Reaction in South Korea to the arrest of impeached President Park Geun-hye has been relatively restrained as the nation focuses on the upcoming presidential election.

The country’s first democratically elected president to be ousted from office was sent to jail early Friday morning after a South Korean court approved a prosecutor’s arrest warrant on charges of bribery, extortion and abuse of power.

The criminal charges against Park are linked to the political scandal that forced her from office, allegedly colluding with her long time friend Choi Soon-sil to extort Korean conglomerates to donate more than $69 million to two dubious foundations.

For months, Park’s impeachment drama sharply divided the South Korean public with her opponents holding massive rallies to demand her impeachment or resignation, and with supporters staging demonstrations to try to keep her in office. Two Park supporters where killed in clashes with police outside the court on the day her impeachment ruling was announced.

Conservative regret

But in Seoul Friday there were no opposition rallies celebrating Park’s arrest and no angry groups of Park supporters demanding her release.

A pro-Park rally is expected to be held this weekend, but the ex-president’s political party, the Liberty Korea Party, seems to want to distance itself from the scandal and its disgraced former leader.

Jeong Joon-gil, the spokesman for the Liberty Korea Party, released a short statement calling Park’s arrest “regrettable” and saying, “We hope such a painful history of arrest of a former president will not repeat itself in South Korea.”

An early presidential election has been scheduled for May 9.

Mood against conservatives

In the wake of the impeachment, the public mood has seemingly turned against conservatives, with many blaming Park’s hard-line polices for increasing tensions with North Korea over its weapons program and with China, which is angry about South Korea’s decision to host a U.S. anti-missile system.

The Liberty Korea Party has been struggling to find a strong candidate for president. The leading contender of the conservative camp is South Gyeongsang Province Governor Hong Joon-pyo, but his approval rating is 4 percent in a recent Gallup opinion poll.

The conservative Bareun Party that broke away from the Liberty Korea Party released a statement saying it respects the court’s decision but questioned whether Park’s arrest was necessary in terms of healing national divisions caused by the scandal.

The Bareun candidate for president, Yoo Seung Min, is registering at 2 percent approval in the Gallup poll.

Liberal victory

The liberal Democratic Party of Korea, which hailed Park’s impeachment as a triumph of democracy, called her arrest a victory for the rule of law.

“Considering the fairness of law and principles (entailed,) the arrest of former President Park is an obvious conclusion,” said Park Kyung-mi, the spokesperson for the Democratic Party of Korea.

Democratic Party candidate Moon Jae-in is the leading contender for president with a Gallup poll approval rating of 31 percent.

Ahn Cheol-soo, the leading candidate for the more centrist People’s Party, who is second in the Gallup poll at 19 percent, said in a statement that Park’s arrest, “is of her own making because she repeatedly gave false explanations without expressing apologies or regrets.”

Prison time

While Park has maintained her innocence, she had refused to publicly address the specific allegations against her. After remaining silent during the impeachment process, Park recently agreed to cooperate with the criminal investigation and was interrogated by prosecutors for 14 hours.

Park can be held in prison for up to 20 days while being investigated, at which time she must be formally charged or released. Although Park’s defense team argues she posed no risk of fleeing the country, the Seoul Central District Court judge overseeing the case ordered her arrest seemingly out of concern that she might destroy evidence.

Park could face more than 10 years in jail if convicted of receiving bribes from bosses of big conglomerates, including Samsung Group chief Jay Y. Lee, in return for favors. Lee, who denies charges that he provided bribes in return for favors for Samsung, and Choi are both in detention and on trial separately.

Lee’s trial, for which so far only preliminary hearings have been held, will begin April 7 when he is expected to appear, court records showed.

Park may be given a bigger cell than other inmates in a Seoul detention facility, but she would be subject to the same rules on everything from meals to room inspections, former prosecution and correctional officials have said.

Youmi Kim contributed to this report.
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China’s near completion of artificial islets and combat aircraft facilities in the Spratly Islands will give it extra power to make other countries keep out of the widely disputed South China Sea or get Chinese permission to use it, analysts say.

Beijing is about to finish naval, air, radar and other facilities on the “big three” islets in the sea’s Spratly archipelago, according to the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, a project of the Washington-based policy research organization Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The American think tank initiative’s monitoring over the past two years shows a near completion of “major construction of military and dual-use infrastructure” on Subi, Mischief and Fiery Cross reefs held by China in the Spratlys, according to its website, which adds Beijing can now deploy combat aircraft and mobile missile launchers to the Spratly Islands anytime.

