ASIA / PACIFIC
Page 4 n THE ASIAN REPORTER
January 3, 2022
Chinese astronauts give science lesson from space station
BEIJING (AP) — Chinese astronauts last month
beamed back a science lesson from the country’s
under-construction space station.
The lecture focused on physics, aiming to illustrate how
the weightless environment affects buoyancy, the
movement of objects, and optics.
Students from five cities, including Beijing and the
semi-autonomous region of Hong Kong, peppered the
astronauts with questions about living conditions in space
and were treated to a virtual tour of the station. The event
was also open to the public through a livestream.
Wang Yaping, the only woman aboard the station,
served as the main instructor, while Ye Guangfu assisted
and commander-in-chief Zhai Zhigang worked the
camera. Wang had taught a similar lesson while aboard
one of China’s earlier experimental stations in 2013.
The three arrived at the station in October for a
six-month stay, charged mainly with preparing the main
Tianhe module for the arrival of two additional modules,
named Mengtian and Wentian, ahead of completion by
the end of next year.
Wang in November became the first Chinese woman to
conduct a spacewalk when she and Zhai spent six hours
outside the module installing equipment and carrying out
tests alongside the station’s robotic service arm.
The Shenzhou-13 mission is China’s longest since it
first put a human in space in 2003, becoming only the
third country to do so after Russia and the U.S.
The three are the second crew on the permanent
OUT-OF-THIS-WORLD LESSON. In these images taken from
video footage run by China’s CCTV, astronaut Wang Yaping (far right in
both images) and fellow Chinese astronaut Ye Guangfu are seen giving a
science lesson to children across different parts of China through a video
link from China’s space station, which is orbiting Earth, on December 9,
2021. (CCTV via AP)
station, which upon completion will weigh about 66 tons,
much smaller than the International Space Station,
which launched its first module in 1998 and weighs
around 450 tons.
Along with installing equipment in preparation for the
station’s expansion, the crew is assessing living
conditions in the Tianhe module and conducting
experiments in space medicine and other areas.
China’s space program was barred from the
International Space Station, mainly due to U.S. concerns
over its intimate military connections.
China has also pushed ahead with un-crewed missions,
and its lunar exploration program generated media buzz
when its Yutu 2 rover sent back pictures of what was
described by some as a mystery hut, but was most likely
only a rock of some sort.
The rover is the first to be placed on the little-explored
far side of the moon, while China’s Chang’e 5 probe a year
ago returned lunar rocks to Earth for the first time since
the 1970s. A Chinese rovernother, meanwhile, is
searching for evidence of life on Mars.
The program has also drawn controversy. In October,
China’s Foreign Ministry brushed-off a report that China
had tested a hypersonic missile two months earlier,
saying it had merely tested whether a new spacecraft
could be reused.
China is also reportedly developing a highly secretive
space plane.
Hong Kong pro-democracy news site closes after raid, arrests
HONG KONG (AP) — A vocal
pro-democracy website in Hong Kong was
shut down after police raided its office and
arrested seven current and former editors,
board members, and a journalist in a
continuing crackdown on dissent in the
semi-autonomous Chinese city.
Stand News said in a statement that its
website and social media are no longer
being updated and will be taken down. It
said all employees have been dismissed.
The outlet was one of the last remaining
openly critical voices in Hong Kong
following the shuttering of the Apple Daily
newspaper, which closed after its
publisher, Jimmy Lai, and top editors were
arrested and its assets frozen.
Police raided Stand News’ office after
arresting six, including popular singer and
activist Denise Ho, a former board
member, on charges of conspiracy to
publish a seditious publication.
They later also arrested a seventh
person, a former Apple Daily editor who is
married to the arrested former Stand
News editor.
More than 200 officers were involved in
the search, police said. They had a warrant
to seize relevant journalistic materials
under a national security law enacted in
2020.
The seven were arrested under a crime
ordinance that dates from Hong Kong’s
days as a British colony before 1997, when
it was returned to China. Those convicted
could face up to two years in prison and a
fine of up to 5,000 Hong Kong dollars
($640).
Police did not identify who was arrested,
but Hong Kong’s South China Morning
Post newspaper reported they were one
current and one former editor of Stand
News, and four former board members
including Ho and former lawmaker
Margaret Ng.
A Facebook post on Ho’s account
confirmed that she was being arrested. A
subsequent message posted on her behalf
said she was OK and urged friends and
supporters not to worry about her.
