Home › World › Sanctions, air patrols and troop deployments: 23 December 2020
Sanctions, air patrols and troop deployments: 23 December 2020
Summary
A look back at three separate developments in Belarus, East Asia and Central Africa as 2020 drew to a close.
What did the world's attention look like on 23 December 2020? Three separate stories, in Minsk, Seoul and Bangui, pointed to the same thing: outside powers were active in other countries' crises.
On 23 December 2020, the Trump administration imposed additional sanctions on Belarusian officials and four offices, citing human rights abuses during protests against President Alexander Lukashenko.
Aircraft over the Sea
On 22 December 2020, South Korea said it had scrambled fighter jets after four Chinese and fifteen Russian military aircraft entered its air defence identification zone. South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said China had notified it in advance of a joint military exercise with Russia.
Reinforcements for Bangui
On 21 December 2020, Rwanda deployed what it called a protection force to the Central African Republic after its peacekeepers were attacked by rebel forces advancing on the capital, Bangui. The Rwandan and Central African Republic governments accused former President François Bozizé of backing the rebels and plotting a coup. He denied it. Russia also sent troops and heavy weaponry to support the government.
What links them
The three events were unconnected in their causes. Each, however, involved a government acting beyond its own borders or in support of another government: Washington toward Belarus, Beijing and Moscow in a coordinated exercise, and Kigali and Moscow in the Central African Republic.
