A well-known Hong Kong pop singer and pro-democracy proponent was arrested Monday for performing songs at a political rally three years ago.
Hong Kong’s anti-corruption commission said Anthony Wong urged attendees at the rally to vote for pro-democracy candidate Au Nok-hin.
Au, who won, was also charged for promoting the show and saying Wong would perform. He has been in jail since March on other charges.
The anti-corruption commission said that providing refreshments and entertainment at a political rally was “corrupt conduct and a serious offense.”  
Wong, 59, was later released on bail. There has been no comment from him.
Wong has been a popular singer since the 1980s when he was one half of the Tat Ming Pair. He later went solo.
He backed the 2019 pro-democracy protesters, as well as the 2014 so-called Umbrella Revolution against what many saw as restrictive changes by the Chinese Communist Party in the way Hong Kong held elections.
After his support, Wong was banned from performing in China, and his music was deleted from streaming services.
Wong and Au were expected to appear in court on Thursday.
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The death toll from last month’s floods in the central Chinese province of Henan rose to 302 as of Monday, officials said, triple the figure of 99 that was reported last week, with most of the fatalities reported in the provincial capital Zhengzhou.   In Zhengzhou, a city of 12 million that lies along the Yellow River, the death toll was 292, including 14 who perished when a subway line was flooded. In total, 39 people died in underground areas in Zhengzhou including garages and tunnels.   Over three days last month, 617.1 mm (24.3 inches) of rain fell in Zhengzhou, nearly equivalent to its annual average of 640.8 mm, causing widespread damage and disruption in a city that is a major transport and industrial hub.   FILE – An aerial view shows cars sitting in floodwaters at the entrance of a tunnel after heavy rains hit the city of Zhengzhou in China’s central Henan province.Of the 50 people still missing in Henan province, 47 were from Zhengzhou, local officials told a briefing on Monday.   Direct economic losses in Henan reached 114.27 billion yuan ($18 billion), with more than 580,000 hectares of farmland affected.   China’s State Council said it will set up a team to investigate the disaster in Zhengzhou and will hold officials accountable if found to have derelicted their duty, the official Xinhua news agency reported. 
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South Korea said Monday it will keep pushing to improve ties and resume talks with rival North Korea, despite the North’s threat to rekindle animosities if Seoul holds its summertime military drills with the United States. On Sunday night, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un warned the drills would seriously undermine efforts to restore mutual trust between the Koreas and becloud prospects for better ties if the training is launched as scheduled this month. Her statement raised a question about the sincerity of North Korea’s recent decision to reopen long-stalled communication channels with South Korea. South Korea’s Defense Ministry said Monday the exact timing, size and other details of the drills haven’t been fixed and that they were the issues that must be determined by South Korean and U.S. authorities. Spokesman Boo Seung-Chan repeated his previous statement that Seoul and Washington are examining factors like the pandemic’s current status, diplomat efforts to curb North Korea’s nuclear ambitions and South Korea-U.S. military readiness. Lee Jong-joo, a spokeswoman at the Unification Ministry, said Seoul views the communication channels’ restoration as a starting point for restoring long-suspended ties between the Koreas. She said Seoul will steadily seek to resume talks with North Korea, but without haste. North Korea sees regular military drills between South Korea and the United States as an invasion rehearsal and often responds them with its own weapons tests. In the past few years, however, South Korea and the U.S. have canceled or downsized some of their training to support the now-dormant diplomacy on ending the North Korean nuclear crisis or because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Inter-Korean ties flourished after North Korea reached out to South Korea and the United States in 2018 for talks on its nuclear program. North Korea later cut off ties with South Korea after its larger nuclear diplomacy with the United States stalled in 2019. Last Tuesday, the two Koreas restored their phone and fax lines after a 13-month hiatus, raising hopes of improved ties between the divided Koreas. But some experts say North Korea merely aims to use South Korea to let it convince the United States to make concessions before and when the stalled North Korea-U.S. nuclear diplomacy resumes eventually. 
