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I'm Ding Hen in Beijing.
Coming up, China has hit its 2025 economic growth target.
China's Shenzhou-20 return capsule has touched down on Earth after spending nine months in orbit.
European leaders have issued warnings against Trump's Greenland tariffs.
And Syria's government announced a ceasefire with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.
To listen to this episode again or to catch up on our previous episodes, download our podcast by searching World Today.
First up, China's GDP expanded by 5% last year, reaching over 140 trillion yuan.
That's equivalent to more than 20 trillion U.S. dollars.
Port capita disposable income rose by 5 in nominal terms, while retail sales of consumer goods climbed by 37.
The country's value-added industrial output grew by 59.
China's National Bureau of Statistics has defined the country's economic development in 2025 with four key characteristics stability progress, innovation and resilience.
So for more, my colleague Zhao Yang spoke with Professor Qu Qiang from Minsu University of China.
So, Professor Qu Qiang, thank you very much for joining us.
China's GDP grew at 5% year-on-year in 2025.
This is surpassing 140 trillion yuan or 20 trillion US dollars.
So how would you assess the performance of China's economy in 2025?
Well, I think we can use four key words to say that.
Number one is stability.
For example, the whole year's job market, the jobless rate is within 5%.
And also the foreign reserve is more than $3.2 trillion.
And also our deficit in the fiscal spendings is less than 3%.
So all that microeconomic indicators are within the safe border.
And secondly is the progress we made.
For example, Chinese economy has been contributing to the world GDP for more than 30 three years in a row.
And also, we continue to be the stabilizers and anchor of the whole world value.
And also, I think, Chinese GDP per capita is approaching the very important threshold of 13000 per capita, which is the threshold for the mid and higher income nations.
So I think the gap between Chinese income or living standard is getting smaller and smaller with the most advanced level of the whole world.
And also about the innovation.
The Chinese economy has been innovating really quickly.
The AI, renewable energy, green development, aerospace and aviation.
And when we're doing this innovation, I think we are also improving the quality.
For example, our GDP per capita's energy consumption has been dropping 2.5%.
And also we've been seeing our value, high value added on technology.
Industrial sectors are both growing at basically double digits.
It shows that we're expanding in the scale, but also we are promoting our technology.
Quality, and last but not least, is resilience.
I think we have been seeing a turbulent world right now, even though we have lots of conflicts internationally going on and inflation going on.
But Chinese economy maintained its resilience.
With 14 billion population, very large size economy, and its economy has been functioning as a very certain part for the whole world.
I think it's not only a good news for china, but also i think it's very important for the world economy.
You probably wouldn't want to see a big nation, big economy like china.
You know have a lot of the turbulences in the supply chain, but instead, when this market is stable, many businesses are happening, many trade are happening and global South nations will have very stable and reliable partners in trade and economy cooperation.
We've seen the value-added industrial output rose by 59 and the output of 3D printing equipment, industrial robots and new energy vehicles increased by 52, 28 and 25 respectively.
So what does this tell us about the changing structure of China's industrial output?
Well, I think China has already been seeing what we call the turning point in industrial manufacturing and output.
Number one is in a factor structure.
You see, 3D printing, industrial robot, EV and all that, what we call the smart capital has been replacing what we call the traditional forces and factors like the labor intensive, like the larger scale.
So all the investment has been jumping into the digitalization, green development, instead of just piling up all the infrastructures, the big and heavy and outdated.
It's not like that before.
And also secondly, it's about our industrial sectors.
And I think everybody are very familiar with our three new brands, like the EV, renewable energy, energy storage batteries.
So all that has been contributing for more than 40 of our increased profit in the whole manufacturing sectors, replacing the old brand of China, like the house appliances furnitures, toys or the clothes or textiles.
So you see, the Chinese leading industrial sectors has already been pivoting from the grocery consumptions or the terminal consumptions towards the green products and smart products.
And also if you take a look at all the value chains you see inside of the Chinese value chain know the domestic rate has been more than 70 percent and also many of the core technology and parts has been growing out of the soil of chinese economy and also trying to have very large, you know, supply chains which can complementary each other to lower the cost and increase the efficiency, which means china will have a larger piece of pie in the value chain.
And not last but not least is the forming of our unified market, together with the regional advantages.
For example, everybody knows Guangdong have their advantages and Jiangsu have their advantages.
Zhejiang and Shanghai Shandong Sichuan, Xi'an and all those places are actually finding and trying to define their own strong suit.
