China’s central bank has signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Ant Group, the fintech affiliate of Alibaba Group, to help build a technical platform for its sovereign digital currency, state media reported.China has been developing its electronic yuan, or e-CNY, since 2014 with an aim to replace some of the cash in circulation. In lieu of a timetable for its official launch, the digital cash will first be used for retail payments domestically before it is used abroad, Chinese authorities have said.The two sides will jointly promote the development of the e-CNY, based on Ant’s database, Ocean Base, and its mobile development platform, mPaaS, according to the state tabloid Global Times.The planned e-CNYThe bank has also been working with Ant and Tencent over the past three years to co-develop the e-CNY, the report added, citing information recently disclosed by the country’s two largest e-payment providers.The disclosure appears to suggest that both companies were touting close ties with the regulator despite having come under the government’s intensive anti-monopoly crackdown and investigation.Analysts say the bank needs support from local fintech giants and big retailers to build the infrastructure, including distribution channels for the national virtual currency, which is being tested in cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen.Its success, though, may end up taking market shares from these tech firms — a move observers argue would show that China has planned steps to crack down on monopolies and “nationalize” troves of consumer financial data they own.Who’s the boss?“The Chinese authorities are telling Ant that you should hand over your big data to the central bank. The data won’t remain in private hands since the Communist Party is the boss,” Francis Lun, CEO of Geo Securities Ltd. in Hong Kong, told VOA by phone.The Financial Times has reported that Beijing has asked Ant to turn over its data to a new state-controlled credit scoring company, which would be run by former executives of the central bank while serving other financial institutions, including competing with Ant’s lending arms.Ant insisted on leading the company, arguing that too much government intervention would drag the industry down, according to news reports. But the regulator disagreed, saying Ant’s involvement in the new company would create a conflict of interest.Lun said that there’s little Ant can do to defy the regulator’s demand.Prospects of the e-CNYHe also expected the e-CNY to be in wide use since all banks in China will also have to comply with the regulator.Lun said that the digital yuan, domestically, will allow the government to monitor every transaction of the users “like a big brother.” Its use abroad it will allow China to bypass the international settlement system, dominated by the U.S. dollar, in what he called a de-dollarization attempt.Jerry Lin, director of the Financial Research Institute at the Taiwan Academy of Banking and Finance in Taipei, however, has doubts that the private sector will accept the e-CNY since most private businesses consider cash flows sensitive.He said, once a technical platform is completed, the central bank will next work with retailers to expand the e-CNY’s distribution – a key step that will determine whether the virtual currency is widely accepted.The bank considers its latest efforts to roll out e-CNY a win-win strategy for itself and the nation’s fintech giants, according to Lin.“By collaborating with the central bank [to launch the e-CNY], these fintech giants will be relieved from pressure in the regulator’s anti-monopoly probe. Their monopoly is hard to break up unless there emerges a competitor as strong as the e-CNY to take up at least one-third of the market shares,” Lin told VOA.Ant and Tencent respectively control 54% and 40% of China’s e-payment market.Trade-offLin said that, in the short to medium term, it will also be in the fintech firms’ interests to trade some of their shares in China’s e-payment market in exchange for the regulator’s lenient treatment of their online microlending, personal financial management and insurance operations, which generate higher profits.In the long run, though, it is highly likely that China will try to “nationalize” most financial services, which are now dominated by private fintech firms, including e-payment, credit ratings or financial management, he added.No distinctionSome have viewed China’s rapid digitalization of its yuan as a threat to accelerate the decline of the U.S. dollar’s dominance as the world’s leading reserve currency, but New York-based Anne Stevenson-Yang, co-founder and research director of J Capital Research, disagreed.“I think there’s too much focus being placed on the idea that this is a totally distinct currency and they are in competition. I mean, there’s no difference between the DCEP [digital currency electronic payment for e-CNY] and the renminbi,” she said.“Despite many declarations by China about opening the capital accounts, the reason why it’s not in international use, it remains in less 2% of SWIFT payments by value, the reason for that is because China doesn’t want to make it available,” she told VOA by phone, referring to the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, the global system for financial messaging and cross-border payments.She added that she believes China’s planned rollout of e-CNY is purely for supervisory reasons, neither for innovation nor its rivalry with the U.S. dollar.China’s general public will not notice any change, she said, because Ant’s Alipay or Tencent’s WeChat Pay will remain what consumers see, while the central bank will likely work as the engine in the background for both fintech platforms.
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Not long after enjoying their first taste of freedom, Myanmar’s journalists say they are barely able to function, as the soldiers who toppled the country’s democratically elected government three months ago have moved to choke off the flow of information through intimidation, arrests, and violence.In interviews with Radio Free Asia, or RFA, multiple reporters, editors, and photographers — speaking from hiding and on condition of anonymity to protect their safety — say the junta that deposed Aung San Suu Kyi and her government on Feb. 1 has made it dangerous and difficult to gather news about the biggest story of their lives.The media professionals cite a litany of measures — including internet and satellite blackouts, confiscation of mobile phones, closures of independent media outlets, beatings, and arrests — that the military regime is using to thwart them and to scare off sources from talking to media.“Journalists are living in fear because there is no safety for us,” a senior editor from a Myanmar news agency told RFA’s Myanmar Service this week.“Many reporters have been arrested. Some of us have been barred from reporting,” the editor said.“We cannot contact any of our sources due to the internet blackout, we cannot make phone calls effectively and we cannot carry our mobile phones as we travel,” the editor said.“If they check Facebook accounts, the journalists will be arrested one way or another. We cannot carry any reporting gadgets now,” the editor added. “The flow of news in this country has almost stopped.”A multimedia journalist from Mandalay, the country’s second-largest city, told RFA that no one is safe from the junta efforts to clamp down on coverage of nationwide protests that have seen millions turn out in protests rejecting the coup, and violent crackdowns that have killed more than 750 people, mostly civilians.“Previously they would excuse journalists who were working for international outlets, but now they arrest everyone. They are also terminating licenses for local media outlets, so it is not inaccurate to say that media freedom is completely gone,” the Mandalay journalist said.Conditions have never been great for journalists in a country run by military men for two-thirds of its 72-year existence as modern state, but they were improving during a political thaw and the transition from a quasi-military government to civilian rule from 2013-17, according to Reporters Without Borders.Protesters take part in a demonstration against the military coup during Global Myanmar Spring Revolution Day in Taunggyi, Myanmar, on May 2, 2021.During that time frame, the country’s rank in RSF’s annual freedom index rose considerably, and “Myanmar’s journalists hoped they would never again have to fear arrest or imprisonment for criticizing the government or military,” the Paris-based media freedom watchdog group said in a recent report.“The coup d’état … brought that fragile progress to an abrupt end and set Myanmar’s journalists back 10 years,” lamented RSF.The Mandalay journalist said that the situation is so bad that people can’t use mobile phones in public, because security forces now search everyone and arrest and beat those who carry mobile phones, or demand cash to avoid legal prosecution, sources said.If they find photos, videos, or social media posts they deem offensive to the military, they press charges and confiscate gear. In some cases, they confiscate expensive, latest-model phones without finding any offending content, or demand cash if they are unable to extract fines because their target left their phone alone.“They inspect everyone’s mobile phone. Journalists cannot go out and do their jobs because we always have news photos on our phones,” the Mandalay journalist said.“Some of us wear helmets with a prominent ‘PRESS’ label on them, but that only gets us targeted for beatings from the authorities. We have seen them going after reporters in the field, to arrest them,” the Mandalay journalist added.“It’s now very dangerous for reporters. We have to take videos from a distance, and that’s not great for many multimedia platforms, as we have to use these poor-quality videos shot from such a distance,” the reporter added.A Yangon photojournalist said the junta’s security forces have actively prevented him from covering events.“As I travel into the field to take photos, the authorities have opened my bag to inspect it. They asked me to surrender my memory cards,” the photojournalist said.Freelance reporters who cannot afford to rent a car take public buses, “so now the authorities are stopping … buses for inspections,” added the Yangon photojournalist.“We cannot know where they will be inspecting, because the inspections on buses and vehicles are sudden,” added the photojournalist.Citizens are also afraid to talk to the media or be photographed out of fear that they could be identified and punished by the junta.“As I try to cover news from different parts of the country, it is rare that the people open up and confide in me with all the information they have. They have lost their trust in the media because the military is using all kinds of tactics to suppress freedom of speech and the press,” said the senior editor.People on the streets of Myanmar’s largest city “get nervous as soon as they see someone holding a camera,” sad the Yangon photojournalist.“It used to be pretty easy to get a photo or video because the people would work with us. But lately they are worried about repression,” the photojournalist said.“Some people in the neighborhood are suspected military informants, so when you hold a camera, people might think you are an informant.”According to an RFA tally, 73 journalists and media personnel have been arrested since the coup on Feb. 1, and 44 remain in detention.While Myanmar journalists had looked at the rule of Suu Kyi as a golden era for reporting, RSF said dark clouds were already gathering midway through her 2015-20 term.It cited the prosecution in 2018 of two Reuters reporters who had revealed an army massacre of Muslim Rohingya civilians in western Myanmar and were jailed for 500 days, or for about a year and a half, “on the basis of fabricated evidence and bogus criminal proceedings.”“This coup was not a complete surprise inasmuch as the climate for press freedom had already been worsening again during the past three years,” said RSF.
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An extreme thunderstorm hit an eastern Chinese city, leaving 11 dead and 66 injured, with strong winds causing buildings and trees to collapse, officials said.Nantong city, located in the eastern province of Jiangsu, was among the hardest-hit when the extreme weather swept the Yangtze Delta on Friday night, according to state-affiliated newspaper Global Times.Rescuers evacuated 3,050 people, a local government notice said.Wind speeds of 162 kph overturned a fishing ship. Two sailors were rescued and search operations were under way for the nine remaining crew, the notice said.Electricity has been restored in Nantong, and collapsed trees, damaged vehicles as well as windows that have been blown away were being cleared.
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Anti-junta demonstrators in Myanmar took to the streets again Saturday three months after a coup spelled the end of the country’s transition to democracy.
 
