asia
Taiwan's former leader Ma begins China visit
Former Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou departed for a tour of China on Monday, in what he called an attempt to reduce tensions a day after Taiwan lost one of its few remaining diplomatic partners to China.
The ex-president is visiting in a private capacity, bringing a delegation of academics and college students for exchanges, as well as members of his family, but the trip is loaded with political meaning.
Ma’s policies brought Taiwan and Beijing to their closest relationship ever, but his exit from office was overshadowed by massive protests against a trade deal with the mainland and his successor has focused on bolstering ties with the U.S. and defending the autonomy of the democratically governed island that China claims as part of its own territory.
Current President Tsai Ing-wen is expected to launch a 10-day diplomatic tour of her own Wednesday, ostensibly to visit the island's remaining allies in Latin America. She will stop in the U.S., Taiwan’s biggest unofficial partner and supplier of arms.
Ma's visit comes amid rising tensions. Beijing has stepped up pressure against Taiwan in recent years, poaching its diplomatic allies while also sending military fighter jets flying towards the island on a near daily basis. On Sunday, Honduras established diplomatic relations with China, leaving Taiwan with only 13 countries that recognize it as a sovereign state.
Ma, a member of the opposition Nationalist Party (Kuomingtang), will land in Shanghai before starting his visit in nearby Nanjing. He is expected to tour the mainland from March 27 to April 7, stopping in Wuhan and Changsha, as well as other cities. He is bringing college students from Taiwan to meet with fellow students from Shanghai’s Fudan University and Changsha’s Hunan University.
Ma has framed the visit as a bid to lower the tensions in cross-strait relations through people to people exchange. “I hope through the enthusiasm of the youth and their interactions to improve the cross-strait mood, so bring peace faster, and earlier,” he said to reporters ahead of his departure on Monday afternoon. He also said it would be his first time visiting China.
His trip has not drawn much controversy in Taiwan, where the public is used to seeing Kuomingtang politicians visit China. However, it has been criticized by some political opponents and activists.
A former mainland student leader in the 1989 Tiananmen square protests called on Ma to cancel his trip. “If you have even a strand of affection for Taiwan ... you should announce the cancellation of your trip,” said Wang Dan, a Chinese dissident who previously lived in Taiwan, on his Facebook page.
A handful of protesters from a pro-independence group held a demonstration at the departures area at Taoyuan airport before Ma's departure. “Ma Ying-jeou is humiliating our nation and forfeiting its sovereignty," they shouted before police carried them out. “You are a stinky beggar.”
On the other side, a small group of people from the pro-unification camp also came to the airport to show their support. “Cross-strait relations are like flowers blossoming in spring and both sides are a family," they shouted.
The trip is also a chance for him to honor his ancestors, ahead of Tomb Sweeping Day on April 5. During the festival, which is celebrated in Taiwan and China among other countries, families visit ancestral graves to maintain the burial grounds and remember the dead.
Ma will not go to Beijing, but may meet with Chinese officials.
Ma met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Singapore in 2015, while he was still in office. The meeting was the first between the leaders of the two sides since Taiwan split from mainland China in 1949 during the Chinese civil war, but was considered more symbolic than substantive.
In 2016, the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party won national elections and Beijing cut off contact with Taiwan’s government, citing Tsai's refusal to endorse the idea that Taiwan and China are one country.
Myanmar army leader calls for decisive action to crush foes
As Myanmar’s military put on an annual show of strength Monday, its top leader told its assembled ranks they need to take decisive action against those fighting army rule of the country.
Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing spoke at a military parade on Armed Forces Day. At sunrise, members of all service branches marched in mass formations onto a huge parade ground in the capital, Naypyitaw, backed by armored vehicles, missiles and artillery as well as fighter jets and helicopters flying overhead.
Myanmar’s military has been accused of indiscriminate killings of civilians as it engages in major offensives to suppress the armed resistance opposed to its takeover of the government two years ago. Min Aung Hlaing in his speech said those who condemned his military government demonstrated indifference to the violence committed by its opponents.
Armed Forces Day marks the anniversary of the start of a 1945 uprising of a ragtag army against occupying Japanese forces. The country then called Burma attained independence from colonial power Britain in 1948 and has been ruled by a succession of military governments for most of the years since.
