Category: East

East news. East is the direction toward which the Earth rotates about its axis, and therefore the general direction from which the Sun appears to rise. The practice of praying towards the East is older than Christianity, but has been adopted by this religion as the Orient was thought of as containing mankind’s original home

ASEAN aims to conclude South China Sea code of conduct by 2026

Posted on by SeeEA

STATE DEPARTMENT — The Association of Southeast Asian Nations will speed up negotiations with China on a code of conduct to mitigate the risk of conflicts in the hotly contested South China Sea, a senior official from the Southeast Asian bloc said. The bloc hopes to conclude talks by 2026.

But whether the code of conduct will be legally binding is still under discussion.

“We continue to call on all the direct parties concerned to exercise restraint,” Kao Kim Hourn, secretary-general of the association, also known as ASEAN, told reporters during a roundtable on Wednesday. “We cannot deny the fact that the situation continues to escalate.”

Kao is in Washington this week for his first working visit to promote the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership between the regional bloc and the United States.

Philippines seeks dialogue with China

During a seminar at the Stimson Center on Wednesday, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell urged ASEAN to “send an unmistakable message about concerns with respect to provocations in what are clearly Philippine waters.”

His remarks came amid increasing tensions between China and the Philippines due to recent collisions near the waters around Second Thomas Shoal, known as Rén’ài Jiao in China.

It is an offshore maritime feature in the exclusive economic zone of the Philippines, less than 370 kilometers from the Philippine Island of Palawan, and about 1111 kilometers from China’s Hainan Island, according to CSIS. 

Campbell added that Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. “does not seek a crisis” but desires a dialogue with Beijing. “We’re looking for China to cease provocative activities,” Campbell said.

According to an international tribunal’s legally binding decision issued in July 2016, Second Thomas Shoal is located within the exclusive economic zone of the Philippines, and China has no lawful maritime claims to the waters around this low-tide feature.

Beijing has rejected the ruling, claiming “indisputable sovereignty” over most of the South China Sea.

“All ASEAN member states exercise their own foreign policy,” Kao said, when asked if the regional bloc will issue a strong statement to support the Philippines. “In this case, it’s actually up to each member state” to decide.

Analysts still skeptical

Some analysts say that since 2017 they have repeatedly heard that a code of conduct is just around the corner, but it has never come from the claimants that really have disagreements with China.

Another sticking point is that while ASEAN has long insisted a code of conduct should be legally binding, China has never accepted this key position.

“ASEAN remains quite divided in that the non-claimants are not really invested in solving or even managing this issue and won’t risk China’s displeasure on behalf of their fellow members. This effectively leaves the claimants — the Philippines and Vietnam, in particular — often standing alone to hold the line in negotiations with China,” said Greg Poling, director of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Others, including Luigi Joble, who teaches at Manila-based De La Salle University, said such a challenge — the lack of unity amid member countries’ diverse positions — “has been, unfortunately, chronic to ASEAN’s engagements with China on the issue, including the decades-long Code of Conduct on the South China Sea negotiations.”

Joble added that roadblocks to concluding the code of conduct have been encountered throughout its negotiations. This has prompted certain claimant states to exert control over disputed maritime features, despite violating established international law, hoping such developments will influence the outcome of the code of conduct negotiations.

Bloc divided about Myanmar conflict

The Southeast Asian bloc remains divided over the conflict in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, which began more than three years ago when the junta overthrew the democratically elected government.

Authoritarian ASEAN members such as Laos and Cambodia continue to support the junta to some extent.

Other members, including Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore, have had some level of interaction with the Myanmar resistance.

“I believe that we cannot expect a quick fix or solution” to end the crisis in Burma, said Kao, who was born in Cambodia. “The priority should be to eliminate violence on the ground inside the country and to promote inclusive dialogue among different stakeholders so there is a political path moving forward,” he added.

Kao visited Myanmar last month. He said the country may send a nonpolitical representative to attend ASEAN foreign ministerial meetings in July in Laos’ capital, Vientiane. ASEAN will hold its summit in October.

“On political issues, we shouldn’t be expecting much of ASEAN, because member countries cannot reach a consensus that meets the needs of their political relations with countries outside ASEAN. So, they handle those individually on a bilateral basis,” said Priscilla Clapp, a senior adviser at the United States Institute of Peace.

Shortly after the military coup, the leaders of nine ASEAN member states and Myanmar junta chief General Min Aung Hlaing agreed to an immediate end to violence in the country; dialogue among all parties; the appointment of a special envoy; humanitarian assistance by ASEAN; and the special envoy’s visit to Myanmar to meet with all parties.

“The five-point consensus, I think, is basically dead,” Clapp told VOA, citing conditions that the resistance has rejected as unreasonable, including the impracticality of holding new elections under the current circumstances in the country and accepting a return to the 2008 military constitution.

She added that ASEAN’s special envoy cannot make any progress in ending the conflict without engaging Myanmar’s National Unity Government — which views itself as a shadow government — as well as other major parties to the conflict.
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In ‘land of the unspoken,’ New Caledonia journalists are harassed over riot coverage

Posted on by SeeEA

Washington — When riots broke out in the French territory of New Caledonia last month, journalist Coralie Cochin started rising before the sun.

For about a week, it was too dangerous for Cochin to leave her neighborhood in the suburbs of the capital, Noumea, so she would drive nearby streets looking out for developments.

Then at around 6:30 a.m., Cochin would park and start her live radio hits for public broadcaster Nouvelle-Caledonie la 1ere, informing listeners about roadblocks and clashes.

“Every morning, it was a shock,” Cochin said. “As a journalist, of course I’m passionate about this moment. But at the same time, I’m terrified.”

 

At least nine people have been killed, and dozens of buildings burned since mid-May amid the worst violence to affect New Caledonia in four decades.

 

Unrest in the nickel-rich Pacific archipelago came in response to amendments to a French voting law that, critics warned, risked marginalizing the indigenous Kanak population. The Kanak already suffer from economic inequality and discrimination, say rights groups.

The legislation, which was suspended by French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday, follows a series of independence referendums promised after conflict in the 1980s. Although the final vote — held in 2021 amid the COVID-19 pandemic — reaffirmed that the territory would remain part of France, many Kanaks boycotted the ballot.

Journalists covering the unrest say they have been confronted with violence and harassment from both pro-independence and loyalist camps. The press freedom group Reporters Without Borders, or RSF, has documented around 15 incidents.

“Journalists continue to be threatened, and it’s still difficult for them to circulate freely,” Pavol Szalai, who heads RSF’s European Union desk, told VOA from Paris.

France’s Washington embassy and Ministry of the Overseas did not reply to VOA’s emails requesting comment.

The press freedom landscape in New Caledonia has long been fraught, according to Audrey Poedi, who works for the local television station, Caledonia.

 

“New Caledonia is generally referred to as the land of the unspoken,” said Poedi, who was born in New Caledonia and is Kanak. That nickname, she said, refers to how many issues are viewed as taboo in the archipelago.  

“There is a lot of self-censorship in New Caledonian society. We don’t say it out of shame, out of fear, so as not to dwell on the past,” she said.

For Cochin, who grew up in the French region of Normandy but who has lived in New Caledonia for nearly two decades, the past few weeks have been “the most difficult period we’ve ever experienced.”

