Avowed Anti-Feminist Ascends to South Korea’s Presidency
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Avowed Anti-Feminist Ascends to South Korea’s Presidency

South Korea will soon have a new president. In what is regarded as the closest presidential win in the country’s history, Yoon Sook-yeol from the opposition People Power Party beat out the governing Democratic Party led by Lee Jae-myung in early March. Yoon has vowed to pay particular attention to people’s livelihoods and to welfare services. He wants to unify the nation and introduce a new age of active participation in the international community. But despite being president-elect in the world’s 10th largest economy, Yoon won’t have an easy ride. There has already been extensive public backlash to his election – and women are perhaps the most concerned about what the avowed anti-feminist’s rule will bring.

Comparisons with Trump

Yoon, 61, served as the South Korean prosecutor general from 2019 to 2021 under President Moon Jae-in and played a key role in the prosecution for corruption of former President Park Geun-hye. Yoon joined the presidential race late last year; his style of campaigning drew immediate attention. Several publications and observers drew stark parallels with the US presidential campaign, with Yoon being compared to Donald Trump. Reference was made to Yoon’s style of speaking and barrage of offensive comments during the campaign. Many were particularly concerned by a comment that was interpreted as praise for the former South Korean President and military dictator, Chun Doo-hwan, who was known for his brutal mistreatment of pro-democratic protesters in the 1980s. Additionally, and more alarmingly, despite somewhat virtuous presidential ambitions to address key economic shortcomings, Yoon pledged to abolish the Ministry of Gender Equality. 

Yoon argues that women in South Korea do not face systemic discrimination. This, despite vast evidence to the contrary. Yoon blames South Korea’s low birthrate on the rise of feminism and women being more assertive about their rights.

In spite of the aspirations of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, South Korea has the worst record for women’s rights in the developed world. Experts in the country affirm that laws do not provide sufficient punishment for crimes against women and girls and that the judicial system’s approach to crimes against women and girls is intrinsically linked to the country’s patriarchal society. The stigmatisation of women's rights by Yoon’s campaign is strongly supported by his voter base, made up largely of young men who believe the president-elect speaks for them.

Anti-Feminist Rhetoric

Amid skyrocketing housing costs, an increasing wealth gap and soaring numbers of youth unemployment, people in South Korea are looking for a change. In his presidential campaign, Yoon promised to address the social and economic issues plaguing the county. However, in doing, so he weaponised the frustrations of young men at the expense of women’s rights.

South Korean men reject notions of masculine privilege and the benefits that come with patriarchal forms of sexism. Furthermore, a study revealed that young men’s impressions of sexism are strongly characterised by anti-feminist rhetoric: 56.8% of men in their 20s are strongly opposed to feminism, with 29.8% rating their opposition on a scale from 1 to 12 as 12.

According to reports, unemployment has risen to 9.9%. As a result, men are feeling a sense of loss; their social status is threatened by economic uncertainty. Many blame women and policies aimed at giving women employment opportunities. Perhaps to a degree their grievances are justified.

South Korean women have a higher rate of university graduation and are generally able to begin work earlier than men (young men are conscripted into the military, delaying the start of their working lives). On the flip side, though nearly 70% of women aged between 25 and 34 are employed, many leave the workforce to have children because of social pressure and workplace policies that discriminate against working mothers.

Working women face substantial discrimination. For example, The Economist recently ranked South Korea as the worst performer among industrialised nations on the glass-ceiling index, which measures gender differences in education, wages and managerial positions. South Korea is ranked 127th out of 153 countries in terms of economic participation in the World Economic Forum’s gender gap report, a far cry from 96th in 2006. Additionally, there is a 35% gender pay gap with few women holding managerial or decision making positions. Women account for less than a fifth of South Korean national legislators and only 5.2% holding board member positions in publicly traded companies. And according to The World Bank, women hold only 17% of seats in South Korea’s parliament. 

Violence against women and girls is a huge problem in South Korea, too. The rise of the #MeToo movement led to revelations about several high-profile cases. In 2020, Seoul mayor Park Won-soon died by suicide after his former secretary accused him of sexual harassment. Additionally, the government struggled to address problems with online gender violence, namely the non-consensual sharing of sexual images and molka – secretly filmed videos, sexual in nature, posted online. But Yoon did not take aim at men in his campaign: instead, he stated that harsher punishments should be enacted for false sexual harassment allegations. If he goes ahead with this policy it will almost certainly silence victims.

With Yoon at the helm, it appears that life for South Korea’s women and girls is about to get tougher.

