LOS ANGELES — The family of César Chávez wants independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to stop referencing the late labor and civil rights leader on the campaign trail.
“We respectfully call upon you and your campaign to cease using images of our father to associate yourself with him and suggest your campaign’s goals are compatible,” said the letter signed by Chávez’s eldest son, Fernando Chávez.
“It is our sincere conviction that this association is untrue and deceptive,” he added.
The letter said that the family would “pursue all legal action available” if Kennedy failed to halt his campaign’s use of the United Farm Workers co-founder’s name and imagery.
The Kennedy campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
American labor leader and co-founder of the United Farm Workers (formerly known as the National Farm Workers Association) César Chávez speaks at a rally in Coachella, Calif. in 1977.Cathy Murphy / Getty Images file
On Friday, ahead of César Chávez Day, the family formally endorsed President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign. One of César Chávez’s granddaughters, Julie Rodriguez Chavez, serves as Biden’s 2024 campaign manager.
Dolores Huerta, Chavez’s partner in founding the UFW, has also remained a Biden ally.
In 1968, Kennedy’s father, former Attorney General Robert Kennedy Sr., flew to California to join Chavez after he had engaged in a water-only fast for 25 days. Kennedy Sr., at the time running for the Democratic presidential nomination, lent considerable political backing to the farm labor movement’s nonviolent efforts, which included a multi-year strike of the California grape industry. His relationship with Chavez was a key marker for the Democratic Party’s embrace of the farmworkers’ labor rights movement. Kennedy was assassinated in 1968.
Kennedy Jr. is holding an event this weekend in Los Angeles that his campaign said will “celebrate the life and legacy of Cesar Chavez, a good friend of RFK and RFK, Jr.” The invitation for the event includes a photo of Kennedy Sr. and Chavez.
In July 2023, at a conference for The National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, Kennedy commented on his family’s relationship with Chavez.
“My father’s close, and probably most important political alliance, which was César Chávez, who helped him win the California Primary during the last day of his life and remained a very, very close friend of mine for most of my adult life,” Kennedy said.
Satellite images show China’s mock-up of Taiwan’s presidential office at a desert training site.
It is not the first time China has built such mock ups, which indicate a readiness to use force.
China has also built mock ups of US warships in the desert for apparent target practice.
Out in the desert at a military training site, China has built a mock-up of a key area of Taiwan’s capital city where the presidential office and other government buildings are located, satellite images show.
The mock-up, like others before it, seems to indicate China’s intentions and focus, though its use is uncertain.
China often engages in aggressive and coercive behavior that alarms its neighbors, is pursuing a significant military build-up and modernization effort, and has never renounced the use of force as an option for achieving unification with Taiwan.
Images of the mock target, located in the desert in the Alxa League area of northern China’s Inner Mongolia, began circulating on social media earlier this week. Taiwanese defense analyst Joseph Wen posted the satellite image, as well as a map comparison of the real area in Taipei, on Monday.
Wen noted that while China had previously created a replica of Taiwan’s president’s office building at another area, specifically Zhurihe, this mock up covered much of the office’s surrounding area and was located at what appeared to be an aerial bombing and gunnery training range.
When compared to an actual map of the area, the mock-up looks relatively realistic, with the roads and the presidential office’s surroundings closely resembling the real place in Taiwan’s capital city, Taipei.
Satellite images provided by Planet Labs to Business Insider show the site, which is still there, has been there since at least December 2022.
It is unclear though when exactly the mock-up was built, but it’s not the first.
Making Taiwan’s presidential office and US warships in the desert
Back in 2014 and 2015, satellite images showed the other mock-up of Taiwan’s presidential office at Zhurihe, also in Inner Mongolia, and a video broadcast by CCTV in July 2015 captured Chinese troops practicing an assault on the fake building, The Diplomat reported at the time.
The office mock-up was a convincing replica. Imagery from China-based web portals showed troops entering the building conducting some sort of raid.
A general view of the Presidential Office Building in Taipei.Walid Berrazeg/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
When asked by reporters on Wednesday about the images of the Bo’ai Special Zone mock-up that surfaced this week, Defense Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng said that any country could imitate another’s facilities and area, adding that Taiwan’s military could also conduct military exercises in simulated locations.
Indeed, this kind of training isn’t necessarily unusual, but it nonetheless signals intent.