At one point, individuals called on social media for the offices of her broadcaster to be burned down. “It was the first time I was really afraid for my life,” Cochin said about seeing those comments.

A group of men also intimidated a crew from her channel on May 17 and stole their TV camera before smashing the windows of the journalists’ car and attempting to steal the vehicle, RSF reported.

Others have been threatened with violence at roadblocks.

Grassroots groups also appear to be attempting to track journalists. Screenshots shared with VOA appear to show individuals detailing where reporters from Agence France-Presse, or AFP, were staying and what car they were driving.

Mathurin Derel, who reports for Le Monde and AFP, told VOA he has also learned that photos of him were being circulated in loyalist group chats.

“It’s a way to intimidate us, to make us write different stories,” said Derel, who says he narrowly avoided a carjacking at a roadblock last month. Originally from Paris, Derel has lived in New Caledonia for nearly two decades.

The violence has created an environment of anxiety among the country’s reporters, according to Poedi.

“Not only are we afraid of being accused of doing our job badly, we’re also afraid that the people will be extremely hostile and that things will get worse — that there will be acts of violence against us,” Poedi said. “It’s a real atmosphere of fear, stress and sadness.”

The environment is also making it harder to find sources willing to speak on the record. Some of the reporters VOA spoke with say they believe the reluctance is driven by a combination of rising mistrust in the media and fears of retaliation.

To try to mitigate the risks, some local reporters are working to form a journalist association to advocate for their rights and protection. RSF has also provided safety equipment.

Back on the outskirts of Noumea, Cochin says she has been working nonstop but that reporting has also provided her with a welcome sense of duty at a challenging time.

“When you are working, you have a kind of distance,” Cochin said. “Reality is much harder when you don’t work.”
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World Bank: Inflation, poverty keep climbing in war-torn Myanmar

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Bangkok — Myanmar’s economy shows no signs of recovering from the 2021 military coup, as civil war drives more workers abroad, pushes inflation into triple digits in some parts of the country and pulls it deeper into poverty, a new World Bank report says.

“Livelihoods Under Threat,” launched Wednesday in Myanmar, says the economy shuffled along over the past year with gross domestic product growing at a meager 1%. The same is expected for next year.

While staving off recession, slow growth still leaves Myanmar’s once-booming economy 10% smaller than it was before the country’s military ousted the democratically elected government more than three years ago.

Resistance groups have made major battlefield gains against the junta since late last year and are believed to control more than half the country, including some key border trade routes.

“The overall storyline is that the economy remains weak and fragile overall. Operating conditions for businesses of all sizes and all sectors remain very difficult,” World Bank senior economist Kim Edwards said at the report’s launch.

The bank says overall inflation rose some 30% in the year leading up to September 2023, and even more in areas where fighting has been fiercest.

“You can see in the conflict-affected states and regions — Kayin, Kachin, Sagaing, northern Shan, Kayah — price rises of 40 to 50%,” Edwards said.

“And then in Rakhine, where … there’s been particular problems and increasing conflict recently, we’ve seen price rises of 200% over the year. So, very substantial. And obviously, it has very significant effects for food insecurity,” he said.

The United Nations’ World Food Program says food insecurity now plagues a quarter of Myanmar’s 55 million people, especially the more than 3 million displaced by the fighting.

In Wednesday’s report, the World Bank also estimates that nearly one-third of the population now lives in poverty.

“And we see the depth and severity of poverty. So, this is really a measure of how poor people in poverty actually are — worsening also in 2023, meaning that poverty is more entrenched than at any time in the last six years,” Edwards said.

The bank says much of the inflation is being driven by the steady depreciation of the currency, the kyat. While the official exchange rate remains stuck at 2,100 to the U.S. dollar, trading of the kyat on the black market soared past 4,500 to the dollar in May.

The junta has imposed several controls to conserve its dwindling foreign currency reserves. Last month, it urged companies doing business abroad to barter with their trade partners and settle bills with their wares instead of cash.

At the same time, the bank says border trade — a major source of tax revenue for the regime — is being hit hard by the gains the resistance has been making along Myanmar’s frontiers with China, India and Thailand. It says imports and exports by land fell 50% and 44% respectively, in the past six months.

The junta has leaned heavily on oil and gas revenue, but with little investment for exploration of new reserves, those exports are likely to start falling in the coming years, as well, Edwards said.

More of what the junta does earn is going to the military at the expense of other basic services. According to the report, defense spending hit 17% of the national budget in the fiscal year that ended in March, nearly twice what was spent on health and education combined.

Encouraging news

The World Bank says manufacturing and agriculture output in Myanmar have started to pick up, and a combination of cheaper fertilizer and higher crop prices could keep the farming sector growing.

Traders stymied by blocked border gates also seem to be shifting some of their traffic to new routes on land and sea.

“There are some signs of life,” Edwards said. “And these really speak to the adaptability of many of Myanmar’s businesses and their ability to cope with what, under any objective circumstances, are very difficult business constraints and conditions.”

Even so, Edwards said, “The near-term outlook remains quite weak, with the economy failing to recover from its recent, very sharp contraction.”

Htwe Htwe Thein, an associate professor at Australia’s Curtin University who has been studying Myanmar’s business and economic development for two decades, said she could not recall a worse time for Myanmar’s economy.

“The state of the economy has never been this low in terms of prospects, in terms of … the trajectory,” she told VOA.

“The only people who are doing well … is a very, very small percentage at the top who are working with the junta,” she said. “Everybody else is suffering severely.”

Amid the fierce inflation, falling wages and dwindling job prospects, Thein said, the young are losing hope and grasping at any opportunity to work or study abroad.

She added that the junta’s efforts to shore up the economy have been ad hoc and short-sighted, and that rebuilding will take years and can only be achieved if and when the junta is out of power.
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North Koreans face lives devoid of hope, UN rights chief says

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United Nations — The U.N. high commissioner for human rights delivered a bleak assessment of the situation in North Korea on Wednesday, a decade after an in-depth report shed light on severe and widespread abuses in the country.

“Today, the DPRK is a country sealed off from the world,” Volker Türk told a special briefing of the U.N. Security Council that North Korea’s ambassador did not attend. “A stifling, claustrophobic environment, where life is a daily struggle devoid of hope.”

DPRK is the abbreviation for North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

Türk expressed concern about the regime’s tight control over the movements of its citizens, including the ability to leave the country. Most North Koreans cannot obtain the required government permission to leave, and those who attempt to escape face torture, labor camps or death if they fail.

“Leaving your own country is not a crime – on the contrary, it is a human right, recognized by international law,” he said by video from his office in Geneva.

He said repression of the freedom of expression has also worsened with the enforcement of laws forbidding people from consuming foreign media or culture, such as South Korean television dramas or K-pop music.

“Put simply, people in the DPRK are at risk of death for merely watching or sharing a foreign television series,” the human rights chief said.  

He urged Pyongyang to halt the use of the death penalty throughout its legal system and move toward its complete abolition.

Perhaps even more worrying, is the situation of food security in North Korea.

“Every single person interviewed by my office has mentioned this in one form or another,” Türk said. “In the words of one: “It’s very easy to become fragile and malnourished because there is nothing to eat.”

The World Food Program says more than 40% of North Koreans, nearly 11 million people, are undernourished. Many suffer from chronic malnutrition because of a lack of essential nutrients, especially those living outside major cities. Children are particularly affected, with 18% suffering stunting and impaired development because of chronic malnutrition.

