Asia Cast is currently on pause
After more than four years and hundreds of posts Asia Cast has currently been put on hold. During that time and the show has been through several major makeovers. We would just like to thank all our listeners who chose Asia Cast to keep them informed about events in the Asia-Pacific over the last few years.
We are planning to bring Asia Cast back into our line up as resources allow. Possibly this will be as a weekly headline round up feature for our Inside China Today program which we produce for our community and college radio partners.
Please listen out for updates.
Asia Cast for the week ending Friday 30th September
Fans of Indonesia's Radio Erabaru outside the headquarters of Sing FM performing a re-enactment of the September 13 forced shutdown of Radio Erabaru by government authorities as fellow protesters hold placards and banners calling for the station's restoration. (Radio Erabaru)
In this bulletin:
- Another train crash dents China’s rail safety record,
- Discontent growing over land expropriation ,
- Fans rally for silenced Indonesian broadcaster, and
- Asia increasing IT competitiveness.
But first our SOH focus on China.
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ET-Hundreds of passengers were injured in a rear-end train collision on a one-year-old Shanghai subway track Tuesday September 27. State-owned media first said that a signal malfunction was to blame for the collision; but then published a statement on Sept. 28, attributing the accident to a power failure and operator error.
An engineer familiar with subway safety has characterized the system as unreliable and profit-driven. The accident called further attention to China’s dubious public infrastructure safety record after the devastating Wenzhou high-speed rail collision in July.
In the Shanghai crash 284 passengers were injured according to official figures. Shanghai Shentong Metro Group, which manages the subway, apologized online, saying, ‘This is the darkest day ever for the Shanghai subway.’
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ET-Thousands of residents in two Southern Chinese townships recently took to the streets over unfair land expropriation.
A protest in Wukan was triggered September 21 when villagers learned that one of the last pieces of the villagers’ land had been sold to a developer and construction work was about to begin. Villagers have accused village officials of secretly selling their land and villagers demand authorities disclose accounting details of the land transactions.
The next morning, authorities dispatched paramilitary officers and riot police, along with anti-riot vehicles to suppress the protest, but were met with strong resistance from angry villagers, who overturned seven or eight police vehicles.
The protest in Wukan gave rise to similar unrest in other villages of Lufeng City. On September 23, about two thousand villagers of the neighbouring Longguang Village protested to the Lufeng municipal government. This time a city official came out and said he would investigate the issue and get back to them.
Longguang villagers told RFA that they had been petitioning for six years with no avail, from the provincial level of Guangdong to the municipal level of Lufeng. They said almost every village has been struggling with illegal land seizures.
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NTD-The wife of Chinese artist Ai Weiwei has written a letter to the legal working committee of China’s National People’s Congress. Lu Qing is urging them to reject proposed changes to the criminal procedure law. The changes would legalize holding suspects in secret locations for up to six months, in some cases without informing their families.
Police arrested Ai Weiwei at the Beijing airport on April 3. Ai was then held in a secret location for 81 days. Lu describes in the letter the frantic search for Ai by family and friends. The family had not been notified of his whereabouts.
The incident sparked an international outcry. Ai Weiwei was eventually released, but is still under investigation for alleged tax evasion. He’s officially banned from speaking to the media.
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SOH takes a look across the wider Asia-Pacific region.
Asia Cast for the week ending Friday 23rd September
Jiang Tianyong (pictured) and another Chinese rights lawyer, Teng Biao, were recognized for this year’s Prize for Outstanding Democracy Activist, given by the Los Angeles based Chinese Democracy Education Foundation, September 1st.
In this bulletin:
- Rights lawyer undeterred despite torture,
- Beijing’s paid internet commentator training accidentally revealed,
- Japanese protesters seek nuclear free world, and
- India researchers hope discoveries spark conservation.
But first our SOH focus on China.
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ET-Chinese human rights lawyer Jiang Tianyong recently broke his silence about what he suffered during his recent detention. Jiang was arrested in February as part of the Chinese Communist Party’s attempt to nip a homegrown Jasmine Revolution in the bud.
