by tyler | Apr 4, 2023 | asia, CNN
Seven tourists were killed and 13 others injured in a major avalanche in India’s northeastern state of Sikkim, local police said Tuesday.
Some of the survivors were in critical condition and rescue operations are ongoing, senior police official Tenzing Loden Lepcha told CNN.
The avalanche took place near the Nathu La mountain pass and struck a road connecting Nathu La and the state capital Gangtok.
Lepcha told CNN that avalanches were unusual at this time of year, and blamed unseasonal rain and snow in the area.
This is a developing story. Check back for more details.
by tyler | Apr 3, 2023 | asia, CNN
Cruising at a depth of 8,336 meters (over 27,000 feet) just above the seabed, a young snailfish has become the deepest fish ever filmed by scientists during a probe into the abyss of the northern Pacific Ocean.
Scientists from University of Western Australia and Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology released footage of the snailfish on Sunday filmed last September by sea robots in deep trenches off Japan.
Along with the filming the deepest snailfish, the scientists physically caught two other specimens at 8,022 meters and set another record for the deepest catch.
Previously, the deepest snailfish ever spotted was at 7,703 meters in 2008, while scientists had never been able to collect fish from anywhere below 8,000 meters.
“What is significant is that it shows how far a particular type of fish will descend in the ocean,” said marine biologist Alan Jamieson, founder of the Minderoo-UWA Deep Sea Research Centre, who led the expedition.
Scientists are filming in the trenches off Japan as part of a 10-year study into the deepest fish populations in the world. Snailfish are members of Liparidae family, and while most snailfish live in shallow water, others survive at some of the greatest depths ever recorded, Jamieson said.
During the two-month survey last year, three “landers” – automatic sea robots fitted with high-resolution cameras – were dropped into three trenches – the Japan, Izu-Ogasawara and Ryukyu trenches – at varying depths.
In the Izu-Ogasawara trench, footage showed the deepest snailfish hovering calmly alongside other crustaceans on the seabed.
Jamieson classified the fish as a juvenile and said younger deep sea snailfish often stay as deep as possible to avoid being eaten by bigger predators that swim at shallower depths.
Another clip shot at between 7,500 and 8,200 meters in the same trench showed a colony of fish and crustaceans munching at bait tied to an undersea robot.
Images of the two captured snailfish – identified as Pseudoliparis belyaevi – provide a rare glimpse of the unique features that help the deep sea species survive the extreme environment.
They have tiny eyes, a translucent body, and their lack of swim bladder, which helps other fish float, works to their advantage, Jamieson said.
The professor said the Pacific Ocean is particularly conducive to vibrant activity due to its warm southern current, which encourages sea creatures to go deeper, while its abundant marine life provides a good source of food for bottom feeders.
Scientists would like to know more about creatures living at extreme depths, but cost is the constraint, Jamieson said, adding that each lander alone costs them $200,000 to assemble and operate.
“The challenges are that technology has been expensive and scientists don’t have a lot of money,” he said.
by tyler | Mar 31, 2023 | asia, CNN
Pakistan’s leaders and the man who wants to unseat them are engaged in high stakes political brinkmanship that is taking a toll on the collective psyche of the nation’s people – and many are exhausted.
As their politicians argue, citizens struggle with soaring inflation against an uptick in militant attacks. In major cities, residents regularly navigate police roadblocks for protests, school closures and internet shutdowns. And in the northern province of Kyber Pakhtunkhua, three people died last Thursday in a stampede to get subsidized bags of flour.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s government is attempting to unlock billions of dollars in emergency financing from the International Monetary Fund, a process delayed since last November – but some people aren’t prepared to wait.
Government statistics show a surge in the number of citizens leaving Pakistan – up almost threefold in 2022 compared to previous years.
Zainab Abidi, who works in tech, left Pakistan for Dubai last August and says her “main worry” is for her family, who she “really hopes can get out.”
Others, like Fauzia Rashif, a cleaner in Islamabad, don’t have the option to leave.
“I don’t have a passport, I’ve never left the country. These days the biggest concern is the constant expenses. I worry about my children but there really isn’t anywhere to go,” she said.
Experts say the pessimism about the Pakistan’s stability in the months ahead is not misplaced, as the country’s political heavyweights tussle for power.
Maleeha Lodhi, former Pakistan ambassador to the United Nations, Britain and the United States, told CNN the “prolonged and intense nature” of the confrontation between Pakistan’s government and former Prime Minister Imran Khan is “unprecedented.”