The high commissioner also expressed concern about Pyongyang’s use of forced labor, including overseas. He noted that workers they have interviewed described often performing work that is physically dangerous and they endured extreme levels of surveillance.

Western nations accuse North Korea of using these laborers’ wages to help fund their illicit nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs.

Türk said there have been some recent “positive signs” from North Korea in their engagement with the international human rights system, but he did not explain what that included.

Defector speaks

Gumhyok Kim, 33, grew up in privilege in North Korea. His family were Kim regime loyalists and so in 2010, he was able to leave the country and study in Beijing.

“At the age of 19, I saw a world for the first time that was different from everything I had learned,” he told the council. “In particular, the internet enabled me to learn about my country’s history and realize the horrific truth of North Korea that had been hidden from me.”

He said his feeling of loyalty to the Kim family that has ruled North Korea for three generations quickly turned to one of betrayal, and he began to connect with other North Korean students in Beijing to discuss the situation.

In the winter of 2011, the North Korean authorities discovered their activities, and he fled China to South Korea to avoid arrest.

“I survived and found freedom. But that freedom had come at a great cost,” he said.  “It has already been 12 years since I defected, but I still have no contact with my family.”

He appealed directly to North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un, saying nuclear weapons and repression are not the way to maintain leadership.

“Allow North Koreans to live in freedom. Allow them their basic rights so they can live full and happy lives,” Kim said. “Turn away from the nuclear weapons threat and return your country to the family of nations so all North Korean people may lead prosperous lives.”

Kim and his South Korean-born wife chronicle their married life on YouTube, where they show what life is like in Seoul. He said he is now a father to a 1-year-old, and he hopes one day to take his son to a changed North Korea.

Council inaction

The U.N. Security Council is divided over the situation in North Korea. The last time its 15 members agreed on sanctions for the regime’s nuclear and ballistic missile activity was in 2017. Since then, the geopolitical landscape has changed, the council has become more fractured, and action on the North Korean file has become more difficult.

Both China and Russia objected to Wednesday’s human rights briefing, saying such issues do not belong in the Security Council. Russia called for a procedural vote, but lost, as only China joined it in voting against holding the meeting and 12 council members supported it. Mozambique abstained. There are no vetoes in procedural votes.

“The efforts by both Russia and China to block this meeting today is another effort to support the DPRK, and is also emboldening their actions,” U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said.

Venezuela’s envoy made a statement to reporters outside the council during the meeting on behalf of the “Group of Friends in Defense of Charter of the United Nations,” rejecting the convening of a human rights-specific council meeting. The group of 18 like-minded countries includes Russia, China, North Korea, Belarus, Iran, Cuba and Syria.

The council meeting was requested by the United States and Britain, along with Japan and South Korea, who both currently hold non-permanent council seats.

“The DPRK nuclear and human rights issues are like two sides of the same coin, and thus, need to be addressed comprehensively,” South Korean Ambassador JoonKook Hwang said.

He urged the council to regularly address the human rights situation. Until last August, the last time the council discussed North Korea’s human rights situation also was in 2017.

A 2014 Commission of Inquiry report found that North Korea’s rights violations had risen to the level of crimes against humanity. The panel said the regime had used “extermination, murder, enslavement, torture, imprisonment, rape, forced abortions and other sexual violence, persecution on political, religious, racial and gender grounds, the forcible transfer of populations, the enforced disappearance of persons and the inhumane act of knowingly causing prolonged starvation.”
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North, South Korea wage psychological warfare

Posted on by SeeEA

Inter-Korean relations have sunk to their lowest level in years as both countries intensify cross-border psychological warfare. The developments began with North Korea sending waste-filled balloons into the South. VOA’s William Gallo has more details from near the Korean border.
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Analysts see closer US-Indonesia ties under incoming president

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Indonesia’s Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto is set to be sworn in as the country’s next president in October, after having resoundingly won elections in February. VOA’s Virginia Gunawan reports on what this means for U.S. relations with Southeast Asia’s largest country. Ahadian Utama, Hafizh Sahadeva contributed to this report
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Thai courts to hear politically sensitive cases next week

Posted on by SeeEA

Bangkok — Thai courts will convene on a trio of politically charged cases next week, including one that could potentially lead to the prime minister’s dismissal, increasing the prospect of more government instability in the Southeast Asian country. 

In a statement on Wednesday, the Constitutional Court said it would hear a case against Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin on June 18. It stems from a complaint by 40 military appointed senators in May, who alleged that he breached the constitution by making a cabinet appointment. The court also said it would hold a hearing next Tuesday in a case brought by the country’s election commission that is seeking to disband the opposition Move Forward Party.

The party was the surprise winner of last year’s general election, but failed to form a government after it was blocked by the conservative-royalist establishment.

The court has yet to set a date for the verdicts in both cases.

Meanwhile, influential former premier Thaksin Shinawatra – who returned to Thailand last August after 15 years of self-imposed exile is scheduled to be formally indicted in a criminal court for allegedly insulting the royalty and computer crime on Tuesday.

The court cases have ramped up political uncertainty in Southeast Asia’s second-largest economy and roiled its markets.

Srettha, Thaksin and the Move Forward Party deny any wrongdoing.

A government spokesperson declined to comment on the court proceedings. 

Decades-long struggle

Thailand’s politics has been defined for decades by a struggle between the powerful conservative, royalist camp and their rivals, which initially centered around Thaksin and his political parties but now also includes Move Forward.

A real estate tycoon, Srettha entered politics with the Thaksin-backed Pheu Thai party and has struggled to implement election promises, including firing up the country’s laggard economy and a cash handout scheme for 50 million Thais.

Deputy Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai told reporters on Tuesday that Srettha was continuing to work in “full capacity.”

“There is no problem at all,” he said.

The main opposition Move Forward party is also under scrutiny from the same court that is considering Srettha’s case for a campaign to reform the country’s royal insult – or lese majeste – law.

The law, which protects the monarchy from insult and defamation, carries a punishment of up to 15 years jail for each perceived offense. It has been applied to prosecute over 270 people since 2020, according to a legal aid group.

Move Forward won massive youth support with its lively progressive agenda that was amplified by a sophisticated social media campaign, brushing aside military-backed parties in the 2023 polls and securing 30% of the seats in the lower house.

If it is found in breach of the constitution, the party could be dissolved and its executives banned from politics for a decade.

A party spokesman did not respond to a call seeking comment.

In January, the Constitutional Court ruled in an earlier case that Move Forward’s plan to amend lese majeste laws was a hidden effort to undermine the monarchy. The court ordered the party to stop its campaign, which Move Forward did.

In 2020, the Move Forward’s predecessor party, Future Forward, was dissolved over a campaign funding violation.

Future Forward’s dissolution was among the factors that triggered massive anti-government street protests in 2020, calling for the removal of then Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha and reform of the monarchy.
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North Korea’s Kim boasts of ‘invincible’ ties amid talks of Putin visit

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Seoul, South Korea — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has said his country is an “invincible comrade-in-arms” with Russia in a message to President Vladimir Putin, state media KCNA said on Wednesday, amid speculation over Putin’s impending visit to North Korea.

Marking Russia’s National Day, Kim said his meeting with Putin at a Russian space launch facility last year elevated the ties of their “century-old strategic relationship.”

