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Bangkok — Thailand’s most popular political party, Move Forward, is facing the familiar threat of dissolution by court order, but senior members say plans are already in place for a swift comeback if they are disbanded, refusing to let their reform movement die.

MFP secured a plurality in Thailand’s May 2023 elections with 14 million votes and 151 seats, ending nine years of military-dominated government.

The party did it with a radical slate of reforms for equitable governance — to cut the military from power, break up an economic monopoly and amend the royal defamation law, known as lèse-majesté, which criminalizes criticism of the powerful monarchy.

Yet the party’s candidate for prime minister, Pita Limjaroenrat, was blocked from forming a government by the appointed Senate of ultraconservatives allied to the generals who seized power in a coup nearly a decade earlier.

Forced into the opposition, MFP has since faced an obstacle course of legal challenges brought by rivals determined to kill its reform agenda.

Thailand’s Constitutional Court is expected within weeks to decide whether the centerpiece of MFP’s agenda — a proposed amendment of lèse-majesté — is tantamount to subversion.

The court dissolved MFP’s previous incarnation, Future Forward, in 2020, triggering vigorous street protests by pro-democracy activists.

A repeat of that ruling potentially sets a precedent for any future review of the law, which carries penalties of up to 15 years in prison and has been cited in the prosecution of at least 260 people in the past four years.

“We’ve seen party dissolution being used as one of the tools against parties that are opposite from the establishment institution of Thailand,” MFP spokesperson Parit Wacharasindhu told VOA.

“It’s not normal for any democratic country to have this kind of party dissolution but … if it were to happen, it highlights why there’s a need for a party like Move Forward Party to exist in Thai politics,” he said.

If banned, MFP will have to rebrand under a new name and work quickly to keep its lawmakers from being poached by the coalition parties led by Pheu Thai — Thailand’s previously dominant electoral force, which now holds the premiership through property tycoon Srettha Thavisin.

It will also most likely have to replace Pita, leader Chaithawat Tulathon and several other front-line figures who could be banned from politics for 10 years if the party is ordered to dissolve.

Parit, 31, is widely tipped to emerge as the next leader with a strong speaking style and connection with the public.

“The party has plans in place for all scenarios,” he said, without confirming any possible future role.

An MFP lawmaker, who also faces a ban from politics as a possible result of the imminent ruling, summed up the limbo of political life in a country where courts routinely eliminate talented new politicians and parties as feeling similar to “knowing your friend is really sick and knowing he can go any day.”

“I’ve put in so much in this political career and it could just be the end of it just like that,” the lawmaker told VOA, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of political reprisals.

MFP is set to present its final argument on May 3, and the head of Thailand’s nine-member constitutional court, Nakarin Mektrairat, has publicly called it “impossible” to prejudge the bench’s decision.

But political observers say the dissolution is a virtually done deal as the establishment seeks to politically suffocate Thailand’s most radical movement of the last two decades.

Powerful royal legacy

Thailand’s monarchy is extremely powerful, and the royal defamation law protects it from criticism, with sentences of up to 15 years per conviction.

Dozens of young pro-democracy activists have been jailed in the last few years under the law.

MFP leaders have been touring the country, saying the mere fact of a looming court decision signals the rot within Thailand’s current political system.

“I’m not sure if those who have the power to dissolve us have asked themselves what they gain by doing it,” Pita said before a party meeting April 6.

“Sure, it may weaken us in the short term, but it may turbocharge us into the next election … whatever the name of the party may be.”

Analysts say banning the party is futile given two factors: millions of young people joining the electorate and the looming term limit of Thailand’s 250-member militarily appointed Senate, which has been instrumental in blocking MFP’s progress.

“It makes no difference,” Prinya Thaewanarumitkul, law professor at Thammasat University, told VOA. “The coalition government will get slightly stronger [without an opposition]. But when it comes to the next election, there will be four million new voters. Without the appointed Senate, it’s highly likely that the MFP’s next version will be the government.”

But MFP’s “next reincarnation” may have to be politically expedient, softening calls for reform of the royal defamation law to reach power, he added.

