China

East Asia

Free speech threatened in Taiwan: martyr’s kin

Pressure from China, restrictive legislation and self-censorship among Taiwanese youth have emerged as threats to freedom of speech in Taiwan, according to Nylon Cheng Liberty Foundation director Cheng Tsing-hua. He made his comments on Taiwan's Free Speech Day, April 7, which commemorates the day in 1989 that his brother Cheng Nan-jung, a young democracy advocate under the one-party dictatorship of the Kuomintang, self-immolated as a protest against government restrictions on freedom of expression. Cheng's observations are sobering, as Taiwan has emerged as a last bastion of free speech in the Chinese-speaking world with the closing of political space in Hong Kong. (Image montage from Nylon Cheng Liberty Foundation via FathomTaiwan)

East Asia

Brink looms closer in East Asia maritime theaters

Japan has activated its first amphibious marine unit since World War II, which conducted practice drills to defend the disputed Senkaku Islands from an anticipated Chinese military seizure. Meanwhile, the USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier, with a group of Philippine generals onboard, entered disputed waters in the South China Sea, where China is building military defenses on islands claimed by the Philippines and Vietnam. Another carrier, the USS Carl Vinson, patrolled the contested waters last month, taking part in anti-submarine drills with Japanese forces and visiting Vietnam with its 5,000-strong crew—the largest such US military presence there since the Vietnam War ended in 1975. (Map via IDSA)

East Asia

Podcast: Xi Jinping’s totalitarian capitalism

In Episode Five of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg makes the case that despite the official ideology of "socialism with Chinese characteristics" and the revival of rhetoric and imagery from the Mao era, media commentators are off base in their comparison of Xi Jinping and Mao Zedong. The new personalistic dictatorship of Xi is appropriating the outward forms of Maoism, but whereas the Great Helmsman used totalitarian methods to advance socialism (at least in terms of his own intentions) Xi is doing so to further entrench China's savage capitalist system. As a part of the same constitutional changes that have installed Xi as the new "paramount leader," the Chinese Communist Party is imposing further market liberalization and "supply-side" economic reform. The New Cold War between the US and China is simply a rivalry between capitalist powers. But in the global divide-and-conquer game, the leaders of oppressed nationalities within China such as the Tibetans and Uighurs look to the US and the West as allies, while left-populist governments in Latin America such as Venezuela and Bolivia similarly look to China. How can we respond to these developments in a way that builds solidarity between peasants, workers and indigenous peoples across the geopolitical divide? Listen on SoundCloud, and support our podcast via Patreon
(Photo: chinaworker.info)

East Asia

Xi proves: capitalism, totalitarianism no contradiction

To absolutely nobody's surprise, China's National People's Congress overwhelmingly approved numerous amendments to the country's Constitution, eliminating presidential term limits and effectively enshrining Xi Jinping as the new "paramount leader." But the inevitable invocation of Mao in this context is misleading. As part of the same restructuring now being rubber-stamped by the NPC come further market liberalization and "supply-side" economic reforms. This is economic "neoliberalism" under a system that is completely illiberal where political freedoms and pluralism are concerned. (Photo: chinaworker.info)

East Asia

Xi censors Orwell: too obvious. But the letter N?

Following the announcement that China’s Communist Party has proposed scrapping term limits for the presidency, effectively setting Xi Jinping up as president for life, the online reaction within the People’s Republic was initially voluble and irreverent. But authorities quickly cracked down, barring certain words and phrases from Sina Weibo search results. The absurd overkill in what what was blocked betrays an obvious fear of the masses on the part of China’s ruling elite. The very titles of George Orwell’s novels 1984 and Animal Farm have of course been suppressed. This is hardly surprising. It’s almost heartening that despots around the world still find Orwell so dangerous that they have to ban him. But some other samples of the verboten verbiage are more revealing—and enigmatic. (Photo: chinaworker.info)

