https://www.voacambodia.com VOA Khmer: Your source for reliable news and expert analysis of news and current affairs in Cambodia and the world. https://www.voacambodia.com/Content/responsive/VOA/en-KH/img/logo.png https://www.voacambodia.com en 2020 - VOA 60 Wed, 02 Sep 2020 08:15:33 +0700 Pangea CMS – VOA The United States is adjusting its Taiwan policy and declassifying cables on Taiwan arms sales as China ramps up pressures on Taipei.  A senior State Department official said Monday the latest U.S. moves were not a policy shift, but part of a set of "significant adjustments" within Washington's longstanding one-China policy.  "The U.S. has long had a one-China policy. This is distinct from Beijing's 'One China Principle' under which the Chinese Communist Party asserts sovereignty over Taiwan. The U.S. takes no position on sovereignty over Taiwan," said U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs David Stilwell in his virtual remarks Monday to the Heritage Foundation.    Taiwan said it would continue to strengthen its defense capabilities, thanking the U.S. for its firm commitment to Taiwan's security. In Beijing, Chinese officials urged the U.S. to stop elevating relations with Taiwan. The U.S. and Taiwan are starting a new bilateral economic dialogue after Taiwan announced last week plans to remove restrictions on American pork and beef imports.  The U.S. also declassified two sets of diplomatic communications called cables from 1982 on Taiwan arms sales, and on Washington's Six Assurances to Taiwan, which was seen as a loosely-kept secret. China strongly objects to the U.S. arms sale to Taiwan.  "It is important to review history like this because Beijing has a habit of distorting it," said Stilwell.  The directive of one of the cables indicates that the chief concern of the United States was maintaining peace across the Taiwan Strait. Therefore, the cable said the quantity and quality of arms provided to Taiwan would be conditioned entirely on the threat posed by China. The memo ends by offering "this final assurance: U.S. arms sales to Taiwan will continue," said American Institute in Taiwan.  Under the Six Assurances offered by former U.S. President Ronald Reagan's administration, the U.S. did not agree to prior consultation with Beijing on arms sales to Taiwan, nor did it agree to take any position regarding sovereignty over Taiwan. The U.S. also promised it will never pressure Taiwan to negotiate with Beijing.  Experts said that even though the United States is not setting new precedents in its relationship with Taiwan, the reassurances communicated by declassifying the 1982 cables seem new.  "They rarely mentioned the Six Assurances publicly," said Bonnie Glaser, director of the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "So this is an effort to elevate their importance."  Glaser told VOA on Tuesday that "declassifying the Six Assurances provides an opportunity for the U.S. to highlight its commitment to Taiwan and show it is a reliable partner." South China Sea  Monday, a U.S. destroyer transited through the sensitive Taiwan Strait after Beijing fired missiles into the disputed waters of the South China Sea last week.  China Launches 4 Missiles into South China Sea U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper calls out China's 'rule-breaking,' and vows to protect Pacific norms   Taiwan's Defense Ministry confirmed the operation by the U.S. Navy warship. While the U.S. navy warship was said to be on an "ordinary mission" and the situation was "normal", the transit — the second such operation in two weeks — is seen as sending messages amid rising tensions between the U.S. and China.  Taiwan, with its 23 million people, is currently the ninth largest trade partner of the U.S. In 2019, Taiwan was the seventh largest U.S. agriculture export market by value. It ranks as a top-10 market for U.S. soybeans, corn, beef, wheat, fruit, poultry, and processed foods.  Taiwan's Foreign Ministry said in a statement Monday that Taiwan will fulfill its responsibilities as a regional member, and continue to strengthen its self-defense capabilities and security partnership with the U.S. to ensure peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.  Message from China Tuesday in Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said nobody should underestimate China's resolve to defend its sovereignty.  "What the U.S. should abide by is the one-China principle and the provisions of the three China-U.S. joint communiques, instead of the Taiwan Relations Act or the Six Assurances," said Hua Chunying at a news briefing.   The U.S. sees Taiwan as part of a network of Asian democracies, calling Taiwan "a democratic success story and a force for good in the world." Informal Taiwan-U.S. ties have improved under U.S. President Donald Trump.  The United States switched diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China in 1979, but U.S. presidents are bound by law to supply it with arms and come to its defense.    https://www.voacambodia.com/a/5566632.html https://www.voacambodia.com/a/5566632.html Wed, 02 Sep 2020 01:54:54 +0700 Southeast Asiakhmerservicevoa@gmail.com (Nike Ching) The Australian government says it has been in contact with an Australian television journalist who has been detained in China since mid-August.   The Foreign Ministry said Monday it was notified by Chinese officials on August 14 that Cheng Lei had been detained.  The ministry said it conducted a virtual consular visit last Thursday with Cheng, who is being held at a detention facility.   The ministry says it does not know why Cheng is under detention. Australian news outlets say she is being held under a form of detention called “residential surveillance at a designated location” which means she could be held for several months.   Cheng anchors a business show on CGTN, the English-language channel of China’s state-owned CCTV, but videos of her work have been removed from the channel's website and social media.     Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne says Canberra will continue to seek information on Cheng’s detention, which comes amid an increasingly bitter rift between the two regional neighbors.  Beijing has imposed heavy tariffs and restrictions on Australian agricultural imports in apparent retaliation for Australia’s push for an independent probe into the origins of the novel coronavirus pandemic, which was first detected last year in the central Chinese city of Wuhan.   https://www.voacambodia.com/a/5566442.html https://www.voacambodia.com/a/5566442.html Tue, 01 Sep 2020 23:38:20 +0700 Southeast Asiakhmerservicevoa@gmail.com (VOA News) The head of the Czech Republic’s Senate has openly offered support for an independent and democratic Taiwan during a visit to the self-ruled island, triggering an angry backlash from China, which was already furious about his visit.      During an address before Taiwan’s parliament Tuesday, Milos Vystrcil invoked the late U.S. President John F. Kennedy’s famous 1963 speech in then-West Berlin, Germany, which had become a major flashpoint of the Cold War between the United States and the Communist-run Soviet Union after East Berlin - the capital of Communist East Germany -  was sealed off from the western world by the Soviets.      Using Kennedy’s now-legendary phrase “Ich bin ein Berliner,” in translation “I am a Berliner,” as an example of support of freedom and democracy, Vystrcil received a standing ovation in the legislative chamber, when he said in Mandarin Chinese that “I am a Taiwanese.”   Vystrcil’s speech, delivered two days after he arrived as part of a high-level delegation to promote diplomatic and economic ties with Taiwan, drew anger from Beijing, which considers the island a breakaway province and has worked to isolate it from the international community.   Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying denounced Vystrcil's speech, saying the Czech lawmaker was openly supporting Taiwan’s “separatist forces” and interfering in China’s internal affairs.         The Czech politician had already incurred Beijing’s wrath before his speech Tuesday.  Foreign Minister Wang Yi declared Monday that Vystrcil would “pay a heavy price for his short-sighted behavior and political speculation.”   Although Vystrcil’s trip was not officially sanctioned by Prague, the Czech Foreign Ministry summoned China’s ambassador to protest Wang’s remarks.    China and Taiwan split after the 1949 civil war, when Mao Zedong’s Communist forces drove Chaing Kai-shek’s Nationalist forces off the mainland to settle on the island. Beijing has vowed to bring the island under its control by any means necessary, including military invasion.      https://www.voacambodia.com/a/5566439.html https://www.voacambodia.com/a/5566439.html Tue, 01 Sep 2020 23:37:27 +0700 Southeast Asiakhmerservicevoa@gmail.com (VOA News) Australian officials say they have spoken with a high-profile Australian television news anchor who has been detained in China. Cheng Lei, an Australian citizen, has worked for the Chinese government's English news service, CGTN.  Cheng’s detention in Bejing is seen as another blow to already fragile Australia-China relations.    