Tag: Asia / Pacific

Taipei replica in remote Chinese province fans Taiwan invasion fears

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Satellite images verified by FRANCE 24 reveal that China has built a replica of Taipei’s presidential district in remote Inner Mongolia, fuelling speculation that Beijing intends to use the site as a training ground to prepare for a future invasion of Taiwan.

 

The satellite images show a detailed replica of the heart of Taipei – albeit surrounded by the arid landscape of Inner Mongolia instead of Taiwan’s lush vegetation.  

First posted on social media by a Taiwanese data analyst, on March 26, they were later picked up by the website Taiwan News, under the ominous headline: “China creates Taipei mockup to train for invasion”. 

FRANCE 24 was able to verify the existence of the mockup, located some 1,200 kilometres west of Beijing.

Sim Tack, an analyst at intelligence firm Force Analysis, which monitors conflict zones and has access to satellite imagery, said construction of the replica began in March 2021 and lasted approximately one year. 

He said the site features buildings and façades “that are inspired by what you can see in Taipei, without having exactly the same size or shape”.

An area of interest 

The satellite images reveal a layout of streets strongly resembling the Bo’ai Special Zone, a restricted area in Taipei’s Zhongzheng District that houses Taiwan’s most important state buildings, including the presidential palace, the supreme court, the ministry of justice and the central bank of Taiwan.  

The Bo’ai Special Zone is subject to specific regulations, including a strict ban on overflight. 

When quizzed about the images last week, Taiwan’s Defence Minister Chiu Juo-cheng appeared to play down their significance.  

“It is inevitable that the Chinese army produces this type of imitation,” he told reporters, adding that Taiwan was also capable of replicating foreign sites for military training purposes. 

The minister’s response was surprisingly measured, “considering that in recent months we have seen China multiply its hostile acts towards Taiwan”, noted Marc Lanteigne, a China expert at Norway’s Arctic University. 

Beijing considers Taiwan a part of its territory and has not ruled out the use of force to assert control over the island. Under President Xi Jinping, it has stepped up its pressure on the self-governing island, mounting a series of incursions by fighter jets into Taiwan’s airspace in autumn 2023. 


The existence of a training site to rehearse a potential attack on the presidential palace in Taipei is a stark reminder of the geopolitical tensions in the region, and of the threat weighing on Taiwan.  

Propaganda tool 

Experts note that Taiwan has faced this type of intimidation before, most notably in 2015, when the Chinese military produced an almost exact replica of the presidential palace in Taipei, at a separate site in Inner Mongolia. 

At the time, Beijing chose to showcase the mockup, said Lewis Eves, a Chinese security expert at the University of Sheffield. 

“We found this out because the video of a simulated assault on the building was broadcast on Chinese television and the army website published images of a training exercise in the grounds around the palace,” he explained.  

Eves said he was not suprised to see the Chinese army produce a similar replica almost a decade later, pointing to “similarities between the current geopolitical context in the region and the one that prevailed in 2015”.  

Back then, Taiwan was gearing up for a high-stakes presidential context in 2016, just like the recent vote that took place in January of this year. Tensions between China and regional rival Japan over disputed islands in the South China Sea were also at a high in 2015 – much as they are today.  

Now as then, “Beijing has deemed it necessary to stage a show of force aimed both at Taiwan and its own public opinion, in order to whip up nationalist sentiment”, said Eves.  

At a time of heightened international tensions, China is “seeking to rally public opinion behind the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] by playing the nationalist card”, said the security expert. And restating its claim over Taiwan in the interests of Chinese “national unity” is part of this effort, he added. 

‘Psychological warfare’ 

In addition to serving propaganda purposes, the construction of Taipei replicas allows Chinese authorities to wage a form of “psychological warfare”, said China expert Ho Ting (Bosco) Hung, a geopolitical analyst at The International Team for the Study of Security (ITSS) Verona.  

“It’s clearly a way of telling Taiwan that if the island’s authorities refuse to bend to China’s demands, Beijing is preparing military options,” he explained.  

Read more‘People don’t want to talk about war’: Taiwan civil defence battles invasion risk denial

Analysts say China is unlikely to go to such lengths merely to send a signal to Taiwan and its own population. Unlike in 2015, they note, the latest release of satellite images from Inner Mongolia is not Beijing’s own doing. In fact, the Chinese military has been considerably more discreet this time.  

Back in 2015, the replica presidential palace was nestled in the heart of the Zhurihe training compound, described by Chinese officials as the “largest in Asia”. Satellite images of the facility even show a building that bears a striking resemblance to the Eiffel Tower in Paris.  

The new constructions, on the other hand, are located several hundred kilometres away, in a region that is “probably less closely monitored by Western satellites than the Zhurihe base”, noted Lanteigne.  

It is possible that “the Chinese authorities were waiting for the right time to go public about the new site, but were beaten to it,” he added.  

And while the replica of the Bo’ai Special Zone “may indeed serve propaganda purposes”, Hung argued, the most likely explanation is that “its primary purpose is military”. 

Invasion scenarios 

The new Taipei mockup is far more detailed than the one produced in 2015, meaning it could be used for two distinct military scenarios, the first of which involves an aerial bombardment of the Bo’ai area – or what the Taiwan News website described as a “decapitation strike on Taipei”.  

Such an operation would be extremely complex to mount given “the high quality of Taiwan’s air defences”, Hung cautioned, though adding that “an aerial attack remains the most rapid option to invade the island”. 

The other scenario involves a land invasion of the island, located roughly 100 miles (160 kilometres) off the coast of southeastern China. 

“If it were only contemplating a bombardment of the area, China would probably not have gone through the trouble of replicating an entire neighbourhood of Taipei,” argued Lanteigne. “Urban warfare is the hardest of all, so it’s only natural that Beijing should try to get ready for it.”  

In this respect, Taiwan may not be the only target on Beijing’s mind.  

“Xi Jinping is pushing to reform and modernise his army, and knowing how to fight in an urban environment is an essential aspect of training,” Lanteigne added. “It is possible the army has chosen to recreate Taipei’s presidential district because that is one likely setting where it may have to intervene.”  

This article is a translation of the original in French.



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India punishes critics by revoking visas and residency permits

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Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi often draws crowds of supporters from the Indian diaspora on his foreign visits. But back home, his administration has been revoking visas and residency permits of foreign nationals of Indian origin as well as spouses of Indian citizens. For those denied access or kicked out of India, the experience can be traumatic.

 

Vanessa Dougnac was at home in her New Delhi apartment on January 18, when she received a hand-delivered envelope that raised her spirits.

The French journalist glanced at the letterhead bearing the insignia of the Indian interior ministry’s Foreigners Regional Registration Office (FRRO) and immediately thought this meant good news.

“Then I read the letter. It was totally the opposite. It was really, really bad news,” she recounted. 

Dougnac, 51, had lived in India for a quarter-century, or most of her adult life. For 23 years, she served as the India-based freelance correspondent for a number of French publications. Along the way, she covered stories across the country, married an Indian national, raised a son, and mastered the ropes in the place she came to call home.

But in India, things that were once fairly straightforward were now getting complicated – and stressful.

The official letter, delivered on January 18, informed the veteran French journalist that her Indian residency had been revoked. 

Dougnac had joined the growing list of overseas critics of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist policies being banned from India, according to the New York-based Human Rights Watch.

They are part of the Modi administration’s broader crackdown on Indian citizenship laws, which have snowballed in various forms. But the intent of the “ever-expanding arsenal of laws and policies” is singular: to “target and punish dissenting voices”, said Amnesty International in a statement noting the international human rights contraventions that have increased during Modi’s 10 years in power.

With the upcoming 2024 elections widely predicted to propel Modi into his next decade in power, experts warn that India’s secular democracy is being reshaped as a Hindu-first majoritarian nation intolerant to dissent and minority religious communities. 

Citizenship lies at the heart of the reshaping, with the government pushing through laws and regulations on myriad fronts, upending lives and plunging dissenters into an omnipresent state of dread.

Diaspora with dollars to invest home

Dougnac was one of nearly 4 million people holding an Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) card, which comes as a light blue, passport-lookalike and confers on the holder visa and residency rights.


The OCI is a form of permanent residency granted to people of Indian origin and their spouses. © Handout

Since India does not permit dual citizenship, OCI cards are provided for the equivalent of $275 to foreign nationals of Indian origin and the spouses of Indian nationals or OCI card-holders.

The residency status is the latest iteration of a decades-long bid by successive governments to tap into the economic potential of the Indian diaspora, the largest in the world, clocking nearly 18 million in 2020, according to UN figures. It’s also among the wealthiest, with strong ties to the motherland. In 2022, for instance, India’s inward remittances hit a record of almost $108 billion, around 3% of GDP, more than in any other country.