Isolation, brainwashing, sleep deprivation and torture were regular parts of those two months. He was released April 29, but not until mid-September did Jiang tell his story. He told Sound of Hope Radio September 14 the most painful part of the ordeal was the brainwashing sessions.
During the two months of detention neither Jiang nor his family received an official notice or documentation. Jiang became a target because of his willingness to take on human rights cases. In particular, he defended practitioners of Falun Gong, a group that is persecuted without mercy by the regime.
Despite suffering memory loss from being mentally tortured and deprived of sleep, Jiang did not give in. He told Sound of Hope Radio he had to speak out and let everyone know the horrible things happened to me. He said if the regime doesn’t want people to know, then they should not these things, adding, the terror will be and must be broken.
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ET-A Chinese TV news report unwittingly revealed how the communist regime’s Propaganda Department trains its army of paid internet commentators to shape public opinion on the internet.
Xishui TV, a local station in Hubei Province, reported September 8 the purpose of the training was to improve the skills of Xishui County spokespersons and internet commentators. Responding to public crises and guiding public opinion in a constructive way were among the topics covered.
According to a report by Hong Kong’s Apple Daily the number of paid internet commentators in China is estimated to have reached 280,000. With each one of them posting five comments per day, that amounts to 1.4 million posts daily, enough to inundate some internet forums.
The video was originally posted on cnxishui.net, which is operated by Xishui County Propaganda Department, and must have been an accident as it was removed just a few hours after its appearance.
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ET-Police in Hong Kong made the largest drug bust in the city’s history, nabbing more than 540 Kilos of cocaine worth 600 million Hong Kong dollars, some $77 million US dollars.
Authorities said Monday September 19 they arrested eight people. A police statement said the operation had neutralized a transnational drug trafficking syndicate.
Police raided five warehouses throughout Hong Kong. The Hong Kong Standard. reported the drugs were found hidden in containers and pressed into recycled blocks with other recycled garbage.
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SOH takes a look across the wider Asia-Pacific region.
Asia Cast for the week ending Friday 16th September
A giant fish sculpture made from 2,360 traditional Chinese lanterns and over 2,000 bamboo sticks lights up Hong Kong's Victoria Park in celebration of Mid-Autumn Festival. (By Song Xianglong/The Epoch Times)
In this bulletin:
- Chinese human rights lawyer released,
- Greenpeace highlights China’s toxic produce,
- South Korea pressured over deportations, and
- Asia’s Mid-Autumn Festival celebrations.
But first our SOH focus on China.
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ET-Chinese human rights lawyer Guo Feixiong was released from prison September 13. Although in poor health and weakened by the ordeal of five years imprisonment, he declared himself unchanged in his core.
Prior to his detention in September 2006, Guo was active in the ‘weiquan’ or rights defense movement. The weiquan is a loose collection of lawyers and intellectuals that sought to protect the rights of ordinary Chinese through litigation.
Guo defended poor peasants whose land had been stolen, Christians, Falun Gong practitioners, and others who have suffered under the Chinese regime. He was a close associate of human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng, who advocated for Guo’s release before Gao himself was imprisoned. Gao’s current whereabouts are unknown.
Guo spoke to The Epoch Times soon after his arrival home in Guangzhou, saying although he was weak and in poor health he would not give in.
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According to an investigation by Greenpeace, there are a variety of banned pesticide residues in the rice, vegetables and fruits sold at Chinese supermarkets.
These substances include highly dangerous chemicals listed by the World Health Organization that can severely affect the human endocrine system, injure the male reproductive system and damage unborn babies.
Between April and July Greenpeace collected and tested bulk rice, fruit and vegetable samples from three chain supermarkets Lianhua, Pufeng Lotus and Legou in Beijing, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Wuhan, Chengdu and Hangzhou. The samples include 12 rices and 62 kinds of vegetables and fruits. A variety of pesticide residues were found in rice, strawberries, spinach and leeks.
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NTD-A retired school teacher in south China has donated 300-thousand yuan, that’s almost $47,000 US dollars, during the past 25 years to help poor students in his town.