She said the only way forward is for “all sides to step aside and call for a ceasefire through interlocutors to agree on a consensus for simultaneous provincial and national elections.”
That solution, however, is not something that can easily be achieved as both sides fight in the street – and in court.
The current wave of chaos can be traced back to April 2022, when Khan, a former cricket star who founded the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Party (PTI), was ousted from office in a vote of no confidence on grounds of mismanaging the economy.
In response, Khan rallied his supporters in street protests, accusing the current government of colluding with the military and the United States in a conspiracy to remove him from office, claims both parties rejected.
Khan survived an assassination attempt last November during one of his rallies and has since been beset with legal troubles spearheaded by Sharif’s government. As of March 21, Khan was facing six charges, while 84 have been registered against other PTI workers, according to the central police office in Lahore. However, Khan’s party claims that 127 cases have been lodged against him alone.
Earlier this month, attempts to arrest Khan from his residence in Lahore led to violent clashes with the police and Khan’s supporters camped outside. Khan told CNN the government was attempting to arrest him as a “pretext for them to get out of (holding) elections,” a claim rejected by information minister Mariyam Aurangzeb.
Days later, more clashes erupted when police arrived with bulldozers to clear the supporters from Khan’s home, and again outside Islamabad High Court as the former leader finally complied with an order to attend court.
Interior minister Rana Sanaullah told reporters that the police operation intended to “clear no-go areas” and “arrest miscreants hiding inside.” Human Rights Watch accused the police of using “abusive measures” and urged all sides to show restraint.
General elections are due to be held this October, but Khan has been pushing for elections months earlier. However, it’s not even clear if he’ll be able to contest the vote due to the push by the government to disqualify him.
Disqualification will mean that Khan can’t hold any parliamentary position, become involved in election campaigns, or lead his party.
Khan has already been disqualified by Pakistan’s Election Commission for making “false statements” regarding the sale of gifts sent to him while in office – an offense under the country’s constitution – but it will take the courts to cement the disqualification into law. A court date is still to be set for that hearing.
Yasser Kureshi, author of the book “Seeking Supremacy: The Pursuit of Judicial Power in Pakistan,” says Khan’s “ability to mobilize support” will “help raise the costs of any attempt to disqualify him.”
However, he said if Pakistan’s powerful military – led by government-appointed former spy chief Lt. Gen. Syed Asim Munir, who Khan once fired – is determined to expel the former leader, it could pressure the judiciary to rule him out, no matter how much it inflames Khan’s supporters.
“If the military leadership is united against Khan and committed to disqualifying and purging him, the pressure from the military may compel enough judges to relent and disqualify Khan, should that be the consensus within the military top brass,” said Kureshi, a lecturer in South Asian Studies at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom.
Qaiser Imam, president of the Islamabad Bar Association, disagreed with this statement. “Political parties, to save their politics, link themselves with certain narratives or perceptions which generally are never found correct,” he told CNN.
The Pakistan Armed Forces has often been blamed for meddling in the democratic process to maintain its authority, but in a statement last November outgoing army chief, Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa, said a decision had been made in February that the military would not interfere in politics.
The army has previously rejected Khan’s claims it had anything to do with purported attempts on his life.
Some say the government’s recent actions have added to perceptions that it’s trying to stack the legal cards against Khan.
This week, the government introduced a bill to limit the power of the Chief Justice, who had agreed to hear a claim by the PTI against a move to delay an important by-election in Punjab, Pakistan’s most populated province, and one considered a marker for the party most likely to win national leadership.
It had been due to be held on April 30, but Pakistan’s Election Commission pushed it to October 8, citing security concerns.
In a briefing to international media last Friday, Pakistan’s Defense Minister Khawaja Asif said the security and economic situation had deteriorated in the past two months, and it was more cost effective to hold the vote at the same time as the general election.
The decision was immediately condemned by Khan as an act that “violated the constitution.”
Lodhi, the former ambassador, has criticized the delay, tweeting that a security threat had been “invoked to justify whatever is politically expedient.”
The PTI took the matter to the Supreme Court, where it’s still being heard.
Some have accused Khan of also trying to manipulate the court system in his favor.
Kureshi said the judiciary is fragmented, allowing Khan to “venue-shop” – taking charges against him from one judge to seek a more sympathetic hearing with another.
“At this time it seems that even the Supreme Court itself is split on how to deal with Imran Khan, which helps him maneuver within this fragmented institutional landscape,” Kureshi said.
