Chinese Police Detain a Second Tibetan Monk at Thangkor Socktsang Monastery

Tibetans gather at the compound of Thangkor Soktsang monastery in Dzoege in an undated photo.

Photo courtesy of an RFA listener

Police in southwestern China’s Sichuan province have detained a second monk living at Thangkor Sockstang monastery, taking him into custody after threatening his roommates at gunpoint and forcing one of them to the ground, according to a local source.

Lobsang Sherab, aged about 35 and a worker in the store of the monastery in Dzoege (in Chinese, Ruo’ergai) county, was seized at night on Aug. 24, the same day on which monastery treasurer Gendun Drakpa was also detained, a Tibetan living in the area told RFA’s Tibetan Service.

Sherab and his roommates thought at first that the Chinese police officers entering their quarters had come to rob them, and shouted for help, RFA’s source said.

“But the security personnel pointed guns at them and told them to keep still,” the source said, adding,  “One monk who resisted was forced down by five officers and was injured in the struggle.”

“Lobsang Sherab was then shoved into a vehicle and driven away without even being allowed to put on his clothes,” he said.
Both Sherab and Drakpa have now been missing for 17 days, with no word on their whereabouts given to family or friends, the source said. “There was some information that they were taken away towards [provincial capital] Chengdu, but no details are available."

"Their family members and other relatives are worried about their condition, but are helpless."

Reported by Kunsang Tenzin for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Translated by Karma Dorjee. Written by Richard Finney.

http://www.rfa.org/english/news/tibet/second-09092016172606.html 

Tibetan Monk Detained, Vanishes in Custody

Detained Tibetan monk Lodroe is shown in an undated photo.

Photo sent by an RFA listener

A Tibetan monk detained in June by police in southwestern China’s Sichuan province has vanished in custody, with authorities refusing to provide details of his whereabouts or any charges made against him, sources say.

Lodroe, a monk enrolled at the Jonang monastery in Dzamthang (in Chinese, Rangtang) county, was seized by police on June 14 while walking with friends to buy food in neighboring Barkham (Ma'erkang) county, a Tibetan living in exile told RFA’s Tibetan Service on Tuesday.

“He was taken away in handcuffs without explanation and has been held in custody ever since,” RFA’s source said, speaking on condition of anonymity and citing contacts in the region.

“His monastery and family and relatives have repeatedly asked the authorities for information about him, but have never received any answers,” the source said.

“Three months later, his whereabouts remain unknown,” he said.

News of Lodroe’s detention was delayed in reaching outside contacts owing to communication blocks imposed by Chinese authorities in the area.

Lodroe, 36, is a native of Ngatoe Tsida village in Sichuan’s Ngaba (Aba) county, RFA’s source said.

“His father’s name is Tsikthok and his mother’s name is Dzokre.”

“This is a very frustrating situation, and his family and relatives are deeply concerned about his welfare and current condition,” he said.

Chinese authorities last year banned a two-week religious assembly at Dzamthang’s Jonang monastery during which the monastery’s 3,000 monks would have hosted formal debates on religious topics, sources told RFA in an earlier report.

Jonang monastery had previously been the site of several self-immolation protests challenging Beijing’s rule in Tibetan areas, “which led to increasingly severe restrictions by the Chinese authorities,” one source said.

Reported by Lhuboom for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Translated by Dorjee Damdul. Written in English by Richard Finney.

http://www.rfa.org/english/news/tibet/custody-09282016162831.html 

Two Tibetan Monks Linked to Self-Immolation Are Sentenced in a Secret Trial

Tibetan monks gather at Gansu's Labrang monastery in a file photo.
HEMIS.FR

Two Tibetan monks linked to a 2015 self-immolation protest in northwestern China’s Gansu province have been handed prison terms of a year-and-a-half each in a secret trial, Tibetan sources say.

Jinpa Gyatso and Kelsang Monlam, both monks at the Labrang monastery, were sentenced on Sept. 12 by a court in Sangchu (in Chinese, Xiahe) county, a Tibetan living in the area told RFA’s Tibetan Service.

“They were suspected of involvement in the self-immolation of Sangye Tso on May 27, 2015,” RFA’s source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“Jinpa Gyatso  was detained in June 2015 in Sangchu county’s main town, and Monlam was taken from his room in handcuffs that same month,” the source said, adding, “Their parents and relatives were not informed of the charges made against them.”

Two other monks were taken into custody at about the same time, but were released after being held and questioned for several days, he said.

“Jinpa Gyatso comes from Bora town in Sangchu county, and Monlam comes from Chone [Zhuoni] county,” he said.

Sangye Tso, aged about 36, set herself ablaze outside Chone county police headquarters in the early hours of May 27, 2015 in a challenge to Chinese rule in Tibetan areas, sources in exile told RFA in earlier reports, citing local contacts.

Tso, whose charred body was quickly removed from the protest site by authorities, was survived by her husband Tamdrin Wangyal and by a son named Tsering Dondrub and a daughter named Khatso, sources said.

Information, images shared

Separately, the Dharamsala, India-based Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy confirmed the sentences, saying that Gyatso, aged about 39, and Monlam, 37, had been convicted of “sharing online information and images” related to Tso’s protest.

“Both Jinpa and Kelsang are being held at Menkar Prison in Sangchu County,” TCHRD said.

Sporadic demonstrations challenging Beijing’s rule have continued in Tibetan-populated areas of China since widespread protests swept the region in 2008.

A total of 145 Tibetans living in China have now set themselves ablaze in self-immolations since the wave of fiery protests began in 2009, with most protests featuring calls for Tibetan freedom and the Dalai Lama’s return from India, where he has lived since escaping Tibet during a failed national uprising in 1959.

Reported by Lhuboom for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Translated by Karma Dorjee. Written in English by Richard Finney.

http://www.rfa.org/english/news/tibet/sentenced-09202016135125.html 

Tibetan Singer is Freed From Prison After Serving Four-Year Term

Tibetan singer Amchok Phuljung is shown in an undated photo.

Photo sent by an RFA listener

Authorities in southwestern China’s Sichuan province have freed a Tibetan singer jailed for four years for writing songs praising the Dalai Lama and highlighting the hardships of life under Beijing’s rule, according to a Tibetan source.

Amchok Phuljung, whose musical recordings before his arrest were widely popular in Tibetan areas of China, was released from Sichuan’s Mianyang prison on Feb. 2 after serving his full term in prison, a source living in the area told RFA’s Tibetan Service.

“The Chinese authorities informed his family of his release a few days in advance, and warned that people should not come to the prison to welcome him,” RFA’s source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“But when Amchok Phuljung arrived in his home town in Marthang [in Chinese, Hongyuan] county that evening, there was a warm reception for him that was attended by a lot of people who offered ceremonial scarves and sang songs in his honor,” he said.

After a short period spent in hiding, Phuljung was taken into custody on Aug. 3, 2012 at a teashop in Sichuan’s Barkham (Ma’erkang) county, and was initially held in secret  before his sentencing and transfer to Mianyang prison, where he served his term, the source said.

“Before his detention, Amchok Phuljung released five albums of music that included Tibetan patriotic songs, which raised his popularity among his fans,” he said.
Among the 13 songs released on Phuljung’s fifth DVD were songs praising Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama and exile prime minister Lobsang Sangay, an exile-based friend of the singer told RFA in an earlier report.
Chinese authorities regularly revile the Dalai Lama and Lobsang Sangay as dangerous separatists and harshly punish expressions of support for both men by Tibetans living under Beijing’s rule.

Monk also freed

Authorities meanwhile also freed a Tibetan monk jailed in 2013 after he was linked to a self-immolation protest challenging Chinese rule in Tibetan areas, another source said.

Yonten, aged around 37 and a monk at Thangkor Soktsang monastery in Sichuan’s Dzoege (Ruo’ergai) county, was released on Jan. 31 after serving his full term of three years and six months in prison, RFA’s source said, also speaking on condition he not be named.

“He has returned to his family home and is in sound health, the source said.

“Right now he is resting, and he will soon go back to his monastery to resume his studies,” he said.

Yonten was one of five Tibetans taken into custody following the self-immolation protest of 18-year-old Thangkor Soktsang monk Konchok Sonam, who set himself ablaze on July 20, 2013 while calling out for Tibetan freedom.

Sonam's mother and teacher at the monastery were among the five detained, but were released on July 22 after questioning by police.