Attracting the diaspora’s dollars without offering citizenship rights historically entails acronyms in India. NRIs (Non-Resident Indians) before the 1990s gave way to PIOs (Person of Indian Origin) before the nomenclature settled on the current OCI. The latest overseas “citizen” of India is a misnomer since holders do not have voting rights or citizenship guarantees. But since the OCI privileges were an improvement on the earlier NRI and PIO categories, few made any fuss.  

That was until the government began tinkering with citizenship and visa regulations after Modi was re-elected in 2019 to a second term in office.

Many acronyms, few rights 

Just months after Modi’s May 2019 re-election, the Indian parliament, dominated by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), passed a controversial citizenship amendment law, which gained notoriety as the country erupted in what was commonly called “anti-CAA” (Citizenship Amendment Act) protests.

File photo of anti-CAA protests in Shaheen Bagh, New Delhi, taken January 18, 2020.
File photo of anti-CAA protests in Shaheen Bagh, New Delhi, taken January 18, 2020. © Altaf Qadri, AP

The new law, which offers citizenship to non-Muslim migrants and refugees from neighbouring countries, was widely criticised for discriminating against Muslims, an allegation the Modi government denies.

While the anti-CAA protests drew international press coverage, the insertion of a subclause covering OCI cancellations passed largely unnoticed.

As Modi nudged past the half-way mark of his second term, the regulations got tighter. By 2021, the government required its overseas “citizens” to apply for “special permission” to “undertake” research, journalistic, missionary or mountaineering “activities”.

So on January 18, when Dougnac received a letter from the Foreign Regional Registration Office (FRRO), she initially thought she had finally received her journalist permit, which was denied in September 2022, for no stated reason.

For the freelance journalist, the denial of a journalist permit meant a precarious dip in her income and she was eager to get back to work.

But that was not to be. The FRRO letter revoking Dougnac’s OCI instead accused her and her articles of being “malicious” and of harming “the interests of the sovereignty and integrity of India”. The notice put the onus on the freelance journalist, requiring her to respond to why her OCI should not be cancelled. 

Dougnac has launched a petition in the Delhi High Court, adding to the legal appeals and challenges launched by several others in a similar state. But nearly a month after she received her notification, Dougnac was forced to leave the country she had made her home for 25 years and return to France. 

In a statement released February 16, the French journalist noted that it had become “clear that I cannot keep living in India and earning my livelihood. I am fighting these accusations before the competent forums and I have full faith in the legal process. But I can’t afford to wait for its outcome. The proceedings with respect to my OCI status have shattered me,” she noted.

‘Showing animus’ to governments, not country

The list of shattered lives has been increasing over the past few months, perpetuating a climate of fear among overseas Indians. An investigative report published on February 12 by Indian news site Article 14 found that more than 102 OCIs were cancelled under section 7D between 2014 and 2023.

Many targeted OCI-holders prefer not to speak to the press out of fear of scuppering their appeals process and being permanently deprived of the ability to travel to a country where many have families, including aging parents and ailing loved ones.

Some high-profile cases do make the news, such as British-American writer and journalist Aatish Taseer, whose OCI was revoked in 2019, shortly after Time magazine published his excoriating cover story, “India’s Divider in Chief”, on Modi’s brand of Hindutva populism.

Indian authorities said Taseer’s OCI was revoked because he “attempted to conceal” the fact that his biological father was a Pakistani national. The journalist, who was brought up in India by his single mother and wrote a critically acclaimed book in 2009 on his journey to meet his father, Pakistan’s former Punjab governor Salman Taseer – who was assassinated two years after his son’s book was published – dismissed the claim.

The official cancellation explanations for the recent spate of OCI scraps include ill-defined allegations of “showing animus” towards India, or “attempting to destabilise the social fabric” of the country. 

“In some cases, the authorities have openly cited criticism of BJP government policies as evidence to revoke the visa status,” noted Human Rights Watch, citing the case of octogenarian British activist Amrit Wilson, whose OCI was cancelled due to her social media posts on the Kashmir crisis and a 2020-2021 farmers protest movement.

Indian authorities note that governments across the world have the discretion to grant or refuse visas to their countries. It’s a point that Meenakshi Ganguly, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch, acknowledges. “Of course, every government has the right to determine who gets visas or not. But those rights cannot be based on discriminatory ideas,” she noted. “Any democracy relies on a foundational principle of permitting dissent. That is what distinguishes it from authoritarianism. Now all dissent and all ideas may not be accepted by the state. But the fact that those opinions are put forward should not be seen immediately as something that is against the country, it is against government policies, and governments change.”

‘I miss India’

In its attempts to ensure the government does not change after the 2024 general election, the Modi administration has been pushing through key campaign promises that are popular with the BJP’s Hindu nationalist base.

On March 11, just weeks ahead of the elections, the Indian government announced the implementation of the new citizenship law. While parliament approved the CAA in 2019, the Modi government held off on the implementation following deadly protests against a law that was widely viewed as discriminatory against Muslims.

Responding to the move, the US expressed “concern” with a State Department spokesperson noting that Washington is “closely monitoring how this act will be implemented”.

The concern was echoed by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. “As we said in 2019, we are concerned that India’s Citizenship (Amendment) Act 2019 (CAA) is fundamentally discriminatory in nature and in breach of India’s international human rights obligations,” said a spokesperson.

The Modi administration’s response to the expressions of concern was forthright. The citizenship law was an “internal matter”, an Indian foreign ministry spokesperson told reporters in New Delhi, noting that the US State Department’s statement was “misplaced, misinformed and unwarranted”. 

But Ganguly believes the changes in citizenship and residency laws warrant the attention of India’s democratic allies, particularly those measures that affect their own nationals of Indian origins. “It needs attention from foreign governments, because there is a lot of interest in the Indian market and in strategic partnerships. Those are legitimate interests. But when they want to do business with India, foreign governments need to be aware that any claims of partnerships between democracies is seriously undermined if the government is going to be so repressive on freedom of speech and in cracking down on its critics,” she noted.

As India heads for critical elections, Dougnac is in France, watching the coverage from thousands of miles away. “I covered elections in India for 20 years. Now for the first time, I will not be there to cover it. I miss India,” she said. 

While her appeal works its way through the Indian courts, the French journalist confesses she’s still in a state of shock. “Really, it’s too emotional for me,” she confessed. “I led a life filled with adventures and interactions across the subcontinent, and had the opportunity to witness over two decades of India’s history. Now I’m in France, I feel like I’m in exile in my own country.”

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‘Two Sessions’ congress: The economic goals in Chinese leaders’ coded language

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China’s “Two Sessions” congress that began this week is the country’s most important political event of the year. To understand what’s at stake, it helps to have some fluency in Chinese Communist Party (CCP) parlance. Terms such as “new productive forces” and “new three” appear vague, but they speak volumes about the party’s agenda during the 10-day congress.

China’s annual political extravaganza has attained cruising speed. The “Two Sessions” congress of two of the country’s most important political bodies has already touched on economic recovery, the modernisation of the army, foreign relations and the question of Taiwan.

During the event, nearly 3,000 members of the National People’s Congress (NPC) – China’s parliament – meet to set the legislative agenda for the coming year. The 2023 session set the roadmap for more than 2,000 measures that were adopted, according to the official Xinhua news agency.

Alongside the NPC meeting, the congress also hosts the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, a body meant to give its opinion on the political priorities for the year. Some 2,000 members of the CCP and civil society debate under the watchful eye of Beijing.

The Two Sessions are framed by Chinese media as the best way for a foreign observer to understand how “Chinese democracy” works. They can thus offer a good reading of the political climate in China – provided one understands the CCP parlance in use. One of the best ways to build literacy is to spot the buzzwords that pop up again and again, as reported by Bloomberg News.

Most of them may seem obscure at first glance. What does Chinese President Xi Jinping mean by the “new productive forces”? What are the “new three” developments that participants in the Two Sessions often refer to? Knowing how to interpret these terms “enables us to understand the main developments in the economic and social policy of Xi Jinping and the government, beyond the official announcements”, says Marc Lanteigne, a Sinologist at the Arctic University of Norway.

These buzzwords are also a way to implicitly acknowledge mistakes. Chinese leaders “are never going to clearly say ‘no way’, but the coded language often heralds changes in direction, and thus a tacit acknowledgment that something wasn’t working anymore”, says Lanteigne.

To help make sense of it all, FRANCE 24 has examined three terms in use during these Two Sessions that can help clarify the CCP’s true perspective on China’s economic and social situation, a viewpoint that is not necessarily obvious in official media and public statements.

The ‘new productive forces’

Xi has been using this expression since at least September, but China’s president never specifies which forces he is invoking to rescue the country’s economy.

