Chad, Guinea, Lebanon, and Tunisia all made headlines in 2021 — but only three of the four reasons commonly paired with them are actually true.
MCQ Questionsâś… Must Know
Four countries, four 2021 crises
- Chad, Guinea, Lebanon, and Tunisia each made international news in 2021 for very different reasons. Matching each country to its real reason is a common exam trap.
Chad’s real story
- Chad’s president, Idriss Deby, was killed on the battlefield in April 2021. His son then seized power, not China setting up any military base there.
China’s only overseas base isn’t in Chad
- China’s only overseas military base sits in Djibouti, opened in 2017. Chad has no Chinese military base, making that pairing false.
Three genuinely correct pairs
- Guinea (military suspended the constitution), Lebanon (severe economic depression), and Tunisia (president suspended parliament) are all correctly matched.
đź’ˇ Good to Know
Guinea’s coup
- Colonel Mamady Doumbouya overthrew President Alpha Conde in September 2021, suspending Guinea’s constitution and government.
Lebanon’s economic collapse
- Lebanon has faced one of the world’s most severe economic crises since 2019, marked by currency collapse, bank withdrawal limits, and soaring inflation.
Tunisia’s parliamentary suspension
- President Kais Saied suspended Tunisia’s parliament in July 2021 and assumed sweeping powers, reshaping the country’s political system.
Why this pairing style recurs
- UPSC often builds a table pairing countries with news reasons, deliberately swapping one pairing to a plausible-sounding but false claim.
Test Yourself
🌟 Great to Know
A wave of instability, not one story
- 2021 saw an unusually high number of African and Middle Eastern political crises within a single year, making this kind of comparative question common.
Tunisia’s crisis deepened over years
- Five years after Saied’s 2021 power grab, Tunisia has continued to face economic downturn and political deadlock, showing the crisis wasn’t a single event.
Djibouti’s strategic pull
- Djibouti hosts military bases from China, the US, Japan, and France, all drawn by its position near the Red Sea’s entrance to the Suez Canal.
The exam skill being tested
- This kind of question rewards knowing the specific, correct reason each country was in the news, not just recognising all four as unstable places.
Beyond the answer
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