The Myanmar junta’s equivocal reaction to a plan it agreed to with its regional neighbors for pulling the country back from the brink of collapse is raising doubts about the junta’s commitment to follow through anytime soon. Since Myanmar’s military toppled the country’s elected civilian government February 1, the junta has shot and killed hundreds of mostly peaceful and unarmed protesters and sent thousands fleeing to neighboring India and Thailand seeking refuge. United Nations officials and envoys are warning of a pending humanitarian crisis and all-out civil war. In a bid to keep the crisis from spiraling out of control, leaders of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which includes Myanmar, met in Jakarta, Indonesia, on April 24 with coup leader Min Aung Hlaing. A statement from the current chair of the bloc, Brunei, said the leaders reached a “five-point consensus” including a call for an immediate end to the violence and talks “among all parties concerned.”  Trainees take part in military exercises with the Karen National Union (KNU) Brigade 6, an armed rebel group in eastern Karen state on May 9, 2021, amid a heightened conflict with Myanmar’s military following the February coup.In addition to ending the violence and holding talks, Brunei said the leaders agreed that the bloc would provide humanitarian assistance and that Brunei would appoint a special envoy to facilitate the talks and to visit Myanmar to meet with “all parties concerned.” The chair’s statement offers no timeframe or details on when or how to put the plan into action. Analysts say that gives Myanmar’s military, or Tatmadaw, plenty of room to decide how that happens. “It’s exploiting the vagueness of the deal and the lack of agreed timeframe to its own advantage, as opposed to rejecting the deal outright. And it will try to sort of delay this as much as it can and ensure that in the meantime the Tatmadaw’s own kind of blueprint for how the country should run prevails,” said Hervé Lemahieu, Myanmar and Southeast Asia analyst at Australia’s Lowy Institute.  The Tatmadaw has justified the coup by claiming, without evidence, that the 2020 general elections that delivered the ruling National League for Democracy a second term were riddled with fraud. It has promised to hold new elections sometime after a one-year state of emergency, though many expect it to delay and to disqualify the widely popular NLD from running candidates.  One of the key questions the five-point plan leaves unanswered is the precise meaning of “all parties concerned.” Brunei’s statement sets no boundaries, leaving many to wonder whether it includes the NLD, any of the many ethnic minority-based parties and associated armed groups in the country, or the National Unity Government, which they have forged since the coup to challenge the junta. Myanmar Classifies Resistance Government as ‘Terrorist Organization’ ‘We ask the people not to … support terrorist actions, nor to provide aid to the terrorist activities of the GUN and the CRPH,’ state TV says“We don’t know, and that will also be up to the Tatmadaw largely to determine,” Lemahieu said. “The Tatmadaw really has control over the timing and then control over how you operationalize this plan.” Many top NLD leaders, including Nobel laureate Aung Sang Suu Kyi, have remained in custody since their arrests on the morning of the coup, while others are in hiding to keep from joining them. Fighting between the Tatmadaw and some ethnic armed groups has also spiked. “It’s not very clear who [are the] stakeholders in the statement. Without a clear definition and commitment from the regime, it will still be difficult to implement,” said Min Zaw Oo, who heads the Myanmar Institute for Peace and Security, a local think tank. He said that at some point an ASEAN envoy may visit and humanitarian aid might arrive. Given what the junta has said and done since the meeting in Jakarta, though, he said he does not expect the Tatmadaw to let the five-point plan blow it far off the course it has already set for the country. “I don’t think there will be any radical change different from the course the regime is steering in Myanmar, which is the new election and probably changes [for a] new electoral system,” he said. “The regime is forcing it through within one or two years, very likely two years, so I don’t think the ASEAN decision … will have a major impact on the regime’s major roadmap to where it is leading to.”
