The government launched an airstrike on the town of Kyauktaw, dropping bombs on a crowded marketplace and other civilian areas killing at least 50 people, including children and pregnant women, according to the Arakan Army, or AA, an armed ethnic group which controls most of the towns in Rakhine.

The U.N. Human Rights Office released a statement noting that this attack was one of the deadliest airstrikes in Rakhine State since the military took control of the country in a coup in 2021. Fortify Rights Friday released a statement saying that the attack could constitute a war crime.

Several other ethnic groups, some of whom had been allied with and fought alongside the AA after the coup, have begun participating in peace talks over the past few months. The AA is one of several major holdouts nationwide, including the Kachin Independence Army and the Karen National Union.

The attacks on civilians are one of several tactics by the military meant to force the AA into making peace, Sai Kyi Zin Soe, a Myanmar security analyst, told RFA.

“One side has laid out the path it wants. But they are using various forms of coercion to pressure the other side to reach that intended path,” he said. “This includes military force. There are also efforts to apply political and economic pressure in coordination with neighboring countries. You can, in other words, say this part of the military’s tactics.”

He said that attacks causing mass civilian fatalities, like the Kyauktaw attack, may also be intended to intimidate civilians to discourage them from accepting AA authority.

Violence for peace?

The attack only justified the fight against the military, Khaing Thu Kha, a spokesperson for the AA told RFA after the attack on Monday.

“We will continue to seek justice for those we’ve lost in this violent attack by identifying anyone involved in the act and taking actions against them,” he said. We will retaliate against each and every one of them.”

(AFP)

The AA reported that over a five-month period from April 21 to to September 30 the military government extended an invitation for peace talks while simultaneously killing more than 130 civilians in AA-controlled areas in airstrikes and heavy artillery attacks.

But no faction wants to accept a peace invitation while under constant attack, Zaw Wai Soe, a minister in Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government, made up democratically elected leaders who were ousted in the coup, told RFA.

“The bombing didn’t just start now. They’ve been doing it all along. It has gotten worse in recent days,” he said. “They drop bombs despite knowing civilians are present. So who would want to meet them? It’s not just the AA, any group would feel the same way.”

Current battlegrounds

Since early this month, the AA has engaged in fierce clashes around military-controlled Sittwe, Kyaukpyu, and Manaung townships. Meanwhile, military government forces are advancing into Rakhine from Chin State, and the Magway and the Ayeyarwady regions. Residents report that airstrikes continue in AA-controlled territories.

Direct military confrontation will continue as long as armed combat persists on the ground, Thien Tun Oo, executive director of the Thayninga Institute for Strategic Studies, a pro-military think tank in Naypyidaw, told RFA.

(AFP)

“We will hold discussions for peace. However, for those who continue to rely on military means on the ground, they will naturally face head-on military confrontations,” he said. “Those relying heavily on military force will encounter military responses.”

RFA attempted to contact Brig. Gen. San Nyo Win, military spokesperson for Rakhine state, for comment on the situation, but phone calls went unanswered.

The airstrikes make it more difficult for the AA to accept an invitation to peace talks, Thar Tun Hla, chairman of the Arakan National Party, which represents the interests of Rakhine nationalists, told RFA.

“The peace process requires trust,” he said. “Firing on civilian targets cannot be viewed as a trust-building process.”

Translated by Kyaw Min Htun. Edited by Eugene Whong.

DHARAMSALA, India – A bipartisan delegation of U.S. lawmakers Wednesday told Radio Free Asia that China is a threat for engaging in transnational repression, after a meeting with the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, in his home.

During the meeting the Dalai Lama told the delegation how he has spent the majority of his life as a refugee in India, continuing Tibetan traditions. In 1959 as a young man, he fled Tibet and founded the exile government currently based in Dharamsala.

The delegation, led by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Brian Mast, presented the spiritual leader with a gift of a U.S. flag and seemingly expressed support for Tibetan independence.

“To keep the flame of Tibet alive is to keep the flame of freedom alive,” said Mast in video footage of the meeting, edited and released by the Dalai Lama’s office. “Our flame of freedom was established 250 years ago and I flew this flag over our nation’s capital on our 250th celebration of independence, and we hope that you will celebrate that too one day.”

The bipartisan delegation also included Republicans James Gallagher and Jimmy Patronis, and Democrats Haley Stevens and Shri Thanedar.

(OHHDL)

“Inalienable rights”

After the meeting, Mast slammed China for engaging in transnational repression in response to a question from RFA about Beijing’s ethnic unity law passed this year, and how it applies to members of the Tibetan diaspora.

“China will reach to anywhere that they can,” said Mast, providing several examples of how the Chinese government has been known to silence its critics overseas. “They’ve proven that they will observe people. They will send spies to different countries. They will send police to different countries to observe anybody that they can and repress what they do not want to see.”

Mast said China was threatening in other ways, including through the theft of intellectual property, espionage, and organ harvesting.

“We do not believe in the same things. We believe in freedom and democracy for all of our people, that people are born with certain inalienable rights,” he said. “These are fundamental differences between what China represents and what America represents and what the people of Tibet seek.”

(OHHDL)

Across the aisle

Stevens said that it was important for the delegation – usually political opponents – to come together in “a bipartisan way for freedom.”

“I came here with a Republican leader who is close to President Trump. I am not afraid to say it because we joined and linked forces,” the Michigan representative said. “This is calling on us to dig deep, to recognize that this is a tough moment, that we are losing sight of why we need to invest and support democracy in the Tibetan people.”

Prior to their stop in Dharamsala, the delegation had been in New Delhi earlier in the week to discuss bilateral cooperation with senior Indian government defense and foreign affairs officials.

When they arrived in Dharamsala on Tuesday, Mast told reporters the delegation was there to meet with the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan community, whom the United States has supported for many years.

When asked by RFA if he had a message for the Tibetan people, Mast said, “We stand with you.”

Edited for RFA Tibetan by Tawang and RFA English by Eugene Whong.

During a radio interview on Sept. 15, Taiwan’s Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung said that Taipei’s plan to open a second representative office in Cebu, the Philippines’ second largest city, was going smoothly.

Taipei’s trade offices serve as de facto embassies and consulates in countries that officially recognize China, but maintain unofficial relations with Taiwan, which Beijing considers to be a rogue province.

Foreign Minister Lin said that the additional trade office would serve travelers and businesses in the central Philippines, and would be an integral part of a proposed Taiwan-Philippines Economic Corridor.

Days later, Taiwan confirmed that it had donated a decommissioned patrol vessel to the Philippines for use in its coast guard.

These developments are directly related to Beijing’s hostile tactics in the South China Sea, Ray Powell, executive director of Stanford University’s SeaLight maritime transparency project, told RFA. Beijing claims the entirety of the sea as its territory, including the area within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone, which Manila calls the West Philippine Sea.

(AFP)

“Of course China’s aggression in the West Philippine Sea is a central part of this story,” said Powell. “It has made Manila less willing to grant Beijing the kind of deference that other countries like Malaysia or Papua New Guinea have recently been so eager to show on Taiwan policy.”

Papua New Guinea announced in July that it would close the Taiwan trade office in Port Moresby, and Malaysia’s Prime Minister Ibrahim Anwar in August controversially stated in an interview with Al Jazeera that he sees “Taiwan as part of China, period.”

The trend of smaller countries showing deference to China “has conditioned Beijing to expect that its coercive methods will always produce compliance eventually,” Powell said. “For now at least it has not produced that kind of result in the Philippines.”

Defining “one China”

As a condition of entering into official relations with China, countries must affirm that there is one China and recognize Beijing as the sole legal government of China.

China’s official stance, the one-China principle, states that Taiwan is an inalienable part of China. Many countries maintain their own one-China policies that stop short of the principle to allow unofficial ties with Taipei.

When Taiwan announced the plan to open a new trade office in Cebu, Beijing protested, with Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun urging the Philippines to uphold the one-China Principle through “concrete actions” and refrain from taking steps that could damage relations with China.

“No matter how the DPP authorities collude with external forces or in what form they seek so-called ‘diplomatic breakthroughs,’ their efforts to serve the goal of ‘Taiwan independence’ are doomed to be futile,” Guo said, referring to Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party.

The Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs responded that Manila’s one-China policy remained unchanged but did not prevent economic, cultural and functional cooperation with Taiwan.

Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. was more direct, telling local media: “We define the one-China policy. We define it. Not them.”

The exchange highlights a widening difference between Manila and Beijing over what the Philippines’ one-China policy allows.

The Taiwan trade office in Cebu should not be interpreted as a change in Manila’s formal position, Joseph Kristanto, a research analyst at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, told RFA.

“Rather, I think it reflects the ongoing expansion and institutionalization of the Philippines’ unofficial and functional relationship with Taiwan,” he said. “This distinction is important: Manila continues to recognize Beijing as the sole legal government of China under its one-China Policy, yet it does not view this policy as precluding economic, cultural, or other practical forms of engagement with Taiwan.”

That relationship had already begun expanding before the latest dispute.

In April 2025, Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s administration relaxed decades-old restrictions on engagement with Taiwan. Most Philippine officials may now travel there for economic, trade and investment purposes if they use ordinary passports and do not use their official titles.

The restrictions continue to apply to the president, vice president, foreign secretary and defense secretary, illustrating the line Manila is trying to maintain between functional engagement and steps that might resemble formal diplomatic recognition.

“Currently, Manila appears intent on maintaining a distinction between expanding functional ties and taking actions that could be construed as formal diplomatic recognition,” Kristanto said. “The 2025 guidelines are particularly illustrative: they facilitate interactions with Taiwan for economic and investment purposes while retaining restrictions on contacts involving the Philippines’ most senior officials.”

Economic interdependence

Practical interests are also driving the relationship. More than 200,000 Filipinos work in Taiwan, and the two sides offer visa-free entry to each other’s citizens. Taipei has also placed greater emphasis on trade, investment, tourism and supply-chain cooperation with the Philippines.

Foreign Minister Lin said the proposed Taiwan-Philippines Economic Corridor would connect with the U.S.-Japan-Philippines-backed Luzon Economic Corridor, an initiative aimed at strengthening infrastructure and supply chains.

Kristanto cautioned against explaining the closer relationship entirely through the South China Sea dispute.

“The deterioration in Manila-Beijing relations has certainly made Taiwan more strategically relevant to the Philippines, and we have seen indications of expanding practical cooperation in areas such as maritime security,” he said.

“But many drivers of closer Philippines-Taiwan relations – economic links, labor, geographical proximity, and supply-chain cooperation – exist independently of the South China Sea dispute. I therefore see pressure from China more as an accelerant to an existing trend than as its sole cause.”

Powell said the Philippines increasingly viewed China’s treatment of Taiwan as part of a wider effort to pressure smaller countries that resisted Beijing’s preferred regional order.

“There’s an active attempt by China, very obvious now, to make a more Sinocentric world and to put down others who do not agree with them – particularly when these others are smaller countries,” Powell said, quoting from a recent SeaLight podcast interview with Teodoro.

Kristanto said the significance of the Cebu office lay less in the facility itself than in Manila’s growing confidence in defining its relationship with Taipei on its own terms.

“Manila appears increasingly willing to insist that maintaining a one-China policy does not give Beijing a veto over its unofficial relationship with Taiwan,” Kristanto said.

“So, in my view, the significance of the Cebu office lies less in the office itself than in what it tells us about how much more comfortable Manila has become in expanding ties with Taiwan while arguing that its formal diplomatic position remains unchanged.”

Edited by Eugene Whong.

“A year ago, RFA’s future was far from certain,” Fang said. “Today, we are in a very different place. As we mark 30 years of RFA, we are also beginning an important new chapter—rebuilding our organization from the ground up and laying the foundation for RFA’s next 30 years.

“We have been given the rare opportunity to reimagine RFA, building on what makes our journalism unique while embracing new ways to serve our audiences. We are taking decisive steps to create an organization that puts innovation, safety, security, and efficiency at the heart of everything we do—and, above all, remains focused on the audiences who depend on RFA for independent, fact-based reporting.

“The road ahead will not be without challenges. But RFA has been tested before, and we know what it means to persevere. Today, a small but exceptional team is leading this organization forward with a clear sense of purpose. We are still here because our journalists, our supporters, and the millions of people who rely on RFA understand something fundamental: truth needs a voice, and RFA is determined to keep providing it.”

For the past year, RFA has sustained its language teams on a contract basis, producing social media and platform-native news and programming, including long- and short-form podcasts, Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts, and video explainers. RFA is self-financing limited shortwave radio broadcasts, as it still lacks access to transmitters and satellites previously provided by the U.S. Agency for Global Media, the federal agency that disburses RFA’s congressionally appropriated funding. Despite challenges, RFA has produced impactful stories about Uyghur forced labor, exclusive interviews with Chinese spies and dissidents, and in-depth analyses of satellite data exposing North Korea’s military developments.

While maintaining its journalistic output, RFA is engaging in a multi-phase, two-year plan. This involves hiring permanent staff while shifting to a digital-first strategy to better engage with its audiences in China, North Korea, Myanmar, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos. In addition to reimagining its editorial process, RFA is also reorganizing its structure, changing its embedded culture for a more dynamic newsroom with a premium on journalistic safety and security. This includes utilizing innovative means to drive news out of some of the world’s toughest media environments, and rebalancing half of its workforce overseas—especially its newsgathering teams—to be closer to sources and breaking developments. This is especially pertinent for key story areas on transnational repression, high-stakes geopolitical tensions in the Pacific and South China Sea, crackdowns on free expression and religious freedom, and cross-border crime—including Southeast Asia-based scamming centers—among other issues. In the first phase, RFA has prioritized the development of its Korean and Mandarin desks, with remaining language units to follow.

In separate statements released following the summit, China’s Foreign Ministry and the White House said the two leaders did discuss the Korean peninsula but did not elaborate, whereas both statements described in detail discussions on the economy, security, or artificial intelligence.

While the discussion on North Korea was important enough to be mentioned in passing, the two leaders likely did not spend much time talking about it, Harry Kazianis, CEO of the Washington-based Rogue States Project think tank, told RFA.

“The North Korean issue is probably not even in the top 10,” Kazianis told RFA, saying that trade, Taiwan and the South China Sea were higher priorities. “So when you look at the list of items that the United States and China — and just China itself — has to confront, North Korea just slides all the way down the scale of what’s important.”

Trump-Kim IV?

Since returning to office last year, President Trump has repeatedly said he wants to follow up on three previous meetings with Kim, where the U.S. and North Korea were unable to iron out an agreement on denuclearization in exchange for sanctions relief.

Trump in August scaled back joint military exercises with South Korea and said he hoped to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un by the end of the year, but North Korea has remained silent on the matter.

Still, Trump would welcome a meeting with Kim, a U.S. official told RFA on background.

“President Trump in his first term held three historic summits with North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un that stabilized the Korean Peninsula. U.S. policy on North Korea has not changed,” the official said. ”President Trump remains open to talking with Kim Jong Un, without any preconditions.”

(Reuters)

Despite the enthusiasm from the White House, the U.S.-North Korea diplomacy from 2018–2019 has effectively come to an end, Sydney Seiler, a former U.S. national intelligence officer for North Korea and a senior advisor at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, told RFA.

“North Korea has shown no interest in talking to the United States, and has commenced this relationship with Russia — unprecedented in its nature — and then is revitalizing ties with China,” he said.

The odds of a new summit between Trump and Kim are ‘pretty slim,” Kazianis said, adding that Trump would have to do something extreme to pique Kim’s interest, like recognizing Pyongyang as a legitimate nuclear weapons state.

“The North Koreans are in the driver’s seat right now. They’re getting billions of dollars from the Russians to arm Russia for the Ukraine war,” he said. “They don’t really have anything that they want from the United States right now unless they’re going to get sanctions relief for almost nothing.”

Meeting Kim would also have to be advantageous for Trump, said Kazianis.

“He’s not going to hand more ammunition to his critics and make himself look bad on the world stage when he’s got enough problems,” he said. “So I think Trump would love to have a meeting with Kim, but there would have to be measurable progress for Trump.”

Even if such a meeting were to happen, it is unlikely that China would have a hand in it, said Seiler.

