http://www.inthesetimes.com/archives/tags/asia/ In These Times features award-winning investigative reporting about corporate malfeasance and government wrongdoing, insightful analysis of national and international affairs, and sharp cultural criticism about events and ideas that matter. en-us Expression Engine jessica@inthesetimes.com seamus@inthesetimes.com Mon, 15 Oct 2001 13:11:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/1615/the_daughter_generals/ Things seemed to be looking up for Indonesia in July, when President Abdurrahman Wahid, widely viewed as corrupt and incompetent, finally was voted out of office--and Vice President Megawati Sukarnoputri assumed leadership. Megawati, the daughter of Indonesia's founding father, Sukarno, is seen by many as a clean break from the legacy of General Suharto, who ruled the vast archipelago with an iron fist for more than 30 years. But to write a new chapter of Indonesian history, Megawati must first subordinate the powerful military to civilian control and resolve the conflicts in Aceh and Irian Jaya, where separatist movements have battled with Indonesian forces for decades. Claiming to assist this worthy task, the Pentagon, White House and a consortium of… asia David Sirota Mon, 20 Jan 2003 02:10:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/421/nuclear_north_korea/ It's a diplomatic issue, not a military one," the Bush administration keeps telling the world. The go-slow, wait-and-see approach the United States is taking with North Korea's nuclear weapons program stands in stark contrast to its aggressive posture toward Iraq. While there may never be a one-size-fits-all approach to dealing with nuclear proliferation, the current crisis in North Korea demonstrates why diplomatic efforts will be far more effective in stopping the new nuclear danger than pre-emptive military strikes. North Korea's announced intention to pull out of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is only the most recent disturbing action taken by the regime of Kim Jong Il over the past few months. In meetings with U.S. officials in early October, North Korea… politics asia David Sirota Thu, 18 Mar 2004 09:00:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/406/china_nuclear_ties/ Bejing—Documents declassified March 6 indicate that while President Bush was crusading against Iraq’s mythical nuclear program, three other “axis of evil” countries—Libya, Iran and North Korea—were building nuclear weapons that could reach New York using missile designs provided by Pakistan and China, both of whom are U.S. allies in the war against terror. The documents, dating from 1965 to 1997, reveal that “China provided assistance to Pakistan’s program to develop a nuclear weapon capability” and stalled U.S. investigations through deceptions, false promises and lies. And even today, the CIA cannot confirm that China has cut illicit nuclear ties with its client states. The International Atomic Energy Agency, investigating Libya and Iran’s illicit nuclear programs, already has said they were based… government: administration international affairs asia David Sirota Fri, 09 Apr 2004 13:10:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/718/the_china_syndrome/ More than 1,200 workers from the Tieshu Textile Factory in the Chinese city of Suizhou peacefully blocked railroad tracks this February to protest corruption among factory managers that had cost them nearly $25 million in pay, pensions and investments. Hundreds of police broke up the demonstration, beating many and arresting six for “disturbing social order.” It’s not unusual: Employers increasingly refuse to pay workers what they’re owed—nearly $40 billion in 2002. The violation of labor rights is the dark side of China’s economic boom. But it’s not just a problem for Chinese workers. It’s also a problem for Manitowoc County, Wisconsin, and Mexican workers in the maquiladora assembly plants along the country’s northern border, as hundreds of factories have moved… civil liberties labor asia David Sirota Tue, 08 Jun 2004 15:28:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/769/making_enemies/ The Bush administration’s neoconservatives purport to seek security through military might. But last year, the administration surrendered its dominance over North Korea when Pyongyang separated enough plutonium to deter any U.S.-threatened regime change. In addition to destabilizing East Asia, Pyongyang’s advances in nuclear warhead and long-range missile technology spur Star Wars missile defense spending here at home. And that raises a question: Will President Bush’s questionable management of national security policy allow him to keep his 2000 campaign pledge to deploy missile defense? Relations between the United States and the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea declined precipitously in 2002 when the Bush administration claimed that Pyongyang had admitted to a secret nuclear weapons program and Washington cut off bilateral talks.… government: administration international affairs politics asia David Sirota Thu, 07 Apr 2005 09:00:01 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2043/tibetans_face_new_uncertainty_in_exile/ Dharamsala, India—The rain came down harder and those celebrating the final day of Losar, the Tibetan New Year, squeezed in tighter to get under the roof. All were on their feet to sing the Tibetan national anthem. Barley flour was thrown in the air to signify the beginning of the New Year. Monks, laymen and Western spectators brushed the flour off their holiday clothes as they mingled about smiling and welcoming in the New Year. February in Dharamsala—the seat of the Tibetan government in exile and home to thousands of Tibetan refugees—is usually a joyous month. Not only does it signify the New Year, it’s when the Dalai Lama gives public teachings for two weeks. Buddhists from around the world… asia David Sirota Mon, 09 May 2005 07:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2099/animosity_in_the_east/ Beijing—initially, observers blamed the ferocious anti-Japanese protests that erupted on April 9 on the confluence of four controversial issues—the new textbooks in Japan that allegedly gloss over its WW II atrocities, an oil-driven territorial dispute in the Senkaku islands, Japan’s restatement of military support for Taiwan and Tokyo’s bid for membership in the U.N. Security Council. “The coming together of all this invoked anti-Japanese feelings that are well rooted in Chinese society,” says Jin Linbo, director of Asia-Pacific Studies at the China Institute of International Studies in Beijing. Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s public apology for Japan’s colonial and wartime past at the Bandung Conference in Indonesia led the Chinese government to ban further protests, and passions here subsided. But… civil liberties asia David Sirota Wed, 06 Jul 2005 10:05:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2201/get_used_to_it/ Beijing--Demands that corporate America bolt its doors in the wake of the China National Offshore Oil Corporation's (CNOOC's) unsolicited offer to purchase the energy giant Unocal Corp. are being closely watched here. Many Chinese say the U.S. reaction will send an irrefutable message about whether Washington is more interested in its commitment to free trade or in containing the growing might of China, a country President Bush has labeled a "strategic competitor." "Right now CNOOC is only following the rules of free trade," says Han Xiaoping, senior vice president of the Falcon Pioneer Technology Company Ltd, an energy research firm in Beijing. "If the deal is not allowed, it sends a message to Chinese companies and perhaps they might start… economy asia David Sirota Mon, 12 Sep 2005 08:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2304/chinas_press_crackdown/ China's Communists take pride in turning established ideas on their heads. Their latest success has been in toppling the notion that free markets create free societies. Though China is the fastest growing economy in the world, censorship and limits on freedom of expression are on the increase as the government struggles to contain growing unrest across the country. New regulations issued by China's State Council in late July prevent theater companies and artists from performing works that "oppose the basic principles of the constitution that place the Communist Party as the ruling party." According to the new rules, commercial performances should also refrain from performances that "are deemed harmful to the state ... endanger state unity, sovereignty or territorial integrity,… media asia David Sirota Tue, 13 Sep 2005 08:02:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2317/brothers_in_arms/ On June 28, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to remove all restrictions on foreign military financing for Indonesia in the fiscal year 2006 Foreign Operations Appropriations bill. The restrictions were first put in place after the Indonesian military's destruction of East Timor following the half-island's pro-independence vote in August of 1999. The House decision follows years of Bush administration lobbying aimed at rehabilitating Jakarta's image. When Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono came to the United States in late May, the White House repeatedly described Yudhoyono as a reformer. "The president told me he's in the process of reforming the military and I believe him," Bush said. But retired Foreign Service Officer Ed McWilliams, a political counselor to the U.S.… international affairs asia David Sirota Mon, 24 Oct 2005 06:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2363/see_no_evil/ Everyone I meet is afraid. The chief executive of one of China's largest hotel groups is afraid to complain to the police about the hustlers who sell fake watches outside the lobbies of his hotels. A Buddhist who runs a network of factories is afraid to speak openly about the Chinese occupation of Tibet. A sports marketing official, one of the agents for China's basketball stars, is afraid to speak out against misguided policies of the national sports system. What is unusual about these people is not that they are afraid; many people in China are. What is unusual about these people is that they are Americans doing business in China--some even doing business successfully. What they fear, of course,… economy asia David Sirota Tue, 25 Oct 2005 06:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2367/law_is_dead/ It was difficult for Chen Guangcheng to come to Beijing The blind social activist from Linyi, in China's eastern Shandong province, needed a friend to hold his hand and help him navigate China's overcrowded bus and train systems as he made the six-hour trip to the nation's capital. But the journey back was even harder. Within days of arriving in Beijing, on September 6, Chen, 34, was ambushed on the street by plainclothes security officers from Shandong, who bundled him into a car and took him back to Linyi. There, Chen found himself under de facto house arrest, where he still remains. No charges have been filed against him and Shandong officials did not respond to requests to clarify Chen's… civil liberties asia David Sirota Wed, 18 Jan 2006 00:18:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2465/when_red_goes_green/ In November, much of China watched in horror as work crews struggled to contain a benzene spill that polluted the northeastern Songhua River and disrupted drinking water supplies to about 12 million people in the region for more than a week. But even those watching the event unfold on TV from the comfort of their homes in Beijing weren't entirely safe from the effects of China's increasing environmental decay. China's capital is one of the most polluted in the world and lung cancer is now the number one cause of death here, according to China's own State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA). A thick cloud of sulfur envelops the city most evenings and a recent picture taken from NASA's Terra satellite… environment asia David Sirota Thu, 09 Mar 2006 05:53:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2546/china_dissidents_disappeared/ Across China, dozens of dissidents