China

East Asia

Hong Kong: second conviction under national security law

A Hong Kong district court found delivery worker-turned-activist Ma Chun-man guilty of incitement to secession for his actions at over 20 protests and in several interviews last year. Famously dubbed “Captain America 2.0” by local news media for dressing like the comic-book character at demonstrations, Ma is the second person to be convicted under China’s Law on Protection of National Security of Hong Kong. He was charged under articles 20 and 21 for advocating “separating Hong Kong from China, unlawfully changing its legal status or surrendering it to foreign rule.” (Photo: Twitter via The Telegraph)

Afghanistan

Russia-led bloc in war games on Afghan border

Some 5,000 troops from member states of the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) initiated military maneuvers code-named “Echelon-2021” in Tajikistan near the border with Afghanistan. More than half of the troops involved are Russian. Gen. Anatoly Sidorov, head of the CSTO joint staff, said in a statement: “We pay special attention to the Central Asian region. The situation around the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan remains the main source of instability.” China is meanwhile said to have taken over an old Soviet outpost in Tajikistan near the Wakhan Corridor, Afghanistan’s eastern “panhandle,” where the People’s Liberation Army is conducting joint drills with Tajik forces and monitoring the situation on the border. (Map: CIA via PCL Map Collection)

Central Asia

Uyghur Tribunal in UK hears testimony on abuses

The Uyghur Tribunal, an “independent people’s court” convened by exile and human rights groups, concluded after months of hearings in London. Following a request from the World Uyghur Congress, the Tribunal was organized last year by Sir Geoffrey Nice, the lead prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. The Tribunal heard testimony from some 500 witnesses, including survivors of the detention camps in Xinjiang, on torture, sexual abuse, coerced labor, and forced sterilization. (Photo via Coda)

East Asia

Hong Kong: ‘patriots’ in, democrats out

The first “patriots only” vote under Hong Kong’s new political system was held to choose members for a 1,500-member Election Committee—although only some 360 of the seats were actually contested. Voting was restricted to some 5,000 individuals representing different professions and industries, chosen under a principle of “patriots administering Hong Kong.” The Election Committee is tasked with electing 40 members of the enlarged 90-seat Legislative Council in December as well as choosing the city’s new chief executive next March. The new and more controlled electoral system was adopted by an overwhelming majority vote of the National People’s Congress in Beijing this March. (Photo: HKFP)

East Asia

Members of HK Tiananmen vigil group arrested

Four key members of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, the group behind the city’s annual Tiananmen Massacre vigil, were arrested in an early-morning raid on the June 4 Memorial Museum. The arrests came the morning after the activists publicly refused a police demand for information as part of a “national security” probe into the 32-year-old group. Police confirmed the arrests, saying the four are being held for failing to comply with Article 43 of the National Security Law, which compels cooperation with investigations. The police had requested information from the group in a letter in late August under provisions of Article 43. The force also alleged that the group had been working with foreign agents, a potential violation of the Beijing-imposed legislation. (Photo: Tam Ming Keung/United Social Press via HKFP)

Afghanistan

Podcast: Afghanistan and the Great Game

In Episode 85 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg discusses the implications for world peace and the prospects for survival of basic freedoms as the Taliban consolidate their second period of rule in Afghanistan. There are already signs that Russia and China are seeking to groom the Taliban as proxies against the US and the West, with (inevitably) the dream of a trans-Afghanistan pipeline route still a part of the agenda. The US, in turn, could start backing the incipient armed resistance, already organizing in the Panjshir Valley. The task for progressives in the West now is to loan what solidarity we can with the civil resistance—the secularists and feminists who are already defying Taliban rule on the ground across Afghanistan. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Map: Perry-Castañeda Library)

East Asia

Hong Kong: crackdown on dissident Cantopop

Hong Kong’s Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) charged pro-democracy activist Au Nok-hin and Cantopop singer Wong Yiu-ming, AKA Anthony Wong, with “corrupt conduct” for allegedly breaching election laws by having Wong perform two songs at a rally for Au in his 2018 run for the Legislative Council. The ICAC cited provisions of the Elections Corrupt & Illegal Conduct Ordinance, which define as corrupt conduct meeting “all or part of the cost of providing food, drink or entertainment for another person for the purpose of inducing a third party to vote or not vote for a particular candidate at an election.” Hong Kong’s Department of Justice withdrew the charges against the pair two days after Wong was arrested, but they were placed under a “bind-over order.” Under terms of the order, they each put up a $2,000 bond and will face no criminal charges if they maintain “good behavior” for a period of 24 months. “Hongkongers keep singing, Hongkongers keep going,” Wong told reporters as he left the courtroom. (Image: IFC via Twitter)

