11th April, 2018
One week after the announcement of several new measured passed by the April Congress on Thursday, we've seen a busy news cycle regarding the new changes over the weekend. Although the changes largely have little effect on likely what is a slight minority of Sizhouans, newspapers, radio, and the media and intranet at large have practiced wild speculation on their effects. Some of the details of this new legislation however, as we will discuss, have been quite immediate, drastic even, and requires no such speculation.
Polling throughout Sizhou, which occurred from Thursday and throughout the weekend, indicated at first that the new legislation was merely running a majority approval rating, varying from policy to policy. Most importantly, the most mixed results of Friday initially came on the issue of expanded powers of to the Interim Assembly, which for foreign readers who may be a unfamiliar, acts in the place of the National Poeple's Assembly while it is not in Congress. While only temporary for the time being, unless extended in the summer, one important aspect is that it gives the Interim Assembly more military authority where it is found to be necessary, the intended use for which is to repel militant opposition groups primarily threatening major population centers in the North of Sizhou. Easily the most controversial result of the April Congress as of Friday, this measure had the highest approval rating in areas troubled by recent threats of violence and in occupied territory, although those areas are much more difficult to reliably poll.
Fast forward to the course of the next couple of days, and conditions have rapidly changed in the Northwest of Sizhou that have simultaneously given rise to the April Congress' approval ratings. Perhaps by design, this new legislation enraged dissidents in occupied territories across the region, and baited thousands from several groups into hasty and often misguided attacks over the weekend. South of Sishi, for instance, violence has slowly approached dangerously close to the city over the course of the last year. As an unintended consequence of their actions over the course of the weekend, on the part of these rebels, this renewed aggression has at once provided both utility to the new Interim Assembly rules and shot up their approval. The situation, however, is still ugly as roughly 1000 rebels have launched assaults attempting to take positions approaching the city. Roughly 50 Sizhouan soldiers have been killed and 200 wounded in the fierce battling so far, while the lead commander on the ground estimated that the Sizhouan People's Army has defeated a likely higher but non-comfirmable number. Time has again proven the difficulty of using such guerilla tactics against a force that itself came into existence using.
While it is currently unknown what the size of these militants' forces is in total, as a rather sizeable portion of the Northwest, South of the mountains along the coast, is in occupied territory, Sizhou's statistical experts place them at approximately 5% of Sizhou's active military, or roughly 20,000 soldiers. Granted, these would be nearly all infantry and armored troops as the Sizhouan air force has effectively prevented them from acquiring any suitable air force facilities or craft. Aside from the current assault on Sishi, approximately 3,000 troops have attacked other cities throughout the Northwest. These are even more precarious scenarios, as attackers of Sishi have historically been rather careful not to permanently damage the many priceless religious and cultural sites in the city. One city in particular, roughly 100km further inland, has found itself in critical condition while it awaits reinforcements to arrive.
While the government of Sizhou is currently confident that the People's Army will be able to carry these battles, they have made the point of the proven legitimacy of the April Congress' new legislation, which has been made apparent. "It is important to realize in this time of crisis," noted Premier Lafang earlier, "that this attack is the result of our long letting this beast of a militant counter-revolutionary movement to sleep. We now know its dangers and find ourselves fully prepared to fight against it." It seems she is well aware however that the April Congress likely triggered these particular attacks, although they just as likely may have simply hastened them.