As MFP awaits its legal fate, party leaders say they are focusing on their work as the opposition, especially challenging the government’s efforts to draft a new constitution to reflect the changing political realities.

Meanwhile, the Pheu Thai-led government is newly confident with billionaire ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra’s late-February release from prison. Thaksin, Pheu Thai’s longtime patron, has toured parts of the country and routinely hosted the great and the good of Thai politics at his Bangkok home, where he is serving out a house-arrest sentence for corruption.

So long as the kingdom’s old political allegiances continue to crumble and MFP’s call for sweeping social, political and economic reforms continue to resonate with a substantial part of Thailand’s electorate, it may mean the country’s progressive movement, whatever its name may be, emerges stronger in the long-term.

“No one is distracted by the legal struggle, no one is less energetic,” Parit told VOA.  “We remain as committed as ever in terms of pushing ahead for change …whether by submitting draft laws to the parliament, contesting local elections or expanding party membership.” 
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Washington — Bangladesh and Myanmar exchanged hundreds of their citizens from custody over two days this week, following a deal reached between the two countries. Bangladesh repatriated 288 members of Myanmar’s Border Guard Police and other security agencies on Thursday, after Myanmar on Wednesday released 173 Bangladeshi nationals, mostly fishermen. 

Officials of the Bangladesh border security agency Border Guard Bangladesh said a Myanmar navy ship, the Chin Dwin, left Cox’s Bazar port early Thursday morning with the Myanmar police and immigration officials on board. The same ship brought the freed 173 Bangladeshi fishermen the previous day. 

The Myanmar security personnel fled the fighting last month in the province of Rakhine between Myanmar’s military and rebel Arakan Army and took shelter in Bangladesh. This was the second such incident of Myanmar border police and officials escaping to Bangladesh in as many months. 

The Myanmar province of Rakhine, which borders Bangladesh, has been the site of heavy fighting between the rebels and Yangon’s forces since October. While the Arakan Army is mostly ethnic Rakhine, the Muslim Rohingyas have borne the brunt of the Myanmar military’s actions over the past few decades. Over a million Rohingyas who fled atrocities by the military in 2017 are currently living in makeshift shelters in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar district. 

In February, 330 Myanmar police and officials were repatriated but nothing was sought in return. This time, officials said the Bangladesh Foreign Ministry took the initiative to take back their nationals who had either served their prison terms or were still in jail. 

 

Despite the apparent success of the negotiations, analysts in Dhaka see this as a lost opportunity rather than a triumph. Long-term Myanmar watcher and defense analyst Mohammad Emdadul Islam called it an “empty gesture” and said the fishermen would have been released at some point anyway. 

“If Myanmar had taken back 20,000 Rohingyas in return for the repatriation of their officials, then I would’ve seen it as a positive outcome,” said Islam, who served as the head of mission at the Bangladesh Consulate in Sittwe, Rakhine, in the late 1990s and early 2000s. 

Islam, a retired Army major, negotiated the release of 1,100 Bangladeshi fishermen from Myanmar prisons while serving at the consulate in 2001. He said the fishermen stray into Myanmar waters either because their boats have poor navigation equipment or they take a chance to illegally fish there. 

Myanmar naval forces often intercept them and hand them to the courts, which sentence them to up to 12 years in jail — five for illegal fishing and seven for illegal entry. 

Bangladesh’s decision to promptly repatriate the Myanmar officials has also been the subject of debate among international human rights groups that campaign for the rights of the Rohingya people. 

One such group, Fortify Rights, urged Bangladesh in February to investigate the Myanmar security personnel seeking refuge for potential involvement in atrocities against the Rohingyas. The group’s CEO, Matthew Smith, told Dhaka’s New Age newspaper that while it was important for Bangladesh to provide aid and protection to the fleeing officials, their past actions needed to be questioned. 

“These border guards might have information that could help hold perpetrators accountable for the Rohingya genocide and other crimes unfolding in Myanmar, and they should be properly investigated,” Smith said.