Meanwhile, I think a larger scale nationwide of unified market also have already been taking shape, which can help us further lower the threshold and increase the efficiency.
Well, we've seen China's retail sales of consumer goods jumped 37 for the whole year of 2025 and the December CPI rose 08 year-on-year.
So how should we interpret these trends in terms of consumer confidence and real spending power?
I think, at the end of the year, especially when we're approaching the late spring festival, because this spring festival is a bit late, starting at the February instead of, you know, at the beginning of the January.
So I think we still will have a higher spending period of time after that.
And also we've been seeing that, you know, structures of the consumption have been changing.
Instead of buying food, clothes to welcome the new year of China In this traditional shopping season, many other things have been increasing the sales, like the enjoyment, types of consumption, experiencing type of a or quality types of Consumptions has already been showing up, like what we've been saying.
That comes the culture consumption education tourism, sponsors and exhibitions sports, and all that has been growing all at double digits and we've been seeing a really good curve of the rebounding and also talking about the consumption powers and uh we uh, when we're looking at the cpi or the indicator of the inflation, china is probably among the most moderate country and and the region.
So which means uh, when we're deducting people's actual the nominal incomes grows, we find out, actually your purchasing power is getting stronger by four percent.
So I think, with all these changes, I think consumption has been repairing its confidence and also people are trying to upgrade and to change the structure of their consumptions and also, plus the low inflation.
I think in 2026 we're probably going to look at a faster rebound of the social consumptions, at least about 5.
And despite the global uncertainty, China's 2025 foreign trade rose 38 to 45 trillion yuan and exports rose by 61.
So what do you think are the main factors driving this stable growth?
And do you see this figure suggesting China's trade seeing gains in both volume and quality?
Well, I think there are several factors behind that.
Number one, I think it's structure changing.
As we just mentioned, we got the new brands, we got this new products actually has been forming in china and which have been very much needed in the whole world market, for example, like the ev, like the renewable energy, digitalization and all that have technologies.
Export has been growing at more than 22 percent and also contributing a lot in the whole foreign trade and meanwhile shipbuilding, aviation and all that has been, you know, forming china's new strong suit, and not only that.
I think many developing nations really need their products, which they cannot find the source in the developed nations but China actually fill in the blank.
And secondly, I think it's about diversification of the market.
China's growth of the trade on the RCEP partners has been growing really fast and which RCEP partners has been accounting for about 36 of the Chinese total trade and also China's trade towards China.
ASEAN nations is always growing very fast.
But meanwhile for the Middle Eastern area Africa, our growth are also phenomenal, buffered the year, slowing down in the traditional Western market.
Meanwhile, I think there is innovation in the trade.
For example, we used to do the traditional trade by shipment.
And now I think the cross-border e-commerce are growing really fast.
E-commerce are growing at 6.8% last year.
And also I think this speed is accelerating really fast actually in the Chinese trade partners, especially Belt and Road countries.
We've been building a lot of the local e-commerce platform which is in partner with Chinese giants like Alibaba and Tencent and JD Group.
And they've been forming a very large group of the network of the e-commerce trade which have been benefiting the whole world market.
You know, more affordable product and services and lower prices.
Everybody would like that.
And, based on the economic data that we've seen so far, where does the direction of momentum look like for the Chinese economy in 2026?
Well, in the 2026 we're going to looking at the continuing repairment of our economy.
A rebound to well can be, you know, forecasted to happen.
For example, 5% of the GDP grows.
And also, I think in Q1 and Q2 we're going to have more of what we call the pre-installed policy drives.
You know, all these kind of policy combos will help us to ignite the powerhouse of economic growth in 2026.
And also we're going to Rebound our home sectors and also trying to use more of the public fiscal tools and also financial tools to make sure to stimulate the whole economy.
And especially, I think, at the end of the next year, sorry, this year, 2026.
And I think because our low base number and also the stronger policy forces will happen.
So I think our economy will steadily go up.
Professor Qu Jiang from Minsu University of China talking with my colleague Zhao Yang.
Coming up.
China's Shenzhou-20 return capsule has touched on our Earth after spending nine months in orbit.
You are listening to World Today.
Stay tuned.
Welcome.
I am Chuchu Zhang, Deputy Director at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Fudan University.
On the World Today program.
We will dive beyond the headlines to uncover the stories, trends and impacts that connect states across the globe.
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I'm Ding Hen in Beijing.
The Shenzhou-20 unmanned spacecraft has landed in northern China.
The China Manned Space Agency says the vessel and her cargo are in good condition.