Afghanistan

Uighur militants seen as new threat in Afghanistan

Recent US raids in Afghanistan have targeted presumed forces of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, the supposed Uighur militant network active in China's far-western Xinjiang region. News of the air-strikes in Badakhshan province comes amid reports that China is preparing to establish a military base in the same region of Afghanistan. Badakhshan forms a long panhandle between Tajikistan to the north and Pakistan to the south to reach a border with Chinese territory. (Photo: US troops on patrol in Zabul province; US Army via Flickr)

Central Asia

China: sweeps, surveillance in police-state Xinjiang

Thousands of Uighurs, members of the indigenous Muslim and Turkic people of China's far-western Xinjiang region, have been detained in "political education camps," while authorities are placing sophisticated facial-recognition technology even in remote villages to enforce restrictions on residents' movements. DNA samples, fingerprints, iris scans, and blood types are being collected from all residents as a part of the surveillance program. The measures come amid a wave of arrests of Uighur community leaders on charges of "religious extremism." (Photo: Mvslim.com)

East Asia

China: rights lawyer arrested for urging reform

Human rights lawyer Yu Wensheng was charged with “inciting subversion of state officials” after calling for reform to China’s constitution. Yu was arrested by a SWAT team at his home in Beijing just hours after he wrote an open letter urging democratic changes, including multi-party presidential election. He is now being held incommunicado at a secret site under the special status of “Residential Surveillance in a Designated Location.” The “subversion” charge carries a sentence of 15 years. Since the current crackdown began in July 2015, more than 300 rights activists and lawyers have faced charges in China. (Photo: chinaworker.info)

Planet Watch

Doomsday Clock: two minutes of midnight

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists advanced the minute hand of its Doomsday Clock to two minutes of midnight from its previous two-and-a-half minutes. "In 2017, world leaders failed to respond effectively to the looming threats of nuclear war and climate change, making the world security situation more dangerous than it was a year ago—and as dangerous as it has been since World War II," the Bulletin said. Finding that the "greatest risks last year arose in the nuclear realm," the statement of course cited the crisis over North Korea's atomic weapons program, but also ongoing military exercises along the borders of NATO, upgrading of nuclear arsenals by the US and Russia, tensions over the South China Sea, a nuclear arms race between India and Pakistan, and uncertainty about continued US support for the Iran nuclear deal. These threats are worsened by "a breakdown in the international order that has been dangerously exacerbated by recent US actions." (Image: misucell.com)

Planet Watch

Podcast: Anti-austerity and the utopian moment

Protests against austerity and the lords of capital are erupting simultaneously in Iran, Tunisia, Sudan, Morocco, China, Peru, Honduras, Argentina and Ecuador, recalling the international protest wave of 2011. Such moments open windows of utopian possibility, but those windows inevitably seem to close as protest movements are manipulated by Great Power intrigues or derailed into ethnic or sectarian scapegoating. What can we do to keep the revolutionary flame alive, build solidarity across borders, and resist the exploitation and diversion of protest movements? Bill Weinberg explores this question on Episode One of the long-awaited CounterVortex podcast. You can listen on SoundCloud.

Central Asia

Tibetan language rights activist goes on trial

Relatives of Tashi Wangchuk waiting outside Yushu Intermediate People's Court in China's Qinghai Province. The trial of the educational rights activist ended with no verdict, and Tashi remains behind bars. He faces charges of "inciting separatism" for speaking to the New York Times about his work to advocate for Tibetan-language education, as guaranteed by China's constitution. Tashi told the Times that the lack of general instruction in the Tibetan language is "destroying our ethnicity's culture." The charge against him, dismissed as "ludicrously unjust" by Amnesty International, carries a 10-year sentence. (Photo: NYT via Phayul)

East Asia

China: dissident blogger gets eight years in prison

A court in China convicted a prominent cyber-activist on subversion charges, after holding him for two years. Wu Gan, AKA "Super Vulgar Butcher," was arrested during the "709 Crackdown" on rights campaigners in 2015. Following the verdict, Wu was sentenced to eight years—the harshest term yet for anyone targeted in the crackdown. There's a particular irony to Wu's draconian sentence, as he made protesting transgressions of justice in China's court system his special cause. For instance, he took up the case of a rape victim who had killed her assailant, a Communist Party official. He also followed the example of online activists in the West by posting videos of police abuses. Photo: YouTube