telling China’s story.

From my point of view, it sure didn’t feel that way.

your ad here

Australia Resumes Aid to UN Palestinian Aid Agency

Sydney — Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong said Friday the government will resume funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which is providing humanitarian aid for Palestinians in Gaza.  In January, Australia joined several Western nations in suspending funding to UNRWA after Israeli intelligence suggested a dozen of its workers had been linked to the October 7 attack by Hamas militants.  Australia is also being criticized for canceling the visas of several Palestinians fleeing the conflict with Israel in Gaza.  The Australia Greens party says the move “shows a lack of humanity.”

Speaking to reporters Friday in Canberra Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong  said she was confident UNRWA was “not a terrorist organization.”  She added that the United Nations aid agency for Palestinians was critical to providing help to people in Gaza “who are on the brink of starving.”

Earlier this month, Canada and the European Union announced they would also resume funding to UNRWA. The United States, the agency’s largest donor, continues to freeze payments.

Wong told reporters she is satisfied an investigation into the allegations following the October 7 attack on Israel by Hamas has been thorough.

“The nature of these allegations warranted an immediate and appropriate response. The best available current advice from agencies and the Australian government lawyers is that UNRWA is not a terrorist organization, and that existing additional safeguards sufficiently protect Australian taxpayer funding,” she said.

Australia’s resumption of aid to the agency comes amid criticism for canceling the visas of Palestinians fleeing the conflict.

Data from the Department of Home Affairs states that Australia granted 2,273 temporary visas for Palestinians with connections to Australia between October 7 and February 6.  

More than 2,400 visitor visas were also granted to people declaring Israeli citizenship during that period.

The visa category does not allow recipients to work or have access to education or government-funded health care in Australia, although they would not be turned away from emergency rooms.

Campaigners for refugees and migrants say several Palestinians have had their Australian visas abruptly canceled by the Canberra government in recent days. The government, citing “privacy reasons,” refuses to say how many visas are affected.

A cancelation notification obtained by local media asserted a particular applicant had never intended to genuinely “stay temporarily in Australia.”

Australia’s left-leaning Labor government has defended its actions, insisting they were based on ongoing security checks.  A spokesperson for the Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil said the “Australian government reserves the right to cancel any issued visas if circumstances change.”

But Adam Bandt, the leader of the Australian Greens party, told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.  Friday that visa applicants are being treated unfairly.

“What Labor is saying is that peoples’ visas are being canceled because Labor does not know how long the Labor-backed invasion of Gaza will last, and, accordingly, they are refusing them entry into the country.  That is callous inhumanity,” said Bandt.

Australia has said Israel has the right to defend itself after the attack by Hamas militants last October.

Canberra advocates a two-state solution in which Israel and a future Palestinian state co‑exist within internationally recognized borders. 

your ad here

Despite Sanctions, North Korea Runs More Than 50 Restaurants in China

washington — North Korea is operating more than 50 restaurants staffed by its citizens in more than 10 Chinese cities in violation of U.N. sanctions, according to a diplomatic source.

The North Korean regime takes most of the wages its workers earn abroad to fund its nuclear and missile programs.

The source, who asked not to be named because the person was not authorized to speak to the press, provided the names of the restaurants in Korean and Chinese and their addresses in China to VOA’s Korean Service.

The U.N. Panel of Experts that monitors enforcement of sanctions against North Korea is expected to include the list in a report scheduled for publication in the coming weeks, the source said.

The U.S. called for all U.N. member states to enforce sanctions on North Korea when asked about VOA Korean’s findings.

“Under Security Council Resolution 2397, all U.N. member states are obligated to repatriate DPRK nationals earning income in their jurisdiction, subject to certain exceptions,” a U.S. State Department spokesperson said. DPRK stands for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the country’s official name.

“Revenue generated by overseas DPRK laborers is used to fund the DPRK’s WMD [weapons of mass destruction] and ballistic missile programs,” continued the spokesperson on Tuesday via email to VOA’s Korean Service.

