Tag Archives: East Asia

Ideology + Affiliation

China News | Activists

1 Comment
Hong Kong Occupy leaders charged a year after pro-democracy protests
  • Alex Chow, who led the Hong Kong Federation of Students, reported he and Joshua Wong, leader of student group Scholarism, have been charged with illegal assembly following 2014’s demonstrations.
  • Wong faces the additional charge of inciting others to illegal assembly during the student-led protests that shut down major areas of Hong Kong.
  • More than 100,000 participated for more than two months in demonstrations against China’s decision to vet candidates for Hong Kong’s 2017 elections.

Read the full story at Reuters.

(Image Credit: Bobby Yip/Reuters)

Ideology + Affiliation

Myanmar News | Dissident Journalists

1 Comment
Myanmar shutters media connected to ousted parliamentary speaker
  • The Ministry of Information ordered two newspapers considered the mouthpieces of parliamentary leader Shwe Mann to go dark.
  • Mann’s ousting followed his attempts earlier in the summer to limit the political role of the military ahead of the November general election.
  • President Thein Sein’s use of security forces to remove Mann has led to concerns about the government’s commitment to democratic process ahead of an election that could be Myanmar’s first free and open one in a half-century.

Read the full story at Reuters.

Nationality + Migration, Race + Color + Ethnicity

China News | Ethnic Minorities

1 Comment
China includes ethnic Han for first time in national multicultural athletic festival
  • The National Traditional Games for Ethnic Minorities opened on Sunday, with 6,240 athletes from 31 provinces and ethnic groups competing in traditional sports.
  • Han participants were allowed for the first time limited participation with ethnic minorities including Huis, Zhuangs, Uyghurs, Yis, and Miaos and representation from Mongolia, Tibet, and Taiwan.
  • The 17 competitive events in the quadrennial festival include camel ball, bamboo drifting, dragon boat racing, and stilt-running.

Read the full story at the South China Morning Post.

(Image Credit: Xinhua News Agency, via the South China Morning Post)

Nationality + Migration, Race + Color + Ethnicity

China & Japan Feature | Japanese-Chinese

Video

Identity Legacies of War

Japanese children were adopted in occupied China during World War II as they lost mothers and fathers to the war. AFP highlights some of the cultural struggles that are the legacies of those adoptions.

Watch the AFP feature on YouTube.

Religion + Belief

China News | Catholic Christians

1 Comment
China prepares to recognize second Vatican-backed bishop ordination
  • Cosmos Ji Chengyi will join Joseph Zhang Yinlin, ordained last week, in becoming the first bishops ordained in China in three years.
  • The government-backed Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association and the underground Vatican-allied church have divided China’s 8-12 million Catholics.
  • China has previously required all ordinations to be approved by the government and has gone so far as to appoint bishops itself, which has riled the Holy See, with whom it has had no diplomatic relations since 1949.

“Catholics are thrilled because this is the first time since the founding of Henan province that there has been an ordination ceremony recognized by both sides.”

Read the full story at Reuters.

Race + Color + Ethnicity

China News | Tibetans

1 Comment
China permanently resettles Tibetan nomads in controversial program
  • The government argues the resettlement program is an attempt to bring the benefits of development–education, healthcare, and economic opportunity–to Tibetans, who have had a historically pastoralist culture.
  • While some young Tibetans expressed hope at the move to new regions like Ngaba, activists argue that Tibetans were given little choice in the move and that the government is using the resettlements to control the Tibetan population more closely.
  • Despite claiming it has no interest in suppressing Tibetan religious beliefs, China continues to outlaw expressed allegiance to the Dalai Lama, considered a terrorist.

“It’s much easier to enforce administrative control over settled communities than over nomads in the grasslands, and also the Chinese authorities have aligned the policy with specific political objectives of eliminating separatism and eliminating expressions of Tibetan nationalism.”

Read the full story at Reuters.

(Image Credit: Natalie Thomas/Reuters)

Gender, Race + Color + Ethnicity, Religion + Belief

Myanmar Feature | Rohingya Women

1 Comment

A Forked Path for Rohingya Women, with Both Roads Leading to Hell

Trapped in a desperate situation compounded by their gender, Rohingya women–already facing persecution as a Muslim ethnic group in Myanmar–find themselves forced into either marriage or prostitution by human traffickers in Southeast Asia. The New York Times profiles one of their stories and the efforts of one advocate to bring light to the issue.

View the New York Times feature on YouTube.

Ideology + Affiliation

China News | Advocates

1 Comment
Chinese police accuse human rights lawyer of “endangering state security”
  • The accusations of “inciting subversion” have paved the way for formal charges to be brought against Wang Yu, a lawyer whose firm’s clients include Uyghur dissident Ilham Tohti.
  • The development comes following the mass-scale detention of human rights advocates and activists in July that saw more than 50 arrested.
  • CCTV released footage of Wang calling officials “thugs” in what activists consider to be a smear campaign.

“I said ‘this is all nonsense.’ … The authorities put out the video of her saying that: ‘You all are thugs.’ Why not release the full video? And even if what she said was extreme, is that considered a crime?”

