South East Asia

The challenge ahead is a formidable one that will require the military-intelligence services to fully focus on this newly metastasized terrorist threat in order to emerge victorious, which in turn necessitates their top brass giving them the order to abandon the all-out nationwide crackdown against the opposition. Pakistan’s prior large-scale anti-terrorist operations succeeded precisely because those carrying them out weren’t distracted by political witch hunts, which COAS Munir would do well not to forget.

The global systemic transition’s impending evolution towards tri-multipolarity could see the US-led West’s Golden Billion, the Sino-Russo Entente, and the de facto Indian-led Global South becoming the most prominent poles in International Relations, below which would be rising powers and regional groups. All actors would balance one another by multi-aligning within and between their respective levels, which might result in stabilizing global affairs much more than the prior unipolar and bi-multipolar orders did.

In August 2021, following nearly two decades of armed resistance, the Taliban movement forced their way to power in Afghanistan, coinciding with the withdrawal of international troops from the country. Following their return media attention and international policy discussions have, correctly, focused on the deteriorating economic situation, the looming humanitarian crisis, and the deteriorating human rights situation in the country and on questions such as in which form the Taliban can and should be engaged.1 Less attention has been paid to the security and terrorist threats that are likely to emerge from the new situation in Afghanistan. Therefore, a clear gap in perception among policymakers and the general public seems to exist in this regard.

On November 13, 2023, a Chinese influencer known as “Flower-Dappled Horse Kesi” on the Chinese Bilibili social media platform shared a video titled “Suppose Hamas Wins,” in which he criticized Hamas’s leadership and speculated that even if Hamas defeated Israel and were able to rule Gaza with no external intervention whatsoever, the desperate situation of the Gazans would not change. He said that Hamas leaders don’t even live in Gaza and that they do not want to rule over their people with integrity, and he said that in this scenario of a Hamas victory, Gaza would become like Venezuela or Zimbabwe. It is noteworthy that the video contradicts the generally pro-Hamas tone of the Chinese government’s propaganda. Kesi also shared a screenshot from a MEMRI TV clip.