He referred to them again during the Two Sessions to affirm that they would enable China to reach a 5 percent growth target without any problems.

The “new productive forces” are “a modern version of expressions used by all Chinese leaders since Mao Zedong to designate the economic sectors that are going to be favoured”, explains Lanteigne.

The Sinologist is betting that Xi is referring to services – especially financial – and information technologies with the 2024 version of “productive forces”.

By invoking “new” forces, Xi also aims to sideline the “old” engines of Chinese growth. In other words, the president is indicating that it is time to stop “betting everything on investment in infrastructure and real estate”, says Lanteigne, who expects to see less construction of highways and railroads. Real estate developers, shaken by the fall of debt-laden Evergrande, have received confirmation that saving them is no longer a government priority, he adds.

‘AI plus’ 

Chinese Premier Li Qiang put the country’s “AI plus” initiative on the map. He made it the cornerstone of the “work report” published by the NPC on Tuesday.

Here again, “the contours of this concept are very vague”, says Lanteigne. The main idea is to support artificial intelligence in all sectors of the economy. But how, when, and where to begin? “We’ll have to wait for the details, but the ambition is clear: to make AI a driving force in the economy and boost artificial intelligence research”, he says.

China is far from the only country betting on AI: since the advent of ChatGPT, artificial intelligence has become the hot topic for everyone. But it’s the “plus” that is meant to distinguish China’s engagement.

“By adding a ‘plus’, the authorities want to give the impression that China is already at the next stage,” says Lanteigne.

The term suggests that Beijing has already mastered AI and is now looking for the best ways to use it. It also aims to counter the image of a country that is falling behind. Blame it on ChatGPT and its clones: all these tools come from the West, and a narrative has started to develop suggesting China is having trouble catching up.

Read moreChina, AI and a say on world order: Why the US rejoined UNESCO

The ‘new three’ 

The expression has gained popularity in the media and economic circles for over a year, as noted in a Citigroup bank report published in January 2024. During the recent debates in the NPC, Li expressed delight that “the new three have grown by 30 percent in one year”.

The term refers to solar panels, electric cars and batteries. “It’s not surprising that this term is being put forward at a time when China’s champion electric car maker – BYD – is displaying increasingly global ambitions,” says Lanteigne.

By using the term, the government is showing its support for a manufacturer whose commercial appetite is beginning to concern Western countries. In late February, US President Joe Biden described Chinese electric cars as a risk to American “national security”.

“It’s also a concept that complements the idea of ‘new productive forces’,” says Lanteigne. Once again, it’s a question of turning over a new leaf: these “new three” are opposed to the “old” sectors – textiles and cheap electronics – that were China’s international glory.

China aims to show countries that it intends to remain the “world’s factory”, but now for technological products with high added value.

These “new three” pillars have something in common: “They are meant to illustrate China’s ambition to move towards an eco-responsible economy,” says Lanteigne.

Solar panels represent renewable energy, while electric cars and the batteries that power them symbolise the decarbonisation of road traffic. The “new three” thus also serves as a new slogan for “green” China.

This article is a translation of the original in French.

Read moreAsia-Pacific region: A new cold war brewing

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How a wave of disinformation is endangering Rohingya refugees in Indonesia

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Dozens of photos and videos that have been either “doctored” or taken out of context so as to negatively portray Rohingya refugees have been circulating on Indonesian social media. This wave of disinformation has become so intense that the United Nations is worried about the refugees’ safety – even in Aceh province, which has, historically, been considered very welcoming. Our Observer, an Indonesian journalist who specialises in fact-checking for a publication called Mafindo, has been looking at the rise in online hate speech and fake news targeting the Rohingya.

Hundreds of protesters forced a group of Rohingya refugees to leave their temporary shelter in a parking lot in Banda Aceh, the capital of the Indonesian province of Aceh, on December 27, 2023. Videos show the protesters chanting slogans like “get them out” and threatening the frightened refugees, among them women and children. 

This footage, which was widely circulated both on social media and by media outlets, has shocked the Rohingya community and its advocates. Each year, many Rohingya arrive in makeshift boats on the beaches of this province in the far northern part of Indonesia. Up until now, they were welcomed by locals. 

The Rohingya, a Muslim minority from Myanmar, have long faced persecution in their country, but more than 700,000 of them fled when the Myanmar military began a violent campaign of repression in August 2017. Many of them now live as refugees in Bangladesh, often in dire circumstances. Many Rohingya have been attempting to flee the terrible situations in both Myanmar and Bangladesh by boat. 

Many of these boats are bound for Malaysia. However, few reach their target destination, whether due to poor weather conditions, overcrowding or badly equipped boats.  

Many of the boats end up coming ashore in the Indonesian region of Aceh. More than 1,600 landed there in 2023, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

However, in recent months, it seems like the Rohingyas are no longer welcome in Aceh. A group of locals rejected a boat filled with more than 250 refugees back in November 2023, forcing them back to sea and, since then, there have been other cases of the same kind of response. There have also been other reports of locals physically and verbally threatening refugees. Locals have also accused workers with the UNHCR and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) of being part of a human trafficking network. 

The spike in anti-Rohinyga actions is occurring alongside a rise in online hate speech and disinformation about Rohingya on social media in Indonesia. 

The number of photos and videos taken out of context to feed into a negative narrative about Rohingya refugees has exploded on Instagram and TikTok in recent months.

For example, a video that claims to show Rohingya refugees burning down a warehouse has gone viral on TikTok. We did a reverse image search on the footage (click here to find out how) to figure out when this footage first appeared online. Turns out, it actually shows a fire that took place back in 2020 in Cimahi, a town in the Indonesian province of West Java.


This is a screengrab of a video posted on TikTok. The caption, in Indonesian, says, “Rohingyas burned down this warehouse in Aceh because they weren’t given food.” © FRANCE 24 Observers

Another video, which has garnered more than 11 million views on TikTok since December, shows an enormous boat filled with passengers. The caption on the video reads: “Rohingyas are once again being transported from Bangladesh to Indonesia.” In reality, the footage shows a boat that carries out internal voyages within Bangladesh. You can see the name of the boat in the footage and, from there, we were able to find out its itinerary. It turns out that some of the footage of this boat was taken from a Bangladeshi YouTube channel.

This is a screengrab of a video published on TikTok that claims to show a boat filled with Rohingya refugees who have left Bangladesh bound for Indonesia.
This is a screengrab of a video published on TikTok that claims to show a boat filled with Rohingya refugees who have left Bangladesh bound for Indonesia. © FRANCE 24 Observers

‘Fake information linked to hate speech targets people’s emotions’ 

The Indonesian platform Mafindo investigated these two videos and uncovered their origins. Aribowo Sasmito, a journalist with Mafindo, says that there has been a sharp rise in fake information about the Rohingyas online in recent months :

Everything began with a series of TikTok videos that were made to look like they were from the UNHCR. It became so intense that the UNHCR had to speak out to say that these weren’t their videos.


In this thread posted on X, the United Nations in Indonesia warned social media users about fake information about the Rohingya published by accounts pretending to be the UNHCR. These fake accounts claimed, for example, that the UNHCR in Bangladesh gave special passes to Rohingya.

 

There are also more and more videos on Instagram and TikTok that paint the Rohingyas as ungrateful. 

The problem with these videos is that people allow themselves to be influenced without verifying them, especially anything that reaffirms the narrative that the Rohingya are bad.

 

There are common themes that emerge in these fake news items. One portrays Rohingyas as ungrateful for the help offered by Indonesians. Another common narrative is that they are all part of a human trafficking network. Another is that they are “fake” Muslims.

 

Because most Indonesians are very religious, faith is one of the main themes exploited by disinformation and hate speech. 

It is very difficult to dismantle fake information based on hate speech, because it targets people’s emotions. The easiest way to spread disinformation in a religious and family-orientated society like Indonesia is to integrate religion and racism into it.

 

Some posts compare the Rohingya refugees arriving in Indonesia with the situation in Israel and Gaza – but, in these posts, the Rohingya are portrayed as spoiling the land belonging to Indonesians. 

A fake UNHCR account, for example, seemed to claim that it was going to give the Rohingya an “empty island”. Another fake news item that is supposed to show boats filled with Rohingya refugees is captioned: “The situation in Israel is happening again here.” In actuality, however, the boats shown are Chinese fishing boats.

This is a screengrab of a video posted on TikTok that claims to show boats filled with Rohingya heading towards Indonesia. “Protect our seas from illegal Rohingya refugees,” reads the text.
This is a screengrab of a video posted on TikTok that claims to show boats filled with Rohingya heading towards Indonesia. “Protect our seas from illegal Rohingya refugees,” reads the text. © FRANCE 24 Observers

Some local NGOs are actually starting to believe this negative discourse about the Rohingya. Some of their members believe the narrative that the refugees are ungrateful and badly behaved.  