Chen Qixian is 88-years-old and lives in the town of Dapo in Hainan Province. He retired from teaching 25 years ago and has been donating money to help students ever since, keeping only 50 yuan a month, less than $8 US dollars, for his own living expenses.
According to his daughter, Chen has been living off rice and carrots for decades, rather than spending his money on more nutritious food.
Last year, Chen donated 100-thousand yuan to establish the Dapo Education Promotion Association. He also contributed money toward building a library for Dapo Middle School last year.
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SOH takes a look across the wider Asia-Pacific region.
Asia Cast for the week ending Friday 9th September
Gatot Machali at the microphone at Radio Erabaru's small studio in Batam, Indonesia. (Courtesy of Radio Erabaru)
In this bulletin:
- Slave labour rescue highlights problem,
- Chinese environmental damage under investigation,
- Indonesian broadcaster targeted over Chinese broadcast, and
- Business success squeezes Hong Kong international schools.
But first our SOH focus on China.
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NTD-More slave labour has been discovered in China’s central Henan Province. The victims, men who suffer from severe mental disabilities, were found working under deplorable conditions at brick kilns. Eight people were detained in relation to the case.
Henan media first exposed the problem Sunday September 3 and alerted authorities. Since then, 30 mentally disabled men have been rescued. They endured beatings, starvation and received no pay for their work. Many were kidnapped and sold to kiln owners. Others were tricked into going there.
Labour rights in China have struggled to keep pace with economic development. Lawyer Jiang Tianyong has worked with victims of slave labour from Shanxi Province, and told NTD it was a prevalent problem.
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NTD-Nearly three months after the Bohai Bay oil spill, top-level authorities in China are now ordering a full investigation.
The notice was posted on Wednesday, following a State Council meeting.
ConocoPhillips China, a subsidiary of the Texas-based oil company, is operating the oil field where the spill occurred. The company has been partnering with the state-run China National Offshore Oil Corporation.
ConocoPhillips announced Tuesday September 6 it would set aside a fund to cover costs resulting from the spills and ‘benefit the general environment in Bohai Bay.’ However, the exact amount was not mentioned.
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ET-Five Chinese environmental watchdog groups jointly published a report August 31 accusing Apple of ignoring pollution produced by its Chinese suppliers. The groups say Apple has made huge profits at the expense of the environment and local residents.
The five non-governmental environmental organizations are Friends of Nature, Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, Green Beagle, Envirofriends, and Green Stone Environment Action Network.
They jointly published a report called ‘The Other Side of Apple II.’ The report documents the results of five months of field research into the manufacturing process of some of Apple’s suppliers in China. It says they produce many pollutants, including heavy metals, cyanide containing wastewater, and tin and lead fumes.
The same groups first exposed pollution problems by Apple suppliers in a January 20 report titled, ‘The Other Side of Apple.’ The latest report is an in-depth follow-up.
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SOH takes a look across the wider Asia-Pacific region.
Asia Cast for the week ending Friday 2nd August
Swathes of China have been suffering the worst drought in decades, prompting fears of food shortages. (Courtesy of The Epoch Times)
In this bulletin:
- Extreme weather besets China,
- Beijing greets new Japan PM with warning,
- Singapore, Taiwan best Asian investment economies, and
- High Court torpedoes Australia’s ‘Malaysian Solution’.
But first our SOH focus on China.
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NTD-While heavy storms have battered the southeastern coast of China, the southwest faces severe drought where the water supply for millions of people has already dwindled . And now residents in Guizhou and Yunnan provinces are facing another challenge, depleted food supplies. Locals say the dry weather has affected normal crop yields, sending food prices skyrocketing.
In Guizhou Province over five million people and almost three million livestock are short of water. While in neighbouring Yunnan Province, 1.5-million people can’t readily access drinking water. Authorities are now planning to deliver water to those in need, but residents say they’ve received little help so far.
Local weather bureaus say the dry spell may not end until the middle of September.