The spacecraft remained in orbit for nine months.
Its mission to carry three astronauts back to the Earth in November was delayed after the capsule sustained an impact from suspected space debris.
The crew returned home aboard the Shenzhou-21 spacecraft.
So for more.
Joining us now on the line is Dr Zhang Fan, Associate Professor of Astronomy with Beijing Normal University.
Thank you very much for joining us.
Hello.
So Chinese spacecraft designers, we know, have previously said that they would closely study the crack that was caused by the suspected space debris after the return of Shenzhou-20.
So what's the significance of making this examination?
So basically they need to make sure they understand what really happened.
As you mentioned in your intro piece, it suspected mineral or debris impact.
But what actually happened?
Because the debris is not still batched in there like a piece of metal or something.
It likely already evaporated during the impact.
So you need to look at the residuals, figure out what actually hit the spacecraft was its composition, the damage it caused, the morphology of the crack, basically to learn the entire mechanics and material science of this impact process.
And from this you can learn how you would reinforce your windows for future spacecraft, especially the next generation of Chinese spacecraft is coming up online.
And you need to make sure those windows can withstand this kind of impact or even more severe impacts.
So this is one of the rare cases where you have an actual sample to see what happens when space debris hits you at that kind of a velocity.
And also, apart from examining that crack, what else do you think Chinese engineers need to do to Shenzhou 20 now?
Right, so the Shenzhou 20 actually gave an extra down-going capability.
It can bring stuff down.
Presumably there will be materials such as scientific experiments, stuff that was taken down.
That was not necessarily possible without this extra incident.
So they'll be looking at those.
And other things, they will be looking at telemetry data.
So showing what happened in the spacecraft, things like continuous monitors on the cabin pressure, on temperature, on micro meteorite detection systems, to basically see how the how the impact leave the mark on those kinds of systems.
And from this knowledge they will be updating those systems to learn sort of, possibly using more intelligent algorithms to figure out the next time when something happens, you know more immediately and and and more clearly of what the potential impact would be.
I take your point.
So Shenzhou-20 is the first Chinese crewed spacecraft judged as unfit to bring astronauts back to Earth in mid-mission.
How would you comment on China's response after its mission in November last year was delayed?
Right.
So first of all, it's prudent, but that's kind of expected.
That's the international norm you the crew safety is comes first.
But the thing that's worth noting is that they didn't panic, they didn't.
Because the turnaround period for the, for the, for the backup spacecraft is actually only eight and a half days.
So they could have launched that thing straight straight away.
And then dump the the 20 as trash, and then the crew take down the new craft back down.
But they did it in a different order, in a way that the old spacecraft could have been kept for study which, as I mentioned in previous two questions, answers.
Those studies are vitally important for future missions.
And the possibility that they can do this is because there's so much extra training, so much redundancies, For example, the ability to examine what happens using the robotic arms, and then the crew's training for the next generation of craft, the Shenzhou 22, is actually a bit different.
But the Shenzhou 20 crew was able to take that down instead.
So all that redundancies actually give you more options and there's more options now paying off.
So what could have been the potential danger, or the potential dangers, if Shenzhou 20 had to carry these three astronauts back to Earth, as originally planned?
Um obviously, when the, the spacecraft is going through that atmosphere, there was a intense heat, heating period and also a lot of vibrations.
So if the crack is really severe then you know the whole window may blow out and you have catastrophic uh decompression.
Um also, you know um, it's not just the, the matter of no, no air for for astronauts to breathe.
Uh, you know the, the outgassing would also push the uh, the craft into sort of toppling, spinning like crazy.
You know the spacecraft when it enters the atmosphere it's not actually just falling like a free-fall body.
It's actually flying.
It's like an aircraft wing.
It has aerodynamics.
You can't just have things like blowing out gas all over the place and rotating like crazy.
So potentially it could have been fatal if anything severe develops during the re-entry.
So to what extent do you think Shenzhou 20's experience is raising concerns about the danger to space travel posed by space debris?
So we have always known there are a lot of risks.
People have been tracking debris.
But the thing is on the ground you can only track things kind of around 10 centimeters, slightly below that maybe.
But this time it's a millimeter, really small debris, and it still costs this much hustle.
So the potential, so this kind of debris, you can't really track them.
And you can't really even predict them either.
It can just be a piece of paint peeling off from, say, another space station or a satellite.
So, yeah, this...
This does give people sort of more sort of warning that things could be pretty bad.
