German Chancellor Olaf Scholz briefly addressed human rights while in Beijing on Friday for a meeting with Chinese leaders, but Uyghur and other rights groups said he didn’t go far enough. Meeting with Communist Party leader after Xi Jinping, who last month began his third five-year term in office, Scholz urged China to stand up for the international order and put pressure on Russia to end its war against Ukraine, according to a report by Politico Europe. At a joint press conference Friday with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, Scholz told…
Day: November 4, 2022
Interview: “Freedom and democracy won’t come without effort”
Vietnamese lawyer Ngo Anh Tuan spoke to RFA about a Nov. 1 meeting with U.S. officials in the run-up to the 26th U.S.-Vietnam Human Rights Dialogue. On Nov. 1, Vietnamese rights lawyer Ngo Anh Tuan attended a meeting between representatives from the U.S. State Department, the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi, the U.S. Consulate in Ho Chi Minh City and family members of several jailed political dissidents at the eve of the 26th U.S.-Vietnam Human Rights Dialogue held on Nov. 2. Radio Free Asia spoke to him about the meeting on…
4 years on, some survivors of Laos dam collapse still waiting for promised new homes
More than four years after a huge dam collapsed in southern Laos, sweeping away homes and flooding villages, about 100 families are still waiting for the houses and full compensation that authorities promised them. Instead, they’re living in small, temporary shelters that many describe as inadequate and unstable. They say officials tell them the houses, promised for September, will be ready in December, but they’re not holding their breath. “The handover of our homes has been postponed,” said one villager who, like other sources, requested anonymity for safety reasons. “It’s…
In Xinjiang, a scramble to contain COVID
Images taken from videos obtained by RFA Uyghur Service, show a new, prefabricated quarantine facility in Xinjiang in China’s west. Official figures released by the government indicate only a couple of dozen new, symptomatic cases each day in the region, which has a population of nearly 26 million. But the construction of the facility, along with a slew of videos from the region posted on social media, suggest a broader outbreak. In the video below, for example, an animated Ma Zhijun, the Chinese Communist Party secretary in Urumqi, Xinjiang’s capital,…
Reports Suggest China Aiming for Less Disruptive COVID-19 Policies
Advertisement Chinese officials are trying to quell an outcry over the death of a 3-year-old boy from a quarantined residential compound that added to public anger at anti-virus controls that have confined millions of people to their homes. The boy died at a hospital in Lanzhou of carbon monoxide poisoning blamed on a gas leak. His father accused health workers who were enforcing the closure of the compound of refusing to help and trying to stop him as he rushed his son to the hospital. The father’s account on social…
What the 20th Party Congress Report Tells Us About China’s AI Ambitions
Advertisement At China’s 20th Party Congress, Chinese Communist Party (CCP) General Secretary Xi Jinping delivered a lengthy speech outlining his vision for the next decade. Notably, compared to his report five years ago, Xi dedicated a whole section to technological development and talent management. While Washington has attempted to slow down China’s advancement in artificial intelligence (AI) with new export controls, Beijing is determined to catch up with a comprehensive set of policy measures. It aims to achieve “great self-reliance and strength in science and technology.” This article will analyze…
China Celebrates German Chancellor’s Trip
Advertisement Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz arrived in China on Friday, making him the first leader of a G-7 state to travel to China since the COVID-19 pandemic began. It was a whirlwind visit: Lasting just 11 hours, it was the shortest trip ever to China by a German leader. The trip was steeped in controversy well before Scholz’s departure, with both coalition partners at home and other European governments raising concerns about a potential regression back to the Merkel era, when Germany prioritized economic ties with China over confronting threats…
Scholz asks China to press Russia to end its war
But the German chancellor, like his predecessor Angela Merkel, argues that global problems can only be solved through co-operation with China. Meeting face to face, he said, facilitated discussion, even of issues over which both countries strongly disagree. BBC
U.S. offers $5 million for info on North Korean smuggling
The United States is offering a $5 million reward for information about a smuggling operation run by Singaporean businessman Kwek Kee Seng to ship luxury goods, money, petrol and weapon-making materials to North Korea in violation of U.N. Security Council sanctions. Kwek is responsible for delivering oil shipments to North Korea in exchange for funds laundered through shell companies based in Panama and Singapore, and had a federal arrest warrant issued in April 2021, says a statement from the U.S. State Department on Thursday. “Kwek Kee Seng has directed the…
Vietnamese prisoner of conscience denied family visits after hunger strike
Jailed land rights activist Trinh Ba Tu is being denied family visits at Prison Camp No. 6 in Vietnam’s bleak Ngha An province after he started a hunger strike nearly two months ago to protest against prison guards beating him. He started to refuse food on Sept. 6 and told his father later that month he had been put in solitary confinement, beaten and shackled. At the end of September, right after Tu’s father Trinh Ba Khiem returned from prison, his family filed a petition to the Ministry of Public…