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ET-Monday August 29 was a day of mishaps for Dalian in northeast China. While a fire raged at Dalian Petrochemical Company, a branch of the state-owned PetroChina Co., a subway construction site had collapsed across town near the port city’s airport.
China News Radio reported the subway cave in created a hole eight metres long, six metres wide, and 16 meters deep. A Dalian resident indicated that this was the sixth incident of the kind to happen during construction of Dalian’s underground.
It took three hours to bring the latest fire at the PetroChina Dalian Petrochemical Company under control. The cause of the incident is still under investigation. This is the fifth fire at the Dalian Petrochemical Company this year.
Residents living near the plant demonstrated Saturday August 27. They were seeking to ensure their safety after the plant spilled particulates 2 days prior and discharged clouds of thick smoke the day before.
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NTD-Chinese authorities did not waste any time in warning the new Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda Monday August 29 to respect the Chinese regime’s key interests.
According to Voice of America, the warning came immediately after Noda was selected as the new leader. This was one day before the Japanese parliament confirmed him as Japan’s new prime minister.
State-controlled Xinhua news agency reported, Chinese leaders are calling on Noda to take definitive steps in fostering better Sino–Japan relations. Chinese authorities advised Noda’s government to give up Japan’s claim to some islands in the South China Sea. The islands, known to Japan as Senkaku and China as Diaoyu islands are believed to hold huge oil and gas reserves.
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SOH takes a look across the wider Asia-Pacific region.
Asia Cast for the week ending Friday 26th August
Demonstrating against the communist regime's tyranny, protesters are met by a police blockade in Hong Kong. (Courtesy of NTD Television)
In this bulletin:
- China’s hacker army enters Vietnam dispute,
- Hong Kong angry over Chinese leader’s security,
- Greenpeace investigation details toxic sportswear, and
- Bell rings for peace on Taiwan island.
But first our SOH focus on China.
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ET-News reports in June told of escalating confrontations between China and Vietnam over the sovereignty of some islands in the South China Sea. But the Epoch Times says these reports missed a cyber war that broke out between the two countries.
Armies of hackers from both countries set about hacking the websites of the opposing country. Chinese hackers called it a self-defense attack. They became furious after Chinese media reported Vietnamese hackers had broken into a Chinese website on June 2 and posted provocative messages.
Chinese patriotism had already been inflamed by repeated media reports Vietnam was occupying China’s islands in the South China Sea. After the Vietnamese cyber-invasion Chinese hackers fought what they said was a ‘holy war’ of revenge June 4 and 5. Over 1,000 Vietnamese websites were taken down with Chinese hackers claiming a landslide victory.
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NTD-In Hong Kong anger over high security during Chinese leader Li Keqiang’s visit lasted long after he had left. The League of Social Democrats marched to the police headquarters Monday August 22 criticizing the Commissioner of Police for bowing to the communist regime.
Li Keqiang concluded his three-day visit to Hong Kong Thursday August 18. Although the trip drew several groups of protesters, many say Hong Kong police were out in excessive force to stop them.
Monday night’s protest came after an earlier one Saturday August 30. About 300 journalists condemned Hong Kong authorities for preventing them to freely report on Li’s visit.
Hong Kong is a Special Administrative Region of China. Citizens there enjoy greater freedoms than their Mainland counterparts. But there are concerns basic freedoms are diminishing with Beijing accused of trying to influence the Hong Kong government.
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ET-Greenpeace says it has found traces of toxic and hormone-disrupting chemicals in clothes bearing 14 top manufacturing brands. The new report was released Tuesday August 23 in the Philippines and China, where many of the clothes are made.
These chemicals are known to interrupt biological endocrine functions and harm the reproductive system. They were found in clothing and fabric-based shoes sold internationally by brands such as Adidas, H&M, and Abercrombie & Fitch.
While Beijing has banned the export of clothing containing these chemicals, there are currently no regulations restricting their use in China. Everything tested from Li Ning, China’s leading domestic sports brand was found to be contaminated. Li Ning’s said its products had passed EU standards testing by internationally reputable testing agencies.
The Epoch Times has more on how Chinese brands’ PR teams influences official inspections.
