الكاتب: kafej

Smiley greetings, garden walks and even a light-hearted look at the Chinese presidential car would have seemed impossible just a few months ago.

And while it doesn’t indicate any fundamental breakthrough, it is designed to show the world they are now, at least, making a concerted effort.

The fact is, both know a highly unstable relationship doesn’t serve them either economically or politically.

Xi in particular, who has had a tricky year domestically with a chaotic end to his zero COVID policy and a faltering economy, has an interest in showing his people he can manage this all-important relationship.

He also badly needs foreign investment to return to his country.

Indeed, Chinese state media has notably refrained from its usual full throated critiques this week and in a speech to business leaders Xi repeatedly referenced the friendship, sympathies and similarities the countries share, only briefly lingering on the usual warnings that the US should stay out of China’s affairs.

But while the agreements that were reached, on military to military talks and on the supply of fentanyl chemicals are significant, they were certainly the “easier” issues; the low-hanging fruit if you like.

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The bigger questions of Taiwan, the Ukraine War, the Middle East and economic sanctions remain intractable and there is still an enormous degree of distrust between them.

That distrust was perhaps perfectly encapsulated in the dying moments of Biden’s news conference when he was asked by a reporter if he still considered Xi to be a “dictator”.

“Look, he is… in the sense that he’s a guy who runs a country that is a communist country,” came the response.

It’s a term he used at a private event in June, much to the fury of Beijing, and it’s hard to see how the comment will not cast a cloud over progress that has been made.

The Chinese response has thus far refrained from a direct criticism of Biden, more signs perhaps at just how much they wanted and needed that stabilisation.

But it’s as good an example as any that things remain precarious and could quite easily be again blown off course.

Chinese president Xi Jinping has signalled that China will be sending new pandas to the United States.

Mr Xi made the offer on a visit to California where he was taking part in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperative (APEC) conference.

Although he did not share much detail about the pandas, it was suggested that the next pair would likely be lent to San Diego, California.

It came after Mr Xi spent four hours with US President Joe Biden at a northern California country estate, holding meetings, lunching and walking together through a garden – something that, because of a strain in the two countries’ relations, was inconceivable not long ago.

After the meeting, Mr Biden announced that direct lines of communication between American and Chinese military forces will be reopened for the first time in more than a year.

During a dinner speech with business leaders, Mr Xi dubbed pandas “envoys of friendship between the Chinese and American peoples”.

He said: “We are ready to continue our cooperation with the United States on panda conservation, and do our best to meet the wishes of the Californians so as to deepen the friendly ties between our two peoples.”

The indication comes after some of the last giant pandas in the US were sent back to China.

China has loaned out pandas as gestures of goodwill many times in the past in what has come to be known as “panda diplomacy”.

Modern China gave its first pair of giant pandas to Britain in 1974 and pandas were first offered to the US by Beijing in 1972, to the National Zoo in Washington, ahead of the normalisation of bilateral relations.

In October, the National Zoo announced that its most recent three pandas – Mei Xiang, Tian Tian and their male cub, Xiao Qi Ji, aged 3 – would return to China by 15 November.

Pandas have also been loaned from Beijing to other US zoos with proceeds going back to panda conservation programmes.

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The UK’s current only pair of pandas are set to return to China from Edinburgh Zoo by the end of this year.

Similarly, Australia and China are negotiating the extension of a loan agreement for two pandas at Adelaide Zoo that expires next year.

Raiding Gaza’s largest hospital, another communications blackout, Israel’s goals in Gaza – the Middle East this week.

Raiding Gaza’s largest hospital | Pushing people out of southern Gaza ‘safe zones’ | Strip being cut off from communications with the outside world  | What are Israel’s goals in Gaza? | Here is the Middle East this week:

Death haunts hospital corridors

Gaza is losing its connection with the outside world as its telecom towers lose power, which means it’s getting more difficult to bring you stories of the people trapped inside.

On Wednesday, the unthinkable happened when Israeli forces raided al-Shifa Hospital where hundreds of patients were being treated and thousands of people had sought refuge.