The U.N. Security Council passed Resolution 2397 in 2017 requiring all member states to send North Korean workers back to their countries by December 2019. It was adopted in response to North Korea’s launch of a Hwasong-15 intercontinental ballistic missile in November 2017.

It will be the first time that a list of North Korean restaurants in China will be included in a U.N. expert panel report since the December 2019 deadline, although the panel published a report listing North Korean restaurants nine months prior to that.

Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, told VOA’s Korean Service on Monday that he was “unaware of the specific situation.”

He continued, via email, “China has been earnestly implementing the relevant Security Council resolutions. The resolutions are not just about sanctions, but also stress the importance of dialogue.”

He added, “We oppose taking a selective, sanctions-only approach without due emphasis on promoting dialogues.”

Joshua Stanton, an attorney based in Washington who helped draft the U.S. Sanctions and Policy Enforcement Act in 2016, said, “The fact that China allows them to work inside its territory five years after a U.N. deadline to repatriate them is further proof, which can be added to an already extensive file of evidence, that it is a flagrant violator of the sanctions it voted for in the Security Council.”

Stanton said via email to VOA on Wednesday that North Korea uses restaurants it sets up overseas as “fronts for laundering cash from forced labor, cybercrimes and other illicit activities.”

The regime also sends young women from North Korea to work long hours at its restaurants abroad and then confiscates most or all of their wages, he said.

The list includes seven North Korean restaurants in Beijing and seven in Shanghai.

Shenyang, a city in Liaoning province that borders North Korea, has 17.

Dandong, a city about 12 kilometers (7.45 miles) from the North Korean city of Shinuiju, has the second-largest concentration of North Korean restaurants on the list. Shinuiju is near the Sino-Korean Friendship Bridge that connects the two countries.

Aaron Arnold, a former member of the U.N. Panel of Experts for North Korea’s sanctions and currently a senior associate fellow at the Royal United Service Institute, a London-based security think tank, told VOA Korean that China and North Korea could be violating other U.N. sanctions. He spoke with VOA Korean on Wednesday via email.

If the restaurants are considered a joint venture, they are in violation of Resolution 2270, which bans establishing new entities with North Korea, according to Arnold. If the restaurants have bank accounts in China, they also violate Resolution 1874, he continued.

UNSC Resolution 2375, passed in 2017, bans all joint ventures including existing ones formed with North Korea.

“Our own government is also to blame if Chinese banks are either willfully or negligently laundering that money and not facing subpoenas, investigations, special measures and secondary sanctions for doing so,” said Stanton.

Secondary sanctions refer to sanctions targeting foreign entities and individuals such as Chinese banks that conduct businesses with already sanctioned entities, individuals and countries such as North Korea.

Arnold said the presence of North Korean restaurants in China represents “another example of China failing to implement its sanctions obligations.”

North Korea has also operated restaurants in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Thailand in the past. Some have closed since the sanctions and the COVID-19 pandemic, while others remain open.

your ad here

China Positioning C919 Passenger Jet to Take On Boeing, Airbus

washington — China’s state-owned plane manufacturer is facing industry skepticism over its claims that its newest passenger aircraft, the C919, can break the passenger-jet duopoly of Boeing and Airbus.

COMAC’s promotional tour through the fast-growing aviation markets of Singapore, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Indonesia ended in Malaysia on Wednesday, according to China’s official Xinghua news agency. At each stop, the Shanghai-headquartered enterprise presented its C919 to potential buyers as a viable alternative to the Airbus 320 and Boeing 737.

International and regional tourism is expected to reach, then surpass pre-pandemic levels in many Southeast Asian countries this year, according to analysts who cautioned that subsequent growth may hinge on China’s economy making a full recovery.

The Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC) expects the demand for passenger aircraft in the Asia-Pacific market to increase over the next two decades from 3,314 to 9,701 planes, according to Chinese state media.

But Skift, a travel industry research site, quoted the executive chairman of Air Lease, one of the largest aircraft lessors in the world, saying the company isn’t planning to buy any C919 jets.

“The CCP [Chinese Communist Party] and COMAC are very interested in selling the C919,” said Steven Udvar-Hazy at the aviation industry’s Wings Club in New York on February 29. “But it’s a one-way dating relationship.”