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SOH takes a look across the wider Asia-Pacific region.
Asia Cast for the week ending Friday 19th August
Up to 50 million farmers have had their lands taken under China's land reform policy. Most are not satisfied with the compensation they're given, according to a recent Chinese think tank study. (The Epoch Times)
In this bulletin:
- Beijing mounts new Xinjiang crackdown,
- Report highlights land reform burden,
- An unlikely education in Taiwan, and
- Smartphone patent battle.
But first our SOH focus on China.
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NTD-The Chinese regime has started August 11, another hard-line security crackdown on ethnic violence in the western region of Xinjiang.
On Tuesday August 16 local authorities said the ‘strike-hard’ operation would run until October 15. Chinese authorities blame Uighur Muslim separatists for recent violence, alleging the Uighur attackers are terrorists who had training in Pakistan.
The World Uyghur Congress informed NTD the Chinese regime is trying to make the global community believe that Uighur Muslims are terrorists to justify their crack down. Adding recent unrest came about because the Uighur Muslims have become desperate, living under the Chinese regime’s brutal rule.
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ET-According to a recent report from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, between 40 and 50 million Chinese farmers have lost their farmland since economic reforms began in the 1970s.
The number is increasing at a rate of three million farmers per year, and will reach 110 million around 2030. The report also states that, while farmland is being lost, there is a serious trend of urban land being insufficiently utilised.
The State Council’s Development Research Centre said since the start of economic reforms to 2003, the Chinese regime has taken over $300 billion US dollars from farmers by expropriating farmland at a low price and then reselling it at a high price.
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ET- The Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy reported August 12 on the death of a Tibetan political prisoner due to severe torture.
Thin Lay, a young Tibetan man from Kardze County, was arrested in April 2009 for participating in calls for Tibetan freedom in Kardze. During the seven months imprisonment by Chinese authorities he was severely tortured.
Authorities finally released Thin Lay to his family after he was in a state of physical and psychological debility and near death. Thin Lay died August 10.
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ET-The political chasm separating mainland China from Taiwan sometimes seems too vast to bridge, but a recent curious phenomenon may begin to change that. Chinese mainlanders, who previously had no clue about life on the tiny island, are finding through personal visits that Taiwan’s vibrant democracy may be hope for China’s own future.
Some Chinese tourists even treat Taiwan’s free media as quite the novelty. The Asia Times recently reported anecdotal accounts of Chinese tourists snubbing their day tours in favour of staying in their hotel rooms to watch uncensored TV political talk shows and news reports.
The Epoch Times website details more of what Chinese tourists are discovering on their voyages across the Taiwan Strait.
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SOH takes a look across the wider Asia-Pacific region.
Asia Cast for the week ending Friday 12th August
Participants in a march in Washington, DC in July celebrate 100 million withdrawals from the Chinese Communist Party and its affiliated organizations. (Edward Dai/The Epoch Times)
In this bulletin:
- Facing restrictions Chinese journalists blog news instead,
- Movement to quit CCP reaches 100 million participants,
- New Tibetan political head sworn in, and
- Taiwan’s population rapidly ageing.
But first our SOH focus on China.
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ET-Faced with restrictions on permissible reports, Chinese journalists have turned to Sina.com and other blogs to make important stories known.
In the wake of last month’s high speed rail collision in Wenzhou City, the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Propaganda Department issued a ban on all reporting of the incident by independent media.
The ban seems to have been the catalyst for an unprecedented campaign of defiance in China’s mass media. Over one million pieces of relevant news were posted on Chinese blogs, which helped the world learn the facts of the tragedy.
A blogger wrote that though blogging and the Internet have been blocked by some interest groups and the authorities at will, many still believe that the power of networking is unstoppable, and the power of justice is indestructible.
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NTD-Residents in the path of tropical storm Muifa were frustrated by the lack of information after high waves brought on by the storm threatened to cause a chemical spill on China’s east coast.
The port city of Dalian in Liaoning province is home to the Fujia Dahua Petrochemical plant. On Monday August 8, 60-foot-high waves breached a dyke protecting the plant.