“President Trump would explain his efforts to try to make contact with Kim Jong Un,” Seiler said. “I would anticipate China’s leverage over North Korea is not likely to be expended in support of Donald Trump’s policy of trying to reach Kim Jong Un.”

Repatriating escapees

Though the extent to which Xi and Trump were talking about North Korea and Kim Jong Un at the summit is not known, ahead of the meeting, North Korean human rights advocates held demonstrations in front of Chinese Embassies in several countries urging China to halt the forced repatriation of North Korean escapees.

(NKFC)

The demonstration on Sept. 22 in Washington was organized by the North Korea Freedom Coalition, joining it with similar events in 26 global cities in 20 different countries, the organization’s chairperson, Suzanne Scholte, told RFA.

“What we’re pushing for with this particular summit is that Trump will raise this horrific, inhumane, illegal policy of repatriation,” Scholte said.

Beijing classifies escapees as economic migrants and if they are caught without legal status in China, they are sent back, where many face severe punishment. But the advocates argue that escapees are refugees and should be protected under the U.N. Refugee Convention, to which China is a signatory.

“Xi wants to be seen as a world leader, and if he wants to be seen as a world leader, then he shouldn’t be sending people off to their death,” Scholte said. “So we’re asking President Trump to raise this issue again. China is a signatory to the Refugee Convention and also the Convention against Torture.”

Edited by Eugene Whong.

They’re urging U.S. President Trump to confront China’s President Xi on human rights issues and the new ‘ethnic unity law’ enacted on July 1 which critics say furthers Beijing’s efforts towards cultural erasure.

“President Trump must confront Xi Jinping over China’s ongoing genocide against the Uyghurs, the Kazakhs, the Kyrgyz and other native people of occupied East Turkistan,” said Haider Jan of the East Turkistan National Movement.

“No diplomatic truce can ever be bought with our people’s blood, dignity and land,” he said.

U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern, ranking Democratic member of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) said, “We should be standing here together with a unified message: no Xi in DC without human rights.”

McGovern addressed Tibetan demonstrators in front of the U.S. Capitol earlier in the day.

“The Chinese government would like the world to believe that what’s happening in East Turkistan or what’s happening in Tibet or Southern Mongolia is an internal matter,” said Rushan Abbas, Executive Director of Campaign for Uyghurs. “But genocide and cultural erasure is not an internal matter. Modern slavery is not an internal matter.”

After sunset, demonstrators held candles as speakers addressed the crowd.

“So many of us live in a constant state of grief,” said Omer Kanat of the Uyghur Human Rights Project.

“It is a strange, abstract grief. Not knowing where our loved ones are. If they are safe, or in some cases, if they are alive.”

With reporting by Tahir Hamut Izgil for RFA Uyghur and Reuters. Edited by Charlie Dharapak.

The disappearance of a Lao content creator from Thailand this month could be the latest example of Laos’ transnational repression, the leader of a Thai-based human rights organization told Radio Free Asia.

Khieo Lapchanh, 26, went missing on Sept. 15, in Thailand’s Samut Sakhon province, one day before a scheduled asylum interview at the U.N. Refugee Agency office, or UNHCR, in the nearby capital of Bangkok.

RFA was not able to confirm the reason for his disappearance.

According to a handwritten letter that the Thailand-based Manushya Foundation rights organization said it had helped him prepare, Khieo first entered Thailand in 2019 and had been working at a restaurant.

In late 2025, he started regularly posting videos of himself criticizing the Lao government on Facebook, and decided to request asylum after receiving threats over the videos, the letter said.

At the time of his disappearance, his “Khiew Chennel” account on the social network had amassed 159,000 followers.

There is a high possibility that Khieo’s disappearance is related to transnational repression, Emilie Palamy Pradichit, founder and executive director of the Manushya Foundation said in a statement by the organization.

(manushyafoundation.org)

“Digital transnational repression does not stay confined to digital space. It can expose activists to physical danger,” said Emilie. “Khieo had already stopped speaking out online because he feared for his life. Now he is missing.”

The last public update on Khieo’s Facebook account is dated Aug. 18, a repost of another content creator’s criticism of a Lao police raid. Prior to that, the most recent update is from April 4, and his posts from around that time contained specific criticism of the Lao government figures or policies.

Speaking out

On April 2, Khieo had been critical of the Lao government for not building roads in Meung Phieng district, Xayaboury province, to the point that the people living there took matters into their own hands.

“People build concrete roads to their village by themselves, which is not their job, it is the government’s obligation,” he said. “But they need to do it instead of the government because they have so much trouble with those horrible roads.”

In another video post dated April 1, he discussed nepotism in the Lao government.

“You never allow others to get any important position,” he said, referring to former president Khamtay Siphandone, who after stepping down in 2006, continued to set up his family members in prominent government positions.

(Hoang Dinh Nam/AFP)

As was the case with many of his other videos, Khieo was threatened in the comments over his criticism of the Siphandone political dynasty.

“I would like to remind you, Khieo, you should not try to change the Lao regime. If you want to live, you have to change your behaviors and actions,” a commenter wrote.

“If your application for asylum has been submitted, keep a low profile. You want to go to the third country, but now you are in the second country,” said the same commenter, implying that Khieo was vulnerable in Thailand.

According to Manushya, there had even been a US$8,000 bounty to have him killed circulating online in March 2026.

“At this point, the risk could no longer be understood as merely hostile online speech,” the Manushya statement said. “The combination of death threats, financial incentives for violence, attempts to identify Khieo’s whereabouts, and his highly recognizable public profile created serious concerns that digital transnational repression could escalate into physical harm in Thailand.”

Whereabouts unknown

Emilie first noticed Khieo’s disappearance on Sept. 16, she told RFA.

“I called him because I was supposed to take him to his UNHCR interview, but he did not respond,” said Emilie. “On September 18, I informed the local police of his disappearance.”

The owner of the restaurant where Khieo worked, who identified herself only by her given name Kiatsuda, told RFA she had called him on Sept. 15 when he did not show up for work.

“His phone was off so I thought Khieo had quit his job without informing me,” she said.

When he didn’t show up on the 16th or 17th, she went to Khieo’s apartment on the 18th, but was unable to find him, she said.

“On Sept. 18, the police informed me of his disappearance,” she said. “It was somewhat shocking.”

Though the circumstances of Khieo’s disappearance remain unknown, several other Lao dissidents in Thailand have mysteriously disappeared or been found dead.

(RFA)

Od Sayavong, a democracy activist who had protested the Lao government while living in Thailand, disappeared in August 2019. Thai police say that no progress has been made in the investigation.

In November of the same year, Phetphouthon Philachane, a Lao migrant who had taken part in protests in front of Laos’ embassy in Bangkok, disappeared in the Lao capital Vientiane while visiting relatives.

In May 2023, the body of democracy activist Bounsuan Kitiyano was found in Thailand’s Ubon Ratchathani province. He had been shot three times.

Edited by Eugene Whong.

Tibetans gathered near the Chinese embassy in Washington on Thursday to protest Chinese President Xi Jinping as he arrived on the South Lawn of the White House to meet with U.S. President Trump.

“He’s not welcome here,” Thondup Tsering, a former Tibetan parliamentarian for North and South America who was attending the protest, told Radio Free Asia.

“He’s not welcome because of the Chinese occupation of Tibet. The policies that [he] has put in Tibet, which are aimed to wipe out Tibetan culture and Tibetan identity.”

Tsering traveled from Amherst, Massachusetts, to join the demonstration.

The demonstrators were bringing attention to China’s passing of the ethnic unity law in July, and the self-immolation of Tibetan activist Lobga Rangzen in front of the United Nations.

“The main reason for this protest is that Xi Jinping cannot hear the voices of the people inside China,” said Chinese political activist Wang Dan, in comments sent to RFA.

“In fact, many people in China oppose the rule of the Chinese Communist Party. So I believe those of us overseas have a responsibility and an obligation to speak out for those who cannot speak freely inside China.”

Former House Nancy Pelosi addressed the protesters from a stage after they marched to the U.S. Capitol.

“It’s really important for elected officials and for the president of the United States and the president of China to hear what you have to say, because we put forth ourselves as a country who cares about human rights and respecting the dignity and worth of the people.”

Adds quotes from Wang Dan and Nancy Pelosi.

With reporting by Nordhey Dolma, Dolkar, Tenzin Dickyi for RFA Tibetan and Olivia Meng for RFA Mandarin. Edited by Charlie Dharapak.

(Nordhey Dolma/RFA Tibetan)

(Nordhey Dolma/RFA Tibetan)

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(Nordhey Dolma/RFA Tibetan)

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(Nordhey Dolma/RFA Tibetan)

With reporting by Nordhey Dolma, Dolkar and Tenzin Dickyi. Edited by Charlie Dharapak.

Trump and U.S. first lady Melania Trump greeted Xi and Chinese First Lady Peng Liyuan on a 100-foot-long red carpet rolled out on the tarmac beside Xi’s plane at the Maryland military base that hosts Air Force One.

A military band played, and cannons blasted ceremonial fire as they greeted each other. Trump winced as a loud B-1 military bomber flew overhead. The leaders then went their separate ways, ahead of meetings scheduled for Thursday.

(Brendan Smialowski/AFP)

(Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

(Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

(Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)

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(Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)

(Brendan Smialowski/AFP)

(Kent Nishimura/AFP)

With reporting by Reuters. Edited by Charlie Dharapak.

President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump met Xi and his wife Peng Liyuan on the tarmac at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland. After their brief greeting, which included a military honor guard, the two leaders parted ways to make last minute preparations for a full slate of events scheduled for Thursday.

Experts expect that Trump will try to work with Xi on a variety of issues, with economic friction over tariffs, U.S. soybean exports, and supply chains taking center stage.

But minority advocacy groups have been calling on Trump to use the summit to spotlight Chinese government policies that they say perpetuate human rights abuses and genocide.

Genocide unresolved

Toward the end of Trump’s first term, the United States classified China’s actions and policies in Xinjiang – where over a million Uyghurs and other minorities have been subject to mass internment and forced labor – as a genocide. This designation was upheld during the Biden administration and into Trump’s second term.

The summit presents an opportunity for Trump and the U.S. government to raise the Uyghur genocide both publicly and in private, the World Uyghur Congress, or WUC, an exile group based in Munich, said in a statement.

“Xi’s visit to Washington is a strategic moment to move beyond words of condemnation on the Uyghur genocide,” said WUC President Turgunjan Alawdun in the statement. “The United States has been a strong and vocal ally to the Uyghur people, and Donald Trump has to use this opportunity to continue proving it.”

(Andrew Caballero Reynolds/AFP)

The East Turkestan Government-in-Exile, or ETGE, a Washington-based group that advocates for the independence of the Uyghur region, said in a statement that Trump should push Xi to end the genocide. East Turkestan is the preferred name for the region for diaspora and exile organizations.

President Trump “should make clear to Xi Jinping that genocide, colonial occupation, and the exploitation of our homeland cannot be separated from the strategic challenge China poses to the United States,” said ETGE President Mamtimin Ala in the statement. “Ending the genocide requires confronting the occupation that sustains it and supporting the restoration of East Turkistan’s national independence.”

Cultural erasure

Tibetan exile activists, meanwhile, urged Trump to raise the issue of Chinese authorities’ erasure of Tibetan culture.

“Since the two presidents are going to hold talks, I am appealing to President Trump, as the leader of a powerful country, to discuss with Chinese President Xi Jinping the strategies being pursued to infiltrate Tibet’s religion, culture, and language,” Lobsang Shastri, a Tibetan scholar, told RFA.

(Students for Free Tibet)

“I am appealing to President Trump to raise the issue of resuming dialogue between China and Tibet,” Nyima Lhamo, the niece of renowned Tibetan Buddhist leader and political prisoner Tulku Tenzin Delek Rinpoche, who died in Chinese custody in 2015, told RFA.

“I call for an end to the ongoing destruction of Tibet’s religion and culture, and urge the release of all political prisoners, including the Panchen Rinpoche,” she said, referring to the Panchen Lama, the second most important figure in Tibetan Buddhism.

The current Panchen Lama recognized by Tibetans is Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, who was at the age of six forcibly disappeared by Chinese authorities in 1995. His whereabouts remain unknown.

Following his disappearance, the Chinese government installed their own Panchen Lama, and this represents a “terrible violation against all of Tibetan Buddhism,” Asif Mahmood, the Chair of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, or USCIRF, told RFA.

(RFA)

Tibetan Buddhists “should have, under international standards, the religious freedom to select their own leaders, free from the interference of the Chinese Communist Party,” said Mahmood. “This terrible situation facing the disappeared Panchen Lama, and indeed all Tibetan Buddhists, is why USCIRF has urged President Trump to directly advocate for freedom for Gedhun Choekyi Nyima and his family.”

Breaking with precedent

During previous visits of Chinese leaders to Washington, the U.S. President’s formal welcome had traditionally happened at the White House. That Trump is going to Andrews to meet Xi upon arrival is an indication of the high level of importance of U.S.-China relations to the administration.

Both leaders believe that a stable relationship between the two countries is a priority, Bonnie S. Glaser, a U.S.-China-Taiwan relations scholar and director of the German Marshall Fund, told RFA.

“They don’t want to see a rupture that could have negative consequences for their respective countries,” she said. “Both of them want to see that the problems in the relationship are managed, that things don’t spin out of control.”

(Damir Sagolj /Reuters)

The summit will kick into high gear Thursday where the two leaders are expected to discuss artificial intelligence governance and security issues, including arms sales to Taiwan, and, Glaser said, they will likely discuss extending a trade truce – a temporary halt to escalating tariffs by Trump and retaliatory moves by Beijing – which they negotiated during a meeting in South Korea last year.

“The truce does not expire until November. So it remains unclear whether the two sides will actually announce an extension at this upcoming summit,” she said. “However, it has been reported that the United States wants a six-month extension of the truce and that China would like to extend it through the end of the Trump administration.”

Following the summit meeting, a state dinner is on the schedule for Thursday evening, and Xi will return to China on Friday.

Edited by Eugene Whong. Additional reporting from Washington by RFA Uyghur, RFA Tibetan and RFA Mandarin.

Chinese Ambassador Xie Feng, writing in the ruling Communist Party’s official People’s Daily, said managing differences hinges on good faith, and the U.S. should stop “fabricating pretexts” such as national security, economic imbalances and forced labor to try to constrain China.

“China’s sovereignty, security, and development interests cannot be violated, and four red lines — the Taiwan question, democracy and human rights, development paths and systems, and development rights — cannot be challenged,” Xie said.

RFA Uyghur’s Shohret Hoshur interviewed Rebiya Kadeer of the Washington-based International Uyghur Human Rights and Democracy Foundation (IUHRDF) for her reaction to China’s “red lines” statement ahead of Xi’s meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

RFA: Why do you think Beijing issued this warning at this particular moment?

Rebiya Kadeer: The Uyghur genocide and human rights issue is China’s greatest vulnerability. It is also a crime that China has spent enormous financial resources attempting to conceal from the international community. At this important moment, when the world is paying close attention, China does not want this vulnerability to be exposed.

RFA: Do you interpret the warning as a sign that Beijing fears President Trump may raise what his administration has called the Uyghur genocide and individual Uyghur political-prisoner cases during his meeting with Xi Jinping? If so, what does it reveal about Beijing’s concerns?

Rebiya Kadeer: Ahead of Xi Jinping’s visit, several members of Congress called on President Trump to raise the cases of political prisoners—including Gulshan Abbas, Ilham Tohti, Rahile Dawut and Ekpar Asat—and demand their release. China knows that, in a democratic country such as the United States, the views of members of Congress carry weight and receive serious attention. Therefore, through this statement, China is attempting to pressure President Trump.

RFA: Does this warning demonstrate confidence—or fear that China’s human-rights abuses could become part of the summit negotiations?

Rebiya Kadeer: This is certainly not the kind of statement made by a strong country. China’s economic development is not healthy development; it has been built upon unfair competition and coercion. The stability China has established within the country, particularly in East Turkistan (Xinjiang in Chinese), is not natural stability—it is artificially imposed stability.