The increasing acrimony at the highest level of politics shows no sign of ending – and in fact could prolong the uncertainty for Pakistan’s long-suffering people.
Khan is adamant the current government wants him dead without offering much tangible evidence. And in comments made to local media on Sunday, Sanaullah said the government once viewed Khan as a political opponent but now sees him as the “enemy.”
“(Khan) has in a straightforward way brought this country’s politics to a point where either only one can exist, either him or us. If we feel our existence is being negated, then we will go to whatever lengths needed and, in that situation, we will not see what is democratic or undemocratic, what is right and what is wrong,” he added.
PTI spokesman Fawad Chaudhry said the comments were “offensive” and threatened to take legal action. “The statement … goes against all norms of civilized world,” he said.
Ahmed Bilal Mehboob, the director the Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency, says Khan’s popularity gave him “the power to cripple the country,” should he push supporters to show their anger in the street.
However, Mehboob said Khan’s repeated attempts to call for an early election could create even more instability by provoking the government to impose article 232 of the constitution.
That would place the country under a state of emergency, delaying elections for a year.
And that would not be welcomed by a weary public already tired of living in uncertain times.
by tyler | Mar 26, 2023 | asia, CNN
A child riding on his father’s shoulders smiles as they stroll through a park lined with yellow autumn-touched leaves – that is the typical image of a Japanese “ikumen”.
The term strings together the Japanese words ikuji, meaning care for children, and ikemen, referring to cool-looking men.
Japanese authorities have widely promoted the term in the past decade to combat the country’s notoriously long working hours that have not only deprived workaholic fathers of family time and stay-home mothers of careers, but have helped drive the birth rate to one of the lowest in the world.
To seize the “last chance to reverse” the situation, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida last week unveiled a raft of policies, including boosts to child support and a pledge to lift the number of male workers taking paternity leave from the current 14 percent to 50 percent by 2025, and 85 percent by 2030.
But some in the world’s third-largest economy – which has long struggled with a falling fertility rate and an aging population – are skeptical the plan can really move the needle.
Makoto Iwahashi, a member of POSSE, a labor union dedicated to younger workers, said while the government’s plan was well-intentioned, many Japanese men were simply too scared to take paternity leave due to potential repercussions from their employers.
Japanese men are entitled to four weeks of flexible paternity leave, on up to 80 per cent of their salary, under a bill passed by the Japanese parliament in 2021.
But despite the law, men remained “afraid” that taking the leave may have a negative effect on their promotion prospects or that they may be reassigned to a different position with fewer responsibilities, Iwahashi said.
While it is illegal to discriminate against workers who take maternity and paternity leave in Japan, Iwahashi said workers on fixed-term contracts were particularly vulnerable.
And anyway, “A little tweak on paternity leave won’t significantly change a declining birth rate,” he added.
Hisakazu Kato, an economics professor at Meiji University in Tokyo, said while big companies had become more accepting of parental leave over the years, smaller firms still had reservations.
“Small companies are afraid they will face (worker shortages) due to childcare leave, and this puts pressure on young fathers who want to take childcare leave in future,” he said.
At a press conference last week, the prime minister acknowledged the concerns and pledged to consider providing allowances for small and medium-sized enterprises, with details to be announced in June at his yearly policy blueprint.
He also unveiled a plan aimed at boosting the uptake of paternity leave by encouraging firms to disclose their performance.
In 2022, the number of new births in Japan dipped below 800,000 for the first time since records began in 1899, the latest milestone in a trend that the government sees as increasingly alarming.
Last week, Kishida went as far as to warn that “the next six to seven years will be the last chance to reverse the declining birthrate trend”.
But Stuart Gietel-Basten, a professor of public policy and social science at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, cautioned that a low birth rate was often a sign of entrenched cultural factors that would likely be resistant to policies changes. Such factors might range from work culture to gender attitudes, he added.
“Increasing paternity leave is a good policy, no doubt. It will certainly provide many men (and women) with a positive outcome. However, unless the prevailing cultural norms and attitudes change the impact at a macro level could be limited,” said the scholar.
Riki Khorana, 26, who plans to tie the knot with his girlfriend in June, said the high cost of living was one of his biggest concerns in starting a family.
Working as an engineer at one of Japan’s biggest conglomerates at the heart of Tokyo, the country’s capital, he identified himself as a relatively high earner, yet he said he currently lives with his parents in Yokohama, Japan’s second largest city south of Tokyo.