Cheng Lei is being held under what is known in China as “residential surveillance at a designated location.”  The TV presenter has not been charged but she can be detained for up to six months without access to a lawyer.    Cheng has worked as an on-air anchor and reporter for the China Global Television Network, or CGTN, for the past eight years. Videos featuring the high-profile journalist have been removed from the channel’s online platforms and social media pages.  Australia was officially notified of her arrest in the middle of August.    A statement from Foreign Minister Marise Payne in Canberra said diplomats were allowed to speak to her last week via video link.  Trade Minister Simon Birmingham says the government will do what it can to help her.  “I feel for her family very much at this point in time, and it is why we will do what we can to assist her as we would and have any Australian in these sorts of circumstances.  There is a long history of different consular cases and points of difficulty that we have seen over the years.  So, we should not see this as a first, or a one-off.  It is concerning for her family and we will provide the assistance that we can,” Birmingham said. It is highly unusual for foreign journalists to be detained in China.  Friends of Cheng Lei have told Australian media that she was a “very skillful operator” who knew “where the limits on public comment” were in China’s highly monitored media.  It is unclear what she might have done to upset Chinese authorities, or break any laws.  Cheng was born in China and is an Australian citizen.  In a statement, family members in Melbourne said they were optimistic that “in China, due process will be observed and we look forward to a satisfactory and timely conclusion to the matter.”  She is the second Australian to be detained in Beijing. Writer Yang Hengjun is being investigated over alleged espionage and has been held since early 2019.  In July, Canberra updated its information for Australians traveling to China, warning they could be at risk of arbitrary detention.  Diplomatic tensions between Canberra and Beijing have also been enflamed by disputes over trade, as well as allegations of Chinese interference in Australia’s domestic politics and cyber espionage.     https://www.voacambodia.com/a/5566212.html https://www.voacambodia.com/a/5566212.html Tue, 01 Sep 2020 20:33:31 +0700 Southeast Asiakhmerservicevoa@gmail.com (Phil Mercer) After scientists determined that the coronavirus likely spread from an animal to a human, there came a flurry of statements from nations around Asia promising to ban the trafficking of animals. Now there is data to suggest that authorities, at least in Vietnam, are following through with enforcing the bans.  Among the cases of trafficked wildlife that was seized in Vietnam, the percent that led to arrests reached 97% in the first half of this year, according to Education for Nature Vietnam, an environmental organization.  From 2015 to 2019, the number had remained steady at around 87%.  Scientists believe the pandemic may have begun after human contact with an infected bat or pangolin in China.  Vietnam and other Southeast Asian nations act as a frequent conduit for illicit animal products that end up in China. In recent years police have seized pangolins, a scaly mammal that resembles armadillos, as well as endangered turtles, gibbons, and langurs in Vietnam.  'More serious' “ENV’s prosecution analysis attests to the strength of the current penal code and the elevated efforts of Vietnam’s law enforcement and criminal justice courts to take down wildlife criminals,” Bui Thi Ha, the vice director of Education for Nature Vietnam said, referring to the penal code that was revised in 2018. “Since the new law has been in force, and especially this year in 2020, evidence shows that wildlife trafficking crimes are being taken more seriously in Vietnam.” Ever since the outbreak of the coronavirus, ending wildlife trafficking has become more urgent to stop a potential source of disease, as well as any harm to wildlife, environmentalists say. Facebook has responded by taking down hundreds of posts offering illegal animals and animal parts in Southeast Asia.   In Vietnam, in addition to the increase in the arrest rate, more criminals are going to prison. Among trafficking cases that went to court, the percent that resulted in a prison sentence reached 68% this year, according to data compiled by ENV. That contrasts with 2015 to 2019, when the percentage did not go beyond 49%.  Prison Terms  “This suggests the courts are taking a much more assertive stance to wipe out wildlife crime in 2020 than in previous years,” ENV said in an analysis of 552 cases in the past five years.  It recommended that Vietnam, to fully end the trafficking, next turn its attention to the leaders of the trafficking rings, as well as the state officials who support them. The Southeast Asian nation can also focus enforcement on ports and airports, as well as on the use of money laundering, ENV said.  Vietnam says it is taking a “whole of government” approach to enforcement. Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc published a directive in July prohibiting the import and sale of wildlife products. The premier’s order assigns a task to each office, from the defense ministry increasing border patrols, to the health ministry checking that pharmacies don’t sell drugs with illegal animal parts.  The state prosecutor said in a statement it will enforce the directive by increasing investigations of transnational criminals, as well as impose “severe penalties on masterminds and leaders who abuse positions and powers to commit crimes.”  https://www.voacambodia.com/a/5566211.html https://www.voacambodia.com/a/5566211.html Tue, 01 Sep 2020 20:31:53 +0700 Southeast Asiakhmerservicevoa@gmail.com (VOA News) Facebook Inc said it would block news publishers and people in Australia from sharing news on Facebook and Instagram if a proposal to force the U.S. tech giant to pay local media outlets for content becomes law.  The Australian government said in July it would require tech giants Facebook and Alphabet Inc's Google to pay for news provided by media companies under a royalty-style system that is scheduled to become law this year.  "This is not our first choice – it is our last. But it is the only way to protect against an outcome that defies logic and will hurt, not help, the long-term vibrancy of Australia's news and media sector," Facebook Australia managing director Will Easton said in a statement published on Tuesday.  Following an inquiry into the state of the media market and the power of the U.S. platforms, the Australian government late last year told Facebook and Google to negotiate a voluntary deal with media companies to use their content.  After those negotiations failed, Australia's competition regulator drafted laws that it said would allow news businesses to negotiate for fair payment for their journalists' work.  Easton said the proposed legislation misunderstands the dynamic of the internet and will damage news organizations.  Australia's Ministry for Communications did not immediately respond to questions on Tuesday.   https://www.voacambodia.com/a/5566209.html https://www.voacambodia.com/a/5566209.html Tue, 01 Sep 2020 20:30:26 +0700 Southeast Asiakhmerservicevoa@gmail.com (Reuters) Czech Foreign Minister Tomáš Petříček Monday pushed back on his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi’s assault over the Czech Senate delegation’s visit to Taipei — signs, observers say, that suggest the tide is turning against China in Europe.  Relations between Prague and Beijing may take another plunge.  While visiting in Slovenia, Petříček tweeted that Wang’s comments toward the delegation were “over the edge,” shortly after the Chinese official warned of “a heavy price” for Czech Senate President Milos Vystrčil to pay, now that he has defied China’s objection to the visit to Taiwan.  Beijing considers Taiwan a renegade province.      “Minister Wang's statements are over the edge. Such strong words do not belong in the relations between the two sovereign countries,” Petříček tweeted, calling on China to pursue “factual, practical cooperation without emotions that do not belong in diplomacy.”    Exchanges of protests    The Czech foreign minister said he had instructed his deputy to summon China’s ambassador in Prague and expressed the Czech ministry’s “fundamental disagreement” with China’s repeated negative words toward the delegation.  Although the Czech government does not support the delegation’s visit to Taiwan, Petříček added that he has demanded an explanation from China and anticipated the delegation’s trip would have a negative impact on its relations with China.  The Czech government, led by Czech President Miloš Zeman and Prime Minister Andrej Babis, still favors closer ties to China.    But while meeting U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo in the Czech Republic in mid-August, Babis complained that the Chinese have not invested in the Czech Republic in the way he would imagine they should.   