Attack on Pakistan army post near Afghan border kills seven, military says
Assailants used vehicle packed with explosives as well as suicide vests in attack that also involved a shootout. An armed group attacked a military post in northwestern Pakistan near the border with Afghanistan using a vehicle laden with explosives as well as suicide bombs, killing seven security force members, Pakistan’s military said. Troops responding to the attack on Saturday in North Waziristan, a district in the restive province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, killed six attackers, some of who were wearing suicide vests, according to the military statement. While the military’s media wing did not say who was behind the attack, a newly formed group, Jaish-e-Fursan-e-Muhammad, claimed responsibility for it. “The terrorists rammed an explosive-laden vehicle into the post, followed by multiple suicide bombing attacks, which led to collapse of portion of a building” in which five security personnel were killed, the military said, adding that another two security force members died in subsequent fighting with the assailants. A clearance operation was still under way in the area. Residents told the Reuters news agency that an explosion shook doors and damaged windows during the attack. Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned the attack and paid tribute to the troops who were “martyred”. North Waziristan long served as a base for the Pakistani Taliban and other groups until the army claimed a few years back that it had cleared the region of rebel groups. Occasional attacks have continued, however, raising concerns that the Pakistani Taliban are regrouping in the area. The Pakistani Taliban are a separate group but allies of the Afghan Taliban, who seized power in Afghanistan in 2021 as the United States and NATO troops were in the final stages of their pullout. Since then the Pakistani Taliban have stepped up attacks on security forces, especially in the northwest. Adblock test (Why?)
Can Russia’s Gen Z make a real change?
Following the loss of Alexey Navalny and with the approaching Russian presidential election predetermined, what are the hopes of Russia’s Gen Z? Russia’s Gen Z has only known life under Vladimir Putin – they have grown up with his increasingly anti-Western, patriarchal and patriotic narratives. Polling shows that young Russians are currently the group most critical of Putin’s rule and the most dissatisfied with Russia’s political system. As dissent grows on social media, research also shows that most of Russia’s Gen Z is apolitical. With the upcoming presidential election seemingly predetermined and the opposition sidelined, what drives the activism of young Russians? Most importantly, how does the death of prominent opposition figure Alexey Navalny resonate with the generation he profoundly influenced? Presenter: Anelise Borges Guests:Apollinaria Oleinikova – Political ActivistYulia Zhivtsova – Political Activist and TeacherAnna – Political Activist and Student Adblock test (Why?)
Play in Israel, just don’t pretend you didn’t know
Since October 7, scores of writers have authored scores of columns pleading – to no avail – with prominent politicians who wield transformative power to stop the genocide unfolding with such obscene lethality in the apocalyptic remnants of occupied Gaza. The same dynamic applies to a gallery of preening artists who claim that they are not only allergic to conformity, but also reject as tantamount to censorship any call from any quarter not to entertain audiences in Israel. Rather than beseeching Nick Cave, the Australian troubadour, or the British band, Radiohead, finally to heed the petitions of Brian Eno, Roger Waters and company and forgo performing in an apartheid state, my aim here is to challenge their, by now, discredited defences to opt to play in Tel Aviv. After not performing in Israel for some 20 years, in 2014, Cave refrained from signing on to an artist-organised pledge – meant to show tangible solidarity with imprisoned Palestinians – to boycott touring in Israel in the aftermath of yet another Israeli killing spree in Gaza. Cave later explained his decision this way: “There was something that stunk to me about that list. Then it kind of occurred to me that I’m not signing the list but I’m also not playing Israel and that just felt to me cowardly, really.” The lobbying, Cave added, constituted a “public humiliation” that apparently fuelled his determination to spurn the overture and stage shows in Israel. “It suddenly became very important to make a stand against those people that are trying to shut down musicians, to bully musicians, to censor musicians, and to silence musicians … so really you could say in a way that the BDS made me play Israel,” Cave said, referring to the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement. In this flattering construct, Cave is the portrait of the principled renegade resisting the “age-old” rejectionist forces bent on muzzling him and, by extension, his art. In a 