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Family members of former Uyghur textbook editors accused of incorporating ethnically charged and separatist views into classroom literature say a recent documentary on the topic produced and broadcast by a pro-Beijing media company grossly misrepresents them.Last month, the state-run China Global Television Network aired a 10-minute documentary, Challenges of Fighting Terrorism in Xinjiang: The Textbooks, accusing former Uyghur publishing officials and senior editors such as Yalqun Rozi, editor of the Xinjiang Education Press, of incorporating extremist “separatist thoughts” into children’s educational materials as early as 2003.“I learned those textbooks as a kid,” said Kamalturk Yalqun, the son of the now-imprisoned Yalqun, who described last month’s broadcast as more evidence of Beijing’s efforts to mask its brutal campaign against the mostly Muslim Uyghurs as a response to a burgeoning domestic terror threat.“Reading them was purely a happy literary adventure for me and there was nothing to incite hatred or radicalism,” said Yalqun, who came to the U.S. to pursue graduate studies in 2014.He has not heard from his father since his October 2016 arrest by Xinjiang authorities. “I almost failed to recognize when I first saw his photo displayed in the film,” Yalqun told VOA. “Clearly, there had been physical torture.”This graphic from China Global Television Network’s ‘Challenges of Fighting Terrorism in Xinjiang: The Textbooks’ shows editors the documentary accuses of spreading extremist ideas. ‘Toxic’ textbooksIn the 10-minute film, which aired April 2, CGTN claims that Sattar Sawut, the former director general of Xinjiang Education Department, had formed a “criminal gang” of six Uyghurs — his deputy, Alimjan Memtimin, two former Uyghur heads of Xinjiang Education Press, Abdurazaq Sayim and Tahir Nasir, and two senior editors, Yalqun Rozi and Wahitjan Osman — to spread extremist ideas to 2.3 million Uyghur students who studied “the problematic” textbooks. According to Chinese media, the six Uyghur officials in 2017 were charged with attempting “to split the country”; Sawut was reportedly given a death sentence with a two-year reprieve, while three other officials received life sentences, and the two editors received 15 years each.Abduweli Ayup, a Norway-based Uyghur linguist and rights activist, said the textbooks were originally developed under Beijing’s campaign of “suzhi jiaoyu” or “education of personal quality.”“Some senior Chinese officials who worked on reviewing the textbooks were never mentioned in the documentary while their six Uyghur counterparts were singled out as separatist criminals is evidence that this is a sham trial,” Ayup told VOA.Seven copies of 22 purportedly “toxic” Uyghur textbooks obtained by VOA list names of both Uyghur and Chinese officials responsible for vetting the contents.The textbooks introduce China as “the motherland” of all “56 ethnic groups,” including both Uyghurs and Chinese. They also highlight essays of leading modern Chinese writers such as Lu Xun and include hagiographies of prominent Chinese figures.A sixth-grade literature textbook featured Uyghur translations of two Chinese stories, “Remembering my father, Li Dazhao,” and “Overnight Work,” about early Chinese communist leaders Li Dazhao and Zhou Enlai.Zhao Lijian, Chinese Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesperson, said last month CGTN documentaries showed that Beijing’s campaign in Xinjiang is “counter-terrorism and de-radicalization.”To the families of the former Uyghur officials, though, China’s accusations are inconsistent, given that those same officials were awarded for the same work.Aykanat Wahitjan, the daughter of Wahitjan Osman, a former senior editor accused in the film, said state media in the past broadcast her father’s award ceremony for his “extraordinary literary work.”“In 2012, China awarded my father with its 10th Junma Award, a national literary award for his outstanding literary work,” Aykanat, an economics student in Istanbul, told VOA. Now, she said, “years later, the same [government] broadcasts that my father committed a crime because his literary work ‘provoked ethnic hatred.’”Purporting to offer evidence that the textbooks promote “ethnic hatred against Chinese soldiers and separatism,” Beijing’s documentary highlights the legendary story of seven Uyghur girls who resisted Manchu soldiers during the Qing empire conquest of the region in the 18th century. The documentary also features a picture of a 20th century Uyghur leader, Ehmetjan Qasimi, who had the star-and-crescent emblem of East Turkestan Republic on his left jacket chest and reports it as a symbol of separatism.  “The actual text [taken from the textbook] in the video itself clearly says ‘Manchus.’ This shows that this is a story from the Qing empire, before Han [Chinese] soldiers were present in Xinjiang,” said James Millward, a professor of Chinese history at Georgetown University, adding that the voice-over about the seven Uyghur girls is thus a clear lie, as shown by the documentary footage itself.According to Millward, outlawing the textbooks is a part of China’s recent effort to alter the historical narrative of key events and actions by Uyghur leaders.“Most English-speaking viewers will not see why the picture of Ehmetjan Qasimi and his medal is offensive or dangerous — because it isn’t, it is simply an historical image,” said Millward.Qasimi led the East Turkestan Republic and controlled what is now northern Xinjiang in the 1940s. He entered a treaty with China’s then-ruling Kuomintang to co-govern Xinjiang after the 1945 Sino-Russian Friendship Treaty. When Qasimi mysteriously died in a plane crash in 1949, the founder of People’s Republic of China, Mao Zedong, praised him as “worthy of the eternal memory of all Chinese people.”Milward charged that Qasimi had been mentioned in official Chinese history books for nearly 70 years, which became forbidden only under President Xi Jinping.China’s crackdown against Uyghurs has been raised to higher level since August 2016 when Xi appointed Chen Quanguo, a former Tibet party chief, to be Chinese Communist Party secretary of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Chen’s administration has since been accused of holding over a million Uyghurs in internment camps.Omar Kanat, the executive director of Uyghur Human Rights Project, called the film “the latest proof” of a systematic campaign to eliminate Uyghur culture and history.“The idea that these children’s’ textbooks that were overseen and approved by the Ministry of Education for over a decade are somehow ‘violent’ is self-evidently absurd,” Kanat told VOA, adding that it “resembles some of the darkest chapters of the CCP’s history of wild accusations targeting intellectual freedom,” referring to the Chinese Communist Party by its initials.
