VOX POPULI: File on Xu Qinxian's refusal at Tiananmen remains open
As this has been my habit for quite a while, my files just keep growing, and I need to keep them under control by tidying them up from time to time.
However, there inevitably are materials that make me pause the task and think.
One example is my dossier on Xu Qinxian (1935-2021).
According to what is written on a piece of paper in my hand, Xu was born into a poor family in China's Hubei province. He volunteered for the army at age 15 and saw combat during the Korean War.
Xu was said to be a quiet soldier who enjoyed reading, but must have also excelled professionally. After a series of promotions, he eventually rose to the rank of major general in the People's Liberation Army.
He became known to the world during the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989.
As the leader of the elite 38th Group Army in charge of defending the Chinese capital, Xu was ordered to advance to Beijing. But he defied the order, refusing to suppress pro-democracy students with armed force.
This was a rare case of insubordination by a high-ranking officer. Xu was arrested and sent to prison.
He was not heard of at all until 2011, when a scoop by the now-defunct Hong Kong newspaper Apple Daily brought Xu's presence back to the world.
Asked about his past, Xu told his interviewer simply, 'It's all in the past. I have no regrets.'
I wonder what was going on within the military at the time of Xu's insubordination.
How was the decision made to use armed force against unarmed students? What effects did the political strife among the leadership have on the situation?
I requested an interview with Xu through an acquaintance of mine. But I never received a reply.
Xu died four years ago at age 85.
June 4 marked the 36th anniversary of the Tiananmen Massacre, but even this fact cannot be mentioned in China today.
Many questions remain unanswered. And I am still unable to discard my Xu file.
—The Asahi Shimbun, June 5
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Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.
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The Diplomat
an hour ago
- The Diplomat
How Should South Korea Respond to China's ‘Yellow Sea Project'?
It is clear that there has been a shift in Beijing's perception of the Yellow Sea, and its new muscular stance is threatening Seoul's economic and security interests. The Yellow Sea is a shallow body of water, about the size of California, located between the Korean Peninsula and China. It is too narrow for South Korea and China to fully claim the 200 nautical mile Exclusive Economic Zone that each is allowed under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). In 2015, the two countries began discussions aimed at establishing their maritime boundary. These negotiations are ongoing, but little progress has been publicly reported. The most recent round of talks took place in Shanghai in November 2024, but many have questioned whether China is negotiating in good faith as it keeps building new structures in the Yellow Sea. In recent months, there has been heated discussion about Beijing's 'Yellow Sea Project,' which many Koreans see as threatening South Korea's economic and security interests. These concerns are driven by China's history of coercive behavior and unilateral maritime expansion, and also renewed doubts about the U.S. commitment to its allies since the reelection of President Donald Trump. China's Yellow Sea Project Chinese President Xi Jinping has sought to make China a peer competitor for the United States, looking to erode and ultimately replace the U.S.-led international order with a new framework more conducive to Chinese interests. During the imperial era, China's sphere of influence extended across the whole of East and Southeast Asia, and Beijing is keen to restore such dominance. Toward that end, China's forces – its navy, air force, coast guard, and maritime militia – now routinely deploy high-powered water cannons, physical intimidation, and other harsh tactics to advance China's claims in the South China Sea, the East China Sea, and near Taiwan. In the Yellow Sea, the North Sea Fleet of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), which operates under the Northern Theater Command, has already expanded its operational reach to waters east of the 124-degree-east longitude line, which has long functioned as the de facto maritime boundary between China and South Korea. This is fueling concerns that China's Yellow Sea Project is fundamentally about military expansion. Although Chinese illegal fishing activities in the Yellow Sea have been common east of 124 degrees east, especially near the Northern Limit Line (NLL) between the two Koreas, Chinese military activities have not – until recently. The People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) has gradually increased its operations