On Feb. 1, 2021, the army ousted Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected government, prompting peaceful protests that security forces suppressed with bloody violence. The escalation of the violence since then has been characterized by U.N. experts and others as a civil war.
The opposition to military rule is led by a self-styled National Unity Government, or NUG, which was established by elected lawmakers who were denied their seats by the army and stakes a claim to being the country’s legitimate administration.
Its armed wing, the loosely organized People’s Defense Forces, or PDF, along with their armed ethnic minority allies, regularly strike military columns, bases and outposts. At the same time, the army and air force are hitting villages with artillery and air strikes, often causing civilian casualties and credibly being accused of other brutal human rights abuses. Their offenses have displaced more than a million people, causing a humanitarian crisis.
“The terror acts of the NUG and its lackey so-called PDFs are needed to be tackled for good and all," Min Aung Hlaing said in his speech. "The (military) and the government also need to take action against this terrorist group, trying to devastate the country and killing the people.”
His government has declared major resistance organizations to be terrorist groups, and anyone associated with them is subject to harsh punishment.
While Min Aung Hlaing said the actions of his military were necessary to achieve peace, his government is keen to dismiss allegations of human rights abuses by pointing at violence carried out by its opponents.
After security forces arrested, tortured and killed activists in the cities, urban guerrilla groups responded with bombing and assassinations of targets linked to the military. On Friday, a veteran corporate lawyer accused of being a military crony was shot dead in the country's biggest city, Yangon.
There were scattered protests reported against the army's celebration.
Independent online media reported that bomb explosions took place in at least three areas of the country’s biggest city, Yangon on Monday morning.
Yangon Revolution Force, a pro-democracy activist group, announced it had protested Armed Forces Day by performing a ritual at a Buddhist pagoda placing a curse on Min Aung Hlaing. The military’s leaders, like many other people in Myanmar, are known to be highly superstitious.
In the Sagaing region in the northwest, a stronghold of armed resistance, people held small protests against Armed Forces Day.
North Korea test-fires 2 more missiles as US sends carrier
North Korea fired two short-range ballistic missiles into its eastern waters Monday, continuing its weapons displays as the United States moved an aircraft carrier strike group to neighboring waters for military exercises with the South.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the two missiles were fired from a western inland area south of the North Korean capital of Pyongyang from around 7:47 a.m. to 8 a.m. and traveled around 370 kilometers (229 miles) before landing at sea. Japan’s military said the missiles flew on an “irregular” trajectory and reached a maximum altitude of 50 kilometers (31 miles) before landing outside Japan’s exclusive economic zone.
Japan has previously used the term to describe a North Korean solid-fuel missile apparently modeled after Russia’s Iskander mobile ballistic system, which is designed to be maneuverable in low-altitude flight to better evade South Korean missile defenses. North Korea also has another short-range system with similar characteristics that resembles the U.S. MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile System.
The launches came a day before the USS Nimitz and its strike group are to arrive at the South Korean port of Busan. South Korea’s Defense Ministry said in a statement that the Nimitz strike group will participate in exercises with South Korean warships on Monday in international waters near the South Korean resort island of Jeju before heading to Busan.
The launches were the North’s seventh missile event this month and underscore heightening tensions in the region as the pace of both North Korean weapons tests and the U.S.-South Korea joint military exercises has accelerated in recent months in a cycle of tit-for-tat responses.
Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said North Korea may dial up its testing activity further with more missile launches or even conducting its first nuclear test since September 2017.
The South Korean and Japanese militaries denounced the latest launches as serious provocations threatening regional peace and violating U.N. Security Council resolutions and said they were working with the United States to analyze the missiles further.
The United States and South Korea completed their biggest springtime exercises in years last week, which had included both computer simulations and life-fire field exercises. But the allies have continued their field training in a show of force against North Korea’s expanding nuclear arsenal and belligerent threats of nuclear conflict.
Jang Do Young, a spokesperson of South Korea's navy, said during a briefing that the allies' combined exercises involving the Nimitz strike group are aimed at sharpening joint operational capabilities and reaffirming the credibility of the U.S. commitment to defend its ally in face of the North's “escalating nuclear and missile threats.”
North Korea had also conducted a short-range launch when the USS Ronald Reagan and its battle group arrived for joint drills with South Korea in September, which was the last time the United States sent an aircraft carrier to waters near the Korean Peninsula.