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In 2018, Elon Musk signed an agreement with the Shanghai Municipal Government to open a plant to make Tesla vehicles, making it the first non-Chinese auto company with a solely owned subsidiary in China since the 1990s. Now the company is facing a backlash over its electric car business there. And, experts say, by making use of anti-American public sentiment, the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is making a move against Tesla that is well-known to foreign companies with technologies it covets: To stay in China’s lucrative market, a company must share its tech with Beijing. “There is little doubt in my mind that the CCP is squeezing the American company through a controlled burst of anti-American xenophobia because of Tesla’s phenomenal success in China, its advanced technology, and its close involvement in U.S. space programs,” said Miles Yu, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute who specializes in U.S. and Chinese military and diplomatic history, and U.S. policy toward China. On May 2, Musk’s SpaceX ended its first commercial crew, long-duration endeavor with NASA, FILE – A customer looks at automobiles in a Tesla car showroom in Beijing, June 11, 2020.Tesla sold more than 137,000 Model 3s in 2020, making it the best-selling electric car in China, according to the China Passenger Vehicle Association. According to the SEC filing, Tesla’s 2020 revenue from China increased 124% year-over-year on sales of $6.6 billion. Then China pulled a U-turn.Earlier this year, China’s military banned Teslas from military barracks and family quarters, citing security concerns over the onboard cameras, according to the Wall Street Journal, which first reported the ban on March 19. There are eight cameras in a Model 3 — three in front, two on each side and one at the rear — which are used for the autopilot, the security system and the dashcam, according to Car and Driver. The cameras can obtain data, including when, how and where the vehicles are being used as well as the contact lists of mobile phones synced to them. Beijing was concerned that some data could be sent back to the U.S., according to the Journal. On March 20, Musk assured members of the government-backed China Development Forum in Beijing that the cars were not spying and that the data collected from cars in China was kept in China.VOA contacted Tesla in the U.S. and in China, where VOA contacted Tesla media offices and the sales center in Shanghai to request an interview on possible pressure from Chinese authorities and concerns about technology transfers. The company did not respond.Viral video Then, on April 19, at the Auto Shanghai 2021 trade show, a Tesla owner climbed onto the roof of a Model 3 and shouted “Tesla brakes fail,”  giving voice to a problem that customers claimed they had found in some of its China-made cars. A female Tesla owner climbed on top of a car’s roof at the Tesla booth to protest her car’s brake malfunction at the Shanghai auto show Monday. The booth beefed up its security after the incident. pic.twitter.com/ct7RmF1agM— Global Times (@globaltimesnews) April 19, 2021Video of the woman, identified only as Zhang, went viral. Tesla responded within hours on Weibo, a Twitter-like Chinese platform, saying, “We won’t respond to unreasonable requests from customers.”  The remark drew enough online criticism that China’s state media, controlled by the CCP, jumped in and accused Tesla of being “arrogant.” Later on April 19, Tesla posted, ”We apologize and self-reflect (on our behavior).”   But netizens were shifting their criticism of Tesla into overdrive as Zhang’s remarks had hit home with many Chinese Tesla owners, and within days her post had more than 220 million views on Weibo. By comparison, Tesla sold just under 635,000 vehicles in China in 2019 and 2020, according to Nikkei Asia, which used China Passenger Car Association figures. On April 20, the company posted on its Weibo feed, saying, “Tesla complies with and obeys the decisions of relevant government departments, respects consumers, abides by laws and regulations, and actively cooperates with all investigations by relevant government departments. … We will do our best to meet the demands of car owners and strive to satisfy them.” On April 22, Hu Xijin, editor-in-chief of the Global Times, an official Chinese state outlet, posted on his Weibo account, “I believe that Tesla feels the hardness of China’s market rules, as well as its strength and dignity, and they will understand that only practical adjustments can restore public trust.” On April 23, Xinhua, a Chinese state-run media outlet, published an article criticizing Tesla’s apology as “insincere” and calling for Tesla to respect Chinese consumers.Private companies in China Tu Le, an analyst at Sino Auto Insights, a research organization, told Reuters, “Social media has always been dissatisfied with the quality and service issues of Tesla in China. Until Tuesday, these issues were basically ignored by the local Tesla team.”Zack Cooper, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, believes the change of Tesla’s attitude is common for private companies operating in China. If a company wants to succeed in China, they must make statements in line with the CCP that can be “problematic,” he said.Facing the online outcry from the Chinese public and the ensuing coverage from official state media put Tesla bumper-to-bumper with the CCP. According to Cooper, who spoke with VOA by phone, it’s a concern “from the American side — does Elon Musk have to say certain things about China or about the Communist Party so that he can continue to operate (a) business in China?” Cooper continued, “If you are operating in China, then the Communist Party has some ability to regulate your business operations. Obviously, some of that is legal and not problematic. Other parts that involved political influence that I think are problematic. … So I think there are broader … questions about the kinds of activities businesses are required to engage in, and the kinds of political statements they have to make or support, if they are going to operate in the Chinese market in a significant way.” Yu, of the Hudson Institute, told VOA Mandarin that what has happened to Tesla is a common “bait and switch” strategy China uses on foreign investments with critical technologies and proprietary innovations. Yu said China lures a foreign enterprise “into China with initial preferential tax and regulatory treatments. Once you are hooked in China, and have gained initial success, the CCP would not hesitate to use your investments in China as a leverage to force you to comply with a whole list of demands, outright or subtle, including sharing proprietary technologies and knowledge, prohibiting transfer of funds out of China, curtailing your market share inside China and possibly divulging critical national security secrets in your company’s other operations with the U.S. government such as the SpaceX project.” 