And also the fact that there are a lot of multiple communications constellations, tens of thousands of satellites in low Earth's orbit being launched into space right now, with the potential to collide against each other, creating even more of these tiny, tiny little debris.
So things are looking a little bit bleak in that respect, actually.
So, since you talk about this issue surrounding tracking from the earth or tracking from the ground by humans, Do you think this efficiency insufficiency, rather in terms of the tracking capability, do you think this can be resolved through technological upgrading of the devices or equipment we use?
Some of it.
Yes, especially if you put tracking devices in space, like radars and that kind of things.
Also, China has been organizing shared databases and the United Nations has been doing that.
So people track the debris and put in a database where they know where things are.
And in the future I'd like to see those commercial companies being forced to tell everybody where their satellites are.
Right now some of them have this attitude that they would do the dodging.
They don't want you to try to avoid their satellites because there's so many and you know it's a hassle that they think they can do a better job.
And that can be dangerous if every company does that.
You know, nobody's telling anybody where their satellite is going to be moving to avoid each other.
And then you know the misunderstanding, and then everything.
The chance for that happening will be increased.
So, So a lot of technical capability improvements and also sort of legal requirements putting in place will be needed, I think.
Okay.
So, at a forum in 2024, Chinese President Xi Jinping called on China and Arab countries to jointly build a space debris observation center and a UN Panel on Space Traffic Coordination has also called for a shared database of orbital objects, as well as an international framework to track and manage them.
What can be done to turn those growing calls for international cooperation on managing space debris into real actions?
Right, so first of all, I guess things have to become legally binding.
Right now the space tracking is mostly managed by sort of voluntary interagency collaborations between the leading space-going nations.
But there's no sort of legal requirement that you have to do that.
I think having an international sort of treaty will be helpful.
And also, you need to develop sort of interpretable technical standards so everybody can adhere to.
And also not just for tracking.
People need to start carefully think about how to remove Something bad.
Happens prematurely, sort of prior than what people expect.
For example, China has put out this Aolong-1 sort of space debris removal satellite that can grab onto debris and deorbit them, so that this kind of thing needs to be founded.
Yeah, I take a point.
And unfortunately, our time today is limited.
But thank you very much for joining us.
Obviously, the road ahead is very long.
Dr. Zhang Fan joining us from Beijing Normal University.
You are listening to World Today.
I'm Dinghan in Beijing.
We'll be back after a short break.
You're back with World Today.
I'm Ding Hen in Beijing.
European leaders have issued an unusually strong joint statement warning the latest US terror threats risk a dangerous downward spiral in transatlantic ties.
President, Donald Trump has set a 10 tariff on Denmark and seven other European countries, including Germany and the UK.
Will take effect in February.
He added that the tariffs would rise to 25% if no deal is reached by June 1.
In their joint statement, the eight European countries vowed to defend their national sovereignty.
For more.
My colleague Xu Yaowen spoke with Joseph Syracuse, professor of global futures with Curtin University.
Professor Siracusa, how do you assess President Trump's recent move to impose a new round-up 10 tariff on Denmark and seven other European countries, considering the EU is America's largest trading partner and its largest source of imports?
What consequences, especially in economic aspect, can we expect if these new tariffs are implemented?
Yes this, economically it doesn't make much sense, and i mean we could be here till the cows come home and not make any sense of what he's doing.
My sense is that he uh, he lashed out with these tariffs to uh punish these eight nine, ten european nations that don't want to go along with him.
In terms of what he's trying to do with greenland, which is mainly to threaten a place with a view to purchasing it, he's trying to bully them a little bit and uh, it doesn't make any sense.
The eu is america's largest trading partner goods and services and investments and the rest of it.
But it fits in with the president threatened Canada earlier this year.
You know, he wanted to force them to come to his party and play by his rules and that kind of thing.
And he's using tariffs the way American politicians did in the the early 20th century, when they were considered viable.
Tariffs don't work anymore.
They don't make any sense.
I mean it's a tax on the American people, which he then says is a tax on foreign nations, which isn't true at all.
As a matter of fact,
But Greenland.
He's trying to put pressure on them.
The same way Americans in 1904 to 1930 put pressure on nation states in the Caribbean and nearby Gulf or Mexico, to put this enormous pressure on them to pay their bills, so that European powers don't have a pretext.
This is called financial receivership and the United States used to go around and grab the customs houses and collect the customs and pay off these debts to these foreign powers.
So there's a long history of getting involved.
It's not exactly an extension of imperialism, though I understand that concept very well.
It's more like a throwback threatening this nation. to come to the party.