2017 letter to his “hero” Brian Eno, the British musical savant behind the boycott drive, Cave insisted that he was not a supporter of the Israeli government to blame for the “injustices suffered by the Palestinian population”. And yet, like the Israeli government he distances himself from, Cave recycled the stock canard to discredit the BDS movement by claiming that “the boycott of Israel can be seen as anti-Semitic at heart”. Cave suggested that Eno should, instead, adopt a more salutary approach by travelling to Israel to share his scorn for the “current regime” with “the press and the Israeli people … then do a concert on the understanding that the purpose of your music was to speak to the Israeli people’s better angels”. Cave’s admonition is grounded on a false premise: that the “atrocities” endured by generations of Palestinians are the sole responsibility of a succession of Israeli “regimes” and not the millions of Israelis who empowered and emboldened those regimes by exercising their democratic franchise – time and again. Cave lauded Israel as a “real, vibrant and functioning democracy” but absolved “ordinary Israelis” of the “atrocities” committed by the governments they elect. Cave’s jejune reasoning reached an embarrassing zenith in the following sentence that confuses naivete for wisdom. “How far must we have strayed from the transformative nature of music to feel justified in weaponising music and using it to punish ordinary Israeli citizens for the actions of their government.” Tom Yorke, the lead singer for Radiohead, has recycled, near-verbatim, this rationale in rebuffing filmmaker, Ken Loach, who implored the popular band not to go to Israel in 2017 given its encyclopaedic record of egregious human rights violations. “Playing in a country isn’t the same as endorsing its government,” Yorke responded. “We don’t endorse [Israeli Prime Minister] Netanyahu any more than Trump, but we still play in America.” Yorke’s rejection of BDS has the patina of gravitas that Cave’s smear lacks. “Music, art and academia,” he wrote, “is about crossing borders not building them, about open minds not closed ones, about shared humanity, dialogue and freedom of expression.” Yorke’s pretty soliloquy oozes saccharine. Gaza has been reduced to ruins by deliberate design. The Israeli architects of that ruin do not give a hoot about crossing borders, opening minds, shared humanity, dialogue and freedom of expression. Prime Minister Netanyahu and his septic cabinet are razing Gaza and the occupied West Bank with the explicit consent, approval and encouragement of most Israelis. Polls consistently show that the vast majority of “ordinary Israelis” back every malignant aspect of a genocide meant to erase Gaza. The carpet bombing. The blanket destruction of homes, hospitals, mosques, churches, schools and universities. The forced marches. The blockade of food, water, fuel, and medicine – a sinister blueprint to starve Palestinians into submission and capitulation. The “better angels” Cave urged Eno to “speak to” through music, have, like the bulk of Israel, been consumed by an unquenchable killing rage that burns like a towering bonfire. Cave and Yorke have compounded their blindness with hypocrisy that reveals a defining insincerity. In 2022, Cave was challenged by a fan to square his vocal, unabashed “solidarity” with Ukrainians with his glaring failure to do the same for “brutalised” and “suffering” Palestinians. “This saddens me,” the fan wrote, “for this puts you on [sic] a position of a double standard.” Cave’s reply was a pretentious lump of rhetorical flim-flam brimming with the standard evasions about how “a brutal, unprovoked attack” differs from “a deeply complex clash of two nations that is far from straightforward”. Cave wrote that he “sympathises deeply” with “the tragic fate of all innocents” and reminded his interlocutor that he has helped raise money for schools in Palestinian “communities”. “But this is not the time for these debates,” Cave averred. “This is the time to unite in unequivocal support and love for the Ukrainian people. Right now a catastrophe is unfolding, and I stand with all Ukrainians at this horrific moment in history.” Yorke parroted Cave’s condescension, scolding BDS supporters for engaging in “the
‘Overthrow the system’: Haiti gang leader Cherizier seeks revolution