The message came after Russia’s Vedomosti newspaper on Monday reported Putin would visit North Korea and Vietnam in the coming weeks.

An official in Vietnam told Reuters the Vietnam trip was planned for June 19 and 20 but has not yet been confirmed. The Kremlin has said Russia wants to foster cooperation with North Korea “in all areas” but has not confirmed the date of the visit.

Kim traveled to Russia’s Far East last September, touring the Vostochny Cosmodrome space launch center, where Putin promised to help him build satellites.

Kim also lauded Russia for achieving results from its efforts to build a strong country by “suppressing and crushing all the challenges and sanctions and pressures of hostile forces.”

Pyongyang and Moscow have increasingly stepped up diplomatic and security relations, hosting government, parliamentary and other delegations in recent months.

A group of North Korean officials in charge of public security was set to visit Russia this week.

Officials in Washington and Seoul have accused North Korea of shipping weapons to Russia to support its war against Ukraine in exchange for technological aid with its own nuclear and missile programs. 
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Analysts see rising war threat in China’s new South China Sea policies

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washington — Military experts are warning of an increased risk of war with China following recent announcements by Beijing providing for more aggressive enforcement of its claims to disputed regions of the South China Sea.  

Late last month, China announced its coast guard will be empowered to investigate and detain for up to 60 days “foreigners who endanger China’s national security and interests” in the disputed waters. The policy will take effect on June 15.    

And on June 8, it announced it would permit the Philippines to deliver supplies and evacuate personnel from an outpost on the disputed Second Thomas Shoal, which has been determined by an international tribunal to lie within Philippine waters, only if it first notifies Beijing.    

The Philippine National Security Council replied that the country will continue to maintain and supply its outposts in the South China Sea without seeking permission from any other country.    

In a formal statement under the council’s letterhead, national security adviser Eduardo Ano dismissed the suggestion as”absurd, ridiculous and unacceptable.”

According to a June 10 report in the South China Morning Post, a survey released by independent polling agency OCTA Research showed that 73% of Filipinos support further military action to safeguard the Philippines’ territorial rights, including expanded naval patrols and the dispatch of additional troops.   

Philippine media believe the new procedures will empower the Chinese coast guard to “arbitrarily” arrest Filipinos in their own waters. China’s claims to almost the entire sea reach into the internationally recognized economic zones of several Southeast Asian countries.    

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. called the new rules “totally unacceptable” and said he will take all necessary measures to “protect citizens” and continue to”defend the country’s territory.”  

In his keynote speech at the Shangri-La Security Dialogue in Singapore on May 31, the president pointed out that if a Filipino was killed in a South China Sea conflict with China, it would”almost certainly” cross a red line and come “very close” to what the Philippines defines as an act of war.  

John C. Aquilino, former head of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, testified before the U.S. Congress last month that Manila could invoke the 1951 U.S.-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty in such a case.  

Bob Savic, head of international trade at the Global Policy Institute in London, said last week that this could bring the United States and China into a direct conflict.  

“The trigger for the First World War occurred on June 28, 1914, with the assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand in a country in Southeast Europe. This time, the trigger could be the death of a Filipino sailor in the tropical waters of Southeast Asia,” he wrote in an article published in the Asia Times.  

He believes if Manila is forced to request U.S. assistance under the Mutual Defense Treaty, it is conceivable that China Coast Guard ships would quickly confront U.S. warships maintaining freedom of navigation in the region. “The U.S. and China must ensure they don’t sleepwalk into a repeat of the 1914 tragedy in the second half of June 2024 or, indeed, at any point in the future,” Savic wrote.  

‘It might trigger escalation’

Andrea Chloe Wong, a nonresident research fellow at the Institute for Indo-Pacific Affairs, told VOA at a June 6 seminar hosted by the National Bureau of Asian Research that if the Mutual Defense Treaty is invoked, “it might trigger escalation or conflict between the Philippines and China.”  

The safety of Filipino personnel has become the focus of recent rounds of South China Sea disputes. On June 7, the Philippines accused a Chinese coast guard ship of ramming a Philippine ship, deterring the evacuation of a sick soldier from a grounded warship which serves as a Philippine military outpost on the Second Thomas Shoal. 

Romeo Brawner, chief of staff of the armed forces of the Philippines, told reporters June 4 that Chinese coast guard officers had seized some food that a plane dropped for Philippine naval personnel aboard the aging warship. He also released video of the incident, AP reported.   

Despite the rising tension, Oriana Skylar Mastro, a Center Fellow at Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, told VOA that the possibility of World War III breaking out in the South China Sea is not high.  

She believes that China will not choose to fight a war in the South China Sea at this time because they know they would lose.  

“They can’t project power across those kinds of distances yet. When I talk to the PLA [People’s Liberation Army, China’s principal military force], they say the only reason they haven’t declared internal waters in the Spratly [chain] is because there’s no way they can enforce that.”  

US promises assets, say reports

The United States Coast Guard has promised to send assets to the South China Sea to help Manila uphold sovereign rights in its exclusive economic zone, ABS-CBN News said Tuesday, citing the Philippine Coast Guard. 

In a statement, the Philippine Coast Guard said the U.S. Coast Guard will deploy its North Pacific Coast Guard following a proposal by Philippine Admiral Ronnie Gil Gavan. Gavan called for a “greater deployment” in the high seas “to address the forthcoming threat” posed by China’s threat to arrest foreigners inside what it claims as its maritime boundaries.  

In a research report released last month by the National Bureau of Asian Research, Michael Shoebridge of the Strategic Analysis Australia pointed out that collective action by the Philippines and its allies could effectively reduce risks in the South China Sea.  

“The risk of such collective action escalating into conflict is real. However, it could be mitigated by the militaries clearly acting within international law and coordinating a united political response to demonstrate and communicate this,” he wrote. “That would counter Chinese efforts”to intimidate others and cast such lawful action as aggression.”  

Shoebridge, who also attended the National Bureau of Asian Research’s June 6 seminar, said at the meeting that “unless we cause Chinese policy and action to fail, we are leaving all the leverage with Beijing, and we are waiting for our servicemen and women to be killed by the PLA. And that’s not the future that I want.”  

Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
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Chinese police say man under arrest in stabbing of US college instructors

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BEIJING — Chinese police have detained a suspect in a stabbing attack on four instructors from Iowa’s Cornell College who were teaching at a Chinese university in the northeast city of Jilin, officials said Tuesday.

Jilin city police said a 55-year-old man surnamed Cui was walking in a public park on Monday when he bumped into a foreigner. He stabbed the foreigner and three other foreigners who were with him, and also stabbed a Chinese person who approached in an attempt to intervene, police said.

The instructors from Cornell College were teaching at Beihua University, officials at the U.S. school said.

The injured were rushed to a hospital for treatment and none was in critical condition, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said at a daily briefing Tuesday. He said police believe the attack in Jilin city’s Beishan Park was an isolated incident, based on a preliminary assessment, and the investigation is ongoing.

Cornell College President Jonathan Brand said in a statement that the instructors were attacked while at the park with a faculty member from Beihua, which is in an outlying part of Jilin, an industrial city about 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) northeast of Beijing. Monday was a public holiday in China.

The State Department said in a statement it was aware of reports of a stabbing and was monitoring the situation. The attack happened as both Beijing and Washington are seeking to expand people-to-people exchanges to help bolster relations amid tensions over trade and such international issues as Taiwan, the South China Sea and the war in Ukraine.