Therefore, although the Chinese government may appear strong, it is fundamentally weak. A government that fears its own people and is unable to embrace democratic elections is a fearful government. It is especially afraid of criticism.

RFA: How should President Trump respond to Beijing’s effort to place human rights outside the summit discussions?

Rebiya Kadeer: China’s statement itself demonstrates why President Trump must raise the Uyghur genocide and human rights. I believe that raising these issues would give President Trump the upper hand at the negotiating table and help him achieve his objectives on other matters.

If he does not raise them, he will not only be acting against the will of the American people, but he will also lose ground on the other issues under negotiation. I call upon—and hope—President Trump will follow a course befitting the strong president of a powerful country.

With reporting by Reuters. Edited by Charlie Dharapak.

The new regulations that took effect on Sept. 15 allow Chinese authorities to prevent its citizens from leaving the country if violations of export-control or technology-transfer rules could endanger “industrial or technological security.”

The law applies to visiting citizens of Taiwan because Beijing considers the democratically governed island to be its territory, and therefore its people to be Chinese citizens.

The regulations are an indication that Beijing is worried about losing its technological edge, William Yang, a Northeast Asia analyst at the Belgium-based International Crisis Group, told RFA.

“I think such a move reflects China’s general insecurity about potential illegal technology transfer,” said Yang.

(National Immigration Administration of the People's Republic of China)

The regulations do not impose a blanket travel ban on technology workers. But analysts said their broad wording could bring the movement of people more explicitly into the same security framework – anchored by the 2020 Export Control Law – that Beijing uses to control transfer of chips, equipment, data and intellectual property.

Yang said the measures should be understood within the wider context of intensifying competition between China and the United States over AI.

The regulations come as Washington has taken steps to restrict China’s access to advanced semiconductors and related technology, while Beijing has expanded its own export controls and sought greater control over strategically important technology, talent and data.

Beijing increasingly sees a need to restrict human and knowledge flows in sectors that could determine “whether it is them or Washington that will eventually come out on top” in the global AI competition, Yang said.

Technology, talent and data

China has long used exit bans in criminal and civil cases, national-security investigations and commercial disputes. Government officials and employees of state-linked companies with access to sensitive information have also faced restrictions on private foreign travel.

The new regulations, announced in July, formally connect those powers with China’s export-control and technology-transfer regimes. They also allow authorities to request documents, data and electronic information during immigration checks.

(Adek Berry/AFP)

Officials may withhold the reasons and legal basis for an exit restriction, as well as information about possible remedies, if disclosure could affect national security or an investigation under these rules.

The regulations formalize and expand the powers that Chinese authorities already exercise, Sasha B. Chhabra, a Taiwan-based security analyst and publisher of the Formosa Review newsletter, told RFA.

“The new laws don’t fill any ‘enforcement gap,’ but serve two purposes: first, it gives the appearance of ‘rule of law’ as an attempted legal cover for committing human rights violations, claiming that such detentions and restrictions are simply following the law,” he said. “Secondly, it serves as a warning to Chinese abroad and will have a chilling effect on speech and activities of overseas Chinese.”

China says the regulations are intended to protect national sovereignty and security while safeguarding the lawful rights of people entering and leaving the country.

Beijing has dismissed Taipei’s concerns over the new regulations, saying they provide stronger legal protections and do not impede normal cross-strait exchanges.

The Manus case

Earlier this year, Beijing blocked U.S. tech giant Meta from acquiring Manus, an AI company founded by Chinese entrepreneurs but headquartered in Singapore. The methods used to stop the US$2 billion transaction provide an early example of how controls over people can reinforce restrictions on technology and investment.

Chinese authorities in March summoned Manus co-founders Xiao Hong and Ji Yichao to Beijing and barred them from leaving the country while regulators reviewed the acquisition.

(Greg Baker/AFP)

In April the government nixed the deal and ordered it unwound under its foreign-investment national-security review mechanism.

“The recent focus on technological expertise indicates Beijing’s concerns about losing the AI race to the U.S. over competition for talent and access to frontier technologies,” Chhabra said.

He added the Manus case was particularly significant because it involved China asserting authority over an international transaction concerning a company headquartered outside the country.

State-backed Chinese media said the key issue was not simply where Manus was registered, but the extent of its connections to China through technology, talent and data, as well as whether the transaction could threaten China’s industrial security and development interests.

The case also demonstrated the difficulty of separating technical expertise from other forms of intellectual property. Code and data can potentially be returned or deleted, but knowledge absorbed by researchers and engineers cannot easily be recovered after it has been transferred.

Risks for Taiwanese professionals

Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council has identified semiconductor and high-tech professionals among five groups it believes face heightened risks under the regulations.

The other groups are Taiwanese businesspeople based in China, executives of Taiwanese companies, lower-level government officials and members of certain religious groups.

The council said Chinese authorities could examine phones, computers and social-media accounts and prevent travelers from leaving based on a unilateral determination that their conduct might endanger “national interests.”

(Cheng Yu-Chen/AFP)

Taiwanese officials have urged people traveling to China to register their itineraries with the government in advance. In response, Beijing has accused Taipei of exaggerating the risks to discourage cross-strait exchanges.

How broadly the regulations affect technology professionals will depend on how frequently authorities use them and how they interpret threats to technological security. Analysts said, however, that their introduction showed Beijing increasingly regards technical expertise carried by scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs as a strategic resource worth protecting.

Chhabra said researchers and technology executives should take information-security precautions before and during visits to China, while Taiwan citizen travelers face additional political risks.

“Millions of foreign visitors, including Taiwanese, visit China every year without incident, but it cannot be said that visiting China is without risk.”

Edited by Eugene Whong.

The majority of the residents of Sapang Kawayan, about 47 miles (75 kilometers) north of Manila, are not formally schooled, but they are educated by the ways of nature. Farming cycles are dictated by the monsoon season, and at all times, they are at the whims of a nearby volcano, Mount Pinatubo.

The Philippine government has approved the construction of the Pax Silica hub on a 4,000-acre (1,619 hectare) area inside New Clark City, on land that was part of the U.S. military reservation that included Clark Air Base until the area was returned to the Philippines government in 1991.

Families in the village have already received a letter from the Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA) informing them they must relocate from the village because it is included in the development plan, Casamira Capiz Maniego, a 72-year-old Aeta resident of Sapang Kawayan, told RFA.

(Jojo Riñoza for RFA)

“They should just have us killed because we will fight for our land,” Maniego said. “We have lived for generations in the mountains long before the Americans came. What will happen to us if they take our land?”

Economic and strategic boon

Defense analysts view the 14-country Pax Silica initiative as a symbolic return of the Americans to their former base in the Philippines, Washington’s staunchest ally in the region. But more than that, it is viewed as a plan to keep semiconductor and AI facilities under one U.S.-controlled roof as Beijing rolls out its own, similar initiative.

The larger geopolitical context, however, is not lost on observers, with Manila needing the support of Washington as it faces territorial threats from China, America’s chief rival in the region.

Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has touted the project as one that would “revitalize” the country’s economy and create “quality jobs” for the people. Marcos and top officials have downplayed concerns over potential impacts to the water table and the environment, and fears that the hub would hand too much control to Washington.

(RFA)

“I cannot see how another country can come into the Philippines and, for example, exploit our minerals without the agreement of our Philippine government,” Marcos said in August at a forum organized by the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines.

The Pax Silica hub will enable the Philippines to process minerals locally instead of exporting ore, Marcos said, adding that once realized, it would be “the Philippines fully exploiting our own treasure, our own national treasure, our own natural resources.”

Many people concerned over the environmental and social impact of the project have organized protests, including one earlier this month, where five paralegals were arrested and nearly 30 others were detained while rallying outside a hotel that had been hosting a business forum about Pax Silica.

(Jam Sta Rosa/AFP)

Regarding the displacement of the Aetas, the affected area sits roughly within 10 hectares (24 acres) of the 1,600-hectare site, BCDA President and CEO Joshua M. Bingcang told media, including Philippine outlet ABS-CBN, on Monday. He said any relocations would affect an estimated 200 people in 40 households, and they would stay within the same jurisdiction.

“They will not be displaced,” Bingcang said. “They will just be pushed a little bit but they will still be in the same barangay, the same community, the same BCDA land.”

Historical rights?

The Aetas have lived in the rough hinterlands as far back as they can remember, but it was in the 1850s during the Spanish colonial era that authorities formally recognized their presence in decrees, which the Aetas now view as historical proof of their occupation of the land.

Tribal elders believe that even without any piece of paper, the government should recognize their “ancestral domain.”

Spain later ceded the islands to the U.S. and during the time that the Philippines was a U.S. territory, Washington considered the Aetas to be nomadic peoples, displacing many to build Clark Air Base.

The Aetas are gentle hunter-gatherers and crop farmers who generally avoid conflict, Maniego said. They have learned over many years how to co-exist with the “lowlanders,” – what they call Filipinos who live in nearby cities and towns – with some Aeta even working outside of their tiny mountain communities alongside the lowlanders.

(Jojo Riñoza for RFA)

Visiting the tribal area is like being transported to an entirely different world, where the trappings of modern-day life are absent. Barefoot children walked on the dirt, while a herd of swamp water buffaloes grazed in the distance. The occasional hum of a motorcycle buzzed nearby as an Aeta caravan carrying wood charcoal slowly negotiated the muddy trail.

Private security guards hired by the BCDA blocked the dirt roads to Maniego’s village, however. RFA managed to reach one remote area by passing through small dirt roads accompanied by three social workers.

Tribal leader Petronila Capiz, 63, argued that their ancestral land was crucial to their story as a people, their heritage and the continued survival of the Aetas. The land, she said, has been passed down from one generation to the next.

People, water, and land

Allowing the government to erect a facility here would be a death knell to their way of life, Capiz said, adding that government surveyors have already been spotted measuring the land and studying the Bangot River, the community’s primary source of water and sustenance.

“It will destroy the environment and our source of water, the Bangot River, where we also fish,” she said. “Water and land, without these we will die. Nature has given us these, and they will just destroy it for the sake of Pax Silica.”

(Jojo Riñoza for RFA)

Capiz’ cousin, Nelson de Guzman, 57, was emotional. His weather-beaten face was covered in sweat as he called on fellow Filipinos for support against the multimillion project.

Pax Silica, he said, is like “a gigantic leech that will suck the life out of the soil and mountain.” De Guzman is volunteering to organize tribal communities in other areas to express solidarity with their cause.

“We will resist and fight for our rights,” he stressed. “We are not just fighting for ourselves individually, but for the entire tribe.”

Edited by Eugene Whong. Jojo Riñoza contributed to this report from Capas.

The Myanmar military junta’s recruitment practices are “modern day slavery,” an expert from the volatile Southeast Asian country told Radio Free Asia. An investigation by RFA Burmese shows that for more than two years, thousands of young men in Myanmar have been captured, sold, and conscripted in ways that rights groups say may be crimes against humanity.

Ever since the military junta seized power in the 2021 coup, it has faced a growing armed resistance and significant personnel shortages. To fill the gap, the military has resorted to a conscription system, based on a 2010 law, that has resulted in mass human trafficking.

(MOI)

RFA interviewed more than 30 families of people they say were trafficked into the military. Their testimonies reveal that trafficking networks operate at the grassroots level—where young people are captured in every possible way and sold to recruiters for millions of kyat (thousands of U.S. dollars). The scheme involves various actors that include the junta’s low-level administrative officials, immigration officers, police and military officers, ex-soldiers and criminals who have links with the authorities according to interviewees.

“This is modern day slavery,” Maj. Naung Yoe, the military affairs official at the Myanmar Institute for Peace and Security, or MDSI, and a former military officer who defected and joined the anti-coup Civil Disobedience Movement or CDM, told RFA Burmese.

“They are trading people like goods. They are forcibly capturing these people for their own financial gain, treating them like slaves,” he said. “If they refuse to join the army, they are beaten all night.”

The MDSI tracks military recruitment, and said the system provides financial incentives for funneling the country’s youth into active-duty service.

“Once they agree to join, they are held, and then sold to the necessary locations for exorbitant fees,” said Naung Yoe. “We can call this modern human trafficking, a modern slave market.”

(RFA Burmese)

Soldiers for sale

The military’s conscription order demands a specific quota of recruits from each village, ward, or township proportional to its population. Findings show that the burden falls disproportionately on the poor. Though technically all men of conscription age – between 18 and 35 – are vulnerable, young men from wealthy families that get the call can pay to make poorer youth serve in their place.

The market price starts at 10 million kyat per person (about $2,500). Those who are healthy and pass the medical examination for military service can fetch up to 30 million kyat ($7,500), according to those who have purchased substitutes.

The people who were interviewed for the RFA Burmese investigation shared details about how the conscription scheme worked.

Ko Kaung, a youth from a suburb of Yangon whose real name is changed here for safety reasons, was working odd jobs to support his family in the volatile post-coup economic situation, a member of his family told RFA.

One day, a friend told him he could get a job loading construction materials for 40,000 kyat (about $10) per day. Ko Kaung accompanied him, hoping to land the job. The friend was actually working with traffickers and Ko Kaung was sold into military recruitment.

“They came to get him, saying there was a job in North Okkalapa township loading construction materials for 40,000 kyat a day,” Ko Kaung’s family member said. “Because there was no other work, he went. We lost contact completely. It was 18 days later that we finally made contact as he joined the military training where he could use a phone. We then learned he had been sold.”

Ko Kaung told his family he was sold to someone in Zayatkwin, Hlegu township in Yangon region; from there he was transported to Kyaing Tong, eastern Shan state bordering the Golden Triangle region, an area at the convergence of the borders of Myanmar, Thailand and Laos that is notorious for human and drug trafficking. It was August 2, 2026 when he could contact the family informing them that he was at military training.

(RFA Burmese)

The friend who recruited Ko Kaung allegedly has connections with the military, and currently is stationed at the No. 11 Infantry High-Level Training School, Ko Kaung’s family member said.

The People’s Military Service Law was first introduced and enacted by the previous junta led by Sr. Gen. Than Shwe, on November 4, 2010 in order to address the recruitment shortage in the possible future.

In February 2024, the current junta, led by Sr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, implemented the law and formed the Central Body for Summoning People’s Military Servants which would oversee all recruitment activities across the country.

Ko Kaung was recruited by an unknown individual recruitment group and transported to a military training camp under the body.

When RFA contacted the central body for the CBSPMS to inquire about Ko Kaung’s disappearance and illegal forced recruitment on August 17, 2026, no one answered.

Ko Kaung is not alone. Many others were also trafficked and conscripted under similar circumstances.

Zin Win Paing was abducted and sold as a new recruit for military service, his family told RFA. He was captured by a group of people as he came back from work to his home while waiting for a bus in South Dagon Township, Yangon, on March 5, 2025.

According to the family, Zin Win Paing was sold for 15 million kyat ($3,800). He was sent to Infantry Battalion 213 in Hlegu Township, Yangon, and subsequently to the front lines. He was killed in battle against the Arakan Army in Kyaukphyu, Rakhine State, on May 18, 2026.

Aung Ko Ko (a pseudonym) from Htantabin Township, Yangon, was also abducted and sold, his family told RFA. Aung Ko Ko was a welder in the Shwe Lin Ban Industrial Zone of Yangon and was captured while returning home on May 3. The family said he was sold for 12 million kyat ($3,000) to serve in the military for the Maubin Township area of Ayeyarwady Region.

(People's Military Service Group Telegram)

Government corruption

Under the conscription law, every jurisdiction has a recruitment quota proportional to its population, but some of the youth were trafficked to fill the quota of nearby jurisdictions. This requires a change in registration and the issuance of a new national ID to count toward the second jurisdiction’s quota.

Such a change would have been impossible without the participation of government officials.

Zin Win Paing, who died in a battle in Rakhine state, is originally from Insein Township, but was sold to serve under South Dagon Township. Similarly, Aung Ko Ko, from Htantabin Township, was sold to serve for Maubin Township, Ayeyarwady Region. Both received new IDs prior to their conscription.

Interviews conducted by RFA with family members and village representatives reveals a belief that government officials of all levels are working together in collusion at every step of the scheme.

(People's Military Service Group Telegram)

A village administrator from Mandalay Region, who wished to remain anonymous for safety reasons, told RFA that military authorities work together with trusted brokers to make the scheme work.

