The Philippine coastguard called on its country’s fishing fleets to keep operating around the Scarborough Shoal (known as Bajo de Masinloc in the Philippines and Huangyan Dao in China) despite the large Chinese presence in the disputed South China Sea area.
Coastguard spokesperson Jay Tarriela said while Philippine government vessels can’t maintain a constant presence, they are committed to protecting the country’s fishing rights in what it sees as its Exclusive Economic Zone.
Category: Human Rights
Renewed Momentum in Turkey-China Relations
By Buğra Süsler At the start of 2023, the Turkish government expressed an exceptionally open public criticism of China concerning the rights of the Uyghur Muslim community in China’s Xinjiang region. Notably, in his end-of-year press conference ...
Global South Ambassadors Participate in State-led Xinjiang Junket and Didn’t “Find Any Human Rights Violations”
Ambassadors from 25 developing countries completed a week-long junket to Xinjiang organized by the Chinese government and, according to Chinese state media, found "people in Xinjiang are enjoying a happy life." The participants included envoys from Myanmar, Iran, Samoa and Dominica. ...
What Happened to Illegal Fishing Whistleblower Emmanuel Essien?
The Ghanaian news outlet GhanaWeb recently published an investigative report about the purported disappearance of Emmanuel Essien, an official for the Ghanaian Fisheries Commission. He was reportedly last seen aboard a Chinese fishing vessel Meng Xin 15 on July 5, 2019. Two ...
Türkiye’s Parliament Rejects Special Committee to Investigate Uyghur Human Rights Ahead of Wang Visit
The Turkish Parliament's Human Rights Committee blocked a plan to create a new sub-committee to investigate allegations of human rights violations of China's minority Uyghur population in Xinjiang. Instead, lawmakers opted to assign the issue to an existing sub-committee focused on ...
Communist Party of China Plans Arab Outreach
The Communist Party of China wants to sharply increase its coordination with Arab countries. This was a key takeaway from the mid-July's fourth China-Arab States Political Parties Dialogue, which brought CPC officials together with delegates from 67 political parties from across the Arab world. ...
Analysis from Cobus van Staden
Philippine Fishing Fleets Urged to Maintain Presence at Disputed Shoal as Tensions Build
African Demand for Chinese Surveillance Technology
While many countries around the world, particularly G7 states, have largely outlawed the use of Chinese surveillance technology made by companies like Huawei, ZTE, and Hikvision among others, that is not the case in Africa. Dozens of governments across the continent ...
Q&A: Indonesian, Chinese Nickel Workers Struggle With Racial Tension, But Must Tread Path to Solidarity
This year opened with a clash that erupted between Indonesian and Chinese workers at Gunbuster Nickel Industry (GNI), a Chinese-owned nickel processing plant in Central Sulawesi, Indonesia, claiming lives from each side. It’s tempting to count the clash as evidence ...
Is Turkey Serious About Its Recent Criticism of China?
By Buğra Süsler Last December Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu held an end-of-year press conference to review the year’s foreign policy developments and Turkey’s relations with the world. A highlight of this conference was his exceptionally open criticism ...
African Ambassadors Tour Xinjiang to See “Happy Life of Local Residents”
China’s use of diplomatic junkets to justify its anti-Uyghur measures in Xinjiang to the Global South are ratcheting up again. Ambassadors and other senior diplomats from Senegal, Benin, Mali, Rwanda, Madagascar, Malawi, Uganda, Lesotho and Chad visited the region on Thursday.
Islamic Scholars Tour Xinjiang as Part of China’s Efforts to Refute “Western Lies”
A group of 30 scholars from 14 Islamic countries is participating in a highly choreographed tour of China's western Xinjiang region as part of Beijing's latest efforts to push back against well-documented U.S. and European accusations of human rights violations there. ...