in the Yellow Sea, aligning with China's broader anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) strategy. This seeks to constrain combined naval operations between South Korea and the United States, limiting them to freedom of navigation and overflight. China is apparently attempting to convert the Yellow Sea into Chinese internal waters, having already claimed the Bohai Sea (the innermost gulf of the Yellow Sea) as an 'inland sea' since 1958. This clearly disregards the spirit and the principles of UNCLOS, which came into effect in 1997, and the further extension of such claims over the whole of the Yellow Sea should be strongly resisted. Legal Status of the Yellow Sea Unlike the South China Sea, where sovereignty disputes and strategic posturing have routinely escalated into diplomatic crises, the Yellow Sea remains a relatively well-managed maritime space, legally. While the overlapping EEZs between South Korea and China have so far prevented formal maritime boundary delimitation, both countries have worked around the legal limbo. For example, under the bilateral fisheries agreement signed on June 30, 2001, a Provisional Measures Zone (PMZ) was established to allow for joint management of fisheries, pending a final boundary settlement. Overt naval clashes in the Yellow Sea between South Korea and China have largely been avoided. Instead, tensions have primarily manifested in two forms: North Korean provocations near the NLL, and frequent incursions by Chinese fishing fleets into sensitive maritime areas. To date, these incidents have rarely escalated into direct confrontations between the Republic of Korea Navy (ROKN) and the PLAN. The relative stability of the Yellow Sea is supported by hotline agreements between naval units and between maritime law enforcement agencies, and also by multilateral mechanisms to avoid unexpected contingencies, such as the Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea. Strategic and Operational Significance of the Yellow Sea The Yellow Sea holds immense strategic importance for the PLAN. The majority of China's submarines, both conventional and nuclear-powered, are built and launched from the Huludao and Dalian shipyards located in the Bohai Sea. These yards have recently been expanding rapidly to accommodate China's next-generation submarine programs. The PLAN's North Sea Fleet, headquartered in Qingdao, is tasked with the operation of the Type 001 Liaoning aircraft carrier, China's first. It was originally designated for training purposes at its commissioning in 2012, and subsequently reassigned to full Carrier Strike Group capabilities in 2014. Since then, the North Sea Fleet has been training in the Bohai Sea, including flight deck take-off and landing operations with the Shenyang J-15, an indigenous fourth-generation, twin-engine strike fighter. The North Sea Fleet is responsible for the building, testing, training, and operating of China's strategic nuclear submarines (SSBNs). It oversees the deployment of the Type 094 Jin-class SSBNs, which carry JL-2 and the new JL-3 submarine-launched ballistic missiles. It will also soon receive China's most advanced surface warships: Type 055 Renhai-class guided missile destroyers, and Type 054B new-generation frigates, both of them stealth vessels. China's operational behavior in the Yellow Sea also reflects its growing discomfort with South Korea-U.S. joint exercises. After the ROKS Cheonan, a naval corvette, was sunk by a torpedo from a North Korean midget submarine in 2012, South Korea-U.S. combined naval exercises were planned for the Yellow Sea. Strong Chinese opposition led to a temporary relocation of the allied exercises to the East Sea (Sea of Japan), only to return later that summer to the southern waters of the Yellow Sea. In response, the PLAN conducted a large-scale live-fire exercise in the Yellow Sea, an early manifestation of its A2/AD doctrine. Increasingly, China's North Sea Fleet has been deployed in missions and roles to protect the strategic importance of the Yellow Sea. Navigational harassment and coercive operations target the ROKN, the Korea Coast Guard (KCG), and South Korean scientific research vessels. China also frequently declares temporary no-sail zones under the guise of maritime law enforcement or research activities. Taken together with China's stiff resistance to South Korea-U.S. combined naval exercises, as well as its increased security and military coordination with the Russian Pacific Fleet, it is clear that there has been a shift in China's perception of the Yellow Sea. It is not only central to China's active maritime defense strategy, but also the military front line to counter U.S. Navy operations. China has escalated its 'gray zone' tactics in the Yellow Sea, and is increasingly blurring the lines between traditional military exercises and deliberate strategic messaging, with the Northern Branch of the China