A powerful Haitian gang leader has rejected attempts by foreign nations for an electoral road map and a path to peace as the country plunges deeper into violent chaos and armed groups control most of the capital following the resignation of Prime Minister Ariel Henry. Regional leaders of the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM) held an emergency summit last week to discuss a framework for a political transition, which the United States had urged to be “expedited” as gangs wrought chaos in the capital, Port-au-Prince, amid repeatedly postponed elections. “We’re not going to recognise the decisions that CARICOM takes,” Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier, a former police officer whose gang rules vast swaths of Port-au-Prince, told Al Jazeera. Rights groups have accused his gang alliance of committing atrocities, including killings and rape. “I’m going to say to the traditional politicians that are sitting down with CARICOM, since they went with their families abroad, we who stayed in Haiti have to take the decisions,” Cherizier said, flanked by gang members wearing face masks, adding that he rejected plans for a transitional council made up of the country’s political parties. “It’s not just people with guns who’ve damaged the country but the politicians too,” he added. The United States and Caribbean nations have been pushing for the proposed council to appoint a new interim prime minister and lay a road map for elections. Cherizier and his G9 Family and Allies gang alliance have been major contributors to years of escalating violence and political instability in Port-au-Prince. They have blockaded fuel terminals, clashed with rival gangs and used violence to cement their grip on areas under their control, forcing thousands of Haitians to flee their homes. Cherizier – who is under sanctions from the United Nations, US and other countries – has been at the centre of a new surge in unrest in Port-au-Prince as he called for Henry’s resignation. In early March, Cherizier warned that Haiti faced the prospect of “civil war” if Henry did not step down. There have been widespread looting and pitched street battles in Haiti following the resignation last week of the 74-year-old Henry – and no plan in place for what comes next. The US, which denied pressuring Henry to step aside, called for a “political transition”. The Guatemalan and Salvadoran consulates were ransacked in Port-au-Prince along with hospitals as Henry’s office extended an overnight curfew to Sunday. Haitian civil society leaders welcomed the resignation of Henry, an unelected leader who was named for the post in 2021 shortly before the assassination of President Jovenel Moise, as a long overdue step. The prime minister was supposed to step down in February. He was effectively locked out of the country since the unrest spiralled, landing in Puerto Rico after being denied entry to the Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti. The poorest country in the Western hemisphere has, for years, been saddled with corrupt leaders, and plagued by failed state institutions and violence wrought by rival armed groups. Call for ‘revolution’ While some political groups are putting their names forward for the council, seeing it as a way out of Haiti’s current power vacuum, Cherizier said he wants a revolution. “Now our fight will enter another phase – to overthrow the whole system, the system that is five percent of people who control 95 percent of the country’s wealth,” he told Al Jazeera. According to Robert Fatton, a Haiti expert at the University of Virginia, Cherizier likes to compare himself to historical figures like South Africa’s Nelson Mandela or Cuba’s longtime President Fidel Castro. “And he likes to say that he’s essentially a revolutionary … and he’s going to redistribute wealth,” Fatton told Al Jazeera this week. While Cherizier has distributed some food and resources to people in areas under the control of his G9 gang, “that’s hardly a vision of the future or some sort of revolutionary [act]”, he added. Once a transitional government is in place it could pave the way for a multinational police force on the ground in Haiti, funded by the US and Canada. Kenya’s President William Ruto said his country would lead such a force, which Cherizier rejected. “The presence of Kenyans in Haiti will be an irony because the same people who gave weapons to people in poor neighbourhoods to rise up against the former government, then lost control of those armed groups, are now appealing to a foreign force to save things,” he said. “It is a mission that’s failed in advance – it’s a shame that William Ruto has to go in that direction.” The UN has estimated that gangs currently control more than 80 percent of Port-au-Prince. Reporting from the Dominican Republic, Al Jazeera’s John Holman said the two rival gangs – the G9 and G-PEP – have formed an alliance called Viva Ensemble to try and prevent foreign troops from entering Haiti. “They know it would challenge them,” he said. “Haitians have suffered immensely at the gangs’ hands. But the power that they have accrued means that they have to be taken into account in what is a largely lawless state.” Fatton noted that “it’s more that he [Cherizier] wants to control his turf,” and that those who have suffered the most from the continued gang violence in the Haitian capital are “the very, very poor people in the major slums”. “Something like over 200,000 Haitians had to leave their houses. They had to move into really very poorly equipped camps,” Fatton said. “You have, in other words, a situation where the people who are suffering the most are the very poor, the very people that Barbecue says he wants to help.” Adblock test (Why?)