Planet Watch

Podcast: Hiroshima at 76

In Episode 83 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg notes signs of hope on the 76th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing, with the city’s Mayor Kazumi Matsui calling on the world’s nations to join the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. President Trump walked away from US-Russia nuclear arms control treaties, and China is now rapidly expanding its nuclear arsenal. Ukraine and Syria are ominously likely flashpoints for superpower conflict. But South Africa provides a shining example of progress—under the leadership of Nelson Mandela, newly post-apartheid South Africa became the first and only nation on Earth to willingly dismantle its nuclear weapons. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Photo: Hiroshima Day vigil 2014, via Nihon zan Myohoji Buddhist Peace Council)

Planet Watch

China: rapid expansion of nuclear missile silo fields

Satellite images reveal that China is building two new nuclear missile silo fields. The Federation of American Scientists reports that the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force (PLARF) appears to be constructing new missile silos near Yumen, Gansu province, and at another site some 380 kilometers to the northwest, near Hami in Xinjiang. The construction at Yumen and Hami constitutes the most significant expansion ever of China’s inter-continental ballistic missile silos. China has for decades operated about 20 silos for its DF-5 ICBMs. With 120 silos under construction at Yumen, another 110 silos at Hami, a dozen silos at Jilantai, Inner Mongolia, and possibly more silos being added in existing DF-5 deployment areas, the PLARF appears to have approximately 250 silos under construction—more than ten times the number of ICBM silos currently in operation in China. (Photo: Federation of American Scientists)

Planet Watch

Podcast: climate change and the global struggle

In Episode 81 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg takes stock of the fast-mounting manifestations of devastating climate destabilization—from Oregon to Siberia, from Germany to Henan. In Angola, traditional pastoralists are joining the ranks of “climate refugees” as their communal lands are stricken by drought. In Iran’s restive and rapidly aridifying Ahwazi region, protests over access to water have turned deadly. These grim developments offer a foreboding of North America’s imminent future. Yet media commentators continue to equivocate, asking whether these events are “linked to” or “caused by” climate change—rather than recognizing that they are climate change. And the opportunity for a crash conversion from fossil fuels that was posed by last year’s pandemic-induced economic paralysis, when already depressed oil prices actually went negative, is now being squandered. Oil prices are again rising, with the return to pre-pandemic dystopian “normality.” Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Photo of Ahwazi protesters in Iran: Ahwazna)

Syria

Syria: Russia plays ‘political games’ with aid access

The UN Security Council unanimously voted to extend the sole humanitarian aid crossing into Syria—one day before it was set to close. The vote on the Bab al-Hawa crossing came after weeks of intense negotiations between Washington, which wants to expand the number of aid corridors into Syria, and Moscow, which had threatened to block continuation of the aid program altogether in the name of protecting Syrian sovereignty. Some 1,000 truckloads of aid pass through Bab al-Hawa each month—and humanitarian agencies say this is insufficient to address the scale of the disaster in Syria’s north. In 2014, the Security Council approved four border crossings for aid into Syria. But Russia has since used its veto to restrict aid access to the rebel-held north, leaving only Bab al-Hawa open. (Photo: UNICEF via UN News)

East Asia

Podcast: democracy or separatism for China?

In Episode 78 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg offers a report and analysis of the “100 Years of Chinese Communist Party Oppression” rally outside the Chinese consultate in New York City, jointly organized by groups including Project Black Mask Hong Kong, Students for a Free Tibet, the Regional Tibetan Youth Congress NY-NJ, and the Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Center. But amid all the cries to free Hong Kong, free Tibet, free East Turkestan and free Southern Mongolia, it was only Tiananmen Square massacre survivor Fengsou Zhou of the group Humanitarian China who raised the demand “Free China!” Will liberation of the Hongkongers, Tibetans, Uyghurs and Southern Mongolians be possible without buildng solidariy against the dictatorship with Han Chinese? Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Photo: CounterVortex)