engaged in a national hunger strike to protest the Chinese government's human rights policies have gone missing or been detained. Aparently this is one of the ways that the Chinese government has prepared for the convening of the National People's Congress (NPC), the country's parliament, which went into session on March 5. The trouble began in early February when prominent human rights activist Yang Maodong, alias Guo Feixiong, was beaten up by thugs suspected of being hired by local police. In protest, a small group of activists led by Gao Zhisheng, a Beijing-based lawyer, began a rolling hunger strike. Since each person had to refrain from eating for only one to two days, it allowed… asia David Sirota Fri, 13 Oct 2006 05:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2849/china_growing_desert/ A new Chinese export has been spreading quietly across Asia and the United States: dust. Violent sandstorms from China's expanding deserts have been battering numerous Chinese cities, and now their mustard-colored dust has begun reaching South Korea, Japan and the west coast of North America. "People dusting off their cars in California or Calgary often don't realize the sand has come all the way from China," says Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute (EPI) in Washington D.C., who was in Beijing recently. "There is a dustbowl developing in China that represents the largest conversion of productive land to desert of any place in the world ... and it's affecting the world." China has always suffered from aridity, as… Asia Environment David Sirota Wed, 20 Dec 2006 05:00:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2939/organizing_the_outsiders/ Ela Bhatt organizes the unorganized--the very unorganized. In 1971, Bhatt was a lawyer and head of the women's wing of the Textile Labour Association, an Indian labor union, when she met a group of "head loaders," women who carried loads of cloth on their heads and were paid by the trip, regardless of the time or weight--and paid erratically, at best. Without a clear employer, they, like more than 90 percent of Indian laborers, were part of the "informal workforce," and had none of the rights granted to workers in the formal labor force. Bhatt helped them form an organization--financed with their meager dues--that publicized their problems and pressured the merchants to treat them fairly. Word of their success spread,… asia labor David Sirota Thu, 31 May 2007 05:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3193/fighting_corporate_copper_in_bougainville/ Bougainville, a small Pacific island belonging to Papua New Guinea in the volcanic "Ring of Fire," has had a rough go of it. It endured a series of colonialist regimes (including Germany, Japan and Australia), was blitzed by U.S. forces during World War II, and has been assaulted by tsunamis, most recently on April 1. It also suffered one of history's most brutal rapes of natural resources--the massive Panguna copper mine run by a subsidiary of the multinational mining giant Rio Tinto from 1972 until 1988. Now, it appears Bougainville residents may finally get a measure of justice against the forces that caused extensive deforestation, pollution and military repression that allegedly led to the deaths of more than 10,000 islanders.… asia corporations environment David Sirota Tue, 11 Sep 2007 05:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3322/no_happy_endings/ There is no happy ending in Jia (Cleis Press), Hyejin Kim's grim novel about North Korea, no final scene of freedom, no hint about what might happen in a future without the Great Leader; there isn't even the usual scrap of hope that even the bleakest novels about survivors from totalitarian regimes frequently offer. Based on stories Kim heard when working with North Korean refugees in China and told (mostly) in a first-person narrative from the point of view of the title character, a North Korean orphan who manages a comparatively privileged existence, Jia doesn't pretend to have documentary verisimilitude. What it does is paint a composite portrait with small, intimate strokes. This is a fast, oddly flat but hypnotic… asia books immigration David Sirota Wed, 26 Sep 2007 04:59:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3335/funding_indonesias_abusive_military/ Counterterrorism" has become Indonesia's latest slogan for avoiding military reform while simultaneously strengthening its apparatus of repression. In return for its loyalty in the war on terror, the Bush administration has side-stepped congressional concerns of military abuses in Indonesia. Amnesty International observed in its 2007 country report: "The majority of human rights violations by the security forces were not investigated, and impunity for past violations persisted." These included two cases in which the National Human Rights Commission submitted evidence in 2004 that security forces had committed crimes against humanity. A May report from the Center for Public Integrity's International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) concluded that the Indonesia military (TNI) is one of the largest recipients of post-9/11 military assistance.… asia civil rights military David Sirota Thu, 13 Dec 2007 05:00:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3465/kiriakou_and_the_kite_runner/ John Kiriakou, the CIA agent who led the team that waterboarded a high-ranking member of Al Qaeda in 2002, served as the security consultant for Paramount's soon-to-be released film, The Kite Runner. Lobbyists for Viacom arranged for Kiriakou to serve as a security consultant after concerns arose about the safety of the movie's child stars, Zekeria Ebrahimi, Ahmad Khan Mahmidzada and Ali Danish Bakhty Ari. Based in Pakistan from 1998 to 2004, Kiriakou led the team that captured Abu Zubaydah, the first high-ranking member of Al Qaeda to be captured after 9/11. On Monday, Kiriakou, now retired from the CIA, became the first person to admit publicly his involvement with the agency's coercive interrogation program for suspected terrorists. He told… asia movies torture war on terror David Sirota