Pro-junta militia groups and others associated with the military “capture suspicious people or criminals and persuade them to join the army. They hand these kids over to the broker. The military (officers) give the order. The (brokers) then give (the captured recruits) to the administrators,” the local administrator told RFA.

“Since they are captives taken by the military-affiliates, they can be bought for 4,000,000 to 5,000,000 kyat (about $1,000 to $1,250). The middlemen handle the talking, the shifting, and the persuading, then they resell them for around 15 million kyat ($4,000)” the local administrator told RFA.

The local administrator admitted that he, too, had sourced recruits from brokers every three months to fill the conscription quota for his village. If the recruit is from a different township, immigration officials immediately issue a new ID card, receiving payments from the brokers for doing so.

While abductions are carried out directly by the military and police, or by junta-appointed administrators and their associates, the end result is always the same: they are forced into military service.

If families want to avoid their loved ones being sold, they sometimes have to pay hundreds of thousands of kyat in ransom to get them back. A family from Sinbaungwe Township, Magway Region, paid 20 million kyat (about $5000) to release their son after he was abducted last month.

“It is heartbreaking to have to buy back our own lives in our own country,” a family member of one of the victims said. “There is no one to rely on. We have no hope for justice from the leaders or the law because they are the ones openly doing this.”

In some cases, even after paying the ransom, the person is not released and is still sent to military training, resulting in the loss of both the person and the money. These incidents are widespread in areas where military control is strong, including Yangon, Mandalay, and Naypyidaw.

The money is simply too good for many government officials to resist, a lawyer in Yangon, who requested anonymity for security reasons, told RFA.

“I see this as using the law for business profit. This is not a military matter; it is forced, illegal coercion,” the lawyer said. “It is not part of the military service law. If subordinates are abusing this law, the military leaders should investigate and take severe action.”

RFA contacted Daw Khaing Khaing Soe, spokesperson for the former coup leader Min Aung Hlaing, but there was no response.

In state and local parliaments, questions on incidents of forced disappearance and illegal recruitments have been raised but the resulting discussions are often not highlighted by the junta-controlled media.

(RFA Burmese)

Meanwhile, the police often do not act on these cases because military officials are involved, Aung Ko Lin Han—a former deputy police inspector in Yangon who defected to the anti-coup Civil Disobedience Movement after serving until late 2025, told RFA.

“Retired army captains and active-duty military personnel—along with what you might call thugs or, essentially, their henchmen—collude to carry out these acts,” he said. “It is true that victims can be ransomed back. If one has the means, they can secure a release based on what they can afford to pay.”

Aung Ko Ling Han said that there have been cases where the police arrested traffickers.

“But we were unable to take action against those belonging to the active-duty military,” he told RFA.

Swelling the ranks

Since the implementation of the Military Service Law in 2024, thousands of young people across the country have been sent to 28 military training centers each month, So far, 28 batches of trainees have been recruited.

MDSI estimates that the military has recruited more than 130,000 new soldiers since the law went into effect, based on a newly imposed national quota of 5,000 recruits per week that was announced in April. RFA was not able to determine exactly how many of these 130,000-plus young people have been subjected to trafficking.

(People's Military Service Group Telegram)

“Myanmar security forces have carried out abductions or detentions without informing families about where they are or their condition,” the United Nations Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar, or IIMM, stated on August 29.

“Their families and loved ones live in uncertainty and anxiety. The Mechanism is investigating reports related to enforced disappearances. Under international law, if enforced disappearances are committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, it may constitute a crime against humanity.”

Concerns about human trafficking have even been raised by politicians who support the military.

In the Mandalay Regional Parliament on August 4, Ko Ko Htwe, a regional member of parliament from the pro-military Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), criticized these activities, calling them a massive human trafficking ring.

“Since the initial call-up began, levies labeled as ‘military service fees’ have been collected from every household in the neighborhood, leading to financial issues and corruption,” he said. “Furthermore, these collected funds are being used to ‘purchase’ young people for military service—a practice akin to human trafficking. Consequently, young residents of Mandalay and migrant workers from other regions no longer feel safe.”

When questioned about these issues in the Naypyidaw parliament in July, the Deputy Minister of Home Affairs, Maj. Gen. Min Thu, claimed they were acting systematically and that they would punish those acting outside the law.

“On behalf of the Chairman, and based on the coordinated responses from the Ministry of Defence and the Sagaing Region Government, I state that the People’s Military Service Summoning Body is issuing strict instructions at all levels to prevent summons that do not comply with the law, and that effective action will be taken against any activities that exceed the scope of the law and its bylaws,” the deputy minister said.

USDP spokesperson Hla Thein told RFA that it was necessary to take strict action against the perpetrators.

“If the authorities take action, these things will eventually disappear,” he said. “If people file complaints with concrete evidence, as has appeared in the newspapers, and if it is true, they will take action.”

Edited by Kyaw Min Htun and Nayrein Kyaw for RFA Burmese, Eugene Whong and Charlie Dharapak for RFA English.

RFA Burmese journalists who reported on this story have withheld their names for safety reasons.

Xi is scheduled to arrive Wednesday, Sept. 23, at a time when personnel changes are starting to take shape in the runup to next year’s national congress of the Chinese Communist Party, or CCP.

The international community is paying attention to the possibility that Xi will continue as the party’s leader for an unprecedented fourth term. Most analysts expect that to be the most probable outcome, but Xi still needs to ensure a smooth transition between his current term and his next, a Chinese political scientist, who identifies by the pseudonym Ding Wang for personal safety reasons, told RFA.

“Personnel selection and appointment are often accompanied by power struggles among different factions within the party,” said Ding. “If Xi Jinping receives a high-level reception in Washington, it can demonstrate his dominance in personnel arrangements and the diplomatic arena.”

Images of Xi meeting and negotiating with U.S. President Donald Trump will serve to boost the perception that Xi is still a capable leader, Ding said.

(Pedro Pardo/AFP)

“The related footage, after being broadcast by state media, will help strengthen his image as the leader of a major power’s diplomacy, which is also in line with the outside world’s perception that he is in control of the overall situation,” Ding said.

Key to insulating Xi from internal dissent will be how well he can decrease bilateral friction through economic overtures.

Business delegation

Xi plans to lead a delegation of business leaders during his visit with an aim to address several bilateral trade issues that analysts have said are likely to include easing of trade barriers to increase U.S. agricultural sales to China.

The plan has not been finalized, but it would be a rare instance of such a large group of business executives accompanying a national leader on a state trip since Beijing’s crackdown on the increasingly unregulated domestic technology, education, and real estate sectors in 2020 as a means to reassert state control.

The crackdown resulted in the imprisonment of many prominent Chinese businessmen including real estate tycoon Ren Zhiqiang and agriculture magnate Sun Dawu, and others.

Adding business leaders on a foreign trip is not consistent with the CCP’s policies over the last decade, a Chinese independent scholar, using the pseudonym Xu Peng for security reasons, told RFA.

“Many policies, from politics, economics, and culture to domestic affairs, diplomacy, and national defense, have run counter to the general direction of reform and opening up,” said Xu.

The ‘Eastward rise, Westward decline’ approach – an ideological concept embraced by Chinese leadership that suggests power is shifting away from the West and toward China – “is no longer viable, so they’ve temporarily decided to bring a group of business leaders along,” he said.

Beijing may hope Chinese companies will invest in the U.S. and purchase American agricultural products and energy to ease economic friction, said Xu.

“However, with entrepreneurs like Ren Zhiqiang and Sun Dawu still imprisoned, Beijing’s decision to send a business delegation abroad at this time is unlikely to dispel concerns about the situation of Chinese private enterprises.”

Beijing hopes to stabilize relations with Washington through expanding economic and trade cooperation, and this in turn would give China the leg up in its negotiations with the European Union, an economic advisor close to the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, identified by her surname Peng, told RFA.

“Both sides are currently using their respective bargaining chips,” said Peng. “As far as I know, some companies in Inner Mongolia are delaying the delivery of rare earth products to the U.S., and the delivery time has also become part of the bargaining between the two sides.”

(Hector Retamal/AFP)

Should the Chinese delegation bring along business leaders it would be an echo of Trump’s visit to Beijing in May, when he was accompanied by 18 executives, including tech moguls like Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

As part of the current round of negotiations, analysts believe that artificial intelligence and the semiconductor supply chain will be a major topic of discussion.

AI governance

Competition between the US and China continues over chips, AI models, and technology standards, and both sides are also discussing risk notification and communication mechanisms. Experts expect that AI security will be a major topic of discussion at the summit.

Given the different strategic goals and development paths of China and the U.S., the two sides have not yet entered the stage of jointly establishing a safety barrier for artificial intelligence, an independent scholar from Beijing identified by his surname Xin, told RFA.

“China and the United States are still in a stage of competition for dominance in the development of artificial intelligence,” said Xin. “Both sides hope to gain the initiative in technology, rules and industrial development.”

He said that security barriers are less of a focus as Xi and Trump are more concerned with gaining an advantage in the AI race.

Earlier this week, Trump downplayed the risk of artificial intelligence running out of control, opposed slowing down technological development on the grounds of security, and said that excessive regulation could weaken the United States’ competitive advantage over China.

The Chinese government has proposed that AI governance “should involve the joint participation of all countries” and opposes “restricting Chinese companies from acquiring technology and computing power under the pretext of security.”

Xin believes that there are differences between China and the United States in their definitions of AI security. The United States mainly focuses on model runaway, cyberattacks, human safety, military applications, and corporate responsibility.

(Hector Retamal/AFP)

Beijing, in addition to focusing on technological risks, also incorporates information dissemination, ideology, and the security of the CCP’s rule into its AI governance. China emphasizes national regulation and “autonomous control,” while paying less attention to independent assessments, cross-border verification, and corporate information disclosure.

The United States currently holds a dominant position in the AI field compared to China, an AI researcher identified by his surname Ma, told RFA.

Right now, high-end chips and computing equipment remain the focus of competition, Ma said.

On the issue of Chinese AI models training themselves with the help of U.S. AI models – a process called distillation – Washington requires Chinese companies to comply with the rules for using models by American companies, while Beijing opposes the United States requiring Chinese companies to comply with US standards while restricting chip and model services, Ma said. The two sides are finding it difficult to reach an agreement on this issue.

Any agreement that is made at the level of statement of principle on the matter would be meaningless, an international relations scholar from Beijing identified by his surname Su, told reporters.

“At present, the United States prefers to establish an artificial intelligence barrier with China, but in Beijing’s view, the more the United States wants to promote an issue, the more likely it is to become a bargaining chip for Beijing to use against the United States,” Su said.

Taiwan issue

Whether Taiwan will be included in the negotiation framework between Trump and Xi Jinping has drawn attention in Taiwanese public opinion. Trump has repeatedly included tariffs, investment, and goods purchases in his negotiations, but some in Taiwan worry that the U.S. government might place arms sales to Taiwan, official exchanges between Taiwan and the US, or Taiwan’s security issues within the same negotiation framework as China’s procurement commitments, tariff concessions, and artificial intelligence cooperation.

Solving the Taiwan issue with force is becoming an increasingly appealing option to Xi, a source within the Chinese government, who requested anonymity for personal safety reasons, told RFA.

“From my observation … the conditions for attacking Taiwan are not yet in place,” he said. “Xi Jinping now needs to maintain the stability of the existing political structure.”

(I-hwa Cheng/AFP)

Japan’s Kyodo News reported on September 12, citing sources, that Beijing has indicated to Washington that it might cancel the summit if the United States approves new arms sales to Taiwan before the leaders’ meeting, and reiterate that the Taiwan issue is a “red line” in Sino-US relations. Neither China nor the U.S. has confirmed these claims.

Arms sales to Taiwan are a key focus for Beijing, perhaps even more than trade or artificial intelligence, an insider in the Chinese system, using the pseudonym Wu Yilong, told RFA.

“Beijing is more concerned about whether the US will touch political red lines such as Taiwan’s sovereignty, especially whether it will push forward sensitive arms sales to Taiwan before the meeting,” said Wu. “At present, China’s relations with Japan and European countries lack stability, and potential risks are still rising. Maintaining the stability of China-US relations is a real need for Beijing.”

That stability could go a long way as the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has seen continuous personnel changes at the top during Xi’s third term.

(Adek Berry/AFP)

Should Xi return to China having achieved his objectives in Washington, it would serve to underscore his political influence on the CCP and Chinese military elites, a military scholar identified by his surname Li, told RFA.

“If there are doubts about the stability of the military command system, then the top leader’s departure from Beijing to visit the United States at this time can also be interpreted as him still having control over the military command system,” he said. This demonstration also helps him create conditions for personnel arrangements at the 21st National Congress of the Communist Party of China.”

Edited by Eugene Whong.

Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. was addressing the Seoul Defense Dialogue on Sept. 8 when he was handed a note setting out Beijing’s rejection of a 2016 arbitration ruling on the disputed waters.

China claims an area within its “nine-dash line,” which essentially encircles the entirety of the South China Sea, including areas that fall within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone.

Teodoro read the note aloud, challenged it line by line and accused China of “coercion, bullying and aggression,” drawing applause and widespread attention online.

Forum organizers said the note came from a military attaché at the Chinese Embassy in Seoul, according to South Korea’s Yonhap news agency. The attaché had asked a staff member to pass it to Teodoro, but the staff member mistook it for a message from the Philippine delegation and delivered it while he was speaking.

“The Seoul episode is therefore better seen as an extension of Manila’s existing approach than as evidence of a new phase in the transparency campaign,” Sylwia M. Gorska, a doctoral candidate in international relations at the University of Central Lancashire in the United Kingdom, told RFA.

Since 2023, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s administration has pursued what officials and analysts call an “assertive transparency” strategy. Philippine agencies release photographs and video of encounters with Chinese vessels quickly and have given journalists greater access to maritime missions, seeking to establish a public record and rally support at home and abroad.

Gorska said the tactic worked differently in Seoul. At sea, evidence can reveal conduct that would otherwise be difficult for outsiders to observe. But China’s refusal to accept the arbitration award has long been public, meaning Teodoro exposed no previously hidden position.

“It carried over the emphasis on speed, publicity and direct rebuttal, but shifted from documenting Chinese actions to publicly contesting China’s legal position,” she said.

Preaching to the choir

The episode highlights the contrast between Manila’s success in attracting international and domestic attention to the issue and its more limited ability to change either Beijing’s conduct or the positions of governments that have avoided taking sides in the dispute.

“The immediate results on the press are very favorable,” Enrico Cau, a Taipei-based independent security researcher, told RFA.

But he said the positive response largely echoed the views of groups that already supported the Philippine administration’s approach and did not demonstrate broader international support.

Marcos’ transparency campaign has kept maritime confrontations in public view.

(Philippines Coast Guard; Chinese State Media)

In July, the Philippine Coast Guard released its account of Chinese coast guard vessels using water cannons near Scarborough Shoal and said one Chinese ship came within 7 meters (23 feet) of a Philippine fisheries vessel.

Beijing issued a competing account, saying it had taken “control measures” against Philippine vessels operating illegally in the area.

Manila’s messaging also benefits from the 2016 ruling, which found there was no legal basis for China to claim historic rights to resources within sea areas falling inside its “nine-dash line.” China rejects the decision as illegal, null and void.

On the ruling’s 10th anniversary in July, the Philippines and 13 other countries, including the United States, Japan, Australia and Britain, issued a joint statement reaffirming that the award was final and legally binding. The European Union issued a similar statement.

Gorska said the Philippine campaign might have reinforced that backing by keeping both Chinese conduct and the ruling visible, but much of the international support for Manila’s legal position already existed prior to the current strategy.

“The evidence is strongest on visibility and much weaker on persuasion,” she said. “What remains unclear is whether the campaign has moved governments that were previously cautious or neutral closer to the Philippine position.”

Gorska noted that Southeast Asian governments have not collectively adopted Manila’s framing. Indonesia has emphasized dialogue and international law without endorsing the Philippine account of individual encounters, while Singapore says it does not take sides on competing claims. Malaysia rejects excessive maritime claims but continues to stress engagement with Beijing.