About the author

Qhawezo Ayesha Fakude is a Junior Research Fellow at Africa Asia Dialogues (Afrasid).  She holds a Bachelor of Social Science from the University of Cape Town, South Africa. She majored in politics and governance, anthropology and sociology.

Keep the Palestinian Struggle out of Putin’s war in Ukraine, Thembisa Ebrahim Fakude, Unpacks

Keep the Palestinian struggle out of Putin’s war in Ukraine, Thembisa Ebrahim Fakude, unpacks

 

 

China In Zimbabwe: Trampling on workers’ rights or part of a bigger problem?
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China In Zimbabwe: Trampling on workers’ rights or part of a bigger problem?

At the turn of the millennium, China and Zimbabwe revived relations after the African nation had cut ties with its former coloniser, Britain. When the British left, trade doors were opened; Chinese companies snapped up lucrative tenders for national projects and became a dominant player in Zimbabwe.

Experts state that in 2011 alone, Chinese investments pumped US$460 million into the Zimbabwean economy. The Asian giant consistently ranks among Zimbabwe’s top five trade partners – the volume of trade between the two countries surpasses US$1.1 billion annually.

But how is this relationship playing out for ordinary Zimbabwean workers? This paper shall examine the nature and extent of labour rights abuses by Chinese companies operating in Zimbabwe. Its premise, though, is that the flouting of labour regulations cannot be blamed solely on investors’ conduct. Instead, such flouting is evidence of disrespect for Zimbabwe’s working class that is embedded within its own regulatory environment. In fact, there is much deeper abuse of workers in Zimbabwe by locals than there is by Chinese companies. This is because the company is complicatedly informalised. Because Chinese companies tend to , their abuses make headlines more often than local examples do.

Zimbabwe has a long-standing legacy of worker abuse. There are weaknesses embedded in its labour rights enforcement institutions that are beyond the control of international investors operating in the country.

Historic relations 

China–Zimbabwe relations were birthed during the colonial period when the former late President Robert Mugabe was given support by the Asian nation in his quest to outwit the colonial forces of Rhodesia. Mugabe turned to China after the Soviet Union turned down his request to support the military wing of his party, the Zimbabwe African National Union, in favour of his rival Joshua Nkomo’s Zimbabwe African People’s Union.

On 18 April 1980, as Zimbabwe celebrated its independence from colonial rule, Mugabe met with Chinese officials to formally establish diplomatic ties. Two months later then vice-president Simon Vengesai Muzenda visited Beijing to express his thanks; Mugabe followed the next year.

But between 1980 and the year 2000, relations between the two countries did not extend to huge economic contact. The Southern African nation was still pursuing a somewhat close relationship with Britain as part of a policy of reconciliation.

Then came the government’s fall-out with white commercial farmers during the late 1990s and the inception of the Fast Track Land Reform Exercise which evicted those farmers from their properties. Relations between Zimbabwe and the West deteriorated. China stepped into the vacuum.

Ties between the two nations have deepened since then, in line with Zimbabwe's Look East Policy. China has become Zimbabwe’s all-weather friend.

Chinese investments in Zimbabwe   

China has snapped up high-value projects in Zimbabwe, including work on fixing water infrastructure and rehabilitating sewerage systems for the Harare City Council, to the tune of US$144 million. The project was financed by China’s Exim Bank.

Another project was the completion of the US$ 98 million Zimbabwe National Defence College, constructed by Anhui Foreign and Economic Construction Company, again through an interest-heavy loan from China’s Exim Bank. This was celebrated at a time when Zimbabwe’s credit rating had been downgraded to “junk” status by multilateral lending institutions. Other projects include the Matabeleland Zambezi Water Pipeline – first mooted by colonial settlers in 1912 and finally taking shape – as well as development of the Kunzvi Dam. Chinese firms are also engaged in massive power and energy projects in Zimbabwe.

It's not just large, national-scale projects that draw Chinese investors and companies. They are working across all spheres of Zimbabwe’s economy. This means Chinese companies are major employers – and with that comes the risk of potential labour rights violations and issues.

Labour rights dilemmas

There have been several instances of Chinese companies running foul of labour laws. For instance, in 2011 employees took a Chinese-run construction company, Sogecoa Zimbabwe (Pvt) Company to court amid allegations of exploitation and rights violations. Sogecoa is a sister to the diamond company, Anjin, which was among those awarded licences to mine Marange diamonds. The workers said they were being paid a measly US$4 a day for working long hours. This was far below gazetted rates of between US$1, 06 and $1, 51 per hour with a 44-hour week.