And of course, there are all kinds of reasons, which I'll get into.
We have also noticed that in response to Trump's tariffs threat, European leaders have shown unity.
They are preparing to impose retaliatory tariffs on the U.S. worth 93 billion euros.
In the meantime, several NATO members have deployed military personnel to Greenland to participate in joint exercises with Denmark.
Do you think these countermeasures can effectively deter the US, or will they escalate the conflict further?
Now, they're not going to deter the United States or Donald Trump from doing anything in particular, but they will show their own people, whether it's in France or Britain or whatever, or in Germany, that the government of the day in these places is prepared to fight back or to resist Trump's desires to grab this place.
So it'll show them to be sort of independent.
But look, we got a problem here, and that is These 27 nations that make up the European Union are also coincidentally, members of NATO.
And without the United States leadership in NATO, NATO doesn't work.
So they sort of don't know how far to go on this.
I mean, if they irritate Trump, he'll just walk away.
And of course, this has always been the inherent weakness of NATO from day one, since 1949.
Would the United States be prepared to go to war on behalf of a European nation, particularly vis-a-vis the Soviet Union, which was making noises in Eastern and Central Europe in the late 1940s and the early 1950s?
Would they be prepared to do that?
Well, I don't think so, actually.
The United States acquired nuclear weapons, which is part of this problem, too.
Will the United States be prepared to lose Chicago or New York or Washington for Paris or Luxembourg or Madrid or London, whatever it is?
I don't think so.
So, you know, it's always had this inherent problem of, intrinsically, it hasn't worked very well.
So these leaders come along now and they want to push back.
And, of course, they really don't know how to respond to Donald Trump, because Donald Trump isn't sure exactly how he should be going about this thing.
I know what he wants.
He knows what he wants.
But he's up against the clock here.
And the clock is by the time the midterm elections come along in November, he's going to lose the House of Representatives, which means he's going to be impeached, probably within six weeks.
So all of this time will be taking up ducking questions from Congress.
So, you know, he's got an agenda.
He's trying to do it very quickly.
The Europeans have done I think very cleverly, but you know they know it's not very effective is that they tried to slow him down a little bit to get him to rethink this thing.
But I don't think he's thinking very clearly about this.
You know, leaders from European Union's 27 governments will meet Thursday to discuss a response to Trump's threats to seize Greenland.
What core consensus do you expect the European countries to reach and what challenges might they face in coordinating their positions?
Well, they want to state publicly that there are two things that every nation should think about every other nation.
And one is its sovereignty and its right to be that nation.
And number two, its territorial integrity.
What they're going to do is repeat to Trump out loud to the world that they believe in the sovereignty and territorial integrity of of Denmark, which owns Greenland and Greenland itself.
They're going to sort of repeat the first principles.
They know that what they're doing isn't going to slow the president down too much, though the resistance is pretty good.
They're going to try here.
More successfully.
They have entertained a number of Democratic and Republican congressmen and women and senators and they put them in the frame about what's going on.
And I think that kind of spread of public diplomacy, soft power is very, very effective, because these people are going to go back home.
That is, back to the United States and say, look, there's something wrong with this picture.
In a sense, I think American resistance to what the president is doing should be very, very clear to the White House.
86 of Americans in a poll recently taken do not want the United States to force or coerce Denmark into giving up or selling Greenland.
And Greenland is three times the size of Texas.
We're not just talking about some islands floating around somewhere in the Indian Ocean.
We're talking about, you know, 828,000 square miles.
You know, 80% of it's covered in ice.
American tradition, that is, the American Constitution, says if you take over a landmass, whether you conquer it or pay for it, whatever it is, whether the people there hand themselves over to you, that it's with a view to becoming a state in the American Union.
So there wasn't any seizure of territory in the 19th or 20th century that didn't look like it was going to become part of America.
So Greenland one day would be the 51st state of America, very sparsely populated.
It's going to take a lot of money to run the place.
And what will it achieve?
Well, the Danes say the Americans could do anything they want there in terms of defense.
That is an air missile defense system.
They could even mine the rare earth minerals there in conjunction with the Danish and the Greenland governments.
They say that everything that the Americans want they can have.
They don't have to fight for it and that kind of thing.
Professor, so after the US threatened to seize territory from Denmark, do you think European countries have now lost all illusions about their reliance on the US for security guarantee?
I think the European nations are bewildered about American behavior, that is, about Trump's behavior.
They're not worried about some senator in the wings or some members of the foreign policy establishment.
They're very concerned.
They're bewildered.