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Myanmar’s ruling State Administrative Council said Sunday it has become a caretaker government and its leader, Min Aung Hlaing, is to be prime minister.The announcement came after Min Aung Hlaing on Sunday repeated his pledge to hold multiparty elections at an unspecified future date.In a televised address, exactly six months after toppling Myanmar’s elected civilian government, the senior general also said he was ready to cooperate with any special envoy appointed by the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations.Min Aung Hlaing has said before that any elections would take place at least a year after the Feb. 1 putsch.The military claims it ousted the ruling National League for Democracy because the party had ignored allegations that general elections in November 2020 were riddled with fraud. The NLD had won the poll in a landslide, drubbing the military’s proxy Union Solidarity and Development Party, in a contest deemed mostly free and fair by local and international election observers.Since the coup, security forces have shot and killed more than 900 people and arrested thousands in a bid to quash protests and a stubborn civil disobedience movement opposed to the coup, according to the Assistance Associate for Political Prisoners, a rights group tracking the junta’s crackdown from neighboring Thailand.The military has also arrested dozens of NLD leaders, including de facto leader and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, and put some on trial for sedition and other alleged crimes. Many more NLD members are in hiding in and outside the country.The regime has labelled the clandestine government the ousted lawmakers have helped set up in hopes of wresting control from the generals a terrorist group.Skepticism inside MyanmarInitial reaction to the announcement in Myanmar was mixed.Chan Lian, executive director of the Hornbill Organization, an election monitoring group, told VOA it seemed unlikely elections would be held in the next two years.“Historically, elections have been held for almost three decades after the previous military coup d’état,” he said.“It is hard for us to believe that it will be held in next two years,” he said, adding, “We can only believe it when the election date is announced.”He said he thinks “there would be very few political parties running in the upcoming election” if it were held by the military.Sai Nyunt Lwin, deputy chair of the Shan National League for Democracy, an ethnic opposition party, also was skeptical.“We do not have much trust what he [Min Aung Hlain] has said,” Sai Nyunt Lwin told VOA.“The Hluttaw [Myanmar’s parliament] was not convened after the 1990 election. When the 2010 election was held again, the top party leaders including NLD and SNLD were imprisoned. The election was not free and fair and not a credible election.“Now, the 2020 election result was annulled again. Our party does not accept cancelation of the election result. We still recognize the winning MPs of our party. The SNLD won 42 seats in the 2020 general election,” he said.Khin Zaw Win, the director of Tampadipa Institute, an advocacy group in Yangon, was also skeptical, saying, “It is unbelievable that the military will hold election in the next two years, adding that he does not believe ASEAN has the capacity to deal with Myanmar even if they appoint a mediator.Phe Than, a member of the Central Policy Affairs Committee of the Arakan National Party, an ethnic party in Myanmar’s western Rakhine state, struck a similar chord.”It remains to be seen whether the situation to hold the election will be ready during these years,” he told VOA.Ethnic parties now find it hard to believe in the election, he said, since the military announced the cancelation of the 2020 election results. He said if Suu Kyi’s NLD does not run, allied parties will not run, adding, “In the absence of participation, the military will pretend to be trying to hold a general election. at that time, I think it is possible there will be a new type of coup by the military to retain power.”Nandar Hla Myint, however, spokesperson and general secretary of the military-supported Union Solidarity and Development Party, was more positive.“We are confident that the chairman of the State Administrative Council will hold election as he pledges,” he said.“As a political party, we will contest the best in the election. The previous election results were annulled because it was not free and fair. It would not have been annulled if it had been handled with responsibility to the complaints of military and political party over election frauds.”NLD seen as the keyHervé Lemahieu, a Myanmar analyst with the Lowy Institute, an Australian think tank, said the credibility of any elections the regime stages will rest on whether the hugely popular NLD, which has easily won every general election it has contested, is given a fair chance.He and other Myanmar watchers believe the junta is prosecuting the NLD’s leaders as a pretext, once they’re convicted, to ban the party outright.“Given that Min Aung Hlaing has already publicly said that he hopes to learn from the Thai experience, and that the amount of back-and-forth and consultations between [Thai Prime Minister] Prayut Chan-ocha and Min Aung Hlaing, there’s every reason to consider these next elections will be highly stacked in favor of the military and have conditions which will basically prevent the NLD or any … rebranded NLD from running, so it will not be free and fair,” he said.Prayut also seized power at the helm of a military coup in 2014 and became prime minister after 2019 elections that the opposition claims were rigged in his favor, an allegation Prayut denies.Lemahieu said any poll without the NLD’s full participation would be little more than “window dressing,” though some smaller parties might be convinced to run to at least give the semblance of a genuine contest.“The generals will hope that it will give them some added degree of credibility at least in the region, if not in the eyes of the West, that will be passable for ASEAN,” he said.“I would imagine that most self-respecting, well established pro-democracy opposition figures, if they’re not already in jail, would refrain from running,” he added. “But you would be left with a small list of fringe parties who probably would see that [election] as beneficial potentially to run in.”Lemahieu said an ASEAN envoy could help nudge the generals toward a fair contest if the bloc selects someone with well-established democratic credentials and lets them operate mostly independent of the group’s chair, which rotates among the 10 members every year. If the envoy changes with each new chair, he said, “it’s not a recipe for success.”Zsombor Peter in Bangkok contributed to this report.  
