Merchants at Myanmar’s border with China say the junta’s trade policy is too unstable and that a new pay-by-bank system announced last week will severely restrict their ability to import goods. On June 23, the junta’s commerce ministry announced that importers at northeastern Myanmar’s border with China will have to pay for goods using their local bank accounts beginning on Aug. 1. Those who have been granted a license will receive a one-month grace period and must complete their imports by Aug. 31 or their license will be invalidated, the…
Month: June 2023
US Flies B-52 Bombers in Show of Force Against North Korea
SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA – The United States flew nuclear-capable bombers to the Korean Peninsula on Friday in its latest show of force against North Korea, days after the North staged massive anti-U.S. rallies in its capital. The long-range B-52 bombers took part in joint aerial drills with other U.S. and South Korean fighter jets over the peninsula, South Korea’s Defense Ministry said in a statement. The bombers’ flyover is the latest in a series of temporary U.S. deployments of strategic assets in South Korea in response to North Korea’s push…
Villagers traveling to Phnom Penh for land-dispute protest arrested at roadblock
A group of villagers involved in a long-running land dispute with a Chinese-backed company and a ruling party senator were arrested this week at a roadblock on the way to Phnom Penh, where they had planned to petition a government minister. Police arrested 11 villagers in southwestern Koh Kong province on Thursday and charged them with criminal incitement, according to the Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights, or Licadho. Eb Teng, one of the villagers, told Radio Free Asia that authorities later threatened to make more…
Laotian arrested after 2 Chinese nationals shot in Bokeo economic zone
Authorities inside a Chinese-controlled special economic zone have arrested a Lao national believed to have shot and injured two Chinese men in the notorious crime area, area residents said, citing social media reports about the crime. Authorities in the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone, which sits along the Mekong River in northwestern Laos’ Bokeo province, have not identified the shooter involved in the June 27 incident. Established in 2007, the gambling and tourism hub caters to Chinese citizens and has been described as a de-facto Chinese colony. It has become…
Two Uyghurs confirmed detained for religious activities in Xinjiang
Chinese authorities in Xinjiang detained two Uyghur men for participating in religious activities, Radio Free Asia has confirmed, shedding light on the reason for their detention for the first time. The names of both men – Osmanjan Tursun, now about 35 years old, and Qeyum Abdukerim, believed to be 55 – appeared in the “Xinjiang Police Files,” confidential documents hacked from Xinjiang police computers that contain the personal records of 830,000 individuals. The files had pointed to other reasons for their detention. The files date from 2017 to 2018, the…
Apple Daily staffers recall the police raid that changed Hong Kong’s media overnight
Jimuk will never forget the day dozens of national security police charged into the Apple Daily‘s editorial offices, separating staff from their computers, removing large quantities of confidential documents, freezing its assets and later arresting several executives and senior editors. “The worst thing was that the day they arrested several high-level executives was actually my birthday, so I have felt very sad on my birthday these past couple of years,” he said. “I feel very bad that they have been sitting in jail for the past two years,” he said.…
After her video goes viral, champion gymnast appointed coach by Myanmar junta
An internationally recognized gymnast from Yangon who was placed under surveillance by Myanmar’s junta after she was profiled by Radio Free Asia has been given a coaching position by the regime’s sports ministry and is now modeling for TV ads. The June 13 report on 21-year-old Thae Su included footage of her performing acrobatic gymnastics and also described her family’s strained financial situation. The video on RFA Burmese’s Facebook page drew more than 6 million views in the first 24 hours and attracted wide attention from local media, businessmen and…
EU leaders agree to ‘de-risk’ the bloc’s trade dealings with China
Irish Taoiseach Leo Eric Varadkar added that “China is not an enemy”, but that it was important for Europe “to be less naive” about its dependencies on Beijing. The decision to de-risk was initiated by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in an address in March, just before her trip to Beijing for a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Advertisement Last week, von der Leyen unveiled a prospective road map on de-risking. Diplomats from France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands were among those expressing concern about how the…
Can China’s charm offensive with business ease US tensions?
At a summit in Tianjin this week, the Chinese premier Li Qiang took the opportunity to make the foreign executives in attendance feel welcome. Li, seen as the most business friendly member of President Xi Jinping’s inner circle, wrapped up a talk at the World Economic Forum’s New Champions meeting with a play on words in Chinese — mixing the word “laowai”, which means foreigner, with the term “laoxiang”, which means “townspeople”. “I hope you can become our townspeople,” he told a business round table. Li’s charm offensive at the…
Why reports of Chinese spy base in Cuba are met with shrugs in Latin America, where US influence is waning
Although the situations are not directly comparable – stationing spies and training troops in Cuba would not immediately threaten most countries in the region, unlike nuclear weapons – experts said this was a sign that Washington was losing ground for Latinos’ hearts and minds. The reasons for the apparent apathy, they explain, are the growing importance of relations with China for most Latin American countries and the widespread perception that in the last 20 years, Washington has stopped caring about the region to concentrate its efforts first on the Middle…