They feel betrayed by Trump.
The Danes sent soldiers to die in the war against terrorism.
They're saying to themselves, what is this, a one-way street?
But anyway, Europeans will take note of this.
And there will be Europeans within the European Union who are more pro-Russian than other nations in the Union.
See, look, maybe we should go our own way.
But look, the European Union, which is undergirded by NATO, has been around since 1949.
Will it have to be reconstituted?
Probably.
Has its life come to an end?
Probably.
At the end of the Cold War.
It should have just gone away crete, where all these european nations then became part of nato.
I thought that was unnecessary and fairly antagonistic.
I think europeans will be thinking anew about what to do.
I mean, as you heard the other day, canada has signed a major deal with china in terms of a of trade and foreign economic policy.
So you know, nations like like canada are looking around for new uh source material.
They're looking for uh.
New trading partners are looking for new details.
This will shake everything up.
And at the end of the day, the American people will be the losers, because Donald Trump is taking America in a direction that nobody particularly wants to go.
Joseph Siracusa, professor of global futures with Curting University.
Talking with my colleague Xu Yawen.
This is World Today.
We'll be back.
You are listening to World Today.
I'm Ding Hen in Beijing.
The Pentagon has reportedly placed around 1500 active-duty soldiers on standby for possible deployment to Minnesota.
Protests continue in the US city of Minneapolis over shootings by immigration and customs enforcement officials earlier this month.
Multiple people have been injured as the ICE raids continue.
ICE reported on Sunday that a man had died in ICE detention after he was arrested in Minneapolis.
U.S. federal agents have arrested thousands of people since beginning their operation in Minnesota.
So for more.
Joining us now on the line is Dr Joseph Gregory Mahoney, professor of political science and international relations with East China Normal University.
So thank you very much for joining us today, Professor Mahoney.
The potential troop deployment to Minnesota comes after the Pentagon sent about 700 U.S.
Marines to LA in June and July last year in response to protests over immigration enforcement operation underway there in the city.
So do you think the same is going to happen to Minnesota this time?
Well, you know, we've already seen 3000 ICE agents sent into the city and the local officials are already calling it a federal occupation.
I do think it's increasingly likely that we'll see a deployment of military personnel.
Interestingly, the Minnesota National Guard leadership has said it's prepared to deploy to maintain law and order, but Trump has run into some trouble commanding a reservist whose chain of command usually includes the governor of state.
And because Trump is in conflict now with the governor of the state, and perhaps due to other reasons.
For example, sometimes leaders don't like to deploy local troops against local populations.
There are reports that the White House is preparing troops who are stationed in Alaska who are trained for cold weather operations, given Current forecast in Minneapolis that predict temperatures will drop to negative 37 degrees Celsius.
So I think it seems like we're moving in that direction, in the direction of a deployment and indeed active duty personnel.
Now in the case of LA, last year, the soldiers' role was actually limited to only guarding two federal properties in the greater Los Angeles area.
At the time, President Trump threatened to invoke this Insurrection Act.
Basically, that was a 19th century law to broaden the role of the soldiers.
But ultimately, Trump didn't do so.
So, in the case of what's going on in Minneapolis, do you think invocation of the Insurrection Act is a real likelihood?
Well, you know, I think there are political and legal risks if Trump moves forward with the Insurrection Act.
And above all because he would be doing so, we must assume, without adequate cooperation with local authorities, which can create all sorts of risks.
Now, the last time the Insurrection Act was invoked was in 1992 in Los Angeles, by the way, to reestablish order after people rioted due to their unhappiness with the Rodney King police brutality verdicts.
But that was where you had troops coordinating very closely with local law enforcement and local leadership and state leadership.
So you know, invoking this act is always something that, I think, makes a lot of Americans uncomfortable, especially conservatives.
But at the same time it poses a lot of other risks when you're not working well with local officials.
And I think this is one of the reasons why he didn't do it in LA.
But also, I don't think he was ready yet politically to test the Insurrection Act in LA, but instead just wanted to test whether or not he could deploy troops and get away with it in a more limited sense.
So we'll have to see.
But i do think that we see some bigger problems arising now in in minneapolis.
Now it may be the case that that we won't see spiraling conflicts because the weather is going to be so bad, so dangerous for anyone in it.
It might be the most powerful suppressing force there, but i i suspect that that we could be moving towards a more acute confrontation in Minneapolis than we saw in LA, the weather notwithstanding, in part because Trump in particular has demonized the Somali American community in Minneapolis, many of whom are US citizens.