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Myanmar’s military ruler Min Aung Hlaing on Sunday promised new mult-party elections and said his government is ready to work with any special envoy named by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.He spoke in a televised address six months after the army seized power from a civilian government after disputed elections won by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi’s ruling party, which he described as “terrorists.”   
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Five years after a landmark world court ruling against China’s claims to a disputed sea, smaller Asian countries that contest Chinese maritime sovereignty have learned to live with Beijing’s adamant rejection of the verdict, experts in the region say.China uses a “nine-dash line,” citing maritime records from dynastic times, to claim about 90% of the 3.5 million-square-kilometer South China Sea that other governments value for fisheries and undersea fossil fuel reserves. The nine dashes cut into some nations’ exclusive economic zones.The Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration issued a decision July 12, 2016, rejecting China’s claims as lacking a basis in international law. China dismissed the ruling then, and it did the same again in July this year.Five other Asian governments that dispute China’s wide-ranging nine-dash line lack the military force or economic clout to require that China’s compliance with the arbitral ruling, while the court itself lacks police powers. At the same time, the rival states accept development aid, investment and trade from China, which has Asia’s biggest economy, along with the strongest armed forces.China offered money to some maritime rivals after the arbitral verdict to keep the sovereignty issue at bay, analysts said at the time.Close Relations Around Asia Help China Repel Maritime Criticism

        China’s increasingly close relations with rivals in Southeast Asia put it in a position to disregard a harsh statement from a powerful group of foreign ministers this month, as well as other rebukes over its expansions in the South China Sea.Beijing, which has expanded quickly into the vast, contested sea over the past decade, despite competing claims from smaller states, met fresh criticism from the Group of 7 foreign ministers in mid-April.A G7 joint communique urged countries around the sea to use…

Neither the arbitral ruling nor anyone’s reaction to it will change China’s stance on its nine-dash line, so countries are raising the issue cautiously to stay on Beijing’s good side, said Shahriman Lockman, senior foreign policy and security studies analyst with the Institute of Strategic and International Studies in Malaysia.“I think it’s a very calculated thing that they have to do,” Lockman said. “You say some things that are not pleasant to Chinese ears, but at the same time don’t push it too hard.”To not raise the ruling at all would imply support for Beijing’s claims, scholars have told VOA in the past.China continues to upset rival maritime claimants by landfilling islets in the contested sea, between Hong Kong and Borneo, for military use. It periodically sends vessels into the exclusive economic zones of the other countries. The Philippines filed the arbitration case in 2013 after China pressured Filipino vessels a year earlier to leave a shoal in the contested sea after a long standoff.Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam call all or parts of the same waterway their own. Claimant governments look to the sea for its fisheries, undersea fossil fuel reserves and marine shipping lanes. Malaysia, for one, quietly supports the 2016 verdict but has been “careful not to annoy China,” Lockman said.China’s official Xinhua News Agency called the world court ruling illegal, null and void, citing a spokesperson in the Chinese Embassy in London on July 27 to rebut comments from the British defense secretary. The arbitration five years ago violated the “principle of state consent” and the court issued an award “in disregard of law,” the news agency said.Foreign affairs officials in Vietnam, the Philippines and the United States, among other countries, made statements this month in support of the arbitral ruling and international law. A Philippine activist group said on its website that “militant” fishing operators had stormed the Chinese consulate in Metro Manila to mark the ruling’s anniversary.The Philippine government statement is a repetition of the arbitration court’s ruling five years ago without moving the needle forward, according to Jay Batongbacal, international maritime affairs professor at the University of the Philippines in Quezon City. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte spent his first two years in office, from 2016, befriending China in return for infrastructure development aid, the scholar noted.Duterte’s Cabinet has openly criticized China since March of this year over 220 Chinese fishing vessels that had moored at a disputed feature in the Spratly Islands.Chinese ‘Flotilla’ in Contested Waters Further Sours Once-Upbeat RelationsManila concerned over presence of 220 finishing boats near a reef in the Spratly Islands, demands their removal“This year it’s a very different tone, as well, but they’re still trying to balance a friendly tone because of the pandemic and their need to get vaccines from China,” Batongbacal said. The Philippines agreed in December to take China’s Sinovac Biotech vaccines for COVID-19.Undersea oil drillers such as Malaysia and Vietnam may still cite the arbitral ruling to defend any challenges to exploration in their 370-kilometer-wide maritime exclusive economic zones overlapped by the nine-dash line, Lockman said.China’s rejection of the court ruling, followed by acquiescence by its neighbors, ultimately widens a schism between Beijing’s own legal boundaries and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), said Alexander Vuving, professor at the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Hawaii. The court used the convention as a basis for its 2016 ruling.“The ruling and China’s rejection of the ruling signifies a struggle for international order,” Vuving said. “The struggle for international order is actually hiding in plain sight. We have the clash between UNCLOS and the Chinese nine-dash line.” 
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Small groups of students protested Myanmar’s military junta on Saturday in Mandalay and a human rights group accused the armed forces of crimes against humanity ahead of the six-month anniversary of the army’s takeover.Bands of university students rode motorbikes around Mandalay waving red and green flags, saying they rejected any possibility of talks with the military to negotiate a return to civilian rule.”There’s no negotiating in a blood feud,” read one sign.Myanmar’s army seized power on Feb. 1 from the civilian government led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi after her ruling party won elections that the military argued were tainted by fraud.New York-based Human Rights Watch on Saturday said the armed forces’ violent suppression of protests of the coup and arrests of opponents included torture, murder and other acts that violate international humanitarian conventions.“These attacks on the population amount to crimes against humanity for which those responsible should be brought to account,” Brad Adams, the group’s Asia director, said in a statement.The spokesperson for the military authorities, Zaw Min Tun, could not be reached on Saturday to respond to Human Rights Watch allegations because his mobile phone was turned off.The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners activist group says at least 6,990 people have been arrested since the coup. The group says the armed forces have killed 939 people, a number the military says is exaggerated.The army has branded its opponents terrorists and says its takeover was in line with the constitution.The military took power in February after alleging fraud in the November 2020 election, which Suu Kyi’s party swept. The former electoral commission had dismissed the military’s accusations. 
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The United States seized a Singapore-owned oil tanker Friday that was used to make illegal oil deliveries to North Korea, the Justice Department said.A New York federal judge issued a judgment of forfeiture authorizing the United States to take ownership of the M/T Courageous, which is currently in Cambodia.The ship, which has a capacity of 2,734 tons, was purchased by Singaporean national Kwek Kee Seng, who remains at large, according to a Justice Department statement.”Kwek and his co-conspirators engaged in an extensive scheme to evade … U.S. and U.N. sanctions by using vessels under their control to covertly transport fuel to North Korea,” the statement said.From August to December 2019, the Courageous would illegally stop transmitting its location information. Satellite imagery showed that during that time, the tanker engaged in ship-to-ship transfers of more than $1.5 million worth of oil to a North Korean ship.The Justice Department has accused Kwek of trying to hide the scheme by using shell companies, lying to international shipping authorities and falsely identifying the Courageous to avoid detection.Kwek has been charged with conspiracy to evade economic sanctions on North Korea and money laundering conspiracy.Cambodian authorities seized the tanker in March 2020 on a U.S. warrant and have held the Courageous there since.The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York filed a civil forfeiture action against the tanker on April 23.Relations between Washington and Pyongyang are strained, with North Korea’s foreign minister in June ruling out any talks with the United States, saying such dialogue would “get us nowhere.”Negotiations between the two countries have long been stalled over the international sanctions imposed on the nuclear-armed state and what North Korea should give up in return for having them lifted.