Brendan Sobie of Sobie Aviation, an aviation industry consultancy in Singapore, told CNBC, “It’s still early days to know if COMAC can shake up the duopoly. … We are not likely to see a C919 overseas order of significance in the near term.”

As the C919 tour progressed, COMAC said its goal was to showcase the aircraft and lay “the groundwork for future market expansion in Southeast Asia.”

The C919 is certified only by the Civil Aviation Administration of China, which approved it in September 2022. The narrow-body jet entered commercial service with China Eastern Airlines last year in May.

COMAC says it has more than 1,000 orders for the C919, but most of those are from Chinese airlines and aircraft lessors. At the Singapore Airshow, COMAC took orders from Tibet Airlines, a Chinese entity, for 40 C919 single-aisle planes. Boeing and Airbus planes are sold out through the end of the decade, according to Bloomberg.

China has said it wants to secure broader international recognition for the C919 and plans on pursuing European Union Aviation Safety Agency certification.

Boeing and Airbus executives say they’re not worried about the aircraft that was shown for the first time outside China at the Singapore Airshow February 20-25.

The C919 is “not going to rock the boat in particular,” Christian Scherer, chief executive officer of Airbus’s aircraft commercial business, said at a media roundtable on the sidelines of the industry event.

Scherer added the C919 was a “legitimate effort” by China but is “not very different” from the Airbus and Boeing aircraft.

Dave Schulte, Boeing’s commercial marketing managing director for Asia-Pacific, said airlines in Southeast Asia may consider ordering C919s, according to Barron’s.

However, he warned that COMAC will face the same supply-chain disruptions as Boeing and Airbus as post-pandemic demand for air travel increases. Assembled in China, the C919 relies heavily on components, including engines, from companies outside China such as GE and Honeywell International.

After Singapore, COMAC took the C919 to Vietnam from February 26-29 for its own airshow followed by a two-week progression of shows in Laos, Cambodia, Malaysia and Indonesia.

Tan Wan Geng, COMAC’s board chair, described Vietnam as an important international aviation center in Southeast Asia and predicted increased exchanges and cooperation between his operation and Vietnam’s aviation industry.

In Singapore, Tibet Airlines ordered 10 ARJ21 jets, the C919’s smaller predecessor, and China’s Henan Civil Aviation Development and Investment Group ordered six ARJ21s.

 

Cambodia’s State Secretariat of Civil Aviation Undersecretary of State and spokesman Sinn Chanserey Vutha said last week that Cambodia supported the entry of C919 and ARJ21 jets into the aircraft market.

“This is a good sign for the aircraft market,” he told China’s official Xinhua while attending the demonstration flight event.

Nguyen Thien Thong, a leading expert in aviation engineering in Vietnam, told VOA Vietnamese in a February 28 telephone interview that it is unlikely that airlines in Vietnam will purchase or lease the COMAC aircraft in the near future.

The founder of the Aviation Engineering program at Van Lang University said that adding one more airline supplier to their current fleets of Airbus and Boeing would complicate maintenance, management and operations while increasing costs.

“I don’t think it is effective,” added the former head of the Aviation Engineering Department at Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology.

Udvar-Hazy, the Air Lease executive chairman, pointed to a lack of support infrastructure needed to make the C919 commercially viable in international markets, according to Skift. He added the Chinese jet also lacks technical support training. 

“Without that,” he said, “there’s no export market.”

your ad here

Video Shows Rohingya Forcibly Recruited Into Myanmar Military

washington — VOA has recently obtained video footage depicting Rohingya from Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps being trained as soldiers in Rakhine state, the scene of heavy fighting between Myanmar’s military junta and ethnic armed groups.

The footage shows the young refugees armed with weapons and undergoing military training, revealing what appears to be forcible recruitment by the junta. Experts and witnesses say they believe the young recruits will be used as human shields by the junta in their struggle to regain territory lost in recent battles with the Arakan Army in Rakhine.

The Rohingya, a predominantly Muslim ethnic minority group, have faced persecution and discrimination in Myanmar for decades.