One reason for the increasingly negative view of the Rohingya in Aceh is an incident that took place in 2021 – three fishermen were imprisoned after they helped 99 Rohingya refugees trapped on a sinking boat. They were sentenced to five years in prison on human trafficking charges. There remains a sense of in injustice in Aceh and sometimes the Rohingya are blamed for this. 

In this impoverished region, the image of the refugees being “ungrateful” has spread quickly, explains journalist Sasmito :

 

The few isolated cases where a Rohingya refugee has been badly behaved end up being applied to the whole population. When people already have an aversion to another group, then they can be easily incited to share false information that reaffirms their beliefs.

There are also external factions that feed into this narrative, like when Indonesian president Joko Widodo said [in December 2023] that the number of Rohingya in the country had increased because of human trafficking.

 

In early January, a video clip that was shared more than 200,000 times made it look like the Indonesian president wanted to deport the Rohingya. But in the full speech, which was obtained by fact-checking outlet AFP factuel, Widodo doesn’t talk about deportation. He says that he wants to end human trafficking and that he is committed to providing temporary aid to the Rohingya “while prioritizing the interests of the local community”. 

‘The Rohingya have become scapegoats’  

The anti-Rohingya sentiment is also growing amid a backdrop of heightened nationalism and patriotism, with elections having been held on February 14. Chris Lewa, the president of the Arakan Project, an association dedicated to Rohingya rights, has kept a close eye on the evolution of this anti-Rohingya discourse online: 

 

When the first boat was prevented from landing [in November], the spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs made a statement underscoring that Indonesia didn’t sign the 1951 Refugee Convention, which meant that they were under no international obligation to receive the Rohingya. His words have often been cited in anti-Rohingya discourse. 

However, the country does need to respect national laws [Editor’s note: which require the country to accept refugees, including a presidential decree from 2016].

Against the backdrop of presidential elections, the Rohingya have become scapegoats. 

[Faced with the rising tensions] the government said that they want to work with the UNHCR and the IOM but, in this climate, it hasn’t changed anything. Locals keep displacing the Rohingya and some of the Indonesian members of my association don’t want to go into the camps anymore. Some have even faced physical threat. It isn’t like that everywhere though, thankfully, and some villagers are still showing their support to the Rohingya refugees. 

 

Some journalists and analysts are speaking about what looks like a coordinated “campaign” of disinformation, but have, so far, been unable to determine who might be behind this. 



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The ‘generals’ elections’ that turned against Pakistan’s military

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Pakistan’s 2024 general elections were dubbed the “most rigged” in the country’s history, with the popular Imran Khan barred from running and the military seen as backing former prime minister Nawaz Sharif. That was before results showed Khan-backed independent candidates leading the race. The stage appears to be set for a turbulent period after an irate electorate reacted to the military’s perceived meddling in politics – again.

Voters in the 2024 Pakistani general elections manoeuvred sheaves of ballot papers offering a profusion of symbols including tables, chairs, apples, airplanes, calculators and kitchen appliances. But there was no cricket bat on the ballot. 

With former cricket star and prime minister Imran Khan behind bars, his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party was banned from using its signature icon in a country where symbols are important tools for the electorate because of high illiteracy rates. This forced PTI-backed candidates to run as independents, each using different symbols that stretched ballot papers and the national imagination.

The country’s real power-wielder, however, was not on the ballot paper, and Pakistanis were never given a symbol or say on the issue.

The 2024 general election was dubbed the most rigged in Pakistan’s history, with wags on social media calling it the “generals’ election”, referring to the all-powerful military in the nuclear-armed South Asian nation.

The consensus ahead of the vote was that regardless of who forms a government, the army would continue to rule the roost. The newly elected civilian administration would simply have to follow the rules of the Pakistani power game to survive.

In the course of its 76-year history, Pakistan has developed a system that some scholars call a “hybrid regime” featuring a mix of civilian politics and military interference in electoral democracy. The tacit agreement sees the generals controlling defence and foreign policies, leaving domestic socioeconomic issues to the politicians.

But the hybrid model has been changing in recent years, putting Pakistan in dangerous terrain. And the man widely believed to be calling the shots in the military has done little to inspire national confidence.

Prospect of a ‘chatterbox’ parliament

With Khan losing military support, and his party stymied at the poll, the military’s chosen candidate, veteran politician Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) party was expected to snag an outright win.

An outright Sharif win would see the dynastic Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) – led by Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, son of assassinated premier Benazir Bhutto – going into opposition. It would see the two establishment parties once again dominating Pakistani politics.

But after a surprisingly strong showing by PTI-backed independent candidates, who led the national election results, Sharif changed tack on Friday, declaring he would form a coalition government.

“We don’t have enough of a majority to form a government without the support of others and we invite allies to join the coalition so we can make joint efforts to pull Pakistan out of its problems,” he said.

Nawaz Sharif, center, addresses supporters in Lahore, Pakistan, February 9, 2024. © K.M. Chaudary, AP

Under Pakistan’s electoral rules, victorious independent candidates can join any party in the 336-seat National Assembly. With the imprisoned Khan facing nearly 200 legal charges ranging from corruption to leaking state secrets, experts predict the popular former cricketer-politician is likely to remain behind bars for several years.

The results of Thursday’s vote point to fractious political period ahead, warns Ayesha Siddiqa, senior fellow at King’s College, London, and author of “Military Inc.: Inside Pakistan’s Military Economy”. “If there are many independents in parliament, it will make the house a chatterbox,” she noted. “It will be an unruly, funny kind of parliament with everyone going for each other’s jugulars.”

Khan’s fall from military grace

Overseeing the political turbulence is the man at the helm of the military, Pakistani army chief General Asim Munir. This comes as the country faces major economic and security crises.

Khan may be behind bars, but he remains a political force. The former cricketer-politician maintains that the myriad legal charges against him are politically motivated. Most Pakistanis, including Khan’s opponents, do not disagree. A weak judiciary means Pakistan is ranked 130th out of 142 countries on the World Justice Project’s Rule of Law index.

A poster of Imran Khan on display at his party office in Islamabad, February 9, 2024.
A poster of Imran Khan on display at his party office in Islamabad, February 9, 2024. © Anjum Naveed, AP

Since General Munir was appointed army chief in November 2022, Khan’s legal woes have multiplied. At times, they have taken an absurdly personal turn.

Relations between the two men have been acrimonious since Khan was elected prime minister in 2018 and replaced Munir as chief of Pakistan’s Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) spy agency with a loyalist, according to Pakistani media reports.

Read morePakistan army chief’s deepening rift with Imran Khan

On February 3, just days before the election, a Pakistani court sentenced Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi to seven years in jail in a case related to their marriage, which it declared “un-Islamic”.

The verdict was widely criticised by legal experts as a “disgrace” and a “damning blot” on Pakistan’s judiciary.

Sharif rises again

When he stood for elections in 2018, Khan was widely seen as the military’s candidate, “handpicked, groomed and installed” by the generals. But that was until Khan fell out with the army in a fate shared by Sharif, the politician widely tipped to be Pakistan’s new prime minister.

Khan and Sharif’s reversal of fortunes reflects the dramatic shift in Pakistani politics, which has been likened to a “Game of Thrones”. In 2017, Sharif was ousted as prime minister when he attempted to institute civilian oversight of the military. After he was hit with a slew of corruption charges, Sharif went into self-imposed exile abroad to avoid serving sentences. Khan at that time was viewed as the army’s favourite son.

But as the country spiralled into political turmoil last year, with Khan’s supporters storming army residences and bases in unprecedented displays of disaffection with the military, Sharif was back in the generals’ favour.

After four years of exile, Sharif returned to Pakistan last October.  Within weeks of his return, his convictions were overturned, leaving him free to seek a fourth term in office.

A businessman and former chief minister of Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous and prosperous province, Sharif has a record of pursuing economic growth and development. During his previous stints as prime minister, the billionaire politician sought closer trade ties with India, Pakistan’s giant neighbour and arch-foe.

Sharif’s return to Pakistan was widely viewed as a sign that the military was seeking a safe pair of hands to handle the country’s crippling economic crisis. But over the past few months, the military has been increasingly encroaching on the economic turf.

Army takes top seat on economic council

More than seven decades after independence, Pakistan is facing its worst economic crisis. Inflation has hovered around 30 percent, sending the currency, the rupee, into freefall. Last year, the impoverished South Asian nation narrowly escaped a sovereign debt default when the IMF approved a $3 billion bailout package.

While it was provided a band-aid from the brink, Pakistan still has to tackle major structural problems since it is seeking a new IMF bailout programme after the current arrangement expires in three weeks.