And the Trump administration has removed the temporary protected status, the TPS protections, which allows the US now to move forward with deporting 13 million Americans who have been classified under that category, including 700 Somalians, with the Department of Homeland Services saying that Somalia is now safe, that Somalia's conditions have improved to the point that it no longer meets the law's requirement for TPS, which is, of course, a little ironic because the US
State Department website has issued advice to US citizens saying don't travel to Somalia due to crime terrorism, civil unrest, health kidnapping, piracy and a lack of availability of routine consular services.
But you know, because we're already seeing likelihood that families will be ripped apart, with some of them citizens, the others having been under the TPS protections, because those who would be deported may face extreme dangers if they return back to Somalia.
And because we know that some of the protests are being led and organized by Somali Americans, they may believe it's better to fight for their lives on the streets of Minneapolis than to do so in Somalia.
So the mayor of Minneapolis has described the ICE and border control agents as an quote occupying force that has quite literally invaded our city unquote.
What do you make of the role of partisan politics behind what's going on right now?
Well, the Minnesota governor Walz, we should recall was Harris's running mate ran against Trump and Vance.
And generally the running mates tend to be the people who are most vocal in their verbal attacks on the opponents.
So Walsh is hated by Trump and the MAGA people just for that alone.
Furthermore, there is a local congresswoman, a Somali-American, who is a frequent and even famous critic of Trump.
And she's also hated by his MAGA base and the local mayor, Mayor Fryer. is also a Democrat.
Now Trump has said that the Somali people in Minnesota are garbage, that they contribute nothing, that he doesn't want them in America.
And I think we should recall that in his first term, he called Somalia another african nations, uh quote, whole countries.
Now frankly this, this smacks, then and now, of dog whistle racist tactics, and i think it's brought back the specter of racism that was closely associated with this first term, given his perceived political associations with white supremacists and you know which unfortunately, has always been coupled with the historical facts that his father was arrested at a kkk rally in new york in 1927 and that the Trump Organization faced charges of discrimination against minorities related to the properties that they manage.
We know that he's also accused the Somali community of being involved in a massive government fraud and accused state officials of exploiting these arrests in order to distract the public from their own culpability in this fraud.
And he's also started investigations of local leaders, including the governor.
So you know there's this concern that all of it's been highly politicized, including law enforcement and the Department of Justice.
But we also saw that Democrat Congress members came from Washington and held unofficial hearings in Minneapolis to show solidarity with local people and the local government.
So yes, this is as intensely partisan as one could imagine.
So, in addition to potential clashes between, for example, ICE agents in local communities in Minnesota or Minneapolis, are we likely to see violence that is triggered by clashes between say, local residents and some communities far-right MAGA supporters, because we know this deportation campaign carried out by the Trump administration remains very popular with the MAGA supporters.
Well, in fact, we've already seen some counter protests being staged by MAGA supporters, which have been smaller on average than the ICE anti-ICE protest.
And we've already seen claims by some of the MAGA protesters that they've been attacked and beaten by the anti-ice protesters.
So in short, if these claims are true, it's possible that we've already seen such violence.
And therefore, given the way that this is continuing to escalate, there's potential for much more.
Okay.
So very briefly, the final question before we let you go.
What do you think could be the role played by immigration in 2026 U.S. midterm elections?
It's a very difficult question.
I think what we're seeing in the polls is that most Americans are opposing what they view as excessive ICE tactics.
And we know that Trump's approval ratings are at a historic low for a U.S. president.
But we also know that most Republicans are still supporting him.
That said, I think there is a growing concern that Trump has exceeded his authority on multiple fronts, not just immigration, but on international trade and foreign policy by attacking a Federal Reserve chairman as well as Democrats around the country, while general conditions facing most Americans continue to deteriorate.
And this was you know.
People voted for Trump because they hoped that, once and for all, someone would start to improve their quality of life.
And that just hasn't happened.
I think ultimately most Americans do want effective immigration policies.
They do want stronger, better policed borders.
But they're starting to tire of these excessive tactics which increasingly, have targeted Native Americans and arrested and killed lawful citizens and often appear unfortunately, to be motivated by racial, cultural and even religious biases.
Thank you very much for joining us.
Dr Joseph Gregory Mahoney, professor of political science and international relations with East China Normal University,
You are listening to World Today.
I'm Ding Hen in Beijing.
The Syrian government has announced a ceasefire with the Syrian Democratic Forces.
The announcement comes after tensions between the two sides boiled over earlier this month, leading to a major push by government forces towards the east.