Denied citizenship under a 1982 Citizenship Law, they have been subjected to systemic discrimination, violence and expulsion from their homes in Rakhine state, bordering Bangladesh to the north. The military government has long portrayed the Rohingya as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, marginalizing them from society.

The junta, which seized power in a bloody and widely denounced coup just over three years ago, began enforcing a militia conscription law on February 10. Soon after, rumors began circulating of Muslims in Rakhine being arrested and forced to join the military.

Despite the junta’s denials, a video released on March 6 shows about 300 Rohingya youths from IDP camps near Sittwe, Rakhine’s junta-controlled capital, being forced to wear military uniforms and sitting in a large warehouse. The video also features the minister of security and border affairs of Rakhine state, Colonel Kyaw Thura, supervising the operation.

On March 6, 2024, more than 300 Rohingya individuals were estimated to have been sent for military training and compelled to wear military uniforms. The video captures the visit of Colonel Kyaw Thura, the Rakhine State Security and Border Affairs minister, from the Myanmar junta. (UGC courtesy video)

Amid continuing losses in battles with the Arakan Army (AA), a powerful ethnic armed group based in Rakhine state, “the military junta is attempting to use Rohingyas as human shields for political gain,” said Myanmar’s National Unity Government (NUG) deputy human rights minister, Aung Kyaw Moe, in an interview via Zoom. The NUG views itself as a shadow government for Myanmar.

“The military junta, which has been heavily defeated in the battles with the Arakan Army, is using the Rohingya because of the need to reinforce their ranks, and they are taking them from refugee camps where there is no land to run to,” said Aung Kyaw Moe, NUG’s first Rohingya minister.

Arakan Army

The Arakan Army, established in 2009 by Rakhine youth leaders, is a well-trained and well-armed military faction representing a Buddhist ethnic minority. It is part of the Three Brotherhood Alliance, which includes the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army and Ta’Ang National Liberation Army.

The alliance has achieved several major victories against the junta, beginning with the “1027” operation in October of last year in which the junta suffered significant losses of territory and troops.

According to Rakhine observers, there are an estimated 45,000 troops in the AA. The group seeks autonomy from Myanmar’s central government in Rakhine state, aiming to “restore the sovereignty of the Arakan people,” according to its mission statement online. The name Arakan is another name used to refer to the Rakhine people.

Fighting between the junta and the AA, which began in November 2023, is fierce. Dozens of Rohingya civilians were killed in January and February during junta attacks, some with heavy artillery, on AA troops based in Rohingya villages, according to local human rights organizations.

Forced recruitment tactics

Local Rohingya sources have confirmed to VOA that approximately 500 Rohingya youths from IDP camps controlled by the Myanmar military have undergone military training, raising concerns about forced recruitment tactics.

“When the military enforced the conscription law, junta commanders visited IDP camps in Sittwe and Rohingya villages around February 11 to 13, areas they had previously avoided,” a young Rohingya man, who requested anonymity for safety reasons, told VOA. “They first consult with camp leaders, then pressure us to take up arms, citing our duty as Myanmar citizens under the conscription law.

“In addition,” he said, “they threaten us that those who refuse to take up arms will face dire consequences.”

Since 2017, approximately 1 million Rohingya refugees have been forcibly displaced from Myanmar, seeking shelter in neighboring Bangladesh. Additionally, an estimated 630,000 Rohingyas, designated as stateless by the United Nations, face movement restrictions inside Rakhine state.

“Rohingya, who have endured severe oppression by the Myanmar military, reaching the level of genocide charges in Rakhine state, are now being coerced by the army to join their ranks and confront the Arakan Army as human shields. Young Rohingya from villages are unable to flee to neighboring Bangladesh,” said the Rohingya youth.

Several videos have surfaced on social media, revealing recruited Rohingya wearing uniforms and holding rifles riding a military truck and undergoing military training in a field. When VOA checked with local sources, it was confirmed that these events occurred last week near the Rakhine state capital, Sittwe.