Reported by Lhuboom and Lobe Soktsang for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Translated by Dorjee Damdul. Written in English by Richard Finney.

http://www.rfa.org/english/news/tibet/freed-02022017154603.html 

Cambodia’s Hun Sen Rejects K5 Project Accusations

Prime Minister Hun Sen speaking during a graduation ceremony at the Royal University of Phnom Penh, March 17, 2016.

RFA/Brach Chev

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen lashed out at his political rivals on Thursday as he defended a failed plan to secure the country’s border after the 1979 fall of the Khmer Rouge.
Known as K5, the plan has been described as an attempt to build a kind of “Berlin Wall” on the Thai border in an effort to prevent the Pol Pot-led Khmer Rouge and other guerillas from reestablishing their bases and infiltrating Cambodia after their defeat by the Vietnamese in the late 1970s.
“The K5 Plan was conceived as a plan to defend the nation by preventing the return of the genocidal Pol Pot regime,” Hun Sen said in a speech at a commencement exercise.
“It should have been you guys that are held responsible for the tragedy of the Cambodian people,” he added in a reference to his political opposition.
While K5 was never completed, it’s estimated that up to a million Cambodian workers were pressed into duty as slave laborers to clear the land for the proposed fortifications.
Thousands of Cambodians and ethnic Chinese died from disease or were killed or disabled by land mines as they labored on the ill-conceived project, which was bedeviled by corruption and mismanagement.
Hun Sen’s own previous involvement with the Khmer Rouge is clouded in secrecy, and his relationship with Vietnam has become a potent political issue as the opposition has attempted to paint him as Hanoi’s stooge.
With K5, the Vietnamese military command in Cambodia began hacking a path through the jungle along the border with the intent to mine and fortify the border in 1984.
At the time Hun Sen was a rising figure in the Vietnamese-installed government that ruled the country. In early 1985 he was elevated to the post of prime minister.
The late Sin Sen, who was Deputy Interior Minister for the People’s Republic of Kampuchea—as the country was known at the time—has said that Hun Sen ran the operation.
“K5 was led by Hun Sen. He was assigned the responsibility by Vietnam,” Sin Sen said according to the 2015 report “30 Years of Hun Sen” written by the London-based investigative nongovernmental organization Human Rights Watch.
‘Khmer hands’ to kill Cambodians
Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) chief Sam Rainsy raised the issue anew in recent posts on his Facebook page.
In a Jan. 27 post, Sam Rainsy described K5 as a Vietnamese strategy to continue killing Cambodians in the post-Khmer Rouge regime.
According to the Facebook post, Vietnam “continued to borrow Khmer hands to kill one another” by changing the leadership in Cambodia when it installed Hun Sen as prime minister.
“They sue me for trivial accusations related to recent political events or controversies, but they don’t dare sue me when I accuse them of being involved in crimes against humanity, because they cannot deny the historical facts,” he wrote in a Jan. 31 Facebook post.
Sam Rainsy has been living in France since 2015 to avoid arrest in a defamation case brought by former Foreign Minister Hor Namhong in 2008.
In September, Sam Rainsy was found guilty of defamation for claiming that Hun Sen’s social medial team had bought “likes” on Facebook from “click farms” abroad to increase the appearance of support.
In October, Hun Sen ordered police, immigration, and aviation authorities to "use all ways and means" to prevent the opposition leader from returning to the country, as Sam Rainsy has pledged to do before the country’s elections.
And in December, Sam Rainsy was sentenced to five years in prison in absentia for posting what authorities said was a fake government pledge to dissolve the Southeast Asian country's border with Vietnam.
Local elections in Cambodia are set for later this year, with national elections scheduled for 2018.
In his speech on Thursday, Hun Sen defended his actions and attempted to turn the tables on his rivals as he blamed them for aligning with the Khmer Rouge.
“Why did you make an alliance with the Khmer Rouge when they tried to destroy the revival of the Cambodian people?” he asked rhetorically.
“I just defended [the country] against the return of the Pol Pot regime, and there was nothing wrong with that.”
Reported by Thai Tha for RFA’s Khmer Service. Translated by Sovannrith Keo. Written in English by Brooks Boliek.

http://www.rfa.org/english/news/cambodia/cambodias-hun-sen-rejects-02022017152914.html 

Paris Peace Accords Reach a Milestone, But Should Cambodians Celebrate?

Rhona Smith, UN special rapporteur on the situation of Human Rights in Cambodia, speaks during a press conference in Phnom Penh, Oct 19,2016.

RFA

On the eve of the 25^th anniversary of the Paris Peace Accords that ended Cambodia’s war with Vietnam and pointed the way toward a modern state, the U.N.’s human rights envoy to the country urged the nation’s leaders to bury the past.
Rhona Smith, the U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in Cambodia, said on Wednesday that her 10-day tour showed a “very different” nation than the one that struggled to throw off the bloody Khmer Rouge, find peace with its neighbor, and, at least on paper, establish a democracy.  But she also saw a government that is too willing to live in the past.
“The time for the government to blame the troubles of the last century for the situation today is surely over,” she wrote in a statement at the end of her official fact-finding mission.
“Cambodia has earned its place on the international stage as an equal sovereign state and, as such, the government must take responsibility for implementing at the national and [local] levels all those rights and freedoms in the treaties it has so willingly ratified,” she wrote.
While the accords marked the official end of the Cambodian-Vietnamese War in 1991, allowed Cambodia to implement a new constitution and hold elections, Cambodia is embroiled in an ongoing political crises that has seen government critics mysteriously killed, opposition party members thrown in jail and a poor record on human rights.
On Oct. 10 as Smith was beginning her fact finding tour, the Phnom Penh Municipal Court jailed opposition party lawmaker Um Sam An for two years and six months and security forces attacked demonstrators protesting land grabs in Cambodia.
And despite repeated calls for a more open government, Prime Minister Hun Sen appears to be in no hurry to share power with anyone outside of his family and trusted members of his Cambodian People’s Party (CPP).
While the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) is hoping to hold a gathering in the capital on the Oct. 23 holiday marking the signing of the peace agreement, the full promise of the accords still appears to remain just out of reach.
“I think there are still elements of the Paris peace agreement which have not yet been fully delivered upon, particularly those related to ensuring free and full elections, human rights and a strong judiciary empowered to give effect (to) and enforce those human rights accepted by the country,” Smith told reporters after wrapping up her mission.
The Cambodian judicial system still lacks independence, while rights workers, opposition politicians and outside observers see the courts as a tool for Hun Sen to exact retribution on his political enemies.
‘Laws applied without discrimination’
Rarely do CPP politicians face charges, but the list of CNRP and other opposition lawmakers dragged before the courts is long and includes party president Sam Rainsy and deputy leader Kem Sokha, as well as opposition lawmakers like Um Sam An and Meach Sovannara.
Sam Rainsy has been living abroad off and on for years as Hun Sen’s government has charged him with a number of offenses that observers inside and outside Cambodia see as politically motivated.
Kem Sokha is under virtual house arrest since police attempted to arrest him in May for ignoring court orders to appear as a witness in a pair of defamation cases related to an alleged affair with a hairdresser.
Meach Sovannara was given a 20-year sentence for taking part in a protest in Phnom Penh in late 2014. He and 10 other activists were jailed on insurrection charges for clashing with police over the closure of a protest site in the capital.
Um Sam An is serving a two-year-and-six-month jail term for inciting discrimination and inciting social instability.
“It’s imperative that the laws are applied without discrimination on any grounds including political beliefs and opinions, and that the same evidentiary requirements are applied to all charges and therefore are the basis for all convictions,” Smith said. “There’s a need to strengthen consistency and reasoning in all cases in Cambodia.”
That consistency and reasoning is severely lacking, said Cambodian Center for Human Rights Executive Director Chak Sopheap.
“Many human rights defenders who are often involved with helping people with land disputes; community representatives who protest for inhabitants’ rights; people who express their opinions on the internet; opposition members who criticize the border issues; and environmental protection activists have been arrested and sentenced to prison by the courts,” she said during The International Conference on Paris Peace Accords, held in Phnom Penh on Oct. 19^.
“Analysts who dare to openly and directly criticize Cambodia’s social maladies are shot and killed in the heart of the capital city,” she added.
In July, popular government critic Kem Ley was shot and killed when he stopped in a Star Mart convenience store beside a Caltex gas station in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh.
In 2004 Chea Vichea, the leader of the Free Trade Union of Workers of the Kingdom of Cambodia (FTUWKC), was shot in the head and chest early in the morning while reading a newspaper at a kiosk in Phnom Penh.
Also in 2004 Ros Sovannarith, a labor activist at a major textile factory, was killed in 2004 when unidentified gunmen shot him twice as he rode his motorbike near Phnom Penh University.
Three years later Hy Vuthy, a senior leader of the FTUWKC, was gunned down by two men on a motorcycle while heading home from a Phnom Penh garment factory.
Peace and stability
While the record looks bleak, Smith did see some bright spots.
“It has seen a period of relative peace and stability in this country which has benefited many, but not all Cambodians,” she said. “There’s much that is positive and that is worth celebrating.”
That was a point that government officials emphasized, saying that there is too much focus on the political battles between the ruling party and the opposition.
“One should not evaluate the human rights situation in Cambodia by just focusing on the political issue,” Cambodian Foreign Minister Prak Sokhon said in a statement as he claimed the nation has a relatively free press.
“Cambodia ranks first with the most ‘freedom of the press’ among the ASEAN countries,” he said.
While Cambodia does rank ahead of most of its neighbors for press freedom, it still sits at 128 of 180 nations in the 2016 Reporters Without Borders survey of press freedom.
While the CNRP wants to celebrate, it’s unclear if they will be given permission as the government has failed to give the party a permit to use Freedom Park for its fete.
Phnom Penh city government spokesperson, Mean Chanyada told RFA that city hall decided to forward the CNRP request to the Ministry of Interior because of the size of the celebration.
Senior CNRP lawmaker Son Chhay told RFA that the party will stick to its plans.
“It is not the responsibility of the Phnom Penh city hall to grant or not grant permission to demonstrate,” he said. “The organizer is just required to inform the city government.”
Freedom Park has often been the location for protests against Hun Sen’s government.
In 2009 the government officially designated the square as a place where Cambodians could express themselves freely, but it has often been closed to anti-government protestors.
The park was the site when at least 16 people were killed and more than 150 injured in a grenade attack that came as Sam Rainsy and his supporters gathered there in 1997 to denounce the Cambodian judiciary’s lack of independence and its corruption.
Reported by RFA's Khmer Service. Translated by Yanny Hin. Written in English by Brooks Boliek.

