Category Archives: Asia Pacific

Xu Zhangrun, prominent critic of Xi Jinping, released from detention

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The law professor has been released six days after a police raid at his Beijing home, friends say

A Beijing law professor who has been an outspoken critic of China’s president, Xi Jinping, and the ruling Communist party was released on Sunday after six days of detention, his friends have said.

Xu Zhangrun, a constitutional law professor at the prestigious Tsinghua University, returned home on Sunday morning but remained under surveillance and was not free to speak publicly about what happened, one of his friends, who declined to be identified, told Reuters.

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Christchurch mosque attacker to represent himself at sentencing

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Australian man who pleaded guilty to 51 counts of murder will be sentenced in August

The Australian man who pleaded guilty to killing 51 Muslims in a terrorist attack in Christchurch in March 2019 has chosen to represent himself at his sentencing next month.

Brenton Tarrant pleaded guilty in March to 51 counts of murder, 40 of attempted murder and a terrorism charge after dozens of worshippers were gunned down at two mosques in New Zealand last year.

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The Guardian view on Covid-19 worldwide: on the march

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Infections are accelerating in largely untouched countries and those which hoped they had come through the worst. But there is hope

“Most of the world sort of sat by and watched with almost a sense of detachment and bemusement,” said Helen Clark, appointed to investigate the World Health Organization’s handling of the pandemic. The former New Zealand prime minister was describing the early weeks of the outbreak, and the sense that coronavirus was a problem “over there”. The failure to recognise our interconnection created complacency even as the death toll rose.

It took three months for the first million people to fall sick – but only a week to record the last million of the nearly 13 million cases now reported worldwide. As England emerges from lockdown at an unwary pace, Covid-19 is accelerating globally. The WHO has reported a record surge of a quarter of a million cases in a single day. The death toll is over half a million people and rising fast.

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‘My civil right’: Hong Kong citizens vote in unofficial pro-democracy poll – video

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Hundreds of thousands of Hongkongers queued to cast ballots over the weekend in an unofficial poll to select the strongest pro-democracy candidates who will aim to seize control from pro-Beijing rivals for the first time.

The vote might fall foul of the new national security law imposed by Beijing, according to senior Hong Kong officials. But residents visited 250 polling stations in what the Chinese-ruled city’s opposition camp says is a symbolic protest vote

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Indonesia is failing to control coronavirus outbreak, say experts

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Fears that lack of testing, mixed messages and promotion of bogus cures hampering efforts

Attempts to control a growing coronavirus outbreak in Indonesia, the worst-hit country in south-east Asia, are being hampered by a lack of testing, poor communication from the government and the promotion of bogus cures, health experts have warned.

The country has so far recorded more than 74,000 cases and 3,535 deaths from the virus, though it is feared that this could be a vast underestimate. While testing rates have improved, they remain among the lowest in the world.

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Witness K and the Australian spying operation that continues to betray Timor-Leste

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Charges against Bernard Collaery and his retired Asis agent client confirm the government has few regrets about an exploitative exercise against a friendly neighbour

In the first week of January 2019, a private jet landed at Presidente Nicolau Lobato International Airport in Dili, the capital of Timor-Leste. The former Victorian premier Steve Bracks emerged into the monsoonal heat and was greeted by staff from the office of Xanana Gusmão, Timor-Leste’s chief maritime boundary negotiator. They drove Bracks to the waterfront café at the Novo Turismo Resort and Spa, where Gusmão was waiting.

The subject of the meeting was Bernard Collaery, Gusmão’s former lawyer, who was pleading not guilty to breaches of Australia’s intelligence act. Collaery’s charges related to an Australian Secret Intelligence Service operation in Dili in 2004, in which Canberra is believed to have recorded Timor-Leste officials’ private discussions about maritime boundary negotiations with Australia. In 2013, the Australian government revealed the allegations of spying.

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Huawei believes it can supply 5G kit to UK despite US sanctions

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Chinese telecom firm stockpiles 500,000 pieces of equipment but fears wider ban

Huawei believes it can supply 5G hardware unaffected by White House sanctions to the UK for the next five years, sidestepping the expected conclusion of an emergency review on Tuesday next week.

The company has stockpiled 500,000 pieces of kit but fears a wider ban on its equipment will be unveiled to placate Conservative rebel MPs, who say the Chinese supplier represents a national security risk.