China has also been documented building mock-ups of US aircraft carriers and other warships at training sites, likely to test and improve its missiles.
Experts have long warned about the increasing stockpiles and capabilities of its Rocket Force and what role those assets would play should the the US and China go to war, be it over Taiwan or for some other reason.
Fresh worries about a Chinese invasion of Taiwan
The images of the mock-up at Alxa League have surfaced at a time of renewed concern about possible Chinese aggression against Taiwan.
Amid China’s assertiveness at sea and in the air, demonstrated by unpredictable military drills, fiery run-ins with Philippine boats, and close calls with US aircraft, there continues to be concern about a potential invasion of Taiwan.
Just last week, US Navy Adm. John Aquilino, the commander of US Indo-Pacific Command, told the US Armed Services House Committee that China was building its military up at a scale not seen since World War II and was on track to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027.
People watch a video about China’s military advancements at the Military Museum in Beijing on March 3, 2024.GREG BAKER/AFP via Getty Images
China often employs economic, diplomatic, and militarily aggressive and coercive tactics toward Taiwan, such as pressuring countries that interact with the island or routinely flying fighters and bombers around it, forcing a response.
In response to Taiwan’s election earlier this year, China has turned up the pressure, and ongoing military drills in Taiwan have prompted warnings from China.
Taiwan elected a new president, the Democratic Progressive Party’s Lai Ching-te, the current Vice President, in January. It’s a historic win for the DPP, which has now been in power for three consecutive terms. It was also China’s worst case scenario.
The DPP has navigated a tricky situation since gaining power in 2016, trying to preserve status quo with Beijing while maintaining Taiwan’s autonomy. Though China is generally opposed to the elections, Beijing would have preferred the Kuomintang’s Hou You-ih, who is not pro-Beijing but has an outlook on relations with China that is softer than DPP’s.
An AFP photographer captured rare shots showing everyday life in North Korea.
Pedro Pardo accessed a remote part of the border in China’s Jilin province to get the photos.
`The images show a bleak picture of life in the completely isolated nation.
An AFP photographer captured rare images showing daily life in North Korea.
To get the photos, Pedro Pardo accessed a remote part of North Korea’s border with China in the latter’s Jilin province.
The images Pardo took between February 26 and March 1 offer a bleak yet fascinating look at life in a country shrouded in secrecy.
North Korea was founded in 1948 under Kim Il-sung as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), inspired by strict Marxist-Leninist principles.
Its population of roughly 26 million people lives largely in isolation from the rest of the world in the austere communist state, barred from going abroad without permission from the government and subjected to state-run media that blare propaganda praising the nation and its supreme leader, Kim Jong Un.
North Korea’s self-imposed isolation is largely due to its guiding principle of “juche,” or “self-reliance” — the idea that it should be able to function completely independently and remain separate from the rest of the world.
In practice, this has achieved little other than to stifle the country’s economy and trade, and many of its citizens face high poverty levels and severe food shortages. The CIA says North Korea “remains one of the World’s most isolated and one of Asia’s poorest.”
Since the 1950s, it is estimated that around 31,000 North Koreans have sought to escape and defected to South Korea, The Guardian reported in January.
That number surged last year amid what the unification ministry in Seoul called “worsening conditions in North Korea.”
Pardo’s photos present a unique look into those conditions and life in one of the world’s last communist states.
North Korean soldiers working on the border.
Pedro Pardo / AFP via Getty Images
The North Korean city of Hyesan.
Pedro Pardo / AFP via Getty Images
A wagon in the North Korean city of Namyang.
Pedro Pardo / AFP via Getty Images
A sign on a hillside in the town of Chunggang reads: “My country is the best.”
Pedro Pardo / AFP via Getty Images
A watchtower by the border in Hyesan.
Pedro Pardo / AFP via Getty Images
Portraits of former North Korean leaders Kim Il sung and Kim Jong Il in Chunggang.
Pedro Pardo / AFP via Getty Images
Another set of portraits of the former leaders on a government building in Namyang.
Pedro Pardo / AFP via Getty Images
North Korean people working in a field.
Pedro Pardo / AFP via Getty Images
A sign in Chunggang reading: “Let’s unify the party and all society with the revolutionary ideas of comrade Kim Jong Un!”
Pedro Pardo / AFP via Getty Images
Trucks crossing a border bridge connecting Changbai, China, and Hyesan, North Korea.