After getting married, he will move out of his parent’s house but will still have to stay in Yokohama due to Tokyo’s high rents.
Tokyo is the ninth most expensive city for expatriates to live in, according to US consulting firm Mercer’s Cost of Living Survey.
Khorana said he planned to have two children, but if there were more effective government policies then he would consider more.
“For me, I feel like I cannot afford more than two children,” he said. “There are less financially secure people who think they cannot have more than one child.”
The country’s fertility rate – the average number of children born to women during their reproductive years – has fallen to 1.3, far below the 2.1 required to maintain a stable population.
Over the years, experts have also pointed to a sense of prevailing pessimism among young people who, due to the pressures of work and economic stagnation, have little confidence in the future.
Last week, the prime minister said he planned market reforms that would push up wages and economic assistance for young workers. He also pledged to introduce benefits that could support freelance or self-employed workers and spoke of extra allowances for child support, education and housing.
The economics professor Kato felt the new policies were unlikely to be enough to solve the country’s demographic problems.
But he saw a silver lining in encouraging paternity leave.
“I think this is a good proposal as it not only improves family policies, but also gender equality,” he said.
by tyler | Mar 25, 2023 | asia, CNN
Indian opposition leader Rahul Gandhi said on Saturday he had been disqualified from parliament because he has been asking Prime Minister Narendra Modi tough questions about his relationship with Gautam Adani, founder of the Adani conglomerate.
Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party responded saying Gandhi had been punished under the law for a defamatory comment he made in 2019 and it had nothing to do with the Adani issue.
Gandhi, a former president of India’s main opposition Congress party who is still its main leader, lost his parliamentary seat on Friday, a day after a court in the western state of Gujarat convicted him in a defamation case and sentenced him to two years in jail.
The court granted him bail and suspended his jail sentence for 30 days, allowing him to appeal.
The defamation case was filed in connection with comments Gandhi made in a speech that many deemed insulting to Modi. Gandhi’s party and its allies have criticized the court ruling as politically motivated.
“I have been disqualified because the prime minister is scared of my next speech, he is scared of the next speech that is going to come on Adani,” Gandhi told a news conference at the Congress party headquarters in New Delhi.
“They don’t want that speech to be in parliament, that’s the issue,” Gandhi said in his first public comments since the conviction and disqualification.
Gandhi, 52, the scion of a dynasty that has given India three prime ministers, did not elaborate on why Modi might not like his next speech.
Gandhi’s once-dominant Congress controls less than 10% of the elected seats in parliament’s lower house and has been decimated by the BJP in two successive general elections, most recently in 2019.
India’s next general election is due by mid-2024 and Gandhi has recently been trying to revive the party’s fortunes.
“I am not scared of this disqualification … I will continue to ask the question, ‘what is the prime minister’s relationship with Mr Adani?’,” Gandhi said on Saturday.
Modi’s rivals say the prime minister and the BJP have longstanding ties with the Adani group, going back nearly two decades when Modi was chief minister of the western state of Gujarat. Gautam Adani is also from Gujarat.
The Congress party has questioned investments made by state-run firms in Adani companies and the handover of the management of six airports to the group in recent years, even though it had no experience in the sector.
The Adani group has denied receiving any special favors from the government and government ministers have dismissed such opposition suggestions as “wild allegations”, saying regulators would look into any wrongdoing.
Congress, and its opposition allies have called for a parliamentary investigation.
“The life of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is an open book of honesty,” BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad told a news conference called in response to Gandhi’s statements on Saturday.
“We don’t have to defend Adani, BJP never defends Adani, but BJP doesn’t target anyone either,” Prasad said, accusing Gandhi of habitually lying.
by tyler | Mar 25, 2023 | asia, CNN
When the Honduran President announced last week her country planned to establish diplomatic ties with China, the ripples were felt far beyond this Central American country of population 10 million. To many, it was the latest confirmation of China’s growing clout on the world stage.
The decision by President Xiomara Castro means Honduras will have to sever its relationship with Taiwan, the island democracy that for much of the past 50 years has been locked in a battle for diplomatic recognition with China, its far larger Communist-ruled neighbor.
China claims Taiwan as its territory, and has repeatedly refused to rule out taking the island by force, but the pressure it heaps on Taiwan is not limited to threats about invasion.
It also exerts diplomatic pressure, by insisting that any country wanting official ties with the world’s second largest economy must at the same time refuse to recognize Taiwan.