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U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris will next month travel to Singapore and Vietnam, “two critical Indo-Pacific partners,” the White House confirmed on Friday.Vietnamese President Nguyen Xuan Phuc first announced the visit on Thursday, as he met in Hanoi with U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, the first Biden administration Cabinet official to visit Vietnam.White House Senior Adviser and Chief Spokesperson Symone Sanders said in Friday’s statement Harris “will engage the leaders of both governments on issues of mutual interest, including regional security, the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, and our joint efforts to promote a rules-based international order.”“This upcoming visit continues that work – deepening our engagement in Southeast Asia,” said Sanders. The White House did not give specific dates for the trip. 
 
It would be the first time an American vice president has visited Vietnam since north and south were reunited in July of 1975. Lyndon Johnson (1962) and Richard Nixon (1956) both visited Saigon during their respective vice-presidential terms, when it was the capital of South Vietnam. Vietnam Announces US VP Harris VisitAnnouncement comes during meetings with defense secretary Austin, Biden’s first cabinet member to visit Hanoi Defense Secretary Austin’s traveled to Vietnam this week in the midst of the crippling COVID-19 pandemic and just days after the U.S. shipped 3 million doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine to Vietnam. The delivery raises the total number of vaccines the U.S. has given the Southeast Asian nation to 5 million.“We look forward to continuing to help in a number of ways … no strings attached,” Austin told Phuc. “It is what friends do to help friends in emergencies.”Countering ChinaAustin also sought to deepen ties with Hanoi amid increased Chinese military activity in the South China Sea.“It’s a part of the world where China continues to be very aggressive in the space, so it was important for the secretary to get here,” Pentagon press secretary John Kirby told reporters Thursday.Hanoi has been increasingly vocal about its opposition to Beijing’s territorial claims in the South China Sea. Chinese vessels are accused of harassing oil and gas developers of Vietnam’s coast, hindering their energy development.In the past, the U.S. has provided Vietnam with Coast Guard cutters to help bolster its ability to defend against Chinese aggression in waters claimed by both countries.Despite China and Vietnam’s communist ties, Beijing has emerged as a new antagonist of Hanoi, while the U.S.-Vietnam relationship has flourished, according to Murray Hiebert of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.“It’s amazing how far these two countries have come in the last 40 years or so. The U.S. is Vietnam’s biggest trading partner. It’s a major investor, and it has some of the closest military-to-military ties with any country in Southeast Asia,” Hiebert said.Human rights concernsHowever, members of the Biden administration have said Washington’s relationship with Hanoi will remain limited until Hanoi makes progress on human rights issues.U.S. defense officials said Austin brought up the issue of human rights during his talks with Vietnam’s president, prime minister and minister of national defenseAccording to Kirby, the U.S. defense secretary said “that good friends and partners should be able to have open and honest discussions with one another about these difficult, fairly sensitive issues.”Austin and his defense counterpart signed a memorandum of understanding Thursday that expands support to Vietnam’s efforts to locate and identify Vietnamese killed or missing during the Vietnam War.A senior defense official told reporters the Vietnamese search will be aided by a database created by Harvard and Texas Tech University.White House Correspondent Steve Herman contributed to this report.