Around-the-clock presence in area

Those installations will give China “around-the-clock presence” for “establishing administration” over its claims to the 3.5 million-square-kilometer sea, initiative director Gregory Poling said.

China claims more than 90 percent of the resource-rich sea that extends from Taiwan southwest to Singapore. The Chinese claim overlaps tracts that Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam also call their own.

“If you’re a Southeast Asian fisherman or coast guard vessel or an oil and gas exploration vessel, you don’t operate unless the Chinese let you operate, because they now are watching everything you do, and as soon as they send planes out there they’ll be able to intervene anywhere, anytime,” Poling said.

Fishing boats from other countries eventually must register with the Chinese to use the disputed sea, said Alex Chiang, an international relations professor at National Chengchi University in Taipei. Vessels now trawl freely in 370-kilometer exclusive economic zones extending from their home countries’ coastlines.

“I think (China) will draw the line where those fishing boats can operate and they will require those fishing boats to get permission from China first in order to operate in the area, so that means all other countries have to observe Chinese domestic law,” Chiang said.

China’s enforcement ability may be tested when the country implements a fishing moratorium from May through August, Poling said. The moratorium would let stocks regenerate in the northern half of the sea.

Officials in Beijing are talking one on one with the Southeast Asian maritime claimants to offer them trade and investment benefits from China’s $11 trillion economy, some believe in exchange for letting China do what it wants at sea.

Those talks picked up after July when a world arbitration court ruled at the request of the Philippines against the legal basis for China’s maritime claim. China cites historic usage records to back its claim and has rejected the court ruling.

Vietnam lacks confidence in US

In Vietnam, officials are starting to deal with China’s consolidation of maritime power for lack of confidence in U.S. support, said Oscar Mussons, senior associate with the Dezan Shira & Associates business consultancy in Ho Chi Minh City.

U.S. President Donald Trump has not made it clear whether he will back the Southeast Asian countries over China, analysts in the region believe.

“At some point Vietnam felt strong and said well, we have the United States backing us, so it’s going to be fine,’ but nobody knows what’s going on with the United States,” Mussons said.

Vietnamese officials are keeping quiet and talking to Beijing about economic cooperation as China develops the sea, he said, but citizens are protesting passively by avoiding made-in-China products.

“They don’t really say we need to fight them back,’“ he said. “But of course they’ve always seen China as a threat, and I think that’s the way it’s going to be for a while now if things don’t change.”

Claimant countries prize the tropical sea for fisheries and undersea reserves of oil and gas. Also, more than half the world’s marine shipping traffic uses the waterway. Like China, Taiwan claims nearly the whole sea. Other governments operate in zones near their coastlines, and all the claimants control tiny land forms in the Spratly chain.

Since 2010 China has quickly expanded into the sea, landfilling more than 12 square kilometers to make reefs ready for construction of facilities.

China’s three air bases in the Spratlys and another on Woody Island in the Paracel Island archipelago, which is contested by Vietnam, will allow Chinese military aircraft to operate over nearly the entire South China Sea, the initiative says.

The government in Beijing will know what other countries are doing via advanced surveillance and early-warning radar facilities at Fiery Cross, Subi and Cuarteron Reefs in the Spratly chain, as well as Woody Island, the initiative’s website adds.
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A big challenge facing Hong Kong’s newly elected chief executive, Carrie Lam, is a controversial $11 billion high-speed rail line and station that links the port city with China.

Critics have called the project a political time bomb and warned of the fiscal challenges the project could bring.

What’s more, Beijing plans to install Chinese police at the station, which has some worried that it could be the first test of how Lam will strike a balance between the interests of Beijing and Hong Kong’s citizens.

The Lam way?

Days after being voted into her new job, Lam paid courtesy calls to Beijing’s liaison office and the People’s Liberation Army garrison in Hong Kong and announced that Beijing’s representative branches would let her run things her way.

But her words may be put to the test right after she takes office July 1, when her administration gears up to finalize details of the new express rail, which is scheduled to begin operation in the third quarter of next year.

A promotional video from Hong Kong’s MTR Corp. has presented a sleek modern picture of the express rail and what the West Kowloon Terminus will look like when the 26-kilometer-long section in Hong Kong is finished.

State-of-the-art bullet trains traveling through underwater tunnels at a maximum speed of 200 kilometers per hour will transport an estimated 3 million passengers between Hong Kong and Guangzhou each month.

The trip’s travel time will be cut by half to less than an hour.

And from Guangzhou, the rail line will connect with China’s 16,000-kilometer-long express rail network, the largest in the world, to arrive at major Chinese cities within hours.

Further integration

For Beijing, the project highlights its vision to make travel to China more efficient and to enhance social, economic and cultural integration with the port city.