Bangladeshi officials emphasize their desire to keep the border calm and not confront Myanmar. “[The border police] have been given shelter on humanitarian grounds and we are working to ensure their safe return,” Bangladeshi Foreign Minister Hasan Mahmud told reporters in the southern city of Chattogram on Wednesday.

Analysts agree that Bangladesh does not want to get into a direct conflict with Myanmar, but other factors make an investigation of sheltered officials difficult. 

“The atrocities against the Rohingyas in 2017 were committed by special brigades of the Myanmar army,” Islam told VOA. “These brigades are no longer deployed in the area. Besides, the officials and police who are coming across the border are not part of the regular army. They are mostly border police, intelligence, customs and immigration officials.”

Hasan Mahmud told reporters that what was happening in Rakhine was “Myanmar’s internal affairs,” even though it often spilled across the border in the form of stray artillery shells or fleeing officials. He said the Bangladeshi government, working closely with various countries, especially the United States, China and India, is putting pressure on Myanmar to take back the Rohingyas living in Bangladesh. 

Meanwhile, Islam is concerned about the impact recent developments in Rakhine may have among the Rohingyas in Bangladesh. He said the Myanmar military has, in recent months, started recruiting Rohingyas to fight against the Arakan Army.

“How will the Rohingyas living in Bangladesh react when they see their relatives and friends back home joining the Myanmar army, and how will authorities in Bangladesh tackle the reaction? This could be a big challenge,” Islam said.

In March 2022, the U.S. recognized the atrocities committed against the Rohingya population as a genocide. 

This story originated in VOA’s Bangla Service. 
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In the Solomon Islands – officials are counting ballots in key national elections that were held on April 17. It’s the first poll since the strategic Pacific country signed a security pact with China. And who wins may well dictate whether the Solomons continues to draw closer to Beijing or Washington. VOA’s Jessica Stone reports. Charley Piringi and Bakhtiyar Zamanov contributed.
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Paytm, a popular payment app in India, faces government restrictions on business because of its Chinese connections, local media say. India is ramping up scrutiny and restrictions on other Chinese tech companies, too, amid concerns about security and geopolitics. Henry Wilkins has the story from Mumbai.
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In a dramatic surge, U.S. border patrol authorities detained more than 24,000 Chinese citizens crossing the southern border in fiscal year 2023, a 12-fold increase from the previous year. Many come seeking asylum, and among those that do, a small group of China’s ethnic Hui Muslims stands out. Aron Ranen brings us the story from the Big Apple.
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sydney — Australia’s attempts to ban a graphic video of a stabbing in a church has turned into a global battle between the Canberra government and Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of the social media platform X.

A service at an Assyrian Orthodox Church in Sydney was being live-streamed on April 15 when a bishop was repeatedly attacked at the altar.  

Four people were stabbed, and a teenager arrested.  

A 16-year-old boy was later charged with a terrorism offense.   

Soon after the attack, videos of the stabbing began circulating on social media. 

The Australian eSafety commissioner Julie Inman Grant, the country’s independent regulator for online safety, issued notices to Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, and X – formerly known as Twitter – to remove the footage.  The tech companies were threatened with heavy fines if they did not comply.

The videos were classified under Australian law as ‘class 1’ material, depicting gratuitous or offensive violence. 

Meta adhered to the eSafety Commissioner’s order, but X has argued the directive is “not within the scope of Australian law.” 

It’s insisted that “global takedown orders … threaten free speech everywhere.”

On Monday the confrontation between Canberra and Musk intensified when an Australian court ordered X to temporarily hide the videos. The Australian government wants the footage to be removed permanently.

Musk posted that “our concern is that if ANY country is allowed to censor content for ALL countries, what is to stop any country from controlling the entire Internet?”

In a rare show of unity, politicians from across Australia’s broad political spectrum denounced Musk’s attitude about the video.  

A government minister Tanya Plibersek said he was an “egotistical billionaire” while the Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young said he was a “narcissistic cowboy.”

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told local media that Musk was lacking decency.