Japan and South Korea have both strengthened security ties with the Philippines, although Tokyo has been more explicit in supporting the arbitration award. Japan joined the July multinational statement, while South Korea issued its own message supporting the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, freedom of navigation and a rules-based order.

The day before the exchange in Seoul, the Philippine and South Korean defense ministers agreed to expand cooperation, including personnel exchanges and joint exercises. Japan’s Reciprocal Access Agreement with the Philippines entered into force in September 2025 and was used during the Balikatan military exercises this year.

But Gorska said those developments also reflected wider concerns about China and Manila’s decision to strengthen security relationships under Marcos, with little evidence that the information campaign directly produced particular agreements or commitments.

Cau said public exposure had maintained “a high level of instant visibility” around China’s conduct, but had not produced significant changes on the ground.

Conflict amid diplomacy

Cau also warned that more confrontational rhetoric could complicate diplomacy and encourage an escalation that the Philippines was less equipped to manage.

Tone was an issue in Seoul, Gorska said. Teodoro’s defense of the Philippine legal position was clear, but remarks such as “because you lost” and his suggestion that the note’s author might end up in a “gulag” made the exchange more personal without strengthening the legal argument.

(Lisa Marie David/Reuters)

China’s Foreign Ministry later accused Philippine figures of seeking attention, creating trouble and damaging bilateral relations and regional stability. In June, Beijing imposed sanctions on Teodoro, his wife and child over what it called his repeated “erroneous remarks” about China.

Public confrontation has nevertheless operated alongside quieter diplomacy. After a violent encounter at Second Thomas Shoal in June 2024, Manila and Beijing reached a provisional arrangement governing Philippine resupply missions to the grounded warship BRP Sierra Madre.

Philippine officials said 13 missions conducted under the arrangement through March 4 this year proceeded without dangerous encounters.

The arrangement did not resolve competing maritime claims, but analysts said it showed how private channels could reduce immediate operational risks even as both countries maintained their public positions.

“Public exposure and private diplomacy can work alongside each other,” Gorska said. “Transparency can establish a public record, while private channels give both sides space to manage incidents and reach limited arrangements.”

Cau warned, however, that repeated dramatic confrontations could eventually lose their impact.

“The constant use of ‘assertive transparency’ to me is prone to exposure fatigue, past which the audiences will simply ignore it,” he said.

Edited by Eugene Whong.

The rate hike was revealed by Chinese international students studying at Kim Il Sung University, considered by North Koreans to be the country’s most prestigious educational institution.

In posts on the social media platform Xiaohongshu, also known as RedNote, the students said they were surprised by the price increase upon returning to Pyongyang from China after summer break.

(Ed Jones/AFP)

Their posts reveal that the cost of a ride on the subway is now 400 won (.56 US cents) about 2.7 times the last known price of 150 won (.21 cents), which was confirmed at the end of 2024.

Though the increase from a fraction of one cent to a larger fraction of one cent might sound negligible to most visitors to Pyongyang, for those who live there, the price increase was felt.

“I paid 5,000 won (7 cents) at the ticket counter as usual, but I only received about 13 tickets back instead of the 30 or so tickets from before,” wrote one of the international students, using the account name that translates to “Sky, the azure planet.”

(Xiaohongshu accounts @Sky的蔚蓝星球 and @恩情博士/RFA)

Another student, with a username that translates to “Dr. Un Jong” noted the increase, but didn’t seem to think it was that significant.

The price of a North Korean subway ticket has risen from 150 won to 400 won," Dr. Un Jong wrote. “It seems like inflation has increased the price several times, but when converted using the exchange rate, it is very cheap, so it is no different from paying almost nothing at all.”

Rapid increase

Fare hikes are unusual for the Pyongyang subway, where a ride had only cost 5 won for decades.

The first significant increase was documented in 2024 by a Russian travel YouTuber Viktor, who visited North Korea in November 2024, and in his video, purchased a subway ticket for 150 won.

(Ed Jones/AFP)

Experts said the most recent increase is closely related to a decline in currency value resulting from the North Korean government printing money for state projects.

North Korea’s won-dollar exchange rate has skyrocketed by 377% over the two years since the first quarter of 2024, Lim Su-ho, a senior research fellow at the Korea Institute for National Security Strategy, said in a report in April.

Lim said the cause was authorities printing a massive amount of currency when they raised wages starting at the end of 2023, and to secure funds for the large-scale national development projects.

Edited by Eugene Whong

Wale was forced to abruptly abandon an annual meeting of leaders of member nations of the Pacific Islands Forum, or PIF, in Palau last week to scramble back to Honiara after his Home Affairs Minister, Manasseh Maelanga, launched a surprise no-confidence motion in his leadership.

Although Maelanga withdrew the motion at the last minute, sparing the nation from inaugurating its third head of government in a single calendar year, the chaos effectively paralyzed crucial momentum on a regional security architecture designed to counterbalance China that was to have been discussed at the PIF meeting.

High-stakes international diplomacy remains perpetually hostage to the volatile domestic politics of small island states, Alexander Vuving of the Hawaii-based Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center told RFA.

“The nature of Solomon Islands politics is that it’s primarily personality-driven,” Vuving said. “Given the heightened great power competition over the country, this geopolitical factor is likely to be involved. But it must be ‘filtered’ through domestic personality politics.”

(Hilary Wardhaugh/AFP)

Wale’s election in May was lauded by the U.S., Australia, and others as it was taken to mean that the country would enact policies more in line with Washington and Canberra than his predecessors Jeremiah Manele and Manasseh Sogavare, widely seen as having had pro-Chinese leanings.

Since coming to power, Wale has ordered a review on a controversial and secretive security pact with his predecessors signed with Beijing in 2022, and started negotiations with Canberra on a bilateral security and economic treaty. Meanwhile, Honiara in July signed a shiprider agreement with Washington, which allows Solomon Islands law enforcement to patrol the seas on U.S. Coast Guard vessels.

Vuving noted that while Prime Minister Wale’s pivot to the West remains active, its momentum will be highly unpredictable in the coming months.

In a 50-seat parliament dominated by personality-driven coalitions rather than ideology, prime ministers exist in a permanent state of survival mode, he said. When executive leadership is consumed by maintaining numerical supremacy, long-term statecraft is routinely discarded for short-term transactional survival. Agreements signed in the spring risk becoming obsolete by autumn, Vuving added.

This structural paralysis carries major global implications due to the Solomon Islands’ strategic location, Vuving said.

“It controls critical undersea telecommunication cables routing between Asia and the Americas, alongside massive Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) rich in seabed minerals required for future defense and green-tech industries,” he said. “Great powers are aggressively competing to secure these networks and exclude rivals, yet domestic instability opens the door wide for deep-pocketed foreign actors to deploy ‘chequebook diplomacy’ to buy backbench loyalty or tear coalitions apart.”

For countries looking to engage with the Solomon Islands, consistency is key, Kathryn Paik, deputy Australia Chair director at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, told RFA.

“While Solomon Islands domestic politics can make diplomacy with Honiara challenging, it also makes having consistent diplomatic engagement with the Solomon Islands that much more critical,” she said. “Without a confirmed U.S. ambassador on the ground in Honiara, the U.S. will struggle to stay effectively engaged in this dynamic environment.”

The last U.S. ambassador responsible to the Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu ended her term in January, and a replacement for her duties has not yet been nominated.

At present there are no U.S. ambassadors in the Pacific region.

Hasty return

Wale’s abrupt return to Honiara from the PIF leaders meeting in Palau drew blunt criticism from New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters, who condemned the political maneuvering, because it stalls collective Pacific security actions.

Peters told Solomon Islands media outlet Tavuli News that Wale’s departure was disappointing for other leaders at the Forum.

(Mick Tsikas/Reuters)

“He had to get the next plane, and President Whipps had to take him,” he said, referring to Palau’s President Surangel Whipps Jr. “That shows how saddened Whipps was by that, we all were, that Wale had to go home. But at least they’re trying.”

He said Wale’s absence could affect discussions on regional security.

In July, while serving as PIF chair, Wale said there was “growing consensus” among Pacific countries for a regional security treaty.

Peters said the proposal was likely to be discussed during the Leaders Meeting, but described Wale’s absence as a “setback.”

Wale was one of six PIF leaders – one third of the entire group – that did not attend the meeting.

Though many different factors played a roll in preventing their attendance, the absence of so many of the leaders was “unfortunate,” Paik said.

“For Prime Minister Wale, domestic politics required his absence, which meant that he was not able to promote his vision for regionalism and for a more formalized regional security pact with other leaders,” she said.

Aussie pivot

Honiara and Canberra over the past few months have drawn closer together under Wale’s leadership – classified correspondence between high ranking officials in each government that recently surfaced across digital platforms in Honiara indicates that Australia and the Solomon Islands have secured a preliminary consensus on a transformative bilateral security pact.

The leaked messages show that the Australian government has committed a substantial financial injection exceeding $980 million in supplementary aid—a move widely interpreted as an effort to stabilize Wale’s ruling coalition and finalize the strategic security agreement.

But political rivals have cast the correspondence as foreign interference. In a public statement, former Prime Minister Sogavare, as leader of the opposition wrote that it was “deeply concerned by communications that appear to reveal an extraordinary attempt to use prospective Australian financial assistance and bilateral treaty negotiations to influence the outcome of Solomon Islands’ domestic political processes.”

(Charley Piringi/AFP)

According to the statement, the messages suggested the two countries “stand together” to defeat the no confidence motion.

Sogavare said that no confidence motions are not instruments of foreign policy, and a government’s survival or failure must be determined by the consciences of members of parliament, not by the “prospect of foreign funding.”

Deputy Prime Minister Sade firmly rejected suggestions that the communications were politically motivated, describing them as routine updates on the Community Partnerships Program and treaty discussions.

“If there is good progress that benefits our country, why should petty politics be used to disadvantage or undermine such welcoming news?” Sade said, emphasizing that positive developments should be shared with fellow Members of Parliament rather than turned into political ammunition.

Editing and additional reporting by Eugene Whong in Washington.

As Chinese officials raised the official death toll from the Nepal-Tibet mudslide to 43 on Saturday, a Tibetan resident told RFA on Sunday that 26 people died in Risur village, Kyirong county, alone, where the Kyirong (Gyirong in Chinese) border post is located.

Because entry into the immediate disaster zone was restricted, the Tibetan resident told RFA that he had to trek around the mountain for about three hours to search for relatives, but could not find them.

“Many people have gone missing. We are currently staying in Kyirong town. Search and rescue operations are ongoing, but victims are not being found,” he told RFA Tibetan on the condition of anonymity for security reasons.

“People are missing, properties are gone, and nothing is left,” he added. “For about two days, I couldn’t bring myself to believe it.”

A Chinese resident from Kyirong Port, who wasn’t at the border crossing when the mudslide occurred, told RFA, “No one at the border checkpoint appears to have survived.”

He said that about 800 people lived there.

“We are waiting for official information, as there is no other way to get updates,” the Chinese resident said, speaking to RFA Tibetan on the condition of anonymity for security reasons.

“Ten shops and four restaurants were washed away,” he said.

(Tingshu Wang/Reuters)

Exiled Tibetans and advocacy groups have accused China of underreporting casualty totals on the Tibetan side of the border.

Reuters said that families and diplomats representing countries with missing nationals have privately expressed growing frustration over what they describe as limited information-sharing by China.

China’s foreign ministry organized the first trip for international media to Kyirong, which sits on a narrow river gorge, on Sunday.

According to the Reuters news agency, the mudslide has killed more than 1,300 people on both sides of the border, with more than 5,000 missing.

As of Saturday, 519 remained missing on the Chinese side. Among those still unaccounted for were 261 foreigners from 23 countries, officials said.

Harrowing stories of survival emerged from the border region as residents recounted running from the mudslide and seeing family members washed away.

Edited by Charlie Dharapak

Experts told RFA the bridges will help expand Pyongyang’s economic and strategic options as it draws closer to Beijing and Moscow.

The two bridges could also symbolize Pyongyang’s growing strategic leverage as cooperation among North Korea, China and Russia deepens, analysts said.

“Now, through these two bridges, North Korea is gaining access to China and Russia as vast economic and logistical backyards,” Im Eul-chul, a professor at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies at Kyungnam University in Seoul, told RFA. “This can also be interpreted as a message to the United States that North Korea has less reason to denuclearize or make major concessions simply to secure economic benefits through negotiations with Washington.”

(RFA)

RFA previously reported that experts believe the new bridges may provide a means for China and Russia to further undercut international sanctions on North Korea, meant to deprive Pyongyang of cash and resources that could be funneled into its nuclear and missile programs.

Construction accelerates

Construction on both bridges has accelerated significantly, particularly in August, the satellite imagery shows.

At the Tumen River Bridge, which connects North Korea’s northeastern city of Rason with Russia’s Khasan, the main road connecting the bridge to the Russian border checkpoint has been paved, and parking and inspection areas for cargo trucks are close to completion, including concrete and asphalt paving, Bruce Songhak Chung, a senior researcher at the Seoul-based Korea Institute for Security Strategy, told RFA.

(RFA)

“The roofs and exterior work on the immigration inspection and administrative buildings appear to be nearly complete, while interior equipment and customs-related systems are likely being installed,” Chung said.

Joung Eunlee, director of the Seoul-based Korea Institute for National Unification, visited Hunchun, in China’s northeastern province of Jilin, in mid-August, a vantage point from which China, North Korea and Russia are all visible. She said construction on the Russian side appeared to be moving quickly.

“They were using heavy machinery and there were many workers on site,” Joung said. “I think the bridge will open before the end of this year, possibly in September.”

Meanwhile, construction is also rapidly progressing on customs facilities on the North Korean side of the New Yalu River Bridge, which links North Korea’s northwestern city of Sinuiju with China’s Dandong.

The bridge was completed 12 years ago but has remained unused because the two sides could not agree on financing the remaining infrastructure. Satellite imagery taken Aug. 30 shows that paving on the connecting road and customs compound is nearly finished, raising the possibility that the bridge could open by year’s end.

A new gate has been installed in front of the customs facility, while work on the exterior walls and roofs of the buildings appears to be nearing completion.

North Korea appears to be seeking to open both bridges simultaneously to establish dual land routes to Russia and China and maximize economic benefits of its ties with both countries, Im said.

“China and Russia are also encouraging the completion of the infrastructure to further strengthen their strategic ties with North Korea,” he said. “The important point is that, unlike in the past, engagement with North Korea has become both beneficial and necessary for China and Russia.”

Mutual interests

The Tumen River Bridge was designed to handle up to 300 vehicles and 2,850 people across the border per day and was originally scheduled to open on June 19, 2026, but unfinished infrastructure on the Russian side has delayed this.

The bridge is already “ready for operation,” Ivan Stepanov, head of the Khasan district administration, told Russia’s state-run Rossiyskaya Gazeta in July. He also said that officials planned to open it in early September and that he expected that even though the bridge connects North Korea and Russia, Chinese cargo would eventually traverse it, as the three countries’ borders converge near the bridge, and China’s Hunchun Border Economic Cooperation Zone lies just across from Rason and Khasan.

“Russia would gain a direct road network that could facilitate the movement of military supplies, ammunition and personnel from North Korea amid the prolonged war in Ukraine,” Im said. “Russian companies could also establish overland trucking routes, boosting trade while reducing transportation costs.”

North Korea could also use the bridge as a route for importing Russian military supplies once it opens, Ri Jong Ho, a former senior North Korean official who, while stationed in China in 2014, defected to South Korea, and who currently lives in Virginia, told RFA.

“North Korea needs Russian support to continue developing weapons, including missiles and nuclear-powered submarines, so the bridge could provide a new route for moving troops and weapons into North Korea that would face less international scrutiny than shipments by sea or rail,” Ri said.

The New Yalu River Bridge, meanwhile, could strengthen China’s economic leverage and influence over North Korea while promoting economic activity in Dandong as a regional logistics hub, Im said. Ri also said Chinese alarm at the progress on the Tumen bridge may have contributed to the recent push to complete the one on the Yalu.