Dozens of young Rohingya men were given military training by the junta’s troop in Sittwe, Myanmar, on March 9, 2024.  (UGC courtesy video)

A spokesperson for the junta has not yet responded to questions from VOA about the videos, including one that shows the Rakhine border minister visiting Rohingya while wearing a military uniform.

Consequences of coercion

“Initially, the junta claimed that because the Rohingya are not citizens, they have no reason to give them military training,” Aung Kyaw Moe told VOA. “The junta said that it was fake news, but the videos we received prove that they put the Rohingya in uniforms and give them military training.”

Although the young men are being forced into military service, the videos show them laughing and joking, looking unaware of their situation.

“A Rohingya child who has been locked up in a refugee camp since the age of 6 is now 18 years old. This child does not know what is going on in the outside world,” the deputy minister said. “There are hundreds of thousands of people who have been locked up in refugee camps for years and don’t know what’s going on outside. The junta knows this and is using it.

“On the other hand,” he added, “among the Rohingya and other ethnic groups, there are leaders who do business with the junta and organize the Rohingya according to their will.”

Historical coexistence

Aung Kyaw Moe also highlighted consultations between the NUG and the Arakan Army regarding Rohingya in Rakhine State.

“The Arakan Army has condemned forced Rohingya recruitment, citing their historical coexistence,” he told VOA. “Historically, the Muslim Rohingya and the Buddhist Rakhine communities have shared a relationship of peaceful coexistence, characterized by mutual respect and cooperation.

“Despite occasional tensions,” he continued, “both communities have often lived side by side, intermingling culturally and economically. This historical bond has been a testament to the resilience of communal harmony in the region.”

Holding the junta accountable

“The military junta is the common enemy,” the young Rohingya man told VOA. “Not just for the Rohingya, but for the entire country. We must question why [it] now arms us. The army exploits Rohingya suffering for its gain.”

Miemie Winn Byrd, a former U.S. Army lieutenant colonel and Myanmar-U.S. military relations expert, remarked on the irony that the same army responsible for brutally killing thousands of Rohingya is now arming them as soldiers.

“Today the junta are saying the Rohingya are citizens and should be conscripted into the military, whereas for all this time the junta has said that they are not citizens,” she said in a recent interview with VOA. “This highlights the lack of legitimacy of the current government.

“They do as they please because they are not a legitimate government; they are essentially a group trying to terrorize the country. Therefore, it’s not surprising to witness such actions from them, because they are not a professional organization.”

Aung Kyaw Moe emphasized that the junta’s exploitation of vulnerable Rohingya violates international law.

“This is inhumane and a clear violation of the provisional measures issued by the … World Court, which called for the prevention of genocidal acts against the Rohingya minority,” he said.

“The military junta must be held accountable for these egregious violations of human rights and international law.”

your ad here

Chinese Cyber Nationalists Target Nobel Laureate, Water Company

Taipei, Taiwan — Online nationalism has been surging in China in recent weeks, with a growing band of cyber nationalists targeting the country’s first Nobel laureate in literature, Mo Yan, and the largest bottled water producer, Nongfu Spring.

The online attacks against Nongfu Spring began after prominent nationalist billionaire Zong Qinghou, the founder of the company’s key competitor, Hangzhou Wahaha Group, passed away on February 25.

Some netizens began comparing Zong with Nongfu Spring’s founder, Zhong Shanshan, the richest person in China, and it quickly grew into an all-out attack against Nongfu Spring. Some online nationalists claimed packaging of Nongfu Springs’ products contains Japanese elements, accusing him of being pro-Japan, while others focused on allegations that Zhong’s son is a U.S. citizen.

“If the successor of Nongfu Spring is an American, this company’s ideology is unacceptable,” wrote one Chinese netizen on China’s popular social media platform Weibo.

“I can’t accept that an American becomes the richest man in China,” another netizen Liu Jia-nan wrote on Weibo. “Even if I can’t change anything, me and my family can definitely stop buying Nongfu Spring’s products.”

The call for boycotting Nongfu Spring’s products has affected the company’s stock, which dropped more than 6% since the attacks began last month. Amid the turmoil, Chinese media outlets reported that Zhong Shanshan stepped down as legal representative of one of Nongfu Spring’s subsidiaries on March 11.