Explosions were reported by local media throughout the country’s largest city of Yangon as protesters marched for democracy in defiance of the military government, which seized power on February 1.  
 
No casualties were reported nor were there any immediate claims of responsibility.
 
Demonstrators also rallied in Myanmar’s second-largest city of Mandalay and the southern town of Dawei, according to local media reports.
 
Protesters are demanding the return of the civilian government that led 10 years of democratic reforms under the watch of Aung San Suu Kyi.
 
In a campaign to quell the protests, the government has killed at least 759 anti-coup demonstrators and bystanders since the takeover, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, which tracks casualties and arrests.
 
When the military removed Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy government, it detained her and President Win Myint and imposed martial law across Myanmar.
 
Suu Kyi led Myanmar since its first open democratic election in 2015, but Myanmar’s military contested last November’s election results, claiming widespread electoral fraud, largely without evidence.    
…

Australians stuck in India could face up to five years in jail if they breach a COVID-19 travel ban to return home starting early next week. Australia has stopped all direct flights from India in a bid to cut coronavirus cases in its hotel quarantine system.
 
This is thought to be the first time Australians have been banned from traveling to their own country with the threat of civil penalties and up to five years in prison against people who attempt to make it home despite regulations. Health Minister Greg Hunt said the restriction will take effect Monday.
 
Starting then, Australian nationals and permanent residents will not be allowed in if they have visited India in the past two weeks.
 
To enforce the restriction, the government is taking the travel ban a bit further. Any of Australia’s citizens caught breaching the ban could face a fine of up to $50,000. They could also face prison under changes made to Australia’s biosecurity laws.  
 
In the capital, Canberra, the government said the drastic measures were necessary because of what it has described as the “unmanageable” number of citizens arriving in Australia with COVID-19.  
 
The federal government defended the decision, saying that it is about public safety. Treasurer Josh Frydenberg says Australia’s political leaders have decided that a cautious approach is needed.
 
“When [the] national cabinet met, they received the most up-to-date briefing from our chief medical officers and their advice is that we need to put in place these secure measures with respect to people coming from India to Australia. So, they are temporary, they will be reviewed on the 15th of May, but they are designed, based on the medical advice, to keep Australians safe,” Frydenberg said.
 
An estimated 9,000 Australians are stranded in India, critics say, and the Australian government is abandoning them as the pandemic reaches beyond what observers have called a “catastrophe.”  
 
Direct flights between the two nations have been suspended by authorities in Canberra. It has emerged, however, that some passengers — including high-profile cases such as cricketers leaving the Indian Premier League early — have managed to circumvent the ban and reach Australia via Qatar, according to news reports. That loophole will now close beginning Monday.  
 
Australia shut its borders to foreign nationals more than a year ago as part of a strict coronavirus strategy.  
 
Australian citizens and permanent residents, apart from those who have been in India in the past two weeks, are allowed to return, but they face two weeks in mandatory hotel quarantine when they arrive. Quotas apply, though, and thousands of people have been unable to get home.  
 
Australia has managed to contain community transmission of the coronavirus. All reported cases — 21 in total — in the past day were detected in hotel quarantine.
 
Australia has recorded 29,801 COVID-19 infections since the pandemic began. Nine hundred ten people have died, according to official government figures.  
 
