HK activist deported from Thailand at China’s behest

HONG KONG — A prominent leader of the 2014 pro-democracy rallies in Hong Kong, Mr Joshua Wong, was deported from Bangkok’s international airport early yesterday, in what could be the second time in over a year that he has been denied entry into a South-east Asian country at China’s request.

According to immigration authorities, Thailand’s military government was acting under pressure from Beijing, adding to questions about the extent of Chinese assertiveness in the region.

In a brief news conference after arriving at Hong Kong International Airport, Mr Wong, 19, said that he was “disappointed in the Thai government”.

News of Mr Wong’s detention in Thailand was reported yesterday morning by a political party he recently helped establish, Demosisto. The party said he had arrived in Thailand at 11.45pm on Tuesday and was unable to get any word about his whereabouts until several hours later, when a Thai student who was expecting to meet him said that Mr Wong had been detained at the airport.

The student, Netiwit Chotiphatphaisal, said that the Thai authorities told him that they had received a letter from the Chinese government asking that Mr Wong not be allowed into the country.

Thailand’s Nation newspaper quoted a deputy commander of airport immigration police, Colonel Pruthipong Prayoonsiri, as saying China had sent a request “to seek cooperation to deny” Mr Wong entry.

“As a result, the Immigration Bureau blacklisted him and held him for deportation,” Col Pruthipong was quoted as saying.

The Thai Foreign Ministry said in a statement that permission for Mr Wong to enter Thailand “involves various factors”.

China’s Foreign Ministry, when asked about Mr Wong’s detention, said it had “noticed the relevant reports”.

“China respects Thailand’s exercise of immigration control according to the law,” it added.

But junta spokesman LieutenantGeneral Sansern Kaewkamnerd said that “there had been no instruction or order given, pertaining to Mr Wong.”

“Mr Wong had been active in resistance movements against other foreign governments, and that if such actions were taken within Thailand, they could eventually affect Thailand’s relations with other nations,” added the spokesman.

“He already went back to China,” Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha told reporters yesterday. “Officials there have requested to take him back. It’s Chinese officials’ business. Don’t get involved too much. They are all Chinese people, no matter Hong Kong or mainland China.”

Mr Wong drew international attention as one of the leaders of the Umbrella Revolution protests in 2014, which called for more democratic elections in Hong Kong. During the protests, thousands of students and other demonstrators blocked major thoroughfares in Hong Kong for months.

Mr Wong had been invited to speak today to mark the 40th anniversary of a bloody crackdown on student demonstrators in Bangkok.

Mr Paul Quaglia, a Bangkok-based security expert for PQA Associates, told TIME that the junta would have its own reasons to hold the young activist. The military regime, he said: “Has no interest in a foreign student democracy leader coming here to speak to Thai students on the anniversary of the 1976 student massacre (and to) stir up talk about democracy among Thai students.”

Thailand’s military government has a record of complying with security requests from China, a key ally who has lavished investment and diplomatic support on a junta lacking international friends following its 2014 coup.

It has deported scores of Uighur refugees back to China in response to demands by the Chinese authorities, and it allowed men representing Beijing’s interests to track down a Hong Kong bookseller, one of those who later emerged in Chinese custody, at a Thai resort.

“The Thai military government has kowtowed to China in the past, to Thailand’s own detriment,” said Associate Professor Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a politics expert at Chulalongkorn University.

He cited Bangkok’s deportation of the Uighurs as a move that drew widespread condemnation from rights groups, who say the Muslim minority are heavily repressed by Beijing. Deporting Mr Wong will “be counterproductive because it will attract global attention,” said Assoc Prof Thitinan, adding it will “send a signal that Thailand’s space is not open”.

Dr Termsak Chalermpalanupap, a research fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, said that a case of Thailand acting at China's behest would only confirm the emerging trend in mainland Southeast Asia where governments would try to avoid upsetting Beijing for fear of political and economic retaliation by Beijing.   

"What is worse is that it becomes a positive reinforcement for Beijing to put pressure on these governments to deliver what Beijing wishes to see happen," he said. 

It was not the first time Mr Wong has been barred from a South-east Asian country where fellow student activists had invited him to speak. Malaysia denied him entry in May last year because the country did not want Mr Wong to “jeopardise our ties with China”, said the police chief at the time. Mr Wong had been invited to forums hosted by Malaysian youth activist groups.

In May, Malaysia also deported 32 Taiwanese criminal suspects in a telecoms fraud case to China, drawing a formal objection from Taipei.

Cambodia, one of China’s closest allies in the region, has deported more than 200 people suspected of involvement in the fraud cases to China since November.

Phnom Penh has received billions in civil and military aid from Beijing, seemingly in exchange for its efforts to tone down the Association of South-east Asian Nations’ criticism of China’s territorial ambitions in the disputed South China Sea.

Dr Termsak said that China's heavy-handed approach in wielding its clout in the region poses a threat to the centrality of Asean.  

"Beijing needs to realise that Asean and its members have many other supporting friends who want to see Asean succeed in building a constructive peace-loving Community.  It will be tragic should Beijing lose the friendship and trust of Asean and its members. Nobody wants to see a  return of a new Cold War in Southeast Asia." AGENCIES