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Debris from a large, out-of-control Chinese rocket that is expected to reenter the atmosphere this weekend is unlikely to cause damage, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said Friday. The Long March 5B rocket was launched April 29 from Hainan Island. It was carrying a module for a planned Chinese space station. After the unmanned Tianhe module separated from the rocket, the nearly 21,000-kilogram rocket should have followed a planned reentry trajectory into the ocean, but now, no one knows where the debris will land. “U.S. Space Command is aware of and tracking the location of the Chinese Long March 5B in space, but its exact entry point into the Earth’s atmosphere cannot be pinpointed until within hours of its reentry,” Lt. Col. Angela Webb, U.S. Space Command Public Affairs, told CBS News. Reentry is expected May 8. While the odds are that any debris will fall into the ocean, in May 2020, debris from another Long March 5B rocket fell on parts of Ivory Coast, causing damage to some buildings. Harvard-based astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell told Reuters that the debris could fall as far north as New York or as far south as Wellington, New Zealand. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin speaks during a briefing at the Pentagon in Washington, May 6, 2021.Speaking with reporters Thursday, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said the United States has no plans to try to shoot down the rocket. “We have the capability to do a lot of things, but we don’t have a plan to shoot it down as we speak,” said Austin. “We’re hopeful that it will land in a place where it won’t harm anyone. Hopefully in the ocean, or someplace like that,” he added. The launch of the Tianhe module is the first of 11 planned missions to build the Chinese space station.  
 
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China says it is suspending further meetings in an economic dialogue with Australia in the latest sign of worsening relations.Experts called the move largely symbolic because the last meeting of the China-Australia Strategic Economic Dialogue framework took place four years ago.Australian business leaders, though, say they believe Thursday’s suspension is a new low in the bilateral relationship.Chinese state media said Australia disrupted economic cooperation through such actions as banning Chinese tech giant Huawei from its 5G telecommunications network. China also accused Canberra “of a Cold War mindset and ideological discrimination.”Beijing’s decision will formally stop contact between key trade officials. Ministerial collaboration between the two governments had already been suspended for more than a year.  In Canberra, Trade Minister Dan Tehan said he was disappointed and remained open to dialogue and “engaging at the ministerial level.” Opposition Labor leader Anthony Albanese also urged both sides to sort out their differences. “This is unfortunate,” Albanese said. “We do need dialogue with China.  It cannot be just on their terms, though.  It has got to be on both countries’ terms and so this is regrettable.” China is, by far, Australia’s biggest trading partner, but tensions have intensified in recent years.  Canberra’s 2018 Huawei decision infuriated Beijing. That hostility escalated last year after disputes over the origin of the coronavirus pandemic, national security and human rights.China later imposed trade sanctions on valuable Australian exports, although Australian exports of iron ore – a key ingredient in steel making – have not been affected. Last month Canberra cancelled two agreements between China and the state of Victoria. Tim Harcourt, an economist at the University of Technology Sydney, however, says he believes the relationship must improve.“Australia needs China and China needs Australia,” Harcourt said. “China has incredible dependency in energy security as we mentioned with iron ore particularly with Brazil out of action at the moment with COVID and also food security and a need for infrastructure.  So, in some ways, yes, you know both countries are dependent on each other, hence the complementarity.  Yes, you do want the relationship to get on more of an even keel as it used to be.  [It is] not perfect and very different systems, very different values, but at least workable I think, you know, is the equilibrium you want to reach.”Tensions between Australia and China comes as the G-7 group of nations has called on Beijing to respect fundamental rights and freedoms.China has been accused by the United States and some European countries of violating the human rights of its minority Muslim population in Xinjiang province, armed threats against Taiwan and economic coercion. 