As the crisis deepened last year, Pakistan established an apex economic body, the Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC), to coordinate economic and fiscal policies. 

The formation of the SIFC was touted as a key move to raise international investor confidence and uphold democratic governance. But then the army secured a top seat at the economic policy table, raising eyebrows in fiscal circles with the announcement that the co-chair of the new SIFC was none other than army Chief General Munir.

When ‘dangerous duffers’ call the shots

The 2024 vote saw the army playing an exceptionally heavy card, even by Pakistani standards. The tactic appeared to have failed, with voters overcoming the odds to elect PTI-backed candidates. But this could spell a period of further turbulence, analysts warn.

“Assuming most of the independent candidates are PTI, if [Sharif’s] PML-N has to form a government, it will have to form a coalition,” said Siddiqa. “The weaker the coalition, the stronger [the] military.”

The military’s meddling in politics has long earned the wrath of Pakistani democratic rights defenders. Nearly 15 years ago, one of the country’s leading human rights lawyers, the late Asma Jehangir, created a stir when she called the country’s military leaders “duffers” on a live TV show.

Jehangir subsequently modified her monicker to “dangerous duffers”, noting that the term implied the military top brass was “not only incompetent, but incapable of learning”. 

The latest election has shown that Jehangir’s verdict still holds, according to Siddiqa.    

“They haven’t changed that much, they’re still dangerous duffers because they think they have a role in governance,” she said. “But the military is a strong pole, and so are the political parties. With this election, the political parties are back in play. It now depends on how they conduct themselves.”

In the past, Pakistan’s political parties have formed common cause with the army in a bid to unseat rivals. The lack of civilian unity to relegate the military to the barracks has enabled the generals to periodically meddle with the ballots. Following Thursday’s vote, social media sites were awash with messages by Pakistanis calling for dialogue and national unity. If their calls are ignored, it will not be for the first time in Pakistan’s troubled history.

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Polls close in Pakistan after millions vote in election marred by violence

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Millions of Pakistanis voted Thursday in an election marred by rigging allegations, with authorities suspending mobile phone services throughout the day and the country’s most popular politician in jail.

At least seven officers were killed in two separate attacks targeting election security details, and officials reported a string of minor blasts in southwestern Balochistan province that wounded two people.

Pollsters predicted a low turnout from the country’s 128 million eligible voters following a lacklustre campaign overshadowed by the jailing of former prime minister Imran Khan, and the hobbling of his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party by the military-led establishment.

The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) is expected to win the most seats in Thursday’s vote, with analysts saying its 74-year-old founder Nawaz Sharif has won the blessing of the generals.

Adding to concerns about the integrity of the vote, authorities announced just before polls opened that they had suspended mobile telephone services across the country “to maintain law and order” after two blasts on Wednesday that killed 28 people.

Nighat Dad, a lawyer who runs the not-for-profit Digital Rights Foundation, said the outage “is an attack on the democratic rights of Pakistanis”.

“Shutting down mobile phone services is not a solution to national security concerns. If you shut down access to information you create more chaos”.

Voters in Pakistan rely on a text messaging service to confirm the polling station where they are registered.

Forty-year-old Abdul Jabbar said the internet disruption stopped him and his wife from using the service. 

“Other PTI supporters helped us to trace it in the end,” he told AFP.

Khan’s party calls decision to suspend mobile service a ‘betrayal’


Polling stations opened at 8:00 am (0300 GMT) and were due to close at 5:00 pm. They were guarded by armed security forces.

“My only fear is whether my vote will be counted for the same party I cast it for. At the same time, for the poor it does not matter who is ruling — we need a government that can control inflation,” said Syed Tassawar, a 39-year-old construction worker

First-time voter Haleema Shafiq, a 22-year-old psychology student, said she believed in the importance of voting.

“I believe in democracy. I want a government that can make Pakistan safer for girls,” she told AFP in Islamabad.

In the central city of Multan, Ayesha Bibi said the next government must provide more schools for rural women. 

“We came here by foot and then on a tractor trailer. It was a very difficult and hard journey,” said the housewife. 

More than 650,000 army, paramilitary and police personnel were deployed to provide security for an election already marred by violence.

Five security personnel were killed Thursday in an attack in Kulachi in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, a police official said, adding that a separate mortar attack on a polling station in the province caused no casualties.

In Balochistan province, two security officers were killed and nine wounded by a blast near a polling station in Lajja town, another official said. 

The Balochistan port city of Gwadar saw 14 “minor blasts”, injuring two people, police official Zohaib Hassan said. 

On Wednesday, at least 28 people were killed and more than 30 wounded by two bomb blasts outside the offices of candidates in the province in attacks claimed hours later by the Islamic State group.

Read moreDeadly twin blasts target Pakistani candidate offices on eve of election

 

Justifying the mobile phone shutdown, an interior ministry spokesman said “security measures are essential to maintain law and order situation and to deal with potential threats”.

The foreign ministry said land borders with neighbours Iran and Afghanistan would also be closed to all traffic Thursday as a security measure.

The election figures are staggering in the nuclear-armed nation of 240 million people — the world’s fifth-most populous.

Nearly 18,000 candidates are standing for seats in the national and four provincial assemblies, with 266 seats directly contested in the former — an additional 70 reserved for women and minorities — and 749 places in the regional parliaments.

Tables turned

Thursday’s election has a similar air to the 2018 poll, but with the tables turned. 

Then, it was Sharif who was disqualified from running because of a string of convictions for graft, while Khan swept to power with the backing of the military, as well as genuine support. 

As he cast his vote at a school in Lahore Thursday, Sharif denied that he had made any deal with the military to rule.

“Actually I have never had any problems with the military,” he said.

The history of Pakistan elections is chequered with allegations of rigging but also favouritism, said Bilal Gilani, executive director of polling group Gallup Pakistan.

“It’s a managed democracy that the military runs,” he said.

Read moreRevolving door politics? Shadow of military looms over Pakistan elections

Unlike the last poll, however, the opposition party has had its name removed from ballots, forcing PTI-selected candidates to run as independents.

Khan, a former international cricketer who led Pakistan to victory in the World Cup in 1992, was last week sentenced to lengthy jail terms for treason, graft, and an illegal marriage.

A PTI official told AFP that Khan had been allowed a postal ballot from Adiala Jail.

Analysts say the character assassination shows how worried the military is that PTI-selected candidates could still prove a decisive factor in Thursday’s vote.

If Sharif does not win a ruling majority, he will most likely still take power via a coalition with one or more junior partners — including the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), another family-run dynasty now led by Bilawal Bhutto Zardari.

Whoever wins takes over a deeply divided country, observers say, with the economy in tatters.

Inflation is galloping at nearly 30 percent, the rupee has been in free fall for three years and a balance of payments deficit has frozen imports, severely hampering industrial growth.

(AFP)

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How ‘Myanmar Witness’ proved a deadly air strike denied by state-owned medias

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A number of photos and videos that circulated on social media and were picked up by pro-democracy media outlets show the aftermath of an air strike on the village of Ka Nan, in the west of Myanmar on January 7, 2024. While the state television outlet claimed that reports of the air strike were “fake news”, a visual investigation published by “Myanmar Witness” documented the attack and proved the Myanmar Air Force’s involvement. Seventeen civilians are believed to have been killed.

Issued on:

6 min

A civil war between the ruling junta and armed ethnic groups has been raging in Myanmar since the military coup that took place three years ago on February 1, 2021. Human rights organisations have repeatedly denounced the Myanmar Air Force’s bombing of civilian infrastructures like churches and schools – but these air strikes continue. 

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However, these air strikes are rarely as well documented as the strike that took place on January 7, 2024 in Ka Nan. The Three Brotherhood Alliance, made up of a number of ethnic groups, has, since November 7, controlled this village located in western Myanmar near the Indian border. Since October, the alliance has been carrying out a counter-offensive and taken back several strategic areas from the Myanmar Army.  

Images of the attack on Ka Nan and lists of the names of the civilians killed started to circulate on social media in pro-democracy groups on January 7, 2024.

A photo of some of the destruction resulting from the air strike carried out by the Myanmar Army on January 7, 2024 in Ka Nan, Myanmar. The image was posted the same day on the Telegram channel of the humanitarian group “Free Burma Rangers”. © Free Burma Rangers © Free Burma Rangers

 

State television outlet MRTV claimed that reports of the attack were nothing but “fake news” shared by “subversive media outlets”. 

Investigators from Myanmar Witness were able to use images and videos of the attack posted online to document with precision how it unfolded. They attribute the attack to the Myanmar Army in a report published on January 30, 2024. Myanmar Witness is a project run through the ”Centre for Information Resilience”, a UK-based NGO.

