Chindia Alert: You’ll be Living in their World Very Soon
aims to alert you to the threats and opportunities that China and India present. China and India require serious attention; case of ‘hidden dragon and crouching tiger’.
Without this attention, governments, businesses and, indeed, individuals may find themselves at a great disadvantage sooner rather than later.
The POSTs (front webpages) are mainly 'cuttings' from reliable sources, updated continuously.
The PAGEs (see Tabs, above) attempt to make the information more meaningful by putting some structure to the information we have researched and assembled since 2006.
China is facing mounting criticism over a planned security law for Hong Kong which would make it a crime to undermine Beijing’s authority in the territory.
The UK and US said at a private session of the UN Security Council that the law would curtail the city’s freedoms.
China, which blocked a formal meeting, warned them to “stop interfering”.
Hong Kong’s autonomy is guaranteed by the 1997 agreement under which it was returned to China from the UK.
It enjoys some freedoms – of the press and association – unseen in mainland China.
But there are fears the proposed law – which has sparked a wave of anti-mainland protests – could end Hong Kong’s unique status.
There are 350,000 BNO passport holders in Hong Kong who currently have the right to visit the UK for up to six months without a visa.
On Friday, the UK Home Office confirmed the new rights could be given to up to three million people with BNO status – as long as they applied for and were granted a passport.
China says all BNO passport holders are Chinese nationals, and if the UK changes this practice, it would violate international law.
Australia, Canada and the EU have also criticised the security law and its implications for Hong Kong.
Taiwan’s parliament has backed a plan to offer sanctuary to people who want to flee Hong Kong, but China – which considers Taiwan to be part of its own territory – has warned the island not to get involved.
On Friday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian urged other countries to stop interfering in the matter.
“We will take necessary measures to resolutely counter the wrong acts of external forces interfering in Hong Kong affairs”, he said.
What might the US do?
On Wednesday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Congress that Hong Kong no longer merited special treatment under US law, potentially paving the way for it to be stripped of trading privileges such as lower tariffs than mainland China.
He is expected to make an announcement later on Friday.
The EU has warned that imposing sanctions would not solve the crisis.
“Our relationship with China is based on mutual respect and trust… but this decision calls this into question and I think that we have to raise the issue in our continued dialogue with China”, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell said after talks with foreign ministers on Friday.
Media caption Police arrested dozens of people in Causeway Bay on Wednesday
Hong Kong’s justice secretary Teresa Cheng told the BBC’s Chinese service that any threat of sanctions was unacceptable.
“Are the sanctions being imposed with a view to coerce another state to change their policy…? Any such sanctions are not going to benefit anyone”.
China’s parliament has backed the security legislation, which would make it a crime to undermine Beijing’s authority in Hong Kong.
The resolution – which now passes to China’s senior leadership – could also see China installing its own security agencies in the region for the first time.
Full details about exactly what behaviour will be outlawed under the new security law are not yet clear. It is due to be enacted before September.
Image copyright AFPImage caption President Xi Jinping and other senior figures applauded when the security law was passed
However, it is expected to criminalise:
secession – breaking away from China
subversion – undermining the power or authority of the central government
terrorism – using violence or intimidation against people
activities by foreign forces that interfere in Hong Kong
Experts say they fear the law could see people punished for criticising Beijing – as happens in mainland China. For example, Nobel Laureate Liu Xiaobo was jailed for 11 years for subversion after he co-authored a document calling for political reform.
China’s foreign ministry in Hong Kong described US criticism of the new draft law as “utterly imperious, unreasonable and shameless”.
The rhetoric towards the self-ruled island has hardened in Premier Li Keqiang’s annual work report
Beijing regards Taiwan as one of its core national interests and says it ‘resolutely opposes’ any separatist activity
Beijing regards reunification with Taiwan as one of its core interests. Photo: EPA-EFE
Beijing has hardened its rhetoric towards Taiwan, removing references to “peaceful reunification”, in the government’s annual work report.