“Chinese leader Xi Jinping may have pressed Kim to open the bridge, particularly as construction on the Tumen River bridge has rapidly advanced amid closer ties between Pyongyang and Moscow and the New Yalu River Bridge has remained stalled for more than 12 years,” Ri said. “However, it will be important to closely monitor whether the completion of customs facilities will actually lead to the bridge opening.”

A geopolitical message

Despite some views that the bridges may carry more symbolic than economic weight, experts say Pyongyang could use the two routes simultaneously to encourage competition between China and Russia and maximize its economic benefits.

Analysts also expect if both bridges open this year, they could accelerate economic, military and diplomatic cooperation between Pyongyang, Moscow and Beijing as well as demonstrate North Korea’s growing strategic importance in Northeast Asia.

(Russian Transport Ministry via AFP)

Im said the completed bridge connections should be seen as a geopolitical message signaling the emergence of a continental triangular alliance linking North Korea, China and Russia, as well as a shift in North Korea’s diplomatic standing — a symbolic contrast with the failed 2019 summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump in Hanoi.

That in itself would prove advantageous should the United States and North Korea come to the negotiating table in the future, Joung said.

“The completion of the two bridges could serve as a symbolic demonstration of a closer relationship among North Korea, China and Russia, while enhancing Pyongyang’s negotiation leverage and strategic standing in the region,” Joung said.

Edited by Eugene Whong

HONIARA, Solomon Islands – Geopolitical competition over the Pacific between great powers could be playing out right now in the domestic politics of the Solomon Islands, experts told Radio Free Asia after Prime Minister Matthew Wale abruptly fled an international summit to defend his government against a motion of no confidence.

Wale had arrived in Palau on Saturday evening ahead of the start of the annual Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting – a high-stakes gathering for regional diplomacy – only to depart hours later on Sunday to address the motion against his leadership.

Wale has yet to address the motion publicly. Sources familiar with the situation indicate that the cabinet has been locked in high-level consultations since his return as the government scrambles to mount a defense.

(Mick Tsikas/Reuters)

The Prime Minister delegated representation duties in Palau to his Foreign Affairs Minister Rick Houenipwela. Wale has been prime minister only since May 15, after a no-confidence motion sacked his predecessor Jeremiah Manele.

Political Instability

The volatile nature of Solomon Islands politics has been significantly intensified by the aggressive maneuvering between China, Australia, and the United States, Alexander L. Vuving, a professor at the Hawaii-based Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, told RFA.

“Domestic politics in Solomon Islands is inherently unstable, the absence of strong party structures and the dominance of personality-driven coalitions,” Vuving said. “You have different individuals juggling for power, and they would change the coalition.”

The political landscape in the Solomon Islands is plagued by the absence of robust party frameworks and the prevalence of shifting, personality-led coalitions, Vuving said.

The resulting internal turmoil in Honiara is amplified as the Solomon Islands are positioned at the center of intensifying great power rivalry in the Pacific, he said, adding that a constant change of leadership at the top could jeopardize the efficacy of international agreements, including security pacts.

“It’s not easy for Solomon Islands to just say, ‘I cannot just throw these agreements away,’” Vuving explained, adding that these commitments represent formal treaties between sovereign states.

Suspicious timing

Observers of regional security interpret the timing of the filing of the motion as a potent demonstration of Beijing’s strategic leverage. A prominent skeptic of Chinese influence, Prime Minister Wale had been prioritizing the acceleration of a fresh bilateral security pact with Canberra while curbing Beijing’s regional expansion.

It is “very possible” Beijing actively sought to shape domestic politics due to deep displeasure with the current administration, Vuving said.

“China is very unhappy with the prime minister… and they would not have stayed idle,” he said, adding that Beijing could have leveraged influence with parliamentarians, though the true extent of any interference, if at all, remains unproven.

(Mick Tsikas/Reuters)

Wale’s plans for the meeting of the Pacific Islands Forum, or PIF, included advocating for the proposed “Blue Pacific Ocean of Peace Regional Security Treaty.” Supported fervently by the United States, Australia, and New Zealand, this multilateral initiative is aimed at cementing Canberra and Wellington as the cornerstones of regional stability while curbing Beijing’s strategic reach.

The current instability underscores a persistent dilemma for Western planners, Tarcisius Kabutaulaka, an associate professor based at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa originally from the Solomon Islands, told RFA.

Sophisticated security pacts negotiated with regional heads of state remain highly vulnerable to the volatile nature of parliamentary shifting alliances, he said.

“The reasons for the motion of no confidence in PM Wale are complicated,” Dr. Kabutaulaka stated, pointing to broader governance issues. “While Solomon Islands’ members of Parliament tussle over who rules, Solomon Islanders watch, many with disappointment and anger. The island country once again dangles over the edge of political instability.”

The shock motion was filed on August 29 by Minister of Home Affairs Manasseh Maelanga, who defected from Wale’s ruling coalition, alleging that the “Prime Minister has repeatedly made unilateral decisions on matters of national importance without proper consultation.” The political upheaval comes against a backdrop of deep domestic discontent over emerging corruption inquiries, including an audit into the 2023 Pacific Games spending and unaccounted bauxite shipments.

In March, 19 members of former Prime Minister Manele’s ruling coalition who defected to the opposition which was at the time led by Wale. This created a new 28-member opposition coalition that had a majority of the parliament’s 50 seats. They filed a no-confidence motion in Manele that ultimately led to his ouster in May, after which Wale was elected his successor.

Though Maelanga was not a part of the 19 defectors, he had been a part of a previous defection in 2025, which set up a no-confidence motion that Manele was able to neutralize by luring members of that defection back to his side.

Geopolitical significance

The Australian government has heavily invested in countering Chinese regional influence through Pacific defense treaties, security guarantees, and infrastructure funding. In response to the unfolding crisis in Honiara, Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles stated he remains “confident” in the enduring bilateral relationship.

Australian diplomats are working quietly behind the scenes to preserve fast-tracked security agreements, reinforcing Canberra’s “red line” against any expansion of Chinese military or policing assets in the region.

(Saeed Khan/AFP)

The sudden developments have raised immediate alarms in Canberra. Greg Sheridan, the foreign editor for The Australian, called the retreat of the China-skeptic Prime Minister a “very, big worry” for Australia’s strategic landscape.

“He was willing to make an agreement with Australia and limit China’s influence in the Solomons,” Sheridan said in an interview with Australian outlet News24. “China has a lot of influence in the Solomons, which it’s got through brown paper, money, politics, and all kinds of nefarious activities.”

“So this is part of the ongoing struggle that we are endlessly involved with in the South Pacific,” he said.

Edited by Eugene Whong.

Update corrects the circumstances of Maelanga’s defection.

One of Hong Kong’s most prominent pro-democracy activists, Joshua Wong, will likely have to serve consecutive sentences after pleading guilty to foreign collusion Wednesday, a Hong Kong-based legal professional told Radio Free Asia.

Wong, 29, is one of the most internationally recognizable faces of the now-quashed democracy movement in the city. He was among 45 Hong Kong opposition politicians and pro-democracy activists who were convicted with “conspiracy to commit subversion” under the city’s 2020 National Security Law for taking part in a democratic primary in the summer of 2020.

He is already serving a four-year-and-eight-month sentence for subversion. He is currently due for release in January, but will almost certainly have to serve more time after entering his plea.

(Tyrone Siu/Reuters)

Wong is accused of trying to call on foreign countries, organizations or people in 2020 to “impose sanctions or blockade, or engage in other hostile activities” against China and Hong Kong over the controversial law.

The foreign collusion charge has a maximum sentence of life imprisonment, but Wong’s lawyer, Derek Chan, asked Judge Tam Yiu-ho to give Wong a sentence of three to 10 years, which is at the “upper end of the lower band” of punishments for the crime, according to a report by AFP. Chan noted that Wong had already served most of his first sentence and that his actions in the second crime were not particularly severe.

Low possibility of parole

Regardless of what sentence Wong will receive, he will likely have to serve it in its entirety after his current sentence is up, a Hong Kong legal professional identified only by his surname Wang, told RFA Mandarin.

“Under the principles of common law in Hong Kong, when two cases involve different offenses, the court will consider the criminal acts, the time of occurrence, and the relationship between the two cases before deciding whether the sentences will be served concurrently or consecutively,” said Wang. “Judges will also adjust the sentence according to the totality principle to ensure that the total sentence is proportionate to the overall culpability.”

Wang said the key to determining how long Wong would serve would be whether the court considers him to be a “principal offender, or one whose offences were of a grave nature,” an “active participant” in the crime, or an “other participant.” Wong could also receive a one-third reduction of his sentence for pleading guilty.

The likelihood that Wong would receive parole is very low, Wang said, so he would probably have to serve the full sentence.

Judge Tam said that the sentence would be decided “as soon as possible” but did not offer a specific date, AFP reported.

Deprived of freedom

According to reports, Joshua Wong has been continuously detained since November 23, 2020, after pleading guilty to the June 21, 2019, siege of the Hong Kong Police Headquarters.

He was subsequently implicated in cases involving unauthorized assembly, including a rally to commemorate the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre, and his involvement in the pro-democracy primary. He has now been deprived of his freedom for more than 2,100 days.

The prosecution alleges that Joshua Wong and another prominent pro-democracy figure, Nathan Law, had been conspiring together since 2016.

(Chan Long Hei/AP)

The two lobbied internationally to promote the “democratic self-determination” proposition, traveling to the United States, Germany, and Italy to meet with local political figures, including then-U.S. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and then-U.S. Senator Marco Rubio, and participating in the promotion of the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act. Wong also spearheaded four joint petitions demanding that the United States, France, and Switzerland cease supplying weapons or strategic equipment to the Hong Kong police.

Law left Hong Kong after the national security law went into effect in 2020, but Wong vowed to stay.

More than 30 people had lined up overnight outside the court to obtain tickets to attend the hearing, with police officers on standby.

One of the citizens in line, identified by her surname Liao, told the media that she wanted to offer moral support to Joshua Wong, because she believes he should not be treated this way.

(Chris McGrath/Getty Images)

(Getty Images)

(Alex Wong/Getty Images)

(Chris McGrath/Getty Images)

(Anthony Kwan/Getty Images)

(Paula Bronstein/Getty Images)

(Chris McGrath/Getty Images)

(Anthony Kwan/Getty Images)

(Chris McGrath/Getty Images)

(Carl Court/Getty Images)

(Anthony Kwan/Getty Images)

Joshua Wong is being punished for exercising his right to free speech, Frances Hui, an exiled Hong Kong pro-democracy advocate and policy and advocacy manager for the Washington-based Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation, said in a video the organization released prior to the trial.

Hui reflected on knowing Wong since 2016, when they were both teenagers.

“For those of us who watched him grow up, it’s hard to think about the teenager we knew, and it should be hard for anyone to accept that he could now spend decades more behind bars,” Hui said in the video.

“Joshua is about to turn 30 this year. He should be thinking about his future, not whether he’ll ever be free again.”

Edited by Eugene Whong

AFP reported that more than 4,500 people were missing, but both the death toll and the number of missing could be higher, as exiled Tibetans and advocacy groups have accused China of underreporting casualty totals on the Tibetan side of the border.

Chinese authorities have forbidden journalists from entering the disaster zone or interviewing affected family members, and have punished those accused of “spreading rumors” about the disaster, New York-based Human Rights Watch reported.

Residents and officials of Kyirong County (Gyirong in Chinese), which borders Nepal’s Rasuwa district, witnessed entire villages destroyed, they told RFA Tibetan on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

“Within 3 minutes the flood reached the area near the Kyirong customs office, and no one who was there survived,” a Tibetan resident of Kyirong County told RFA. “There were about 30 people in the village.”

The resident said that many people from the area had been working in the area on road construction at the time of the disaster.

“Now, many of them are dead,” the resident said. “There is no hope left. It was like a dream. It came out of nowhere.”

A Chinese official in the same area confirmed that several people who were displaced by the disaster were able to find alternative lodging.

“A few people from the affected area have been kept in a guesthouse and in paying guest rooms in private homes,” the official told RFA. “I am not comfortable explaining other details.”

Missing guides

Ten Tibetan travel guides from the Tibetan capital Lhasa, the surrounding areas, and elsewhere have been missing since the flood, another Tibetan resident told RFA. The source said that the guides were stationed in the Dram (Zhangmu) area along the border.

“They usually take travellers and tourists from the Nepal-Tibet border and take them on excursions and pilgrimage to places like Mount Kailash and Lake Manasarovar,” the second resident said.

Two people from the village of Resuo survived the disaster according to a third Tibetan resident, also from Kyirong.

(Arun Sankar/AFP)

“Two people were able to run toward the mountain,” the third resident said. “Only if you can run toward a hilltop can you save yourself; otherwise it is very difficult to survive. The force of the water was so strong.”

According to the third resident, Kyirong county was largely spared because it is a bit farther from the affected area.

“But the water flowed about three kilometers upstream,” the third resident said. “About 15 families from the village had their homes completely destroyed”

The third resident said that many of the people who work there are in the military or are customs officials that work on the border.

“We … are also not allowed to visit the affected area,” the third resident said. “All we can do is console the family members.”

Stories of survival

On the Nepal side of the border several residents told RFA, on condition of anonymity to speak freely, that they witnessed the disaster as it happened.

“The flood came like a fall from the sky and felt like an earthquake,” a resident of Serthang, a subdistrict of the town of Timure in the affected area on the Nepal side, told RFA. “I saw the flood coming down and entering my home at the same time.”

The Serthang resident said that several villagers were at the family home to celebrate the birth of a son.

“Thankfully, we were all able to run and escape,” the Serthang resident said. “But there were many older people and children who could not escape because they lacked physical strength.”

(Nepali Army/Reuters)

A second Serthang resident told RFA that he saw his elderly mother washed away in the flood.

“Before the flood, my wife and I were with my 98-year-old mother,” the second Serthang resident said. “I had to leave my mother behind and saw her swept away by the water in front of my eyes. My wife barely escaped the floodwater.”

The second Serthang resident said that within two minutes the village was lost to the carnage.

“The electricity had gone out sometime before the flood came,” the second Serthang resident said. “Then suddenly, the whole village was filled with people shouting. In two minutes, the whole village was flooded. I was so scared that I had to run barefoot.”

A flood of this magnitude was unprecedented for the area, the second Serthang resident said.

“The height of the flood was as high as a tall building,” the second Serthang resident said. “It seemed like the water was in the sky. In the meantime, the house was no longer visible.”

Edited by Eugene Whong

Leaders from five of the 18 member nations — Fiji, Vanuatu, Samoa, Kiribati, and New Caledonia — sent deputy ministers or other senior officials in their stead. A sixth leader, Solomon Islands Prime Minister Matthew Wale, had arrived in Palau, but returned to Honiara to address a no-confidence filing against his leadership.

“The meeting is already less productive because as a political meeting, without leaders, it cannot be viewed as being productive,” Alan Tidwell, director of the Center for Australian, New Zealand and Pacific Studies at Georgetown University in Washington, told RFA. “Being productive means having leaders in the room.”

The theme of this year’s forum meeting uses the Palauan word for Palau as an acronym – B.E.L.A.U., Building Economies: Life. Action. Unity.

But the invitation of Taiwan as a development partner, and China as a dialogue partner, has left the countries of the Pacific Islands Forum, or PIF, anything but unified.

(Saeed Khan/AFP)

China-Taiwan rivalry

Palau is one of three Pacific countries and one of 12 globally that maintain official diplomatic relations with Taiwan. As host nation, Palau took the traditional role of inviting the non-member countries to the forum meeting alongside the PIF Secretariat, which determined that Taipei was eligible to participate as a development partner under the 1992 PIF framework.

Palau’s President Surangel Whipps Jr.’s decision to include democratic Taiwan, which mainland communist China considers to be a rogue province, angered Beijing.

After Taiwan’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung attended the PIF meeting’s opening ceremony on Monday, Qian Bo, China’s Pacific envoy, warned that there would be consequences, without specifying what the consequences were.

(Saeed Khan/AFP)

Though Qian said this was not a threat, Gregory Brown, Director of The Alliance Futures Initiative, a Washington-based think tank, said it was “a precisely calibrated threat in Pacific diplomacy.”