…

Authorities at a second Hong Kong university have cut ties with the student union, saying that it had become a “platform for political propaganda” following its involvement in recent protest movements.“The Hong Kong University Students’ Union (HKUSU) has become increasingly politicized in recent years, utilizing the University campus as a platform for its political propaganda,” the University of Hong Kong said in a statement on Friday.“It has repeatedly made inflammatory and potentially unlawful public statements and unfounded allegations against the University,” it said.“The university strongly condemns HKUSU’s radical acts and remarks,” the statement said.It said the university would stop collecting membership fees on behalf of HKUSU and would “enforce its management rights” over the facilities currently used by the union.“The University may also take further actions, if necessary,” it said, citing the need to protect “national security.”A draconian national security law imposed on Hong Kong by the ruling Chinese Communist Party from July 1, 2020, has targeted dozens of pro-democracy politicians and activists for “subversion” after they organized a primary election in a bid to win more seats in the city’s legislature.The law bans words and deeds deemed subversive or secessionist, or any activities linked to overseas groups, as “collusion with foreign powers,” including public criticism of the Hong Kong government and the Chinese Communist Party.Students oppose appointmentsThe HKU announcement comes after the union strongly opposed the appointment of two mainland Chinese scholars as vice presidents, saying that they would help to assert Chinese Communist Party control over the city’s oldest university.Max Shen, who has previously been listed as a member of a Chinese Communist Party committee at Beijing’s Tsinghua University, and his former Tsinghua colleague Gong Peng started their jobs as vice presidents of research and academic development respectively from January 2021.The severing of ties with the union comes after an article in the Chinese Communist Party’s official newspaper, the People’s Daily, denounced HKUSU for smearing the government’s attempts to win public support for the national security law.It called for “strong medicine to remove the malignant tumor in the ivory tower.”Labour Party chairman and former HKUSU president Steven Kwok said the university’s action against the union appeared to have been triggered by the People’s Daily article.“I think their actions were instigated by [authorities in] mainland China,” Kwok told Radio Free Asia. “It’s all part of the current political situation and carrying out Beijing’s wishes.”The Chinese University of Hong Kong severed ties with its student union Syzygia on Feb. 26, banning the union from using university facilities or staff and accusing it of failing to clarify “potentially unlawful statements and false allegations.”‘Getting rid of anything risky’Current affairs commentator Johnny Lau said universities have been tripping over themselves to demonstrate loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party since the national security law took effect.“They are minimizing their risk by getting rid of anything risky,” Lau said. “This is an active form of adaptation to the politicization process being instigated by mainland China.”He said the recent moves by the University of Hong Kong and the Chinese University of Hong Kong show the ever-widening damage to freedom of speech and academic freedom in Hong Kong.“The university management are the ones damaging HKU’s rankings and reputation, not the students,” Lau said, referring to the University of Hong Kong.Former student activist Joshua Wong — currently serving a prison sentence on public order charges linked to the 2019 protest movement — pleaded guilty in a Hong Kong court on Friday to “taking part in an illegal assembly” in connection with a vigil commemorating the victims of the 1989 Tiananmen massacre in Victoria Park last year.Wong, together with pro-democracy district councilors Lester Shum, Tiffany Yuen, and Jannelle Leung, pleaded guilty to the charges, with sentencing expected on May 6.Wong, Shum, and Yuen also face “subversion” charges under the national security law after they took part in the democratic primary for the canceled Legislative Council election in 2020. All three were returned to custody following the hearing.
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Gathered in a practice room, five generously proportioned young men in baggy black sweaters are patting their bellies and waggling their arms. Bearded with double chins, they shout “Hoo-Ha!” in time to upbeat African drums.The choreography is for the new song Good Belly, by Produce Pandas. DING, Cass, Husky, Otter and Mr. 17 weigh an average of 100 kilograms and proudly call themselves “the first plus-sized boy band in China.”That is a radical departure from the industry standard seen in South Korean super groups such as BTS, whose lanky young members are sometimes referred to in China as “little fresh meat.”Yet, it seems to be working for Produce Pandas, who rose to fame after making it about halfway through Youth with You, an idol talent competition hosted by iQiyi, one of the largest video platforms in China.On the show, mentors and audience voters pick nine finalists, either individuals or group members, to come together to form a new band.“The five of us may not have the standard look and shape of a boy band but we hope to use the term ‘plus-sized band’ to break the aesthetic stereotypes,” Cass said in an interview.The five, two of whom formerly sang in bars, are also unusual for their relatively advanced ages in an industry that worships youth and stamina. Most of their fellow contestants on Youth with You began South Korean-style training while in their teens.While Produce Pandas excited audiences and sparked discussion about how a pop idol should look, some taunting also appeared online.Users of China’s Weibo microblog seized on the Chinese word for panda, a homonym of which appears in the Chinese name for the Japanese horror movie Ring, suggesting that watching them dance was similarly frightening.Mr. 17, the band’s main dancer, was the oldest contestant in the competition at age 31. He had been discovered on Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, where he posted clips of himself dancing in pajamas or while holding a bowl of rice.Otter, a member of the Chinese music group Produce Pandas, sings during rehearsals in Beijing, April 15, 2021.He nicknamed himself “17” after his favorite age. The former petroleum company worker said he does not feel old, but admits that after rehearsals, “I felt my energy was emptied.”The five were solicited from more than 300 hopefuls by Beijing-based DMDF Entertainment, which wanted to build a band that would be rotund and approachable as well as inspiring.Husky, who worked in information technology, thought he would fit in perfectly because he has been chubby since primary school and has failed repeatedly to lose weight.“I often work out one day then take a rest for the next three days, so the result is clear that I gained some weight instead,” he said. The point is “stay in shape (and) not to lose weight, but to lose fat.”Echoing Husky, Cass said the upside to being on such a team is that they do not need to abstain when it comes to food.“We don’t mind eating like a horse. I feel sorry for the ‘little fresh meat’ bands whose members must follow a diet to stay slim. I feel great whenever they look on enviously as we dig in!”Team leader DING quit plus-sized modeling when he heard about auditioning for an “XXL” boy band, saying, “I feel this is probably the closest I can get to being on a magazine cover.”The five are now working on a new album, with songs including Pursue Your Dreams.“Saddle up on the horse and pursue your dreams. Don’t idle your time away,” the lyrics go.Vocalist Otter, who has idolized the South Korean boy band Super Junior since he was 7, never thought he could be in a band that lives and performs together, and more importantly, encourages ordinary folk.“I hope people will feel encouraged when watching our performance,” he said. They can think, “If Produce Pandas can make a breakthrough and perform on a bigger stage, then why can’t I?”
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The U.N. Security Council called Friday for an immediate end to violence in Myanmar as stated in an ASEAN plan, giving unanimous approval to a statement watered down to satisfy China and Russia.The plan, which also calls for the naming of an envoy from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to address the crisis triggered by the Feb. 1 military coup, should be applied “without delay,” the council statement says.It was approved after a closed-door meeting of the council and forced Western countries to make concessions to China — Myanmar’s main backer — and Russia to win passage.At their request the council eliminated clauses that said it “once again strongly condemned violence against peaceful protestors” and “reiterated their call on the military to exercise utmost restraint.”A diplomat speaking on condition of anonymity explained the changes saying “what we must avoid is losing council unity to the point of making it irrelevant.”Since the coup in Myanmar, the council has approved four statements on the crisis including this latest one of Friday. All of them were toned down under pressure from China.Friday’s session was convened by Vietnam to present the conclusions of a recent ASEAN summit in Indonesia.The statement that was ultimately passed calls for the U.N. Special Envoy to Myanmar, Christine Schraner Burgener, who is currently touring the region, to be able to visit Myanmar “as soon as possible.”Schraner Burgener gave a report on her long meeting with Myanmar junta leader General Min Aung Hlaing, held on the sidelines of the ASEAN meeting last weekend.Diplomats said the envoy, who is currently based in Bangkok, once again had her request for a visit to Myanmar denied.During the meeting, Brunei, which currently holds the presidency of ASEAN, floated the idea of a joint visit to Myanmar by the U.N. envoy and her future ASEAN counterpart.”We estimate around 20,000 internal displacements and almost 10,000 fleeing to neighboring countries since February. The regional implications require urgent action,” Schraner Burgener told the council, according to the text of her speech, which was seen by AFP.”The common aspiration for democracy has united the people of Myanmar across religious, ethnic and communal divides like never before. Such strong unity has created unexpected difficulties for the military in consolidating power and stabilizing the coup,” she added.Nearly 760 civilians have been killed by police and soldiers in the past three months, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP).The junta puts the death toll at 258 dead by April 15, calling the demonstrators “rioters” who engaged in “acts of terrorism.”
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Comments by Philippine officials indicate that, with a growing Chinese maritime threat, Manila now hopes the Visiting Forces Agreement with the United States – which the Philippines once moved to terminate – survives, experts told VOA Thursday.
 
Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. last year announced the country had suspended the announced termination of the agreement. The 1999 pact provides for arms sales, intelligence exchanges and discussions on military cooperation. It allows U.S. troops access to Philippine soil for military exercises aimed at regional security and local humanitarian work. Those measures shore up a 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty.
 
Locsin said in a tweet earlier this month that negotiations over the pact were nearly finished, Philippine media reported last week. The talks began in February and coincided with China’s mooring of 220 fishing boats at a reef that Beijing and Manila dispute. Media reports quote Locsin saying the talks should be done within the coming week.
 
On April 10, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke with Philippine counterpart Delfin Lorenzana, and they “affirmed the value” of the agreement, the U.S. Defense Department says on its website.
 
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, a skeptic of the United States who announced the deal’s termination in February 2020, said on national TV just over two months ago he wanted to hear public opinion on the topic. Many lawmakers have already opposed the pact’s termination — which has been suspended twice.FILE – This satellite image provided by Maxar Technologies shows Chinese vessels at the Whitsun reef, in a disputed part of the South China Sea, March 23, 2021.Saving the deal
 
Philippine officials have not said negotiations would save the agreement, but specialists say they believe comments from Manila show officials hope it holds up.
 
“There’s an emerging consensus within the key agencies, and I think something that we can see in terms of public opinion as well,” said Herman Kraft, a political science professor at University of the Philippines at Diliman, pointing to comments by defense and foreign ministry officials.   
 
The Philippine government now wants the agreement updated to spell out explicitly that the United States would intervene to help defend outlying islands where Chinese vessels are most likely to appear, an academic close to Philippine defense officials said.  
   
The United States had governed the Philippines for more than five decades before allowing its independence after World War II. For Washington today, the Philippines represents one in a chain of Western Pacific allies that can work together to check Chinese maritime expansion. Former U.S. defense secretary Mark Esper had called the deal cancellation a “move in the wrong direction for the longstanding relationship we’ve had with the Philippines” in part because of the Asian archipelago’s location.
 
“Rather than maintain strategic ambiguity — this was the practice in the past — [Philippine officials] prefer some strategic clarity,” said Eduardo Araral, associate professor at the National University of Singapore’s public policy school.Sino-Philippine maritime dispute
 
China and the Philippines dispute sovereignty over tracts of the South China Sea.
 
Their dispute eased in 2016 after Manila won a world arbitral court ruling against Beijing and Duterte pursued a new friendship with China. However, Philippine officials grew alarmed when about 100 Chinese boats showed up in 2019 near a Philippine-held islet in the sea and again when the fleet of 220 stopped at Whitsun Reef last month.
 
Ongoing “tension with China” gives the Philippine government a new incentive to keep the Visiting Forces Agreement, said Aaron Rabena, research fellow at the Asia-Pacific Pathways to Progress Foundation in Metro Manila.
 
China, which maintains Asia’s strongest armed forces, cites historic documents to support its claim to about 90% of the disputed sea. Four other governments call all or part of the same sea their own. China has alarmed many over the past decade by landfilling islets for military installations.  
 
Smaller claimants welcome a U.S. role in the dispute, and the United States — China’s superpower rival — doubled the number of warship passages through the sea in 2019 compared to 2018.
 Delicate decision
 
A decision in Manila to uphold the agreement would upset China, which could in turn increase its boat count in the disputed sea, Kraft said. It could go as far as banning Philippine fishing operations, he said. The sea is valued for fisheries as well as undersea fuel reserves.
 
However, Duterte risks being seen as weak at home if he reinstates the U.S. pact after thundering against it in February 2020, experts say. Duterte, a long-time anti-U.S. firebrand, ordered an end to the deal after the U.S. government canceled a visa for a Philippine senator and former police chief who was instrumental in a deadly anti-drug campaign that generated outrage abroad.
 
Duterte might end up letting his foreign affairs and defense secretaries handle the whole Visiting Forces Agreement process, Kraft said. The Philippines could technically keep suspending its cancelation of the deal every six months until deciding what to do, Araral said.
 
The government could extend the review process into mid-2022, when Duterte must step down due to term limits, Rabena said.
 
“He doesn’t have to say yes to it,” Rabena said. “What he does sometimes is that he just allows his cabinet members to do their thing.” 
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The political fallout from the military coup in Myanmar and the coronavirus pandemic threaten to push half of the country’s population into poverty by next year, the United Nations warned Friday. The U.N. Development Program said in a report that up to 25 million people could be forced into poverty by early 2022 as businesses remain closed during clashes between the junta and anti-government protesters. “COVID-19 and the ongoing political crisis are compounding shocks which are pushing the most vulnerable back and more deeply into poverty,” U.N. Assistant Secretary-General Kanni Wignaraja told Reuters. In an interview with Associated Press, Wignaraja said, “The hardest hit will be poor urban populations and the worst affected will be female heads of households.” FILE – A trishaw rider waits for customers along an empty road in Yangon, Myanmar, April 9, 2021.The report said 83% of all households in Myanmar reported their incomes were nearly cut in half because of the socio-economic impact of the pandemic. It also reported the pandemic’s impact has resulted in an 11% increase in the number of people living below the poverty line, a rate it said could increase another 12% by early next year. Protests against the military coup have continued daily despite the threat of violence from authorities. A flash mob protest took place Friday in the country’s largest city of Yangon, with chanting banner-carrying demonstrators taking to the streets in heavy rain. Myanmar’s military government seized power on February 1. In a campaign to quell the protests, the government has killed at least 759 anti-coup protestors and bystanders since the takeover, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, which tracks casualties and arrests. When the military removed Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy government, it detained Suu Kyi and President Win Myint and imposed martial law across Myanmar. Suu Kyi led Myanmar since its first open democratic election in 2015, but Myanmar’s military contested last November’s election results, claiming widespread electoral fraud, largely without evidence. 
 
…

Comments by Philippine officials indicate that, with a growing Chinese maritime threat, Manila now hopes the Visiting Forces Agreement with the United States – which the Philippines once moved to terminate – survives, experts told VOA Thursday.
 
Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. last year announced the country had suspended the announced termination of the agreement. The 1999 pact provides for arms sales, intelligence exchanges and discussions on military cooperation. It allows U.S. troops access to Philippine soil for military exercises aimed at regional security and local humanitarian work. Those measures shore up a 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty.
 
Locsin said in a tweet earlier this month that negotiations over the pact were nearly finished, Philippine media reported last week. The talks began in February and coincided with China’s mooring of 220 fishing boats at a reef that Beijing and Manila dispute. Media reports quote Locsin saying the talks should be done within the coming week.
 
On April 10, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke with Philippine counterpart Delfin Lorenzana, and they “affirmed the value” of the agreement, the U.S. Defense Department says on its website.
 
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, a skeptic of the United States who announced the deal’s termination in February 2020, said on national TV just over two months ago he wanted to hear public opinion on the topic. Many lawmakers have already opposed the pact’s termination — which has been suspended twice.FILE – This satellite image provided by Maxar Technologies shows Chinese vessels at the Whitsun reef, in a disputed part of the South China Sea, March 23, 2021.Saving the deal
 
Philippine officials have not said negotiations would save the agreement, but specialists say they believe comments from Manila show officials hope it holds up.
 
“There’s an emerging consensus within the key agencies, and I think something that we can see in terms of public opinion as well,” said Herman Kraft, a political science professor at University of the Philippines at Diliman, pointing to comments by defense and foreign ministry officials.   
 
The Philippine government now wants the agreement updated to spell out explicitly that the United States would intervene to help defend outlying islands where Chinese vessels are most likely to appear, an academic close to Philippine defense officials said.  
   
The United States had governed the Philippines for more than five decades before allowing its independence after World War II. For Washington today, the Philippines represents one in a chain of Western Pacific allies that can work together to check Chinese maritime expansion. Former U.S. defense secretary Mark Esper had called the deal cancellation a “move in the wrong direction for the longstanding relationship we’ve had with the Philippines” in part because of the Asian archipelago’s location.
 
“Rather than maintain strategic ambiguity — this was the practice in the past — [Philippine officials] prefer some strategic clarity,” said Eduardo Araral, associate professor at the National University of Singapore’s public policy school.Sino-Philippine maritime dispute
 
China and the Philippines dispute sovereignty over tracts of the South China Sea.
 
Their dispute eased in 2016 after Manila won a world arbitral court ruling against Beijing and Duterte pursued a new friendship with China. However, Philippine officials grew alarmed when about 100 Chinese boats showed up in 2019 near a Philippine-held islet in the sea and again when the fleet of 220 stopped at Whitsun Reef last month.
 
Ongoing “tension with China” gives the Philippine government a new incentive to keep the Visiting Forces Agreement, said Aaron Rabena, research fellow at the Asia-Pacific Pathways to Progress Foundation in Metro Manila.
 
China, which maintains Asia’s strongest armed forces, cites historic documents to support its claim to about 90% of the disputed sea. Four other governments call all or part of the same sea their own. China has alarmed many over the past decade by landfilling islets for military installations.  
 
Smaller claimants welcome a U.S. role in the dispute, and the United States — China’s superpower rival — doubled the number of warship passages through the sea in 2019 compared to 2018.
 Delicate decision
 
A decision in Manila to uphold the agreement would upset China, which could in turn increase its boat count in the disputed sea, Kraft said. It could go as far as banning Philippine fishing operations, he said. The sea is valued for fisheries as well as undersea fuel reserves.
 
However, Duterte risks being seen as weak at home if he reinstates the U.S. pact after thundering against it in February 2020, experts say. Duterte, a long-time anti-U.S. firebrand, ordered an end to the deal after the U.S. government canceled a visa for a Philippine senator and former police chief who was instrumental in a deadly anti-drug campaign that generated outrage abroad.
 
Duterte might end up letting his foreign affairs and defense secretaries handle the whole Visiting Forces Agreement process, Kraft said. The Philippines could technically keep suspending its cancelation of the deal every six months until deciding what to do, Araral said.
 
The government could extend the review process into mid-2022, when Duterte must step down due to term limits, Rabena said.
 
“He doesn’t have to say yes to it,” Rabena said. “What he does sometimes is that he just allows his cabinet members to do their thing.” 
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A South Korean activist said Friday he launched 500,000 propaganda leaflets by balloon into North Korea this week in defiance of a contentious new law that criminalizes such actions.If confirmed, Park Sang-hak’s action would be the first known violation of the law that punishes anti-Pyongyang leafleting with up to three years in prison or a fine of $27,040. The law that took effect in March has invited criticism South Korea is sacrificing freedom of expression to improve ties with rival North Korea, which has repeatedly protested the leafleting.Police stations in frontline Gyeonggi and Gangwon provinces said they couldn’t immediately confirm if Park sent balloons from their areas, which Park has used in the past and said he used in two launches this week. Cha Duck Chul, a deputy spokesperson at Seoul’s Unification Ministry, said the government would handle the case in line with the objective of the law, though police and military authorities were still working to confirm Park’s statements.Park said his organization floated 10 giant balloons carrying the leaflets, reading materials critical of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s government, and 5,000 $1 bills over two launches from frontline areas this week. He would not disclose the exact locations in the two border provinces he used, citing worries police would stop future attempts.”Though (authorities) can handcuff and put me to a prison cell, they cannot stop (my leafleting) with whatever threats or violence as long as the North Korean people waits for the letters of freedom, truth and hopes,” said Park, a North Korean defector known for years of leafleting campaigns.Park called the anti-leafleting legislation “the worst law” that “sides with cruel human rights abuser Kim Jong Un and covers the eyes and ears of the North Korean people that have become the modern-day slaves of the Kim dynasty.”Video released by Park showed him releasing a balloon with leaflets toward a dark sky and showed him standing in the woods with a sign that partly reads, “The world condemns Kim Jong Un who is crazy for nuclear and rocket provocations.”The anti-leafleting legislation was passed in December by Parliament, where lawmakers supporting President Moon Jae-in’s engagement policy on North Korea hold a three-fifths supermajority. It went into effect in March.It’s the first South Korean law that formally bans civilians from floating anti-North Korea leaflets across border. South Korea has previously banned such activities only during sensitive times in inter-Korean relations and normally allowed activists to exercise their freedom of speech despite repeated protests from North Korea.Kim’s powerful sister, Kim Yo Jong, last year furiously demanded South Korea ban the leafleting and called North Korean defectors involved in it “human scum” and “mongrel dogs.”Despite the law, ties between the Koreas remain strained amid a standstill in broader nuclear diplomacy between Pyongyang and Washington. North Korea has made a series of derisive statements against Seoul, including Kim Yo Jong calling Moon “a parrot raised by America” after he criticized the North’s recent missile launches.
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Thousands of ethnic Karen villagers in Myanmar are poised to cross into Thailand if, as expected, fighting intensifies between the Myanmar army and Karen insurgents. Karen rebels and the Myanmar army have clashed near the Thai border in the weeks since Feb. 1, when Myanmar’s generals ousted an elected government led by democracy champion Aung San Suu Kyi, displacing villagers on both sides of the border.”People say the Burmese will come and shoot us, so we fled here,” Chu Wah told Reuters. The Karen villager said he crossed over to Thailand with his family this week from the Ee Thu Hta displacement camp in Myanmar.”I had to flee across the river,” Chu Wah said, referring to the Salween River that forms the border in the area.The Karen Peace Support Network says thousands of villagers are taking shelter on the Myanmar side of the Salween and they will flee to Thailand if the fighting escalates.”In coming days, more than 8,000 Karen along the Salween River will have to flee to Thailand. We hope that the Thai army will help them escape the war,” the group said in a post on Facebook.Karen fighters on Tuesday overran a Myanmar army unit on the west bank of the Salween in a predawn attack. The Karen said 13 soldiers and three of their fighters were killed. The Myanmar military responded with airstrikes in several areas near the Thai border.Thai authorities say nearly 200 villagers have crossed into Thailand this week. Thailand has reinforced its forces and restricted access to the border.Hundreds of Thai villagers have also been displaced, moving from their homes close to the border, to deeper into Thai territory for safety.”The situation has escalated so we can’t go back,” said Warong Tisakul, 33, a Thai villager from Mae Sam Laep, a settlement, now abandoned, opposite the Myanmar army post attacked this week.”Security officials won’t let us; we can’t go back.”   
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Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison says multibillion-dollar investments in military bases in northern Australia are designed to enhance regional peace, rather than as a deliberate response to China’s growing assertiveness.  In response, officials in Beijing have called Australian politicians the “real troublemakers.”Australia is beefing up its military bases in the Northern Territory, including facilities to train aboriginal recruits, and others that host joint exercises with U.S. Marines stationed in the region.  Speaking at the Robertson army barracks in the Northern Territory, Prime Minister Scott Morrison insisted a 10-year $6 billion plan to improve defense facilities was meant to keep the peace in an “uncertain” region rather than preparing for conflict. He was responding to questions from the media about recent tensions with Beijing over Taiwan.“All of our objectives here through the activities of our defense forces are designed to pursue peace. That is the objective of our government,” he said.  Morrison denied huge investment in military bases in northern Australia was aimed at sending a message to China. Government ministers and analysts have said Chinese military expansion in the South China Sea and its crushing of democratic dissent in Hong Kong have been of great strategic concern to Canberra.A Chinese Coast Guard patrol ship is seen at South China Sea, in a handout photo distributed by the Philippine Coast guard, April 15, 2021.Morrison has also, though, defended comments by Australia’s new defense minister, Peter Dutton, who said the possibility of conflict with China over Taiwan should not be “discounted.”Dutton’s remarks have further inflamed diplomatic tensions between Canberra and Beijing, already strained by geopolitical and trade disputes.Chinese Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian Wednesday called Australia’s politicians the “real troublemakers” and declared Australia’s concerns about the threat posed by China as “unethical.”Beijing has, in the past, accused Australia of peddling “anti-China hysteria.”Bilateral ties are now so bad that it is reported that Australian government ministers have for months been unable to speak with their Chinese counterparts, who refuse to take their calls.Caitlin Byrne, the director of the Griffith Asia Institute at Griffith University, argues that a more measured and delicate approach is needed.“I think not just cautious and careful diplomatic language, but also, you know, sometimes we need to potentially work quietly and less with a megaphone,” said Byrne.Australia has had to juggle commitments to a longstanding military alliance with the United States with valuable commercial ties with China, its biggest trading partner.Political squabbles with Beijing have had damaging economic consequences.Canberra’s call last year for a worldwide investigation into the origins of COVID-19 that was first detected in China caused fury in Beijing.  There followed sweeping tariffs and restrictions on a range of Australian exports to China, including wine, beef and coal. 
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New Zealand says it is “uncomfortable” using the 70-year-old “Five Eyes” intelligence grouping, which includes the United States, Britain, Australia and Canada, to criticize China.  Some critics accuse the government in Wellington of selling out to Beijing..The Five Eyes alliance was formed in 1941 to share secrets during World War II. Now, however, disagreements within the U.S.-led alliance are emerging about using the spy network to exert political pressure on China.   New Zealand, the group’s smallest member, has expressed reluctance to sign joint statements from its alliance partners condemning Beijing’s crackdown on the democracy movement in Hong Kong and its treatment of its minority Uyghur Muslim population in Xinjiang province.  The declarations have infuriated China’s government. 
 
New Zealand’s foreign minister, Nanaia Mahuta, believes the Five Eyes alliance is not the best forum to voice those concerns. “Can I say we do value the Five Eyes relationship.  We receive a significant benefit from being a part of that relationship and they are close allies and friends in terms of common values and principles.  But whether or not that framework needs to be invoked every time on every issue, especially in the human rights space, is something that we have expressed further views about,” said Mahuta,However, critics, including some British lawmakers and influential newspapers, have accused the government in Wellington of selling “its soul to China.”   They accuse New Zealand, which earns about 29% of its export revenue from China, of choosing its economic ties with Beijing over a longstanding alliance with like-minded nations. Media commentators in New Zealand have described the dilemma; speak out against China and suffer economic damage, as Australia has found, or stay silent and see the end of a “moral foreign policy” of which the nation was proud. Australia experienced a decline in coal and wine exports to China due to tariffs and restrictions imposed by Beijing. Alexey Muraviev,  head of the Department of Social Sciences and Security Studies at Curtin University in the Australian city of Perth, believes divisions within the Five Eyes network will benefit China. “When you see quarrels among long established and trusted allies, it gives China confidence that its policies divide and rule, its policies of effectively buying peoples’ and countries’ loyalties through major investment though special trade deals, through guaranteeing access to China’s tourists, China’s dollars, China’s market is working,” he said.  New Zealand is insisting the Five Eyes group remains vital for its border security, defense and cyber safety.  It believes a broader coalition of countries is needed to address human rights concerns in China and elsewhere. Analysts believe that divisions within the intelligence alliance show how the West is struggling to manage the economic and military rise of China. Senior Australian and New Zealand government officials are due to meet next month to discuss the Five Eyes alliance, and other bilateral issues.
 