http://www.rfa.org/english/news/cambodia/paris-peace-accords-reach-a-milestone-10192016164148.html 

Soldier Who Beat Cambodian Lawmakers is Now a General

Tea Banh, Cambodia's minister for national defense and deputy prime minister, is shown in this undated file photo. 

 

RFA

Cambodia’s opposition party wants the country’s defense minister to explain why three soldiers convicted of assaulting a pair of lawmakers recently won promotions, with one receiving the rank of brigadier general.
A senior Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) official told RFA’s Khmer Service on Wednesday that opposition lawmakers will summon National Defense Minister Tea Banh to the National Assembly to clarify why the three soldiers were promoted.
“If there are irregularities in the promotions which could affect the interest of the nation or national security, our lawmakers are entitled to question and request that the [relevant] ministers to clarify the matter,” said Ho Vann, an opposition member of the National Assembly.
“If the clarification cannot be made, the National Assembly has the power to issue a motion as a reproach,” he said.
A date for Tea Banh to address the issue has yet to be set, Ho Vann said. Tea Banh also holds the deputy prime minister title.
On Oct. 26, 2015, CNRP lawmakers Kong Saphea and Nhay Chamroeun were dragged from their vehicles and savagely beaten by protesters after the two men attended a morning meeting of the legislature.
The assault carried the hallmarks of a well-planned, well-coordinated attack by well-trained individuals, and three members of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s bodyguard unit admitted taking part in the assault.
While Mao Hoeun, Sot Vanny, and Chay Sarith pled guilty to the assault on May 27, 2016, video footage shows at least two dozen men involved in the attack.
All three men are members of Hun Sen’s bodyguard unit, an elite operation within the Cambodian armed forces that functions as a kind of Praetorian Guard for Asia’s longest-serving despot.
Though the three men were convicted of the attack, they served only a year of their four-year sentence in prison.
Soon after they were released in November, the men were promoted, although it’s unclear whether they still remain in the bodyguard unit.
Chay Sarith was promoted from colonel to brigadier general by a royal decree signed by King Norodom Sihamoni dated November 22, while Sot Vanny and Mao Hoeun were promoted from lieutenant colonel full colonel on Nov. 17.
Encouraging attacks
“Such promotions are an encouragement to the offenders to further attack lawmakers,” Kong Saphea told RFA. “It is a systematic arrangement by those powerful people behind them.”
“While we can’t even yet receive justice, they encourage the offenders through the promotions,” he added. “It’s another bad sign for the nation that such promotions go against the legal system as they are still subject to investigations by the courts although their sentences were suspended for three years and they were the culprits.”
The attack occurred as more than 1,000 supporters of the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) surrounded the parliament building, calling for CNRP deputy president Kem Sokha to step down as first vice president of the National Assembly.
The brazen attack took place in broad daylight while video cameras filmed it. It was condemned by the United States, the European Union, and the United Nations. Human rights groups characterized it as part of a wider campaign that Hun Sen and his allies are waging against the political opposition in Cambodia.
The lawmakers suffered broken noses, a ruptured eardrum, and broken bones and teeth. Nhay Chamraoen required surgery to save his sight in one eye.
Human rights organizations decried the promotions of the three soldiers.
“Lawmakers represent the citizens as a whole and have immunity,” said Am Sam Ath of the Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights (LICADHO). “But when lawmakers are physically attacked and those attackers are given promotions, it produces a negative effect as it results in lawmakers living in fear.”
Cambodian Defenders Project (CDP) President Hong Kim Suon questioned the legality of the promotions.
“They were the culprits, and in legal principle, they cannot be promoted or given any positions,” he said.
Attempts to contact National Defense Ministry’s spokesperson Chhum Socheat for further comments were unsuccessful, but he told local media the soldiers had paid their debt to society.
“Their punishment has already been served through the court, they can go back to work, and promotions will be given according to individual [circumstances],” Socheat told The Phnom Penh Post, adding that the decision was approved by an evaluation committee.
U.N. condemns detentions
While the soldiers received light sentences for the beatings and have been promoted, four human rights activists and a National Election Committee official remain in jail in what many believe to be a vendetta by Hun Sen and the CPP.
Lim Mony, Nay Vanda, Ny Sokha, Yi Soksan, all workers for the Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association (ADHOC) and National Election Commission (NEC) deputy secretary-general Ny Chakrya have been imprisoned since April.
They are also accused of attempting to pay hush money to Kem Sokha’s purported mistress in the government’s wide-ranging probe into the alleged affair that many inside and outside Cambodia see as politically motivated.
The “ADHOC Five” remain in jail, and Kem Sokha was granted royal pardons in the case against the CNRP leader.
On Wednesday two U.N. human rights experts called on the Cambodian government to immediately release them.
“The use of criminal provisions as a pretext to suppress and prevent the legitimate exercise of the right to freedom of expression and to silence human rights defenders is incompatible with article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) which has been signed by Cambodia,” said Rhona Smith, the U.N. special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Cambodia.
Smith’s call was also endorsed by human rights expert Sètondji Roland Adjovi, who currently heads the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention.
In November, the working group called for the immediate release of the ADHOC Five and recognized their right to compensation in accordance with the ICCPR.
“The Working Group found that the deprivation of liberty of individuals in question, being in contravention of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, is arbitrary,” Adjovi said.
Demoting Kem Sokha
While the international community was condemning the detentions, RFA has learned that the National Assembly’s powerful Permanent Committee is planning to strip Kem Sokha of his minority leader status.
The Permanent Committee scheduled an extraordinary session on Jan. 31 to vote to amend the rules so the title can be taken away. The session comes after a recommendation by the Legislation Commission of the National Assembly.
National Assembly spokesperson Chheang Vun told reporters after the meeting that Hun Sen wants to amend the National Assembly’s rules so Kem Sokha’s title can be removed.
The minority leader’s position was created as part of a mechanism to engender détente between the country’s political leaders.
“There are reasons,” he said. “Samdech [honorific] Hun Sen, president of the Cambodian People’s Party, has requested this process, and it was the Legislation Commission’s view that the mechanism cannot be implemented because it has been employed to violate other powers due to dishonest practices.”
Ho Vann told RFA that taking away the title is another example of Hun Sen’s attempts to weaken the legislature’s power. Samdech is an honorary title bestowed by the Cambodian king that roughly translates to “lord” in English.
“Such a mechanism was established less than two years ago, and now it is about to be abrogated,” he said. “Citizens and journalists can see this themselves. This is another weakness of our National Assembly.”
Reported by Khorn Savi, Morm Moniroth, and Tha Vuthy for RFA's Khmer Service. Translated by Sovannarith Keo. Written in English by Brooks Boliek.

http://www.rfa.org/english/news/cambodia/solier-who-beat-cambodian-01262017160749.html 

Cambodian Crackdown on ‘Culprits’ Targets Hun Sen’s Opponents

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen addresses at the National Assembly, Jan. 31, 2017.