As a result, a dwindling pool of nations are willing to hold diplomatic relations with the island democracy of 23.5 million.
Before Castro’s announcement, Taiwan had just 14 diplomatic allies – down from the 56 it had in 1971, when it lost recognition from the United Nations, and down from 22 when its President Tsai Ing-wen took office in 2016.
And given that most of Taiwan’s remaining allies are small nations in Latin America and the Pacific – with all of the world’s powerful economies having switched decades ago – it would be easy to paint Castro’s announcement as the latest nail in the coffin for Taiwan’s aspirations for relevance on the world stage.
That’s the narrative China might like to believe – and the version of events that is often repeated in the international media every time Taiwan loses another diplomatic ally.
But a growing body of experts are challenging that received wisdom.
Yes, they say, officially Taiwan may appear to be losing the diplomatic battle, constantly waving goodbye to yet another diplomatic mission. But look deeper and Taiwan has been increasing its influence across the globe by developing close – though unofficial – ties with western countries.
As Lev Nachman, an assistant professor in politics at National Chengchi University, put it, “Taiwan’s diplomatic allies do offer meaningful support for Taiwan, such as allowing official visits to happen. But we often ask, if one day Taiwan has zero formal diplomatic allies, what would really change? And the answer is not that much.”
Take for instance the island’s relationship with the United States.
The US may have withdrawn its diplomatic recognition of Taiwan back in 1979, yet today its unofficial relationship appears as strong as it has been in decades.
The lack of diplomatic ties did not put off then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi from making a controversial visit to Taipei in August – a visit China responded to angrily by holding unprecedented military drills and firing missiles over the island.
Nor has it dissuaded incumbent US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy from planning to meet Tsai in early April, when she plans to transit the United States en route to Central America, in another trip that is widely expected to raise China’s hackles.
Then there are the advances Taiwan has been making in Europe in recent months – breakthroughs that seem “diplomatic” in all but name.
Accelerated by Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine and fears about another autocracy’s designs on democratic Taiwan, various European countries have acted in ways suggesting they are supportive of China’s smaller neighbor, even if the Vatican City is its only official ally on the continent.
This month, a minister from Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, became the first in 26 years to visit Taiwan in a trip Berlin billed as an effort to enhance science and technological cooperation – and which it undertook despite Beijing’s protestations.
In January, Taiwan’s military disclosed an exchange with NATO in which one of its lieutenant colonels was sent on a six-month academic training program at an international military college in Italy.
Experts point out that the United States remains the single biggest guarantor of the island’s safety in the face of a possible invasion by China and that the US supplies weapons to Taiwan every year – both of which it does without an “official” diplomatic relationship.
They also point out that the G7 nations (the US, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom) were all quick to voice concerns following China’s post-Pelosi military drills.
Taiwan’s role as a global leader in the supply of semiconductor chips – which are needed to power everything from laptops to advanced weapons – also makes it an important trading partner for many Western democracies.
One Taiwan company, the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, is one of Asia’s most valuable businesses and accounts for 90% of the world’s super-advanced chips, according to industry estimates cited by Reuters.
Such shows of support from Taiwan’s “unofficial relationships,” they say, are far more important to the island’s safety and economy than its formal alliances with smaller nations.
The struggle between China and Taiwan dates back to the end of the Chinese civil war. The Chinese Nationalist government – or Kuomintang – fled to Taiwan following its defeat by Mao Zedong’s Communists in 1949.
Having set up a government on the island just four years earlier, it continued to call itself the Republic of China in Taiwan and for decades claimed itself as the legitimate representative of not only Taiwan but the Chinese mainland too. The Communist authorities on the Chinese mainland, meanwhile, created the People’s Republic of China, and also claimed to be the legitimate representative of both sides of the Taiwan Strait.
Taiwan, as the ROC, was represented in the United Nations until 1971, when the general assembly passed a resolution to recognize the Communist regime in Beijing as the “only lawful representatives of China to the United Nations.” The United States switched its recognition to Beijing in 1979, and most countries – many of them under pressure from Beijing – have followed suit.
But since Taiwan’s transition into a democracy in the 1990s, the island has downplayed its territorial claims over mainland China. Tsai, the current president, has said the future of Taiwan can be decided only by its people.
But while Taiwan’s economy and safety are not reliant on its official allies, experts and lawmakers say official relationships are still valuable – to a point.