But for some Hong Kong residents, the project is a nightmare.

“[There] will be more Chinese people to come to Hong Kong more easily, and we don’t like that,” Carol Chow, a Hong Kong housewife and mother told VOA.

Chow said she and many others are also worried about the impact the project could have on the city’s pricey real estate and goods.

And pervasive Chinese influence in the city has further jeopardized the Hong Kong citizens’ way of life, she added.

Simmering anti-China resentment

Resentment against visitors from China has been simmering for years in Hong Kong, and with the project boosting the number who are likely to come here, it could fuel tensions further.

In 2015, for example, ahead of the Chinese New Year holiday, hundreds Hong Kong residents flooded the city’s shopping districts to protest what was perceived as the advantage taken by mainland visitors of the city’s lower priced staple goods.

The demonstrators taunted Chinese shoppers with the derogatory Cantonese slur “wong chung,” or “locusts,” which turned into the city’s most combative protests since the Occupy movement in 2014.

The protesters said they were angry that Chinese shoppers had clogged the city’s transit system and emptied stores of basic necessities like powdered baby formula.

Local officials, nevertheless, have never tried to slow the territory’s further integration with the mainland.

Hong Kong has reportedly agreed to let China deploy police inside the terminus, a decision that is raising questions about whose laws will be enforced and whether there will be a violation of the “one country, two systems” model, under which Hong Kong is supposed to maintain its legal autonomy.

Some younger residents see this project as another effort for China to exert control over the port city, disguised as a business-friendly infrastructure project.

“As time goes by, if China continues to set up more of these freedom-controlling policies, I think that is getting more and more unacceptable,” a 16-year-old college student, surnamed Lee, told VOA.

Integrated checkpoint

Discussions about checkpoint arrangements at the station were held recently between Hong Kong and Chinese authorities, but no details have been released.

Observers say local authorities are holding off over concerns of a public backlash.

Expressing opposition to such an integrated checkpoint, Albert Lai, policy convener of The Professional Commons, argued that having mainland police on the Hong Kong soil could jeopardize Hong Kong citizens’ civic rights. He said the city has witnessed the apparent abduction of booksellers and a Chinese businessman.

Political debts

He also doubts Lam will be able to say no to Beijing, which supported her election.

“She has to repay debts, the political debts, to cater [to] the vested interests and to cater [to] Beijing’s demands. So, it’s very hard to see that she can have the political clout to stand for the interests of Hong Kong people even if she wants to do so,” Lai told VOA.

The city’s business community has largely welcomed the railway project. For them, speedy customs clearance is more important than the controversial integrated checkpoint.

 
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Officials in Pakistan say a powerful bomb Friday ripped through a busy market in a northwestern tribal town on the Afghan border, killing at least 22 people and wounding more than 50 others.

Witnesses and local politicians say the blast in Parachinar, the administrative center of the semi-autonomous Kurram tribal district, occurred near an entrance to a Shi’ite mosque dedicated for female worshipers.

It is not clear if the car bomb was set off by remote control, or a suicide bomber carried out the attack.

Jamaatul Ahrar, a militant group fighting along side the anti-state Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for the deadly bombing. The group has taken credit for most of militant attacks across the country this year in which scores of people have died.

Death toll could rise

Many people have been seriously wounded and residents fear the death toll will rise.

Military helicopters have been sent to the remote tribal area for speedy evacuation of victims, said an army statement.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif condemned the attack and reiterated Pakistan’s “unflinching resolve” to eliminate terrorism from the country.

”The network of terrorists has already been broken and it is our national duty to continue this war until the complete annihilation of the scourge of terrorism from our soil,” an official statement quoted Sharif as saying.

U.S. ambassador to Pakistan David Hale also denounced the bombing. “The United States will continue to work in partnership with Pakistan to dismantle and destroy terrorist networks,” Hale vowed.

Deadly January attack

A suicide blast in Parachinar in January killed at least 23 people and wounded more than 50 others.

Kurram is one of Pakistan’s seven federally administered tribal districts, mostly lining the porous border with Afghanistan.

The tribal belt is traditionally notorious for harboring militants engaged in violent attacks in both countries.

Notorious tribal districts

One of the tribal districts — North Waziristan — was until recently condemned by American military commanders as the “epicenter” of international terrorism.

The region has for years served as a training ground for Taliban and militants linked to the Haqqani network waging insurgency in Afghanistan.

Pakistani authorities, however, say recent sustained counterterrorism military operations have secured most of the border region.

Islamabad alleges that militants linked to the anti-state Pakistani Taliban have fled and taken shelter in Afghan border areas and are plotting attacks in the country from there.

