Autocrats’ wishes for 2024: wars, threats and bombings

The year 2024 is not looking good. The leaders of Russia, China and North Korea are distinguished by particularly bellicose wishes.

His excesses and provocations no longer surprise anyone, but for 2024, Kim Jong Un, the dictator of Pyong-Yang, has literally brought out the bazooka against his two favorite enemies, South Korea and the United States.threatening them with nuclear strikes in the event that one of the two allows a military provocation.

His army has orders, if necessary, to “annihilate without hesitation“, and to intensify its preparations for war, reports the state agency. The North Korean number one, who carried out a record number of ballistic missile launches in 2023 – in violation of numerous resolutions of the UN – did not appreciate seeing an American nuclear-powered submarine arrive in the region, accompanied by an aircraft carrier and a strategic bomber.

Because faced with its growing aggressiveness, Seoul and Washington are sticking together. The two countries must also deploy a common deterrent system by July while Pyong Yang is moving closer to Moscow to develop its military technology.

Russia ‘won’t back down’

In Moscow, Vladimir Putin also made vows with warlike overtones – sHowever, without mentioning Ukraine only once. While recent days have been marked by an intensification of Russian strikes against civilians, the Kremlin leader praised his troops and vowed that his country would not “would never back down“.

Unlike last year, he did not appear surrounded by soldiers in uniform. He also did not mention the attack on Saturday December 30 on Belgorod which left 22 dead – the deadliest for Russia since the start of the conflict.

Three months before a presidential election which appears to be a simple formality intended to validate a new six-year mandate, Vladimir Putin must still deal with the concerns caused by rising prices and the growing anger of the families of mobilized soldiers. . The United States estimates that in almost two years, 315,000 Russian military personnel have been killed or injured.

Pressure from Beijing on Taiwan

Like Kim Jong Un before him, the Russian president exchanged very warm greetings with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, each committing to strengthened collaborations for the coming year – and beyond.

During his speech broadcast on the official CCTV channel, the Chinese president, at the head of the world’s second largest economy, of course talked a lot about growth and industries, but two weeks before crucial elections in Taiwan, he above all declared that the China would be “reunited in a certain way“.”All Chinese people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait should be bound by a common goalhe said, and share the glory of the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation“.

Beijing considers the island as one of its provinces and has not given up on conquering it by force. In mid-November, during his meeting with the President of the United States, Xi Jinping had already judged reunification “inevitable“.

The Taiwanese President, Tsai Ing-wen, responded to him on Monday January 1 with a sentence that should have been more pronounced around the world for this year 2024: “Faced with the return of authoritarianism, our only choice is to uphold democracy and protect peace“.