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As India sets new daily records in COVID-19 deaths and infections, some experts see the humanitarian crisis as an opportunity for other nations to counter China’s vaccine diplomacy elsewhere.Three of the nations that make up the Quad — U.S., Australia and Japan — are expected to assist the fourth, India, after U.S. President Joe Biden promised April 26 to provide New Delhi with the China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying gestures during a press conference in Beijing on Dec. 10, 2020.China has denied it is engaged in vaccine diplomacy, and it says it is supplying “vaccine aid,” This handout photo taken on May 3, 2021, shows Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte receiving a dose of China’s Sinopharm to battle the COVID-19 coronavirus at Malacanang Palace in Manila.The partnership allows Quad leaders to take “shared action necessary to expand safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine manufacturing in 2021” and “work together to strengthen and assist countries in the Indo-Pacific with vaccination, in close coordination with the existing relevant multilateral mechanisms including World Health Organization (WHO) and COVAX (COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access),” according to a statement the White House released March 12.Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in Baltimore, thinks that the partnership will need to be modified “given that it was dependent on Indian vaccine manufacturing capacity. India will, understandably, prioritize vaccines for its domestic population.”Ideally, such partnerships should be fully coordinated with COVAX and WHO to maximize impact, Adalja said in an email to VOA Mandarin. However, Joe Thomas Karackattu, assistant professor in the Humanities and Social Sciences Department at the Indian Institute of Technology in Madras, India, where he focuses on Sino-Indian relations and China’s foreign and economic policy, told VOA Mandarin via email that COVID-19 relief cannot become a strategic turf war.”All countries have to work together,” he said. “If the Quad delivers on the pitch for the ‘Quad Vaccine Partnership’ … it might cement a longer-term foundation for the Quad to coordinate on multilateral cooperation, but that necessarily does not automatically translate into an organic and systematic modus vivendi in strategic affairs.” On Wednesday, the Biden administration announced that it supports waiving intellectual property protections for COVID-19 vaccines. South Africa and India had proposed the waiver, which is opposed by the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, a group that includes vaccine makers such as AstraZeneca, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson. “This is a global health crisis, and the extraordinary circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic call for extraordinary measures. The administration believes strongly in intellectual property protections, but in service of ending this pandemic, supports the waiver of those protections for COVID-19 vaccines,” wrote U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai.This is a monumental moment in the fight against #COVID19. The commitment by @POTUS Joe Biden & @USTradeRep@AmbassadorTai to support the waiver of IP protections on vaccines is a powerful example of 🇺🇸 leadership to address global health challenges. pic.twitter.com/3iBt3jfdEr— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) May 5, 2021 While a waiver could remove obstacles to ramping up the production of vaccines in developing countries, crafting the waiver may take time because it will require approval from all 164 members of the World Trade Organization.Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
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The largest section of the rocket that launched the main module of China’s first permanent space station into orbit is expected to plunge back to Earth as early as Saturday at an unknown location.Such rocket sections — discarded core, or first stage — usually reenter soon after liftoff, normally over water, and don’t go into orbit as this one did.China’s space agency has yet to say whether the core stage of the huge Long March 5B rocket is being controlled or will make an out-of-control descent. Last May, another Chinese rocket fell uncontrolled into the Atlantic Ocean off West Africa.Basic details about the rocket stage and its trajectory are unknown because the Chinese government has yet to comment publicly on the reentry. Phone calls to the China National Space Administration weren’t answered Wednesday, a holiday.However, the newspaper Global Times, published by the Chinese Communist Party, said the stage’s “thin-skinned” aluminum-alloy exterior will easily burn up in the atmosphere, posing an extremely remote risk to people.The U.S. Defense Department expects the rocket stage to fall to Earth on Saturday.Where it will hit “cannot be pinpointed until within hours of its reentry,” the Pentagon said in a statement Tuesday.No plans to shoot it downSecretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said Thursday that the U.S. military had no plans to shoot it down.White House press secretary Jen Psaki at a Wednesday briefing said the U.S. Space Command was “aware of and tracking the location” of the Chinese rocket.The nonprofit Aerospace Corporation expects the debris to hit the Pacific near the equator after passing over eastern U.S. cities. Its orbit covers a swath of the planet from New Zealand to Newfoundland.The Long March 5B rocket carried the main module of the Tianhe, or “Heavenly Harmony,” into orbit on April 29. China plans 10 more launches to carry additional parts of the space station into orbit.The roughly 30-meter-long (100-foot) rocket stage would be among the biggest pieces of debris to fall to Earth.The 18-ton rocket that fell last May was the heaviest debris to fall uncontrolled since the former Soviet space station Salyut 7 in 1991.China’s first space station, Tiangong-1, crashed into the Pacific Ocean in 2016 after Beijing confirmed it had lost control. In 2019, the space agency controlled the demolition of its second station, Tiangong-2, in the atmosphere.In March, debris from a Falcon 9 rocket launched by U.S. aeronautics company SpaceX fell to Earth in Washington state and on the Oregon coast.
