Category World News

French military and intelligence officials claim China has deployed its embassies to spread doubts about the performance of French-made Rafale jets following the aerial combat between India and Pakistan in May.

The Associated Press news agency, quoting French officials, reported on Sunday that Beijing is working to harm the reputation and sales of France’s flagship fighter aircraft.

French officials say they have found that the Chinese embassies are trying to undermine Rafale sales by persuading countries that have already ordered the jets, notably Indonesia, not to buy them and instead choose Chinese-made fighters.

The AP report said the findings were shared by a French military official on condition that they should not be named.

Four days of India-Pakistan clashes in May were the most serious confrontation in years between the two nuclear-armed neighbours, which included air combat involving dozens of aircraft from both sides.

Military officials and researchers have since been digging for details of how Pakistan’s Chinese-made military hardware – particularly warplanes and air-combat missiles – fared against weaponry that India used in air strikes on Pakistani targets, notably French-made Rafale fighters.

Sales of Rafales and other armaments are big business for the French defence industry and help Paris to strengthen ties with other nations, including in Asia, where China is becoming the dominant regional power.

India confirms losses

Pakistan says its air force downed five Indian planes during the fighting, including three Rafales. French officials say that prompted questions about their performance from countries that have bought the fighter from French manufacturer Dassault Aviation.

India acknowledged aircraft losses but did not say how many. French air force chief General Jerome Bellanger said he has seen evidence pointing to just three aircraft losses – a Rafale, a Russian-made Sukhoi and a Mirage 2000, which is an earlier generation French-made jet.

It was the first known combat loss of a Rafale, which France has sold to eight countries. “Of course, all those, the nations that bought Rafales, asked themselves questions,” Bellanger said.

French officials have been battling to protect the plane from reputational damage, pushing back against what they allege was a concerted campaign of Rafale-bashing and disinformation online from Pakistan and its ally, China.

They say the campaign included viral posts on social media, manipulated imagery showing supposed Rafale debris, AI-generated content and video-game depictions to simulate supposed combat.

More than 1,000 social media accounts newly created as the India-Pakistan clashes erupted also spread a narrative of Chinese technological superiority, according to French researchers who specialise in online disinformation.

French claims

Military officials in France say they have not been able to link the online Rafale-bashing directly to the Chinese government.

But the French intelligence service said Chinese embassy defence attaches echoed the same narrative in meetings they held with security and defence officials from other countries, arguing that Indian Rafale jets performed poorly and promoting Chinese-made weaponry.

The defence attaches focused their lobbying on countries that have ordered Rafales and other potential customer nations that are considering purchases, the intelligence service said. It said French officials learned of the meetings from nations that were approached.

The French Ministry for Armed Forces said the Rafale was targeted by “a vast campaign of disinformation” that “sought to promote the superiority of alternative equipment, notably of Chinese design”.

“The Rafale was not randomly targeted. It is a highly capable fighter jet, exported abroad and deployed in a high-visibility theatre,” the French ministry wrote on its website.

Asked by AP to comment on the alleged effort to dent Rafale’s appeal, the Ministry of National Defence in Beijing said: “The relevant claims are pure groundless rumours and slander. China has consistently maintained a prudent and responsible approach to military exports, playing a constructive role in regional and global peace and stability. ”

Millions of Afghan migrants and refugees in Iran have been asked to leave or face arrest as a deadline set by the government comes to an end.

Sunday’s target date neared amid public concerns over security in the aftermath of the 12-day conflict with Israel, which the United States joined with air strikes on Iran’s uranium-enrichment facilities.

But humanitarian organisations warned that mass deportations could further destabilise Afghanistan, one of the world’s most impoverished nations. Iran is home to an estimated 4 million Afghan migrants and refugees, and many have lived there for decades.

In 2023, Tehran launched a campaign to expel foreigners it said were living in the country “illegally”. In March, the Iranian government ordered that Afghans without the right to remain should leave voluntarily by Sunday or face expulsion.

Since then, more than 700,000 Afghans have left, and hundreds of thousands of others face expulsion. More than 230,000 departed in June alone, the United Nations International Organization for Migration said.

The government has denied targeting Afghans, who have fled their homeland to escape war, poverty and Taliban rule.

Batoul Akbari, a restaurant owner, told Al Jazeera that Afghans living in Tehran were hurt by “anti-Afghan sentiment”, adding that it was heartbreaking to see “people sent away from the only home they have ever known”.

“Being born in Iran gives us the feeling of having two homelands,” Akbari said. “Our parents are from Afghanistan, but this is what we’ve always known as home. ”

Mohammad Nasim Mazaheri, a student whose family had to leave Iran, agreed: “The deportations have torn families apart. ”

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimated that Iran deported more than 30,000 Afghans on average each day during the war with Israel, up from about 2,000 earlier.

“We have always striven to be good hosts, but national security is a priority, and naturally, illegal nationals must return,” Iranian government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani said on Tuesday.

Late last month, the UNHCR said, of the 1. 2 million returning Afghans, more than half had come from Iran after its government set its deadline on March 20.

“They are coming in buses, and sometimes, five buses arrive at one time with families and others, and the people are let out of the bus, and they are simply bewildered, disoriented and tired and hungry as well,” Arafat Jamal, the UNHCR representative in Afghanistan said as he described the scene at a border crossing.

“This has been exacerbated by the war, but I must say it has been part of an underlying trend that we have seen of returns from Iran, some of which are voluntary, but a large portion were also deportations. ”

Al Jazeera’s Resul Serdar, reporting from Tehran, said Afghans have increasingly been blamed for economic hardships, shortages and social issues in Iran.

Leaders of the growing BRICS group are gathering in Brazil for a summit overshadowed by United States President Donald Trump’s new tariff policies while presenting the bloc as a defender of multilateralism.

The leaders, mainly from the developing world, will be discussing ways to increase cooperation amid what they say are serious concerns over Western dominance at their two-day summit that begins in Rio de Janeiro on Sunday.

The BRICS acronym is derived from the initial letters of the founding member countries: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. The bloc, which held its first summit in 2009, later added Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates as full members. It also has 10 strategic partner countries, a category created last year, that includes Belarus, Cuba and Vietnam.

But for the first time since taking power in 2012, Chinese President Xi Jinping will not be attending in person, instead sending Prime Minister Li Qiang.

Russian President Vladimir Putin will also miss in-person attendance as he is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for his role in the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Brazil, as a signatory to the Rome Statute, would be required to enforce the arrest warrant.

The notable absences are raising questions over the group’s cohesion and global clout.

Now chaired by Brazil, leaders at the BRICS summit are expected to decry the Trump administration’s “indiscriminate” trade tariffs, saying they are illegal and risk hurting the global economy. Global health policies, artificial intelligence and climate change will also be on the agenda.

The BRICS countries say they represent almost half of the world’s population, 36 percent of global land area, and a quarter of the global economic output. The bloc sees itself as a forum for cooperation between countries of the Global South and a counterweight to the Group of Seven (G7), comprised of leading Western economic powers.

However, behind the scenes, divisions are evident. According to a source quoted by The Associated Press news agency, some member states are calling for a firmer stance on Israel’s war in Gaza and its recent strikes on Iran. The source requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the discussions. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Egypt’s Abdel Fattah el-Sisi will be attending the Rio summit.

But Al Jazeera’s Lucia Newman, reporting from Rio, said the group’s aim remains clear.

“The BRICS goal is to exert pressure for a multipolar world with inclusive global governance to give a meaningful voice to the Global South, especially in the trading system,” she said.