Ramadan repression in the West Bank
Violent repression in the West Bank is making a bad situation unbearable. With the global media’s attention trained on Gaza since October 7, things have worsened for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, and near impossible for journalists to cover. With their movement severely restricted, dozens of Palestinian journalists have been arrested, often held without trial or charge. Contributors:Anan Quzmar – Journalist Assal Rad – Middle East Scholar and Author Mariam Barghouti – Writer and Journalist Oren Ziv – Journalist, +972 Magazine On our radar: Ahead of an upcoming election in India, there has been a slew of movie releases built around key Modi government talking points. Producer Tariq Nafi discusses Bollywood’s role in electioneering. George Soros – Financier, philanthropist Or bogeyman? Hungarian-American billionaire financier and philanthropist George Soros has been at the centre of countless conspiracy theories. Flo Phillips sifts through fact and fiction to understand how the crusade against Soros became one of the most destructive smear campaigns of the 21st century and a blueprint for others. Featuring: Emily Tamkin – Author, The Influence Of Soros Hannes Grassegger – Reporter and Founder, Polaris News Marius Dragomir – Director, Center For Media, Data and Society (CMDS) Credits: George Soros images courtesy of the Open Society Foundations Adblock test (Why?)
Israel approves plan to attack Gaza’s Rafah but keeps truce talks alive
Nod for long-threatened invasion of Rafah, home to 1.4 million displaced people, comes as Israel to send team to Qatar. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has approved plans for an attack on Rafah, where 1.4 million displaced Palestinians have sought shelter, while planning to send a team to further truce talks in Qatar after mocking a ceasefire proposal by Hamas as “ridiculous”. Israel’s allies and critics warned Netanyahu against the invasion of Rafah fearing mass civilian casualties, but the Israeli government claims that the area in southern Gaza is one of the last strongholds of Hamas which it has pledged to eliminate. “Hopefully, the ground invasion of Rafah is just a bluff so they can use this as leverage to get something in negotiations. But everything Netanyahu said he will do, he did it, so I assume it is very likely this is going to happen,” Luciano Zaccara of the Gulf Studies Center at Qatar University told Al Jazeera of Israel’s mixed messages. Hamas had presented a new ceasefire plan to end Israel’s war on Gaza that includes the release of Israeli captives in exchange for Palestinian prisoners, with sources telling Al Jazeera that it would be a three-phased truce, with each stage lasting 42 days. A statement from Netanyahu’s office late on Friday said the Israeli military was “preparing operationally and for the evacuation of the population” of Rafah. However, it gave no timeframe and there was no immediate evidence of extra preparations on the ground. Widespread criticism Reporting from occupied East Jerusalem, Al Jazeera’s Hamdah Salhut said Israel’s talk of an impending ground invasion in Rafah comes despite growing opposition, especially from its biggest political and military ally, the United States. “American officials say they simply wouldn’t support an operation such as this,” Salhut said, adding that Netanyahu has planned “both for the military invasion and evacuation of about 1.5 million Palestinians in Rafah”. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters in Austria on Friday that the US needed to see a clear and implementable plan from Israel for Rafah, including to get civilians out of harm’s way. Dutch foreign minister Hanke Slot said: “The Netherlands firmly repeats its call to Israel to refrain from such an offensive, which would result in an even bigger humanitarian catastrophe,” adding in a post on X that “an immediate humanitarian ceasefire is of the highest importance, resulting in a sustained cessation of hostilities”. The United Nations had already warned Israel last month that a ground invasion of Rafah “could lead to a slaughter in Gaza”. “They could also leave an already fragile humanitarian operation at death’s door,” UN aid chief Martin Griffiths said. Humanitarian situation ‘beyond catastrophic’ Jagan Chapagain, the head of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said civilians in Gaza are “facing an unprecedented level of indignity, misery and suffering”. “The healthcare situation is on the brink of collapse with hospitals facing desperate conditions,” he said in a statement on X, adding that the humanitarian situation in the enclave is “beyond catastrophic”. Meanwhile, the first aid vessel to reach Gaza, operated by the Spanish charity Open Arms, has offloaded 200 tonnes of food aid to the enclave, completing a pilot project that could open the way for more assistance to come in via maritime corridors. US charity World Central Kitchen said a second shipment was being prepared in Cyprus and that thousands of tonnes of aid could reach Gaza each week going forward. Humanitarian organisations have repeatedly called for Israel to open more land border crossings to let in humanitarian supplies, insisting that airdrops and maritime corridors are costly and inefficient ways of delivering assistance. Adblock test (Why?)