Pompeo’s warm reception was considered a warning sign to the once-promising relationship between Prague and Beijing. A heavy price to pay  According to a statement released by China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Monday, Wang described Vystrčil’s trip to Taipei as “an unendurable provocation for which there will be retribution.”    He was quoted as saying “the Chinese government and Chinese people won't take a laissez-faire attitude or sit idly by and will make him pay a heavy price for his short-sighted behavior and political opportunism,” the statement said.  In return, China’s Vice Foreign Minister Qin Gang Monday also summoned the Czech Republic's ambassador in Beijing to tell him that Vystrcil “violated China's sovereignty by openly supporting Taiwan 'independence' and splittist forces.”  Another outcry in Czech    Wang’s threats, part of China’s coercive diplomacy that backfired and failed to stop the Senate delegation’s visit to Taiwan, are expected to provoke another public outcry, said Karel Picha, a Czech who has lived in Taiwan for eight years and currently runs the only Czech cuisine restaurant in Taipei.    “I think most of the Czech people, they will respond negatively to these threats. They are probably not going to be polite,” Picha told VOA.  He said that the wounds from 30 years of occupation by communist Soviet Union are too fresh to the Czech people, who hate it more than anything else when another communist country threatens them.    Doing the right thing  Vystrčil also responded to Wang’s threat in Taipei by saying that “delegation members made the trip voluntarily, and we believe we are doing the right thing. In the short run, the outcome looks negative. But there will be long-term benefits.”  He said the Czech people know how it feels to be controlled by a big brother who will never relent.    Two analysts who spoke to VOA said China’s repeated bashing of Vystrčil can only result in soured relations, while it is also likely for China to make good on its threat.    “China is too pushy. It turns even more aggressive when other countries or companies have been willing to go along (with its one-China policy),” DPP legislator Lo Chih-cheng told VOA. “But there comes a time when people say, ‘Enough is enough.’  “China has turned into such a bully because for a long time, Western countries have put up with it,” he added, referring to Wang’s threat to punish the Czech Republic.  Worsening relations   Lo urges China to realize that any coercive move it plans to take will only backfire and worsen their relations.    Jean-Pierre Cabestan, a political science professor at Hong Kong Baptist University, agreed that China will make the Czech Republic pay. But it remains to be seen how damaging China’s sanctions will be, since the Czech economy isn’t heavily dependent upon China.    He said the Czechs are “courageous” to have made the trip to Taiwan regardless of the Chinese pressure.   “I think it kind of underscores a pushback from a number of countries in Europe which feel much more sympathy with Taiwan, a democratic country, as opposed to authoritarian China,” Cabestan told VOA by phone.  China-Europe relations are on a rocky path, as more European countries have become vocal over the situation in Hong Kong, Xinjiang and the potential flash point in Taiwan or the South China Sea, according to Cabestan.  China’s popularity in Europe has fallen in recent years and will take some time to improve, he said.  Cabestan said Wang was touring Europe because the country’s “wolfish” diplomacy has done harm to its relations with many European countries, and Wang was there to minimize the damage.  https://www.voacambodia.com/a/5566206.html https://www.voacambodia.com/a/5566206.html Tue, 01 Sep 2020 20:28:55 +0700 Southeast Asiakhmerservicevoa@gmail.com (Joyce Huang) Hong Kong’s booksellers and publishers, long known as champions of freedom of expression in the Chinese territory, are now under greater threat following the new National Security Law enacted in July. Now, booksellers could run afoul of laws that carry strict punishments for vague offenses such as “separating the country” and “subverting state power.” Hillway Press, an independent publishing house in Hong Kong, has been mainly publishing online novels and textbooks. After last year's anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill movement, it began publishing books on social issues. The publisher said authorities are looking for an excuse to publicly punish someone as an example to others. "The printing house has received the information that politicians are looking for publishers of political books to kill the chickens to scare the monkeys,” said a Hillway Press executive who requested anonymity and is referred to as Mr. C. He said the chilling effect had appeared long before the adoption of the national security law. The company’s latest publication, “To Freedom,” which included articles about the anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill movement, was rejected by six printing houses. The book’s planning and drafting began in April. When the draft was finished at the end of May, China's Communist Party put the Hong Kong version of the national security law on the National People’s Congress Standing Committee's agenda. A long-term printing house partner of the publishing house suddenly changed its mind and declined to print the book because of the sensitive content. Hillway Press had to have the book printed and bound at different companies so it could be published. "To Freedom" contains many words that criticize the Communist Party of China. To protect interviewees and business partners, the publishing house deleted the sensitive content. "Liberate" has been changed to “free” and “reconstruct." "Anti-CCP" has been taken out. Paragraphs discussing "Hong Kong independence" have been deleted, and illustrations with the words "Liberate Hong Kong" on the cover have been reduced in transparency. "I am deeply saddened by this self-castration,” said Mr. C. "Under the new legal framework, the publishing industry's biggest concern is where the red line is.” The blurry legal definition leads to white terror, which leads to fewer social issues that can be explored and, as a result, fewer books that can be published. Mr. C expects Hong Kong's publishing industry to shrink. "The most frightening thing about the national security law is that there have been no official and clear instructions as to which words and subject matters can be published and which cannot be mentioned. Under such circumstances, we are actually very worried that we will break the law by accident,” he said. On the fourth day of the legislation becoming law, the Hong Kong Public Library immediately took at least nine political books off its shelves, including the works of Chen Yun, a scholar, Joshua Wong, an activist, and Tanya Chan, a Legislative Council member. "All along, what best reflected freedom of speech in Hong Kong is our freedom of the press,” said Mr. C. “For a long time, Hong Kong was a place where a hundred flowers bloomed, a hundred schools of thought contended. The books that are banned in Taiwan and mainland China could be bought in Hong Kong. With the national security law, some subjects can no longer be discussed, and some words will not be able to get published.” Hong Kong Reader Bookstore is an independent bookstore that sells books on humanities and social sciences, with political books accounting for about 30% of the bookstore's sales. Daniel Lee, the store’s director, also said the terrible thing about the national security law was the blurring of the redlines. "The usual practice in Hong Kong is that as long as the government does not specify what is illegal, we can do it. However, it has always been the practice in the mainland that you do not know that you have broken the law until the moment you are arrested.” Lee pointed out that there was no clear list of which titles would be officially banned from sale, causing problems for bookstores. "Maybe until one day when the national security police suddenly show up at the bookstore, we won’t know that a book is forbidden. But we will have already broken the law by accident." Lee said that when he opened the bookstore, he only wanted to promote Hong Kong's reading culture and never thought that selling books would become a political mission. "We didn't choose to be on the front line of freedom of speech,” he said. "But in the end, freedom of expression in Hong Kong is endangered, and as bookstores, we have become the reluctant center of this matter.” Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report. https://www.voacambodia.com/a/5566203.html https://www.voacambodia.com/a/5566203.html Tue, 01 Sep 2020 20:21:25 +0700 Southeast Asiakhmerservicevoa@gmail.com (Stacey Hsui) The families of the nearly 300 victims of a downed Malaysia Airlines passenger plane want reparations, their lawyers said Monday, more than six years after the plane was shot down over Ukraine. All 298 passengers and crew on board MH17 were killed on July 17, 2014, when the plane was allegedly shot down by a Buk missile fired from territory in eastern Ukraine, then claimed by pro-Russia rebels. About two-thirds of the victims were Dutch. The Boeing 777 was flying to Kuala Lumpur from Amsterdam. Russians Igor Girkin, Sergey Dubinskiy and Oleg Pulatov, and Ukrainian Leonid Kharchenko, were named as suspects in 2019 after a multiyear Dutch-led international investigation. The four men are being tried for murder, though only Pulatov has legal representation in the trial. Peter Langstraat, who represents 450 relatives of the victims, said that 76 relatives wanted to make victim impact statements, and 316 said they planned to seek damages, reported Reuters. The reparations are unspecified, and the claims have not yet been filed. Lawyers representing the families asked the court to decide whether Dutch or Ukrainian law will be applied in seeking damages. "This is about individuals who were confronted six years ago with a terrible loss that continues to have an influence on their lives today," said Arlette Schijns, who also represents 450 relatives, according to The Associated Press. "The criminal trial is important for them because it will establish the facts of what happened on July 17, 2014. Who is responsible for it? What sentence they deserve," Schijns said. "In other words, it's about justice, fairness, crime and punishment." The international investigation, conducted by representatives from Australia, Belgium, Ukraine, Malaysia and the Netherlands, found that the missile used to shoot down MH17 came from Russia’s Kursk-based 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade. Russia has repeatedly denied any involvement. Prosecutors said “obstruction and disinformation” by Russian authorities adds to the pain for the victims’ relatives. "We're talking here about people of flesh and blood. In addition to the grief they face because of the loss of their dearest, they are additionally injured by Russia's attitude," Schijns told judges. The trial, which began in March, resumed in absentia of the suspects, who remain at large. Russia does not extradite its citizens. Three judges from The Hague District Court are presiding over the trial, which is being conducted at the Schiphol Judicial Complex near Amsterdam. The trial is set to continue Sept. 28.   https://www.voacambodia.com/a/5566186.html https://www.voacambodia.com/a/5566186.html Tue, 01 Sep 2020 20:16:41 +0700 Southeast Asiakhmerservicevoa@gmail.com (VOA News) High-profile COVID-19 vaccines developed in Russia and China share a potential shortcoming: They are based on a common cold virus that many people have been exposed to, potentially limiting their effectiveness, some experts say.  CanSino Biologics' vaccine, approved for military use in China, is a modified form of adenovirus type 5, or Ad5. The company is in talks to get emergency approval in several countries before completing large-scale trials, the Wall Street Journal reported last week.  A vaccine developed by Moscow's Gamaleya Institute, approved in Russia earlier this month despite limited testing, is based on Ad5 and a second less common adenovirus. "The Ad5 concerns me just because a lot of people have immunity," said Anna Durbin, a vaccine researcher at Johns Hopkins University. "I'm not sure what their strategy is ... maybe it won't have 70% efficacy. It might have 40% efficacy, and that's better than nothing, until something else comes along."  Vaccines are seen as essential to ending the pandemic that has claimed over 845,000 lives worldwide. Gamaleya has said its two-virus approach will address Ad5 immunity issues.  Both developers have years of experience and approved Ebola vaccines based on Ad5. Neither CanSino nor Gamaleya responded to requests for comment.  Researchers have experimented with Ad5-based vaccines against a variety of infections for decades, but none are widely used. They employ harmless viruses as "vectors" to ferry genes from the target virus — in this case the novel coronavirus — into human cells, prompting an immune response to fight the actual virus.  But many people already have antibodies against Ad5, which could cause the immune system to attack the vector instead of responding to the coronavirus, making these vaccines less effective. Several researchers have chosen alternative adenoviruses or delivery mechanisms. Oxford University and AstraZeneca based their COVID-19 vaccine on a chimpanzee adenovirus, avoiding the Ad5 issue. Johnson & Johnson's candidate uses Ad26, a comparatively rare strain.  Dr. Zhou Xing, from Canada's McMaster University, worked with CanSino on its first Ad5-based vaccine, for tuberculosis, in 2011. His team is developing an inhaled Ad5 COVID-19 vaccine, theorizing it could circumvent pre-existing immunity issues.  "The Oxford vaccine candidate has quite an advantage" over the injected CanSino vaccine, he said.  Xing also worries that high doses of the Ad5 vector in the CanSino vaccine could induce fever, fueling vaccine skepticism.  "I think they will get good immunity in people that don't have antibodies to the vaccine, but a lot of people do," said Dr. Hildegund Ertl, director of the Wistar Institute Vaccine Center in Philadelphia.  In China and the United States, about 40% of people have high levels of antibodies from prior Ad5 exposure. In Africa, it could be has high as 80%, experts said.  HIV risk   Some scientists also worry an Ad5-based vaccine could increase chances of contracting HIV.  In a 2004 trial of a Merck & Co Ad5-based HIV vaccine, people with pre-existing immunity became more, not less, susceptible to the virus that causes AIDS. Researchers, including top U.S. infectious diseases expert Dr. Anthony Fauci, in a 2015 paper, said the side effect was likely unique to HIV vaccines. But they cautioned that HIV incidence should be monitored during and after trials of all Ad5-based vaccines in at-risk populations.  "I would be worried about the use of those vaccines in any country or any population that was at risk of HIV, and I put our country as one of them," said Dr. Larry Corey, co-leader of the U.S. Coronavirus Vaccine Prevention Network, who was a lead researcher on the Merck trial.  Gamaleya's vaccine will be administered in two doses: The first based on Ad26, similar to J&J's candidate, and the second on Ad5.  Alexander Gintsburg, Gamaleya's director, has said the two-vector approach addresses the immunity issue. Ertl said it might work well enough in individuals who have been exposed to one of the two adenoviruses.  Many experts expressed skepticism about the Russian vaccine after the government declared its intention to give it to high-risk groups in October without data from large pivotal trials.  "Demonstrating safety and efficacy of a vaccine is very important," said Dr. Dan Barouch, a Harvard vaccine researcher who helped design J&J's COVID-19 vaccine. Often, he noted, large-scale trials "do not give the result that is expected or required."    https://www.voacambodia.com/a/5565026.html https://www.voacambodia.com/a/5565026.html Tue, 01 Sep 2020 00:01:25 +0700 Southeast Asiakhmerservicevoa@gmail.com (Reuters) Indian authorities say their troops thwarted an attempt by Chinese soldiers to change the status quo in the northern Ladakh region, where both sides have been locked in a tense standoff along their disputed Himalayan border for more than four months. China has dismissed the allegations.     An Indian army statement Monday said Chinese troops violated the previous consensus and "carried out provocative military movements” but gave no details of what appeared to be a fresh flare-up along the border.     The statement said that the incident took place Saturday and that Indian troops “preempted this PLA activity on the southern bank of Pangong Tso Lake, undertook measures to strengthen our positions and thwart Chinese intentions to unilaterally change facts on ground.”    The statement said India was committed to dialogue but was “also equally determined to protect its territorial integrity.”    In Beijing, Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told a news briefing that Chinese border troops "always strictly abide by the Line of Actual Control, and never cross the line," referring to the undemarcated border between the countries. He said both sides are in communication regarding the situation on the ground. The Line of Actual Control divides their territory. The strategic Pangong Tso Lake lies at a height of more than 4,200 meters in eastern Ladakh, a barren icy desert where both sides have deployed large contingents of troops since a faceoff in April. It is one of the main points of friction between the countries whose tensions have flared since they accused each other of violations along the Line of Actual Control.   Beijing and New Delhi have been holding military and diplomatic talks to resolve their territorial dispute but there has been little progress so far.    Tensions between the two Asian countries have spiked since mid-June, when their deadliest border clash in 50 years left 20 Indian soldiers dead in Galwan Valley, also in Ladakh. Although troops have disengaged here, they continue to confront each other at several other points such as Pangong Tso Lake.    