Japan rebuts criticism of its response to Myanmar earthquake rescue
Japan is pushing back against criticism over the timing of its earthquake relief response in Myanmar after an emergency team set out from Tokyo and arrived days after its counterparts from China and Russia – beyond what is generally viewed as the critical 72-hour window for rescuing survivors.
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The 32-member disaster relief unit – comprising doctors, nurses and pharmacists – left the Japanese capital on Tuesday evening and arrived in Myanmar the next day.
The mission came nearly five days after the magnitude 7.7 earthquake that devastated central Myanmar, killing more than 3,100 people, injuring 4,000 and leaving several hundred missing.
An April 3 editorial in the conservative Sankei newspaper was headlined 'Speed up aid to Myanmar,' while a report in the equally right-leaning Yomiuri the same day stated that Japan 'is playing catchup with Chinese, Russian aid.'
An official with the National Institute of Defence Studies, which is affiliated with Japan's defence ministry, said the delay was partly due to Tokyo's more complex decision-making process and limited diplomatic clout compared with Beijing and Moscow.
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'Compared with Japan, Russia and China have much closer contact and ties with Myanmar, so it was much easier for those countries to send help at short notice,' said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
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Asia Times
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Harvard battle is Trump's 'Mao moment'
During the 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution, Mao Zedong pushed for the closure of Chinese universities, seeing higher education as little more than a breeding ground for counterrevolutionary bourgeois intellectuals. After closing for a period, China's universities reopened on a limited basis from 1970, with selection criteria based on class background, revolutionary devotion and connections to the Communist Party. It was not until 1977 that the national university entrance exam ( gaokao ) was reinstated and a merit system put back in place. This period had been China's 'Mao moment' in higher education, but Mao's historic mistake appears to be repeating itself in the US today. Imperial China had a sophisticated system of examinations (kējǔ, 科举) for citizens to reach the status of civil servant, or mandarin. These tests date back to the 7th century, under the Sui dynasty (581-618), and lasted until 1905. Depending on the period, the exams lasted from one to three days. 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For Huang, the imperial examinations were a significant cause of the decline of collective social action in China, one of the distinctive features of a civil society. This is reflected in the title of his 2024 book 'The Rise and Fall of the EAST', where EAST is not a compass point but an acronym for China's defining features: Exams, Autocracy, Stability and Technology. 'The 'Chinese phenomenon' is why this ancient civilization with a long history of more than 2,000 years has declined in the modern era. Why is it lagging behind the modern nations of the world?' This question was posed in 1991 by the Chinese politician and intellectual Wang Huning, in his book 'America against America'. Ever since Deng Xiaoping came to power in 1978, it became increasingly clear to China that its progress depended on raising its population's education level, especially after the ravages of the Maoist Cultural Revolution. To do this, China created the C9 League in 2009. 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He told us about his dream of sending his children to Harvard, and when Juan commented that this would be expensive, he wisely replied, 'if you think education is expensive, try ignorance.' 'Harvard, Harvard,' Oriaku continued, 'that's the only reason I work myself to the bone.' Moves are already being made elsewhere to pick up the slack and welcome academics. The Hong Kong government, for instance, has called on its universities to attract the foreign talent that the US now wants to reject. Meanwhile, the Chinese can only smirk: they already lived through Mao's brutal onslaught against their universities during the Cultural Revolution and know that it will bring no benefits. America is living through its own 'Mao moments', but we may soon be able to rename them 'Trump moments.' Félix Valdivieso is chairman of IE China Observatory, IE University This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
HKFP
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Hong Kong Federation of Students refutes rumours of dissolution, says ‘unknown parties' impersonated group
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Asia Times
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Counting the cost of a million Russian war casualties