À lire aussiMyanmar Witness verifies citizens’ photos and videos to document human rights concerns

How Myanmar Witness proved the involvement of the Myanmar Air Force

Fifteen seconds in to a video published by Khit Thit Media, an independent news agency in Myanmar, you can see a black mark in the sky. Then, you can hear the sound of a plane, followed by the sound of a detonation. Then, the person filming the video points the camera towards a number of injured people and shows bombed out buildings.

 


This video was posted on Facebook on January 7, 2024 and was filmed the same day in Ka Nan, Myanmar. © Khit Thit Media.

 

This video contains “open source proof” that enables investigators to determine the nature of the attack. For example, this footage proves that there were planes from the Myanmar Air Force on site, says Matt Lawrence, director of Myanmar Witness. 

 

In the case of the Ka Nan strike, state media claimed no aircraft flew over the area that morning. However, Myanmar Witness identified and geolocated footage of a Q-5 ground attack jet in the sky above Ka Nan village moments before the sound of an explosion. Ka Nan is within range and the flight time needed from Tada-U military airbase, where four Q-5 ground attack jets were visible on the runway shortly before the attack.  

 

In Myanmar, only the Myanmar Air Force has access to Chinese-made Nanchang Q-5 ground-attack aircraft, the plane visible in the video. 

There are also references to planes passing above villages located nearby on Burmese Telegram channels that follow the movements of military aircraft.

In a better quality version of the video shared by Khi Thit Media, obtained by Myanmar Witness, you can more clearly see the unique shape of a Chinese-made Nanchang Q-5 ground attack aircraft. © This photo montage was put together by Myanmar Witness. It includes a reference image from the “Blueprints” website, which has schematics of military planes.
In a better quality version of the video shared by Khi Thit Media, obtained by Myanmar Witness, you can more clearly see the unique shape of a Chinese-made Nanchang Q-5 ground attack aircraft. © This photo montage was put together by Myanmar Witness. It includes a reference image from the “Blueprints” website, which has schematics of military planes. © Myanmar Witness

Satellite images taken at 9:43am on January 7, 2024 show four Q-5 ground-attack aircraft on the runway at the Tada-U military air base, located 300 km from Ka Nan. It looks like the planes were being fuelled when the images were captured. Myanmar Witness reported that  that there is likely a connection between these planes being fuelled and the attack, which took place at 10:30am. 

Destruction of civilian infrastructure

Myanmar Witness also geolocated the buildings visible in different videos of the attack, like this church.

Here, Myanmar Witness has geolocated the Saint Pierre Church, which was damaged in the strikes, on this map of Ka Nan (23.805503, 94.143868). The team at Myanmar Witness examined a number of photos and videos of this church, which show external damage as well as blood in the interior. However, the state media outlet MRTV claimed that the church in Ka Nan was not hit during the strike.
Here, Myanmar Witness has geolocated the Saint Pierre Church, which was damaged in the strikes, on this map of Ka Nan (23.805503, 94.143868). The team at Myanmar Witness examined a number of photos and videos of this church, which show external damage as well as blood in the interior. However, the state media outlet MRTV claimed that the church in Ka Nan was not hit during the strike. © Myanmar Witness

Then, the team at Myanmar Witness compared satellite images of the village taken before and after January 7:

From high-resolution satellite imagery we found evidence of discolouration and destruction in and around Ka Nan of a nature that is consistent with an air strike – especially the areas surrounding the church and school. Comparison with imagery a few days earlier allowed us to identify the damage highly likely resulting from this specific incident.  

If you compare the satellite images of the village of Ka Nan taken between January 3 and 8, 2024, you’ll see that the surface of the buildings has changed between these two dates, a sign that the buildings have been physically altered. © Images provided by Sentinelle-2.
If you compare the satellite images of the village of Ka Nan taken between January 3 and 8, 2024, you’ll see that the surface of the buildings has changed between these two dates, a sign that the buildings have been physically altered. © Images provided by Sentinelle-2. © Myanmar Witness

 

Myanmar Witness also analysed the orientation of the shadows in the videos. Using the website Suncalc, which indicates the position of the sun for a given time and place, they determined when the videos of the attack on Ka Nan were filmed – around 10:30 am. This corresponds to the time given by the media outlets that reported the strike. 

Social media users also circulated several images showing injured people as well as dead bodies after the attack. Pro-democracy media outlets also published lists of victims, including children. A reverse image search showed that there was no trace of any of these images on line before January 7, 2024.

Myanmar Witness managed to confirm the identity of one victim – a woman wearing orange who appears in several images, seemingly lifeless.

These photos show a woman wearing orange. She appears in several of the photos geolocated by Myanmar Witness, in several different sites in Ka Nan. The sources are indicated for each image. “Source privée” (private source) is used when the NGO has decided to protect the anonymity of the witness for security reasons. © Montage by Myanmar Witness
These photos show a woman wearing orange. She appears in several of the photos geolocated by Myanmar Witness, in several different sites in Ka Nan. The sources are indicated for each image. “Source privée” (private source) is used when the NGO has decided to protect the anonymity of the witness for security reasons. © Montage by Myanmar Witness © Myanmar Witness

 

The team of investigators also geolocated images showing blood.

These are screengrabs of a video broadcast on social media. Myanmar Witness geolocated the video to where it was filmed in Ka Nan.
These are screengrabs of a video broadcast on social media. Myanmar Witness geolocated the video to where it was filmed in Ka Nan. © Daw Na News

In the case of the Ka Nan airstrike, the open source evidence is clear: imagery posted on social media and geolocated by investigators shows extensive destruction to civilian infrastructure in Ka Nan village, including a church, a high school and homes. 

We’ve seen this again and again in Myanmar, with airstrikes damaging or destroying education facilities, hospitals and places of worship.  

Matt Lawrence, of Myanmar Witness, says he hopes that the strike that took place in Ka Nan on January 7, 2024 will highlight the Myanmar Army’s continued use of these illegal strikes:

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‘Myanmar’s military has overwhelming air superiority’

Lawrence continues:

Research published by Myanmar Witness last year found that air strikes were a near-daily occurrence in areas where the fighting is worst, such as Sagaing. Civilians are left living in a state of fear over when the next attack might strike – this has become a part of their everyday lives. 

Myanmar’s military has overwhelming air superiority, in the form of combat jets and ground attack helicopters. This domination of the sky serves as a method of intimidation and fear, particularly when facing an opponent which, at most, has access to short-range drones.  

 

Myanmar Witness told the FRANCE 24 Observers team that they didn’t have solid evidence for a motive for the air strike that devastated Ka Nan on January 7. 

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Pakistan recalls ambassador to Iran after air strike that killed 2 children

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Pakistan recalled its ambassador to Tehran on Wednesday, a day after Iran launched airstrikes on Pakistan that it claimed targeted bases for a militant Sunni separatist group. Islamabad angrily denounced the attack as a “blatant violation” of its airspace and said it killed two children.  

Tuesday’s strike on Pakistan’s restive southwestern Baluchistan province imperilled diplomatic relations between the two neighbours, but both sides appeared wary of provoking the other. Iran and nuclear-armed Pakistan have long regarded each other with suspicion over militant attacks. 

The attack also threatened to further ignite violence in a Middle East unsettled by Israel’s ongoing war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Iran launched strikes late Monday in Iraq and Syria over an Islamic State group-claimed suicide bombing that killed over 90 people earlier this month. 

Mumtaz Zahra Baloch, the spokesperson for Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry, announced that Islamabad is recalling the country’s ambassador to Iran over the strikes.

“Last night’s unprovoked and blatant breach of Pakistan’s sovereignty by Iran is a violation of international law and the purposes and principles of the charter of the United Nations,” she said in a televised address

Baloch added that Pakistan asked the Iranian ambassador, who was visiting Tehran when the attack took place, not to return. Iran did not immediately acknowledge Pakistan’s decision.

China on Wednesday urged Pakistan and Iran to show “restraint” after the strike. 

“We call on both sides to exercise restraint, avoid actions that would lead to an escalation of tension and work together to maintain peace and stability,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning told a regular briefing.

“We consider both Iran and Pakistan as close neighbours and major Islamic countries,” she said.

Iranian state media reports, which were later withdrawn without explanation, said the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard targeted bases belonging to the militant group Jaish al-Adl, or the “Army of Justice.” The group, which seeks an independent Baluchistan and has spread across Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan, acknowledged the assault in a statement shared online.

Six bomb-carrying drones and rockets struck homes that the militants claim housed children and wives of their fighters. Jaish al-Adl said the attack killed two children and wounded two women and a teenage girl. 

Videos shared by the Baluch activist group HalVash, purportedly from the site, showed a burning building and two charred, small corpses. 