An Iowa state lawmaker posted a statement on Instagram saying his brother, David Zabner, had been wounded during a stabbing attack in Jilin. Rep. Adam Zabner described his brother as a doctoral student at Tufts University who was in China under the Cornell-Beihua relationship.

“I spoke to David a few minutes ago, he is recovering from his injuries and doing well,” Adam Zabner wrote, adding that his brother was grateful for the care he received at a hospital.

News of the incident was suppressed in China, where the government maintains control on information about anything considered sensitive. News media outlets had not reported it. Some social media accounts posted foreign media reports about the attack, but a hashtag about it was blocked on a popular portal and photos and video of the incident were quickly taken down.

Cornell spokesperson Jen Visser said in an email that the college was still gathering information about what happened.

Visser said the private college in Mount Vernon, Iowa, partners with Beihua University. A college news release from 2018, when the program started, says Beihua provides funding for Cornell professors to travel to China to teach a portion of courses in computer science, mathematics and physics over a two-week period.

According to a 2020 post on Beihua’s website, the Chinese university uses American teaching methods and resources to give engineering students an international perspective and English-language ability.

About one-third of the core courses in the program use U.S. textbooks and are taught by American professors, according to the post. Students can apply to study for two years of their four-year education at Cornell College and receive degrees from both institutions.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has unveiled a plan to invite 50,000 young Americans to China in the next five years, though Chinese diplomats say a travel advisory by the U.S. State Department has discouraged Americans from visiting China.

Citing arbitrary detentions as well as exit bans that could prevent Americans from leaving the country, the State Department has issued a Level 3 travel advisory — the second-highest warning level — for mainland China. It urges Americans to “reconsider travel” to China.

Some American universities have suspended their China programs due to the travel advisory.

Lin, the Foreign Ministry spokesperson, said China has taken effective measures to protect the safety of foreigners. “We believe that the isolated incident will not disrupt normal cultural and people-to-people exchanges between the two countries,” he said.
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China’s Premier Li Qiang to visit Australia this week

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Sydney — China’s Li Qiang will arrive in Australia Saturday, the first visit by a Chinese premier since 2017, in a sign of improving ties, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Tuesday.

During the four-day visit Li will visit the city of Adelaide city, the capital Canberra, and Australia’s mining state Western Australia. 

Both leaders will meet with Australian and Chinese business leaders at a roundtable in Western Australia, Albanese said at a media briefing in Canberra.

China is Australia’s largest trading partner, with Australian resources and energy exports dominating trade flow.

Australia is the biggest supplier of iron ore to China and China has been an investor in Australian mining projects, though some recent Chinese investment in critical minerals has been blocked by Australia on national interest grounds.

Albanese said foreign investment has a role to play in Australia and is considered on a case-by-case basis.

“Chinese engagement, including with the resources sector, has been important for growth,” he said.

China imposed trade restrictions on a raft of Australian agricultural and mineral products during a diplomatic dispute in 2020, which has now largely eased.

Albanese said he would like to see the remaining Chinese trade impediments on lobsters and seafood removed.

In his meeting with Li next week in Canberra, Albanese will raise the case of Australian writer Yang Hengjun who was given a suspended death sentence on espionage charges in February, as well as an incident last month where a Chinese military jet dropped flares near an Australian defense helicopter, which Albanese said “was dangerous and should never had happened.”

“Welcoming the Chinese premier to our shores is an opportunity for Australia to advance our interests by demonstrating our national values, our people’s qualities and our economy’s strengths,” he said. 

“Australia continues to pursue a stable and direct relationship with China, with dialog at its core.”
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US and Philippine forces end drills that tested their endurance in brutal heat

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MANILA, Philippines — Hundreds of American and Philippine troops concluded Monday a new combat exercise in the northern Philippines that tested their endurance in more than a week of brutal heat and volatile weather, and braced them to respond to any threat in tropical jungles and on scattered islands, two U.S. and Philippine generals said. 

The Biden administration has been strengthening an arc of military alliances in the Indo-Pacific to better counter China, including in any possible confrontation over Taiwan and other Asian flash points. The move has dovetailed with Philippine efforts to shore up its territorial defenses amid escalating disputes with Beijing in the South China Sea. 

The large-scale battle drills, which have been held in Hawaii in recent years under the U.S. Army’s Joint Pacific Multinational Readiness Center, have been introduced in the Philippines this year. There is also a version in Alaska. The exercises allow the U.S. Army, its allies and friendly forces to train in extreme conditions “where they are most likely to operate from archipelagos, jungles and heat in the tropics to high-altitude and extreme cold in the Arctic,” said Major Adan Cazarez, a public affairs officer of the U.S. Army’s 25th Infantry Division. 

The June 1-10 warfighting exercise began with an air assault on mock enemy forces to allow the deployment of U.S. and Philippine soldiers who secured an area, which served as a staging ground before a major offensive. When their communication lines for supplies were threatened, top commanders decided to shift to a defensive assault and repelled the enemy attempt and successfully launched the offensive. 

Key aspects of the mock battle, including the planning, deployments, logistical preparations and contingency readiness, were reviewed by military assessors for combat efficiency. 

The combat exercises, Cazarez said, were integrated in annual U.S.-Philippine army joint exercises called Salaknib for the first time this year. About 1,500 U.S. and Filipino soldiers participated in the new battle drills staged in a hinterland in Fort Magsaysay, a sprawling Philippine army camp in an agricultural region known for its scorching weather. The temperature this year has been exacerbated by El Nino, an occasional warming of the Pacific that shifts global weather patterns. 

“The terrain is without question some of the most difficult that our soldiers have ever had the experience to move into. The heat on a daily basis was well over 95 degrees (Fahrenheit; 35 degrees Celsius) and it challenged us from a sustainable perspective,” Major General Marcus Evans, commander of the U.S. Army’s Hawaii-based 25th Infantry Division, told The Associated Press in an online interview from the battle training site. 

Coordinating artillery and aerial fire and maneuvers “on a very challenging piece of terrain and, really, unforgiving temperatures, were all things that added to the overall training value,” Evans said. He added that American pilots also had to adjust to the region’s unpredictable weather. 

Philippine army Major General Andrew de Lara Costelo said the combat drills were designed to allow U.S. and Philippine forces and potentially other allies to operate seamlessly in future contingencies. 

“This fosters interoperability and shared tactics, techniques and procedures,” Costelo told the AP. 

“By working together, we harness our combined strengths, knowledge and capabilities, ensuring that we are prepared to face any challenges that may arise,” he said. 

The war exercises were staged after the conclusion of two larger back-to-back exercises earlier this year between U.S. and Philippine forces, the Salaknib and the Balikatan — Tagalog for shoulder-to-shoulder — which involved more than 16,000 U.S. and Philippine military personnel in their largest combat maneuvers that involved live-fire drills in and near the disputed South China Sea. Several countries sent military observers. 

China has vehemently opposed the combat exercises and increased deployments of American forces to Asia, including in the Philippines, saying such military presence was endangering regional stability and was designed to contain Beijing. The Philippine military says the military drills didn’t target any country and served to deter aggression. 

Last year, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. defended his decision to allow a U.S. military presence in more Philippine military camps under a 2014 defense pact, saying it was vital to his country’s territorial defense. 