Observers said the change reflected the stronger stance Beijing would adopt in tackling the Taiwan issue, which it regards as one of its key national interests.
The past six work reports since President Xi Jinping took power in 2013 stressed peaceful reunification and the 1992 consensus – under which both sides tacitly agree there is only one China, but have different interpretations on what this means.
But the latest report from Premier Li Keqiang took a different tone, saying: “We will adhere to the major principles and policies on work related to Taiwan and resolutely oppose and deter any separatist activities seeking ‘Taiwan independence’.”
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“We will improve institutional arrangements, policies, and measures to encourage exchanges and cooperation between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait, further cross-strait integrated development, and protect the well-being of our compatriots in Taiwan,” the report said.
“We will encourage them to join us in opposing ‘Taiwan independence’ and promoting China’s reunification.
“With these efforts, we can surely create a beautiful future for the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation,” it said, dropping a clause that described the process as “peaceful”.
The 1992 consensus allows leeway for both parties to negotiate an agreement, but President Tsai Ing-wen has said the island would never accept it as the basis for cross-strait relations.
Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council said on Friday that the “one country, two systems” framework, touted by Beijing as a political basis for unification, had harmed cross-strait relations. It called for the two sides to work together to resolve their differences.
Tang Shao-cheng, an international relations specialist at Taiwan’s National Chengchi University, said the change in wording and tone of the Taiwan section of the work report could be seen as a warning to Tsai’s independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
“Not mentioning ‘peace’ suggests Beijing is considering unification both by peaceful means and by force,” Tang said.
President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang at the National People’s Congress opening session on Friday. Photo: Kyodo
Derek Grossman, an analyst from US-based think tank Rand Corporation, said Beijing would continue to put pressure on the island using diplomatic, military, economic and psychological means.
“Beijing will continue to send military aircraft near the island … [it] could decide to end the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement which has remained active in spite of Tsai’s election in 2016; Beijing could steal one or more diplomatic partners from Taipei. I would expect these types of actions to be on the table,” Grossman said.
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Sun Yun, director of the China programme at the Stimson Centre think tank in the US, said Beijing faced a dilemma on whether to continue economic integration with Taiwan because that had not had the political effect it wanted.
“The obstacles to unification are not economic, but political. Taiwan is unwilling to pursue unification with an authoritarian mainland. To solve that issue, presumably the mainland could pursue political reform. But in reality, the Chinese Communist Party is unwilling,” she said.
“If the economic and political approach doesn’t work, what’s left is the military approach. But with US intervention, the mainland will not prevail.”
Beijing recently warned Washington it would respond after US Secretary of State
, and demanded that the US stop selling arms to the island.
Joshua Eisenman, a professor from the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, said Beijing was running out of countermeasures, since its actions had only hardened attitudes on the island and enhanced the sense of Taiwanese identity.
“As I see it, all that remains is for the [Chinese Communist Party[ to sit down and talk to the DPP without preconditions and establish a modus vivendi for cross-strait relations,” he said.
The team, accompanied by a member of Du’s family, was due to travel on Monday, and will handle arrangements for the remains, as well as conducting its own internal investigation, according to Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
Israel’s foreign ministry said its director general Yuval Rotem had spoken with deputy ambassador Dai Yuming to express his condolences. Local police are continuing to investigate at Du’s residence in a suburb of Herzliya, near Tel Aviv.
Details from the Chinese side have been scant. China’s foreign ministry provided a statement to AFP on Sunday which said the preliminary verdict was that Du, 57, had died unexpectedly for health reasons, and details awaited further confirmation. AFP also reported that Du’s wife and son were not with him in Tel Aviv.
“As far as I know, China’s ambassador to Israel Du Wei passed away in ambassador’s residence in Tel Aviv this morning for physical reasons. It happened abruptly,” said Hu Xijin, editor-in-chief of state media tabloid Global Times in a tweet late on Sunday night.