Chinese Nobel laureate Mo Yan, whose real name is Guan Moye, also came under attack from a self-proclaimed nationalistic blogger last month. Wu Wanzheng, who runs the account “Truth Telling Mao Xinghua” on Weibo, announced on February 27 that he planned to sue Mo for violating the Heroes and Martyrs Protection Law in China, which carries a maximum three-year jail sentence if found guilty.

In the indictment shared by Wu on Weibo, he accused Mo of glorifying the Japanese invaders in his novel “Red Sorghum,” which tells the story of a Chinese family during the Second Sino-Japanese War.

He also claimed that Mo tried to “smear heroes and martyrs of the People’s Liberation Army” during the Chinese Civil War in another novel. Wu demanded that Mo apologize, offer an equivalent of $0.14 U.S. dollars to each Chinese citizen as compensation, and have his books removed from shelves across China.

Mo and Nongfu Spring are not the only targets of Chinese nationalists’ online attacks in recent years. Several Chinese and global brands, including Chinese sportswear manufacturer Li Ning and Western brands such as H&M, Nike and Adidas, have come under fire for either having designs that resemble Japanese soldiers’ uniforms during World War II or for boycotting cotton from China’s Xinjiang region.

Some experts say for Chinese people engaging in online activities, “wielding the flag of nationalism” is like “a protective shield.

“Those people choose their targets very carefully and they know they can drive a lot of online traffic to themselves,” Dali Yang, a political scientist at the University of Chicago, told VOA in a phone interview.

He said in some cases, Chinese nationalists may feel a “moral righteousness” when they target certain businesses or individuals. “Unless the situation becomes too excessive, the overall environment would generally be permissive toward people who engage in these activities,” Yang said.

And while there used to be mechanisms to prevent content on Chinese social media from becoming too nationalistic, online content regulators are focused more now on removing critical opinions that may be deemed “unpatriotic” or “sensitive” by Chinese officials.

“There is no resistance to nationalistic content on the Chinese internet, and the reason why Chinese authorities don’t remove nationalistic content online is because it’s in line with the government’s narrative,” Eric Liu, a former Weibo moderator and an editor at U.S.-based bilingual news website China Digital Times, told VOA by phone.

After facing threats from the nationalistic blogger, Mo participated in an event with British writer Abdulrazak Gurnah in Beijing earlier this week, which was covered by several Chinese state media outlets. China’s state broadcaster CCTV also reportedly conducted an interview with the celebrated writer.

Separately, some Chinese netizens have come out to urge nationalists to stop targeting Nongfu Spring, while several state-controlled media outlets across China have published opinion pieces to call on nationalists to “stop the witch hunt against another business owners” in China.

Despite efforts from state media to push back against the online attacks, some observers said it’s unlikely the Chinese government will try to stop this trend. “The government would have punished those online nationalists if they want to stop these targeted online attacks,” Murong Xuecun, a prominent Chinese novelist, told VOA by phone.

“China’s free speech environment is already in a bad shape after a decade under Xi’s rule, and if the trend of targeted online attacks continues, the free speech environment in the country will likely further deteriorate,” the novelist said.

In addition to a deteriorating free speech environment, Liu at China Digital Times said this trend may create a chilling effect for many Chinese internet users. “The online environment in China will deteriorate to a point where many internet users may be concerned about becoming the target of such attacks,” he told VOA.

your ad here

Observers: US Investments in Philippines Seen Easing Reliance on China

Taipei, Taiwan — During a trade mission visit to Manila this week, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo announced plans to invest more than $1 billion in the Philippines’ tech sector and help double the number of semiconductor factories in the country.

Observers say the pledge and visit highlight the Southeast Asian nation’s growing importance to Washington and will also help reduce the Philippine economy’s reliance on China.

“U.S. companies have realized that our chip supply chain is way too concentrated in just a few countries in the world,” Raimondo said in remarks at a business forum on Tuesday.