Photo courtesy of the National Assembly

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen is stepping up the pressure on his chief political rival as he pushes the National Assembly to approve legislation preventing so-called “culprits” from heading a political party.
“It is necessary that we amend the Law on Political Parties by stipulating clearly that any individual with culprit status shall not be entitled to serve as president or vice-president of any political party,” he said in a floor speech at the National Assembly on Tuesday.
“I request that the National Assembly add this [clause] to strip them off their rights,” he added.
The change would remove Sam Rainsy from the top post of the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) because he has been convicted in several court cases brought by members of the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) led by Hun Sen.
Cambodian courts are notorious for their lack of independence and are often used by the ruling party to punish dissidents and opposition party officials.
Hun Sen is likely to prevail in the legislature as the ruling party has enough votes to amend the Law on Political Parties because it requires only a bare majority to succeed. This means Hun Sen has to get the votes of 63 lawmakers, and the ruling party holds 68 seats.
Hun Sen is also targeting property held by the CNRP lawmaker.
Opposition party headquarters targeted
Hun Sen told the National Assembly that he wants to confiscate the CNRP’s headquarters as a way of enforcing a judgement against Sam Rainsy in a lawsuit he has yet to win.
“I heard that the [CNRP] headquarters was registered in Sam Rainsy’s name, so let’s have his party’s headquarters sold at auction,” Hun Sen said in the speech. “He walks freely by fleeing his jail sentences. A lot of properties belong [to Sam Rainsy] including his plot[s] of land in Kompong Som province.”
In a $1 million lawsuit, Hun Sen has accused his political rival of defamation for remarks made during a Jan. 14 speech in Paris in which Sam Rainsy accused the Cambodian strongman of giving a $1 million bribe to rising opposition social media star Thy Sovantha to persuade her to switch loyalties.
Thy Sovantha had made a name for herself by attacking Hun Sen and the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) through social media, but she abruptly changed her tune this year and began attacking Kem Sokha as the government engaged in a wide-ranging probe into a purported affair between him and a young hairdresser.
In December, Kem Sokha and provincial CNRP official Seang Chet were granted royal pardons in the case against the CNRP leader, but five other people accused in connection with the case remain in prison.
In his Jan. 14 remarks, Sam Rainsy, who was joined by Kem Sokha via Skype, talked about what he called the judicial double standard faced by the CNRP’s members and human rights workers who are jailed on charges over what amounted to a few hundred dollars.
Leaked phone messages allegedly show the prime minister’s second son Hun Manith – head of the military’s intelligence unit – conspiring with Thy Sovantha to discredit Kem Sokha, according to local media reports.
While Thy Sovantha filed a separate defamation lawsuit against Sam Rainsy that seeks $250,000 in damages, Sam Rainsy has been down this legal road before, as there have been at least six lawsuits filed against him by government or CPP figures.
In September he was found guilty of defamation for claiming that Prime Minister Hun Sen’s social medial team bought “likes” on Facebook from “click farms” abroad to increase the appearance of support.
And in December, he was sentenced to five years in prison in absentia for posting what authorities said was a fake government pledge to dissolve the Southeast Asian country's border with Vietnam.
Sam Rainsy has been living in France since 2015 to avoid arrest for a defamation case brought by former Foreign Minister Hor Namhong in 2008.
In October, Hun Sen ordered police, immigration, and aviation authorities to "use all ways and means" to prevent the opposition leader from returning to the country, as Sam Rainsy has pledged to do before the country’s elections.
Cambodia’s local elections are set for June 2017 and national elections are scheduled for 2018. In the disputed 2013 elections, the CPP lost 22 seats in its worst showing since 1998.
Minority leader title stripped
Adopted in 1997, the Law on Political Parties consists of 11 Chapters with 45 articles, but it contains no language that lays out punishments for any individual with “culprit status.”
Age restrictions are the only limits the Cambodian constitution places on political office as it fails to mention “culprit status” preventing anyone from serving.
“A political party is the only institution which is entitled to solely choose its party president, and Mr. Sam Rainsy is our party president,” said CNRP Chief Whip Son Chhay.
The Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia (COMFREL)’s Executive Director Koul Panha told RFA’s Khmer Service that the attempt to amend the Law on Political Parties was unfair.
“In a fair election environment, each party involved shall not be pressured by court orders, the armed forces or the National Assembly,” he said.
Tuesday’s move against  “culprits” came after the National Assembly at the behest of Hun Sen stripped the minority leader title from CNRP deputy leader Kem Sokha.
CNRP lawmakers boycotted the National Assembly session in protest.
Hun Sen keeps opposition in jail
Hun Sen also dashed hopes that two opposition lawmakers, Hong Sok Hour and Um Sam An, could be released from prison, telling the National Assembly they pose a danger to CPP members.
“I think these cases should not be touched because they are too serious and could pose a danger to [then] President of the State Council, Mr. Heng Samrin, who was accused of signing a deal to eliminate the border [between Vietnam and Cambodia],” he said. “It was not right.”
In November,  Hong Sok Hour was found  guilty of forging and publishing public documents and of incitement to cause instability, when he posted a disputed copy of a 1979 Cambodia-Vietnam treaty on Facebook that said the two countries had agreed to dissolve their mutual border.
Um Sam An was handed a two-and-a half year sentence in October for “inciting discrimination” and “inciting social instability” for posts on the lawmaker’s Facebook page accusing the CPP of failing to stop land encroachment by Vietnam and using improper maps to demarcate the border between the two former colonies of France.
Hun Sen had ordered police in April to arrest anyone accusing the government of using “fake” maps to cede national territory to Vietnam, which invaded and occupied Cambodia in 1979 to overthrow the rule of the Khmer Rouge.
Hun Sen also raised the Boeung Kak Lake case, and the case of the “Kem Sokha Five’” in his speech.
Hun Sen said he will use his prime minister’s privilege to decide if he will ask King Norodom Sihamoni for a pardon in the Boeung Kak Lake case, but he described the action of the activists there as a “riot.”
Land rights activist Tep Vanny was convicted on Sept. 19 of insulting and obstructing public officials and was sentenced to six months in prison in relation to a protest in November 2011 near Hun Sen’s residence.
She first gained prominence as an activist fighting the Boeung Kak Lake land grab, when some 3,500 families were evicted from the neighborhood surrounding the urban lake in Phnom Penh. The lake was later filled with sand to make way for a development project with close ties to Hun Sen and the CPP.
Seizure of land for development—often without due process or fair compensation for displaced residents—is a major cause of protests in Cambodia and other authoritarian Asian countries, including China and Laos.
As for the “Kem Sokha Five,” the prime minister said he had to wait for the legal process to run its course.
“In accordance with the law, it takes two months for a judgment to be final,” he said.  “We cannot request amnesty while the judgement is not yet entered into force.”
Lim Mony, Nay Vanda, Ny Sokha, Yi Soksan—all workers for ADHOC (the Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association—and National Election Commission (NEC) deputy secretary-general Ny Chakrya have been imprisoned since April.
They are accused of attempting to pay hush money to Kem Sokha’s purported mistress in the government’s wide-ranging probe into the alleged affair that many inside and outside of Cambodia see as politically motivated.
Cambodia is “not free”
Hun Sen’s moves come as the U.S.-based watchdog group Freedom House ranked Cambodia “Not Free” in its “Freedom in the World 2017” report. Cambodia clocked in at a 5.5 rating with one representing the greatest degree of freedom and 7 the smallest degree of freedom.
Spokesperson of the Office of the Council of Ministers Phay Siphan told RFA the report does not reflect reality.
“It is a report written by those reactionary cliques aiming at sabotaging Cambodia,” he said. “They arrange their people to create such reports to be used by their echoing tools, including Radio Free Asia.”
He added: “Had we taken proper measures, RFA would never exist here, because we know clearly that RFA is a tool for sabotaging the government.”
Cambodian Center for Human Rights (CCHR) Director Chak Sopheap took a different view.
“Citizens or civil society, in particular those [opposition political] analysts have always suffered from harassment, including being charged with criminal case of defamation,” she said.
Reported by Vuthy Tha, Sonorng Khe and Chandara Yang for RFA's Khmer Service. Translated by Sovannarith Keo. Written in English by Brooks Boliek.

http://www.rfa.org/english/news/cambodia/cambodian-crackdown-on-culprits-01312017145312.html 

Cambodia’s Hun Sen Refuses to Allow Ministers to Appear for Questioning

In these undated file photos, Hun Sen ( right ) and Sam Rainsy speak to reporters after a meeting at the National Assembly.