“(It helps) undermine Beijing’s legal claim of sovereignty over Taiwan,” said J. Michael Cole, a Taipei-based senior adviser with the International Republican Institute.
These countries also help to provide a voice for Taiwan in the international community, he said. Last October, for instance, 10 of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies co-signed a letter to United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres to criticize the UN’s exclusion of Taiwan.
But Cole noted that all these allies were “small and not particularly influential”.
“They do provide a voice at the UN General Assembly, but their numbers are insufficient to sway the rest, who often vote in Beijing’s favor,” he said.
Wang Ting-yu, an MP from Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, said the core issue was that Beijing is attempting to “demolish the symbol of sovereignty in Taiwan”.
“China claims to have sovereignty over Taiwan, but they have no control over us,” Wang said. “For us, we can accept that you have diplomatic relations with Taiwan, while also having diplomatic relations with China. The only issue is China is blinding their own eyes in saying that Taiwan doesn’t exist.”
But that symbol of sovereignty is coming at a growing cost for Taiwan’s government due to a pressure campaign by Beijing that many experts label as “dollar diplomacy.”
Using China’s huge market as both a carrot and a stick, Beijing has managed to peel away many smaller countries, while punishing those who refuse to budge.
When the Solomon Islands switched diplomatic recognition to Beijing in 2019, the Pacific country was offered $8.5 million in development funds by China to do so, according to Reuters.
Paraguay, the biggest country among Taiwan’s remaining diplomatic allies, has on the other hand faced restrictions in exporting soy and beef to China. Its president, Mario Abdo Benítez, openly called on Taiwan to invest $1 billion in his country last year so that it could continue to resist the “enormous” pressure on it to abandon the alliance.
Paraguay is holding its presidential election next month, and the opposition candidate has vowed to cut diplomatic ties with Taiwan if they are elected.
Johnny Chiang, an MP from Taiwan’s opposition Kuomintang party and a member of the parliament’s Foreign and National Defense Committee, said Taiwan is spending roughly $100 million every year in infrastructural aid and development projects for its diplomatic allies.
“The rise of China has become a very big challenge for our diplomacy,” said Chiang, who served as the chairman of the Kuomintang between 2020 and 2021.
Wang, who is also a member of the Foreign and National Defense Committee, added that Taiwan is increasingly choosing not to match China’s “dollar diplomacy” – preferring instead to underline shared values, like democracy.
“We are using our diplomatic resources to help our official diplomatic allies. We offer humanitarian and training programs to benefit their people directly, but we never give cash to the officers or the policy-makers,” he said.
“We especially cherish our partnership with our allies – in areas such as women’s empowerment and vocational training, but we don’t give money to governments,” he added.
While the value of official allies may in many ways be largely symbolic to Taiwan, there is one area that losing friends – even symbolically – can come back to bite Taipei: in the court of public opinion.
When Taiwan’s public vote for their next president in January next year, opposition parties are likely to seize on every loss of diplomatic recognition as ammunition.
“Domestically within Taiwan, you’ll see political parties using Taiwan’s losing of its diplomatic allies as a way to show how whatever party is in power is bad for Taiwan,” said Nachman, the political scientist.
“It will be a hard look for the government both internationally and domestically to take these kinds of blows, because they do have symbolic value for a lot of people in Taiwan, and a lot of other countries also see this as a sign of weakness,” he added.
Still, in the court of public opinion, China’s increasing assertiveness toward smaller nations can also backfire.
Earlier this month, the outgoing president of Micronesia – which China has tried to woo as part of its plan for a security pact with Pacific nations – accused China of engaging in “political warfare.”
In an explosive 13-page letter advocating the dissolution of diplomatic ties with Beijing, David Panuelo alleged China was preparing to invade Taiwan and had engaged in bribery, political interference and even “direct threats” to ensure the Federated States of Micronesia remains neutral in the event of war.
China dismissed the letter’s contents as “smears and accusations.”
Chiang, the opposition MP with the Kuomintang – a party widely seen as more friendly to Beijing – said the key to reducing China’s growing pressure on Taiwan’s diplomatic recognition was to improve communication across the Taiwan Strait and reduce hostility.
He pointed out that during the eight-year term of former President Ma Ying-jeou, also from the Kuomintang, only one country severed diplomatic relations with Taiwan.
“If you can manage the relationship between Beijing and Taipei well, then that will – to some extent – reduce the pressure from that kind of dollar diplomacy,” he said. “If both sides can reach some sort of tacit understanding … then we will avoid that kind of bad situation.”