Du was last seen in public on Tuesday in a video conference with an official from Israel’s foreign affairs ministry, according to the embassy website.
James Dorsey, senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, said Du’s untimely death should be seen as a personal, rather than a political, tragedy for the growing relationship between China and Israel, but he said it came at an important moment for the two countries because of rising US-China tensions.
Dorsey said Israel’s increasing hi-tech cooperation with China, as well as continuing US hostility to Iran – which has close ties with China – were potentially problematic for relations between the two countries.
“I’m not sure that the China-Israel relationship can be seen as independent of the Israel-US relationship. One could argue that the Chinese may be well advised to very quickly replace him soon,” Dorsey said. “Israel could find itself on the fault line of deepening US-China decoupling,” he added.
Israel’s ambassador to China in quarantine after ‘infected’ flight to Seoul
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Following a brief trip to Jerusalem on Wednesday – his first foreign visit since March – US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo renewed warnings about China-Israel ties in an interview with Israeli state-owned media outlet Kan News.
“We do not want the Chinese Communist Party to have access to Israeli infrastructure, Israeli communication systems, all of the things that put Israeli citizens at risk,” he said.
China’s embassy in Tel Aviv blasted Pompeo’s comments as “absurd” and “ill-intentioned”. However, the embassy statement was not written by Du, but by a spokesperson.
Du had only served in Israel since February. Just before his arrival, the Chinese embassy had to issue an apology after then-acting ambassador Dai denounced Israel’s tightened restrictions on Chinese visitors by comparing them to the Holocaust.
During his brief tenure, Du gave frequent interviews to local media, speaking mainly about China’s virus control measures, US-China tensions, and friendship between China and the Jewish people.
Du had worked as a career diplomat since entering China’s foreign service in 1989. Before his appointment in Tel Aviv, he served as China’s ambassador to Ukraine from 2016-2019.
Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto tells Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, that his country ‘always upholds the one China principle’
Wang also speaks to foreign ministers of Estonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina ahead of World Health Assembly, which starts on Monday
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi spoke to three European foreign ministers on Thursday. Photo: AP
Hungary supports Beijing’s efforts to prevent Taiwan taking part in the upcoming World Health Assembly (WHA), according to a Chinese statement issued after a telephone conversation between the two countries’ foreign ministers.
China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi called his European counterpart, Peter Szijjarto, on Thursday, the foreign ministry in Beijing said.
During the call, Szijjarto told Wang that Budapest would not support Taiwan’s accession to the World Health Organisation (WHO) ahead of the annual gathering of health ministers from around the world that starts in Geneva on Monday and which Taipei is keen to attend.
Hungary “always upholds the one China principle”, Szijjarto was quoted as saying.
A report about the ministers’ call by the Hungarian foreign ministry, however, made no mention of Taiwan.
It said that Szijjarto thanked Wang for the medical supplies China had sent to Hungary board 121 flights since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The pair also discussed cooperation on 5G and the development of a rail project between Budapest and the Serbian capital, Belgrade, it said.
Beijing opposes Taiwan’s involvement in the WHO. Photo: EPA-EFE
As well as speaking to Szijjarto, Wang called the foreign ministers of Estonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina on Thursday to discuss the Covid-19 pandemic, but Taiwan was not mentioned, the Chinese statement said.
Taipei donated 80,000 face masks to Estonia in April, and last week, Urmas Paet, an Estonian member of the European parliament urged Budapest to support Taiwan’s membership of the WHO and “not allow itself to be manipulated by China”.
Taiwan has long campaigned to regain observer status at the WHO and has ramped up those efforts since the start of the global health crisis. Despite the devastation caused by Covid-19, Taiwan has reported just 440 confirmed cases and seven deaths.
Taiwan attended the WHA meetings as an observer between 2009 and 2016, unopposed by Beijing as at the time the island was led by president Ma Ying-jiu from the mainland-friendly Kuomintang.
However, relations between Taipei and Beijing have soured since 2016 and the election of President Tsai Ing-wen, from the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party, who won a second term of office in January.