RFA/Yeang Socheametta

By refusing to make some of his cabinet available for questioning by the National Assembly, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen is continuing his attempts to put his opposition on the sidelines.
In a Tuesday interview Hun Sen told the pro-government media outlet Fresh News that he is refusing to allow three of his ministers to respond to questioning in the National Assembly.
Members of the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) wanted to grill Minister of National Defense Tea Banh, Minister of Agriculture Veng Sakhon, and Minister of Labor and Vocational Training Ith Sam Heng on a range of issues.
Independent political analyst Lao Mong Hay told RFA’s Khmer Service that Hun Sen’s decision runs contrary to the National Assembly’s rules and the country’s constitution.
“He [Hun Sen] violates the constitution and the internal rules of the National Assembly,” Lao Mong Hay said. “The internal rules say questions and answers shall occur every Thursday.”
While opposition lawmakers have the right to question the ministers, the ministers also have protections, Lao Mong Hay explained.
“There are also conditions for the questions to be raised,” he said. “For example, it is forbidden to ask questions related to cases being processed by the court.”
Military promotions, the border and labor issues
Those protections could stifle some questions, but opposition lawmakers could still put the ministers on the spot as the ongoing controversy over the demarcation of the border with Vietnam, a lack of jobs, and the recent promotion of three soldiers who pled guilty to beating a pair of opposition lawmakers could be fair game.
CNRP Chief Whip Son Chhay told RFA he wants to see a written letter from Hun Sen explaining why the ministers cannot appear before the National Assembly.
“We want to question them about reform,” he said.
“Does the ministry of national defense have a proper mechanism to defend the territory; for promotions in rank, et cetera?” he added. “Because lately we have noticed that some guys without the proper background have been promoted too quickly. We just want to know the procedures.”
On May 27, 2016 soldiers Mao Hoeun, Sot Vanny, and Chay Sarith pled guilty to assaulting CNRP lawmakers Kong Saphea and Nhay Chamroeun.
All three men were members of Hun Sen’s bodyguard unit, an elite operation within the Cambodian armed forces that functions as a kind of Praetorian Guard for Asia’s longest-serving national leader.
Though the three pled guilty to the attack, they served only a year of their four-year sentence in prison.
Soon after they were released in November, the men were promoted, although it’s unclear whether they still remain in the bodyguard unit.
Chay Sarith was promoted from colonel to brigadier general by a royal decree signed by King Norodom Sihamoni dated Nov. 22. Sot Vanny and Mao Hoeun were promoted from lieutenant colonel to full colonel on Nov. 17.
The border issue has been a potent political issue as opposition lawmakers have often accused Hun Sen of ceding land to neighboring Vietnam and of having an uncomfortably cozy relationship with Hanoi.
Labor issues have also bedeviled Cambodia for years, and CNRP lawmakers want to probe the exploitation of Cambodians working overseas and issues involving the issuance of passports and visas for workers.
‘These threats show the panic of Hun Sen’
Hun Sen’s decision to keep his ministers from testifying comes after he launched a new attack on the opposition.
In a Tuesday speech before the National Assembly, Hun Sen pushed for legislation that would bar his chief political rival from heading a political party and threatened to seize and auction off the CNRP’s headquarters.
Those threats came after the National Assembly stripped CNRP deputy leader Kem Sokha of his minority leader title. Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) holds a majority in the National Assembly.
“Threatening to have CNRP headquarters seized looks like an attempt to eliminate the party by destroying the CNRP leadership and foundation,” said independent analyst Meas Ny. “If it happened as per Mr. Hun Sen’s speech, it would be a big danger for the CNRP.”
Via his Facebook page, CNRP leader Sam Rainsy described Hun Sen’s latest actions as those of a man desperate to hold on to power.
“These threats show the panic of Hun Sen as his certain defeat in the communal elections in June 2017 and the legislative elections of July 2018 draw closer,” Rainsy wrote in his post. “He no longer has any appeal to the electorate, so he personally hounds me, as I am the symbol of resistance to his autocratic and corrupt power.”
In September, Sam Rainsy was found guilty of defamation for claiming that Prime Minister Hun Sen’s social medial team had bought “likes” on Facebook from “click farms” abroad to increase the appearance of support.
And in December, he was sentenced to five years in prison in absentia for posting what authorities said was a fake government pledge to dissolve the Southeast Asian country's border with Vietnam.
Sam Rainsy has been living in France since 2015 to avoid arrest in a defamation case brought by former Foreign Minister Hor Namhong in 2008.
Despite what appears to be a vendetta against him, Sam Rainsy said that he remains confident he will prevail in the end.
“Hun Sen has tried for years to misuse the courts to exclude me from politics and to suppress or divide the CNRP, so in that sense there is nothing new,” he wrote in the post.
“He has failed because the CNRP remains a united force that will defeat him in the 2017 and 2018 elections.”
Reported by Zakariya Tin and Sarada Taing for RFA's Khmer Service. Translated by Sovannarith Keo. Written in English by Brooks Boliek.

http://www.rfa.org/english/news/cambodia/cambodias-hun-sen-refuses-02012017142655.html

China's Economy Seeks Stability in 2017

"Stability" has become the official watchword for China's economy, but the government has yet to define what it means.
The government says it achieved stability in the economy in 2016 and will maintain it this year, despite bouts of currency depreciation and forecasts of slower economic growth.
Stability and stabilization have become mantras for policy makers, recited repeatedly in the official press.
"In a world economy beset with increasing instabilities and sluggish recovery, China has stuck to its new development concept and the basic tone of making progress while maintaining stability," President Xi Jinping was quoted as saying after a Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee meeting on Dec. 9.
"China ... made stability as the basic tone for next year's economic planning," the official Xinhua news agency reported, summing up the government's annual Economic Work Conference chaired by Premier Li Keqiang on Dec. 16.
"As the Chinese economy maintains medium-high growth, the [yuan] renminbi has the conditions to remain relatively stable," the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on Dec. 13, according to Xinhua.
But the government has offered few if any specifics about how it will measure stability or determine when stabilization has been achieved.
The meaning of stability
Does stability mean that gross domestic product growth rates will stay constant, stop falling, decline only slightly or perhaps resume higher levels?
Does it mean that the yuan renminbi (RMB) will halt its decline against the U.S. dollar, or only drop less than it did last year?
Will China try to slow last year's surge of capital outflows, or simply keep them from increasing?
So far, nobody knows.
One major problem in assessing what the government means by stabilization is that it has rarely if ever reported that the economy was anything other than stable.
"None of these terms that make sense in other countries make any sense in China because they don't ever officially acknowledge the need for stabilization," said Derek Scissors, an Asia economist and resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington.
Last week in a year-end summary, Xinhua came close to conceding that the government faced serious economic trouble last year.
"China's capital market fluctuations at the start of 2016 signaled it was going to be a tough year," Xinhua said.
"However, despite the rocky start, the economy is ending the year on a firm footing, and this year's growth target will be met," it said.
China's claims that it achieved economic stability last year are backed by official GDP figures showing consistent 6.7-percent growth in all of the first three quarters.
While the rate was down from the 2015 pace of 6.9 percent, it landed within the government's target range of 6.5 to 7 percent.
Exaggerated figures
Most economists view the official GDP figures as exaggerations, useful only to indicate relative rates of growth.
Scissors estimates that actual GDP quarterly growth rates since mid-2015 may have fallen as low as three percent and have now risen to the "upper fours."
A forecast by the international bank Standard Chartered estimated a mild speedup in the fourth quarter with stronger service sector performance, giving the economy a growth rate of 6.8 percent for 2016, the official English-language China Daily reported.
If that is the case, it would suggest a recovery from the growth slowdown, although the government has been careful to avoid using the word.
Any claim of recovery would raise the question: "Recover from what?"
Instead, the government has settled on "stability" and "stabilization" as preferred terms for China's economic condition, but even these may spur misgivings.
"This is an admission on their part that there was a period of weakness and they think they've now fought it off," said Scissors. "That may actually be true."