Fujia Dahua produces paraxylene, a flammable and carcinogenic liquid chemical. Chinese media reports that paraxylene was stored less than 200 feet from the dyke when the breach occurred. This has worried locals, who say authorities aren’t providing details about whether there’s a leak or health risk.
Staff at the plant reportedly stopped a news crew from state-run CCTV entering the plant Tuesday August 9, striking the reporters and their equipment.
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ET/NTD-A milestone has been reached in China, but not the kind the Chinese Communist Party is celebrating. For the past seven years, a peaceful movement has been steadily growing, a movement that encourages Chinese people to renounce all affiliations with the Communist Party.
Recently, that movement reached the momentous milestone of 100 million participants. Known as Tuidang in Chinese, the movement for Chinese to withdraw from the Party began in late 2004, following the publication of the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party by The Epoch Times.
The Tuidang movement is distinctly Chinese in its world view, very different from the Western-style democracy movement of the 1980s or the more recent Charter 08. While implicitly supporting regime change in China, it does not come with replacement political prescriptions. It is understood by both its activists and participants as a spiritual and ethical awakening rather than a political revolution.
It calls for Chinese to make a psychological separation between China’s future and the Communist Party.
(Disclosure note: The SOH Network has an affiliation with The Epoch Times, publisher of the Nine Commentaries editorial series. Our Chinese language sister media the Sound of Hope Radio Network has broadcast the Nine Commentaries into China via short wave radio. This may have had an impact on the Tuidang movement’s spread.)
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SOH takes a look across the wider Asia-Pacific region.
Asia Cast for the week ending Friday 5th August
Native forest, South Esk, Tasmania. An agreement to protect Tasmania's forests was recently reached. (Courtesy of Environment Tasmania)
In this bulletin:
- Chinese media break reporting restrictions over train crash,
- China now cloning entire stores,
- Independent broadcaster safely aboard new satellite, and
- Thailand elects first female prime minister.
But first our SOH focus on China.
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NTD-Since the high-speed train crash in Wenzhou July 23, the Chinese regime’s propaganda department has imposed tough reporting restrictions on the media. The regime is ordering media organizations to only report positively about the incident.
Yet some media organizations are daring not to be censored. One is The Economic Observer. The newspaper published an editorial written as a letter to Yiyi, a young girl who was rescued from the train wreck, allegedly after the search for survivors had officially been called off by authorities.
The editorial is the latest in a string of breaches of the propaganda department’s restrictions on Chinese media. It has since been removed from the Economic Observer’s website.
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NTD-A Shandong province court has rejected an appeal by the lawyer of Chinese journalist Qi Chonghuai.
Qi was jailed for reporting on corruption. Two weeks before he completed his four-year jail term, the same court sentenced him to eight more years in jail.
Human rights advocates condemn the second conviction, saying it’s a violation of Chinese law.
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NTD-In July, Kunming City in Southwest China gained worldwide attention for having not one, but three knock off Apple Stores that looked identical to the real thing. Now, Ikea may be the latest victim to have an entire store cloned.
The ten-thousand square meter, four-story, yellow and blue building looks in every way like a typical Ikea. The Swedish furniture giant has nine stores in China, but this is not one of them. It’s called 11 Furniture, and it’s a complete fake.
Access Asia told NTD almost every foreign brand ever to come to China has been faked. Although the difference with the Apple and the Ikea store is that they are ‘lookie-likies’, not outright fakes. Access Asia said the cloned Apple store sold genuine Apple computers.
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ET-Nearly 50 million people in Guangxi Province are suffering the worst electricity shortage seen in two decades. China Economic Times reported August 2 the Guangxi Power Grid Corporation said the electricity shortage was 30 percent of the total demand, worse than predicted.
Currently, the Guangxi power plants’ coal supply is extremely low and some power plants have already shut down due to lack of coal.
The electricity shortage has caused more than 1,000 factories and businesses to completely or partially shut down. Rolling blackouts have been affecting some rural areas for months.
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SOH takes a look across the wider Asia-Pacific region.