“Forget about geopolitics. Just at that level of concentration, you know the old adage, ‘Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.’ Why do we allow ourselves to be buying so many of our chips from one or two countries? That’s why we need to diversify,” Raimondo said.

American business executives from 22 businesses, including Alphabet’s Google, Visa and Microsoft, joined Raimondo on the trip.

Possible expansion of chip industry

JC Punongbayan, resident economist and columnist of the online news website Rappler.com, said that while the Philippines is one of the key centers in the global electronics industry chain, it does not yet have the ability to manufacture smartphone or computer chips. The Philippines currently has 13 semiconductor factories that focus on assembly, packaging and testing.

“This commitment by the U.S. government to boost the local semiconductor industry is a welcome development because right now, even if semiconductors have figured prominently in trade statistics, these are not high value-added. So basically, we import a lot of components and then export them after assembly and packaging,” Punongbayan told VOA’s Mandarin Service.

“Hopefully, these investments by the U.S. government and private sector partners will enable the Philippines to export higher value-added goods in the future,” he said.

Punongbayan believes that at a time when the Philippines is working hard to amend its regulations and hoping to attract more foreign direct investment, the promised investment from U.S. companies could provide a strong boost to the capital-starved country.

“We have had some difficulties when it comes to attracting foreign investments. And in fact, from 2020 to 2023, foreign direct investments dropped by more than 6% on an annual basis. So, we really need these investments in order to boost the economy,” Punongbayan said.

“And the billion-dollar investment pledge of the U.S. is several times the actual foreign direct investments that have come in recent years — in fact, almost nine times the foreign direct investment from the U.S. in 2023. These are very crucial to Philippine development,” he said.

During Raimondo’s two-day visit, U.S. companies committed to invest in the digital and energy sectors, areas that are in line with Manila’s overall development plans and will help the Philippines’ industrial upgrading and transformation, Punongbayan said.

Defense and economy

Dindo Manhit, president of the Stratbase ADR Institute for Strategic and International Studies, a policy think tank in the Philippines, said that over the years, the Philippines’ economic growth has been mainly driven by strong consumption.

These investment commitments by U.S. companies will accelerate local economic growth, Manhit said, benefiting both the public and private sectors and positively affecting areas such as the Philippines’ manufacturing supply chain and business process outsourcing.

He said these investments could also allow Manila to fully understand that strengthening its alliance with Washington will not only bring it defense assistance but also economic security.

“Because we all share values, democratic values. We value jobs for people. In the case of the Philippines, imagine if we can create jobs that could provide better income for Filipinos,” Manhit said. “Then we will see the strong partnership with the U.S. not limited to national security only, but also economic security.”

Washington’s pledges of economic support for the Philippines comes at a time of rising tensions between Manila and Beijing over sovereignty disputes in the South China Sea.

Earlier this month, Philippine Secretary of Foreign Affairs Enrique Manalo warned that Manila is facing severe “economic coercion” from China. He also said the Philippines relies heavily on trade relations with China and hopes to expand economic and trade connections with other countries, including establishing formal free trade agreement negotiations with the European Union as soon as possible.

Punongbayan said that despite the disputes in the South China Sea, Manila continues to import a large amount of goods from China, which is the largest source of the country’s trade deficit. That shows how difficult it is for the country to decouple its economy from China, and why it is imperative for Manila to lessen its dependence on Beijing.

Greater interest from the United States to invest in the Philippines is a step in the right direction, he said.

“If we import a lot from China, then indirectly we are boosting China’s economy at the same time. And of course, part of the revenues coming from these payments to China will go to the Chinese government,” Punongbayan said. “So indirectly, in a way, the Philippines is funding China’s incursions in the West Philippine Sea.”

Manhit, however, said compared with other Southeast Asian countries, the Philippine economy is not very dependent on China.

According to recent poll by Stratbase ADR Institute for Strategic and International Studies, the country Filipinos most want to maintain good economic relations with is the U.S., followed by Japan, while China ranks at the bottom.