Staging a recovery

As China begins a new year, some of the official data suggest that the government has staged a recovery in 2016 after returning to the once-scorned formula of massive stimulus spending, infrastructure projects and excessive bank loans.
In November, yuan-denominated lending jumped 22 percent from a month earlier to 794.6 billion yuan (U.S. $114.4 billion), the People's Bank of China (PBOC) reported.
Surrogate indicators like power consumption have shown signs of recovery with five-percent growth through 11 months after rising only 0.5 percent in all of 2015.
While heavy industry and trade have slumped from the heady days of the past decade, officials have taken heart from retail sales, which rose 10.8 percent from a year earlier in November, while industrial output showed a moderate gain of 6.2 percent.
Even that much industrial growth may have a dark side, since it includes sudden spurts from the high-polluting and overcapacity coal and steel industries, which the government had pledged to get under control.
Last week, the State Council punished two deputy governors in eastern Jiangsu and northern Hebei provinces for allowing previously closed steel mills to reopen, state media reported.
The unauthorized production has been blamed for last month's red-alert smog in Beijing and more than 20 other cities.
Reviews of the past year are likely to find an uneven pattern of government interventions and asset bubbles, like those in real estate, coal and steel, rather than the steady application of economic policies that stabilization implies.
The government seems to have succeeded in cooling the speculative growth of housing prices late last year, but only after urging cities to restore controls on second and third home buying that were lifted in 2015.
Given the reactions to the bubbles in property, coal and steel, the government cannot rely on those sectors for growth in 2017.
As excess liquidity seeks outlets and investment opportunities abroad, the government may have set the stage for capital flight.
Final figures for 2016 are likely to show a growing imbalance of outbound over inbound investment as capital flows toward the stronger currency and rising interest rates of the United States.
In the first 11 months of last year, China's non-financial outbound direct investment (ODI) soared 55.3 percent to 1.07 trillion yuan (U.S. $154 billion). That compares with foreign direct investment (FDI) of 731.8 billion yuan (U.S. $105.3 billion), up only 3.9 percent from a year earlier.
Government’s response
In response, the government has ordered banks to tighten foreign exchange policies in what amounts to creeping capital controls.
The yuan began 2016 at about 6.5 to the U.S. dollar and ended the year at 6.945 to the dollar, depreciating by 6.5 percent.
In November, China's foreign exchange reserves fell to $3.05 trillion (21.2 trillion yuan) in the fifth monthly decline in a row.
If the trends continue into 2017, China could come close to the minimum level of U.S. $2.8 trillion (19.4 trillion yuan) it is estimated to need for covering its imports, servicing debt and keeping confidence in the yuan.
Given the challenges, a loosely-defined stability may be as much as the government can safely promise.
The government is not expected to announce specific targets for GDP growth in 2017 until its annual legislative meetings in March. But an official rate of 6.5 percent would allow it to argue that the "new normal" of sustainable growth is continuing while the numbers are coming down at a stable pace.
A forecast by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) predicts 6.5 percent growth for the first two quarters, slipping slightly to 6.4 percent in the second half.
"The gap between reality and official data is narrowing, and that is a sign of stabilization," Scissors said.

http://www.rfa.org/english/commentaries/energy_watch/chinas-economy-seeks-stability-in-2017-01032017112309.html

Inflation Fuels Yuan Concerns

After years of friction over currency policy, China's inflation may become a new concern for the United States.

On Feb. 4, the Treasury Department issued a long-awaited report to Congress on China's monetary practices but declined to cite it for currency manipulation as critics have urged.

U.S. manufacturers have argued for years that China deliberately undervalues the yuan by as much as 40 percent to give its exports an unfair price advantage, causing the loss of American jobs.

But in its report, Treasury said the yuan is actually climbing faster than it seems because of China's growing inflation.

Going strictly by "nominal" exchange rates, the yuan has risen 3.7 percent against the dollar since last June, or 6 percent on a yearly basis.

But with China's greater inflation factored in, the yuan is strengthening at a 10-percent rate in "real" terms, said the Treasury report while noting that the currency remains "substantially undervalued."

U.S. officials appear to have heeded the advice of economists like Harvard's Dale Jorgenson, who told Radio Free Asia in November that Washington has been "too focused" on the yuan's nominal rate.

"It's the real exchange rate that matters," Jorgenson said.


Significant difference

Treasury estimates that inflation was 5 percentage points higher in China than in the United States in the second half of last year, making a significant difference in real terms.

If Treasury and the economists are right, China's inflation could erase more of the undervaluation in coming months.

The government has already raised its inflation target to 4 percent for 2011 after topping its 3-percent limit last year. Officially, China's consumer price index (CPI) reached
3.3 percent but economists believe it was grossly understated.

"Inflation may be substantially higher than the government is letting on," said Gary Hufbauer, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington.

Some estimates put actual CPI growth at 10 percent or more. That figure could rise even higher this year due to drought in farming regions of China, which may drive up food costs.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), China's CPI reached a year-on-year rate of 5.1 in November before easing to 4.6 percent in December. Last year, CPI in the United States was just 1.5 percent.

U.S. legislation

But critics aren't buying the inflation argument.

"It's as plain as the nose on your face that China manipulates its currency," said Democratic Senator Charles Schumer of New York, who has backed legislation that could lead to tariffs on imports from China.

"It's just as plain that the only way to address this problem is for Congress to act," Schumer said.

Last week, Senators Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio, and Olympia Snowe, a Maine Republican, introduced legislation that would direct the Commerce Department to "treat currency undervaluation as a prohibited export subsidy."

Hufbauer said Congress is more likely to look at numbers like the U.S. trade deficit with China in considering whether to pass currency measures this year.

In 2010, the trade deficit with China soared over 20 percent to a record $273.1 billion, the Commerce Department reported last week.

Alan Tonelson, research fellow at the U.S. Business and Industry Council in Washington, argued that currency policy should not be based on China's "unreliable" CPI figures.

"It's only the latest smokescreen," said Tonelson. "We're focused on getting Washington to move against a long-standing problem."

Export dependent

Tonelson rejected Treasury's argument that inflation is eating away at the exchange rate gap as a suggestion that "the problem will take care of itself."

"We dismiss that as cynical and self-serving nonsense," he said.

Tonelson argued that China's economy is even more export dependent than it was eight years ago when U.S. industry began its campaign against the exchange rate policy.

The reason is that China's consumer market is not yet developed enough to keep its huge labor force employed. The result is that the government shifts from one export-driven tactic to another, regardless of short-term exchange rate trends, said Tonelson.

While Treasury sees some positive movement on closing the currency gap as a result of inflation, both economists and critics are on guard in case Beijing tries to turn the argument around.

If its prices keep rising this year, China may be able to make the case that it no longer needs to let the yuan appreciate in nominal terms because inflation is doing the job.

Chinese argument

Hufbauer said he has already started to hear the argument from Chinese economists.

"In my meetings, they've already begun to talk about it, and I think it will feature more heavily," he said.

On Sunday, Yi Gang, vice-governor of the People Bank of China (PBOC), argued that the exchange rate is now at "an appropriate level," the official Xinhua news agency reported, citing the Treasury's estimate that the yuan had risen 10-percent in inflation-adjusted terms.

"So far, the International Monetary Fund at least is not buying that argument as a reason to back off from urging China to appreciate," said Hufbauer.

"The Chinese will use that argument but I don't think it will sway the rhetoric to a completely hands-off attitude, which China would love to see," he said.

Tonelson was asked whether his group would accept rising inflation as a valid reason for slowing appreciation.

"Absolutely not," he said.