Elite Afghan soldiers turn barbers, gym trainers in India to escape Taliban
New Delhi, India – It is almost 5:40 in the evening. A hair salon in New Delhi’s bustling New Friends Colony neighbourhood is alive with the sound of buzzing clippers and chattering customers. The air is thick with the scent of hair spray and aftershave. Zaki Marzai, 29, stands behind a barber’s brown chair, his hands moving with precision as he snips a customer’s hair. Wooden shelves on the walls bear colourful bottles of shampoo and styling products. The mirrors reflect Marzai, his eyes focused on the hair before him. His customer looks satisfied. Marzai, though, would rather be elsewhere – with a rifle in his hand, not a razor. Three years ago, Marzai was a soldier in the elite special force of Afghanistan’s army, fighting the Taliban in a war that started with the United States and NATO forces invading the country in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. The Western-backed Afghan government had sided with the US in the 20-year war. Marzai joined the army in 2015 as a sergeant and was on track to become a commissioned officer. Everything changed on June 20, 2018. Zaki Marzai, 29, in his room in Bhogal, New Delhi [Luqmaan Zeerak/Al Jazeera] ‘Sitting ducks’ At about 2am that day, Marzai was stationed outside a camp in Ghazni province of Afghanistan when a barrage of bullets hit him and his fellow soldiers. Before Marzai and his comrades could realise what happened, 25 soldiers had died on the spot and six others had been injured. Bullets had pierced through Marzai’s chin and right leg. “The attack was so intense we couldn’t do anything. The bullets were coming from all four sides. We were sitting ducks. The Taliban wiped out the entire camp,” he recalls. According to the United States Institute of Peace, an estimated 70,000 Afghan military and police personnel lost their lives in two decades of war in Afghanistan. It was eight hours before any backup arrived to rescue the wounded. Marzai, who had lost a lot of blood, was first taken to a nearby hospital in Ghazni and soon transferred to a hospital in Kabul for further treatment on his jaw. After nearly a year of treatment, his jaw was still deformed, so the Afghan government sent him to India for better care. He left behind his parents, a sister and seven brothers. In 2019, Marzai arrived at a medical facility in Gurgaon, a city adjoining New Delhi. Later, he was also taken to two other public sector hospitals in the Indian capital. By August 2021, Marzai hoped to return to Afghanistan, his face finally fixed. But the Afghanistan he knew was about to be broken. Bullets had pierced through Marzai’s chin during the Taliban attack [Luqmaan Zeerak/Al Jazeera] ‘I cried all night’ As the Taliban grabbed control of province after province in Afghanistan in early August, Marzai was following the news on his phone, watching YouTube, tracking Twitter and waiting for Facebook updates. Then, on August 15, the Taliban stormed into Kabul and took power, forcing the US and NATO forces to flee the country in a chaotic exit. Marzai tried to reach his family and soldier colleagues on the phone, but couldn’t get through because mobile networks were down. He was stunned: Marzai had expected a fight, not a meek surrender from the country’s politicians, whom he accuses of looting Afghanistan and then escaping. “I cried all night when the Taliban took over the country,” says Marzai. “I was heartbroken. I was looking forward to returning to my family and rejoining the army, but now I am stuck here [in India].” Marzai is from Ghazni, an Afghan province dominated by the Shia Hazara community, which has been persecuted by the mainly Sunni Taliban for a long time. And he is a former soldier for a government that the Taliban viewed as the enemy. Since August 2021, despite a general amnesty announced by the Taliban after its takeover, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) reported that at least 200 former Afghan soldiers and government officials have been killed extrajudicially by the new authority. Marzai is not the only Afghan soldier in India, unable to return home. Zaki Marzai displaying his picture when he was hospitalised after the Taliban attack [Luqmaan Zeerak/Al Jazeera] ‘We couldn’t return’ Khalil Shamas, a 27-year-old former lieutenant who now works as a waiter at a New Delhi restaurant, arrived in India in 2020 for training at the elite Indian Military Academy (IMA) in Dehradun, the hilly