Coast Guard (CCG) assuming quasi-military roles in support of naval objectives. Since 2014, Beijing has installed a number of unmanned buoys and semi-permanent maritime structures under the pretext of oceanographic research. Many of these are situated just west of the 124-degree-east meridian. More provocatively, between 2018 and 2022, China erected two large-scale installations within the PMZ, ostensibly for aquaculture development, without consulting South Korea. Then in 2025, a steel framework over 50 meters in both diameter and height was observed in the PMZ, with more reportedly planned. All these structures are claimed to be fishing facilities, though some experts believe that they may be disguised oil rigs. Regardless, these actions constitute a violation of the 2001 Fisheries Agreement between South Korea and China. Strategic Implications for South Korea's Maritime Posture From a legal standpoint, China's operations in international waters do not explicitly violate UNCLOS, but they do represent a serious threat to South Korea's operational freedom in adjacent waters. Consistent maritime operational policies are necessary, since China appears to be calibrating the aggressiveness of its maritime operations according to the perceived assertiveness/passivity of South Korea's government. Administrations should seek to maintain a consistent national policy that guides Yellow Sea operations, regardless of political leadership transitions. Internationalizing the Yellow Sea boundary issue could be counterproductive: exaggerating China's intentions could complicate negotiations and jeopardize previous gains in bilateral maritime cooperation. Handling South Korea's concerns directly with China will serve to preserve the integrity of existing bilateral arrangements in the Yellow Sea. To that end, the ROKN should continue to conduct appropriate freedom of navigation and overflight operations west of 124 degrees east in the Yellow Sea. Beyond simply signaling South Korea's insistence on preserving its access rights under UNCLOS, such missions must be understood as essential to deterring North Korean infiltration. Existing bilateral mechanisms, such as the hotline systems between China and South Korea, should be adequate to convey such messages. South Korea's intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities in the Yellow Sea also need to be enhanced, both for deterrence and for situational awareness. The ROKN has been relying on its obsolescent P-3C Orion aircraft for both ISR and anti-submarine warfare targeting North Korea. It has now acquired P-8A Poseidon next-generation maritime surveillance aircraft, with greatly superior operational capabilities. As well as North Korea, ISR operations should be expanded to target PLAN and PLA Air Force movements in the Yellow Sea, particularly east of the 124-degree-east line. South Korea's maritime law enforcement also needs to update its institutional structure. Unlike the CCG, which reports directly to the Central Military Commission and operates under military-style directives, the KCG is under civilian control, so it is restricted to law enforcement and lacks the legal mandate or logistical infrastructure to engage in paramilitary contingencies. In February 2025, the Korea Institute of Ocean Science and Technology sent a maritime research vessel to investigate a large Chinese installation on the seabed of the Yellow Sea. The operation was obstructed by PLAN-affiliated CCG vessels including speed boats, but only one KCG vessel was dispatched in response. For South Korea, the significance of the Yellow Sea is nothing less than existential. The South Korean capital, Seoul, is connected to the Yellow Sea via the Han River, which flows through the heart of the city. Two of South Korea's three naval commands are located on the Yellow Sea, and the largest U.S. overseas garrison, Camp Humphreys, is within 10 miles of its shores. The Yellow Sea has now become the focus of concentrated Chinese military and paramilitary activity, and is rapidly emerging as a theater of geostrategic competition, joining the South China Sea, the Taiwan Strait, and the East China Sea. For South Korea, this shift requires a reorientation in both strategic posture and operational readiness. Conclusion The recent revelation of a large Chinese structure in the Yellow Sea is the latest manifestation of China's relentless efforts to shift the strategic balance in its favor, and to erode the military effectiveness of the U.S. and its allies. South Korea must do everything it can to resist China's Yellow Sea project, otherwise the strategic balance in the region will ultimately shift in China's favor, excluding South Korea and the U.S. from most of the Yellow Sea. Then Kyushu, Okinawa and ultimately Taiwan would be vulnerable, triggering a domino effect and laying a solid foundation for further PLA expansion in the Western Pacific.