Treasury has been trying to make the opposite case to China, arguing that appreciation will help to control inflation by reducing pressure to convert dollars into yuan.

http://www.rfa.org/english/commentaries/energy_watch/currency-02142011122225.html

China Clamps Down on Currency Flows

China is plugging holes in its foreign exchange rules to keep its currency and reserves from sinking below key levels as worries about U.S. policies grow.
Regulators have been cracking down on all forms of capital outflow in an effort to keep the yuan from dropping below the psychological barrier of seven to the U.S. dollar while foreign exchange reserves approach the U.S. $3-trillion (20.6-trillion yuan) mark.
The twin defenses appear to be behind the Jan. 1 notice from the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) requiring individuals to justify currency conversions, even within the legal limit of U.S. $50,000 (343,820 yuan) per year.
Under the new rules, banks have been ordered to report all transactions of over 50,000 yuan (U.S. $7,271), compared with earlier limits of 200,000 yuan (U.S. $29,085).
Citizens must sign a pledge that the funds "will not be used for overseas purchases of property, securities, life insurance or any other insurance of an investment nature," the official English-language China Daily reported.
Applicants must confirm compliance with money-laundering rules and other restrictions under penalties of losing the right to convert currency for three years and the threat of possible investigation, the paper said.
"These are not new rules. They are simply more stringent enforcement of the existing ones," China Daily asserted.
But the pledges and potential investigations may have a chilling effect on individuals who have been investing abroad to protect their savings against the falling value of the yuan, which depreciated against the U.S. dollar by about 6.5 percent last year.
The shrinking value of the currency has taken its cue from China's economy. Last week, the National Bureau of Statistics reported that gross domestic product growth fell from 6.9 percent in 2015 to 6.7 percent last year, the slowest pace in 26 years.
Surge in foreign deals
The targeting of individual transactions follows a November announcement by SAFE and three other agencies of plans to "tighten screening of overseas investment projects" following a 53-percent surge in foreign deals in the first 10 months of last year.
Outbound direct investment (ODI) by Chinese companies has dwarfed foreign direct investment (FDI) in China since late 2015, raising government concerns that capital is leaving the country as interest rates rise and the dollar strengthens in the United States.
China's non-bond ODI soared 46 percent last year to U.S. $170 billion (1.1 trillion yuan), according to an initial estimate by the China Global Investment Tracker, published by the American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation in Washington.
In the past week, the Ministry of Commerce reported similar results. Non-financial ODI jumped 44.1 percent last year to U.S. $170.11 billion (1.17 trillion yuan), while FDI of 813 billion yuan (U.S. $118.2 billion) rose only 4.1 percent, the ministry said.
The government has sent a series of signals that concern is rising over the net outflows.
In December, a People's Bank of China (PBOC) official announced an inter-ministerial effort with 22 government agencies to block illegal money transfers under the government's "One Belt, One Road" (OBOR) initiative for developing trade routes and infrastructure overseas.
PBOC Vice-Governor Guo Qingping said the crackdown was aimed at "combating the financing of terrorism regimes," but the enforcement coincides with attempts to halt capital flight through ordinary investment activities.
"Real estate and precious metal trading have become new avenues for such crimes, with internet finance and third- party payment channels dealing a further blow," China Daily quoted Guo as saying.
Government’s vigilance spreads
The government's vigilance has gradually spread from big investment deals to individual transactions with the growth in capital leaving the country.
"The move aims to fix loopholes in the current management and curb foreign exchange purchase violations and other illegal activities, such as fraud, money laundering and underground banks," said SAFE, as quoted by the official Xinhua news agency.
Last week, the agency that controls state-owned enterprises (SOEs) also announced new rules aimed at cutting capital outflow.
Under the rules, 102 large SOEs will be barred from investing abroad in sectors including real estate, iron ore, petroleum and non-ferrous metal, the State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) said, according to state media.
The Rhodium Group, a New York-based consulting firm, estimated that net outflows under the non-reserve capital account reached U.S. $379 billion (2.6 trillion yuan) in the first three quarters of last year.
The multi-front buildup of capital controls comes as China's foreign exchange reserves dropped in December for the sixth month in a row to U.S. $3.01 trillion (20.7 trillion yuan), raising concerns that the PBOC can't keep the yuan from falling below the seven-to-the-dollar barrier without slipping under the U.S. $3-trillion mark.
State media have stressed that both are only psychological thresholds while insisting that there are no new capital controls.
"Despite continued drops in China's foreign exchange (forex) reserves, economists believe there is no need to panic as reserves are still abundant for the country to fend off external risks," a Xinhua news analysis said on Jan. 9.
"Enforcing forex rules not currency control," said a China Daily headline on Jan. 5.
Last week, a SAFE official argued that China still has "ample" reserves, suggesting that the government may choose to break the U.S. $3-trillion barrier in defense of the yuan.
There is no need to "create excessive hype over a certain number," SAFE spokesperson Wang Chunying said, according to Xinhua.

Currency concerns
The government's currency concerns are believed to be the reason behind the abrupt rise and fall of the yuan's value on the successive trading days of Jan. 6 and Jan. 9.
Currency speculators in Hong Kong were stunned on Jan. 6 when the PBOC's daily "fixing" of its central parity rate jumped by 639 basis points, or hundredths of a percentage point. The sudden rise against the dollar came after weeks of smaller declines.
The boost was accompanied by a spike in yuan overnight interbank interest rates to over 60 percent, making short trading positions against the currency indefensible.
The move was apparently orchestrated by the PBOC to punish speculators as part of an effort to stop the yuan's downward spiral. But the depreciation resumed on Jan. 9 when the PBOC's fixing fell by 594 basis points to 6.9262 to the U.S. dollar.
"Our impression is that the PBOC is very sensitive about the key 7.0 level for the yuan," said Liu Weiming, chief investment officer at Fu Xi Investment Management, according to The Wall Street Journal. "Once 7 is broken, people will expect 8 and it will get even worse."
But defending the yuan could become unaffordable if the PBOC treats the U.S. $3-trillion reserve level as equally inviolable. Tighter capital controls may be the only option.
"We're starting to see more and more of a negative cycle being created," Benjamin Fuchs, chief investment officer at BFAM Partners in Hong Kong, told Bloomberg News. Attempts to curb outflows are "just making people want to take money out quicker," he said.
Gary Hufbauer, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, said that China's capital outflows began with its anti-corruption campaign before economic troubles became the major motivation.
"That caused a lot of people to become quite frightened and they moved their capital abroad," Hufbauer said.
Cushioning the yuan’s fall
The PBOC has tried to cushion the currency's fall by buying yuan until its reserve levels suffered.
China's foreign exchange reserves hit a high of U.S. $3.99 trillion (27.43 trillion yuan) in mid-2014.
"By now, you have the psychology feeding on itself and people wondering if they can get out at all," said Hufbauer.
The PBOC has also been pushed into supporting the yuan by U.S. President Donald Trump's charges that China manipulates the currency's value to gain an export advantage.
"Then, other forces within the government said they can't continue to spend their foreign exchange reserves on this attempt to placate Trump," Hufbauer said.
"So, here you've got, I would say, kind of a mess going on," he said.
China's tightening of capital controls is unlikely to be what the International Monetary Fund had in mind when it approved the yuan's inclusion in its Special Drawing Rights (SDR) basket of major freely-traded currencies in 2015.
"I think the IMF decision was essentially political to begin with, so on political grounds, they will probably not say very much. But it's very troubling what's happened," Hufbauer said.

http://www.rfa.org/english/commentaries/energy_watch/china-clamps-down-on-currency-flows-01232017104537.html