capital of India’s northern state of Uttarakhand. By the time he and his colleagues completed the course, the Afghan army had ceased to exist on the ground. He says there were about 200 Afghan soldiers training at the IMA. A few returned to Afghanistan. Many others migrated to Iran, Canada, the US and Europe. But at least 50 of them stayed back in India – unable to get visas to the West, and too scared to return to Afghanistan. Back in India, the difficulties for Afghan soldiers forced to stay in exile worsened after the Afghanistan embassy in New Delhi, their only source of contact and support, stopped funding their stay after the government in Kabul changed. The soldiers are reticent about sharing details of just how the embassy supported them financially. “Since 2021, we have not received any help from the embassy. We have been left on our own, to fend for ourselves,” says Marzai. After exhausting all of his savings and with no help coming, Marzai managed to enrol in a six-month haircutting course and started working in a salon. He lives in a two-room apartment with a damp odour, with three other Afghan men in the congested Bhogal area of South Delhi. The paint is peeling off the walls, and dirty quilts are strewn about. Zaki Marzai in his room in Bhogal, New Delhi [Luqmaan Zeerak/Al Jazeera] Not far from Bhogal, Shamas lives with seven Afghan friends in a small apartment in the city’s Malviya Nagar area. “It is challenging to live in a
Kim Jong Un takes ride in luxury Russian limo given to him by Putin
State media says car ride is ‘clear proof’ of the close and deepening relationship between the two countries. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un took his first ride in the luxury car that was given to him as a gift by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Pyongyang and Moscow have forged closer ties since Kim met Putin in Russia last September, their first summit in four years. Putin also invited Kim to try out his high-end Aurus Senat limousine, and the vehicle arrived in Pyongyang in February. On Friday, Kim used the car for the first time, according to his sister and prominent government official Kim Yo Jong. The journey was “clear proof of the DPRK-Russia friendship, which is developing in a comprehensive way on a new high stage”, Kim Yo Jong was reported as saying by state-run KCNA, using the acronym for North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. According to Russian state media, Aurus is Russia’s first luxury car brand and has been used in motorcades of top officials since Putin first used an Aurus limousine during his inauguration ceremony in 2018. Kim Jong Un, 40, has a collection of foreign-made luxury cars believed to have been smuggled into the country. During his Russia visit, he travelled between meeting sites in a Maybach limousine that he brought with him on his special train. Other limousines Kim has reportedly used include a Mercedes-Maybach S600 Pullman Guard and a Maybach S62. A 2021 United Nations report highlighted an attempted shipment of luxury vehicles worth more than $1m allegedly from the United Arab Emirates to Ningbo, China, for onward delivery to North Korea. North Korea and Russia have become increasingly close over the past year as North Korea advances its weapons and nuclear programmes and Moscow continues its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The United States and South Korea have raised concerns that North Korea is supplying Russia with weapons to use in its war in Ukraine in return for technological expertise. Kim also observed paratrooper drills with his daughter Kim Ju Ae [KCNA via KNS and AFP] Russia and China, North Korea’s oldest ally, have repeatedly blocked attempts to impose new UN sanctions on North Korea over its banned ballistic missile tests. South Korea’s Ministry of Unification said it had assessed that the gift of the Aurus was also a violation of UN sanctions. “We condemn North Korea for its brazen attitude of publicly disclosing violations of the UN sanctions,” a ministry official told reporters, speaking on condition of anonymity. “Russia should also be aware of its responsibility as a permanent member of the UN Security Council and stop an act that undermines international norms,” the official added. State media said that Kim also monitored paratroop drills on Friday that were aimed at showing his soldiers’ ability to occupy an “enemy region at a stroke”. He was accompanied by his daughter. Adblock test (Why?)