“It likely means tourism bans, frozen loans, and delayed projects for anyone who sat in the same room as Taiwan’s foreign minister,” he said, adding that Palau was the most likely target for retaliation.

He said China could put economic pressures on Palau, noting that Beijing devastated Palau’s tourism industry in 2017 by declaring it unsafe for Chinese tourists. Prior to then, around 40% of Palau’s tourism income came from China.

China warned its citizens not to travel to Palau in an advisory on Aug. 19, about 10 days before the forum, a move that was criticized by the United States Embassy in Koror as weaponization of tourism. Qian defended Beijing’s advisory to reporters on Monday.

“That weapon is still loaded,” Brown said, referring to the advisory. “We may already be seeing the first consequence play out.”

(Saeed Khan/AFP)

AFP reported that Chinese officials warned the delegations of the PIF countries that they should not attend any side events at the meeting that include Taiwan, citing a Pacific source at the meeting on condition of anonymity.

Lin defended Taiwan’s participation Tuesday, telling reporters that Taipei has been a significant donor to the Pacific, and has been involved with the meeting for decades.

“We should not make compromises just because of China’s recent bullying,” Lin said. “Wherever there is Taiwan’s presence, China will have a difficult time having full control over the area.”

But Beijing on Tuesday doubled down on its assertion that Taiwan does not belong.

Taiwan “is not qualified to participate in the forum’s activities in any capacity,” Guo Jiakun, a spokesperson for the Chinese foreign ministry told reporters in Beijing. “Authorities in Taiwan have sent independence separatists such as Lin Chia-lung to make sneaky visits and curry favour everywhere in a futile attempt to attract attention.”

(Saeed Khan/AFP)

One-third of leaders absent

While four of the five leaders who did not fly to Palau cited pressing domestic issues as the reason they could not attend, the fifth, President Taneiti Maamau of Kiribati said he was unable to attend because the country’s parliament was in session and a lack of available commercial flights.

In his stead, David Teaabo, the country’s former ambassador to China, was sent to lead the delegation. The move was widely interpreted as a snub aimed at both Palau and Taiwan.

New Zealand’s Foreign Minister Winston Peters told reporters that denying that foreign influence had a role in the absences would “defy gravity and logic,” telling Australia’s ABC News that the absences were “highly suspicious.”

(Saeed Khan/AFP)

Tidwell called the Kiribati flights excuse “absurd,” and said that the absence of so many of the forum member countries’ leaders undermines the PIF meeting.

“It will be remembered as the meeting at which almost a third of the leadership didn’t attend,” he said. “From Washington’s perspective the deputy secretary of state is attending. This has been touted in Washington as a strong signal of how important the Pacific is for Washington.”

Tidwell explained that in previous years it would have been the Secretary of Interior that attends and that Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau’s participation was supposed to be “a success.”

“But who is he meeting with?” said Tidwell. “The real test will be to see how he’s met when he visits Tarawa.”

Kiribati is a scheduled stop on Landau’s three-country itinerary in the Pacific after the PIF meeting concludes Friday. According to the U.S. State Department, he will attend the Kiribati Development Partners Forum there, as well as having meetings with government representatives.

In last year’s forum held in the Solomon Islands, then Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele, widely considered to be a pro-Chinese politician, decided not to involve any outside nations, and this was seen as a way to prevent Taiwan from attending.

Brown praised Palau for its strategy of inclusivity.

“Last year, the Solomons solved the Taiwan problem by locking the door on everybody,” he said. “This year, Palau solved it by opening the door to everybody and telling China to behave like a guest instead of a landlord.”

He said President Whipps’ approach was better than Manele’s.

“In my opinion, Whipps’ approach is the right one,” he said. “It considers Pacific sovereignty as something Pacific states exercise by making their own decisions about who sits at the table.”

Edited by Charlie Dharapak.

Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, or DPP, warned this month that Beijing could use AI to target groups of voters, impersonate Taiwanese social media users and circulate fabricated recordings or scandals shortly before election day.

The warning comes as Taipei steps up its defenses against AI interference in the election regardless of whether it originates inside or outside of the democratic island, which China considers to be its territory.

Taiwan’s government rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claim and says the island’s future can be decided only by its people.

Researchers say influence operators can use AI to produce content more quickly, manage networks of fake accounts and tailor messages to individual voters.

“I do think that AI will be more involved in the November local elections,” Sze-Fung Lee, an independent researcher specializing in Chinese hybrid warfare, told RFA. “The use of AI has been observed repeatedly in previous elections, and I believe we will continue to see it in the form of deepfakes for defamation campaigns, coordinated inauthentic behavior, and more sophisticated microtargeting.”

(Ann Wang/Reuters)

China has a long history of interfering in Taiwan’s elections, and it will likely use AI as it continues its efforts, William Yang, a Northeast Asia analyst at the Belgium-based International Crisis Group, told RFA.

“I do think Taiwan has legitimate reason to worry about Chinese election interference assisted by advanced AI technology,” Yang said. “Now with the assistance of advanced AI technology, these efforts will certainly be on the rise, especially when it coincides with key election cycles.”

Beijing has repeatedly denied interfering in Taiwan’s elections. It accuses the DPP of promoting separatism and using tensions with China for political purposes.

Electoral context

The DPP’s warning comes as the party faces a difficult local election. The opposition Kuomintang, or KMT, won 14 mayoral and county chief posts in 2022, compared with five for the DPP, and has secured a majority of those positions in the past two local election cycles.

Yang said the KMT was currently projected to win more counties, although the DPP could seriously challenge it in several races.

“The DPP will certainly be closely monitoring and tracking signs of disinformation that is trying to undermine its electoral prospects and find clues that might suggest its connection to China,” he said.

The KMT supports greater engagement with Beijing but rejects descriptions of itself as pro-China. The DPP, meanwhile, supports closer relationships with countries like the United States and Japan.

(I-hwa Cheng/AFP)

In a statement issued in February about reports of Chinese preparations to influence the local elections, the KMT said it opposed interference by external actors.

Despite the major differences the two parties have in cross-straits relations, Taiwan’s local elections are generally driven more by domestic issues. In 2022, the DPP emphasized national security and resistance to Beijing but suffered its worst local election result in years, prompting then-President Tsai Ing-wen to resign as party chair.

2024 influence?

In its warning, the DPP said AI-generated material that circulated around Taiwan’s 2024 presidential election included videos promoting “The Secret History of Tsai Ing-wen,” – an electronic book containing allegations about the former president – and a suspected fake recording of Terry Gou, a businessman and former presidential hopeful.

Research by Taiwan-based civil society group Doublethink Lab found that generative AI was used during the 2024 election to conduct large-scale spam campaigns and help inauthentic accounts vary their posts and schedules.

In previous elections, manipulation campaigns relied more on direct amplification of Chinese state media and prominent Weibo users, but in 2024, most of the interference came from unofficial social media accounts, Doublethink Lab found.

However, attributing such activity to China can be difficult, the report said. The presence of AI-generated material does not establish who created it, and researchers must examine account networks, posting behavior and connections with state-backed media or other known actors.

(I-hwa Cheng/AFP)

AI could make attribution harder by allowing operators to imitate Taiwanese expressions, discuss local issues and vary their online behavior.

A February report by the Netherlands-based Leiden Asia Centre said AI could make disinformation cheaper and easier to produce at scale. It found, however, that manipulation in Taiwan drew much of its power from existing political polarization, social grievances and social media platforms that reward emotionally charged content.

The report indicated that AI could amplify existing political divisions rather than create new ones.

Shoring up defenses

Taiwan’s Central Election Commission is establishing a specialized task force and an online platform through which candidates can report suspected deepfakes. The commission plans to assess reported material and refer confirmed cases to online platforms for action.

Such a system could help authorities respond to fabricated recordings attributed to identifiable candidates. Coordinated networks may be harder to address when individual accounts post political opinions or misleading claims that are not demonstrably false.

Content circulating through closed online communities, including those found on the popular LINE messenger app, also presents a challenge because it is less visible to election officials, researchers and fact-checkers.

The election preparations come amid broader concerns about Chinese cyber activity. Taiwan’s National Security Bureau said critical infrastructure faced an average of 2.63 million Chinese cyberattacks a day in 2025, an increase of 6% from 2024 and 113% from 2023.

Some of the attacks coincided with Chinese military exercises or politically significant events in Taiwan, the bureau said.

The cyberattack figures do not demonstrate AI-enabled election interference, but Lee said they supported the government’s broader assessment of sustained Chinese pressure.

“I do not think the government is being overly sensitive,” she said. “There is hard data showing the frequency of cyberattacks and cognitive warfare targeting Taiwan every day, as well as evidence of Chinese electoral interference in Taiwan’s 2024 presidential election.”

Edited by Eugene Whong.

The proposed leasing notice, released August 17 by the Marine Minerals Administration, or MMA, follows earlier steps identifying vast areas of ocean for possible mineral development around the territory, officially called the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, or CNMI. The plan has triggered intense debate across the islands, where concerns span environmental risks, cultural impacts, fisheries, tourism, and democratic accountability.

Though the plan could be economically beneficial, the business community in the CNMI is approaching it with caution, Joshua Wise, president of the Saipan Chamber of Commerce, told RFA.

(MMA)

“There are legitimate concerns, but there may also be significant economic opportunities that deserve to be fully understood,” Wise said, adding that critical minerals have become central to U.S. national security, manufacturing, technology, and supply‑chain resilience — meaning the CNMI could become part of a broader federal strategy.

“If resources located near the CNMI ultimately become part of that national strategy, then we should be asking what role the Commonwealth will have and what economic opportunities could be created here,” he said.

Resource rivalry

The push for offshore critical minerals comes as the United States and China compete for control of the materials that power modern technology — including batteries, semiconductors, electric vehicles, renewable‑energy systems, and advanced defense platforms. China currently dominates global processing of rare earth elements, cobalt, nickel, graphite, and battery components, giving it significant leverage over global supply chains. U.S. officials have warned that this dependence poses strategic vulnerabilities for national security and manufacturing.

“Critical minerals are essential to America’s national security, economic strength and resource sovereignty,” Matt Giacona, acting director of the MMA, said in the Aug. 17 announcement. “The United States cannot afford to depend on foreign nations for the resources that power our economy and support our defense industrial base. The Marine Minerals Administration is working to unlock the critical mineral potential of the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf responsibly, transparently and with the rigorous environmental review the American people expect.”

Washington is exploring new sources of critical minerals, including the deep ocean, where polymetallic nodules and crusts contain metals essential for clean‑energy and defense technologies. MMA’s interest in CNMI waters is the potential future node in U.S. supply‑chain resilience efforts.

History has shown what can happen when national‑security priorities override local interests, Gregorie Michael Towai (Eipéráng), a researcher of and advocate for indigenous people in the territory, told RFA.

He cited the 67 U.S. nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands between 1946 and 1958 and the long‑term contamination there, as well as the continuing discovery of unexploded ordnance across the Marianas as lessons from history.

(Yuichi Yamazaki/AFP)

“Decisions justified by national security can create consequences for Pacific communities that endure long after the strategic circumstances that originally justified them have changed.”

Towai stressed that deep‑sea mining is not equivalent to nuclear testing — but the imbalance of power is similar.

He said the CNMI must insist on credible independent science, meaningful public participation, and enforceable guarantees before any commitments are made. Consultation, he said, must be capable of changing the decision, not merely documenting that communities were heard.

“National security matters, but the security of Pacific communities matters too. That includes clean water, healthy fisheries, cultural continuity, food security, and the ability of future generations to inherit an environment that has not been irreversibly altered,” Towai added.

Red flags

Even if the plan provides contracts for CNMI companies and jobs for its people, there are unanswered questions surrounding how exploration or mineral development could affect industries that already sustain the CNMI, Wise said.

“Our marine environment directly supports industries that already exist today, particularly tourism and fisheries,” he said. “So we need a much clearer understanding of what future exploration or mineral development could mean for those industries.”

(Yuichi Yamazaki/AFP)

Wise said the CNMI needs baseline environmental data, protections for fisheries, and much greater clarity about both risks and benefits.

“The question should be: if this moves forward, can it be done responsibly, can our existing industries be protected, and will the people and businesses of the CNMI have a meaningful seat at the table and a meaningful share in the opportunities that may result?” he said.

Government officials said that they need other assurances prior to the plan being enacted.

In public statements, CNMI Governor David M. Apatang said the federal notice triggers a 60‑day review period during which the CNMI will insist on strict environmental and cultural safeguards, while U.S. Delegate Kimberlyn King‑Hinds said that she is advancing legislation to secure revenue sharing, mandatory mitigation studies, and formal consultation with CNMI leaders.

But the CNMI’s legal authority over offshore waters remains limited. It can demand safeguards and challenge inadequate environmental review, but it cannot block the MMA from advancing leasing in federal waters.

Under the Covenant and federal court rulings, submerged lands beyond the 12‑mile territorial sea fall under exclusive federal jurisdiction.

But the Pacific Ocean is more than just a boundary for people native to the Pacific, Towai said.

“For Indigenous peoples of Oceania, the ocean is part of our homeland,” he said. “Decisions about the seabed cannot be evaluated exclusively through mineral values, lease blocks, and federal jurisdiction.”

Edited by Eugene Whong.

A comparison of imagery taken Aug. 23 and Aug. 27 of Tibet’s Kyirong County (Gyirong in Chinese), and Nepal’s Rasuwa district, shows that customs buildings, a bridge and other infrastructure on the border appear to have been swept away in the carnage. Restaurants, hotels, homes, and other buildings downstream on the Nepal side also appear to have been destroyed or washed away.

Further downstream, much of Timure village appears to have disappeared in the latest imagery, underscoring the scale of the disaster and raising concerns about casualties and property loss.

China’s state-run Xinhua news agency reported that the disaster also caused extensive infrastructure damage — about 3 kilometers (2.8 miles) of the G216 highway leading to Kyirong Port were damaged, and five telecommunications base stations initially stopped operating.

The Chinese government is severely restricting detailed information about the situation inside Tibet, Ryan Fioresi, executive director at Washington-based International Campaign for Tibet, or ICT, told RFA citing sources on the ground.

“Chinese authorities have relocated local residents, barred journalists, independent observers, and others from entering the affected area, and prevented reliable firsthand information from emerging,” he said. “As a result, the international community remains largely dependent on Chinese state media, whose coverage has focused primarily on Xi Jinping’s directives and official accounts of rescue and relief efforts, rather than the actual conditions on the ground, survivors’ experiences, or the full extent of the casualties and destruction.”

Lobsang Yangtso, a senior environmental researcher at the International Tibet Network, said she was concerned that the Chinese government has been engaged in large-scale construction projects in Tibet, a region that is geographically vulnerable to disasters such as earthquakes and flooding. She called on Chinese authorities to publicly and transparently release information about casualties and missing people.

In total, at least 1,468 people were missing and 392 were confirmed dead according to AFP at the time of writing.

On the Nepalese side, the disaster has also devastated Tibetan communities in Rasuwa district.

As of August 27, Chinese authorities said three people had died and 558 were missing in Kyirong County. At the time of the disaster, hundreds of people were believed to be in the vicinity of the Kyirong border crossing including villagers, border staff, freight and construction workers, merchants, and non-Chinese citizen tourists.

Tibetan casualties in Nepal

Sources within the Tibetan diaspora told RFA that many Tibetans living in Nepal were affected by the disaster.

The homes and property of five Tibetan households in the town of Timure were swept away by floodwaters, according to a statement from the Tibetan Refugee Welfare Office in Nepal. Members of two Tibetan families remained out of contact, while members of three other families escaped to higher ground and survived.

(China Daily via Reuters)

In the Gegyeling Tibetan settlement in Rasuwa district, 11 houses and the surrounding area were swept away. The whereabouts and condition of some of the residents remain unclear.

Sources familiar with the situation also told RFA that floodwaters swept away a Tibetan in the Shabrubesi market area, also in Rasuwa.

Sikyong Penpa Tsering, president of the Central Tibetan Administration, the exile government in Dharamshala, India, later reported the same statistics, adding that in Gegyeling, two elderly residents were still missing.