The Diplomat
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China's Successes and Struggles in Costa Rica
The country's experience with China has arguably fallen short of expectations and been the subject of frustrations on both sides. In July 2025, the U.S. State Department cancelled the visa of Rodrigo Arias, the head of Costa Rica's legislature. The visa of his brother, former Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, had also been revoked in April. The State Department also cancelled the visa of Vanessa Castro, the deputy head of the legislature. Although no official reason was given, those in Costa Rica consulted for this work linked the visa cancellations to Arias' long-time and ongoing activities promoting the advance of China in Costa Rica. This dates back to his key role during the presidency of his brother Oscar Arias, in the 2006-2007 secret diplomacy leading to Costa Rica's abrupt switch of diplomatic relations from Taiwan to the People's Republic of China. In February 2025, the United States similarly canceled the visas of Costa Rican legislators Johanna Obando and Cynthia Cordoba, both of whom are alleged to be associated with influence peddling by the China-based telecommunications company Huawei. Following the cancellation of Obando and Cordoba's visas, at the request of the Chinese Ambassador Wang Xiaoyao, Arias convened a session in the Costa Rican legislature with opposition politicians and Qiu Xiaoqi, the head of Latin American Affairs for China's Foreign Ministry. Adding to the provocation, Arias later invited Wang and a delegation from Beijing to Ingenio Taboga, a ranch in Guanacaste in which his family has an interest, to praise China and talk about ways to expand cooperation with Costa Rica in various water projects. If the message sent to Costa Rica by the visa cancellations was ambiguous, due to the lack of an official explanation, a February 2025 visit to Costa Rica by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio provided more clarity. Rubio expressed the U.S. government's concerns over China's activities in the region, and praised the Costa Rican government's decision to exclude Chinese vendors from its 5G digital infrastructure. The U.S. had also previously canceled the visas of representatives of the Costa Rican telecommunication organization ICE and its principal trade union over irregular Huawei lobbying, which had included a lavish 2024 party thrown by Huawei in the Hilton La Sabana. Evolution of the China-Costa Rica Relationship Costa Rica's experience with China and Chinese companies since President Arias switched relations from Taiwan in May 2007 has arguably fallen short of expectations and been filled with frustration on both sides. China initiated its relationship with the Arias government in 2007 with gifts and other promised benefits totaling an estimated $430 million. These included construction of a $100 million national stadium and the purchase of $300 million in Costa Rican government bonds. Despite the initial display of goodwill, the Chinese approach to doing business quickly came into conflict with Costa Rican laws and institutions. The company building the national stadium, Anhui Foreign Economic Construction Group Co., Ltd., improperly sought to use the equipment that had been imported duty-free for the construction to make money on side projects. The proposed construction of the Soresco petroleum refinery fell apart in 2016 when China National Petroleum Company repeatedly sought to use its own subsidiary to perform the independent evaluation that the Costa Rican government required before committing its own money and taking the project forward. Adding to China's problems, construction of the strategically important highway Route 32, paid for by the Costa Rican government but financed by a $296 million loan from China Export Import Bank, became mired in over 12 years of delays due to performance problems by the Chinese builder, China Harbor Engineering Corporation. These included repeated difficulties in securing access to the land required to build the highway. Even a 'Chinatown' arranged by San Jose mayor Johnny Araya, which included a traditional Chinese gate gifted by the Chinese government, generated conflict in Costa Rica. For one, the new pedestrian area blocked a key traffic route through San Jose, complicating its endemic traffic jams. It also initially failed to attract many Chinese stores, and flooded during the rainy season due to design defects. On the trade side, Costa Rican hopes of increasing exports to China through the change in diplomatic recognition failed to materialize – despite the subsequent negotiation of a free trade agreement that went into effect in August 