Russian military casualties in the war in Ukraine are expected to reach a million before the end of June. This figure, which is composed of combat-related injuries as well as deaths, reveals that Moscow is prepared to see its soldiers pay a staggeringly high price for Russia to maintain and expand its illegal occupation of Ukrainian territory. The scale of losses since the full-scale invasion in 2022 is a direct result of Russia's 'meat grinder' approach to fighting, which relies on sending waves of troops into enemy fire, sacrificing many so that a few can get through. Vladimir Putin's strategy has allowed Russian forces to make steady – but painfully slow – advances into eastern Ukraine, but at an estimated cost of 53 casualties per square kilometre seized. Russia is now changing the way it is fighting in Ukraine because of the high casualty rates. It is now using small, dispersed detachments because of the loss of large numbers of junior officers. 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Military recruiters also visit Russia's prisons with the offer of full pardons for those who survive a combat tour. Ukraine's Foreign Intelligence Service says Russia's Ministry of Defense has recruited an estimated 180,000 soldiers using this method, which was introduced by Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin in the summer of 2022. Some of these former prisoners being recruited are reported to be women, although estimates of their numbers are hard to find. The active recruitment of women by the Russian military to serve in Ukraine appears to have been kept quiet because it contradicts the Kremlin's message that military service and the war in Ukraine in particular are the business of men and provide opportunities for Russian men to demonstrate their masculinity. Russia has increasingly turned to its allies North Korea and China to provide it with the soldiers that it needs on the front lines. Earlier this year, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky claimed that at least 155 Chinese troops were fighting for Russia in Ukraine, while North Korea is believed to have suffered approximately 5,000 casualties among the soldiers that Pyongyang has sent to Russia. But by far the most common solution to Russia's chronic shortage of soldiers is for the state to keep increasing the salaries and benefits on offer to civilians who agree to sign contracts to serve in the military. Monthly salaries of 200,000 rubles – more than US$2,000 – are typical, putting combat soldiers in the top 10% of Russia's earners. In addition to high salaries, the families of volunteer or 'contract' soldiers are eligible for benefits such as low-interest mortgages as well as generous compensation payments if the soldier is killed or permanently disabled. In some regions, more than half the social welfare budgets are going to soldiers and their families. This influx of money has transformed the lives of people living in some of Russia's most economically deprived regions. This increased prosperity has bolstered support for Russia's 'special military operation' in Ukraine. But the departure – and, in many cases, permanent loss – of so many men has shifted the demographics of many small communities, which are now populated largely by women, young children and the elderly. Those soldiers who return to villages and small towns with life-changing physical or emotional injuries will have their disability payments, but may struggle to get the medical support that they need from Russia's strained health care system. One category of Ukraine war veterans who have benefited most from their military service are the former prisoners who managed to survive their combat experiences. But one of the consequences of recruiting soldiers from the prisons is that when violent criminals return from the war with full pardons, many will commit new crimes. It is estimated that these former prisoners-turned-soldiers have so far been responsible for nearly 200 murders, sparking outrage among the victims' families. Although Russia has a large population, its human resources are not endless and have been under strain since even before its mass invasion of Ukraine began in 2022, bringing enormous combat losses and seemingly endless demands for more and more soldiers. Russia was already experiencing a demographic crisis. The proportion of society of child-bearing age is low, reflecting a dip in the birth rate in the 1990s. The Covid pandemic increased the mortality rate among Russia's adult population, while hundreds of thousands of young men left Russia in 2022 to avoid military service. A long-term legacy of this war will undoubtedly be a shrinking population, despite the state's efforts to encourage women to have more babies. Even those Russian women who aspire to earn the newly reinstated 'Mother Heroine' award by bearing and raising ten or more children may struggle to find men to father them. But despite the many problems experienced by Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine, those who survive their military service are being promised a golden future. In February 2024, Putin declared that the country's war veterans will be the new elite. Former soldiers are being offered a fast track into political office through the 'Time of Heroes' programme, which provides training, work experience and access to valuable networks. So far, only a small number of veterans have graduated to take up positions of power, but this suggests that the war in Ukraine will continue to shape Russia's political decisions for years to come. Jennifer Mathers is a senior lecturer in international politics at Aberystwyth University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