Many people had already been watching al-Shifa, aghast, as one premature baby after the other died at Gaza’s biggest hospital, starved as it was of the fuel needed to run its generators.

The lack of electricity — not to mention medicines — also means cancer patients face a horrific prospect.

As do the people who rely on regular dialysis treatments and babies in incubators in other hospitals who need help to breathe and thrive.

Israel says attacking hospitals is OK because it is actually attacking “Hamas operatives” hiding within them. But international law protects hospitals except in very specific cases, which al-Shifa is not one of, so who is Israel making those statements for?

And as the international community finally begins to speak up more forcefully about Israel’s targeting of civilians and health installations, we pay tribute to the Indonesian medical volunteers who chose to stay with their Palestinian colleagues.

If Gaza were your city…

Do you know how much of it would be destroyed in Israel’s bombardment? We’ve mapped the Gaza destruction onto several international capitals.

How can this much pain be comprehended?

A cheerful toddler who just took her first steps a couple of weeks ago found herself buried alive under tonnes of rubble when her home was bombed by Israel in the middle of the night.

Her nine-month pregnant mother? Dead, as were her twin foetuses who had struggled to be born when the bomb struck. Her father was also dead. Grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins … all dead. Melissa was left with one surviving aunt, a paralysed body, and pain.

There’s a man at al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah, and his job for the past 15 years has been to shroud the people who have died there. But, Abu Saher wept as he told us, those past years are nothing compared to the level of horrific human mutilations he is seeing now.

Finally, we bring you a teacher’s plea as she checks feverishly every day to see if any of her 5th graders have been killed in an Israeli attack.

What is Hezbollah thinking?

The Lebanese group, and its leader Hassan Nasrallah, have a lot of expectations to contend with. Widely seen as the region’s strongest militia, many were hoping that it would open up a wide second front with Israel, including the Palestinian refugees who live in Lebanon.

But Nasrallah has a complicated line to walk, as he balances domestic pressure against him with Hezbollah’s role as part of the region’s “Islamic resistance”.

As one skirmish follows another and Israeli attacks hit deeper in Lebanese territory, the question becomes: How long will Hezbollah hold back?

If the tunnels are the issue, why not go underground?

Israel has said repeatedly that its goal is to clear the tunnels under Gaza used by Hamas fighters.

Yet, fighting remains above ground and any victories Israel claims seem to be largely against clusters of unarmed civilians, causing incredible destruction as it draws one weapon after the other out of its large arsenal.

Our strategic analyst posits that this is likely because Israel knows that going into the tunnels will be a long, dangerous campaign for it.

He also provides a step-by-step breakdown of how Israel would have to operate in order to actually start taking over those feared tunnels.

While the world looks towards Gaza …

While Israel pounds Gaza, Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, and his ally Russia seem to have seized the opportunity to step up bombing rebel-held areas in the country.

Al-Assad gave an impassioned speech at an Arab-Islamic summit in Riyadh this week, decrying violations against civilians in Gaza, and eliciting a lot of contempt among the civilians being bombed in Syria.

The US is getting involved as well, in Syria and in Iraq, where its troops have been attacked and exchanged fire with enemy combatants… Will it get worse?

Briefly

Quote of the Week

“We’re working on cases now that we’ve never seen in our medical textbooks.” | Dr Ayman Harb, head of the orthopaedic department at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.

David Cameron tells Ukraine’s president that London would support Kyiv for ‘however long it takes’.

The United Kingdom’s newly appointed foreign secretary, David Cameron, has made a visit to Ukraine to underline British support for Kyiv amid its ongoing war with Russia, according to his office.

The former prime minister, making his first working trip abroad as Britain’s top diplomat, told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that his country would support Ukraine for “however long it takes”.

“I wanted this to be my first visit,” Cameron said. “I admire the strength and determination of the Ukrainian people.”

He was named foreign secretary on Monday in a surprise cabinet reshuffle.