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Taiwan has not been alone in its campaign to regain its WHO status, with the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and several European countries backing the move.
Last week, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called on all nations to support Taipei’s participation as an observer at the WHA, and urged WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus to allow it.
Despite the support, Taiwan’s Vice-Premier Chen Chien-jen said on Thursday that because of the pressure from Beijing there was now little chance of Taiwan attending the WHA.
China’s foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said last week it was “resolutely opposed” to New Zealand’s support for Taiwan.
In his calls to Europe, Wang also said that cooperation between Beijing and 17 central and eastern European nations – under the “17+1” banner – would not be affected by the health crisis and that further talks would be held once it had been brought under control.
Image copyright AFP / GETTYImage caption The P4 laboratory (centre) in Wuhan is among a handful around the world cleared to handle viruses that pose a high risk of person-to-person transmission
Chinese state media has accused US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo of lying, after he said there was “enormous evidence” the coronavirus emanated from a laboratory in Wuhan.
Mr Pompeo made the claim on Sunday, without going into specifics.
In an editorial on Tuesday, the hawkish Global Times newspaper said Mr Pompeo was “degenerate”.
The World Health Organization says the US claims are “speculative”, and that it has seen no “specific evidence”.
What did Chinese media say?
Editorials in Chinese state media often given an insight into the direction of government thinking, but there has been no official response to Mr Pompeo’s comments as yet.
“Pompeo aims to kill two birds with one stone by spewing falsehoods,” it said.
“First, he hopes to help Trump win re-election this November…second, Pompeo hates socialist China and, in particular, cannot accept China’s rise.”
Media caption “The Chinese Communist Party has refused to co-operate with world health experts” – Mike Pompeo
The editorial admitted there were “initial problems” in China’s response to the outbreak, but claimed “the overall performance is bright enough to outweigh the flaws”.
It also said it was “conceivable that the virus first contacted humans in other places [than Wuhan]”.
The Global Times is not the only Chinese outlet to take aim at Mr Pompeo and the US.
The People’s Daily said Mr Pompeo had “no evidence”, while a piece on the CCTV site accused US politicians of “nefarious plotting”.
What did Mike Pompeo say?
In an interview with ABC on Sunday, Mr Pompeo said there was “enormous evidence” that the virus had emerged from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
“Remember, China has a history of infecting the world, and they have a history of running sub-standard laboratories,” he said.
Mr Pompeo – a former director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) – said he did not think the virus was man-made or genetically modified.
The Wuhan laboratory is known to study coronaviruses in bats. In April, President Trump was asked whether “lax safety protocols” allowed such a virus to escape via an intern and her boyfriend.
Mr Trump did not confirm the theory, but said: “More and more we’re hearing the story.”
Media caption Donald Trump was recently asked if the virus emanated in a laboratory, rather than a market
Last week, he was asked if he had seen evidence that gave him a “high degree of confidence” that the virus emerged in the Wuhan laboratory.
“Yes I have,” he replied – but said he could not go into specifics.
On Monday, World Health Organization emergencies director Michael Ryan said it had received “no data or specific evidence” from the US about the virus origins.
“So from our perspective, this remains speculative,” he said.
Last week, the US intelligence community said it “concurred” that the virus “was not man-made or genetically modified”.
But it said it would “continue to examine” whether the outbreak began via “contract with infected animals, or if it was the result of an an accident at a laboratory in Wuhan”.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Tuesday that the most likely source of the virus was a wildlife market. However he said he would not rule out the theory that it originated in a lab.
“What’s really important is that we have a proper review, an independent review which looks into the sources of these things in a transparent way so we can learn the lessons,” he told reporters.
Meanwhile, Western “intelligence sources” have told several news outlets there is “no evidence” to suggest the virus leaked from a laboratory.