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Singapore’s ruling party dominates election but opposition makes historic gains

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Prime minister Lee Hsien Loong retains overwhelming majority as popular vote slips amid coronavirus pandemic

Singapore’s governing party has comfortably won the city-state’s general election but faced a setback as the opposition made minor but historic gains.

The prime minister, Lee Hsien Loong, said his People’s Action party (PAP) secured 83 parliamentary seats on Friday, retaining its overwhelming majority with 89% of the total seats, but its popular vote dipped to 61%. The Workers’ party, the only opposition with a presence in the parliament, increased its seats from six to 10 – the biggest victory for the opposition since independence.

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‘Job-killer of the century’: economies of Pacific islands face collapse over Covid-19

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The region is largely coronavirus-free, but pandemic shutdowns and loss of tourism dollars are devastating its economies

The Covid-19 pandemic is the “job-killer of the century”, Fiji’s prime minister has said, as economies across the Pacific face collapse from economic and travel shutdowns, exacerbating existing illnesses, and potentially driving people into hunger.

While the number of cases across the Pacific remains low – several countries across the Pacific remain Covid-free and continue to enforce strict border closures – the economic impacts have devastated tourism- and import-dependent economies.

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Donald Trump is a hypocrite on China – but China deserves to be condemned | Jonathan Freedland

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Beijing is crushing human rights in Hong Kong, and is accused of genocide against the Uighurs. The world cannot stand by

Donald Trump taints everything he touches. If he supports a cause, he damages it. If he takes a stance, the instinct of most self-respecting liberals is to rush to the opposing side. So when Trump rails against China, a favourite bete noire, it can make a progressive pause.

That’s especially true when the US president lurches so easily into casual bigotry – referring to the coronavirus as “kung flu” – and when his hypocrisy is so rank. Thanks to his former national security adviser, John Bolton, we know that, for all his talk, Trump begged Beijing to meddle in this year’s election in his favour, breezily granting US blessing to what Amnesty International calls the “gulag” of camps in Xinjiang, in which China holds a million Uighur Muslims against their will.

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Médecins Sans Frontières is ‘institutionally racist’, say 1,000 insiders

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Medical charity accused of shoring up colonialism and white supremacy in its work

The medical NGO Médecins Sans Frontières is institutionally racist and reinforces colonialism and white supremacy in its humanitarian work, according to an internal statement signed by 1,000 current and former members of staff.

The statement accused MSF of failing to acknowledge the extent of racism perpetuated by its policies, hiring practices, workplace culture and “dehumanising” programmes, run by a “privileged white minority” workforce.

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China has only itself to blame for Australia’s move on Hong Kong

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The Australian government and its partners had no choice but to recognise the new reality in the territory and offer some of its citizens a way out

I feel sorry for Chinese foreign ministry officials, with whom I have had many good conversations over the years. They have been pushed to lambast Australia and other Western democracies with such frequency that they risk running out of fresh invective, hyperbole and idiom.

It was inevitable that Chinese diplomats would excoriate Australia after prime minister Scott Morrison’s measured moves this week in response to Beijing’s draconian national security legislation for Hong Kong: offering limited sanctuary to Hong Kongers, suspending an extradition treaty with Hong Kong and heightening the travel warning for the city.

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Tokyo pays clubs and hostess bars to close after spike in coronavirus cases

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City authorities, which cannot legally force closures, offer incentives after Japan capital reports a record 224 new cases

Nightclubs and hostess bars in Tokyo are to be paid to close after the Japanese capital recorded 224 coronavirus cases on Thursday, the highest daily tally since the pandemic began.

Authorities had previously refused to give nightlife businesses economic support during the pandemic, but have changed tack after 80% of Thursday’s infections were among people in their 20s and 30s. Many of them were identified after more than 3,000 tests were carried out in Tokyo entertainment districts, including Shinjuku and Ikebukuro.

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New Zealand: man cuts through fence to escape Covid-19 quarantine and buy alcohol

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Man in his 50s is the third person to abscond during quarantine, as the nation battles with influx of returning citizens

New Zealand’s government has revealed that a third person has absconded from a managed isolation facility, saying a man cut through a fence so that he could go to buy some alcohol.