That post drew nearly 40,000 likes and
2,700 comments, mostly from supporters.
Stand News posted a video on Facebook
of police officers at the home of a deputy
editor, Ronson Chan. Chan, who is also
chair of the Hong Kong Journalists Asso-
ciation, was taken away for questioning,
the organization confirmed in a statement.
Chan, who was later released, told
media the police seized his electronic
devices, bank cards, and press card.
The arrests come as authorities crack
down on dissent in the semi-autonomous
Chinese city. Hong Kong police previously
raided the offices of the now-defunct Apple
Daily newspaper, seizing boxes of
materials and computer hard drives to
assist in their investigation and freezing
millions in assets that later forced the
newspaper to cease operations.
Police charged the Apple Daily’s Lai,
who is already jailed on other charges,
with sedition.
“We are not targeting reporters, we are
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not targeting the media, we just targeted
national security offenses,” said Li
Kwai-wah, senior superintendent of the
police National Security Department. “If
you only report, I don’t think this is a
problem.”
He said at a news conference that those
arrested had to account for their actions
even if they had resigned from Stand
News.
Asked what advice he had for the media,
Li replied, “Don’t be biased. You know well
how to report, how to be a responsible
reporter, how to make a non-biased report
to your readers. That’s all I can give you.”
Stand News earlier this year said it
would suspend subscriptions and remove
most opinion pieces and columns from its
website due to the national security law.
Six board members also resigned from the
company.
The journalists’ association urged the
city’s government to protect press freedom
in accordance with Hong Kong’s
mini-constitution, the Basic Law.
“The Hong Kong Journalists Association
(HKJA) is deeply concerned that the police
have repeatedly arrested senior members
of the media and searched the offices of
news organizations containing large
quantities of journalistic materials within
a year,” it said in a statement.
Benedict Rogers, co-founder and CEO of
the non-governmental organization Hong
Kong Watch, said the arrests are “nothing
short of an all-out assault on the freedom
of the press in Hong Kong.”
“When a free press guaranteed by Hong
Kong’s Basic Law is labelled ‘seditious,’ it
is a symbol of the speed at which this once
great, open, international city has
descended into little more than a police
state,” he said.
The arrests also followed the removal of
sculptures and other artwork from
university campuses in December. The
works
supported
democracy
and
memorialized the victims of China’s
crackdown on democracy protesters at
Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in 1989.
Defectors from North Korea pray for resettlement victims
Continued from page 2
her husband and children still in North
Korea. Since the COVID-19 pandemic
began, she has lost contact with them, and
all the letters and packages she sent have
been returned.
“My biggest worry now is their survival,”
Kawasaki said.
Kawasaki and other defectors want to
rejuvenate a roughly 1 mile stretch called
“Bodnam,” or willow street, by planting
new trees to replace those that have
withered or died since the resettlement
program ended in 1984. Older trees were
planted to mark the 1959 launch of the
resettlement program.
“The street has gotten shabby because
people paid little attention to the
resettlement program or they couldn’t care
less about it. I thought I had to change
that,” said Kawasaki.
Among her supporters is Harunori
Kojima, 90, a former communist who once
backed the resettlement program.
Kojima said he wanted to join the
Bodnam street project because of a sense of
guilt and regret that he long supported the
program despite knowing the severe
conditions in the North.
He saw the reality during a 1964 trip to
North Korea but “could not tell the truth”
to
those
associated
with
the
pro-Pyongyang organization or to his
Japanese communist comrades. “That
matter is still tormenting my heart.”
Kojima published a book in 2016
including photos he took of those who left
for North Korea, newspaper clips
endorsing the program, and letters he
received from victims who yearned to
return to Japan, as a way to document the
history — and as atonement.
He noted the repatriation was strongly
backed by Japan’s government, Japanese
media, and many nonprofit organizations,
including the International Committee of
the Red Cross.
A 2014 United Nations Commission of
Inquiry report described the victims of the
resettlement
program
as
“forcibly
disappeared” people whom North Korea
kept under strict surveillance, deprived of
liberty and freedom of movement. It said
many were likely to be among the first
victims of the 1990s famines due to their
lower social status.
Kawasaki and several other defectors
are seeking damages in a lawsuit against
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un over
human-rights violations they say they
suffered under the resettlement program.
Kim is not expected to appear or
compensate them even if the court orders
it, but the plaintiffs hope the case can set a
precedent for the Japanese government to
negotiate with North Korea in the future
on seeking the North’s responsibility. A
ruling is expected in March.