“We will do what is necessary to take on this arrogant billionaire who thinks he is above the law but also above common decency and the idea that someone would go to court for the right to put up violent content on a platform shows how out of touch Mr. Musk is,” Albanese said. “Social media needs to have social responsibility with it.  Mr. Musk is not showing any.”

Investigators believe the stabbing attack at a church in Sydney was a religiously motivated act of terrorism. Regulators are worried that social media could further inflame tensions between different faiths.  

There were serious disturbances outside the Assyrian Orthodox Church after the bishop and three other people were stabbed. None suffered life-threatening injuries.

The church stabbings came two days after six people were murdered by a lone knifeman in a separate attack at a shopping center in Sydney.

The argument over global access to video of the church attack will test how far-reaching Australian laws are.  
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washington — The South Korean government says it will push ahead with its foreign policy agenda despite a crushing defeat in parliamentary elections at the hands of a liberal opposition party that promises to push back against President Yoon Suk Yeol’s foreign and security policies.

South Korea’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson said Tuesday that the Yoon government will press on with its security cooperation with the U.S. and Japan in bilateral settings and in a trilateral framework.

Seoul will “cooperate closely” with the U.S. and Japan to carry out agreements made at a trilateral Camp David summit in August, the spokesperson said in an email to VOA’s Korea Service. Those policies were developed in response to North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats.

The spokesperson said the Yoon administration will also “continue to strengthen its partnership” with countries in the Indo-Pacific region “to support universal values that include freedom, democracy, the rule of law, and human rights.”

The ruling People Power Party (PPP) lost the general election on April 10, securing only 108 seats in the 300-seat National Assembly.

The opposition Democratic Party (DP) won 175 seats but fell short of securing the 200 or more needed for a supermajority that would have allowed them to advance bills for passage without the PPP. Four independent parties secured the rest of the seats.

Bruce Klingner, senior research fellow for Northeast Asia at the Heritage Foundation, said, “The opposition party is expected to step up its criticism of Yoon’s foreign policies since it favors a more accommodating stance toward Pyongyang and Beijing, resistance to improving relations with Japan and greater independence from U.S. policies.”

Klingner, who served as the CIA’s deputy division chief for Korea from 1996 to 2001, continued, “But such policies have less public support due to the failed U.S. and South Korean summits with North Korea in 2018-19, Pyongyang’s rejection of all requests for dialogue and escalating provocations.”

North Korea said through its state-run KCNA on Tuesday that it had conducted its first nuclear counterattack simulation drills.

The DP mounted criticism against the Yoon administration on Sunday for what it described as China exclusionary policies. It urged the administration to “abandon its biased foreign and security policies,” said a report by The Korea Herald based in Seoul.

The Rebuilding Korea Party, a DP partner that won 12 seats in the National Assembly, slammed Yoon for what it called his “one-sided foreign policies centered on the U.S. and Japan,” according to the report.

On Friday, Yoon called DP leader Lee Jae-myung and proposed to meet with him for the first time since he took office in May 2022, according to South Korean media. Lee lost the presidential election to Yoon nearly two years ago. The presidential office told the press on Saturday the details and time of their meeting are undetermined.

Evans Revere, a former State Department official with extensive experience negotiating with North Korea, said, “The Democratic Party, together with its opposition partners, may try to use its budget-setting and investigatory powers in the National Assembly to slow or otherwise limit the ruling party’s ability to easily pursue its foreign policy and national security agenda.”

He continued, “The DP may also try to use dialogue with the ruling party and the Blue House [former presidential residence] to express a willingness to compromise on domestic economic and social legislation in return for changes to President Yoon’s foreign policy agenda.”

He added, “But President Yoon’s commitment to his foreign policy agenda is highly principled and deeply felt, and it seems unlikely that he would yield to such an opposition party.”

At a conference that Yoon hosted Monday in Seoul for South Korean diplomats assigned overseas, he described the administration’s “global pivotal state diplomacy” as the country’s “signature policy.” He credited the policy for key achievements such as an upgrade in the country’s alliance with the United States and normalization of relations with Japan.