On Wednesday a man, aged in his 30s absconded from his managed quarantine hotel in central Auckland to visit a supermarket and later tested positive for coronavirus. It came after a woman jumped over a hedge to get out of quarantine. Later, she got lost and asked a passing policeman for directions back to her hotel.

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US imposes sanctions on senior Chinese officials over Uighur abuses

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Mike Pompeo says US ‘will not stand idly by’ over abuses of ethnic minorities in China’s western region of Xinjiang

The United States has imposed sanctions on three senior officials of the Chinese Communist party, including a member of the ruling politburo, for alleged human rights abuses targeting ethnic and religious minorities in the western part of the country.

Secretary of state Mike Pompeo said in a statement: “The United States will not stand idly by as the Chinese Communist party carries out human rights abuses targeting Uighurs, ethnic Kazakhs and members of other minority groups in Xinjiang, to include forced labor, arbitrary mass detention, and forced population control, and attempts to erase their culture and Muslim faith.”

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‘This is intolerable’: fearful Australians in Hong Kong hasten plans to leave city

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Expats say they feel insecure about living somewhere ‘where the walls have ears’

• Australia’s Hong Kong intervention was hardly strident but that didn’t matter to China

Australian expats in Hong Kong are feeling jittery about their future after Beijing imposed a new national security law that could lead to foreigners being arbitrarily detained. They say the move has hastened their plans to leave the financial hub amid calls from their government for its citizens to “reconsider” their need to stay there.

The national security law passed in Beijing and enacted in Hong Kong on 1 July punishes crimes of secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces with up to life in prison. It applies to permanent residents and non-residents in Hong Kong who breach the law in the territory, along with anyone accused of violating the law regardless of their nationality and where the alleged crime took place – so foreigners could be arrested on arrival in Hong Kong. National security cases can also be sent to Chinese courts for trial.

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Park Won-soon: Seoul mayor found dead after being reported missing

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Body found as local reports say Park had been subject of sexual harassment complaint

The missing mayor of Seoul, who had reportedly been accused of sexual harassment, has been found dead more than half a day after leaving a message for his daughter that was “like a will”.

Police said rescue dogs found Park Won-soon’s body near a restaurant in wooded hills in northern Seoul, more than seven hours after they launched a search for him.

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China has shown it is willing to pay the economic price of suppressing Hong Kong | James Lim

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Now that it has its own financial hubs on the mainland, Beijing may be prepared to risk the fate of its golden goose

Last week, the Chinese government passed a broad national security law criminalising dissent in Hong Kong. While the law has already had a chilling effect on protests, the consequences for Hong Kong’s economy are unclear. Since 1 July, Hong Kong’s stock market has climbed. Some foreign businessmen in Hong Kong have dismissed the law’s potential effect on business. This incredulity is unsurprising: for decades Hong Kong has thrived as a gateway for international capital into and out of China. Surely Beijing wouldn’t kill its own “golden goose”?

But investors and businessmen, used to the unencumbered movement of capital, may have lost sight of recent changes. Contemporary China is different today to just 10 years ago, let alone to the 1990s when Hong Kong was handed over by the British. Now a global power that commands one-sixth of the world’s GDP and is increasingly authoritarian, it is approaching Hong Kong with a new rationale that is both political and economic.

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China accuses Australia of ‘gross interference’ after offer of safe haven for Hong Kong visa holders

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Prime minister Scott Morrison cancels extradition treaty citing the new national security law as ‘a fundamental change of circumstances’

China has accused Australia of “gross interference” after Scott Morrison granted a range of visa holders from Hong Kong a five-year extension and suspended an extradition treaty with the city.

The prime minister announced on Thursday that Australia would allow a range of visa holders to stay in the country for longer and then offer them a pathway to permanent residency – but has stopped short of creating a special humanitarian intake for Hongkongers fearing persecution under the new national security law.

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Maria Ressa and the increasing attacks on the free press in the Philippines

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One of the most prominent journalists in the Philippines has been convicted of ‘cyberlibel’ in a court process condemned by human rights groups. Journalist Carmela Fonbuena in Manila describes the chilling effect the verdict has had on free expression

Maria Ressa is one of the most prominent journalists in the Philippines with decades of experience as a print and TV reporter. She is also the executive editor of Rappler, an online news site.

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