A Pakistani intelligence report said the two children killed were a 6-year-old girl and an 11-month-old boy. Three women were injured, aged between 28 and 35. The report also said three or four drones were fired from the Iranian side, hitting a mosque and other buildings, including a house.

Jan Achakzai, a spokesperson for Baluchistan province, also condemned the attack.

“Pakistan has always sought cooperation from all the countries of region – including Iran – to combat terrorism,” “This is unacceptable and Pakistan has a right to respond to any aggression committed against its sovereignty.”

A senior Pakistani security official, speaking to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity as he was not authorised to talk to reporters, said Iran had shared no information prior to the strike. He said Pakistan reserved the right to respond at a time and place of the country’s choosing and such a strike would be measured and in line with public expectations. 

Read moreIslamic State group claims responsibility for deadly Iran bombings

“The dangerous precedent set by Iran is destabilising and has reciprocal implications,” the official said.

However, there were signs Pakistan was trying to contain any anger over the strike. The country’s typically outspoken and nationalistic media covered the attack Wednesday with unusual restraint. 

Iranian state media meanwhile continued not to address the strikes, instead discussing a joint naval drill held by Pakistan and the Iranian navy in the Persian Gulf on Tuesday. Pakistani officials acknowledged the drill, but said it came earlier than Iran’s strikes.

Pakistani defence analyst Syed Muhammad Ali said the government would weigh any potential retaliation carefully.

The country’s air defence and missile systems are primarily deployed along the eastern border to respond to potential threats from India. But it might consider taking some measures to respond to such strikes from its western border with Afghanistan and Iran, Ali said.Jaish al-Adl was founded in 2012, and Iranian officials believe it largely operates in Pakistan.

The group has claimed bombings and kidnapped members of Iran’s border police in the past. In December, suspected Jaish al-Adl members killed 11 people and wounded eight others in a nighttime attack on a police station in southeastern Iran. Another recent attack killed another police officer in the area.

In 2019, Jaish al-Adl claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing targeting a bus that killed 27 members of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard.

Iran has suspected that Sunni-majority Pakistan is hosting insurgents, possibly at the behest of its regional arch-rival Saudi Arabia. However, Iran and Saudi Arabia reached a Chinese-mediated détente last March, easing tensions. Pakistan, meanwhile, has blamed Iran in the past over militant attacks targeting its security forces. 

Iran has fought in border areas against militants, but a missile-and-drone attack on Pakistan is unprecedented. 

It remains unclear why Iran launched the attack now, particularly as its foreign minister had met Pakistan’s caretaker prime minister the same day at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. 

After the Islamic State group bombings this month, Iran’s Intelligence Ministry alleged the two bombers involved in the attack had traveled from Afghanistan into Iran through its southeastern border at the Jalg crossing – meaning they had traveled through Baluchistan.

Pakistan’s Baluchistan province, as well as Iran’s neighbouring Sistan and Baluchestan province, have faced a low-level insurgency by Baluch nationalists for more than two decades. They initially wanted a share of provincial resources, but later initiated an insurgency for independence.

Iran’s attack on Pakistan came less than a day after Iranian strikes on northern Iraq that killed several civilians. Iraq recalled its ambassador from Tehran for consultations and summoned Iran’s chargé d’affaires in Baghdad on Tuesday in protest. Iran separately struck Syria as well.

(FRANCE 24 with AP and AFP)

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China’s Pacific charm offensive pays off as Nauru drops Taipei for Beijing

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The island nation of Nauru’s shock announcement that it was severing ties with Taiwan in favour of Beijing has brought China’s charm offensive across the Pacific into sharp relief – and highlighted the limited options available to micro-states desperate for a way out of economic dead-ends.

Where most countries send congratulations to those who win presidential elections, the Pacific Island nation of Nauru sent an altogether different message to Taiwan’s President-elect Lai Ching-te. After the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)’s win in the presidential election over the weekend, Nauru notified Taiwan on Monday that it would no longer be recognising the island as an independent nation. Instead, Nauru’s 12,000-odd inhabitants would from now on consider Taiwan “an inalienable part of China’s territory”.

The loss of Nauru’s support is just the latest blow to Taiwan’s dwindling group of diplomatic allies, a motley collection of developing nations across Latin America, the Caribbean and the Pacific that continue to recognise Taiwan – under its formal name of the Republic of China – as the sole legitimate representative of China on the international stage. This binary choice – neither Beijing nor Taipei will allow countries to recognise both claimants – is a holdover from the years following the Chinese Civil War, when Chiang Kai-shek’s defeated Kuomintang continued to represent China at the UN from its outpost on Taiwan.

Since DPP candidate Tsai Ing-wen’s 2016 election to Taiwan’s presidency ushered in the end of an eight-year “diplomatic truce” between Taipei and Beijing, the People’s Republic of China has poached nine of Taiwan’s remaining diplomatic allies through promises of economic aid and development. By shrinking the circle of countries that continue to recognise Taipei internationally, Beijing seems bent on further isolating Taiwan, incensed by what it characterises as the DPP’s dangerous separatist tendencies. Nauru makes ten.

‘Chequebook diplomacy’

Steve Tsang, director of the SOAS China Institute in London and co-author of a new book, “The Political Thought of Xi Jinping”, said that Taiwan’s unwillingness to reach deeper into its pockets was making it increasingly difficult to convince its remaining diplomatic allies – now numbering just 12 – to stay by its side.

“The first thing to bear in mind is that Nauru is a country of just less than 13,000 people, so the provision of economic or development incentives that can persuade it to switch recognition from Taipei to Beijing can be quite small,” he said. “The issue here is that Taiwan’s government has, for a few years now, decided not to go head to head with the Chinese government in chequebook diplomacy, so it will lose some of its ‘allies’ to Beijing if Beijing is determined enough to outbid Taiwan.”

Despite President Tsai Ing-wen’s declaration in 2016 that Taipei would no longer buy support through “chequebook diplomacy”, Taiwan has continued to provide humanitarian aid and concessional loans to the handful of countries that recognise it. Nauru has hosted a Taiwanese technical mission involved in agriculture, energy, scholarships and training since 2006, and has been a consistent recipient of grants and below-market-rate loans from Taipei. Alongside Australia and New Zealand, Taiwan continues to pay into Nauru’s Intergenerational Trust Fund, set up in 2015 to help replace the nation’s vanishing phosphate revenues.

Apparently, it hasn’t been enough. Nauru is now the latest Pacific Island nation to make the switch to Beijing. In 2019, Kiribati and the Solomon Islands both declared for China, with Taiwanese media alleging that the latter had been convinced to abandon Taipei in exchange for some $500 million in financial aid – a claim that has never been confirmed.

But it’s no secret that China has been stepping up its economic and diplomatic engagement with nations across the Pacific, with Beijing believed to have spent $3.9 billion in aid in the region between 2008 and 2021 to Taiwan’s $395 million over the same period. And while Taiwan’s engagement with countries with smaller populations has effectively meant that it has spent twice as much as Beijing per capita, China is also steadily abandoning the large-scale, big-budget infrastructure projects characteristic of the early years of its Belt and Road Initiative for more targeted projects in health and agriculture.

Keeping its head above water

Dr Asha Sundaramurthy, an expert on the Oceania region, said that the results of China’s charm offensive were clear.

“China’s volume of aid and increased engagement in the region has played a significant role in shifting the recognition of Taiwan in the last decade, with Kiribati and Solomon Islands reversing in 2019,” she said. “Now, only the Marshall Islands, Tuvalu and Palau remain as three Pacific Islands recognising Taiwan.”

This is not the first time that Nauru has seemingly sold its diplomatic recognition to the highest bidder. Nauru chose to recognise China in July 2002 after more than two decades of diplomatic ties with Taiwan. Taiwan’s foreign ministry accused China at the time of buying Nauru’s loyalty with $137 million in grants and debt repayments. The government reversed its decision in May 2005, recognising Taipei once again as the rightful China. The following year, the Taiwanese government funded Nauru’s purchase of a Boeing 737 jet to replace an earlier aircraft – the nation’s only one – that had been repossessed by American financiers the year before.

A few scant years later, Nauru would also become one of the only countries in the world to officially recognise the breakaway republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia following the 2008 war between Russia and Georgia. Even Russia’s close ally Belarus baulked at acknowledging the renegade provinces, but Nauru – alongside Nicaragua and Venezuela – established relations with both self-proclaimed states. According to Russia’s Kommersant newspaper, the Kremlin rewarded the island nation for its support with some $50 million in humanitarian aid.