China had warned that the increased U.S. military presence would “drag the Philippines into the abyss of geopolitical strife.”
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Key takeaways from Pakistani PM’s visit to China

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ISLAMABAD — Pakistani government officials are hailing as a success a recent five-day visit to China by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. Observers, however, say that despite the usual display of warm relations from both sides, hurdles remain in improving the economic partnership between Beijing and Islamabad, largely because of Pakistan’s poor policies.

Prime Minister Sharif’s visit to China late last week comes as Pakistan is seeking more foreign investment and looking to boost exports to help with its economic crisis amid security concerns.

At a press conference Monday, Information Minister Attaullah Tarar called the visit “extremely successful and historic.”

“The fruits of the historic visit to China will reach the people of Pakistan,” Tarar said.

Sharif visited China at the invitation of his Chinese counterpart, Premier Li Qiang, with whom he held delegation-level talks in Beijing. Sharif also visited Shenzhen and Xi’an to help build business-to-business ties and to observe China’s advancements in agriculture, technology, and business facilitation.

China-Pakistan economic corridor

In China, both sides committed to “forging an upgraded version” of the multi-billion-dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, or CPEC, by boosting construction, mining and exploration, and industrial cooperation.

Some critics say in its bid to ramp up CPEC, Pakistan is ignoring some harsh lessons from the first decade of the energy and infrastructure project.

“The corridor’s original sin was that Pakistan signed up for a large number of projects that added obligations in foreign currencies and this conflicted with Pakistan’s domestic-oriented exchange rate and industrial policies,” said economist Ali Hasanain. “Those obligations have gradually and predictably narrowed Pakistan’s fiscal space,” added Hasanain, an associate professor at Lahore University of Management Sciences.

Pakistan owes more than $7.5 billion in project debt to power plants set up under CPEC. The country also owes nearly $2 billion in circular debt, or unpaid bills, to Chinese power producers.

Unable to boost exports on the back of new roads and added power generation capacity acquired through CPEC, Pakistan now faces a debt crisis where it is seeking new loans to pay past debt.

Many Pakistani economists blame Islamabad for the crisis.

Hasanain pointed to the Sharif government’s push to upgrade a crumbling cross-country railway line as an example of CPEC projects that will add to the country’s debt burden. The scope of the much-delayed Mainline-1 or ML-1 project has been reduced to bring down the cost, but the roughly $6.8 billion project is struggling to attract Chinese investment.

“While this upgradation will eventually be needed, there has been little consideration of the financial stress it will cause, and how the country will honor resultant obligations in the future,” Hasanain told VOA.

Economic cooperation

According to a joint statement issued at the end of the visit, China and Pakistan signed 23 agreements and Memoranda of Understanding, or MOUs, in a myriad of fields including cooperation on agriculture, infrastructure, industrial cooperation, inter-governmental development assistance, market regulation, surveying and mapping, media, and film.

Ammar Habib Khan, a Karachi-based business affairs expert, says Chinese firms are interested in investing in Pakistan because it is a strategic partner.

“Economic impact extends much longer into the future, maybe 30, 40, even 50 years. With a 30-year horizon or a 20-year horizon it makes sense to continue to invest in Pakistan,” Khan said, adding that the first phase of CPEC has been successful given the infrastructure development it brought.

More than 100 Pakistani business leaders accompanied Sharif on the trip that included a convention with Chinese businesses.

“There is an opportunity here to bring lots of Chinese energy-intensive industry to Pakistan where a lot of surplus power can essentially be used,” Khan said. “CPEC 2.0 will actually be more about utilizing the infrastructure that is in the country and how it can be optimized.”

Khan acknowledged that the renewed focus on CPEC would require Pakistan to first fix its finances.

The joint statement noted Beijing will encourage companies to invest in Pakistan in accordance with the market and commercial principles, signaling that it will not push firms to take unwanted risks or to give any concession to Pakistani companies.

Debt relief

Pakistan’s nearly $375 billion economy is facing a debt burden of almost $290 billion. According to data compiled by CEIC, an online economic database, Pakistan’s foreign debt is close to $130 billion.

Chinese officials say around 13 percent of Pakistan’s external debt is owed to China, but the International Monetary Fund put the figure at almost 30 percent in a 2022 report.

Experts believe China will have to restructure the debt Pakistan owes. During Sharif’s visit, however, no public statement was issued on the topic.

“The Pakistani side entered these meetings with realistically low expectations about winning concessions in the form of restructuring Pakistan’s outstanding debt to China. Some form of relief may yet come, but is unlikely to be significant,” said Hasanain.

Khan believes, even if China agrees to much-needed debt restructuring with Pakistan, it will do so quietly.

“They [the Chinese] are dealing with around 50 countries, all needing some kind of debt relief. If they [Chinese] give public statements, that basically becomes a precedence,” he said.

Security

During the visit, the Pakistani leader, along with the country’s powerful army chief, Gen. Asim Munir, held talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping for more than three hours.

The security of Chinese nationals in Pakistan is a key concern for Beijing. Five Chinese workers died in a suicide attack in northwest Pakistan in March, while at least a dozen more have died in targeted attacks in recent years.

“The fact that the army chief accompanied the prime minister shows that we are taking security issues seriously,” Tarar told the press Monday. “We did not spare any effort in satisfying China’s security concerns.”

Naghmana Hashmi, a former Pakistani ambassador to China, told VOA that Beijing is talking tough with Islamabad on the security of Chinese nationals to avoid a backlash from its own people.

“Their people ask questions, their journalists ask questions that here is our best friend and we don’t have people dying anywhere except when they go to Pakistan,” Hashmi said. “Now, everybody does not understand the politics of it so the optics of it are very bad,” the former diplomat said, reiterating Pakistani officials’ stance that adversaries want to derail CPEC.

In the joint statement at the end of the visit, Beijing appreciated Pakistan’s probe of the March 26 attack.

“[The Chinese side] … hoped that the Pakistani side would continue to make every effort to hunt down any perpetrators and make sure they receive deserved severe punishment.”

“The Pakistani side was committed to enhancing security forces deployment,” the statement continued.

Pakistan has blamed the attack on militants based in Afghanistan. In the joint statement, both sides called on Afghanistan to “firmly combat terrorism, including not allowing its territory to be used for terrorist acts.”

The ruling Afghan Taliban have rejected Pakistan’s assertion that militants based in Afghanistan attacked Chinese nationals, saying Islamabad is attempting to poison Kabul’s relations with Beijing.
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Thai democracy faces pivotal week which could see poll-winning party dissolved

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Bangkok — Thailand’s democracy movement faces a pivotal week as the Constitutional Court considers whether to dissolve the election-winning Move Forward Party (MFP), a ruling which would effectively nullify the votes of 14 million people and trigger a new period of political instability. 

MFP became Thailand’s largest party at the May 2023 polls, winning 151 parliamentary seats and igniting calls to cut the army from politics and redistribute wealth and power more evenly.  

But it was blocked from forming a government and has since run into endless obstacles brought by a conservative establishment rattled by its success.  

The court will meet on June 12 to consider MFP’s fate on an allegation that it breached the Thai constitution by calling for reform of the royal defamation law — which protects the monarchy from criticism — during its election campaign. 

Party frontman Pita Limjaroenrat says MFP had no intention of overthrowing the monarchy, as alleged, with a call to amend a law that has seen scores of young pro-democracy activists charged since 2020. 