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When Hong Kong’s national security law was about to be implemented 13 months ago, the city’s chief executive, Carrie Lam, said the legislation would only target a small minority. Government authorities began playing down fears about the security law, despite concerns of many in the city over the law’s ambiguity.Even media mogul Jimmy Lai said at the time, “We just relax and see what happens.” Lai now is serving two prison sentences and is awaiting trial on charges of foreign collusion, one of the key offenses outlined under the security law.Hong Kong has seen at least 117 people arrested and at least 60 charged since the law came into force. The first court verdict came this week.After a 15-day trial presided over by specially selected judges and no jury, former waiter Leon Tong Ying-kit, 24, was found guilty of secession and terrorism under the security law. During a protest on July 1 last year, the first full day the security law was in force, the court panel found Tong was guilty of driving a motorcycle into police officers while carrying a flag that incited secession. The anti-government protester was sentenced to nine years in prison Friday afternoon.With Hong Kong’s population of 7.5 million, chief executive Lam’s minority claim is technically true. Yet the law’s far-reaching effects have many in the city concerned.“Law is supposed to guide people’s actions. But from last July until now, we’ve really all been guessing where the red line was,” one Hong Kong-based lawyer told VOA.Police officers patrol outside a court July 30, 2021, as they wait for Tong Ying-kit to leave the court in Hong Kong after sentencing for the violation of a security law during a 2020 protest. Tong was sentenced to nine years in prison.The lawyer, who chose to stay anonymous for her own protection, has represented defendants charged under the security law. She predicted that if Beijing went to the trouble to enact the law upon Hong Kong, it would have an impact.“We already had some inkling of how far-reaching it would be, then we already knew it would not affect only a small minority of the Hong Kong people. At the time because we didn’t know the substantiveness, our main concerns were with the procedure.”“Afterwards when we did see, it was so vague and so far-reaching. It’s so wide and you don’t know when you fall foul of it until you get arrested,” she said.Last week five members of the General Union of Hong Kong Speech Therapists were arrested for allegedly “conspiring to publish seditious materials” after they published a selection of children’s books. Authorities claim the books that revolve around sheep incite hatred toward the government. Two of the members have since been denied bail.This incident follows the arrest of a 40-year-old man after his laundry drying rack was spotted holding a flag bearing the same slogan as Tong’s flag: “Liberate Hong Kong, Revolution of Our Times.” The incident has increased fears about how certain phrases can be interpreted as sedition in the city.Although Tong’s sentencing on Friday may set the tone for future national security law trials, with dozens yet to begin, activists in the city are still filled with uncertainty.Wong Yat-Chin, 20, is a pro-democracy activist and co-convener of the political group, StudentPoliticism. Even though dozens of his fellow activists are in jail, he has been regularly leading street booth events, set up to interact with the Hong Kong people, and remind them of the democracy movement.His efforts have seen him arrested a couple of times of late, including on June 4, during Hong Kong’s banned Tiananmen Square vigil.Hong Kong Police Thwart Tiananmen Square Vigil as Activist Arrested Event usually attracts thousands of people in memory of the Chinese government’s crackdown in Beijing in 1989 Wong does not know if he’s violated the law.“I believe that no one person or political party in Hong Kong can clearly know where the red line of the National Security Law is. Perhaps only CCP can clearly know,” he added, referring to the Chinese Communist Party.The 20-year-old recently publicized a new tattoo on his arm, that he said means “the body and the land will not be separated” and is in support of democracy in Hong Kong. Given the arrests for sensitive slogans in the city, the Hong Kong-based lawyer was unsure if tattoos would be construed as sedition.“That’s a good question,” she said.Hong Kong’s media have also come under severe pressure under the security law, epitomized by the closure of pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily.Founded by Lai in 1995, last month the media outlet saw several of its executives arrested for alleged foreign collusion.Authorities said more than 30 Apple Daily articles are evidence that the media outlet was calling for foreign sanctions on Hong Kong and China. Authorities then froze company finances, forcing it to close. More recently, another former editor for the pro-democracy newspaper was arrested.Hong Kong Police Arrest Another Apple Daily Editor Under Security Law The tabloid’s owner Jimmy Lai, 73, is currently in prison and has been charged with collusion alongside two other executives who have been denied bailStand News, a pro-democracy news website in Hong Kong, recently removed online content of commentaries and blogs, a move seen to reduce sensitive material that could be used against them.In addition, more than 200 elected district councilors across 18 Hong Kong districts recently quit their posts following a recently implemented oath-taking law that targets “unpatriotic” civil servants.During the anti-government protests in 2019, the District Council elections saw a landslide victory for the pro-democracy opposition that was seen as an unofficial referendum as nearly 3 million people voted.One former district councilor has fled to Britain in self-exile.Nigel Kawai Lee told VOA he was disqualified from his position because he refused to swear an oath to Hong Kong and authorities feared he would say something out of turn.“Nobody really knows where the red line is. And that’s what makes all the politicians so scared.
