“Officials from the ministry of public security said on Tuesday they had arrested more than 1.43 million "suspects" nationwide in a mass "stability maintenance" operation.” #Chinarfa.org/english/news/c…
“Ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leaders visited a shrine to revolutionary martyrs on Beijing's Tiananmen Square on Friday, kicking off official celebrations ahead of the Oct. 1 National Day.”
“Beijing rights activist Ye Jinghuan said major boulevards on both sides of Tiananmen Square were closed to traffic ahead of the ceremony, while trains weren't stopping at Tiananmen and Qianmen subway stations.”
“It's not just the subway -- the two streets on the east and west sides of Tiananmen Square [Nanchizi and Nanchang Street] are also blocked off," Ye told RFA.
“Ye said the closure of the stations would greatly inconvenience families hoping to spend the National Day sight-seeing around Tiananmen and the Forbidden City, or shopping at the nearby Wangfujing shopping district.”
“Jiangsu-based current affairs commentator Zhang Jianping said the government expects ordinary people to pay the price for their security and convenience.”
“They've been talking about governing the country according to the constitution and the laws for so many years now," Zhang told RFA. "But the general public still wind up paying the price for their convenience and ease of travel."
Ye said any attempt to visit Tiananmen Square for sight-seeing now has to run the gauntlet of multiple security scans and ID checks, with anyone flagged as a potential threat to "stability" sent straight to the nearest police station.
“Anyone flagged] as a person of interest with a red or yellow label is immediately sent to the police station," Ye said. "You even have to do ID checks if you go there by bicycle."
“The "stability maintenance" period will intensify between Oct. 8 and 26, Beijing police have told rights activists in the city, often ordering them to leave town, or escorting them under surveillance to tourist resorts elsewhere, sources have told RFA.
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"#Taiwan's military is facing a recruitment problem, as the over-18 population is forecast to decline significantly in the coming years, due to the country's low birth rate, according to a recent government report." focustaiwan.tw/politics/20221…
The number of registered births in Taiwan has dropped over the past decade, from 196,627 in 2011 to a record low of 153,820 in 2021, the report said, citing data from the Ministry of the Interior (MOI).
The decline is expected to continue over the next few years, which poses a problem for the recruitment of military service men and women, according to the assessment report released last Friday by the Legislative Yuan's Budget Center.
"#Taiwan should be proud of its democratic development, a visiting German lawmaker told President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) at the Presidential Office on Monday." focustaiwan.tw/politics/20221…
During the meeting, Klaus-Peter Willsch, chair of the German-Taiwan Parliamentary Friendship Group, recalled that he and Tsai first met in Berlin in 2011, when the latter was chair of the then opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ...
... while his Christian Democratic Union (CDU) was the ruling party of Germany.
By @bequelin: "The international community, working through the U.N., must respond with meaningful steps to end the abuses, free prisoners and hold #Beijing to account." nytimes.com/2022/09/30/opi…
"Strong action is essential to draw a line in the sand against an orchestrated campaign waged for years by China to gut the U.N.’s ability to protect human rights.
Chinese efforts include a behind-the-scenes war of attrition to undermine mechanisms like the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and the 47-nation Human Rights Council, which is tasked with addressing violations."
"It therefore makes sense to advocate for military deterrence, as William Hague did in May and to entertain a willingness to supply #Taiwan with the sorts of nimble weapon systems that would help rebuff #Beijing’s advances." ft.com/content/55e354…
"It also makes sense for the US to remind #China that, in the event of an invasion, it could block the Malacca and Sunda straits through which China’s oil arrives from the Middle East. Even the threat of interdiction would be sufficient to discourage ship owners."
"But military deterrence is the smaller part of the story. There are good economic reasons why the Chinese Communist party will not invade.
He said "it's important to show our friendship with #Taiwan...Taiwan is a democracy and it's important for us to be in contact, to have cooperation with other democracies."
"I think China shouldn't interfere in this cooperation because we strengthen democracies in Germany and Taiwan with this cooperation."
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Sunday he sees no imminent invasion of #Taiwan by #China but said China was trying to establish a "new normal" with its military activities around the island. ndtv.com/world-news/no-…
"I don't see an imminent invasion," Mr Austin said in an interview broadcast on CNN.
"What we do see is China moving to establish what we would call a new normal.
"Increased activity - we saw a number of center line crossings of the Taiwan Strait by their aircraft. That number has increased over time. We've seen more activity with their surface vessels and waters in and around Taiwan."