He also provided an update on the situation in Shabrubesi, which he said was largely swept away, one Tibetan was killed and three others remained missing. In Timure, he said, six people from two Tibetan families were reported missing. Nepalese authorities had rescued six Tibetans as of the morning of August 27, Tsering said.

Three other Tibetan settlements in Nepal — Thangpoche, Khangjim and Biritim, also known as Briddim — were not affected because their homes are located at higher elevations.

The Dalai Lama, Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, expressed his condolences Thursday, acknowledging that the disaster had caused heavy damage and loss of life.

“I hope that appropriate follow-up measures will be taken, wherever possible, to help ensure that such disasters do not recur,” he said.

The exact cause and sequence of the disaster remains under investigation and experts cautioned against prematurely describing the disaster as simply a glacial collapse, as many international media outlets had been reporting.

The evidence points to a very large slope failure involving both rock and glacier ice on the northern side of the Langtang Lirung massif, Tenzing Chogyal Sherpa, a physical geographer at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, told RFA.

“What is clear is that this was not simply a conventional river flood,” Sherpa said. “A very large volume of rock and ice moved rapidly downslope and entered the river system, producing an extraordinary amount of debris and sediment.”

He said he preferred the more cautious term “large rock-ice avalanche” until further evidence is available.

Tibetan blackout

The Chinese government deployed hundreds of emergency responders, firefighters, engineers and military personnel to the area, China’s state-run Xinhua news agency reported. Authorities are also monitoring a landslide-dammed lake upstream from the border crossing. Xinhua reported that the water level had risen compared with the previous evening, raising concerns about a possible secondary disaster.

Experts and advocates told RFA that they are calling for better monitoring of high-altitude source areas, stronger river-level early warning systems, rapid communication between upstream and downstream communities, and, particularly in transboundary river basins, much stronger sharing of information across borders.

Nepal’s rescue efforts on its side of the border are more transparent than the Chinese government’s response on the Tibetan side, Tencho Gyatso, president of ICT, told RFA.

“While Nepal is providing timely information and avenues for international humanitarian assistance, we hope that, in Tibet, disaster relief efforts will be accompanied by timely and transparent information and unhindered access for humanitarian support,” she said.

Edited by Eugene Whong.

A Hong Kong court this month convicted two leaders of a dissolved pro-democracy group to erase the memory of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, a pro-democracy activist who was a student leader during the 1989 event told Radio Free Asia.

The Hong Kong High Court ruled Aug. 21 that the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, its former chairman Lee Cheuk-yan and its former vice-chairwoman Chow Hang-tung, were guilty of “inciting subversion of state power.”

The Alliance is best known for organizing yearly candlelight vigils in Hong Kong’s Victoria Park each year in remembrance of the Tiananmen incident, a practice that continued until 2019.

In 2020 authorities stopped the vigil citing health concerns during the pandemic, then from 2021 onward they were able to use Hong Kong’s draconian National Security Law to end it permanently.

Erasing the past

The verdict is intended to discourage commemorations of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, Wang Dan, who was a student leader of the protests in 1989, told RFA.

“The authorities clearly hope to use this verdict to erase every trace of history and prevent Hong Kong people from remembering June 4th,” he said, referring to the massacre by the date which it occurred, as is customary in Chinese.

(Peter Parks/AFP)

Wang said that he does not believe authorities can succeed in erasing the event from the public consciousness.

“Such a verdict will only lead more people to commemorate it in silence,” he said. “Silent remembrance is still remembrance. The memories people carry in their hearts cannot be completely destroyed by such brutal acts.”

In September 2021, authorities arrested Lee, Chow, and another former chairman of the Alliance, Albert Ho, with “inciting subversion of state power.”

The Alliance voted to dissolve on Sept. 25 of that year.

Lee and Chow were held in custody until the trial, which began in January of this year. Ho was initially held in custody but was briefly let out on bail for medical grounds in 2022, then returned into custody in 2023.

Ho pleaded guilty while Lee and Chow both pleaded innocent. The court on Aug. 21 found Lee, Chow, and the disbanded organization guilty.

Legal argument

A core point of contention in this case is the Hong Kong Alliance’s long-standing call to “end one-party rule.”

The court held that after the implementation of the National Security Law in 2020, the Hong Kong Alliance and its leaders continued to promote this goal and incited others to carry out acts of subversion of state power by illegal means.

(RFA)

During the trial, Lee and Chow argued that “ending one-party rule” was about promoting democratic transition and did not equate to demanding an end to the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, while also believing that related political expressions were protected by freedom of speech in Hong Kong. However, the court did not accept this argument.

The Hong Kong Police National Security Department stated that the court’s ruling was in line with their view of the case. The police also noted that the Alliance continued to hold rallies, exhibitions, street campaigns, and online memorial activities after the law went into effect.

Sentences are yet to be determined, but the two could face up to 10 years in prison.

Edited by Eugene Whong.

The Chinese frigate Honghe and Indonesia’s KRI I Gusti Ngurah Rai-332 conducted a passing exercise east of Taiwan on Aug. 12, involving maritime communications, formation maneuvers and replenishment of fuel and supplies at sea. Reuters described it as China’s first joint operation with a foreign military in those waters.

China, which considers Taiwan to be part of its own territory, described it as a “navigation exercise.”

Taiwan, however, accused Beijing of using the drill to create the impression that China exercises jurisdiction over waters east of the island.

Though the exercise itself was a brief three-hour meeting of ships which then went their separate ways, the exercise gave Beijing a record of a foreign navy conducting an activity with China in waters that Taipei says Beijing has no authority to police, Aniello Iannone, a lecturer in Indonesian and Southeast Asian politics at Diponegoro University in Indonesia, told RFA.

(Ministry of National Defense of the People's Republic of China)

“Once the Indonesian navy sailed, Beijing acquired something it could not manufacture alone, corroboration, from a state with no stake in the Taiwan question, that the water east of the island is a place where cooperation with China happens normally,” he said.

Taiwan’s military said the exercise did not change much from a security perspective. Wu Tien-jen, assistant deputy chief of the general staff for intelligence, told lawmakers that the Indonesian vessel was already traveling through the area, and that the activity had no direct military impact on Taiwan, though he said it carried geopolitical significance.

Jakarta played down the significance of the exercise, saying its warship was returning from exercises in Vladivostok and that such passing exercises were routine acts of maritime diplomacy.

Normalizing China’s presence

Indonesia has diplomatically transitioned to a Taiwan stance that aligns with China’s position more closely than many other governments—including by issuing a joint statement affirming Beijing’s one-China principle in November 2024.

But its participation in exercises with China east of Taiwan does not mean that it intended to legitimize Beijing’s presence in the area, Joseph Kristanto, a research analyst at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, told RFA.

“For Jakarta, it’s just routine defense diplomacy activities. But for Taipei, the concern is the precedent that such an activity could create,” he said. “Jakarta may not intend to lend legitimacy or normalize China’s military presence around Taiwan, but Beijing can still use the participation of a foreign navy to reinforce the impression that its military activities in these waters are increasingly normal.”

The location gives the episode greater significance for Taiwan, according to analysts.

Unlike Taiwan’s western coast, which faces mainland China across the Taiwan Strait, its eastern approaches open onto the Pacific and are regarded as crucial maritime lifelines in the event of a Chinese blockade or conflict, and Taipei has become increasingly concerned about Chinese activity there.

China’s coast guard began patrols east of Taiwan in June, later drawing expressions of concern from the United States, Britain, France and Germany. Taiwan subsequently reported a sharp rise in Chinese government-vessel activity around the island and warned that Beijing could be testing ways to disrupt Pacific supply routes.

(Taiwan Military News Agency via AFP)

During its annual nationwide Han Kuang military exercises this month, Taiwan’s navy and coast guard also held their first joint anti-blockade drill, including a scenario in which a merchant vessel carrying essential supplies was escorted toward ports in eastern Taiwan.

“The eastern approaches are the only side of Taiwan not overlooked by the Chinese mainland,” Iannone said. “That’s where resupply would come from in a blockade, and where American forces would arrive.”

He argued that Chinese survey ships, coast guard patrols and now the Indonesia exercise could be understood as part of a broader attempt to make Beijing’s presence east of Taiwan appear administrative and routine rather than exceptional.

The more important test will be whether the Indonesia exercise remains an isolated event, Kristanto said.

A single passing exercise, or PASSEX, “is unlikely to change the status quo,” he said. “It would become more strategically meaningful if this develops into a pattern whereby similar exercises occur repeatedly, involve more foreign navies, become operationally more complex, or take place closer to Taiwan.”

Altering geopolitical narratives

The key threshold could come if other countries begin to regard cooperation with China in those waters as politically unremarkable, Kristanto said.

“In that scenario, Beijing would not necessarily need countries like Indonesia to directly endorse its sovereignty claims,” he said, adding that the cumulative effect could still help normalise the PLA’s presence around the island.

Repetition of this exercise with the navies of other countries would shift the burden of the argument, Iannone said.

“Against an event, Taipei can object,” he said. “Against a routine, Taipei has to ask the international system to un-normalize something already normalized, which is a far harder thing to organize.”

Iannone said more complex exercises, participation by additional navies or operations moving closer to Taiwan would strengthen Beijing’s case, but he also pointed to a less visible, but possibly more valuable indicator: whether records of such cooperation are cited as evidence of established practice.

“The one I’d watch hardest is documents,” Iannone said. If records of joint activities east of Taiwan began to appear in notifications from the International Civil Aviation Organization, the International Maritime Organization, or in arguments that attempt to declare the territory part of China’s exclusive economic zone, “that’s the transition from imagery to legal material.”

But there are also limits to how much Beijing can gain from such exercises.

(Juni Kriswanto/AFP)

Kristanto said Indonesia retains control over how it describes its military cooperation and has been careful to characterize the Aug. 12 drill as limited and routine. Jakarta also conducts military exercises with a wide range of countries, meaning the China drill alone does not demonstrate a strategic realignment.

Beijing could even undermine its own objective if it attaches too much political meaning to foreign participation, he said.

“If China attaches too much political significance to those interactions, it could make partners who do not want to be entangled in the geopolitical competition between China and the U.S. and its allies more cautious about participating in similar activities in the future,” Kristanto said.

Indonesia and China nevertheless signaled this week that broader defense cooperation is continuing. During high-level “2+2” talks in Jakarta on Aug. 20, their foreign and defense ministers agreed to deepen security ties, including military exercises and defense industry cooperation.

For Taiwan, however, the concern is less whether Indonesia itself moves closer to Beijing than whether similar interactions begin accumulating without attracting much resistance.

“Effective jurisdiction doesn’t arrive through recognition, but it accumulates,” Iannone said. “No sovereignty changes hands at any point, what it shifts is the threshold at which something registers as worth noticing, and that threshold is where the political work happens.”

Edited by Eugene Whong.

In the report, titled “China’s Model on the Offensive: Why China’s Five-Year Plan Promotion in the Pacific Matters,” the Washington-based think tank documented how in eight of the nine Pacific island countries where Beijing has an embassy, the heads of mission published op-eds in the local media touting the merits of China’s latest sweeping national policy framework proposed late last year and formally adopted in March.

“To international audiences, the PRC deliberately reframes the FYP from a domestic planning document into a predictable, scientific blueprint for global growth and cooperation,” the report said.

The campaign was not limited to media placement. Chinese diplomats also engaged in direct bilateral governance outreach, hosted diplomatic briefings – either open to the media or closed – with influential figures in business and government. The ultimate goal was to make the case that local development strategies were in line with the five-year plan, or that China was a more stable and reliable partner than its main rival with interests in the region, the United States.

The Alliance Futures Initiative, or TAFI, tracked the activities of Chinese Embassies since October 2025, finding more than 30 cases where ambassadors promoted the five-year plan.

“The frequency, similarity, and timing of output strongly imply MFA guidance,” the report said, referring to China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “Variance in message intensity, ideological depth, and host-country alignment claims tracks local conditions and individual ambassador style.”

The power of persuasion

A key aspect of the campaign is how China is using persuasion rather than coercion to influence the Pacific countries to fall in line, Jonah Bock, TAFI’s assistant director for research, who authored the report, told Radio Free Asia.

Bock highlighted key examples where China attempted to directly persuade key government officials. In Vanuatu, Ambassador Li Minggang extolled the virtues of China’s civil service oversight in a meeting with Ombudsman Hamilson Bulu and in Naoero, formerly Nauru, Ambassador Lyu Jin discussed judicial cooperation with Chief Justice Jay Udit.

(Chinese embassy in Vanuatu)

“An ombudsman audits the government and a judiciary constrains it,” he said. “So these are really helping shape how Pacific governments actually function in China’s own model. And the importance of this is really normalization.”

Successfully persuading these countries to peacefully adopt a Chinese model is the goal of the campaign, he said.

“Coercion is expensive and it generates resistance. But persuasion does not. It’s relatively cheap for China to do,” Bock said. “If they can get these countries already using China’s development strategies, its models, then these officials will start to think like China and be more willing of their own ideas to cooperate with China.”

Selling alignment

The TAFI report said that throughout the campaign, ambassadors focused on three topics when explaining why aligning with the five-year plan would benefit their host countries: green development, economic openness, and shared prosperity.

In Fiji, the Federated States of Micronesia, or FSM, and Tonga, the embassies pushed out messaging that touted China’s concern for the environment, saying Beijing had “contributed one-quarter of the world’s new green area” and built the “world’s largest clean power generation system.”

“Beijing tailored this message for climate-conscious Pacific audiences, with the FSM embassy noting that ‘green development has become a defining feature of contemporary China, where skies are bluer, waters are clearer, and lands are cleaner,’” the report said.

(AFP)

In Fiji and Papua New Guinea, or PNG, messaging also “championed” anti-protectionism, the report said.

“The Fiji embassy noted that China has ‘lifted all foreign investment restrictions in the manufacturing sector,’ and the PNG embassy opined that ‘while unilateralism and protectionism are on the rise… China remains firmly committed to opening up.’”

Messaging also focused on poverty alleviation and personal income increasing as a result of rapid economic growth, according to the report. In FSM, Ambassador Wu Wei’s op-ed said that due to China’s robust education and security systems, the “people’s sense of gain, happiness, and security have been significantly enhanced.”

“The themes Chinese ambassadors chose to emphasize … are not incidental,” the report said. “Each topic serves one or more of Beijing’s broader strategic objectives in the region, functioning simultaneously as a pitch for deeper cooperation, a contrast with Western alternatives, and a legitimization of the CCP’s political model.”

Solidifying counter strategies

If China were to achieve all its objectives in the Pacific, the region would be hostile to the United States and the interests of Washington and its allies, especially Taiwan, Bock told RFA.

“We would have no more countries that recognize Taiwan. At the end of the day, that really is China’s first objective,” he said. “We would also start to see more economic dependencies, countries whose economic lifelines rely on China, which helps China again deepen their own influence.”

He said adoption of China’s governance models would sow the seeds of authoritarianism in the region. But the report outlined recommendations for the United States to counter the campaign.

It identified FSM, the Marshall Islands, Palau and PNG as a “strategic core” due to their “defense access and second-island-chain positioning” and suggested that efforts to shore up relationships with this core should take priority over symmetrical levels of engagement with the whole region.

It also suggested that Washington contest the same institutional grounds through judicial exchanges, legal-sector training, and civil service partnerships, noting that they “cost a fraction of infrastructure competition and defend exactly the ground now under cultivation.”

TAFI also recommended helping Pacific governments in areas that they are already requesting, and to use private capital in circumstances where government aid moves too slowly.

“These are things that are … already happening,” Bock told RFA. “For instance, for the Solomon Islands … five staff in their parliament just went to D.C. for a program, with the U.S. Congress on legislative processes.”

He said this was the type of exchange that the report recommends and that he would like to see more of these.

Additionally the report said that Washington could simply highlight Chinese actions in the Pacific to discredit Beijing’s claims of non-interference in the internal matters of other countries, a key part of China’s foreign policy that it often often invokes when deflecting criticism of its domestic policies.

“Beijing’s non-interference claim is falsifiable, and PRC embassies have falsified it in their own published material,” the report said. “The United States does not need to argue this case. It needs to document it and let Pacific audiences draw conclusions.”

Edited by Charlie Dharapak.