Virus was circulating ‘before we were aware of the outbreak in China’, says Giuseppe Remuzzi, director of the Mario Negri Institute for Pharmacological Research
Italy has now reported more than 4,800 deaths from Covid-19, more than any other country in the world
Italian doctors became aware of a “strange pneumonia” circulating in the Lombardy region in November. Photo: AFP
A “strange pneumonia” was circulating in northern Italy as long ago as November, weeks before doctors were made aware of the novel coronavirus outbreak in China, one of the European country’s leading medical experts said this week.
“They [general practitioners] remember having seen very strange pneumonia, very severe, particularly in old people in December and even November,” Giuseppe Remuzzi, the director of the Mario Negri Institute for Pharmacological Research in Milan, said in an interview with the National Public Radio of the United States.
“This means that the virus was circulating, at least in [the northern region of] Lombardy and before we were aware of this outbreak occurring in China.”
Remuzzi’s comments came as scientists continue to search for the origin of the coronavirus. Chinese respiratory disease expert Zhong Nanshan said earlier that although China was the first to report the pathogen, it was not yet certain where it actually came from.
Remuzzi said it was only recently that he had heard from Italian doctors about the disease, which meant it had existed and been spreading without people’s knowledge.
Despite reporting its first locally transmitted coronavirus infections – in Lombardy – only on February 21 – it had had only imported cases before then – Italy has since had more than 53,000 confirmed cases and 4,825 deaths from Covid-19, the disease caused by the pathogen. By comparison, China has had just over 81,000 cases and 3,261 fatalities.
Italy suspended all flights to China on January 31, the first nation to do so.
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In the central China city of Wuhan, where the epidemic was first identified, doctors began noticing a “pneumonia with an unknown cause” in December. The first known infection in the city can be traced back to December 1.
The current thinking among the scientific community is that the first infection in Lombardy was the result of an Italian coming into contact with a Chinese person in late January. However, if it can be shown that the novel coronavirus – officially known as SARS-CoV-2 – was in circulation in Italy in November, then that theory would be turned on its head.
The debate over the possible origin of the pathogen has also been at the heart of a war of words between Beijing and Washington, with US President Donald Trump repeatedly referring to it as the “Chinese virus” and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo calling it the “Wuhan virus”, infuriating Beijing in the process.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian took to Twitter to contest the claims.
“By calling it ‘China virus’ and thus suggesting its origin without any supporting facts or evidence, some media clearly want China to take the blame, and their ulterior motives are laid bare,” he said.
He then went on to suggest that the coronavirus outbreak might have started in the United States and been carried to Wuhan by the US Army.
China has effectively expelled journalists from three US newspapers in retaliation for restrictions on its news outlets in the US.
Its foreign ministry ordered reporters from the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal to return media passes within 10 days.
The ministry also demanded information about their operations in China.
The measures were in response to “unwarranted restrictions on Chinese media agencies” in the US, it said.
China’s action also prohibits the newspapers’ journalists from working in the semi-autonomous regions of Hong Kong and Macau, where there is greater press freedom than on the mainland.
Earlier this month, the Trump administration imposed limits on the number of Chinese citizens who could work as journalists in the US – the latest move in a tit-for-tat row over press freedoms.
“What the US has done is exclusively targeting Chinese media organisations, and hence driven by a Cold War mentality and ideological bias,” China’s foreign ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urged Beijing to reconsider its decision, calling the move “unfortunate”.
“I regret China’s decision today to further foreclose the world’s ability to conduct the free press operations that, frankly, would be really good for the Chinese people in these incredibly challenging global times, where more information, more transparency are what will save lives,” Mr Pompeo said.
Great loss for Chinese journalism
Zhaoyin Feng, BBC Chinese
All foreign correspondents in China are required to renew their press credentials annually, which usually happens at the year end.
This means most American reporters of the three US major publications have an expiring visa and will need to leave China under the new rules. We don’t know the exact number of affected journalists yet, but it’s believed to be close to a dozen.
The expulsions will lead to a major personnel loss in these three media organisations’ China operation, especially for the Wall Street Journal, which had already seen three reporters expelled from China last month.