But this is by no means a problem unique to Chinese companies in Zimbabwe. Many workers were left hamstrung by history:  the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions has accused government of pursuing an anti-labour stance by adopting bad economic policies which devalued the local currency; the fast tracked land reform exercise meant many workers in the agricultural sector had been rendered jobless; and, the manner in which white commercial farmers were forced out of the country meant they weren’t able to settle pension and salary obligations. Zimbabwe has a traceable history of disregarding labour rights long before Chinese companies came on board.

Labour institutions like unions and National Employment Councils, mandated to legally enforce labour rights, were already weak at the turn of the millennium as the government pursued a policy to salvage the economy at the expense of workers’ rights.

Still, complaints against Chinese employers and companies continue to dominate the headlines.

The National Union of Quarry Workers of Zimbabwe  has accused Chinese employers at Ngezi Mine in Zvishavane of ill-treating and underpaying their workers. Union leader Onias Munenga was quoted in the press as saying the Chinese miners were not abiding by the country’s labour laws. There have also been complaints from the construction sector.

In a recent and terrible example of this issue, in 2020 a Chinese national named Zhang Xuelin, who doubled as proprietor and General Manager of Reeden Mine near the city of Gweru, allegedly shot and injured workers Wendy Chikwaira and Kennedy Tachiona, according to the New Zimbabwe news website. The two had reportedly approached their boss to demand their unpaid wages. A brawl followed and the pair were shot – Tachiona apparently three times in both legs. In response, the Chinese Embassy in Harare issued a statement, expressing hope that the incident would not damage their country's relations with Zimbabwe. Others in the Chinese community denounced the shooting – a reminder that it’s important to distinguish between individual criminal acts and Chinese abuses.

Meanwhile, the shooter fled the country and was exonerated by President Emmerson Mnangagwa. This is evidence, surely, of internal weaknesses rather than widespread Chinese misconduct.

Another example of the blurred lines between Chinese behaviour and Zimbabwe’s own responsibilities can be found in the diamond mining sector. In Chiadzwa, Manicaland, thousands of villagers were displaced from their villages and relocated  to Arda Transau , a state-owned farm in Odzi, to make way for a diamond mine. The villagers were promised better lives by both the government and several Chinese mining companies. Yet, much of the blame is heaped solely on the Chinese companies while, as Newsday noted in a report on 21 March 2021, Zimbabwe’s government failed to enforce the expected basic standards.

The Zimbabwe Environmental Association (ZELA) makes an interesting observation: “As the Chinese footprint is surging especially in Zimbabwe’s extractive sector, there has been an increase in alleged cases of unfair labor practices, human rights abuse and disregard of environmental regulations by the Chinese.” 

The environmental lobby group then traces the real problem to its roots. China needs the strategic mineral resources available in Zimbabwe, while the latter needs the income from these resources, especially after its show of defiance against the West. Zimbabwean elites have found a commercial partner in China with capital to finance mining and provide a market. It is therefore the desperation of Zimbabwe’s government to generate income that underpins inherent weaknesses in the institutions that ought to project workers. Chinese companies alone cannot be blamed.

Instead, Zimbabwe must look to its own culture of disrespecting workers’ rights.

A bad track record

Zimbabwe’s record of ill- treating workers predates the arrival of Chinese capital in the country. Records of the International Labour Organisation indicate that as early as 2004 and several years thereafter, labour abuses were rife. In some instances, the government would not accept the ILO’s commissions of enquiry into its activities.

The courts do not always protect workers, either. On 17 July 2015 Zimbabwe’s Supreme Court ruled that workers could be dismissed with only two weeks’ notice. This further weakened employees’ already precarious position in the labour market.

Another internationally respected lobby group, the International Trade Union Confederation, has consistently rated Zimbabwe as one of the world’s worst countries for the working class due to rampant abuse of workers rights through government institutions and weak legislation.

A study by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has shown that Zimbabwe has the second largest informal sector in the world. Only Bolivia, in South America, has a larger informal sector. Yet to date, the National Social Security Authority, which is mandated to trace, detect and address workplace deficits does not deal with the informal sector. This means it effectively ignores the widespread labour rights abuses in the sector

It appears that Chinese companies become more visible because they are the dominant or large-scale employers in a highly informalised economy where millions of abuses go unnoticed due to the haphazard nature of organised labour.

Conclusion

While Chinese companies are found wanting on the issue of abusing labour rights in Zimbabwe, the country’s record of workers rights abuses predates the arrival of the Asian nation’s companies into the Southern Africa nation. For decades, Zimbabwe has been listed by globally acclaimed labour institutions for flouting labour regulations – yet very few of these lists mention Chinese companies as the main offender.

Labour rights abuses by local employers largely go unnoticed because there’s little tracking of workers’ experiences in the informal sector.