Zelenskyy said he was grateful for Cameron’s gesture, which comes amid Israel’s war in Gaza that he worries has diverted attention from Ukraine’s drawn-out battle with Russia, in its 21st month.

“The world is not so focused on the battlefield situation in Ukraine, and this dividing of the focus really does not help,” Zelenskyy said.

The UK has been a close ally of Ukraine throughout the war, and Cameron told Zelenskyy Britain would continue to be there for moral, diplomatic and military support.

“What I want to say by being here is that we will continue to give you the moral support, the diplomatic support … but above all the military support that you need not just this year and next year, but however long it takes,” Cameron said.

He added that the UK would work with its allies “to make sure the attention is here in Ukraine”.

Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Cameron had also engaged in talks on issues related to armaments, arms production, and security in the Black Sea while in Kyiv.

Ukraine did not say when the talks took place. Due to stringent wartime security regulations, the details of foreign dignitaries’ trips are sometimes released late.

As of last month, the UK said it was second to the United States in providing military funds to Ukraine, giving 4.6 billion pounds ($5.7bn) worth of assistance and training 30,000 Ukrainian soldiers on British soil.

The much-awaited deal with the global lender is meant to save the cash-strapped country from default.

Islamabad, Pakistan – Pakistan and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have reached a preliminary deal for the release of $700m from a $3bn bailout package after two weeks of talks with the global lender.

The IMF on Wednesday said it reached a staff-level agreement with Pakistan’s caretaker government on the first review of the $3bn fund.

“Upon approval [from IMF executive board], around $700m will become available bringing total disbursements under the programme to almost $1.9 billion,” IMF’s Pakistan mission chief Nathan Porter said in a statement.

The $700m fund is the second tranche of the bailout the IMF signed with Pakistan in June this year. The next month, the cash-strapped country – on the verge of default – received the first tranche of $1.2bn and was asked by the IMF to take a series of steps, including revising its budget and ending electricity and fuel subsidies.

After its two-week review of Pakistan’s economic situation that ended on Wednesday, the IMF in its statement said, “A nascent recovery is underway, buoyed by international partners’ support and signs of improved confidence.”

The statement added that inflation – which in May hit 38 percent, the highest in four decades, and is currently hovering at about 30 percent – is “expected to decline over the coming months amid receding supply constraints and modest demand”.

But the global lender cautioned the country’s economy was not out of the woods yet.

“Pakistan remains susceptible to significant external risks, including the intensification of geopolitical tensions, resurgent commodity prices, and the further tightening in global financial conditions. Efforts to build resilience need to continue,” it said.

Pakistan, home to 241 million people, has been facing financial and political instability for nearly two years. Its central bank’s foreign reserves depleted to less than $4bn, leaving just enough money for less than a month of import. It owes more than $20bn in external debt in the current fiscal year.

Meanwhile, the Pakistani rupee has lost more than 50 percent of its value against the dollar in a year.

Some analysts, however, say prudent policy decisions by the Pakistani government have improved macroeconomic fundamentals, such as inflation, which dropped to 27 percent in October.

Lahore-based economist Hina Shaikh told Al Jazeera the government has taken “bold steps” in accordance with the IMF requirements to “significantly increase” energy prices and ensure the value of the rupee is determined by market forces.

“If the government continues to meet the conditions of the IMF, it could pave the way for an elected government to negotiate for another package,” she said.

Khaqan Najeeb, former adviser to the Ministry of Finance, said Pakistan satisfying the IMF about its current economic policies was a good sign.

“It is now paramount that Pakistan stays with the IMF to meet its future external financing requirements. It is also pleasing to see the lender acknowledging the recent recovery in economy and hopeful of reduction in inflation in the coming months,” Najeeb told Al Jazeera.

With national elections scheduled in February, Shaikh said the announcement of the vote also adds “some stability” to the political situation.

“These tough measures and essential reforms were and are more likely to be rolled out during the caretaker set-up. An elected administration may hesitate to undertake difficult economic measures,” she said.