The SDF confirms that it has accepted this very ceasefire and is retreating from the frontline areas in eastern Aleppo province.
Since toppling Bashar al-Assad in December 2024, Syria's new leaders have encountered difficulties in terms of asserting their full control over the country.
So joining us now on the line is Professor Wang Jing from Northwest University in Xi'an, China.
Thank you very much for joining us.
Thanks for having me.
So, first of all, in your observation Professor, what has really enabled these two warring parties to come to this agreement?
I think several factors have already led to this agreement, because we know that after the days of conflict, uh actually attracted the attention of international society.
I think major powers not only united states turkey, but maybe some other powers they impose pressure towards the conflicting parties, particularly between the syrian turin government and also the sdf uh.
Hopefully that they could reach a kind of agreement and also, on the other hand, if you look at the battlefield that uh against the military pressure from the Syrian interim government forces, that the SDF has to withdraw from the Aleppo.
So, although there were still conflicts after that, but now I think the front line has already become stabilized
And that is why I think the both sides could accept the status quo and they find it very necessary to maintain the temporary peace right now.
So that's why I think the agreement was reached.
So do you think this agreement, as some say, will lead to renewed dialogue and a cooperation towards a unified Syria?
We hope so, of course, because we know that the country has already been suffered for suffer the war and conflict for more than a decade.
And we of course hope that the war could over and the agreement could lead to much more comprehensive peace.
But the problem, as we mentioned, is still there, that there are still a lot of divisions over how the nature of the country, how the relations between the central government and the local government should construct it and how the military powers and military forces held by SDF be arranged.
It should be under the comprehensive command of the central government, or the SDF has their own military militias in the local level.
So many things are still uncertain.
That's why I think we should wait and see what happens next.
But no matter how, I think it is very, very important progress that has been made and also very important for the stability and peace maintained in the northeast of Syria.
Okay, so the agreement includes dismantling the SDF and having its forces join serious military or security forces.
And many of SDF's senior military and civilian officials will be given high ranking positions in state institutions.
Now actually, we know the two sides signed a similar reconciliation or merger deal, let's put it this way, a similar deal in March 2025, but it didn't gain traction.
What lessons do you think should be learned from the failure of the deal last year?
I think.
Well, let's be frank, I don't think this deal itself could lead to different consequences compared to the deal signed, as you mentioned, last March because, although there were still many beautiful words saying that OK, the two systems should be combined together for the unity of the country, and so on,
But I don't think it's actually solved the real problem, because the real problem is how to define the nature of the country and how to divide the power between the central government and the local government and how to arrange properly the relations between the central government, the military forces and SDF militias uh, whether or not these militias should be maintained or should be just uh uh, just encouraged to go home uh, and put down their weapons.
So there are still a lot of ambiguity, there were still a lot of things uncertain.
Uh, we know, we have to know that.
Uh, it is, of course, it's a very accepted and shared view that that the sdf forces, their official, their leaders, military leaders, should be included into the ranks of the Syrian interim central government forces.
But the problem is that we cannot say that this deal would lead to the withdrawal and put down weapons of the SDF and totally included into the interim government forces structure.
So that's why I think there was still a lot of ambiguity and many things answered.
Now actually, when we talk about the fight against the ISIS several years ago the Kurdish forces they were a main force in this fight, right.
And now, one point of this latest agreement we're talking about here is that the SDF-led agencies that handle prisons and camps that house, for example, thousands of detained ISIS fighters.
They will be handed over to Damascus.
What do you think we need to watch in particular regarding this handover process?
I think the source of whether the things we should pay attention to is whether the deal could be maintained.
Because, as you mentioned, as we just discussed, there were still a lot of things that still uncertain.
And we don't know whether the deal could be protected, whether the deal could be observed itself, and also, as you mentioned, that one of the very important content is transferred, as the, the isis starts held by the, the sdf, to the syrian interim government forces or syrian interim government intelligence securities forces.
So it means that a lot of things should be arranged who are the names of the prisoners that should be transferred and how the names should be transferred and where the locations should be transferred.
And after that, what functions would be left for the SDF?
Because SDF's very major function is to counter terrorism in this region.
So I think a lot of things deserve our observation closely, and that's why we can see what will happen next.
Thank you very much for joining us.
Professor Wang Jing from Northwest University in Xi'an, China.
That's all the time for this edition of World Today.
To listen to this episode again or to catch up on our previous episodes, download our podcast by searching World Today.
I'm Dinghan in Beijing.
Bye for now.
