China

East Asia

China expands mosque closure campaign

The Chinese government has increased mosque closures in northern Ningxia region and Gansu province, home to significant populations of Hui Muslims, according to a report by Human Rights Watch. The campaign of closures marks an expansion of the policy beyond the Uyghur people of Xinjiang region. Officially termed “consolidation,” the campaign calls for shutting down mosques or modifying their architectural features to align with more typically Chinese aesthetics. The Hui, a distinctive ethno-religious group in China numbering over 10 million, are now at the forefront of concerns regarding the government’s broader campaign to “consolidate” mosques. (Photo: Zhuxian mosque, Henan province, by Sarkis Pogossian)

Southeast Asia

Burma: rebels seize towns on Chinese border

Burma’s rebel Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) has taken control of nearly the entire town of Namkham in northern Shan state, besieging the last remaining junta outpost there. The town is located along the Shweli River, a main trade route on the Chinese border. Meanwhile, in Mongko—northeast of Namkham and also located on the border with China—TNLA allies the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) and the Arakan Army have reportedly captured four junta bases, representing a serious loss of strategic territory for the regime. These rebel armies together make up a force known as the Three Brotherhood Alliance, now emerging as the junta’s most formidable military challenge. (Map: PCL)

East Asia

Hong Kong steps up crackdown on Cantopop stars

Hong Kong District Court judge Ernest Lin Kam-hung handed down a judgment sentencing Tommy Yuen, a former Cantopop boy-band member, to 26 months imprisonment. Yuen was convicted of “acts with seditious intention” among other charges. Lin found that Yuen made seditious statements on Facebook and Instagram in 2021 disparaging police and officials. Lin asserted that Yuen had been advocating for Hong Kong independence and insulting Hong Kong’s government. Yuen was well known as a member of the Cantopop boy group E-kids, which was disbanded in 2006. He had been active in the 2019 anti-extradition protests, while Lin won a reputation for his harsh sentences handed down to protesters. (Photo: Yuen, outside West Kowloon Court in March 2021, standing to right of Alexandra “Grandma” Wong. Credit: Studio Incendo via Wikimedia Commons)

South Asia

Podcast: Himalayan fault lines in BRICS

In Episode 189 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg notes that despite all the tankie pseudo-left enthusiasm for the BRICS summit in South Africa, the notion of a unified bloc against Western hegemony is illusory. The Johannesburg confab was immediately followed by a diplomatic spat between China and India, sparked by Beijing’s release of an official map of the territory of the People’s Republic—showing two Himalayan enclaves claimed by India as Chinese territory: Aksai Chin and Arunachal Pradesh, which have both been the scene of border skirmishes in recent years. The map also shows an island in the Amur River, by mutual agreement half controlled by Russia, as entirely Chinese. Moscow, depending on China’s acquiescence in the Ukraine war, has lodged no protest over this. But the border disputes between nuclear-armed India and China have the potential to escalate to the unthinkable. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Map: CIA via Wikipedia)

Watching the Shadows

Podcast: against the ‘red-baiting’ calumny

In Episode 188 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg deconstructs the accusation of “red-baiting” employed by the tankie pseudo-left to deflect criticism of funding sources directly linked to Chinese and Russian state propaganda networks. Before such revelations made the New York Times, they were reported by bloggers and researchers themselves on the radical left. And some progressive voices and international socialists have repudiated the smear that any such examination of money networks linked to authoritarian regimes is “red-baiting.” Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Image via Muppet Wiki)

East Asia

Hong Kong: protester convictions overturned

Seven high-profile democracy activists in Hong Kong had part of their sentences thrown out on appeal. They were convicted two years ago over a mass demonstration on Aug. 18, 2019 that drew an estimated 1.7 million people, in defiance of a ban on street protests. The Court of Appeal’s judgement found that just because they were at the front of the procession didn’t mean they had actually organized it. However, their convictions for taking part in the rally were upheld. Martin Lee, Margaret Ng and Albert Ho were given suspended sentences or credit for time served, and were released. But Jimmy Lai, Leung Kwok-hung, Cyd Ho and Lee Cheuk-yan remained in custody, as they also face charges under the National Security Law. (Photo: Iris Wong/Wikimedia)