China's Defense Ministry spokesperson, Colonel Wu Qian, said in a statement last week that “keeping in mind the big picture” of bilateral ties, India and China need to avoid “misjudgment” and take “concrete steps to bring bilateral relations back to the right track of normal development."    Indian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Anurag Srivastava told reporters on Friday that complete disengagement requires re-deployment of troops by each side towards their regular posts on their respective sides. The status of large stretches of the border region has remained unresolved since India and China fought a war in 1962. https://www.voacambodia.com/a/5565022.html https://www.voacambodia.com/a/5565022.html Tue, 01 Sep 2020 00:00:26 +0700 Southeast Asiakhmerservicevoa@gmail.com (Anjana Pasricha) China is opening another chapter in its bitter trade and diplomatic dispute with Australia with the launch of a second probe into Australia’s wine imports.  China’s commerce ministry announced Monday that it will investigate over three-dozen government subsidy programs for the Australian wine industry.  The probe will last one full year. Australian Federal Trade Minister Simon Birmingham issued a statement pushing back against Beijing’s claims, saying the government’s research and development programs equate to subsidizing the country’s wine exports.  “The government will work with our internationally renowned wine industry to mount the strongest possible case against these claims," Birmingham said.  The new probe comes nearly two weeks after the ministry said it was launching an anti-dumping investigation into Australian wine imports, alleging that winemakers have sharply cut the price of the products they were selling in China, subsequently damaging China’s domestic wine industry.  China is the leading market for Australian wine exports with over $790 million in sales last year for a 37% market share, with France a distant second at 27%.  The anti-dumping probe is the latest move in China’s apparent retaliation over Australia’s push for an independent probe into the origins of the novel coronavirus pandemic, which was first detected last year in the central Chinese city of Wuhan. Beijing has imposed heavy tariffs on Australian barley and suspended Australian beef imports, and has also advised its citizens and students to reconsider Australia as a destination for travel and education, citing racial discrimination.  China is also Australia’s largest trading partner, with two-way trade worth $170 billion last year, according to Reuters.      https://www.voacambodia.com/a/5564718.html https://www.voacambodia.com/a/5564718.html Mon, 31 Aug 2020 20:06:39 +0700 Southeast Asiakhmerservicevoa@gmail.com (VOA News) Japanese news outlets say Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga will seek to succeed Shinzo Abe as the country’s next prime minister. Suga is expected to announce sometime this week that he will seek the leadership of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. Other candidates expected to vie for the post include former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida. Under Japan’s parliamentary system, the ruling party elects the person who will become prime minister, usually the party leader. An opinion poll of the general public taken by Kyodo News shows 34% of those asked want Ishiba to become the next prime minister, with Suga a distant second at 14%. Ishiba unsuccessfully challenged Abe for LDP president in the last intraparty race in 2018. However, analysts say Suga is likely to have more support among the party’s members of parliament and could come out ahead if the voting is restricted to them and the party’s officials. A leadership vote is expected to be held on September 14. Abe unexpectedly announced his resignation last Friday a year before his current term expires, citing the recurrence of ulcerative colitis, which has plagued him for much of his life. The illness forced him to cut short his first tenure as prime minister in 2007 after just one year in office. The 65-year-old Abe just became Japan’s longest-serving prime minister last Monday, breaking the record of his great-uncle, Eisaku Sato, who served 2,798 days from 1964 to 1972.  https://www.voacambodia.com/a/5564716.html https://www.voacambodia.com/a/5564716.html Mon, 31 Aug 2020 20:05:09 +0700 Southeast Asiakhmerservicevoa@gmail.com (VOA News) Artificial intelligence that automatically detects threatening behavior at train stations is part of a new trial to improve safety for women traveling at night in Australia. The New South Wales state government says nine out of 10 Australian women have experienced harassment on the street. It asked researchers to submit ideas to improve safety as part of its Safety After Dark Innovation Challenge. Four entries have been chosen and will be tested over the next six months. One group from the University of Wollongong will develop artificial intelligence (A.I.) software that will examine real-time feeds from security cameras and alert an operator when it detects suspicious activity or an unsafe environment. The A.I. will be trained to detect people fighting, agitated behavior, individuals being followed, and arguments. The university team says the software is a world-first, and that they were “pushing the limits of the technology.” Researcher Elizabeth Muscat, who is a transport planner, is also developing algorithms that create safe routes for female travelers. “It will give women the opportunity to make better informed choices on the routes they choose,” Muscat said. “So, maybe they would choose to take a route that offers them a higher level of passive surveillance or, meaning that a lot more people will be around, or businesses will be open, lighting is improved in that location. The end product could be a mobile application where women can on their own mobile phones have an application similar to Google Maps or another route-finding app where they could be able to choose which route they want to take home.” Authorities in New South Wales, Australia’s most populous state, said the range of technology was “exciting." Research in 2018 showed that 20% of women in Sydney felt unsafe on public transport. https://www.voacambodia.com/a/5564714.html https://www.voacambodia.com/a/5564714.html Mon, 31 Aug 2020 20:03:37 +0700 Southeast Asiakhmerservicevoa@gmail.com (Phil Mercer) In defiance of China, a delegation, led by Czech Senate President Miloš Vystrčil, Sunday arrived in Taiwan on a six-day visit — the highest-level exchange between the two countries to cement economic and cultural ties. Observers, whom VOA spoke to, noted that the visit says a lot about China’s failing ‘coercive diplomacy’ in the Czech Republic although it remains to be seen if other European countries will follow suit to trigger a chain effect. The Czech Republic adheres to the One China policy but maintains unofficial ties with Taiwan. “This will be a trip to honor the spirits of late Czech President Václav Havel,” Vystrčil told the 89-member delegation ahead of the trip, according to Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Formerly a playwright, Havel was first Czech president in 1993.  He had served years in prison for his dissenting political views upholding civil activism, direct democracy and human rights — values that Vystrčil said China fails to share. Values v.s. money “My view is that if we focus on money, we will lose our values and the money, too” Vystrčil, the second-highest official in the Czech Republic, has repeatedly told media to characterize the delegation’s visit to Taipei. Upon the delegation’s arrival, Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen extended her warmest welcome by saying in a Facebook post that people in Taiwan “look forward to furthering cooperation in all areas” with the Czech delegation. By contrast, China has nothing but negative words to say about the Czech delegation and its visit to Taipei. Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Zhao Lijian Thursday described the trip as a "despicable conduct." China’s condemnation China’s state tabloid Global Times Sunday cited China’s embassy in Czech Republic to say that Vystrčil made the trip “based on his own political calculation,” which has constituted an interference to China’s internal affairs and a violation to the one-China principle. China’s objection, however, failed to renovate with the general public in the Czech Republic. “In my opinion, I think he [Vystrčil] wants to send a very strong message to China that Czech Republic is a free and democratic country and we don’t like any country, no matter it’s China or some small countries to tell us what we should do,” said Karel Picha, a Czech who has lived in Taiwan for eight years and currently runs the only Czech cuisine restaurant in Taipei. “We don’t like any country to blackmail us by [saying], hey, if you’re gonna go to Taiwan, it will hurt you. So, it’s a very strong statement to say that everything is not only about money,” he told VOA, adding that most people in the CzechRepublic are aware of and support the visit. China’s failing coercive diplomacy China’s objections to the trip appeared to have backfired after the Czech Senate, in May, voted 50 to 1 in favor of Vystrčil’s diplomatic visit to Taipei. The vote came after the sudden death of Vystrčil’s processor Jaroslav Kubera in late January, whose widow later accused China of coercing the late senator and threatening in a letter to retaliate against leading Czech companies if he were to make good on his planned visit to Taiwan. Last Tuesday, 70 leaders from the European Parliament, U.S., Canada, and Australia issued a statement backing the Czech delegation’s visit to Taipei and denouncing Chinese pressure to scuttle the trip. Triggering a chain reaction? But two professors in Taipei said that they are skeptical if politicians in other European countries will follow suit to trigger a chain effect, which they say will be a bigger headache to China. “China isn’t really intimidated by the Czech [delegation] as the Central European country is small. What worries China more is if politicians [across the Europe] will follow suit. A possible chain effect is what concerns China the most,” said Cheng Ter-hsing, deputy executive at the Soochow University’s Teaching and Research Center for Central and Eastern Europe in Taipei. The professor said he didn’t except many of Czech’s neighboring countries to make a similar move as daring. Like many governments in the Central and Eastern Europe, the Czech government, led by Czech President Miloš Zeman and Prime Minister Andrej Babis, still favors closer ties with China, Cheng said. Official statistics showed that bilateral trade between China and the Czech Republic stood at nearly $30 billion in 2019, more than triple of those between Taiwan and Czech. Highest-level diplomatic exchange China’s relations with major European countries mainly Germany and Britian also look stable although Taiwan has now made a “diplomatic breakthrough” in the Czech Republic, said Shih Cheng-feng, a professor at National Dong Hwa University in Hualien of eastern Taiwan. It hence remains to be seen whether the Czech delegation’s visit to Taipei amplifies the overall anti-China sentiments in Europe or just the standoff in the Czech Republic between political parties with a different stance toward China, both Shih and Cheng said. The Czech delegation is comprised of senators, politicians, including Prague Mayor Zdeněk Hřib, business leaders from some 40 Czech companies, scientists and media. In the upcoming days, Vystrčil, accompanied by his delegation, is slated to attend a Taiwan-Czech investment forum on Monday and give a public speech to Taiwan’s Parliament on Tuesday while making site visits in groups to several local companies in the high-tech, textile, biomedical industries. Vystrčil and delegation members are also scheduled to meet with President Tsai on Thursday before wrapping up their last day on Friday in a forum, organized by American Institute in Taipei, to discuss shifting global supply chains.   https://www.voacambodia.com/a/5564709.html https://www.voacambodia.com/a/5564709.html Mon, 31 Aug 2020 20:02:33 +0700 Southeast Asiakhmerservicevoa@gmail.com (Joyce Huang) A coronavirus deal signed by Australia with an international drug company is raising ethical concerns among prominent church leaders. Australia has signed a deal with the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca to produce and distribute a vaccine being developed by Britain's Oxford University... if the treatment works. But three of Australia's most senior archbishops have written to Prime Minister Scott Morrison urging him to reconsider the agreement, saying the use of "fetal tissue” in the research is “deeply immoral.” “To use that tissue then for science is reprehensible,” said Glenn Davies, Anglican Archbishop of Sydney. “Once I know something that is morally compromised, it is my job to speak out about it.” The Oxford University study uses embryonic kidney cells harvested from a female fetus in the Netherlands in 1973. Dr. Nick Coatsworth, Australia’s deputy chief medical officer, says the work adheres to strict guidelines. “There are strong ethical regulations surrounding the use of any human cell, and this is a very professional, highly-powered research unit,” he said. Other vaccines in Australia use genetic material that originally came from a human fetus. They include inoculations against rubella, hepatitis A and rabies. Senior religious leaders have not explicitly called for a boycott of the potential Oxford University COVID-19 drug. But they have said that members of their congregations might consider their “individual conscience.” Experts have stressed that any successful vaccine for coronavirus developed using fetal cells would have no remnants of that genetic material in the final product.    https://www.voacambodia.com/a/5564707.html https://www.voacambodia.com/a/5564707.html Mon, 31 Aug 2020 20:01:24 +0700 Southeast Asiakhmerservicevoa@gmail.com (Phil Mercer) Dozens of people in Washington and New York City took to the streets Friday afternoon, calling on the U.S. government, the United Nations and countries around the world to do more than condemn the violence against Uighurs, and recognize China’s policies in the northwest region of Xinjiang as a genocide.   The demonstrations came as the ethno-religious minority members mark four years since China stepped up its campaign in Xinjiang, and amid reports that the U.S. government is weighing labeling Beijing’s actions as genocide.   “Tomorrow, August 29, marks the fourth anniversary of Chen Quanguo’s transfer from Tibet to East Turkistan, [the] so-called Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region’s Chinese Communist Party (CCP) chief who was the mastermind behind the building of concentration camps, prisons, Uighur forced labor and high-tech surveillance, the police state as we know it today,” Salih Hudayar, the founder of the Washington-based Uighur organization East Turkistan National Awakening Movement, told VOA.   Since late 2016, when Chen was appointed as the CCP secretary of Xinjiang, observers estimate that more than 1 million Uighurs have been held in concentration camps while tens of thousands of others have been forced to work in factories around China. Some watchdog groups, among them Human Rights Watch and the Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP), a D.C.-based rights group, have also accused Beijing of forcing Uighur women to get abortions and be sterilized.   “We want both the U.S. government and U.N. to recognize the atrocities as genocide and call on the international community and governments in many countries to break their silence and stand up against China,” said Hudayar, who organized the gatherings in front of U.S. State Department in Washington and the U.N. headquarters in New York.   In July, the U.S. blacklisted, among others, Chen for “serious human rights abuses” against the Turkic Muslim minorities in Xinjiang.    China initially denied accusations of mass incarceration of Uighurs in detention camps but later said the complexes are reeducation facilities aimed at training people who were “infected by religious extremism.” Last December, Xinjiang’s top official claimed that all detainees “graduated” from “vocational training centers.”  Calling the U.S. sanctions against him an “ugly farce and disgusting,” Chen has justified his government’s policies in Xinjiang as a way to establish stability.   "No force can interfere with or stop the stability, development and prosperity of Xinjiang and the solidarity of people of all ethnic groups in the region to march forward. I am full of confidence in a brighter future of Xinjiang," Chinese state media Xinhua quoted him as saying July 21.    Members of the Uighur diaspora who demonstrated in Washington and New York on Friday told VOA that they still have no way of contacting their family members stranded in Xinjiang, given China’s policy of cutting off the region’s communication to the outside world. Many of the protesters held pictures of their relatives, who they said were taken into concentration camps, and chanted slogans like “China stop Uighur genocide” and “Independence for East Turkistan.”   Many Uighurs call their ancestral homeland East Turkistan, an appellation for the present-day Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, with Urumqi as its capital.   One of the protesters in Washington, Aziz Sulayman, 49, told VOA that his 33-year-old brother Alim Sulayman, 47-year-old brother-in-law Yehya Kurban and 31-year-old cousin Ekram Yarmuhammed were all taken by Chinese authorities in the second half of 2016 and have not been seen since.    “My brother was a dentist, my brother-in-law was a businessman, and my cousin was a graduate from a medical school. They didn’t need any vocational training or reeducation as China lied to the world,” Sulayman said, adding that his communication with his mother and five sisters has also been cut off since late 2016. “I don’t know whether my entire family is still alive or dead. We are here to show the world that what the CCP is committing in our homeland against our loved ones meets the criteria of U.N. Genocide Convention," Sulayman told VOA.   