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China on Thursday launched the main module of its first permanent space station that will host astronauts long term, the latest success for a program that has realized a number of its growing ambitions in recent years. The Tianhe, or “Heavenly Harmony,” module blasted into space atop a Long March 5B rocket from the Wenchang Launch Center on the southern island province of Hainan, marking another major advance for the country’s space exploration. The launch begins the first of 11 missions necessary to complete, supply and crew the station by the end of next year. China’s space program has also recently brought back the first new lunar samples in more than 40 years and expects to land a probe and rover on the surface of Mars later next month. Minutes after the launch, the fairing opened to expose the Tianhe atop the core stage of the rocket, with the characters for “China Manned Space” emblazoned on its exterior. Soon after, it separated from the rocket, which will orbit for about a week before falling to Earth, and minutes after that, opened its solar arrays to provide a steady energy source. The space program is a source of huge national pride, and Premier Li Keqiang and other top civilian and military leaders watched the launch live from the control center in Beijing. A message of congratulations from state leader and head of the ruling Communist Party Xi Jinping was also read to staff at the Wenchang Launch Center. The launch furthers the “three-step” strategy of building up China’s manned space program and marks “an important leading project for constructing a powerful country in science and technology and aerospace,” Xi’s message said. The core module is the section of the station where astronauts will live for up to six months at a time. Another 10 launches will send up two more modules where crews will conduct experiments, four cargo supply shipments and four missions with crews. At least 12 astronauts are training to fly to and live in the station, including veterans of previous flights, newcomers and women, with the first crewed mission, Shenzhou-12, expected to be launched by June. When completed by late 2022, the T-shaped Chinese Space Station is expected to weigh about 66 tons, considerably smaller than the International Space Station, which launched its first module in 1998 and will weigh about 450 tons when completed. Tianhe will have a docking port and will also be able to connect with a powerful Chinese space satellite. Theoretically, it could be expanded to as many as six modules. The station is designed to operate for at least 10 years. Tianhe is about the size of the American Skylab space station of the 1970s and the former Soviet/Russian Mir, which operated for more than 14 years after launching in 1986. The core module will provide living space for as many as six astronauts during crew changeovers, while its other two modules, Wentian, or “Quest for the Heavens,” and Mengtian, or “Dreaming of the Heavens,” will provide room for conducting scientific experiments including in medicine and the properties of the outer space environment. China began working on a space station project in 1992, just as its space ambitions were taking shape. The need to go it alone became more urgent after was excluded from the International Space Station largely due to U.S. objections over the Chinese program’s secretive nature and close military ties. After years of successful rocket and commercial satellite launches, China put its first astronaut into space in October 2003, becoming only the third country to independently do so after the former Soviet Union and the United States. Along with more crewed missions, China launched a pair of experimental, single-module space stations — Tiangong-1, which means “Heavenly Palace-1,” and its successor, Tiangong-2. The first burned up after contact was lost and its orbit decayed, while the second was successfully taken out of orbit in 2018. The Tiangong-2 crew stayed aboard for 33 days. While NASA must get permission from a reluctant Congress to engage in contact with the Chinese space program, other countries have been far less reluctant. European nations and the United Nations are expected to cooperate on experiments to be done on the completed Chinese station. The launch comes as China is also forging ahead with crewless missions, particularly in lunar exploration, and it has landed a rover on the little-explored far side of the moon. In December, its Chang’e 5 probe returned lunar rocks to Earth for the first time since the U.S. missions of the 1970s. Meanwhile, a Chinese probe carrying a rover is due to set down on Mars sometime around the middle of next month, making China only the second country to successfully accomplish that after the U.S. The Tianwen-1 space probe has been orbiting the red planet since February while collecting data. Its Zhurong rover will be looking for evidence of life. Another Chinese program aims to collect soil from an asteroid, a key focus of Japan’s space program. China plans another mission in 2024 to bring back lunar samples and has said it wants to land people on the moon and possibly build a scientific base there. No timeline has been proposed for such projects. A highly secretive space plane is also reportedly under development. China has proceeded in a more measured, cautious manner than the U.S. and Soviet Union during the height of the space race. One recent setback came when a Long March 5 rocket failed in 2017 during development of the Long March 5B variant used to put Tianhe into orbit, but that caused only a brief delay. 
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Sweeping powers handed to Thai Prime minister Prayuth Chan-ocha this week to control a rebound of the coronavirus is raising concern the country could slide deeper into authoritarianism under the guise of battling the pandemic. A decree published by the official Royal Gazette website late Tuesday transferred ministerial powers covering 31 laws to the direct control of Prayuth, a former army chief, “temporarily in order to suppress the [virus] situation and protect the people.” Those include control over immigration, health and procurement, but also over several areas of defense and cybersecurity. A passerby wearing a face mask passes a closed massage shop in Khao San road, a popular hangout for Thais and tourists in Bangkok, Thailand, April 26, 2021.Army chief Prayuth seized power from an elected government in 2014 and rebranded himself  as a civilian leader. He won an election in 2019 under a controversial constitution drafted by the army designed to limit the electoral potency of his opposition and has had his legislative agenda waved through parliament by a Senate he appointed. After nearly seven years at the helm, the gaff-prone Prayuth is deeply unpopular among the public and has faced mass youth-led protests calling for his resignation amid wider reforms to excise the royalist army from politics for good — in a country that has seen 13 coups since 1932. Thai Police Use Tear Gas, Rubber Bullets to Break Up Protest Pro-democracy camp wants release of detained activists, constitutional changes and reform of monarchyThose protests have for now been virtually extinguished on the streets by legal moves against its leaders, but remain vigorous online in memes, cartoons and sharp critiques of the government.  Prayuth, though, remains favored by King Maha Vajiralongkorn’s palace, which wields immense power from behind the scenes.   A third round of the pandemic is already the worst yet for Thailand, with the public braced for a health crisis after about 2,000 cases a day and 84 dead in the latest wave.Those are small numbers by world standards, but are the worst yet to hit a country that thought it had quashed the outbreak.  Vaccination remains slow, with just 240,000 people out of a population of almost 70 million receiving a second shot, while the virus rebound has cast doubt on plans for a reopening of the key tourist industry over coming months. With joblessness rising, and criticism of the government mounting, Prayuth has gathered more direct power than at any time since his election as a civilian leader. “Old habits die hard,” said Sunai Phasuk, a senior researcher with Human Rights Watch’s Asia Division.  Prayuth has “seized power from cabinet ministers to establish one-man-rule using COVID-19 outbreak as a pretext. It is a silent coup,” he said.   Crucially, Sunai warned Prayuth’s control of cybersecurity could be used to “shut down critical opinions from the media and public about the government’s response to the crisis.” With the public preoccupied with riding out the virus wave it has fallen on opposition politicians to question the concentration of powers under Prayuth.  “Seizing more power to manage COVID?”  Sereepisuth Temeeyaves, leader of Thai Liberal Party, asked reporters on Wednesday.  “Prayuth has one brain and two hands … how can he manage the whole country himself?” he said. Others were more scathing of the perceived attack on Thailand’s withered democracy. “In 2014 you seized power and ran the country into the ground,” Watana Muangsook, a lawmaker for the opposition Pheu Thai MP tweeted. “Today you’ve seized power over the law to manage Covid. #Timetogetout,” he tweeted. 
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China may have sabotaged its own prospects for securing a sought-after investment agreement with the European Union when it penalized a long list of politicians, researchers and institutions – including a key member of Germany’s Green Party – in response to recent EU sanctions.The Comprehensive Agreement on Investment, or CAI, was agreed to in principle at the end of last year but remains as much as a year from final ratification by the European Parliament, where support from Germany is seen as crucial to its approval.Recent polling shows the Greens – who are considered much tougher on China than the current administration in Berlin – as well positioned to participate in or even lead the next German government after elections expected in late September.And that could leave the investment deal as “dead as a doornail,” according to Green Party lawmaker Reinhard Buetikofer, who heads the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations with China and appeared at the top of a list of EU individuals and institutions targeted for sanctions by Beijing last month.Speaking at a recent FILE – A Chinese officer stands outside the British Embassy in Beijing, March 26, 2021. Days earlier, China sanctioned British entities following the U.K.’s joining the EU and others in sanctioning Chinese officials over alleged rights abuses.But EU-Chinese relations soured dramatically on March 22 after the European bloc announced travel bans and asset freezes for four Chinese officials over their roles in the mistreatment of their nation’s Uyghur minority.China immediately retaliated with a much larger set of sanctions targeting a number of EU lawmakers, researchers and institutions, including Buetikofer.“Europe is heading into an intense political season, and China has made itself a much higher political priority for many with the sanctions,” Brussels-based political economist Jacob F. Kirkegaard told VOA in a written interview. “This bodes very badly for CAI in the near term.”Kirkegaard continued: “It all depends frankly on the German elections – if for instance the Greens actually win and supply the next chancellor, the CAI is surely dead. It may even be dead if the Greens [which seems highly likely] enter the government.”The analyst predicted that when Merkel steps down, and “more importantly [when] a new coalition comes to power, things will change; the only question is how much.”FILE – Reinhard Buetikofer attends a congress of the German Green party in Bielefeld, western Germany, Nov. 16, 2019.Theresa Fallon, the founder and director of the Center for Russia Europe Asia Studies in Brussels, cautioned in a telephone interview against considering the EU-China investment deal completely dead.While its current prospects appear dim, “a lot can happen in a year,” said Fallon, a former member of the Strategic Advisers Group for the NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe. She added that the debate over the investment deal reflects a larger discussion taking place within the EU on the appropriate response toward China.While commercial interests are a factor in the eagerness of Germany and some of its European partners to do business with China, Fallon said that until recently some in Europe had looked at closer relations with China as a potential check on hegemonic U.S. power.Chinese actions lately, however, have compelled the Europeans to “see China as it is, not as what they imagined it to be,” she said. “What are we really doing? Is this the type of world order we want, with China at the top? We talk about strategic autonomy, but autonomy from what?”Nabila Massrali, EU spokesperson for foreign affairs and security policy, told VOA the bloc continues to regard trade with China as important and sees the CAI as “part of our toolbox” to rebalance its economic relationship with Beijing.However, “economic interests will not prevent us from standing up for global values, including where necessary, through sanctions,” she said. Massrali pointed out that the EU moved before the U.S., Britain and Canada in imposing its sanctions last month.