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The United States is “deeply concerned” over the harassment and intimidation of foreign correspondents covering deadly floods in China, a State Department spokesperson said Thursday.   His remarks came less than 24 hours after Beijing accused the BBC of broadcasting “fake news” about last week’s devastating flooding in the central province of Henan, and as the British broadcaster said its journalists had been subjected to hostility.    “The United States is deeply concerned with the increasingly harsh surveillance, harassment, and intimidation of US and other foreign journalists in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), including foreign journalists covering the devastation and loss of life caused by recent floods in Henan,” State Department spokesperson Ned Price in a statement.   “The PRC government claims to welcome foreign media and support their work, but its actions tell a different story,” Price said.    Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian had earlier on Thursday called the BBC a “Fake News Broadcasting Company” that has “attacked and smeared China, seriously deviating from journalistic standards.”    The BBC has said its reporters covering the deluge had been subjected to online vitriol, while other outlets had been harassed on the ground in “attacks which continue to endanger foreign journalists.”   The BBC reported on last week’s floods in the city of Zhengzhou which left 14 people dead, and more than 500 commuters trapped when the city’s subway system flooded during rush hour just as sensitivity towards any negative portrayal of China mounts.   Reporters from AFP were forced by hostile Zhengzhou residents to delete footage and were surrounded by dozens of men while reporting on a submerged traffic tunnel.   Zhao on Thursday said foreign correspondents “enjoy an open and free reporting environment in China.”   But press freedom groups say the space for overseas reporters to operate is tightening, with journalists followed on the streets, suffering harassment online and refused visas.    In his statement Thursday, Price urged China to not curtail press access to the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.    “We call on the PRC to act as a responsible nation hoping to welcome foreign media and the world for the upcoming Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games,” his statement said.     
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U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris will soon travel to Vietnam, Vietnamese President Nguyen Xuan Phuc said Thursday.Phuc said he looked forward to Harris’s “upcoming” visit as he met with U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in the Presidential Palace, without providing further details.U.S. officials traveling with Austin did not confirm the visit and referred VOA to the White House.Austin, the first Biden administration Cabinet official to visit Vietnam, arrived in the midst of the crippling COVID-19 pandemic and just days after the U.S. shipped 3 million doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine to Vietnam. The delivery raises the total number of vaccines the U.S. has given the Southeast Asian nation to 5 million.“We look forward to continuing to help in a number of ways … no strings attached,” Austin told Phuc. “It is what friends do to help friends in emergencies.”He also sought to deepen ties with Hanoi amid increased Chinese military activity in the South China Sea.“It’s a part of the world where China continues to be very aggressive in the space, so it was important for the secretary to get here,” Pentagon press secretary John Kirby told reporters Thursday. Hanoi has been increasingly vocal about its opposition to Beijing’s territorial claims in the South China Sea. Chinese vessels are accused of harassing oil and gas developers of Vietnam’s coast, hindering their energy development. In the past, the U.S. has provided Vietnam with Coast Guard cutters to help bolster its ability to defend against Chinese aggression in waters claimed by both countries.Despite China and Vietnam’s communist ties, Beijing has emerged as a new antagonist of Hanoi, while the U.S.-Vietnam relationship has flourished, according to Murray Hiebert of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.“It’s amazing how far these two countries have come in the last 40 years or so. The U.S. is Vietnam’s biggest trading partner. It’s a major investor, and it has some of the closest military-to-military ties with any country in Southeast Asia,” Hiebert said.However, members of the Biden administration have said Washington’s relationship with Hanoi will remain limited until Hanoi makes progress on human rights issues. Pentagon Chief Seeks to Nudge Ties with Vietnam as Human Rights Concerns LingerThere is a perception in Asia that China is making countries chose between it and the United StatesU.S. defense officials said Austin brought up the issue of human rights during his talks with Vietnam’s president, prime minister and minister of national defenseAccording to Kirby, the U.S. defense secretary said “that good friends and partners should be able to have open and honest discussions with one another about these difficult, fairly sensitive issues.”Austin and his defense counterpart signed a memorandum of understanding Thursday that expands support to Vietnam’s efforts to locate and identify Vietnamese killed or missing during the Vietnam War.A senior defense official told reporters the Vietnamese search will be aided by a database created by Harvard and Texas Tech University.
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