It is also important to note that Zimbabwe’s labour legal framework does not adequately protect workers’ rights; this leaves them prone to abuse by any employer, regardless of nationality.

Chinese companies in Zimbabwe operate investments concentrated in agriculture, mining, construction, trade and tourism which coincidentally happen to employ the majority of the populace. This makes any allegation against the companies automatically big news, but it is not representative of the actual state of affairs around workers’ rights in Zimbabwe.

About the author

Alois Vinga is Zimbabwean journalist who holds a Diploma in Communication & Journalism, Bachelor of Arts Degree in Media Studies, post-graduate diploma In Education and is currently reading for a Masters in Development Practice with the Midlands State University. He holds three media reporting awards in Labour and Gender and Disability Reporting.

Keep Palestinian struggle out of Putin’s war in Ukraine
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Keep Palestinian struggle out of Putin’s war in Ukraine

With the focus on Ukraine, it is easy to forget that Russian President Vladimir Putin supports his Syrian counterpart Bashar Al-Assad's continuing destruction of his country, and the maiming of women and children, including thousands of Palestinian refugees in Syria. Since March 2011, pro-government forces have killed 3,196 Palestinian refugees, including 491 under torture, and 2,663 others are still missing since disappearing into intelligence prisons, according to the Syrian Network for Human Rights, a UK-based group of activists.

The latest pictures from Mariupol in Ukraine resemble another Syria in the making. Thousands of civilians, including women and children, have been killed in a war that only started on 24 February. Putin's culpability in Syria has created mayhem and worsened the plight of the people. Palestinian refugees in places such as Yarmouk refugee camp in Syria joined their neighbours in 2011 to demand political inclusion and the extension of human rights. Since then, Yarmouk has been bombed and the Palestinian refugees face a bleak future.

Whilst the world was witnessing the annihilation of political dissenters in Syria, Russia supplied weapons to pro-regime fighters and vetoed almost all UN resolutions intended to stop Assad in his tracks. In 2019, Russia was joined by China when it vetoed a UN Security Council resolution that called for a truce in the region of Idlib, the last rebel-held stronghold in north-west Syria. That was the thirteenth time that Russia had vetoed a resolution on the Syrian conflict, and the seventh that China had done so. Russian support for Syria increased dramatically when the Arab Spring uprisings in the Middle East began in 2011. Fearing a possible domino effect of events into Russia, Putin hastened to support Assad to thwart a national uprising in Syria.

Western sceptics have enough reasons to excuse Putin's invasion of Ukraine. In the middle of Russia's destruction of property and the killing and displacement of millions of people, they argue against Europe's double standards in its treatment of refugees. Such treatment has attracted widespread criticism, exposing disturbingly racist fault lines, particularly when compared with the way that refugees from the Middle East, Africa and Afghanistan have been treated. Poland's extraordinary mobilisation to help Ukrainian refugees raises some uncomfortable questions about the country's tough stance against asylum seekers and migrants from elsewhere.

Such blatant double standards have, unfortunately, driven many people to take strong positions on the Russian invasion. Many have used the Palestinian struggle for freedom as proof of the accusations of hypocrisy and double standards against European and Western nations. Israel has been killing Palestinians almost casually for decades — on average, one Palestinian child has been killed every three days by Israel for the past 20 years and more, for example — and destroying Palestinian homes in an ongoing act of ethnic cleansing. The result is that the occupation state has displaced millions and killed thousands of Palestinians since the creation of the state in 1948 in occupied Palestine.

The global — particularly Western — reaction in Ukraine could not have been more different from the inaction against Israel for its military occupation of Palestine. Having endured bombardment, death and destruction at the hands of an occupying power, Palestinians have expressed their sympathy with the people of Ukraine. If justice and international law had any real importance in global politics, then Israel would have faced the same condemnation and sanctions that have been imposed so rapidly on Russia and Russian individuals. Instead, despite the sanctions imposed upon them, Russian oligarchs are able to find refuge in Israel.

This disgraceful reality means that the plight of the Palestinians and their struggle is likely to be amplified by what is happening in Ukraine. As such, those involved in the struggle should remain focused on ending the Israeli occupation and developing international solidarity.

One anecdote serves to emphasise some of the points highlighted in this article. In 2011, when Bashar Al-Assad started to kill his people in Syria, Hamas was forced to take a principled position on the conflict. In 2012, therefore, senior members of Hamas and their families left their headquarters in Damascus in "quiet protest" because the movement could not support the regime. Hamas decided to do what it felt was best for the Palestinian struggle. We can only imagine what would have become of the movement and, indeed, the Palestinian struggle overall, if it had decided to remain in Syria and continued to get aid from Assad's regime and then Russia.