Pakistan has lately stepped up efforts to strengthen security along the nearly 2,600-kilometer largely porous Afghan border, including building a fence in areas vulnerable to militant infiltration.

Friday’s bombing happened on a day when President Mamnoon Hussain signed a bill into law reinstating controversial military courts in the country for two years, after a lapse of two months.

A wave of suicide bombings last month killed scores of Pakistanis and prompted the government earlier this week to move the parliament to approve revival of the courts.

Officials insist the courts are required to speedily try and punish suspects in terrorism-related cases to deter militancy in Pakistan. The special tribunals were first introduced for two years in January 2015.

Human rights groups have opposed the military courts from the outset and condemned their reinstatement, saying they fail to provide transparent justice and violate the suspects’ legal rights, unlike civilian courts.
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China is preparing to shut down ivory factories Friday. It is the first phase of the government’s plan to end all domestic ivory trade this year. Kenyan conservation group Save the Elephants says that commitment has already had some impact. 

Save the Elephants says the wholesale price of ivory in China dropped up to 60 percent in the last three years. The Nairobi-based conservation group says in 2014 a tusk sold wholesale for $2,100 per kilogram. In February of this year, an ivory tusk was sold at $700 per kilogram.

Save the Elephants researcher Esmond Martin did the study, which was released Wednesday in Nairobi.

“The government of China announced in December last year, 2016, it was going to close down the ivory factories, the legal ones and illegal shops,” Martin said. “So what we found was many of the shops are now, are diversifying, getting out of ivory, moving into other materials.”

Ivory sellers clearing stocks

He says raw ivory sellers have been racing against time and offering lower prices to sell off their remaining stocks.

Ivory seals, jewelry and trinkets are popular in China. According to the global monitoring system known as the Elephants Trade Information System (ETIS), China is by far the largest importer and consumer of ivory in the world.

But the founder of Save the Elephants, Iain Douglas-Hamilton, says public education campaigns in China are starting to bear fruit.

“If you go back beyond that five years ago, 10 years ago, people in China were unaware that if they bought ivory, it would cause the killing of the elephants,” Douglas-Hamilton said. “And it’s been a lot of campaigning with Chinese celebrities, in which the Save the Elephants have taken part, to change that mindset.”

Elephants killed by thousands

Tens of thousands of elephants have been killed in recent years for their tusks. The recent Great Elephant Census showed a 30 percent decline in African savanna elephants between 2007 and 2014.

China’s decision to ban domestic ivory trade by the end of 2017 was hailed by conservationists. Whether the new policy will help reduce poaching remains to be seen. Martin says China must also crack down on illegal trade.

“There are over a million Chinese living in Africa, and they are buying a lot of ivory retail from big markets in Luanda, in Lagos, in Cairo, and in Khartoum and other places,” Martin said. “And 90 percent of the buyers are sending it back to China, and they are also buying ivory which is much cheaper from their neighboring countries such a Vietnam, Laos and Burma.”

Last year, Save the Elephants released a report that Chinese ivory buyers are purchasing the product in Vietnam. The group noted in the last decade, the number of ivory items for sale in Vietnam had increased by more than six times.
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The Vietnamese blogger known as Mẹ Nam, or Mother Mushroom, missed meeting Melania Trump when the first lady awarded the International Women of Courage Award to 13 women in Washington on Wednesday.

Social activist Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh spent the day in a Khanh Hoa Province prison, where she has been held since she was detained on October 10 after posting about people dying in police custody.

Mother Mushroom, who started blogging under that name in 2006, is a founding member of the Vietnamese Bloggers Network. It is one of the few independent blogging groups in a nation where the ruling Communist Party tightly controls the media and writers.

She was charged under the Article 88 of the 1999 penal code for “spreading propaganda against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.” The government has not set a trial date, and Mother Mushroom faces a maximum prison term of 12 years. The vaguely worded law has drawn international denunciation for the power it gives the government to suppress dissent.

The United States recognized Mother Mushroom for “her bravery for raising civil society issues, inspiring peaceful change, calling for greater government transparency and access to fundamental human rights, and for being voice of freedom of expression,” said Grace Choi, a spokeswoman for the State Department’s East Asia-Pacific Office.

U.S. diplomats in Hanoi and Saigon posted news of Mother Mushroom’s recognition to Facebook, attracting thousands of “likes” before the official ceremony.

“Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh’s dedication to exposing corruption, raising awareness about environmental protection, and reporting on human rights violations in Vietnam is an inspiration for activists everywhere and has made her one of Vietnam’s best known online activists,” said Choi, adding that since its inception in 2007, the award often has gone to women in prison for their activism.