North Korea has fired more than 20 ballistic and cruise missiles across 11 launch events this year as it tries to force the United States to accept its nuclear status and negotiate a removal of sanctions from a position of strength.
North Korea’s launches this month included a flight-test of an intercontinental ballistic missile and a series of short-range weapons intended to overwhelm South Korean missile defenses as it tries to demonstrate an ability to conduct nuclear strikes on both South Korea and the U.S. mainland.
The North last week conducted what it described as a three-day exercise that simulated nuclear attacks on South Korean targets as leader Kim Jong Un condemned the U.S.-South Korean joint military drills as invasion rehearsals. The allies say the exercises are defensive in nature.
The North's tests also included a purported nuclear-capable underwater drone that the North claimed is capable of setting off a huge “radioactive tsunami” that would destroy naval vessels and ports. Analysts were skeptical about the North Korean claims about the drone or whether the device presents a major new threat, but the tests underlined the North’s commitment to expand its nuclear threats.
Following the North’s announcement of the drone test on Friday, South Korea’s air force released details of a five-day joint aerial drill with the United States last week that included live-fire demonstrations of air-to-air and air-to-ground weapons. The air force said the exercise was aimed at verifying precision strike capabilities and reaffirming the credibility of Seoul’s “three-axis” strategy against North Korean nuclear threats — preemptively striking sources of attacks, intercepting incoming missiles and neutralizing the North’s leadership and key military facilities.
North Korea already is coming off a record year in weapons testing, launching more than 70 missiles in 2022, when it also set into law an escalatory nuclear doctrine that authorizes pre-emptive nuclear strikes in a broad range of scenarios where it may perceive its leadership as under threat.
India's Rahul Gandhi accuses PM Modi of favoring Adani Group
India’s top opposition leader Rahul Gandhi on Saturday launched a scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and said he was being targeted because he has raised serious questions about Modi's relationship with the Indian business conglomerate Adani Group.
Gandhi said the objective of his expulsion from Parliament on Friday was to prevent him from speaking in the legislature about his allegation of an infusion of an unaccounted $3 billion into shell companies owned by the Adani Group, headed by Gautam Adani.
’’Some of these defense companies are working in drone and missile development and ordnance production. Why is the defense ministry not asking questions,” he said.
Also Read: Indian opposition leader Rahul Gandhi loses Parliament seat
Gandhi was expelled from Parliament a day after a court convicted him of defamation and sentenced him to two years in prison for mocking the surname Modi in an election speech.
The actions against Gandhi, the great-grandson of India’s first prime minister, were widely condemned by opponents of Modi as the latest assaults against democracy and free speech by a ruling government seeking to crush dissent. Removing Gandhi from politics delivered a major blow to the opposition party he led ahead of next year’s national elections.
Gandhi said he was not bothered about losing his seat in Parliament. "My job is to defend the institutions of the country and the voice of people," he added.
Also Read: 'Modi Surname' defamation case: Rahul Gandhi sentenced to 2 years in jail
A court in the western Indian city of Surat also sentenced him to two years in prison on Thursday. But he won’t go to jail immediately as the court granted bail for 30 days to file an appeal against the verdict.
The court convicted Gandhi for a 2019 speech in which he asked, “Why do all thieves have Modi as their surname?” Gandhi then referred to three well-known and unrelated Modis in the speech: a fugitive Indian diamond tycoon, a cricket executive banned from the Indian Premier League tournament and the prime minister.
On Saturday, Gandhi didn't indicate how soon his legal team will approach an appeals court seeking to overturn his conviction so he could save his seat in Parliament.
He accused Modi of helping the Adani Group to get contracts in India, Sri Lanka, and Australia.
Also Read: Test transmission of power supply from Adani plant to Bangladesh's national grid starts
He also alleged that a Chinese national was involved in investments in Adani's shell companies. “Why nobody is asking the question who this Chinese national is,” he said. ”Nobody knows where this money has come from. Adani couldn't generate this money."
Gandhi has demanded a parliamentary committee probe following a report by Hindenburg Research, the U.S. financial research firm, accusing the Adani Group of stock price manipulation and fraud running into billions of dollars. The Adani Group has denied any wrongdoing and the Modi government has not accepted a call for a parliamentary investigation.
Also Read: India’s Supreme Court orders investigation of Adani business group
Soon after Gandhi's news conference, Ravi Shankar Prasad, a top leader of Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party, rejected Gandhi's accusations and said his disqualification from Parliament had nothing to do with the Adani Group controversy.
Since Modi became prime minister in 2014, Adani’s net worth has shot up nearly 2,000% to $125 billion, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaire Index. He surpassed Amazon boss Jeff Bezos to briefly become the world’s second richest man in September after a surge in the value of his seven listed entities.
Also Read: Top policymakers briefed about outcome of meeting with Adani on coal pricing: Sources
Adani’s businesses have won multibillion-dollar contracts to build ports, highways and power plants. The industrialist’s ambitions include developing drones and ammunition, key to the government’s goal of boosting military-related exports to $5 billion while slashing costs for expensive imports.
Indian opposition leader Rahul Gandhi loses Parliament seat
Key Indian opposition leader Rahul Gandhi has lost his parliamentary seat after a court found him of guilty of defamation over his remarks about Prime Minister Narendra Modi's surname and he was disqualified from the lawmaking body, a parliamentary statement said on Friday.
Gandhi, who represented a constituency in southern Kerala state as a member of the Congress party, was disqualified from his membership in the lower house of Parliament from March 23, the date of his conviction, the statement said.
Indian parliamentary rules say that a member loses his or her seat if convicted of a crime and sentenced to two or more years in prison.
A court in the western city of Surat sentenced Gandhi to two years in prison on Thursday in the defamation case. But he won’t go to jail immediately because the court granted him bail for 30 days to file an appeal against the verdict. If an appeals court sets aside Gandhi’s conviction, he can get his seat back.
Gandhi briefly visited the Parliament on Friday morning.
The case against Gandhi dates back to an election rally in 2019 when he said: “Why do all thieves have Modi as their surname?” In the speech, he went on to name fugitive Indian diamond tycoon Nirav Modi, banned Indian Premier League boss Lalit Modi and Narendra Modi.
Narendra Modi is not related to either of the other two.
The defamation case was filed by a leader of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in western Gujarat state. The complainant, Purnesh Modi, said Gandhi’s comments had “defamed the entire Modi community.”
Modi is a common last name in western Gujarat state.
Mallikarjun Kharge, president of the Congress party, said Gandhi would appeal the verdict in a higher court and called Modi’s government “cowardly and dictatorial.”
After the verdict, Gandhi wrote on Twitter: “My religion is based on truth and non-violence. Truth is my God, and non-violence the means to get it.”
Gandhi is one of India's main opposition leaders and he will most likely go up against Modi when the prime minister seeks a third term in 2024.
China threatens consequences over US warship's actions
China threatened "serious consequences" Friday after the U.S. Navy sailed a destroyer around the disputed Paracel Islands in the South China Sea for the second day in a row, in a move Beijing claimed was a violation of its sovereignty and security.
The warning comes amid growing tensions between China and the United States in the region, as Washington pushes back at Beijing's growingly assertive posture in the South China Sea, a strategic waterway it claims virtually in its entirety.
On Thursday, after the U.S. sailed the USS Milius guided-missile destroyer near the Paracel Islands, China said its navy and air force had forced the American vessel away, a claim the U.S. military denied.
The U.S. on Friday sailed the ship again in the vicinity of the islands, which are occupied by China but also claimed by Taiwan and Vietnam, as part of what it called a "freedom of navigation operation" challenging requirements from all three nations requiring either advance notification or permission before a military vessel sails by.
"Unlawful and sweeping maritime claims in the South China Sea pose a serious threat to the freedom of the seas, including the freedoms of navigation and overflight, free trade and unimpeded commerce, and freedom of economic opportunity for South China Sea littoral nations," said U.S. 7th Fleet spokesman Lt. j.g. Luka Bakic in an emailed statement.
"The United States challenges excessive maritime claims around the world regardless of the identity of the claimant," Bakic added.
China's Ministry of National Defense responded by accusing the U.S. of "undermining the peace and stability of the South China Sea" with its actions.
"The act of the U.S. military seriously violated China's sovereignty and security, severely breached international laws, and is more ironclad evidence of the U.S. pursuing navigation hegemony and militarizing the South China Sea," ministry spokesman Tan Kefei said. "We solemnly request that the US. immediately stop such actions of provocation, otherwise it will bear the serious consequences of unexpected incidents caused by this."
He said China would take "all necessary measures" to ensure its security but did not elaborate.
Like its statement on the Thursday incident, China again said it drove the American ship away from the islands, which are in the South China Sea a few hundred kilometers (miles) off the coast of Vietnam and the Chinese province of Hainan.
Both sides said their actions were justified under international law.
Bakic told The Associated Press that the ship "was not driven away" and "continued on to conduct routine maritime security operations in international waters" after concluding its mission near the Paracel Islands.
"The operation reflects our commitment to uphold freedom of navigation and lawful uses of the sea for all nations," he said. "The United States will continue to fly, sail, and operate wherever international law allows, as Milius did today."
The U.S. has no South China Sea claims itself, but has deployed Naval and Air Force assets for decades to patrol the strategic waterway, through which around $5 trillion in global trade transits each year and which holds highly valuable fish stocks and undersea mineral resources.
A United Nations-backed arbitration tribunal ruled in 2016 that the historical claim from China on the waters had no legal basis under the 1982 U.N. Convention on the Law of the Seas, and Washington maintains that freedom of navigation and overflight of the waterway are in the American national interest.
U.S. forces currently operate in the South China Sea daily, and have been present for more than a century. China regularly responds angrily, accusing the U.S. of meddling in Asian affairs and impinging upon its sovereignty.
China's claims have frequently brought it into conflict with other nations in the region as well, and Filipino diplomats were expected to unleash a slew of protests on Friday over China's recent targeting of a Philippine coast guard ship with a powerful military laser and other aggressive behavior.
N Korea claims 'radioactive tsunami' weapon test
North Korea claimed Friday to have tested a nuclear-capable underwater drone designed to generate a gigantic "radioactive tsunami" that would destroy naval strike groups and ports. Analysts were skeptical that the device presents a major new threat, but the test underlines the North's commitment to raising nuclear threats.
The test this week came as the United States reportedly planned to deploy aircraft carrier strike groups and other advanced assets to waters off the Korean Peninsula. Military tensions are at a high point as the pace of both North Korean weapons tests and U.S.-South Korea joint military exercises has accelerated in the past year in a cycle of tit-for-tat responses.
Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency said the new weapon, which can be deployed from the coast or towed by surface ships, is built to "stealthily infiltrate into operational waters and make a super-scale radioactive tsunami through an underwater explosion to destroy naval strike groups and major operational ports of the enemy."
The North Korean report came hours before South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol pledged to make North Korea pay for its "reckless provocations" as he attended a remembrance service honoring 55 South Korean troops killed during major clashes with the North near their western sea border in past years.
The testing of the purported "nuclear underwater attack drone" was part of a three-day exercise that simulated nuclear attacks on unspecified South Korean targets, which also included cruise missile launches on Wednesday.
KCNA said that the drills were supervised by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who condemned the U.S.-South Korean drills as invasion rehearsals and vowed to make his rivals "plunge into despair."
The drone is named "Haeil," a Korean word meaning tidal waves or tsunamis. The North's official Rodong Sinmun newspaper published photos of Kim smiling next to a large torpedo-shaped object at an unspecified indoor facility, but didn't identify it.
Other photos published with the same article showed sea-surface tracks supposedly caused by the drone's underwater trajectory and a pillar of water exploding up into the air, possibly caused by what state media described as an underwater detonation of a mock nuclear weapon carried by the drone.
KCNA said the North's latest tests were aimed at alerting the United States and South Korea of a brewing "nuclear crisis" as they continue with their "intentional, persistent and provocative war drills."
The U.S. and South Korea completed an 11-day exercise that included their biggest field training in years on Thursday, and are preparing another round of joint naval drills that will reportedly involve a U.S. aircraft carrier.
KCNA said North Korea's latest drills verified the operational reliability of the drone, which it said the North has been developing since 2012 and tested more 50 times in the past two years, although the weapon was never mentioned before in state media until Friday.
KCNA said the drone was deployed off the North's eastern coast on Tuesday, traveled underwater for nearly 60 hours, and detonated a test warhead at a target standing for an enemy port.
Kim Dong-yub, a professor at Seoul's University of North Korean Studies, said that it's impossible to verify North Korea's claims about the drone's capabilities or that it had tested the system dozens of times. But, he said, the North is intending to communicate that the weapon has enough range to reach all South Korean ports.
Ankit Panda, a senior analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, questioned the wisdom of North Korea devoting resources to the drone system as a means of delivery versus its ballistic missiles when it has limited amounts of nuclear materials suitable for weapons.
"This un-crewed underwater vehicle will be vulnerable to anti-submarine warfare capabilities if it were to deploy beyond North Korea's coastal waters. It will also be susceptible to preemptive strikes when in port," said Panda.
"Indeed, the U.S. and South Korea would have incentives in a crisis to preempt any such systems before they could deploy."
North Korea is believed to have dozens of nuclear warheads and may be capable of fitting them on older weapons systems, such as Scuds or Rodong missiles. However, there are different assessments on how far it has advanced in engineering those warheads to fit on the new weapons it has developed at a rapid pace, which might require further technological upgrades and nuclear tests.
Speaking to lawmakers on Thursday, South Korean Defense Minister Lee Jong-Sup said the North probably hasn't yet mastered the technology to place nuclear arms on its most advanced weapons, although acknowledging that the country was making "significant progress."
On Wednesday, North Korea also test-fired cruise missiles in launches that were detected and publicized by South Korea's military. It also staged another nuclear attack simulation with a short-range ballistic missile on Sunday and flight-tested an intercontinental ballistic missile last week that may be able to reach the continental United States.
KCNA said Wednesday's tests were of four cruise missiles and two different types. The missiles flew for more than two hours in patterns over the sea while demonstrating an ability to strike targets 1,500 kilometers (932 miles) and 1,800 kilometers (1,118 miles) away. It said the missiles' mock nuclear warheads were detonated 600 meters (1,968 feet) above their targets, which supposedly verified the reliability of their nuclear explosion control devices and warhead detonators.
KCNA said Kim Jong Un was satisfied with the three-day drills and directed unspecified additional tasks to counter the "reckless military provocations" of his rivals, indicating North Korea will further ramp up its military displays.
He "expressed his will to make the U.S. imperialists and the (South) Korean puppet regime plunge into despair" with powerful demonstrations of his military nuclear program to make his rivals understand "they are bound to lose more than they get" with the expansion of their joint drills.
Kim issued similar language Sunday after a test-firing of a short-range ballistic missile from what was possibly a silo dug into the ground. The North's media said a mock nuclear warhead placed on the missile detonated 800 meters (2,624 feet) above water, an altitude that would maximize damage.
The North has fired over 20 ballistic and cruise missiles across 10 launch events this year as it tries to diversify its delivery systems and display the ability to conduct nuclear strikes on both South Korea and the U.S. mainland.
North Korea already is coming off a record year in testing activity, with more than 70 missiles fired in 2022, as Kim accelerated a campaign aimed at negotiating badly needed sanctions relief from a position of strength and forcing the United States to accept the idea of the North as a nuclear power.
House China panel turns focus to plight of Uyghurs
Two women who experienced life in Chinese “reeducation” camps for Uyghurs told lawmakers Thursday of lives under imprisonment and surveillance, rape and torture as a special House committee focused on countering China shined a light on human rights abuses in the country.
Qelbinur Sidik, a member of China's ethnic Uzbek minority who was forced to teach Chinese in separate detention facilities for Uyghur men and women, told lawmakers of male Uyghur detainees held chained and shackled in cells so tiny they had to crawl out when authorities summoned them. “They were called by numbers for interrogations. And then you would hear horrible screaming sounds from torture,” she said.
Innocent female Uyghur detainees were held by the thousands, heads shaved, in gray uniforms, Sidik said. Guards tortured the women by electric shocks and by gang rape, sometimes combining both.
Reeducation camps intended to drain the Uyghur inmates of their language, religious beliefs and customs forced men and women into “11 hours of brainwashing lessons on a daily basis,” testified Gulbahar Haitiwaji, a Uyghur who spent more than two years in two reeducation camps and police stations.
“Before eating, we have to praise them, say that we are grateful ... for China's Communist Party and we are grateful for (President) Xi Jinping,” Haitiwaji said. “And after, to finish eating, we have to praise them again.”
Accused of “disorder” and detained with 30 to 40 people in a cell meant for nine, the Uyghur woman said, she and other female detainees were chained to their beds for 20 days at one point.
Detention left her gaunt. Freed and sent to France thanks to a pressure campaign by her family there in 2019, she was given more food by Chinese authorities before her release, so her appearance would not speak of her mistreatment.
In parting, Chinese officials warned Haitiwaji that “whatever I had witnessed in the concentration camp I should not talk about it,” she said. “If I do, they will retaliate against my family back home.”
The U.S. and many other governments, the United Nations, and human rights groups accuse China of sweeping a million or more people from its Uyghur community and other predominantly Muslim ethnic minority groups into detention camps, where many have said they were tortured, sexually assaulted, and forced to abandon their language and religion. China denies the accusations, which are based on evidence including interviews with survivors and photos and satellite images from Uyghur's home province of Xinjiang, a major hub for factories and farms in far western China.
The accusations also include draconian birth control policies, all-encompassing restrictions on people’s movement and forced labor.
Read more: To China’s fury, UN accuses Beijing of Uyghur rights abuses
“For a long time, some U.S. politicians have repeatedly used Xinjiang-related issues to stir up rumors and engage in political manipulation under the pretext of human rights, in an attempt to tarnish China’s image and curb China’s development,” said Liu Pengyu, a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington.
The Chinese government's actions in Xinjiang were about “countering violence, terrorism, radicalization and separatism,” the embassy spokesman insisted.
The early focus on the plight of Uyghurs by the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party is designed to show the Chinese government's true nature, said Rep. Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin, the committee's Republican chairman.
“They are the first-hand witnesses to the systemic, unimaginable brutality, witnesses to the attempted elimination of a people, a culture, a civilization,” Gallagher said Thursday.
Between 1 million to 2 million members of China’s Uyghur minority have been held in mass internment centers, said Adrian Zenz, a researcher on the Xinjiang camps at the Washington-based Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. More exact estimates are not possible, given China’s concealment, Zenz said.
Expert witnesses praised U.S. actions, including passage of a bill on forced labor and the levying of penalties on companies shown to be using the forced labor of Uyghurs. They denounced businesses and investors still profiting from suspect supply chains and possibly complicit Chinese enterprises there.
Nury Turkel, chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom and a Uyghur-American, said crimes against humanity cannot be treated merely as an area of disagreement or an irritant in a bilateral relationship. “Genocide is defined as an international crime for a reason,” Turkel said. “Confronting is not an option," it's a necessity, he said.
Chinese technology is enabling and facilitating total control and collective punishment of vulnerable populations, Turkel said.
And Naomi Kikoler, director of the Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide, which is affiliated with the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, urged the U.S. to start working with allies in a more comprehensive way to confront China on the abuses in Xinjiang.
Read more: UN cites possible crimes vs. humanity in China’s Xinjiang
“The United States alone cannot prevent these crimes,” Kikoler said. “We must work with other governments, Uyghur civil society and the private sector to develop a swift, coordinated and global strategy to protect the Uyghur community. Thus far no such strategy exists.”
The hearing comes following Chinese President Xi's trip to Russia to show support for President Vladimir Putin, underscoring just how badly U.S. relations with China have deteriorated.
“What we're seeing here is increasingly a de facto alliance against America and our allies to try and undercut our interests,” Gallagher said.
The formation of the special China committee this year was a top priority of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., but close to 150 Democrats also voted for the committee’s creation, and its work has been unusually bipartisan so far.
Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois, the ranking Democrat, said more needs to be done to protect the Uyghurs and the new committee can help lead the way. “Make no mistake, CCP leaders are absolutely listening to us closely this evening,” he said, adding: “Let's make sure the CCP hears us loud and clear. Their genocide must end.”
Haitiwaji, the ethnic Uyghur woman testifying before the committee, said she is speaking out because she feels an obligation to speak for those still languishing in detention centers. She called on lawmakers to follow the example of Canada, which has adopted a policy of accepting 10,000 Uyghur refugees from around the world.
“Please rescue Uyghur and other Turkic refugees, like Canada has done,” she said. “Please stop American companies from continuing to be complicit in surveilling our people and profiting from their labor.”
'Modi Surname' defamation case: Rahul Gandhi sentenced to 2 years in jail
A court in Gujarat's Surat today (March 23, 2023) found Indian Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi guilty, and sentenced him to two years in prison in a 2019 defamation case -- over his remarks on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's surname.
Gandhi was granted bail, however, and his sentence was suspended for 30 days to allow him to appeal the verdict, reports NDTV.
Purnesh Modi, a BJP MLA and former Gujarat minister, filed the lawsuit against Gandhi for saying, "How come all thieves have the surname Modi?"
He made the remark while speaking at a rally in Kolar, Karnataka, ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, targeting PM Modi because of his surname, which he shares with fugitive financiers Nirav Modi and Lalit Modi, said the report.
Read More: Hasina, Modi inaugurate ‘Indo-Bangla Friendship Pipeline’ to boost energy cooperation
The Congress leader quoted Mahatma Gandhi in his first response following the judgement, tweeting in Hindi, "My religion is based on truth and non-violence. Truth is my God, non-violence the means to get it."
Gandhi arrived in Surat earlier in the day for the verdict and was greeted by key Congress leaders from Gujarat.
Posters glorifying him as 'Sher-e-Hindustan' (Lion of India) and banners saying that the "Congress will not bow before the dictatorship of the BJP" were displayed at various spots all over town as a show of strength and support for him.
After his conviction, Rahul Gandhi received rare support from Delhi Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief Arvind Kejriwal, who tweeted that he "disagreed" with the judgement.
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"A conspiracy is being hatched to eliminate non-BJP leaders and parties by prosecuting them. We have differences with the Congress, but it is not right to implicate Rahul Gandhi in a defamation case like this. It is the job of the public and the opposition to ask questions. We respect the court but disagree with the decision," Kejriwal wrote.
Rahul Gandhi had last appeared in the case before the Surat court in October 2021 to record his statement.
India police seek Sikh leader, arrest separatist supporters
Indian police are searching for a separatist leader who has revived calls for an independent Sikh homeland, stirring fears of violence in northwestern Punjab state where there's a history of bloody insurgency.
Police have accused Amritpal Singh, a 30-year-old preacher, and his aides of creating discord in the state, which is haunted by the memories of an armed insurgency in the 1980s for an independent Sikh state called Khalistan. The insurgency had prompted a controversial military operation by the Indian government that killed thousands of people, according to official estimates.
Authorities have deployed thousands of paramilitary soldiers to the state and suspended mobile internet services in some areas to prevent unrest, Sukhchain Singh Gill, the inspector general of police for Punjab, said Wednesday. He said police have so far arrested 154 supporters of Singh and seized 10 guns and ammunition.
Singh has been on the run since the search for him began on Saturday.
Singh, who has said he supports the Khalistan movement, captured national attention in February when hundreds of his supporters stormed a police station in Punjab with swords and guns to demand the release of a jailed aide.
Very little is known about Singh, who for years drove a truck in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. He emerged in 2022 in Punjab and began leading marches calling for protecting rights of Sikhs who account for about 1.7% of India's population.
His speeches have become increasingly popular among supporters of the Khalistan movement, which is banned in India. Officials see it and affiliated groups as a national security threat. Even though the movement has waned over the years, it still has some support in Punjab and beyond — including in countries like Canada and the United Kingdom, which are home to a sizable Sikh diaspora.
On Sunday, supporters of the movement pulled down the Indian flag at the country's high commission in London and smashed the building's window in a show of anger against the move to arrest Singh. India's foreign ministry denounced the incident and summoned the U.K.'s deputy high commissioner in New Delhi to protest what it called the breach of security at the embassy in London.
On Wednesday, police removed temporary security barricades outside the British High Commission in New Delhi, news agency Press Trust of India reported. There was no immediate comment from the police or the government whether it was in retaliation to the incident in London.
The supporters of the Khalistan movement also vandalized the Indian Consulate in San Francisco on Monday.
Singh claims to draw inspiration from Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, a Sikh militant leader accused by the Indian government of leading an armed insurgency for Khalistan. Bhindranwale and his supporters were killed in 1984 when the Indian army stormed the Golden Temple, the holiest shrine in the Sikh religion.
Singh also heads Waris Punjab De, or Punjab's Heirs, an organization that was part of a massive campaign to mobilize farmers against controversial agriculture reforms being pushed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government. The legislation triggered a year of protests that began in 2020, as farmers — most of them Sikhs from Punjab state — camped on the outskirts of New Delhi through a harsh winter and devastating coronavirus surge. The protests ended after Modi's government withdrew the legislation in November 2021.
Waris Punjab De was founded by Deep Sidhu, an Indian actor who died in 2022 in a traffic accident.