The invasion of Ukraine by Russia deserves a similar judgement, irrespective of the politics of the warring parties and notwithstanding the obvious double standards. Palestinians and those who support the struggle of Palestine must insist on a just and balanced outcome. The people of occupied Palestine should support the Ukrainians in their predicament, without taking a political position in the conflict.

About the author

Thembisa is a senior research fellow at Afrasid.  He holds a Masters degree in Politics, he is a columnist with the Middle East Monitor in London and a research fellow at Al Sharq Forum in Istanbul, Turkey. He also serves on the board of Common Action Forum in Madrid, Spain and on the board of Mail and Guardian publication in South Africa. He is the former Bureau Chief of Al Jazeera Media Network for Arabic and English Channels in Southern Africa.

Russian Invasion of Ukraine Will Embolden China’s Expansionist Ambitions.
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Russian Invasion Of Ukraine Will Embolden China’s Expansionist Ambitions.

A hunger for insatiable conquests, a ghost from the Second World War, has reawakened. That ghost is hounding Europe – but may soon reach Asia and, perhaps, the rest of the world.

The spectre may spread fast following the events of 24 February, when Russia launched a full-scale military attack on Ukraine, bombing major cities like Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odessa and Mariupol and moving in across its own borders as well as from Belarus, Crimea and the Black Sea.

The strikes followed months of troop build-ups, Russian demands to the United States and NATO, negotiations with the US and European leaders, and US warnings of Russia’s invasion plans. They were closely preceded by Moscow’s recognition of two separatist enclaves in eastern Ukraine as independent.

Some in Asia are predicting similar conflicts. They believe that, emboldened by Russian’s invasion of Ukraine, China is ready to move on Hong Kong, Taiwan and Tibet. China – as Russia has done with Luhansk and Donetsk – will claim that it owns these three territories.

Taiwan, a nation of 24 million people, is watching the events unfolding in Ukraine with keen interest. China declaring sovereignty over it cannot be far-fetched: recently, China has tried to manage the Taiwan Strait in the South China Sea through invasive military activities which cannot just be described as intimidating but rather as signals to nudge Taiwan into rejoining mainland China. The presence of the People’s Liberation Army, with its bombers, fighter jets and surveillance aircraft as well as warships and aircraft, in the Taiwan Strait and around Taiwan’s mainland are viewed as a strong campaign that will culminate in an armed invasion.

Taiwan’s democracy is relatively young. It held its first free legislative elections in 1992, followed by its first presidential elections in 1996. Before that the Kuomintang governed under martial law from 1949 to 1987; political dissent was harshly repressed and Taiwanese who had inhabited the island long before 1945 faced discrimination. But, since the early 90s, it has peacefully transferred power between parties several times. However, since Taiwan elected Tsai Ing-wen as its president in 2016, it has reported thousands of cyberattacks from China, targeting its government agencies. In 2020, Taipei accused four Chinese groups of hacking into at least ten Taiwanese government agencies and 6000 official email accounts since 2018 in a bid to access government data and personal information.

In the first few days of Joe Biden's presidency in the US, Taiwan reported a "large incursion" by Chinese warplanes over the space of two days. This was followed by China flying a huge number of military jets into Taiwan’s air defence zone throughout 2021.

This prompted United States Admiral John Aquilino, head of the Pentagon's Indo-Pacific command, to warn that a Chinese invasion of Taiwan "is much closer to us than most think”.

China has also engaged in disinformation and has increased its control over Taiwan’s media.

Elsewhere in the region, Beijing has been alarmed by the Dalai Lama’s calls for independence in Tibet and Hong Kong’s demand for autonomy for its population of 7.5 million. The west has openly backed these calls.

Tiny Tibet’s desire for independence has especially irked China, which already occupies half the country after defeating the small Tibetan army. Tibet’s political figures are gagged and activists in exile are criticised by China. The far-larger Hong Kong, a former British colony, is culturally and economically very different from mainland China. This has led to a great deal of tension, which peaked in 2020 as a controversial “national security law” gave the Chinese Communist Party the power to arrest activists, seize assets, fire government workers, detain newspaper editors and rewrite school curriculums. This sullied relations even further.

It remains to be seen whether China’s powerful military, which includes the world’s largest navy by number of ships, will take a leaf out of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s book and invade its troublesome territories.

Stephen Tsoroti

Stephen Tsoroti is a Research Fellow at Afrasid based in Zimbabwe. He is a multi-award winning journalist and has written extensively on gender, labour and climate issues amongst others. Stephen was named journalist of the year by Zimbabwe Biodiversity Award 2000.