Critics say it’s an even greater loss for China, as the draconian measures come at a time when the country and the rest of the world need high-quality journalism on China more than ever.
It’s still unclear whether the US publications can send new correspondents, American citizens or not, to fill in the positions in China.
In the midst of a dangerous pandemic, the world’s two superpowers are locked in an escalating war with multiple fronts. By fighting over media, the origin of the coronavirus, and technology and trade, the US and China are competing to prove the superiority of their own political model.
At the beginning of March, the US state department said five media outlets, including China’s official news agency Xinhua, would be required to reduce their total number of staff to 100 from 160.
The move was seen as retaliation for China’s expulsion of two US journalists for the Wall Street Journal over a coronavirus editorial in February.
The row over media access is the latest episode in an increasingly acrimonious dispute between China and the US.
Disagreements over trade, intellectual property rights and 5G networks have damaged relations in recent years.
The coronavirus pandemic has been a source of tension too, with Washington and Beijing both accusing each other of spreading misinformation.
On Tuesday, US President Donald Trump angered China by referring to the coronavirus as “Chinese”.
A foreign ministry spokesman accused the US of stigmatising China, where the first cases of Covid-19 were recorded in the city of Wuhan in late 2019.
However, last week a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman shared a conspiracy theory, alleging the US Army had brought it to the region.
The unfounded accusation led Mr Pompeo to demand China stop spreading “disinformation” as it tried “to shift blame” for the outbreak.
The US invaded Afghanistan weeks after the September 2001 attacks in New York by the Afghanistan-based al-Qaeda group.
More than 2,400 US troops have been killed during the conflict. About 12,000 are still stationed in the country. President Trump has promised to put an end to the conflict.
What happened in Doha?
The deal was signed by US special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad and Taliban political chief Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar with Mr Pompeo as a witness.
In a speech, Mr Pompeo urged the militant group to “keep your promises to cut ties with al-Qaeda”.
Meanwhile US Defence Secretary Mark Esper was in the Afghan capital Kabul alongside Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani – whose government did not take part in the US-Taliban talks.
Mr Esper said: “This is a hopeful moment, but it is only the beginning. The road ahead will not be easy. Achieving lasting peace in Afghanistan will require patience and compromise among all parties.” He said the US would continue to support the Afghan government.
What’s in the agreement?
Within the first 135 days of the deal the US will reduce its forces in Afghanistan to 8,600, with allies also drawing down their forces proportionately.
The move would allow US President Donald Trump to show that he has brought troops home ahead of the US presidential election in November.
The deal also provides for a prisoner swap. Some 5,000 Taliban prisoners and 1,000 Afghan security force prisoners would be exchanged by 10 March, when talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government are due to start.
The US will also lift sanctions against the Taliban and work with the UN to lift its separate sanctions against the group.
Landmark deal rife with uncertainties
This historic deal has been years in the making, as all sides kept seeking advantage on the battlefield.
The agreement is born of America’s determination to bring troops home and a recognition, at least by some Taliban, that talks are the best route to return to Kabul.
It’s a significant step forward, despite deep uncertainty and scepticism over where it will lead. When the only alternative is unending war, many Afghans seem ready to take this risk for peace.
Taliban leaders say they’ve changed since their harsh rule of the 1990s still seared in the memory of many, and most of all Afghan women.
This process will test the Taliban, but also veteran Afghan leaders of the past, and a new generation which has come of age in the last two decades and is hoping against hope for a different future.
How did US-Taliban talks come about?
Since 2011, Qatar has hosted Taliban leaders who have moved there to discuss peace in Afghanistan. It has been a chequered process. A Taliban office was opened in 2013, and closed the same year amid rows over flags. Other attempts at talks stalled.
In December 2018, the militants announced they would meet US officials to try to find a “roadmap to peace”. But the hard-line Islamist group continued to refuse to hold official talks with the Afghan government, whom they dismissed as American “puppets”.