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Myanmar remains on the path to an expanded, nationwide civil war unless there is a coordinated response from all parties concerned, according to experts.Since February’s coup, large waves of Myanmar’s population have opposed the takeover, with street protests and strikes against the military.In response, the armed forces have detained thousands of people, including National League for Democracy (NLD) leader Aung San Suu Kyi, while hundreds of protesters and bystanders have been killed.Myanmar has seen three major revolts against the armed forces since 1988, but in its ethnic states, conflict has been rampant for more than 70 years.“Armed Forces Day” in the country recently saw one of the bloodiest days since the coup, leaving at least 100 dead. But days later on March 31, the army promised a one-month cease-fire. Humanitarian groups in the country’s ethnic states, however, have reported that military attacks are continuing, which have killed dozens and displaced tens of thousands.’No Cease-fire’ in Myanmar’s Ethnic Minority States, According to Humanitarian GroupFree Burma Rangers also say thousands displaced by airstrikes, ground attacks in violation of junta-declared cease-fireIn a bid to solve the crisis, an emergency high-level summit commenced last week between ASEAN leaders. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations is a 10-member union and political regional group promoting economic and security cooperation.A conclusion to the meeting saw a five-point consensus agreed upon that includes the immediate cessation of violence, dialogue for a peaceful solution, meditation and humanitarian assistance provided by ASEAN, and a visit by the union’s special envoy to Myanmar to all parties concerned.But protesters in Myanmar have vented their opposition to the five-point plan. Nyinyi Lwin, a political analyst, insisted the proposal must involve Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government (NUG), ethnic minorities and the Rohingya people.“The ASEAN resolution of a five-point road map may change the political landscape if it is supported by the people of Myanmar,” Nyinyi Lwin told VOA.Nyinyi Lwin, now based in Washington, and the chief editor of Arakan News, a Myanmar news site, added: “The people do not trust ASEAN leadership. … As long as people doubt ASEAN, the civil war is still on the grounds.”First open election in 2015Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, was governed under military rule until 2011. In 2015, the NLD won the country’s first open democratic election.But the Myanmar military contested the results of last November’s general elections, claiming unsubstantiated electoral fraud. On February 1, the military, also known as Tatmadaw, took control of the country.As anti-coup protests commenced, the junta deployed armored vehicles and fired live ammunition at demonstrators. Martial law and daily internet shutdowns have also been implemented.The pro-democracy campaign, the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM), has seen thousands of professionals go on strike against the military regime.In April, the NUG was formed, claiming to be the legitimate government of Myanmar, existing in parallel with the junta, officially the State Administrative Council.The recent summit in Jakarta came after the United Nations said that Myanmar’s strife could become on par with the conflict in Syria.Key differenceJosh Kurlantzick, a fellow for Southeast Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations, an independent think tank in New York, said international action is the key difference between Myanmar and Syria.“I don’t see it as exactly similar to Syria,” he told VOA. “I think Myanmar could, indeed, have a wider civil war, one that stretches across the country and involves not just the ethnic armed organizations but areas of armed resistance in central Myanmar, in Burman, or Bamar-dominated Myanmar.The Syrian civil war began in 2011 when pro-democracy demonstrations calling for the removal of the Syrian government met with a violent response from the Syrian army. This sparked an armed rebellion by opposition forces and rebel groups. Foreign intervention also has been rife, with the U.S, Russia, and Iran all involved. More than 500,000 people have been killed or are believed to be missing, with millions as either refugees or internally displaced, according to a BBC report.“There are parallels, in terms of Myanmar potentially becoming a failed state, leading to massive refugee outflows, civil conflict, but I don’t think there are real analogies in the international involvement angle in a Myanmar civil conflict,” Kurlantzick added.Analysts say Russia is increasing arms sales to the Myanmar military, however, and it is standing by the junta.Russia Seen Advancing SE Asian Ambitions Through Myanmar GeneralsEthnic rebels back protestersPolitical analyst Aung Thu Nyein said it’s difficult to see direct international intervention from neighboring countries, as ASEAN “has no history of intervening in the affairs of its members.” But he admitted Myanmar could be buffeted as it finds itself in the “middle of a storm” amid sustained tensions between the U.S. and China.“The civil-military relation is the worst ever in Myanmar history, and people not only have lost trust in the military, but they also hate it,” he said. “The animosity will not be dying down soon, and as I said, it could lead to limited violence, spiraling downward to a failed state. I said an implosion, rather than an explosion, because the CPRH [parallel civilian government] and the opposition government have little opportunity to receive external aid,” he added.
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During a meeting with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang Wednesday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel called for a return to discussions on human rights, saying such consultations in the past have improved relations between their two nations.
The comments came during wide-ranging governmental consultations between Merkel and Li — held virtually due to the pandemic — on issues like the fight against the spread of the coronavirus, economic cooperation and other issues.
Merkel, who is not running for re-election, noted the regular consultations between the two countries during her nearly 16 years in power improved cooperation on issues from climate change to business. She said those talks at times covered areas of disagreement such as human rights and Hong Kong.
Merkel said, “Part of our partnership includes addressing difficult topics and putting everything on the table. Traditionally, the issue of human rights repeatedly plays a role and here, differences of opinion exist.” She said in the past, they always succeeded in addressing those issues and, “I would wish that we can soon reinstall the human rights dialogue.”
A Chinese Foreign Ministry statement acknowledged Beijing and Berlin have different views on some issues but did not mention a human rights dialogue. It called for mutual respect of core interests and communication on the basis of non-interference.
In the statement, Li said China and Germany should demonstrate “cooperation and unity” in their push for global economic recovery.” 
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Chinese President Xi Jinping’s in-person commissioning of three major warships on Friday represents a bold step toward tightening naval control over contested Asian seas and another pushback against growing U.S. influence in the region, analysts believe.  State media in Beijing say the three vessels, described as a destroyer, a nuclear-powered strategic ballistic missile submarine and an amphibious assault ship, formally entered the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy. The “unprecedented” commissioning “represents the rapid development of the PLA Navy and Chinese shipbuilding industry amid the grave military struggle pressure China is facing,” the Beijing-based Global Times reported. Chinese officials see the ships as a new way to help deter the United States from sending its own vessels to the seas near China’s coasts, warn other Asian countries who contest Beijing’s maritime sovereignty and slowly gain military control inside the “first island chain,” say some analysts. The chain runs from the Kuril Islands of Russia through Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines. Particularly at stake is the South China Sea, a 3.5 million-square-kilometer waterway contested by China and five other, militarily weaker nations: Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam. The sea stretches from Hong Kong south to Borneo. “The commissioning of those ships and the fact that Xi Jinping himself went to baptize the new naval units is a way to announce to the region and the world that the PLA Navy has evolved into a combined, multifunctional and efficient marine combat force capable of near coast defense, near seas active defense and far seas operations alike,” said Fabrizio Bozzato, senior research fellow at the Tokyo-based Sasakawa Peace Foundation’s Ocean Policy Research Institute.A Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) soldier wearing a protective face mask stands guard in front of the Great Hall of the People before the second plenary session of China’s National People’s Congress (NPC), in Beijing, May 25, 2020.Chinese officials cite historical usage records to back their claims to about 90% of the sea, which is prized for fisheries and undersea fossil fuel reserves. China has alarmed the other Asian claimants by developing islets in the sea for military infrastructure and sending previously deployed ships into their exclusive economic zones. China has the strongest armed forces in Asia, prompting the other maritime claimants to look toward the United States for support as China becomes bolder offshore.  Concern in Beijing that former U.S. President Donald Trump might have been planning an attack in the disputed sea or near Taiwan drove China to warn current President Joe Biden that it’s up for “any challenge,” said Yun Sun, East Asia Program senior associate at the Stimson Center in Washington. The U.S. Indo-Pacific Command in Hawaii confirmed with VOA that 10 U.S. warships reached the South China Sea last year following 10 in 2019. Just five were logged in each of the two years before 2019.    