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Prominent Hong Kong pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong has been sentenced to 10 additional months in prison for taking part in an unauthorized assembly last year to commemorate the 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.
 
The 24-year-old Wong is already serving a 13-and-a-half-month sentence for organizing an unauthorized protest in 2019. He was sentenced Thursday along with fellow activists Lester Shum, Jannelle Leung and Tiffany Yeun, who received sentences of between four and six months.
 
Wong was also among 47 activists charged under Hong Kong’s sweeping national security law for taking part in unofficial primary elections last July to pick candidates to run in legislative elections. They were then postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.   
 
China has banned any public observance of the June 4, 1989 crackdown, when Chinese military tanks and troops raided Tiananmen Square to break up weeks of student-led protests. But Hong Kong traditionally held large vigils to mark the event under its Basic Law, which granted the city certain freedoms not allowed on the mainland, including the right to assembly.   
 
Last year’s event was banned for the first time, with police citing the pandemic and security fears following huge and often violent pro-democracy protests that engulfed the financial hub in the last half of 2019.   
 
Hong Kong authorities have increasingly clamped down on the city’s pro-democracy forces since Beijing imposed the new national security law last June in response to the 2019 demonstrations.  
 
Under the law, anyone in Hong Kong believed to be carrying out terrorism, separatism, subversion of state power or collusion with foreign forces could be tried and face life in prison if convicted.    
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The top U.S general for Africa is warning that a growing threat from China may come not just from the waters of the Pacific but from the Atlantic as well.
U.S. Gen. Stephen Townsend, in an interview with The Associated Press, said Beijing is looking to establish a large navy port capable of hosting submarines or aircraft carriers on Africa’s western coast. Townsend said China has approached countries stretching from Mauritania to south of Namibia, intent on establishing a naval facility. If realized, that prospect would enable China to base warships in its expanding Navy in the Atlantic as well as Pacific oceans.
“They’re looking for a place where they can rearm and repair warships. That becomes militarily useful in conflict,” said Townsend, who heads U.S. Africa Command. “They’re a long way toward establishing that in Djibouti. Now they’re casting their gaze to the Atlantic coast and wanting to get such a base there.”
Townsend’s warnings come as the Pentagon shifts its focus from the counterterrorism wars of the last two decades to the Indo-Pacific region and threats from great power adversaries like China and Russia. The Biden administration views China’s rapidly expanding economic influence and military might as America’s primary long-term security challenge.
U.S. military commanders around the globe, including several who may lose troops and resources to bolster growth in the Pacific, caution that China’s growing assertiveness isn’t simply happening in Asia. And they argue that Beijing is aggressively asserting economic influence over countries in Africa, South America and the Middle East, and is pursuing bases and footholds there.
“The Chinese are outmaneuvering the U.S. in select countries in Africa,” said Townsend. “Port projects, economic endeavors, infrastructure and their agreements and contracts will lead to greater access in the future. They are hedging their bets and making big bets on Africa.”  
China’s first overseas naval base was built years ago in Djibouti in the Horn of Africa and it is steadily increasing its capacity. Townsend said as many as 2,000 military personnel are at the base, including hundreds of Marines who handle security there.
“They have arms and munitions for sure. They have armored combat vehicles. We think they will soon be basing helicopters there to potentially include attack helicopters,” said Townsend.
For some time, many have thought that China was working to establish a Navy base in Tanzania, a country on Africa’s eastern coast, that has had a strong, longstanding military relationship with Beijing. But Townsend said it appears there’s been no decision on that yet.
He said that while China has been trying hard to get a base in Tanzania, it’s not the location he’s most concern about.
“It’s on the Indian Ocean side,” he said. “I want it to be in Tanzania instead of on the Atlantic coast. The Atlantic coast concerns me greatly,” he said, pointing to the relatively shorter distance from Africa’s west coast to the U.S. In nautical miles, a base on Africa’s northern Atlantic coast could be substantially closer to the U.S. than military facilities in China are to America’s western coast.
More specifically, other U.S. officials say the Chinese have been eyeing locations for a port in the Gulf of Guinea.  
The Defense Department’s 2020 report on China’s military power, said China has likely considered adding military facilities to support its naval, air and ground forces in Angola, among other locations. And it noted that the large amount of oil and liquefied natural gas imported from Africa and the Middle East, make those regions a high priority for China over the next 15 years.