China's Investment in U.S. Faces New Challenges

Chinese investment in the United States is headed for a steep drop this year after a record surge in 2016, analysts say.
The expected decline is the result of a combination of factors including political concerns in Washington and increased vigilance in China over capital outflows.
Even without those influences, Chinese investment in the United States may be due for a downward correction after an unprecedented buying binge last year.
Two leading investment data services have reported similar totals for the 2016 bonanza.
According to initial estimates by the China Global Investment Tracker compiled by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and the Heritage Foundation, China's investment in the U.S. market nearly tripled last year to U.S. $55 billion (378 billion yuan).
The China Investment Monitor of the New York-based Rhodium Group counted U.S. $45.6 billion (313.7 billion yuan) in 2016. Despite different definitions, the analysts agree that China's spending in the United States last year was equal to about half of all its previous investments in the country since tracking began over a decade ago.
China's appetite for American assets including hotels, real estate, entertainment and technology is even more remarkable when measured against the Ministry of Commerce official global total of U.S. $170.1 billion (1.1 trillion yuan) in non-financial outbound direct investment (ODI) last year.
The jump in U.S. investment accounted for as much as a third of China's worldwide ODI and two-thirds of its 44-percent increase.
But the big wave of Chinese money flowing into the U.S. market seems unlikely to be repeated this year.
"The investment in the United States is going to drop. No question," said Derek Scissors, an Asia economist and AEI resident scholar in Washington.
"We won't allow it. Even if the Chinese allowed it, we wouldn't allow it," he said.
The Rhodium Group sees some spillover from 2016, since Chinese companies are awaiting final regulatory approvals or financing for U.S. $21 billion (144 billion yuan) of U.S. deals. But these will have to overcome greater resistance this year.
"While the economic fundamentals and the deal pipeline suggest that 2017 will be another boom year for Chinese investment in the U.S., the political realities on both sides pose a major downside risk to both pending transactions as well as the pace of newly announced investments in coming months," Rhodium analysts said in a report.
A slowdown in deals
The slowing of deals in the United States is only part of the expected decline in China's total ODI.
In interviews with The Wall Street Journal, economists at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences estimated that ODI would return to the 2015 level of about U.S. $118 billion (812 billion yuan), a drop of some 30 percent from last year.
One major reason is China's concern about capital outflows, which have pressured both its currency and its foreign exchange reserves.
As Chinese capital is drawn toward the stronger currency and rising interest rates of the United States, the People's Bank of China (PBOC) has spent heavily on defending the yuan, dragging forex reserves down to U.S. $3.01 trillion (20.7 trillion yuan) from a high of U.S. $3.99 trillion (27.4 trillion yuan) in mid-2014.
To slow the outflow, the PBOC and government agencies have ordered close reviews of overseas investments to bar currency speculation.
On Jan. 1, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) extended the curbs to individuals, requiring citizens to pledge that exchanges of yuan for foreign currency would not be used for overseas purchases of "property, securities, life insurance" or other investments.
It is unclear how effective such restrictions will be.
On Jan. 16, a report by the Hurun Research Institute found that nearly half of Chinese citizens with assets valued at over 10 million yuan (U.S. $1.45 million) already own an average of 2.3 houses overseas, the official Xinhua news agency said.
Over half of the investors in foreign property cited access to schooling as a reason for their purchases but also noted "the need to hedge against risks," the report said.
How big a part similar risks played in last year's major investments in the United States is anyone's guess, but Scissors estimated that currency risks could have accounted for as much as 35 percent.

Hotel and entertainment acquisitions
An examination of the deals listed chronologically by the China Global Investment Tracker suggests that a flurry of U.S. investments came together at intervals, roughly corresponding to spikes in China's currency concerns.
While technology acquisitions were most likely to have been pursued for strategic reasons, those in other sectors like hotels and entertainment have come under scrutiny.
Late last year, the PBOC and SAFE said they were "closely monitoring the tendency of 'irrational' overseas investment in some areas."
In a joint statement, the agencies pointed to outbound investments in real estate, hotels, cinemas, entertainment, and sports as "examples of this tendency," Xinhua reported at the time.
China's big investments in hotels may have been especially influenced by currency fluctuations, said Scissors.
"Tourist demand and the profitability of the hotel industry did not change that dramatically in one year," he said. "What happened was, ... once somebody bought one, a number of people bought them and they started soliciting the Chinese for hotels. And that's a way to get money out of the country."
Even without the currency crackdown, China's investments in the United States may face greater resistance this year under the administration of President Donald Trump, who has threatened to charge it with currency manipulation and impose tariffs on its exports.
China's acquisitions are expected to face tougher scrutiny by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), a government agency that reviews foreign deals for national security implications.
The Rhodium Group cited "serious efforts underway on Capitol Hill to prepare legislation that would expand the mandates of CFIUS to review Chinese and other foreign transactions."
Last September, a bipartisan group of U.S. House members led by Rep. Robert Pittenger, Republican of North Carolina, urged the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to determine whether the authority of CFIUS should be updated to keep pace with the "growing scope of foreign acquisitions" in sectors of concern, including telecommunications, media and agriculture.
In particular, the group cited investments by "Chinese companies designated as 'state champions' that often benefit from illegal subsidies to gain strategic access to markets like the U.S." On Oct, 4, the GAO agreed to conduct the review.
Greater restrictions
It is unclear whether China's big investors in the U.S. market have gotten the message that they may face greater restrictions or whether they expect them to be enforced.
On Jan. 19, Reuters reported that the Paramount Pictures subsidiary of Viacom Inc. will receive U.S. $1 billion (6.8 billion yuan) in investment from Shanghai Film Group and Huahua Media. The cash will finance 25 percent of Paramount's films for the next three years, Reuters said, citing a "source familiar with the situation."
But reactions to last year's surge in spending suggest that China's investment in the United States will face rising pressure from both sides.
Ironically, the higher hurdles for foreign investment could slow the pace of China's capital flight and depreciation of its currency, perhaps easing pressure for retaliatory trade measures against its exports.

http://www.rfa.org/english/commentaries/energy_watch/chinas-investment-in-us-faces-new-challenges-01302017105151.html

The Mekong Part 4: Blasting the Rapids in Thailand

Thailand, after suspending action for more than a decade, has decided to support China’s blasting of rapids in the Mekong River.
China wants to remove rocks and islets in the Mekong in order to clear the way for large cargo ships, effectively turning Southeast Asia’s longest river into a Chinese trade and shipping lane.
Thailand’s military government meanwhile has plans to build a multimillion dollar freight transport hub in the country’s northern province of Chiang Rai. The aim is to link Chinese shipping with Thai land transport.
The city of Chiang Rai would be promoted as a logistics hub for Thailand and both China and neighboring Laos. Construction is scheduled to begin next year, according to The Bangkok Post.
The Post says that the blasting will cover a 392-mile route from the China-Myanmar border to Luang Prabang in Laos.
But nongovernmental groups in Thailand argue that the loss of the rapids will further damage the Mekong’s declining fish stocks, which have long been the major source of protein for villagers living near the river.
Pianporn Deetes,  Thailand campaign coordinator for the NGO International Rivers, said that the ecosystem in question is one of  the most complex in the world. It includes many fish species,  rapids, whirlpools, and sand dunes as well as vegetation supporting farmers, fishermen, and wildlife.
The rapids and rocks provide sanctuaries and breeding grounds for migratory fish. They also provide a refuge for the endangered giant catfish.
Deetes  said in an interview that to place commercial shipping ahead of the needs of  millions of farmers and fishermen depending on the Mekong for their living would be “senseless .”
She said that export products from China can reach Thai markets within 24 hours by road and that existing shipping by smaller cargo ships is working well. In addition, she noted that China has plans to build a railroad inside Laos that will be able to carry freight to Thailand.
Thai villagers protest
Over the past year, Thai villagers living along the Mekong have boarded Chinese survey boats to protest plans to destroy the rapids located near their homes.
Living on the Thai side of the Mekong, which forms a border between Laos and Thailand, the villagers have demanded that the survey boats halt their work.
At the same time, a group of Thai villagers led by a Thai teacher called Kru Tee  filed a lawsuit in Thailand calling for a judgment against several Thai government agencies regarding the negative environmental and social impacts created by Laos’s Xayaburi Dam.
The plaintiffs argued that the hydropower dam wouldn’t have been economically viable without an agreement by the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT) to purchase 95 percent of the electricity generated by the dam.
The case came under investigation by Thailand’s Supreme Administrative Court, but  according to Thai media, it was rejected  in late December, 2015.
A history of debate
In the year 2000, China, Laos, Burma, and Thailand signed an agreement to allow the blasting of  rocks and reefs  in the Mekong River.
According to a report by the Worldwatch Institute based in Washington, D.C., blasting began in December 2002.
But in 2003, after completing an early phase of  the project, China halted the dynamiting due to a Thai border dispute with Laos over the location of the two countries’ shared water boundary.
Thai officials feared that changes in the flow of the river resulting from the blasting could shift the location of the Thai-Lao border, which is supposed to be set at the lowest elevation within the river.
Meanwhile, China had undertaken an environmental impact study which concluded that the impact of the blasting would be negligible.
But a Thai environmental watchdog group and scientists who reviewed the Chinese findings said that the study’s analysis was deeply flawed. They said, moreover, that it was based on a field investigation that had lasted only two days.
The Mekong River Commission (MRC), which is supposed to review major changes in the flow of the Mekong, has called for a halt to the plan to blast more rapids until a more complete study can be made. But the MRC’s findings are not binding, and China isn’t a member of the commission.
The new blasting is not likely to commence until three years from now under a framework that called for a first phase from 2015 to 2020. That phase has required a survey and another assessment of the project’s impact.
But some critics argue that even the smaller ships that currently carry cargo down the Mekong are already causing erosion of the riverbanks along parts of the river.
“Without the blasting of  more rapids, local people feel  the shipping traffic is already very destructive,” said former Thai Senator Kraisak Choonhavan, who has studied the issues involved for several decades.
Dan Southerland is RFA’s founding executive editor.
http://www.rfa.org/english/thailand-mekong-01272017104723.html