The activists came out to protest when the same court dissolved Move Forward’s predecessor — Future Forward.  

“No one can really say how the court is going to rule but if we are to be dissolved this would be two parties in five years,” Pita told reporters Sunday at a news conference. 

“I don’t even want to think or forecast how this might affect Thailand especially when our society, economy, and politics are still fragile,” he added.   

The court is widely expected to strike out the party, which has the potential to stir a new round of political uncertainty. 

“In the short term, there may be big protests across the country like those that happened when they dissolved Future Forward,” Khemthong Tonsakulrungruang, a constitutional scholar at Chulalongkorn University, told VOA. 

“But in the long term I’m more concerned that the conservative elite will actually succeed in slowly weakening the progressive movement, by banning MPs and dissolving whatever the next party incarnation is.” 

The monarchy sits at the head of Thai power, backed by an army which has carried out 13 coups since the kingdom became a constitutional monarchy in 1932. 

Where coups have failed to end the democracy cause, the courts have stepped in by banning parties and popular politicians, mainly from groups which threaten the status quo.  

The Constitutional Court can also impose a decade-long political ban on the party leader — including Pita — when it renders a decision. 

What happened 

Move Forward emerged from last year’s poll as the most serious threat to the elite order in a generation. Harvard-educated leader Pita appeared primed for the premiership. 

But he was blocked from taking office by senators who were appointed by generals after the last coup in 2014. The party was subsequently forced into the role of the opposition. 

Instead, conservatives rallied behind the Pheu Thai party, formerly Thailand’s most radical group, to take the reins of government. 

The courts have previously taken out parties linked with Pheu Thai’s founder, 74-year-old telecoms billionaire Thaksin Shinawatra. Until its deal to lead the government, Pheu Thai was seen as the gravest threat to the establishment.  

Now it finds itself aligned with its former enemies.  

“There’s no such thing as normal politics in this country,” Sirote Klampaiboon, an independent scholar and political commentator, told VOA.  

Referring to the establishment’s opposition, Klampaiboon said, “A political entity can be destroyed at any time. Participatory democracy can be destroyed at any time.” 

Even the current coalition government is now also being destabilized by court cases against its prime minister, Srettha Thavisin, and Pheu Thai’s patron, Thaksin. 

Experts say it is a sign of the kingdom’s conservatives exerting their behind-the-scenes control over politics despite losing the popular vote.  

If Move Forward is dissolved, most of its lawmakers are expected to regroup under a new banner, whose name has yet to be announced.  

Others, however, may defect to coalition parties — a common practice in Thai politics — weakening its parliamentary hand.  

Thailand’s latest democracy movement stems from Future Forward, founded by the billionaire scion of an auto parts empire, Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit. 

Future Forward won 6 million votes in the 2019 election but was dissolved a year later with Thanathorn banned from politics for a decade for breaching media shareholding rules, which he denied.  

Four years on, the party’s successor Move Forward won 14 million votes. 

Thanathorn, a charismatic figure who still pulls large crowds wherever he goes, says the future belongs to a new era in politics.  

“If Pita was our prime minister this would already be the beginning of a new era of progressive Thailand,” he told the audience at a June 1 screening of a documentary about his rise from nowhere to the center of Thai politics. 

“I’m confident that by 2027, when we will have the next election, our political horizons will be closer. Whatever our party name will be… we will absolutely be ready.”
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Chinese C919 jet hopes to challenge Boeing, Airbus for Asian commercial market

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A Chinese aircraft manufacturer is actively marketing its commercial jet to the international market, eventually hoping to compete with giants like Boeing and Airbus. But VOA’s Ahadian Utama reports that Beijing faces an uphill battle for Asian skies. Indra Yoga contributed to this report.
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US needs Japan’s help to boost military production, ambassador says

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Tokyo — The United States needs Japan’s help to cope with strategic challenges in Europe and Asia that are straining its defense industries, the U.S. ambassador to Japan said on Monday as the countries kicked off talks on military industrial cooperation.

“Our national security strategy calls for us to be able to handle one and a half theaters, that’s a major war and another one to a stand-off, and with both the Middle East, Ukraine, and keeping our deterrence credible in this region (East Asia) you can already see that we are in two plus,” Rahm Emanuel told reporters. 

On Sunday, Japan and the U.S. kicked off their first talks in Tokyo on forging deeper defense industry collaboration under the U.S.-Japan Forum on Defense Industrial Cooperation, Acquisition and Sustainment (DICAS) established in April by Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and U.S. President Joe Biden.  

Discussions on Tuesday between U.S. Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment William A. LaPlante and Masaki Fukasawa, the head of Japan’s Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics Agency, will focus on naval repairs in Japan that could help free up U.S. yards to build more warships.

“China has a major capacity we already know that will surpass us on new shipbuilding,” Emanuel said.  

Other potential cooperation between Japan and the U.S. includes aircraft repairs, missile production and military supply chain resilience, he added.

Japan and the U.S. already build a missile defense interceptor together and Tokyo has also agreed to supply Patriot PAC3 air-defense missiles to the U.S. 
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Tighter asylum deportation rules take effect in Japan

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Tokyo — Japanese laws making it easier for the country to deport failed asylum seekers took effect Monday, with campaigners warning that the new system will put lives at risk.

The world’s fourth-largest economy has long been criticized for the low number of asylum applications it accepts. Last year refugee status was granted to a record 303 people, mostly from Afghanistan.

Now the government can deport asylum seekers rejected three times, under immigration law changes enacted last year.

Previously, those seeking refugee status had been able to stay in the country while they appealed decisions, regardless of the number of attempts made.

The revised law is “meant to swiftly deport those without permission to stay and help reduce long-term detentions,” justice minister Ryuji Koizumi said in May.

“Those who need protection will be protected, while those who violate the rules will be dealt with sternly,” he said.

Critics have raised concerns over the transparency of Japan’s screening process, warning that the new rules could heighten the risk of applicants facing persecution after repatriation.

“We’re strongly concerned that the enforcement of this law will allow refugees who have fled to Japan to be deported, and endanger their lives and safety,” the Japan Association for Refugees said on social media platform X.

The group called for a “fair” system to be established instead that “protects asylum seekers in Japan according to the international standards.”

As of May, more than 2,000 Ukrainians were living in Japan under a special framework that recognizes them as “evacuees.”
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Chinese Premier Li reportedly to visit New Zealand ‘this week’

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Wellington, New Zealand — Chinese Premier Li Qiang will visit New Zealand this week, Prime Minister Chris Luxon said Monday, a rare visit expected to focus on bolstering trade while setting aside security concerns.

Li will be the first Chinese premier to visit New Zealand since 2017, embarking on a trip that is widely expected to also take him to Australia.

China is New Zealand’s largest export destination, and Wellington has been one of Beijing’s closest partners among Western democracies.

Relations have become strained in recent years as China has looked to expand its military and diplomatic reach across the Pacific.

“I look forward to warmly welcoming Premier Li in New Zealand,” Luxon said in a statement. “The premier’s visit is a valuable opportunity for exchanges on areas of cooperation between New Zealand and China.”

Luxon said Li — China’s number two official — would arrive to a ceremonial welcome and official dinner “later this week,” before a series of bilateral meetings.

Li follows a string of high-powered Chinese delegates who have made the trip to New Zealand in recent months.