Henry Tugendhat, a senior policy analyst with the United States Institute of Peace, said China has a lot of economic interests on Africa’s west coast, including fishing and oil. China also has helped finance and build a large commercial port in Cameroon.
He said that any effort by Beijing to get a naval port on the Atlantic coast would be an expansion of China’s military presence. But the desire for ocean access, he said, may be primarily for economic gain, rather than military capabilities.
Townsend and other regional military commanders laid out their concerns about China during recent congressional hearings. He, along with Adm. Craig Faller, head of U.S. Southern Command, and Gen. Frank McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command, are battling to retain their military forces, aircraft and surveillance assets as the Pentagon continues to review the shift to great power competition.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is conducting a global posture review to determine if America’s military might is positioned where it needs to be, and in the right numbers, around the world to best maintain global dominance. That review is expected to be finished in late summer.
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Leading industrial nations came out in support of Taiwan’s observer status in the World Health Assembly (WHA), the decision-making body of the World Health Organization (WHO), leading into Attendees leave the G-7 foreign ministers meeting at Lancaster House in London, Britain, May 5, 2021.Taiwan said it is grateful for the G-7’s strong support.  “#Taiwan thanks all G7 FMs and the EU for voicing such a strong support in the Communique for our meaningful participation in #WHO & #WHA. #LetTaiwanHelp and contribute to the global health system,” Taiwan’s main representative office in the U.S. said in a tweet.  #Taiwan thanks all G7 FMs and the EU for voicing such a strong support in the Communique for our meaningful participation in #WHO & #WHA. #LetTaiwanHelp and contribute to the global health system.https://t.co/vsfTEY6PSm— Taiwan in the US (@TECRO_USA) May 5, 2021Officials from Australia, India, South Africa, South Korea and Brunei are also joining the G-7 Foreign and Development Ministers’ Meeting as guests in London.  “We underscore the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, and encourage the peaceful resolution of cross-Strait issues. We reiterate our strong opposition to any unilateral actions that could escalate tensions and undermine regional stability and the international rules-based order, and express serious concerns about reports of militarization, coercion and intimidation in the region,” said the communique, which was released after the meeting. The statement comes as China steps up military activities, sending aircraft into Taiwan’s air space.   “It is very consequential that democracies are speaking with one voice on an important occasion like the G-7 to underscore their support for Taiwan’s participation” in the World Health Organization, said Bonnie Glaser, Asian program director at the German Marshall Fund of the United States.Other analysts said Wednesday’s G-7 communique underscores the deep and abiding concern Western countries plus Japan have about China’s increasingly coercive activities in the Indo-Pacific region.
“Let’s also not lose sight of the fact that the G-7 statement included references to China’s bad behavior in places like Hong Kong, Xinjiang, and Tibet, which certainly won’t sit well with Beijing either,” said Derek Grossman, a senior defense analyst at the RAND Corporation.
The move is seen as an open rebuke to China. The Beijing government has been blocking Taiwan’s representation at WHO meetings after the self-ruled democracy elected Tsai Ing-wen, a China skeptic, as Taiwan’s president in 2016 and again in 2020. FILE – Taiwan Health Minister Chen Shih-chung holds a news conference about Taiwan’s efforts to get into the World Health Organization (WHO) in Taipei, Taiwan, May 15, 2020.Delegates from Taiwan had attended the World Health Assembly as nonvoting observers from 2009 to 2016, during a period of relatively warm ties between Beijing and Taipei. Non-member states and territories can participate in the WHA as observers.  On Monday, China’s ambassador to the United Nations, Zhang Jun, repeated Beijing’s opposition to invite Taiwan to the WHA sessions later this month.  “It is our clear position and firm position that the U.N. is an organization composed of sovereign member states, and Taiwan is not qualified for any participation in these organizations,” Zhang said when he was asked if Taiwan should be allowed at the WHA as an observer. “Beijing’s actions to block Taiwan from participating in the WHO are counterproductive” and do not serve the interests of the broader international community, Glaser told VOA on Wednesday. A senior U.S. official told reporters that Taiwan has “a lot of experience” in fighting the spread of the coronavirus, which “can help all of us, and it just seems really self-defeating to exclude them.” In Washington, Democratic and Republican members of Congress have spoken up in recent weeks to support Taiwan’s participation in the World Health Assembly.   Chairman of Senate Foreign Relations Committee Bob Menendez, a Democrat, said in a tweet that “Beijing’s efforts to shut Taiwan out of the international community hinder pandemic recovery & response.” Menendez called on the Senate to pass a bipartisan bill “championing Taiwan’s participation in the World Health Assembly.” Beijing’s efforts to shut Taiwan out of the international community hinder pandemic recovery & response. The Senate must pass my bill with Sen. @JimInhofe championing Taiwan’s participation in the World Health Assembly. #LetTaiwanHelphttps://t.co/jAitel0Iih— Senate Foreign Relations Committee (@SFRCdems) April 27, 2021Republican Senator Jim Risch, the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, denounced WHO for sidelining Taiwan in the last four years “despite its vast expertise & successful handling of #COVID19.” “I hope that in 2021, this will not be the fifth. #LetTaiwanHelp, & we will all be better for it,” Risch said in a tweet. The @WHO sidelined #Taiwan for the last four meetings of the #WorldHealthAssembly despite its vast expertise & successful handling of #COVID19. I hope that in 2021, this will not be the fifth. #LetTaiwanHelp, & we will all be better for it. https://t.co/oFcz5M9gTx— Senate Foreign Relations Committee Ranking Member (@SenateForeign) April 27, 2021 
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The Australian government on Wednesday faced a court challenge to its temporary Indian travel ban brought by a 73-year-old citizen stranded in the city of Bengaluru.