He said the poll not only shows that China does not have as strong an economic influence on the Philippines as Beijing claims, but also that Filipinos are unanimously willing to expand economic cooperation with countries that share common democratic values, or values of human rights and the rule of law.

your ad here

Thai Ex-PM Thaksin Visits Hometown for 1st Time Since Ouster

Bangkok — Thailand’s former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra arrived by private jet on Thursday to visit his northern hometown of Chiang Mai for the first time since fleeing the country after a military coup in 2006.

The influential billionaire has loomed large over Thai politics for two decades, during which his family backed Pheu Thai party has won nearly every general election and is now in power.

In August he made a dramatic return from 15 years of self-imposed exile to dodge jail for alleged abuse of power.

After just six months in a prison hospital, Thaksin received parole in February despite not having spent a single night in jail for a sentence commuted by the king to one year from eight.

Thaksin, wearing a mask and a neck brace, was flanked by his daughter Paetongtarn Shinawatra, agriculture minister Thammanat Prompao and dozens of officials on his arrival for a three-day visit, but he did not speak to media.

“Missed you,” one supporter told the former premier on his first stop at a park, where he met a crowd of dozens with his palms joined together in a traditional gesture of greeting, before she took a selfie picture with him.

“Prime Minister of our hearts,” read the caption under a picture of Thaksin emblazoned on the jacket of another.

At the time of his release from prison, an official had described him as being “truly ill”, needing a wheelchair and wearing his arm in a sling.

Justice Minister Tawee Sodsong said Thaksin had sought permission for the visit to seek alternative medical advice and pay respects to his ancestors.

Critics have complained about Thaksin’s lenient treatment. Thaksin’s return last year coincided to the day with his ally and political newcomer Srettha Thavisin being chosen as prime minister, leading many to suspect a deal between Thaksin and his powerful enemies in the royalist-military establishment.

Thaksin and the government have dismissed the speculation.

your ad here

Australian Producers Hope China’s Wine Tariffs Will Soon End

SYDNEY — China’s high tariffs on Australian wine could be lifted within weeks, according to an interim statement from Chinese authorities saying the duties are no longer necessary.

When diplomatic friction between Australia and its biggest trading partner was at its most intense, Beijing imposed 220% taxes on bottled wine from Australia.

Chinese authorities said Australia was guilty of anti-competitive behavior, but analysts believe China’s economic measures were meant as a punishment.

The value of Australian wine exports to China fell from more than $662 million at their peak to just $6.6 million last year.

Last October, Beijing agreed to a review of the tariffs.  That decision came after the previous conservative government in Canberra referred the tax issue to the World Trade Organization in late 2021.

The Chinese Ministry of Commerce has now recommended in an “interim draft determination” that the tariffs be removed.

China said Thursday that Foreign Minister Wang Yi, will visit Australia for the first time in seven years.  He is scheduled to hold talks with the Australian foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, in Canberra next Wednesday.

Wang’s visit was welcomed by Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.  He told reporters Thursday there had been “significant progress” in removing trade impediments.

Australia’s Labor government – elected in May 2022 – has sought to defuse tensions with China over human rights, democracy in Hong Kong, Taiwan and the origins of COVID-19.

One by one, Chinese restrictions on Australian barley, beef, coal and cotton have been lifted.

Mitchell Taylor, managing director of Taylors Wines in South Australia, told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. Thursday that he hopes the wine tariffs will soon end.

“We are cautiously optimistic,” he said. “This is terrific news and I must say our trade minister Don Farrell has done a great job in rebuilding trade relations with our largest trading partner.  But at the same time, we have lost our market share to the French and the Chilean winemakers.”

China is, by far, Australia’s largest trading partner, accounting for almost one-third of Australia’s total global trade.

Earlier this month, a Canberra government-backed task force was announced to help Australia’s wine industry, which has suffered under Chinese tariffs and an international oversupply of red wine.

your ad here

Trump or Biden – Whom Does China Prefer?

As the U.S. election campaign heats up, both President Joe Biden and his likely challenger, Donald Trump, are vowing to take a tough stance on China. So how does China feel about the race? VOA’s Bill Gallo asked Beijing residents to weigh in on the two candidates. Mingmin Xuan contributed.

your ad here