Foreign Minister Wang Yi held high-level talks during a visit to the capital, Wellington, earlier this year.

New Zealand’s recently elected center-right government has pivoted toward closer ties with Australia and the United States.

It has also been mulling its involvement in the landmark AUKUS security pact between Washington, Canberra and London — a move that would greatly irritate China.

New Zealand’s foreign minister in May hit out at China’s bid for an increased security presence in the Pacific Islands, warning against actions that could “destabilize” or undermine regional security.

“New Zealand and China engage where we have shared interests, and we speak frankly and constructively with each other where we have differences,” Luxon said on Monday.

“Our relationship is significant, complex and resilient.”

Smoothing differences

Jason Young, an expert on China-New Zealand relations, said Li’s visit showed both sides were willing to set aside these disagreements.

“The high-level visit in itself is a win,” said Young, from New Zealand’s Victoria University. “It’s primarily designed for both sides to demonstrate that many challenges in the relationship are being managed.”

With China’s economy showing signs of slowing down, diplomats and trade officials were looking to “engage with as many markets as they can,” Young said.

“New Zealand already has close to a third of our exports going to China. We’re kind of at saturation point. Whereas for China, there’s a lot more momentum to improve relations,” he said.

Li is expected to visit Australia after New Zealand, although Canberra has yet to confirm that leg of the trip.

“The potential visit of the Chinese premier will be confirmed in the usual way,” Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told reporters on Monday.

China and Australia have been patching up their relationship in the wake of a bitter and costly trade dispute.

Starting in 2020, a slew of Australia’s most lucrative export commodities were effectively banned from China.

But as relations have improved under a new government in Canberra, China has dropped tariffs on Australian beef, barley and wine, halted an import ban on timber and resumed shipments of coal.
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China probes top exec at state investment firm for corruption

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Beijing — A top executive at a major Chinese state-backed investment company is under investigation for corruption, the government’s anti-corruption body said Sunday, as an unrelenting crackdown on graft sweeps through the finance sector.

Xu Zuo, vice president at China Citic Group, is “suspected of serious disciplinary and legal violations,” the Communist Party’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection said in an online statement, without giving further details.

Citic Group is a vast state-run investment conglomerate with the equivalent of over $1.5 trillion in total assets as of last year, according to its official website.

Xu, a senior economist with a background in overseas acquisitions and restructuring, has been on the firm’s executive committee since 2019.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has waged a near-constant crackdown on official corruption since coming to power over a decade ago.

Proponents say the campaign encourages clean governance, while critics argue it also serves as a vehicle for Xi to purge political rivals.

Anti-graft bodies have trained their sights on the financial sector in recent months, including banking, insurance and state-owned enterprises.

Last month, Bai Tianhui, the former general manager at another huge state-backed asset management firm, Huarong, was sentenced to death after being found guilty of taking over 1.1 billion yuan ($151.8 million) in bribes.
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South Korea restarts anti-North Korea loudspeaker broadcasts in retaliation for trash balloons 

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Seoul, South Korea — South Korea on Sunday resumed anti-North Korean propaganda loudspeaker broadcasts in border areas in retaliation for the North sending over 1,000 balloons filled with trash and manure over the last couple of weeks.

The move is certain to anger Pyongyang and could trigger retaliatory military steps as tensions between the war-divided rivals rise while negotiations over the North’s nuclear ambitions remain stalemated.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff confirmed that the military conducted a loudspeaker broadcast Sunday afternoon. It didn’t specify the border area where it took place or what was played over the speakers.

“Whether our military conducts an additional loudspeaker broadcast is entirely dependent on North Korea’s behavior,” the Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement.

Hours earlier, South Korean national security director Chang Ho-jin presided over an emergency meeting where officials decided to install and begin the broadcasts from loudspeakers. The South had withdrawn such equipment from border areas in 2018, during a brief period of engagement with the North under Seoul’s previous liberal government.

Chang and other South Korean security officials berated Pyongyang for attempting to cause “anxiety and disruption” in South Korea with the balloons and stressed that North Korea would be “solely responsible” for any future escalation of tensions.

The North said its balloon campaign came after South Korean activists sent over balloons filled with anti-North Korean leaflets, as well as USB sticks filled with popular South Korean songs and dramas. Pyongyang is extremely sensitive to such material and fears it could demoralize front-line troops and residents and eventually weaken leader Kim Jong Un’s grip on power, analysts say.

South Korea has in the past used loudspeakers to blare anti-Pyongyang broadcasts, K-pop songs and international news across the rivals’ heavily armed border.

In 2015, when South Korea restarted loudspeaker broadcasts for the first time in 11 years, North Korea fired artillery rounds across the border, prompting South Korea to return fire, according to South Korean officials. No casualties were reported.

Last week, as tensions spiked over the trash-carrying balloons, South Korea also suspended a 2018 agreement to reduce hostile acts along the border, allowing it to resume propaganda campaigns and possibly restart live-fire military exercises in border areas.

South Korean Defense Minister Shin Won-sik in a meeting with top military commanders called for thorough preparation against the possibility that the North responds to the loudspeaker broadcasts with direct military action, the South Korean Defense Ministry said in a statement.

North Korea continued to fly hundreds of balloons into South Korea over the weekend, a third such campaign since late May, the South’s military said.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said it detected the North launching around 330 balloons toward the South since Saturday night and about 80 were found in South Korean territory as of Sunday morning. The military said winds were blowing eastward on Saturday night, which possibly caused many balloons to float away from South Korean territory.

The South’s military said the balloons that did land dropped trash, including plastic and paper waste, but no hazardous substances were discovered.

The military, which has mobilized chemical rapid response and explosive clearance units to retrieve the North Korean balloons and materials, alerted the public to beware of falling objects and not to touch balloons found on the ground but report them to police or military authorities.

In North Korea’s previous two rounds of balloon activities, South Korean authorities discovered about 1,000 balloons that were tied to vinyl bags containing manure, cigarette butts, scraps of cloth, waste batteries and waste paper. Some were popped and scattered on roads, residential areas and schools. No highly dangerous materials were found and no major damage has been reported.

The North’s vice defense minister, Kim Kang Il, later said his country would stop the balloon campaign but threatened to resume it if South Korean activists sent leaflets again.

In defiance of the warning, a South Korean civilian group led by North Korean defector Park Sang-hak, said it launched 10 balloons from a border town on Thursday carrying 200,000 anti-North Korean leaflets, USB sticks with K-pop songs and K-dramas, and $1 U.S. bills. South Korean media reported another activist group also flew balloons with 200,000 propaganda leaflets toward North Korea on Friday.

Kim in recent years has waged an intensifying campaign to eliminate South Korean cultural and language influences. In January, Kim declared the North would abandon its longstanding goal of a peaceful unification with the South and rewrite its constitution to cement the South as a permanent enemy. Experts say Kim’s efforts to reinforce the North’s separate identity may be aimed at strengthening the Kim family’s dynastic rule.

North Korea’s balloon campaign is also possibly meant to cause a divide in South Korea over its conservative government’s hard-line approach to North Korea.

Liberal lawmakers, some civic groups and front-line residents in South Korea have called on the government to urge leafleting activists to stop flying balloons to avoid unnecessary clashes with North Korea. But government officials haven’t made such an appeal in line with last year’s constitutional court ruling that struck down a law criminalizing an anti-North Korea leafletting as a violation of free speech.
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