Media caption The view from Lashkar Gah province on whether peace with the Taliban is possible
Following nine rounds of US-Taliban talks in Qatar, the two sides seemed close to an agreement.
Washington’s top negotiator announced last September that the US would withdraw 5,400 troops from Afghanistan within 20 weeks as part of a deal agreed “in principle” with Taliban militants.
Days later, Mr Trump said the talks were “dead”, after the group killed a US soldier. But within weeks the two sides resumed discussions behind the scenes.
A week ago the Taliban agreed to a “reduction of violence” – although Afghan officials say at least 22 soldiers and 14 civilians have been killed in Taliban attacks over that period.
Media caption Meet Fatima and Fiza, some of the women removing landmines in Afghanistan
It began when the US launched air strikes one month following the 11 September 2001 attacks and after the Taliban had refused to hand over the man behind them, Osama bin Laden.
Media caption Tens of thousands of Afghan soldiers have been killed and injured. This is their story
The US was joined by an international coalition and the Taliban were quickly removed from power. However, they turned into an insurgent force and continued deadly attacks, destabilising subsequent Afghan governments.
The international coalition ended its combat mission in 2014, staying only to train Afghan forces. But the US continued its own, scaled-back combat operation, including air strikes.
The Taliban has however continued to gain momentum and last year the BBC found they were active across 70% of Afghanistan.
Media caption Zan TV presenter Ogai Wardak: “If the Taliban come, I will fight them”
Nearly 3,500 members of the international coalition forces have died in Afghanistan since the 2001 invasion.
The figures for Afghan civilians, militants and government forces are more difficult to quantify. In a February 2019 report, the UN said that more than 32,000 civilians had died. The Watson Institute at Brown University says 58,000 security personnel and 42,000 opposition combatants have been killed.
Why has the war lasted so long?
There are many reasons for this. But they include a combination of fierce Taliban resistance, the limitations of Afghan forces and governance, and other countries’ reluctance to keep their troops for longer in Afghanistan.
At times over the past 18 years, the Taliban have been on the back foot. In late 2009, US President Barack Obama announced a troop “surge” that saw the number of American soldiers in Afghanistan top 100,000.
Media caption The BBC was given exclusive access to spend a week with ambulance workers in Afghanistan.
The surge helped drive the Taliban out of parts of southern Afghanistan, but it was never destined to last for years.
The BBC World Service’s Dawood Azami says there are five main reasons the war is still going on now. They include:
a lack of political clarity since the invasion began, and questions about the effectiveness of the US strategy over the past 18 years
the fact each side is trying to break what has become a stalemate – and that the Taliban have been trying maximise their leverage during peace negotiations
an increase in violence by Islamic State militants in Afghanistan – they’ve been behind some of the bloodiest attacks recently
There’s also the role played by Afghanistan’s neighbour, Pakistan.
US secretary of state is eager to promote US investment as an alternative to China, which holds the lion’s share of Angola’s foreign debt
Isabel dos Santos, the former president’s daughter, became Africa’s richest woman but now stands accused of massive fraud
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Luanda, Angola. Photo: Reuters
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo denounced corruption and touted American business on Monday during the second leg of an African tour in Angola, where the government is seeking to claw back billions of dollars looted from state coffers.
Pompeo is aiming to promote US investment as an alternative to Chinese loans while assuaging concerns over a planned US military withdrawal and the expansion of visa restrictions targeting four African countries.
In Angola’s capital Luanda, Pompeo met with President Joao Lourenco, who took office in 2017 promising wide-ranging economic reforms and a crackdown on the endemic corruption that marked his predecessor Jose Eduardo dos Santos’ four-decade rule.
“Here in Angola, damage from corruption is pretty clear,” he told a group of businessmen following that meeting. “This reform agenda that the president put in place has to stick.”
Here in Angola, damage from corruption is pretty clear Mike Pompeo
Portugal’s public prosecutor has ordered the seizure of bank accounts belonging to
, the former president’s billionaire daughter, who is a suspect in an Angolan fraud investigation. Reputedly the richest woman in Africa, she has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.