The U.N. defines genocide as any of several acts “committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group,” according the U.N. website that lists the acts.  U.S officials in the past have criticized the CCP treatment of Uighurs in strongly worded statements. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has called it the “stain of the century” and condemned it as "a human rights violation on a scale we have not seen since World War II." https://www.voacambodia.com/a/5564704.html https://www.voacambodia.com/a/5564704.html Mon, 31 Aug 2020 20:00:17 +0700 Southeast Asiakhmerservicevoa@gmail.com (Asim Kashgarian) Earlier this month, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) issued its first penalty for goods made with forced labor under the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015. The agency levied a fine of $575,000 against the Chinese entity PureCircle, a company accused of using prison inmates in China to produce the food sweetener stevia.     The fine against PureCircle is one of a series of actions over forced labor taken up by CBP in the past year. Since September 2019, the agency has issued 11 moratoriums on the importation of forced labor products into the United States, four of which were directed at Chinese companies.   “As part of its trade enforcement responsibilities, CBP is dedicated to vigilantly monitoring U.S.-bound supply chains for links to forced labor, including prison labor, and will act to deter and disrupt the importation of merchandise made with forced labor practices,” Brenda Smith, executive assistant commissioner of CBP’s Office of Trade said in a statement.   She continued, “The use of forced labor is not just a serious human rights issue, but it also brings about unfair competition in our global supply chains. CBP’s goal is to ensure that goods made by forced labor never reach U.S. consumers.”   So far this year, U.S. law enforcement authorities have stepped up scrutiny of a range of products from China suspected of being manufactured through forced labor.   “We've had a very active year this year in terms of issuing withhold release orders,” Smith told VOA.   In just the past few months, CBP has targeted several Chinese companies for allegedly selling products made with forced labor to American consumers.     Lenovo also targeted On Monday the Associated Press reported that the U.S. Commerce Department has imposed sanctions on Lenovo, a Chinese manufacturer that supplies laptops to U.S. public schools, due to its alleged use of forced labor.   On August 11, CBP issued a moratorium on all U.S. ports of entry for imports from the Hero Vast Group, a Chinese clothing company.   On 1 July, CBP officials at the port of Newark detained a shipment of products and accessories suspected of being manufactured with human hair from Xinjiang, China, indicating a possible violation of human rights under forced labor and imprisonment. On June 17, CBP issued a moratorium on the release of all U.S. ports of entry for the detention of all or part of imported goods made from products produced by Lop County Meixin Hair Product Co. Ltd. (Meixin) in Xinjiang, China.   The official at CBP told VOA that each case is based on a “reasonable suspicion” of the use of forced labor.     “So essentially what that means is that when goods arrive at a port of entry and we have identified that they are likely to have been produced using forced labor,” Smith added.   'Proving' products are free from forced labor   Li Qiang, executive director of China Labor Watch in New York, told VOA that CBP’s "reasonable suspicion" policy is to identify and withhold goods first.  “As long as your company's products come in, I'll have to detain you first, and you'll have to provide evidence that you're not using forced labor," Li said.   Li said that this places a heavy burden on companies suspected of using forced labor – effectively assuming guilt and forcing importers to prove their innocence. "Now some multinationals must strengthen the management of their supply chains to prevent orders from flowing to places where forced labor is used."   CBP’s Smith said that, to ensure that they do not send products made through forced labor into the U.S., importers not only have to comply with the law themselves, but also keep an eye on their supply chains and make sure their supplies also comply with U.S. law.   “So our expectation is that they will be looking not only at the supplier that they buy directly from, but, for example, the supplier's supplier. So if there is a shipment of apparel garments that comes into the United States and that the importer that brings it into the United States will not only be looking at who makes that garment, but who makes the fabric or who grows the cotton that goes into the fabric,” Smith told VOA. Prison labor sweetener   PureCircle USA is a U.S.-based subsidiary of PureCircle Biotech, a joint venture between China and Malaysia based in Jiangxi, China. In 2016, an NGO accused it of importing several products made by prison inmates into the U.S., including stevia and its derivatives exported by a company in Inner Mongolia.   The CBP’s $575,000 fine against the group came four years after that initial accusation, pointing to how difficult it can be to win judgments against companies.     CBP said in a statement, “The action against PureCircle stems from an investigation into stevia produced in China by Inner Mongolia Hengzheng Group Baoanzhao Agricultural and Trade LLC (“Baoanzhao”) that CBP initiated after receiving an allegation from a Non-Governmental Organization. That investigation led CBP to issue a Withhold Release Order (WRO) in May 2016. The WRO remains in effect.”   PureCircle USA has denied importing products made by forced labor before 2016, saying that it agreed to a penalty amounting to only 7% of the amount originally proposed by CBP in a settlement with CBP to avoid “extensive litigation requiring travel to China during the COVID-19 pandemic.”   Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.   https://www.voacambodia.com/a/5564702.html https://www.voacambodia.com/a/5564702.html Mon, 31 Aug 2020 19:58:34 +0700 Southeast Asiakhmerservicevoa@gmail.com (Rong Shi) A maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) center for Taiwan’s fleet of F-16 fighter jets has officially opened on the island amid growing tensions between Taiwan and China. Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen on Friday inaugurated the facility, which is the first of its kind in the Indo-Pacific region. It is part of a strategic alliance between Taiwan aircraft manufacturer Aerospace Industrial Development Corporation, AIDC, and U.S. defense contractor Lockheed Martin. Taiwan will boast the largest fleet of advanced F-16 fighter jets in Asia after its procurement of 66 F-16V additional jets from Lockheed Martin, slated for delivery by 2026 – a deal that will take the island’s fleet to more than 200 aircraft.  There was no immediate comment from the company. No groveling to China Inaugurating the F-16 MRO center, President Tsai said its establishment will help boost the island’s air force combat capabilities and beef up its defense autonomy while marking a milestone for developing indigenous defense industries to go global. “It takes strengthened defense capabilities, not groveling [to China], to defend Taiwan’s sovereignty and maintain regional peace and stability,” she said at the ceremony. “With the center in place, the time needed for jet maintenance will be greatly curtailed and mission-capable rates will be boosted significantly to ensure [Taiwan’s] air superiority at the front line,” she added. According to Tsai, AIDC will join with local vendors, to be certified by Lockheed Martin, to sustain the facility’s operation. That is estimated to create more than 600 jobs each year and herald an output value of $271 million over the next three decades, according to Tsai. Deepening military collaboration Two analysts, who spoke with VOA said the facility, unveiled amid escalating cross-strait tensions, takes the U.S.-Taiwan military collaboration and mutual trust to another level even as China last month said it would sanction Lockheed Martin for involvement in arms sales to Taiwan. It is also expected to bring in economic benefits to the local aerospace industry, which has been badly hit by the coronavirus pandemic since early this year, they added. “On the political and diplomatic front, the facility, authorized by Lockheed Martin of the U.S., showcases the level of mutual trust between Washington and Taipei,” Su Tzu-yun, an analyst at the government-funded Institute for National Defense and Security Research, told VOA. Su said that in the next few years, the center will focus on servicing the island’s fleet of more than 200 F-16 jets, which he said is already a lucrative deal. Saving maintenance costs According to Su, an F-16 fighter jet averages a life cycle of 40 years and, during its years in service, an additional 30% cost will be incurred for maintenance and repair work. With a repair site at home, two-fifths of that cost can be saved in addition to time spent, he estimated. Looking ahead, Su said that domestic vendors, which are certified to work with the center, should aim higher to tap into the defense contractor’s global supply chain to help support its 3,400 F-16s in service worldwide. Or, he said, the center should next grow into a regional hub for Lockheed Martin to service all F-16 fleets in the Indo-Pacific region, which currently total 470 jets in service. He said the chance for pro-Beijing countries such as Pakistan or Thailand to fly their F-16 fleets to Taiwan for repair work will be slim. All those niches, however, will present a number of commercial opportunities for the domestic industry, Su added. Industrial upgrade Tung Wan, professor of aerospace engineer at TamKang University, said he believes that with the help of Lockheed Martin, the island’s aerospace sector will be given an opportunity to upgrade itself. “If [the sector] can transcend itself from being engaged in [the center’s] maintenance work to [next] becoming a supplier of components [for the jets], its overall output value, competitiveness and integration with global practices will be greatly enhanced,” the professor told VOA. “This will be the kind of opportunity we welcome the most even if [a small percentage of the jet’s] components can be made [and supplied] by Taiwan,” he said, adding that a fighter jet has more than 100,000 types of components. The professor said that the domestic aerospace industry, which is already qualified to support the operation of commercial airplanes, had had some experience repairing military aircraft or developing an indigenous fighter jet of its own. The professor, who formerly chaired the city of Tainan-based Air Asia Co., noted that, during the Vietnam War, the U.S. often flew its fighter jets to Air Asia, the island’s first aircraft maintenance company, for MRO work. Hence, it will also be in the U.S. interest to outsource its maintenance work or parts of its jet supply chain to Taiwan, where labor and cost are lower, he said. Military officials and some politicians in Taiwan say they expect the latest development to further strengthen U.S. involvement in the island's buildup of air defense in fending off any Chinese attack. China regards Taiwan as a renegade province that belongs under its control. China has conducted numerous sea and air exercises near Taiwan in recent years and has been angered over U.S. naval exercises near the island and the Trump administration’s strong support for Taipei. Du Wenlong, a military commentator on China Central Television, or CCTV, told the Chinese state-run broadcaster on Friday that Taiwan is buying up the United States for its protection. He urged Taiwan not to "throw good money after bad," calling Taiwan a "fool" in procuring weapons sales from the U.S.  Li Li, an associate professor from China’s PLA National Defense University, also told CCTV that "the U.S. has taken an even more dangerous step toward bolstering the military development and buildup in Taiwan." She was referring to both the creation of the F-16 MRO hub and the U.S. approval of the 66 advanced F-16V fighter jets to Taiwan. https://www.voacambodia.com/a/5564697.html https://www.voacambodia.com/a/5564697.html Mon, 31 Aug 2020 19:56:03 +0700 Southeast Asiakhmerservicevoa@gmail.com (Joyce Huang) A Twitter hashtag that surfaced in April as a clapback against Chinese nationalist attacks on a Thai celebrity for a perceived insult to Beijing is growing into a pan-Asian political movement. Named after drinks associated with places struggling against increasingly authoritarian impulses — Hong Kong's milky black tea, Taiwan's bubble tea and Thailand's iced tea — the cyber-based Milk Tea Alliance, made up of like-minded netizens primarily from those regions, is beginning to gain traction in the real world. While the group has endorsed myriad online campaigns, from Mekong River damming to censorship and the erosion of civil rights in Hong Kong, some observers say recent street demonstrations of historic proportions in Thailand are proof that online activism can translate into real-world action. “At its heart, it united online proponents of civil liberties and self-determination, so it only makes sense that the alliance’s fire would turn not just on China but on authoritarians at home in Thailand,” said Gregory B. Poling, senior fellow for Southeast Asia and director of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at  the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “As with most things that catch fire online, the #MilkTeaAlliance hashtag resonates because it is both clever and serves as a stand-in for the shared identity of a large community," he told VOA. "It was a tongue-in-cheek way for online communities in Thailand, Taiwan and Hong Kong to hit back at heavy-handed attempts by Chinese diplomats and netizens to censor online speech.” Recent anti-government rallies in Bangkok saw demonstrators toting "#MilkTeaAlliance" signs alongside Thai national flags, the World Taiwanese Congress flags and Black Bauhinia flags used by pro-democracy demonstrators in Hong Kong. Same 'opposition' Milk Tea Alliance supporters from various countries showed support for dissolution of Thailand’s parliament, along with various constitutional amendments, by converging on the streets of Taiwan's capital, Taipei. “[In] almost all the issues that we used the hashtag for, we have the same — not enemy, but opposition, which is China, and the dictatorship that is going on in Asia,” said Thachaporn Supparatanapinyo, a Taipei-based Thai national who studies in Taiwan. Supparatanapinyo, who spoke at the Taipei rally in solidarity with pro-democracy movements in Thailand and Hong Kong, is associated with the nonprofit Taiwan Alliance for Thailand Democracy, which organized the event. “This is the first physical expression of the Milk Tea Alliance,” Thai student Akrawat Siripattanachok, 27, told Reuters. “We don’t want to just talk about it online. We want a pan-Asian alliance for democracy.” According to Reuters, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian was dismissive of the group's political significance. “People who are pro-Hong Kong independence or pro-Taiwan independence often collude online. This is nothing new," he was quoted as telling Reuters. "Their conspiracy will never succeed.” Unlikely origins Founded on Twitter in April, the #MilkTeaAlliance hashtag was first used in response to Chinese microbloggers who trolled Thai celebrity Vachirawit "Bright" Chivaaree for retweeting a set of images that identified Hong Kong as a country. In response, netizens in Thailand, Hong Kong and other places began using the hashtag to show their regional breadth and numbers. Taiwan-based Singaporean activist Roy Ngerng said the group's jovial take on serious topics and casual approach to creating online content resonates with young, savvy social media users across the region. Humor 'very powerful' “Humor is a very powerful tool that has been used to delegitimize our authoritarian regimes," Ngerng, a U.N.-recognized human rights defender, told VOA by email. "We are able to laugh off their threat, thereby weakening their perceived sense of strength for oppression.” What started as a lighthearted and quirky reference to a shared affection for tea has snowballed into a political force that can leverage specific issues. One recent campaign: China’s upstream damming of the Mekong River. With water levels in the lower Mekong basin at record lows, the Mekong River Commission recently issued two reports indicating China's damming of the Lancang tributary is exacerbating ecological imbalances, reducing household fishing hauls and imperiling a critical food source for tens of millions of people across Southeast Asia. James Buchanan, a City University of Hong Kong doctoral candidate, told VOA: "Issues like the dams on Mekong River show an uneasiness with China's more expansive and assertive role in the region, where it is sometimes perceived as bullying its smaller neighbors. In fact, that's increasingly becoming China's image globally." “The Mekong River is one of the most obvious issues on which China disregards the interests of its neighbors and uses disinformation and nontransparency to hide its actions," said Poling of CSIS. "It is almost tailor-made to outrage those in Thailand, and their like-minded peers abroad, who identify with the #MilkTeaAlliance community.” In response to the severe consequences for China’s damming activities in the region, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tweeted: The U.S. supports the Mekong River Commission's call for transparency in dam operations on the Mekong River. The People’s Republic of China's massive dams are manipulating flows in a non-transparent manner that harms Mekong countries. https://t.co/kFVs1r4soZ — Secretary Pompeo (@SecPompeo) August 14, 2020 With Milk Tea Alliance help online, a petition to the White House calling for China to stop damming on the Mekong River collected almost 100,000 signatures. This story originated in VOA's Mandarin service. Some information is from Reuters. https://www.voacambodia.com/a/5564694.html https://www.voacambodia.com/a/5564694.html Mon, 31 Aug 2020 19:49:46 +0700 Southeast Asiakhmerservicevoa@gmail.com (Jill Li, Adrianna Zhang)