2011. However, those actions contributed to a significant expansion of Chinese products and retail outlets in the country at the expense of local businesses. As a result, an enormous trade deficit has accrued to the benefit of China. In 2023, Costa Rica imported $3.39 billion in goods from China, while exporting only $402.7 million to it. In 2012, China sought to expand its commercial presence in Costa Rica through six proposed special economic zones. Although these would have given Chinese companies significant tax relief and autonomy in exchange for promised investments, the government of Laura Chinchilla was reportedly not comfortable with granting Chinese companies extensive exemptions from the laws and regulations that other companies operating in the country had to follow. China's relationship with Costa Rica continued to advance under President Luis Guillermo Solis, including the signing of a 2016-2020 strategic cooperation plan. In addition, in September 2018, his government signed on to China's Belt and Road Initiative, becoming one of the first countries in the region to do so after Panama. During the first 15 years of the relationship, China also gifted the Costa Rican government a significant amount of security equipment. This included 350 Chinese-made police cars, two AVIC Y-12 surveillance and transport aircraft delivered in 2016, and a police training facility delivered in July 2017, although the facility had to be outfitted by European donors because China delivered it empty. Chinese security gifts also included telecommunications and police protective equipment delivered in November 2018, a modest $14,000 donation of gloves, tents, and sunscreen in December 2020, and 100 police motorcycles in 2021. The China-Costa Rica relationship cooled somewhat under Solis' successor, Carlos Alvarado Quesada, but the decline became notably more pronounced under current President Rodrigo Chaves In addition to his friendly posture toward the U.S., Chaves was reportedly offended by reports that interests tied to China had supported the campaign of his opponent in the presidential race, Jose Maria Figueres, although his own campaign may have received Chinese money as well. China, for its part, has pressured the Chaves government not only over the exclusion of its companies from Costa Rica's telecommunication infrastructure, but also over the Costa Rican intelligence agency, DIS, sending five officials to Taiwan for training in May 2025. China, reflecting its problems with the Chaves government, withdrew its ambassador Tang Heng in March 2024, and replaced him with Wang Xiaoyou, whose youth and poor Spanish was interpreted by many in Costa Rica as a deprioritizing of the relationship. China's Current Position in Costa Rica China's current position in Costa Rica is characterized by a virtual absence of traditional investments and loan-based projects and continuing struggles over infrastructure work in the road and telecommunications sectors. However, Chinese companies enjoy significant market penetration, including in the automotive, electronics, and other consumer goods sectors, China is the primary source of cars imported into Costa Rica, accounting for a third of all such imports. In the electric car sector specifically, China has cornered 70 percent of the Costa Rican market. Ernesto Ruiz, brother of Costa Rica's former ambassador to China, is one of the important importers of Chinese vehicles. In services, the Chinese company DiDi has operated in Costa Rica since 2019, in both the taxi and food delivery area, although it reportedly has less market penetration than its Western rival, Uber. On the infrastructure front, despite more than 12 years of performance difficulties and delays with Route 32, China Harbor is currently competing for a contract for the middle segment of the strategically important highway to San Carlos in the south of the country. The Chinese have also proposed a 39 kilometer long monorail to be built and financed by China-based companies. Chinese firms are reportedly also interested in operating a port facility at Caldera, although there has not yet been a formal bidding process. In telecommunications, Huawei continues to fight against its exclusion from the Costa Rican telecom market. Its efforts include its previously noted attempts to court members of ICE, its principal union, and Costa Rican legislators, including lavish parties in the Sabana Hilton, arguably facilitating the suspension of U.S. visas over those involved in such improper interactions. Despite the exclusion of Huawei from Costa Rica's 5G network, its equipment has penetrated government and private sector digital infrastructures. ICE, for example, uses Huawei