Central Asia

Probe corporate profit from Uyghur forced labor

Canada’s Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise has launched an inquiry into accusations over use of Uyghur forced labor in the People’s Republic of China by Western corporations Nike and Dynasty Gold. While the initial evaluation stipulates that Nike has not engaged in the direct use of such labor, the company’s association with Chinese third-party entities does not absolve it of accountability. Vancouver-based Dynasty Gold faces allegations of directly employing coerced labor of Uyghurs at a mining site in China. The initial evaluation finds that the company’s denial of operational control over the mine at Hatu, Xinjiang region, “should not be taken at its face value,” as Dynasty still possess a controlling interest in the operation. (Photo via Bitter Winter)

Southeast Asia

Podcast: geopolitics of the Barbie affair

In Episode 181 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg discusses the strange reality that the Barbie move has been banned in Vietnam over a brief image of a world map appearing to show the “nine-dash line” demarcating China’s unilaterally claimed territory in the South China Sea. While US-China brinkmanship over Taiwan wins headlines, Beijing’s maritime dispute with Hanoi holds unsettling potential for escalation. In a surreal paradox (for those who remember their history) Vietnam has actually been tilting to the US in the new cold war with China. It has also been increasingly resorting to internal police-state measures to protect the interests of foreign capital in the country. All of this constitutes a rebuke both to the neoliberals, who cling to the discredited dogma that “free markets” inevitably lead to peace and democracy, and to the tankies, who rally around both the regimes in Beijing and Hanoi, in defiance of political reality. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Map via IDSA)

East Asia

Hong Kong pro-democracy radio station closed down

Hong Kong’s pro-democracy Citizen Radio aired its final broadcast, with the founder citing the “dangerous” political environment. Tsang Kin-shing, a veteran political activist, wrote in the station’s closing Facebook post of mounting difficulties. Under the National Security Law imposed by the Chinese government in 2020, the station’s bank account was “frozen,” and consequently it could only afford rent for the studio through August. “We could do nothing but to stop the broadcasting,” said Tsang. In a press conference at the studio, Tsang also told reporters of the growing obstacles to journalistic work: “If we invite guests, they may not be able to speak freely, because there are so many red lines.” (Image: Citizen Radio)

East Asia

UK orders closure of China-run ‘police stations’

UK Minister for Security Tom Tugendhat told Parliament that the government has ordered China to close “overseas police service stations” operating within the United Kingdom, calling the stations’ existence “unacceptable.” Tugendhat said that British authorities received reports from non-governmental organization Safeguard Defenders of such stations in Croydon, Hendon and Glasgow, with allegations of another in Belfast. The United States and Ireland both claim to have recently uncovered similar stations in their countries. Like the UK, they said the stations were used to monitor and harass Chinese diaspora communities. (Photo of Glasgow location, within restaurant storefront: Google via The Ferret)

East Asia

Hong Kong: bid to ban protest anthem backfires

The Hong Kong Department of Justice applied to the Special Administrative Region’s High Court for an injunction to prohibit any performance or online dissemination of the song “Glory to Hong Kong,” anthem of the 2019 protest movement. The government asserts that the song contains secessionist lyrics that breach multiple laws in Hong Kong and China, including the National Security Law. However, thousands of Hong Kong citizens responded to the government’s move by gathering in public to sing the song, in defiance of an ongoing ban on protests. It also shot to the top of the iTunes charts. After days of this, a judge postponed deciding on the petition, finding it potentially overbroad and asking the government to be more specific on the breadth of its request. (Image: Campaign for Hong Kong via Twtter)

East Asia

Macau national security law threatens free speech

Reporters Without Borders denounced Macau’s expansion of its national security law, saying the revision “increases the pressure on journalists and further threatens…residents’ right to information.” The Macau Special Administrative Region’s National Security Law, first passed in 2009, defines seven crimes that can result in a maximum sentence of up to 25 years’ imprisonment. Under the revised rules, these crimes have been expanded far beyond their previous definitions. For example, “subversion” and “secession” now extend to non-violent acts, while “sedition” includes “acts that incite participation in riots.” Additionally, the law now applies to “any individual” who is suspected of undermining China’s national security. This applies regardless of the territory in which the acts occur, and regardless of the individual’s nationality—meaning that Macau law enforcement will have authority to pursue suspected violations extraterritorially. (Photo: kewl.lu via Wikimedia Commons)