For many Chinese, there are ‘more important things’ than Taiwan unification
“It is difficult to imagine that this used to be a warzone,” 23-year-old *Shao Hongtian told Al Jazeera as he wandered along a beach near the city of Xiamen on China’s southeast coast. Halting by the water’s edge where gentle waves lapped against the sand, Shao gestured beyond the shallows towards the sea and the Kinmen archipelago – now peaceful, but in the 1940s and 1950s, a battleground. The communists won the Chinese Civil War in 1949, and the nationalists of the Kuomintang (KMT) fled Beijing for the island of Taiwan. It was on Kinmen, the main island of the archipelago of the same name, less than 10km (6.2 miles) from the coast of China, that the nationalists repulsed repeated communist invasion attempts, but not before the fighting had wreaked havoc on both Xiamen and Kinmen. Kinmen and its outlying islets – some of which lie even closer to the Chinese coast – have been a part of Taiwan’s territory ever since. Chinese citizens like Shao were once able to get tourist visas to visit the islands, but that ended with the pandemic. “Kinmen, China and Taiwan are all part of the same nation, so it should be possible to visit, and I hope I can visit one day,” Shao said over a video connection – his eyes fixed on Kinmen. Like Shao, Chinese President Xi Jinping and the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) claim that Taiwan and its territory are part of China. Defences line the beaches of Kinmen where nationailsts beat back the communists in the wake of the 1949 civil war [File: Ann Wang/Reuters] Xi said in his New Year’s address that China’s unification with democratic Taiwan was an “historical inevitability“, and China has not ruled out the use of force to achieve unification. Last year Xi called on China’s armed forces to strengthen their combat readiness. In recent years the Chinese military has increased its pressure on Taiwan with almost daily airborne and maritime incursions close to Taiwan’s air and sea space. At times of particular tension, such as during the visit of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taipei, such manoeuvres have been accompanied by sabre-rattling rhetoric and large-scale military drills. Capsized boats, recriminations Recently, tensions have been rising near Kinmen as well. In February, two Chinese fishermen were killed when their speedboat capsized as they attempted to flee the Taiwanese coastguard when they were discovered fishing “within prohibited waters” about one nautical mile (1.8km) from the Kinmen archipelago. Since then, the Chinese coastguard has stepped up its activities around Kinmen. Zhu Fenglian, a spokesperson for the Chinese government’s Taiwan Affairs Office, said the February incident was “vicious” and stressed the waters were “traditional” fishing grounds for fishermen in China and Taiwan. There were no off-limits waters around Kinmen, she added. A second capsize was reported on Thursday, and on this occasion China asked for help from the Taiwan coastguard. Standing on the beach looking out towards Kinmen, Shao says hostilities are not the way to bring China and Taiwan together. “I want unification to happen peacefully,” he said. If that is not possible, he would prefer things to remain as they are. Soldiers pay tribute to the fallen during a 2023 ceremony commemorating the 65th anniversary of China’s attack on Kinmen island [File: Chiang Ying-ying/Reuters] He knows that many of his friends feel the same way. According to Shao, if they go to Kinmen and Taiwan, it should be as visitors, not as fighters. “The Taiwanese haven’t done anything bad to us, so why should we go there to fight them?” he said, convinced that any war between China and Taiwan would result in significant casualties on both sides. “Unification with Taiwan is not worth a war.” No appetite for war A study published by the University of California San Diego’s 21st Century China Center last year suggests that Shao and his friends are not alone in opposing a war over Taiwan. The study explored Chinese public support for different policy steps regarding unification with Taiwan and found that launching a full-scale war to achieve unification was viewed as unacceptable by a third of the Chinese respondents. Only one percent rejected all other options but war, challenging the Chinese government’s assertion that the Chinese people were willing to “go to any length and pay any price” to achieve unification. Mia Wei, a 26-year-old marketing specialist from Shanghai is not surprised by such results. “Ordinary Chinese people are not pushing the government to get unification,” she told Al Jazeera. “It is the government that pushes people to believe that there must be unification.” At the same time, support for a unification war turned out to be close to the same level found in similar studies from earlier years, indicating that despite the growing tension in the Taiwan Strait and renewed talk about taking control of Taiwan, there has not been a corresponding increase in support for more forceful measures. Wei believes that Chinese like herself are more concerned with developments inside their country. “First there was COVID, then the economy got bad and then the housing market got even worse,” she said. “I think Chinese people have their minds on more important things than unification with Taiwan.” According to Associate Professor Yao-Yuan Yeh who teaches Chinese Studies at the University of St Thomas in the United States, there is currently little reason for Chinese people to be more supportive of conflict with Taiwan. US President Joe Biden has on several occasions said the US will defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion. At the same time, the US has been strengthening its military ties with countries such as Japan and the Philippines – Taiwan’s immediate neighbours to the north and the south. “There is no guarantee of a quick victory in a war over Taiwan,” Yeh told Al Jazeera. “Also, many people in China have business partners, friends and family in Taiwan, and therefore don’t want to see any harm come to the island
Ship carrying aid arrives off the coast of Gaza
NewsFeed A ship carrying 200 tonnes of food aid has arrived off the coast of Gaza. There are plans to distribute the aid in the north of Gaza, which has been mostly cut off from receiving aid by Israel, since October. Published On 15 Mar 202415 Mar 2024 Adblock test (Why?)