Angola, with Sub-Saharan Africa’s third-largest economy and its second-largest oil producer is ranked as one of the world’s most corrupt nations, in 165th place on a list of 180 countries, according to anti-corruption group Transparency International.
US oil majors ExxonMobil and Chevron have significant stakes in Angolan oilfields.
Last year, Chevron signed onto a consortium to develop Angola’s natural gas assets alongside Italy’s Eni, France’s Total, BP and Angolan state oil company Sonangol.
Mike Pompeo and his wife Susan greet Angola Foreign Minister Manuel Domingos Augusto in Luanda on Monday. Pool photo: AFP
“We’ve got a group of energy companies that have put more than US$2 billion in a natural gas project. That will rebound to the benefit of the American businesses for sure, but to the Angolan people for sure as well,” Pompeo said.
Despite US investments, the bulk of Angola’s oil production is destined for China, which holds the lion’s share of Angolan foreign debt.
With a revamped International Development Finance Corporation and its new Prosper Africa trade and investment strategy, the administration is seeking to combat Chinese influence on the continent.
But the push comes as some governments are questioning US President Donald Trump’s commitment to Africa.
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The White House last month tightened visa restrictions on nationals from Sudan, Tanzania, Eritrea and Nigeria.
West African governments are also worried about a proposed US troop withdrawal from the region just as Islamist groups with links to Islamic State and al-Qaeda are gaining ground.
During the first leg of his African trip in Senegal on Sunday, Pompeo sought to put some of those fears to rest.
“We have an obligation to get security right here, in the region. It’s what will permit economic growth, and we’re determined to do that,” he told reporters.
Image copyright GETTY IMAGESImage caption Protests calling for Uighur freedom have been happening all year
The US has said it will impose visa restrictions on Chinese officials accused of involvement in repression of Muslim populations.
It follows the decision on Monday to blacklist 28 Chinese organisations linked by the US to allegations of abuse in the Xinjiang region.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the Chinese government had instituted “a highly repressive campaign”.
China has dismissed the allegations as groundless.
In a statement, Mr Pompeo accused the Chinese government of a string of abuses against Uighurs, ethnic Kazakhs, Kyrgyz Muslims and other minority Muslim groups.
These included “mass detentions in internment camps; pervasive, high-tech surveillance; draconian controls on expressions of cultural and religious identities; and coercion of individuals to return from abroad to an often perilous fate in China”.
China has rebuffed the US moves.
“There is no such thing as these so-called ‘human rights issues’ as claimed by the United States,” foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said on Monday.
“These accusations are nothing more than an excuse for the United States to deliberately interfere in China’s internal affairs.”
Media caption The BBC visits the camps where China’s Muslims have their “thoughts transformed”
Visa restrictions are to be imposed on Chinese government and Communist Party officials, as well as their family members.
“The United States calls on the People’s Republic of China to immediately end its campaign of repression in Xinjiang, release all those arbitrarily detained, and cease efforts to coerce members of Chinese Muslim minority groups residing abroad to return to China to face an uncertain fate,” the US statement said.
The US and China are currently embroiled in a trade war, and have sent delegations to Washington for a meeting about the tensions later this week.
China has been carrying out a massive security operation in Xinjiang, in its far west, in recent years.
Human rights groups and the UN say China has rounded up and detained more than a million Uighurs and other ethnic minorities in vast detention camps, where they are forced to renounce Islam, speak only in Mandarin Chinese and learn obedience to the communist government.
But China says they are attending “vocational training centres” which are giving them jobs and helping them integrate into Chinese society, in the name of preventing terrorism.
Media caption The BBC’s John Sudworth meets Uighur parents in Turkey who say their children are missing in China
There have been increasingly vocal denunciations from the US and other countries about China’s actions in Xinjiang.
Image copyright REUTERS
Image copyright AFP
CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon 