Asia in 3 minutes: naughty Chinese tourists in Vietnam; naughty monkeys in Thailand
A ‘secret’ shot at Starbucks in South Korea and a long shot for Japanese nationalists wanting the US to acknowledge nuclear ‘war crimes’
Chinese tourists make a splash in Vietnam with South China Sea T-shirts
A photo of Chinese tourists wearing T-shirts depicting Beijing’s claims to the disputed South China Sea has sparked online anger in Vietnam, prompting calls for the visitors to be deported. The shirts featured a map of China and its nine-dash line – the sea boundary found on some 1940s-era maps which Beijing says proves its claim to most of the waterway, despite partial claims from Vietnam and other nations. The territorial dispute is a hot-button issue in Vietnam, which has a turbulent history of conflict with its powerhouse neighbour. The visitors arrived in southern Cam Ranh airport on Sunday night and were stopped by security at the immigration desk, an airport police officer confirmed. “We asked them to take the T-shirts off before allowing them to leave the airport,” said the officer.
What next? Photos of the tourists in their nationalist attire made the rounds on social media – with the nine-dash line crossed out with an “X”. Some netizens said the tourists were not welcome in Vietnam. “Immediately deport them and ban them permanently from coming to Vietnam,” Facebook user Nguyen Ngoc Hieu posted.
Japanese demand displays acknowledge America’s nuclear ‘war crimes’
Japanese nationalists are demanding that displays at national parks in the United States commemorating the development of the first atomic weapons state that the subsequent attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were war crimes. A number of facilities that make up the Manhattan Project National Historical Park are already open to the public, including museums and tours of locations in the Tennessee town of Oak Ridge, Los Alamos in New Mexico and Hanford in Washington state. The facilities are being expanded and “interpretative themes” are being developed, said Kris Kirby, superintendent of the park.
What next? The Allies’ position was that the bombs were necessary to hasten the Japanese surrender and to avoid an invasion of the home islands, a scenario that military planners believed would cost hundreds of thousands of lives among the invasion force.
Sacked Bangkok Post editor refused to tone down criticism of military
The editor of the Bangkok Post newspaper said he had been forced to step down after refusing to curtail critical coverage of the ruling military government. Umesh Pandey, who has held the position since July 2016, said the board of directors asked him to “tone down” reporting and editorials on the actions of the military government, particularly over its suppression of freedom of speech and the delays over long-promised elections. “When asked to tone down I did not budge and was blunt in letting those who make decisions know that I would rather lose my position than bow my head,” said Pandey in a written statement on Monday night. “The axe finally came down on me just 60 days before my two-year contract ended.” The Bangkok Post board is made up of some of the most powerful figures in Thai business and education, many with close ties to the government.