Beijing’s highly publicized ship deployment was aimed first at showing Chinese people their country has added strength and “material wealth” under Xi, Sun said. The rest of the world was supposed to notice for a different reason she said.     “The other message, to the outside world, is a deterrence message, that any country in the Chinese view intervening in the South China Sea issue should pay attention to China’s strengthening maritime military capability and also be prepared for the consequences of any potential transgression in the Chinese eyes,” Sun said. The three ships won’t necessarily scare Southeast Asian claimants to the disputed sea as much as any moves that suggest China might harm oil and gas equipment in the waterway’s exclusive economic zones, said Shariman Lockman, senior foreign policy and security studies analyst with the Institute of Strategic and International Studies in Malaysia. Malaysia is a particularly active explorer for undersea fuels. “For us, the oil and gas sector is all important, so if there is any indication whatsoever that indicates that they are to remove structures from waters, that sort of stuff worries people,” he said.  China eventually wants to “break through” the first island chain, said Oh Ei Sun, a senior fellow with the Singapore Institute of International Affairs. He said adding naval power is one way to advance that cause, which could be a long process. As of 2012, the Chinese navy had 512 ships, according to the British think tank International Institute of Strategic Studies. It now has more than 700 ships, the database Globalfirepower.com says.  “The Chinese way of doing things is much more nuanced,” Oh said, comparing it to other powers. “I wouldn’t say subtle but certainly nuanced – ‘if I can’t get my way the hard way, then I would do it the soft way.’ Then they’d do more if they can get away with it.” 
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The family of the late Lee Kun-hee, the chairman of South Korea’s Samsung Electronics, says it will pay $10.8 billion in taxes on the inheritance from his massive estate, the largest paid in South Korean history. Lee died last October leaving an estate estimated at more than $23 billion.   The family, which includes his wife and three children, says it will split payments of the hefty tax bill in six installments over five years, with the first payment coming this month.  It is believed they will use the shares they hold in the vast family-run conglomerate as a means to pay the taxes.People pass by Samsung Electronics’ shop in Seoul, South Korea, April 28, 2021.The Lee family will also donate the late patriarch’s vast collection of fine art to two state-run museums and other organizations to help ease the burden of the tax bill.  The collection includes rare Korean artifacts and works by such legendary artists as Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali, Paul Gauguin and Claude Monet.   The family has also agreed to donate $900 million to build a new hospital devoted to treating infectious diseases, fund research on vaccines and treatment, and support a program that treats children suffering from cancer and rare diseases.   Under the elder Lee, Samsung Electronics became the crown jewel of the Samsung conglomerate, the biggest in South Korea, with holdings in such sectors as shipbuilding, insurance and trading.   Samsung Electronics is the world’s largest maker of semiconductors, smartphones and other consumer electronics.  But the family has been mired in a host of corruption scandals, with Lee’s son, Jae-yong, currently serving a two-and-a-half year prison sentence in connection with the scandal that brought down former President Park Geun-hye. 
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As the death toll from the military crackdown against peaceful protesters in Myanmar mounts, some in the Southeast Asian nation are turning to armed combat to fight back. They are trading peaceful resistance against the coup in the cities and heading to the country’s remote borderlands to join a patchwork of rebel armies. One of the oldest and largest ethnic armed groups, the Karen National Union (KNU), told VOA protesters coming from the lowlands of central Myanmar have been trekking to the rebels’ hilly jungle redouts for training since late March. “We train people who want to be trained and who want to fight against the military regime,” said Maj. Gen. Nerdah Bo Mya, chief of staff of the Karen National Defense Organization, an armed wing of the KNU. “We are [on] the same boat, helping one another. [We] help each other to survive and get rid of the military regime and to re-establish what we call the democratic government,” he said. The general said ethnic Karenni, Rakhine and Shan rebel groups were doing the same. The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a local rights group, says security forces have killed more than 750 people by opening fire on the mass demonstrations that swept the country in the wake of the February 1 coup. The military junta disputes the number, putting the figure well under 300, and claims to be responding to the protests with all due restraint. The protests have wilted from the pressure, but a dogged civil disobedience movement continues to cripple much of the public and private sectors, from banks to hospitals. Earlier this month the U.N.’s human rights chief, Michele Bachelet, warned that the country could still tip into an all-out civil war with “echoes of Syria.”Anti-coup protesters hold a banner that reads “What are these? We are Yangon residents!” as they march during a demonstration in Yangon, Myanmar, April 27, 2021.A call to armsOne KNU trainee said he had given up on peaceful resistance. “I don’t like protesting anymore. No, it doesn’t work. We just get shot. It’s over 700 people already,” he told VOA, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal from the military. The 26-year-old said he left Yangon for the KNU’s bases along the Thai border soon after the coup, and that a friend who stayed behind was later hit in the head and killed by a stray bullet from security forces shooting at protesters up the street. The young man from Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city and commercial capital, said he believed in meeting force with equal force. “I need to know how to hold a weapon. It’s not fair if we fight them with a knife or something like that. We should be trained. They are well trained, they are soldiers, they can shoot pretty well. For us, we need training, otherwise we can’t do anything,” he said. The trainee said he would head back to Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city and commercial capital, as soon as the KNU deems him ready. “After we are trained here, we will go back, and we will do something. We have to fight for our freedom, otherwise a lot of people will just die, just die, they just protest, and they just die. It’s not worth it,” he said. “If we could fight them, it’s worth it.” Courting disasterNerdah Bo Mya would not say how many protesters his group was training but claimed that between the KNU and the other rebel armies doing the same they numbered in the thousands.Richard Horsey, a Myanmar analyst and senior adviser to the International Crisis Group, said they were more probably in the hundreds, so likely to make any urban fighting “relatively small-scale.”“It’s not easy to set up an urban guerilla force from scratch, especially with people who have not had previous military training,” he said. “While I do think there could be some violent incidents, and there already have been, that’s very different from being able to launch a sustained urban guerilla campaign.”The stiffest armed resistance outside of areas held by the ethnic rebel armies has sprung up in Sagaing Region, in Myanmar’s northwest. Local news reports say residents there have formed their own “civil army” and managed to supplement their homemade air guns and old hunting rifles with some AK-47 and M-16 automatic assault rifles. The military has reported casualties on its side.Demonstrators are seen before a clash with security forces in Taze, Sagaing Region, Myanmar, April 7, 2021, in this image obtained by Reuters.“How sustained that will be, I’m not sure. But it’s happening, and I think it could happen in other parts of the country as well,” Horsey said.If the rebel groups prove reluctant to arm the protesters themselves, decades of civil war have created a substantial black market in military weapons those with the cash and connections could tap, he added.Whether or not Myanmar goes the way of Syria, Horsey said the country was edging toward “catastrophic state failure” with widespread hunger and displacement on the horizon.“All of this is a very real prospect, as is continued or increased violence,” he said, “and all of that should be very alarming to the region and to the world.” 
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China cautioned Australia to abide by its ‘One China’ policy after a senior Australian on Sunday warned of a potential conflict over Taiwanese independence. Speaking on an Australian news talk show, Australian Defense Minister Peter Dutton said he couldn’t rule out a military confrontation over Taiwan.”I do not think it should be discounted. I think China has been very clear about the reunification and that has been a long-held objective of theirs and if you look at any of the rhetoric coming out of China from spokesmen particularly in recent weeks and months in response to different suggestions that have been made, they have been very clear about that goal.”Currently, relations between Australia and China, its most valuable trading partner, are at their worst in decades. There have been trade and political tensions as well as disagreements over human rights. Canberra’s call last year for an inquiry into the origins of the coronavirus, which was first detected in China in 2019, offended Beijing. It interpreted Australia’s demand as criticism of its handling of the pandemic. Bilateral ties have deteriorated ever since. There is now friction over Taiwan, which is seen by Beijing as a breakaway province that will eventually be reunified with the Chinese mainland under what it calls the ‘One China’ policy.  Australia does not recognize Taiwan as a sovereign state or regard the authorities in Taiwan as a national government. However, the United States has raised concerns about Chinese aggression towards Taiwan. U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken asserted that Washington has a “serious commitment to Taiwan being able to defend itself.”  In response to Dutton’s comments, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said, “Abiding by the ‘One China’ principle is a prerequisite for China-Australia relations. Taiwan is an inalienable part of China’s territory, and the Taiwan issue is purely China’s internal affairs that involves China’s core interests and allows no foreign interference.” Last week, Australia abandoned deals made with the state of Victoria linked to China’s Belt and Road initiative. Observers say the billions-worth of infrastructure investment projected by the Chinese government aims to expand its global economy and influence, but the project has left some countries with significant debt.Officials in Canberra said they were protecting Australia’s national interest, but the Chinese embassy in Australia called the move “provocative.” Analysts believe that Canberra is being punished for trying to stand up to China, which has imposed restrictions and tariffs on a range of Australian farming goods, as well as coal.
 
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