The government is resisting growing pressure to lift the travel ban imposed last week until May 15 to reduce COVID-19 infection rates in Australian quarantine facilities.
Lawyers for Gary Newman, one of 9,000 Australians prevented from returning home from India, made an urgent application to the Federal Court in Sydney on Wednesday for a judge to review the travel ban imposed under the Biosecurity Act by Health Minister Greg Hunt.
Lawyer Christopher Ward told the court one of the grounds was related to questions of proportionality and reasonableness. Two grounds were based on statutory interpretation and a fourth questioned the ban’s constitutionality.
Justice Stephen Burley said an expedited hearing date would be announced within 48 hours.
Hunt announced late Friday that anyone who sets foot in Australia during the travel ban within 14 days of visiting India faces up to five years in prison and a fine of up to 66,000 Australian dollars ($51,000).
The Australian Medical Association this week called on Hunt and Prime Minister Scott Morrison to withdraw the order, which the nation’s top doctors’ group condemned as “overreach.”
Some critics have accused the government of racism because such drastic travel restrictions were not introduced when infection rates were rapidly increasing in the United States and Europe.
Morrison said he was not concerned that the travel disruption might damage relations with India, which he described as “a great friend of Australia.”
“This pause is enabling us to get on the right footing to be able to restore those repatriation flights and we’re making good progress to do that,” Morrison said.
“Had we not done the pause, we would have been eroding our capability to do that over the medium-to-longer term,” he added.
Critics of the travel ban include former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson as well as several Australian lawmakers and Indian community leaders.
India is in the grip of a devastating surge that has overwhelmed hospitals struggling to secure oxygen supplies.
A chartered Qantas flight had departed Sydney carrying medical supplies to India including 1,056 ventilators and 43 oxygen concentrators, the Australian government said in a statement.
The donated supplies will be distributed by the Indian Red Cross and local authorities to ensure support reaches those in greatest need, the government said.
Australia has used its geographic isolation as an island nation to its advantage in fighting the pandemic. It has been among the most successful countries in preventing the virus’s spread in the community.
But a libertarian group will challenge in the Federal Court on Thursday Australia’s tight restrictions on its citizens leaving the country for fear that they would bring the virus home.
LibertyWorks will argue that Hunt does not have the power under the Biosecurity Act to ban most Australians from leaving the country.
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Dozens of Taiwanese Star Wars fans gathered on the top floor of the nation’s tallest building Tuesday to salute their favorite movie, while stressing the importance of wearing face masks to help prevent the spread of COVID-19.Fans dressed in full Star Wars costumes held mock lightsaber battles and posed for pictures on the 89th floor of the Taipei 101 financial building for what has become an annual observance of what has become known as international Star Wars Day.Organizer of the event Makoto Tsai told reporters he also wanted the “opportunity to introduce interesting places of Taiwan to the world,” because International Star Wars Day, “is an event watched by all the Star Wars fans in the world.”Tsai said their annual event was cancelled last year because the pandemic was at its worst in Taiwan. He said while COVID-19 is largely contained in Taiwan, he is aware that much of the world is continuing to struggle with it.He said he wanted to use his Taiwan gathering to show the world the importance of wearing a mask to fight COVID.“Every character today, including those who wear a helmet, is wearing a mask. I hope to show Star Wars fans of the world that even in Taiwan, we all have to wear the mask. And I hope the pandemic goes away soon.”May the 4th has become the unofficial international “Star Wars Day” over the years, as a play on the famous catch phrase of the movie, “May the force be with you.” Media reports trace the international origins of the day to 1979, when Britain’s Conservative Party won elections there and then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher first assumed her office.The party reportedly took out a newspaper advertisement congratulating the day she took office — May the 4th — saying “May the Fourth Be With You, Maggie. Congratulations!”Reports say a copy of the original advertisement has yet to be found, so the story has not been officially verified. 
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