‘Timely’ recognition

Foreign Ministry Spokesman Le Hai Binh said bestowing an award on someone being investigated for breaking Vietnam’s law was “not suitable and beneficial to the development of the two countries’ relationship.”

Bui Thi Minh Hang, an activist in Saigon, told VOA that the recognition of Mother Mushroom “is very timely” because other bloggers, such as Tran Thi Thuy Nga, also are imprisoned. “All the people who dare to stand up to fight, who dare to speak the truth in an evil regime like this, these are brave people.”

Mother Mushroom’s blogging led to many arrests, but her life changed in 2009 after the government detained her for writing about a bauxite mining project that counted a state-owned Chinese company among its investors. Although Chinese influence in Vietnam’s economy is a politically charged topic, she was released without being charged after a week.

After that “landmark,” Mother Mushroom’s travel business and family life fell apart, according to her mother, Nguyen Thi Tuyet Lan, who, like her daughter, lives in Nha Trang. Since her daughter’s arrest, the blogger’s 90-year-old grandmother has become fearful, and her children, nicknamed Mushroom and Bear, have changed.

“Our lives are really difficult and threatened without Quynh,” Nguyen told VOA on Wednesday.

“I used to feel upset sometimes, because my family is under constant surveillance and harassment,” Nguyen said. “I told my daughter ‘let it go’ but she said, ‘I cannot live irresponsibly. I might die, but at least I can do something for others and do what I want to do.”‘

Ha Tinh spill

Among her recent campaigns, Mother Mushroom has blogged about the government’s handling of a chemical spill at a Taiwanese-owned steel plant in the central Vietnam city of Ha Tinh. The spill that killed 80 tons of fish both embarrassed and worried the government. Images of piles of dead fish went viral worldwide, fishing communities lost income, and thousands of protesters demonstrated at the plant and in cities throughout Vietnam.  

The April 2016 Ha Tinh fish kill is widely seen as having raised environmental awareness and activism among Vietnamese. The movement saw an early success when the Taiwanese-owned steel company accepted full responsibility for the fish kill and pledged to pay $500 million in damages for dumping toxic wastewater into the South China Sea.

“Although the government is denouncing her and detaining her, deep inside, they know she is doing the right thing,” said Nguyen. “I am very proud of my daughter because she has overcome the common fear [of speaking up against the government]. She has overcome her fear to stand up and speak in the common voice.”

This report originated with VOA Vietnam.
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The U.S. National Hockey League (NHL) has become the latest major sports league to attempt to tap into the lucrative Chinese market.

The NHL announced it will hold two pre-season games in China, September 21 and 23 in Shanghai and Beijing, between the Los Angeles Kings and Vancouver Canucks.  

“This is an historic moment for the National Hockey League,” NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said in Beijing. “We look forward to our first games in China and to a variety of initiatives that will inspire generations of Chinese players and fans to enjoy our sport. We recognize the importance of helping China build a strong national hockey program and are committed to supporting that priority in every way possible.”

Beijing is set to host the 2022 Winter Olympics. China’s interest in ice hockey is small, but growing. Canadian-based Andong Song was drafted by the New York Islanders in 2015 as the first Chinese-born player in the NHL.

“While we fully understand the importance the government has placed on sports teams representing China in the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, our partnership will extend well beyond the couple of weeks of the 2022 Olympic Games,” said Bettman.

Gregory Smyth is director and co-founder of the China Ice Hockey League. Speaking from Bangkok to VOA, he said the exhibition games being planned are a very important part of introducing the sport to China.  

“The interest in hockey is growing at an exponential rate in China,” he said.

Smyth also said China, as an Olympic host, will have to develop a competitive ice hockey team. He added that development of the sport is far more advanced today in Japan and South Korea.     

The National Basketball Association already has made headway in China, which also has its own basketball league. Several Chinese players have made the jump to the NBA, including Yao Ming, the first overall pick in the 2002 draft. Yao played for the Houston Rocket until 2011.

In 2004, the NBA became the first American sports league to play games in China.

In addition, the National Football League is looking to gain entry into the Chinese market. In December, the NFL announced an agreement with Chinese social media platform Sina Weibo to stream NFL games in China.

“We are glad to launch this strategic partnership with the NFL,” said Zhang Zhe, head of Sina Weibo Sports. “We look forward to helping the NFL grow their Chinese market and explore more commercial opportunities, while also providing our Weibo users with a better opportunity to watch and quickly share LIVE games and highlights.

The NFL said it has more than 1.5 million online viewers across China each week.
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