Tension was high yesterday in a south Chinese village where numerous demonstrators were allegedly slain in an incident suggesting the nation's paramilitary troops are prepared to shoot to kill.
Hundreds of police were stationed in and around Dongzhou, near Shanwei city in Guangdong Province, where locals said law enforcers opened fire on a crowd of protesters earlier in the week.
"The police have blocked roads leading into the village and they are patrolling the streets," a Dongzhou resident, who gave his surname as Chen, said by telephone.
The shootings occured on Tuesday during a clash between hundreds of members of the paramilitary People's Armed Police (PAP) and more than 1,000 villagers.
The special police unit opened fire after villagers set up a blockade to prevent them from entering and threw gasoline bombs at them, according to residents.
The death toll was unclear but one villager said on condition of anonymity that about 30 demonstrators were killed. Others said several more were unaccounted for.
"It's definitely not correct," Liu Jingmao, vice director of Shanwei city's publicity department, said when asked to comment on the figures. "It's pure rumor."
He said China's state-run media would carry a report with the official version of the events today.
In Dongzhou, villagers were pleading with the authorities for the return of bodies of their loved ones for proper funerals but so far in vain, according to eyewitnesses.
"I've seen relatives of the people who were killed kneeling in front of the police asking them to return the bodies," said a villager surnamed Wei. "But the police have refused to hand over the bodies."
A Chinese aircraft carrier group entered Japan’s economic waters over the weekend, before exiting to conduct drills involving fighter jets, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said yesterday. The Liaoning aircraft carrier, two missile destroyers and one fast combat supply ship sailed about 300km southwest of Japan’s easternmost island of Minamitori on Saturday, a ministry statement said. It was the first time a Chinese aircraft carrier had entered that part of Japan’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ), a ministry spokesman said. “We think the Chinese military is trying to improve its operational capability and ability to conduct operations in distant areas,” the spokesman said. China’s growing
Nine retired generals from Taiwan, Japan and the US have been invited to participate in a tabletop exercise hosted by the Taipei School of Economics and Political Science Foundation tomorrow and Wednesday that simulates a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan in 2030, the foundation said yesterday. The five retired Taiwanese generals would include retired admiral Lee Hsi-min (李喜明), joined by retired US Navy admiral Michael Mullen and former chief of staff of the Japan Self-Defense Forces general Shigeru Iwasaki, it said. The simulation aims to offer strategic insights into regional security and peace in the Taiwan Strait, it added. Foundation chair Huang Huang-hsiung
PUBLIC WARNING: The two students had been tricked into going to Hong Kong for a ‘high-paying’ job, which sent them to a scam center in Cambodia Police warned the public not to trust job advertisements touting high pay abroad following the return of two college students over the weekend who had been trafficked and forced to work at a cyberscam center in Cambodia. The two victims, surnamed Lee (李), 18, and Lin (林), 19, were interviewed by police after landing in Taiwan on Saturday. Taichung’s Chingshui Police Precinct said in a statement yesterday that the two students are good friends, and Lin had suspended her studies after seeing the ad promising good pay to work in Hong Kong. Lee’s grandfather on Thursday reported to police that Lee had sent
BUILDUP: US General Dan Caine said Chinese military maneuvers are not routine exercises, but instead are ‘rehearsals for a forced unification’ with Taiwan China poses an increasingly aggressive threat to the US and deterring Beijing is the Pentagon’s top regional priority amid its rapid military buildup and invasion drills near Taiwan, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said on Tuesday. “Our pacing threat is communist China,” Hegseth told the US House of Representatives Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense during an oversight hearing with US General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “Beijing is preparing for war in the Indo-Pacific as part of its broader strategy to dominate that region and then the world,” Hegseth said, adding that if it succeeds, it could derail
RSS