routers, while Telecable and Claro have Huawei modems. Chinese smartphones, including Huawei, Xiaomi, and the new low-end device company Honor, are widely used in the country. Beyond telecommunications, Chinese surveillance systems companies, whose video, biometric and other data could possibly be uploaded to servers in China, are employed by a variety of businesses and homes in the country. China-based company Hikvision has installed its surveillance equipment in the Department of Escazu, and is currently seeking to sell its products to municipal governments in San Jose and Belem. China-based firm Nuctec attempted to sell port scanners to the Solis administration, but the units provided for initial evaluation were reportedly not regarded well. Chinese Organized Crime In recent years, Costa Rican authorities have had increasing problems with Chinese organized crime, including illegal fishing, human trafficking, and money laundering. Chinese criminal groups have also increasingly collaborated with non-Chinese ones conducting narcotrafficking and other activities in the country. In May 2025, in Operation Matsu, Costa Rican authorities acted against a human trafficking ring that had smuggled at least 437 persons into the country from China, as well as other points of origin in Asia and South America, charging between $4,000 and $40,000 per person. Costa Rican authorities also recently acted against a Chinese illegal fishing group that had harvested an estimated 355 tons of shark fins from the maritime protected area adjacent to Costa Rica between 2018 and 2023. Chinese Influence Networks in Costa Rica With respect to Chinese Influence networks, the pattern of activities in Costa Rica is similar to elsewhere in the region. In legislative affairs, China works with the Costa Rican parliamentary group for friendship with China, led by opposition National Liberation Party politician Luis Fernando Mendoza. Analysis by the journal Nacion found that in 2023, China financed more trips abroad by Costa Rican legislators than any other country. The legislature sent 87 personnel to China in a two-year period 2022-2023, representing 10 percent of its entire staff. Representative Fabricio Alvarado Munoz was at the top of the list, with eight visits authorized for himself and his staff. As noted previously, President Chaves himself is being investigated for having received 150 million colons in support for his campaign through a bond purchased by Hong Kong based businessman Sheng Lin Hu. In the private sector, the China-Costa Rican Chamber of Commerce and Industry plays an important coordinating and information providing role between Chinese and Costa Rican businesses. Its president, Isabel Yung, who also heads the association for the ethnically Chinese community in Costa Rica, is an important figure with close ties to the Chinese embassy. In academia, the University of Costa Rica hosts a Confucius Institute for instruction on the Chinese language and culture by Chinese-government-supplied personnel, as well as a China-supported institute for Chinese traditional medicine. Universidad Hispanoamerica reportedly also has a strong relationship with China. China and Huawei continue to give scholarships to Costa Ricans to study in China, although the numbers have dropped from those during the early years of recognition, such as the 75 awarded in July 2013. In media affairs, China's CCTV4 and CGTN both have a cable television presence in Costa Rica through the telecommunication firm Tigo and Telecable. The Chinese community in Costa Rica has its own paper, Revista 168. The Costa Rican newspaper La Republica carries paid Chinese state media advertising supplements, and publishes opinion pieces from the Chinese embassy. As with legislators, Costa Rican journalists travel to China on trips paid for by the Chinese government. Similarly, in November 2023, a Costa Rican journalist from Grupo R Multimedia participated in an event in China sponsored by the China-Latin America Press Center. Conclusion Costa Rica is an example, repeated in other countries in the region such as Nicaragua and Honduras, of how hoped for commercial gains from diplomatic flips from Taiwan to China, and the signing of associated MOUs and free trade agreements, often fail to materialize. Instead, such initiatives may expose local commercial actors to damaging penetration from Chinese goods and companies, and introduce Chinese influence networks into vulnerable local political, business, academic and media environments. At the same time, Costa Rica is also an example of how strong institutions and democratic culture can help a country to resist such risks, even while recognizing that the requirement for vigilance is ongoing.