Although this transactional approach to international relations may seem mercenary, Nauru’s modern history makes it clear that the country has been left with few other ways to, quite literally, keep its head above water. A remote Pacific Island nation covering just 21 square kilometres, Nauru’s relationship with the vast world beyond its shores changed drastically following the discovery of high-grade phosphate reserves there on the eve of the 20th century. Built up over untold thousands of years by the fossilised droppings of the seabirds that roosted on the tiny island’s central plateau, these phosphate reserves would prove an invaluable source of fertiliser for the British Empire once the island nation was wrested from German hands after World War I.

Under the stewardship of the British Phosphate Commissioners – representatives of Australia, New Zealand and Great Britain who were given a mandate by the League of Nations to mine the nation’s phosphate to sell to the Empire’s farmers at below-market rates – more than 35 million metric tonnes of the fertiliser were stripped from the island by the time the nation won independence in 1968. By then, more than a third of the island had been strip-mined, leaving the central plateau a wasteland of sun-bleached limestone towers and shattered coral.

Nauru’s primary phosphate reserves are now all but exhausted. With little left to fall back on aside from selling off fishing rights, Nauru has become one of the countries most reliant on foreign aid to survive – and one of the low-lying island nations most vulnerable to climate crisis.

Stripped of arable land and frantic for new sources of revenue, the government has become deeply dependent on a deal with Australia to operate an offshore processing centre for asylum-seekers hoping to reach Australia by boat. The processing centre was estimated as being likely to generate more than $100 million for Nauru in 2024, on top of the $31 million given directly by Australia in development assistance in 2023. According to the US-based Migration Policy Institute, Australian payments to Nauru through the deal accounted for about two-thirds of the island’s total revenue in 2021-2022. More than 15 percent of the island’s population was employed at the centre in 2021, with many more finding work in the secondary service industries that sprung up around the operation. But with the number of detainees currently held there believed to have dwindled to a bare dozen and Australia winding down its financing of the scheme, it’s a deal that seems unlikely to keep delivering.

Beijing’s ‘punishment’ against Taiwan

Speaking to Taiwan’s semi-official news agency CNA, an unnamed Taiwanese diplomat alleged that Nauru had asked Taipei for roughly $83.23 million to help fill a financial shortfall caused by the processing centre’s temporary shutdown. The Taiwanese official told CNA that Beijing had likely offered to step in and make up the shortfall. An unnamed Australian official in Taiwan told the Australian Financial Review that the report was accurate, although the official said that the processing centre remained open despite only holding a handful of people inside. Neither Nauru nor China have publicly commented on any financial incentives for the switch in affiliation.

Tsang said that the timing of Nauru’s announcement – so soon after the DPP won a renewed mandate – was no coincidence. 

“The timing will suggest that Beijing has worked on the government of Nauru well before the Taiwanese elections, and this is one of the options Beijing has as a ‘punishment’ against Taiwan and its people for choosing a presidential candidate Beijing has said they should not support,” he said. “But among the range of options Beijing has to show its displeasure, this is one that does relatively little damage to Taiwan.”

Although losing the friendship of a tiny island nation halfway around the world may ultimately mean little to Taipei, Nauru may well be counting on China’s continued largesse to give it a way out of its economic dead-end.

“For the islands’ perspective, they seek to partake in the economic growth of the emerging Asian Century – which is spearheaded by China,” Sundaramurthy said. “The island countries are also playing a delicate game of balance between security and development while ensuring the region avoids becoming a site of power contestation.”

Despite Taipei’s shock at Nauru’s announcement, Tsang said, Taipei’s increasing diplomatic isolation – on paper, at least – may end up having unexpected benefits as Taiwan continues to re-imagine its own identity.

“When no country formally recognises Taiwan by its formal name, the Republic of China, it will just be known as Taiwan,” he said. “So it will get to a point when it will be against Beijing’s interest to reduce further small states that recognise Taiwan by its official name.”

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Taiwan’s Lai Ching-te wins presidential vote, vows to defend island from China threats

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Taiwan’s ruling party, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), secured a historic third term on Saturday as Vice President Lai Ching-te won the country’s widely watched presidential election with 40.05 percent of the vote. 

Lai, along with his running mate Hsiao Bi-khim – Taiwan’s former representative to the United States – won a total of more than 5.5 million votes.  

Taiwan’s electoral system is based on first-past-the-post voting, awarding the victory to the presidential-VP pairing with the highest percentage of votes. 

Turnout on the self-ruled island was put at more than 70 percent with some 19.5 million Taiwanese eligible to vote. 

A favourite to succeed incumbent President Tsai Ing-wen, who is due to step down at the end of her second consecutive term in May, Lai’s win was in line with previous forecasts. 

Lai ran against the main opposition party’s – the Kuomintang – candidate Hou Yu-ih , who came in a close second with 33.5 percent of the vote and the Taiwan People’s Party’s Ko Wen-Je who trailed both candidates with only 26.5 percent. 

Speaking as last results trickled in, Lai told a press conference that the election was a victory for Taiwan’s democracy. 

“We are telling the international community that between democracy and authoritarianism, we will stand on the side of democracy,” he said. 

In an election framed as a choice between “peace and war” by China, which deems the DPP’s governance as “incompatible” with cross-strait peace, Lai’s victory comes at a crucial moment amid rising tensions between Taipei and Beijing. 


Claiming the island as part of its territory, Beijing responded to the election results by saying that “reunification” with Taiwan is still “inevitable”. 

The vote “will not impede the inevitable trend of China’s reunification”, Beijing’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokesperson Chen Binhua said in a statement carried by state news agency Xinhua.

President Joe Biden reiterated that the US is “not supporting” Taiwan’s independence, after Taiwanese voters rebuffed China and gave the ruling party a third presidential term.

Heir apparent  

Lai was sworn in as vice president in 2020 when Tsai won the presidential election.   

Labelled a separatist by Beijing, the winner in Taiwan’s presidential race has promised to stick to Tsai’s policy of maintaining the status quo, which avoids open declarations of independence while rejecting China’s sovereignty claims.   

“As president, I have an important responsibility to maintain peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait,” Lai said. 

“I will act in accordance with our democratic and free constitutional order in a manner that is balanced and maintains the cross-strait status quo under the principles of dignity and parity,” he added. 

Lai has said he hopes for a reopening of dialogue between China and Taiwan following almost eight years of Beijing’s near-complete refusal to communicate with leaders of the self-governing island. 

But he also pledged to build up the island’s military defence, indicating that he harbours no illusions.   

“At the same time, we are also determined to safeguard Taiwan from continuing threats and intimidation from China,” he said.  

Lai told the press conference that the Taiwanese people have “successfully resisted efforts from external forces to influence this election”. 

Read more‘People don’t want to talk about war’: Taiwan civil defence battles invasion risk denial

China relations 

Warning against continued DPP rule, China has upped the pressure on Taiwan ahead of elections by flying balloons in the Taiwan Strait and threatening trade measures against Taipei, which accused Bejing of “economic coercion”.  

“He [Lai] will carry on Tsai’s China approach: any dialogue with Beijing must be held with mutual respect and on an equal basis,” said Chang Chun-hao, professor of political science at Tunghai University in Taiwan.   

“The bottom line remains Taiwan’s sovereignty which they [Lai and the DPP] seek to guarantee by rejecting the 1992 consensus,” Chang said.    

The 1992 consensus refers to a tacit understanding between the Kuomintang (KMT) – which governed Taiwan at the time – and the Chinese Communist Party that both sides of the Taiwan Strait acknowledge that there is “one China”, with each side having its own interpretation of what “China” means. 

“Lai is looking to maintain the status quo … which [for the DPP] means China and Taiwan are two separate, sovereign nations,” said Chen Fang-yu, assistant professor of political science at Soochow University in Taiwan.    

Split parliament 

Meanwhile cross-strait relations would also depend on the government’s grip over parliament, which has greatly diminished with the election of numerous legislators from the KMT, Chang said. 

Taiwan’s legislative election was held simultaneously with the presidential vote with results showing a split parliament with no single majority.  

“The DPP performed quite badly in the legislative election, they’re going to meet heavy resistance from the blue party [KMT] in the next term of the Legislative Yuan,” Chang said. 

The KMT won 39 out of 113 seats in parliament compared to the DPP’s 38. 

“China, however, may find itself with new communication and exchange channels in Taiwan thanks to KMT legislators, which would help them in their goal of reunification,” he said 

“This [split parliament] also means uncertainty for domestic politics, which may increase the US’s doubts about Taiwan,” he added.  

While the tone for relations between Taiwan and China will partly be determined by Saturday’s outcome, the upcoming presidential election in the US will also play a huge role.  

“The 2024 US election is also crucial to cross-strait relations, whether it be Biden’s re-election or Trump’s return to power … this will play a big part in geopolitics between the US, China and Taiwan,” Chang said. 

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