A Lao youth who was forced to work at the Kosai Casino Myanmar is tased while being handcuffed to a column. Credit: Screenshot from video provided to RFA. By RFA Lao A group of about 30 parents of Lao citizens trafficked to work in casinos in Myanmar are fed up with their government’s lack of progress in rescuing their children, so they are planning to travel to Vientiane to meet with high-ranking officials face to face, they told Radio Free Asia. The victims, some of whom are minors, were trafficked…
Month: February 2023
Genshin Impact and Chinese Nationalism
Advertisement The success of Genshin Impact, an action role-playing game, was unexpected. The game, produced by Chinese company miHoYo and released in 2020, has quickly gained global popularity since its debut. By July 2022, it had 4.7 million downloads and a monthly revenue of $82 million, making it one of the fastest games to reach $1 million in revenue. It remained one of the world’s top three most downloaded mobile games for two years after its launch. As of February 24, 2023, the game’s official YouTube account has reached 6.51…
Ukraine war, 1 year on: are China’s supply chains headed toward upheaval, or can it stem the tide?
In trade, the administration of US President Joe Biden has introduced measures to strengthen the competitiveness of its industries as China strives to retain its crown as the world’s manufacturing powerhouse. Matthew Fass, president of Virginia-based Maritime Products International, also acknowledged that diversification away from China became more necessary during the coronavirus pandemic, which resulted in mass lockdowns and business disruptions in the country for nearly three years. But he, like many others, is struggling to discern the best way forward. “We are in the food industry – seafood in…
Malaysia deports 114 Muslim Myanmar nationals, including children, their lawyer says
Malaysia has deported 114 Muslim Myanmar nationals who will be persecuted by the ruling military when they return, although they are not Rohingya, their lawyer said Thursday. Amnesty International Malaysia said Kuala Lumpur returned the Myanmar nationals to their strife-torn country, despite condemning the Burmese junta’s violence against its own people. Lim Wei Jet, a lawyer appointed for the Myanmar nationals by Amnesty, said the Burmese military, which ousted an elected government in February 2021, ostracizes Muslims. “It’s against the non-refoulement principle and the right to live, whereby you shouldn’t…
Tech war: Chinese chip firms stockpile equipment ahead of US-Japan-Netherlands agreement on tightening export controls
Japanese companies are also waiting for clearer guidance on export controls, he added, as new rules targeting advanced chip technologies are expected in April. There has been little hard data so far showing stockpiling, although anecdotes align with what happened during previous chip restrictions from Washington. China’s official customs data for January and February will be released in early March. Advertisement Japan’s coordination with Washington on the matter alarmed Chinese clients, the South China Morning Post previously reported, with traders of second-hand machines reporting a notable surge in enquiries. China’s…
What Is China’s Peace Proposal for Ukraine War?
Advertisement One year into Russia’s war against Ukraine, China is offering a 12-point proposal to end the fighting. The proposal follows China’s recent announcement that it is trying to act as mediator in the war that has re-energized Western alliances viewed by Beijing and Moscow as rivals. China’s top diplomat indicated that the plan was coming at a security conference this week in Munich, Germany. With its release, President Xi Jinping’s government is reiterating China’s claim to being neutral, despite blocking efforts at the United Nations to condemn the invasion.…
‘China has taken Russia’s side’: EU dismisses Beijing’s ‘misplaced’ plan for peace in Ukraine
“You have to see [the paper] against a specific backdrop. And that is the backdrop that China has taken a side by signing an unlimited friendship right before invasion of Ukraine started,” she said, referring to a cooperation agreement signed by Presidents Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin in Beijing on February 6 last year. “So we will look at the principles of course, but we will look at them against the backdrop that China has taken sides.” Advertisement This view was also espoused by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who told…
Blinken Heads to Asia Amid Soaring Tensions With China, Russia
WASHINGTON — Fresh from a meeting with China’s top diplomat and a U.N. Security Council session regarding Ukraine, Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to Central and South Asia next week for international talks that will put him in the same room as his Chinese and Russian counterparts. The State Department announced late Thursday that Blinken would travel to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan before going to India for a meeting of the Group of 20 foreign ministers from the world’s largest industrialized and developing countries, including China and Russia. The…
China’s ‘leapfrog period’ of rapid scientific achievement makes it an innovation powerhouse, says minister
China rose from 34th to 11th in the latest Global Innovation Index (GII), a widely used annual ranking of countries based on their capacity for, and success in, innovation. The index is compiled by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), a specialised agency of the United Nations, and was published in September. According to Wang, China’s innovation rankings boost could be attributed to skyrocketing investment in research and development over the past decade, having risen from 1 trillion yuan (US$145 billion) in 2012 to 3.09 trillion yuan in 2022. The…
China calls for political resolution to Russian war against Ukraine – video
China’s government has called for peace talks between Ukraine and Russia, and urged all parties to avoid nuclear escalation and to end attacks on civilians in a 12-point position paper released on Friday, the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion. The paper stated that the international community should ‘create conditions and platforms’ for negotiations to resume, and that China would continue to ‘play a constructive role in this regard’. The Guardian