Read the full story at Reuters.

Gender

China News | Hong Kong Women

1 Comment
Government and communities push to equalize gender representation in Hong Kong’s tech industry
  • Despite equal early interest in tech education, the proportion of girls in computer science courses drops to a third by the start of college.
  • In Hong Kong, where social pressure and negative images of tech culture push many into business, software development faces an uphill battle in capturing the career interests of young women.
  • Programs and organizations such as W Hub, Women Who Code, and First Code Academy are working to open opportunities to girls and young women in the tech field.

“Encouragement and support to study STEM needs to begin early both in school and at home. … Girls who show an early interest in the field often lose interest because of pervasive but underrecognised biases in the learning environment.”

Read the full story at the South China Morning Post.

(Image Credit: Jonathan Wong/South China Morning Post)

Religion + Belief

China News | Christians

1 Comment
Chinese officials target church crosses in demolition campaign throughout Zhejiang province
  • Locals described ongoing campaigns in which authorities allegedly sent in Buddhist monks to agitate Christian congregants, removed crosses from atop churches, and surveilled and intimidated social media protesters.
  • The demolitions come as part of the government’s “Three Rectifications and One Demolition” campaign targeting structures it has deemed illegal around the country.
  • President Xi Jinping has targeted churches as potential threats to national security, claiming their growth could be driven by foreign influence.

“As well as the cross demolitions, the government is carrying out ideological work with all parties,” Zhang said. “It’s not just the crosses that they’re targeting. The government wants to turn the Protestant church into a truly Chinese institution, which is to say that it wants it to become a tool of the party.”

Read the full story at Radio Free Asia.

(Image Credit: via Radio Free Asia)

Nationality + Migration

China News | Immigrants

Shanghai debuts new work permit relaxing experience requirements for international students
  • The chuangye is one of a series of visa reforms recently rolled out to attract and retain foreign talent in Shanghai.
  • The residence permit waives the two-year experience requirement for international students graduating from a Shanghai university, allowing students to pursue internships or start-up work for two years after graduation while living in the city.
  • The first permit was issued to an Indonesian student, who reported that visa restrictions had proven a significant barrier to fellow classmates looking to remain in the city post-graduation.

Read the full story at Shanghaiist.

(Image Credit: The People’s Daily, via Shanghaiist)

Race + Color + Ethnicity, Religion + Belief

Interregional Feature | Kazakhstani & Indonesian Jews

Asian Jews from Steppe to Sea

One the “bridge between Islamic and Jewish countries” and the other the largest Muslim nation in the world, Kazakhstan and Indonesia have strikingly different attitudes towards their Jewish communities.  While the former hosts the largest synagogue in Central Asia despite being a Muslim-majority country, the latter pushes Jewish religious expression to the margins and sees rampant, politically opportunistic anti-Semitism.  The Jakarta Post takes a comparative look at the conditions faced by Kazakhstani and Indonesian Jews.

Read the full feature at the Jakarta Post.

Ideology + Affiliation

Malaysia News | Political Dissidents

Travel ban on Malaysian rights activists and political opposition imposed as investigations into PM’s alleged financial impropriety continue
  • An opposition MP and electoral reform advocate found themselves on expanding restricted-travel lists following calls for an impartial investigation into alleged embezzelement by the premier.
  • Malaysian PM Najib Hazak has been accused of directing millions of dollars from the state investment fund into his personal bank accounts.
  • Threats of public protest followed the travel restrictions as affiliates of the investment fund have seen their accounts frozen and their former chief gone missing.

“They are nervous, they are paranoid. … They are intimidating those whistleblowers. That is what is happening now.”

Read the full story at Channel NewsAsia.

(Image Credit: AFP, via Channel NewsAsia)

Nationality + Migration, Sexual + Gender Minorities

Thailand News | Gay American

Aside
Thai surrogate attempts to block departure of gay couple with infant
  • A U.S.-Spanish binational couple has retreated to a secret location with their infant daughter after the surrogate they contracted through a Thai surrogacy agency refused to sign the papers for the child’s passport.
  • The woman alleges she was unaware the child was going to a gay couple and is not obligated to turn over her rights to the couple, despite contracts regulating the process and her lack of biological connection to the child.
  • After the present situation’s process had already begun, surrogacy was banned in Thailand following high-profile scandals that drew attention to the largely unregulated industry.

“She said she thought she was doing this for an ‘ordinary family’ and when she found out that it wasn’t an ordinary family she was worried for Carmen’s wellbeing.”

Read the full story at the Guardian.

(Image Credit: Gordon Lake/Facebook, via the Guardian)

Gender, Race + Color + Ethnicity

Japan Feature | Black Women

Aside

The Life and Love of Black Women in Japan

Part of her “Black Eye” series in The Japan Times examining life in Japan for black immigrants, this Baye McNeil piece shines a light on the hardships of romantic life for black women in the country.  From fetishism to “friend-zoning,” McNeil finds black women face challenges particular to the intersection of their identities in the search for romance and familial security in Japan.

Read the full feature at The Japan Times.

(Image Credit: Matsui Family/Courtesy, via The Japan Times)