Yoon has pursued his vision for the country to become the “global pivotal state” since taking office in 2022. It calls for South Korea to promote freedom, democracy and the rules-based international order.

Robert Rapson, who served as charge d’affaires and deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul from 2018 to 2021, said it remains to be seen whether the DP and its affiliates can force adjustments on external issues such as Japan, China and North Korea, as well as economic security policy.

“But they plan to give it a try, it seems.”

VOA’s Kim Hyungjin contributed to this report.
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Taiwan is looking to Southeast Asia as a pipeline to fill its shortage of high-tech talent. The numbers of foreign students coming to the island has been growing, especially from Vietnam and Indonesia. VOA Mandarin’s Peh Hong Lim reports from Hsinchu, Taiwan. Adrianna Zhang contributed.
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SYDNEY — Scientists from Australia and the United Kingdom are developing genomic sequencing technology to save parrots caught in the illegal wildlife trade.  

They say their forensic methods are similar to a database used by INTERPOL, the international police organization.

Parrots are among the most trafficked birds in the illegal international wildlife trade.

By using samples from feathers or a speck of blood, researchers from the Australian National University and King’s Forensics in the United Kingdom are working to build a genetic database of threatened bird species.  

They hope to create a DNA library that would help authorities track illegal trade routes and reveal the origin of animals seized from smugglers.

The research team says the genomic techniques are like those of INTERPOL’s I-Familia database, which is used to identify people based on international genetic kinship matching.

George Olah of the Fenner School of Environment and Society at the Australian National University’s College of Science told that threatened species of parrots need urgent protection.

He said generally, the illegal wildlife trade is the fourth most lucrative crime in the world.

“Like organized crime after arms trafficking, drugs and human trafficking,” he said. “Parrots are really prevalent in that trade that is in numbers of live animals. They are the most traded bird.”

Olah said genetic databases will be able to identify the source of smuggled birds.

“This would help, you know, local law enforcement agencies to better focus their limited budgets to these hotspots,” he said. “So, if you could work out that most of the trade in animals are coming just from a few islands, or from a specific region, then they can focus on that to actually break the chain.”

Olah will travel to Indonesia next month to meet with local authorities and researchers. He says the illegal parrot trade is rife in the Indo-Pacific nation.

Scientists say that in addition to being a threat to biodiversity, wildlife trafficking is an international public health issue because of its role in spreading zoonotic diseases.

The National Institutes of Health in the United States says these are “a disease or infection that can be transmitted naturally from vertebrate animals to humans or from humans to vertebrate animals. More than 60% of human pathogens are zoonotic in origin.”

 
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BANGKOK — Myanmar’s Vice President Henry Van Thio, who served in the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi and then continued in the position after the military ousted her to seize power in 2021, is stepping down for unspecified health reasons, state media said Monday.

State television MRTV announced Monday night that 65-year-old Van Thio had been allowed to retire from his post for health reasons in accordance with the constitution but did not provide any details of his health or say who, if anyone, will replace him.

Van Thio, a member of Myanmar’s Chin ethnic minority and a former army officer, was named second vice president in 2016 when Suu Kyi’s party started its first term after winning the 2015 general election in a landslide. Her National League for Democracy party governed Myanmar with overwhelming majorities in Parliament from 2015 to 2021, before being overthrown by the military.

Van Thio was the only member of Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party to stay on as a member of the National Defense and Security Council after the military seized power from the elected government of Suu Kyi in February 2021.

The council, established under a previous military government, is the highest constitutional government body responsible for security and defense affairs and is nominally led by the president. However, in practice, it is controlled by the military. Its membership is made up of the top military chiefs and cooperative politicians.

It played a key role in the February 2021 military takeover when the president in Suu Kyi’s government, Win Myint, was detained with her, and First Vice President Myint Swe, a member of a pro-military party became acting president. The move allowed the council to be convened, declare a state of emergency and hand over power to military chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing.

Although the army claims it took power constitutionally, legal scholars generally describe its action as illegal. It has renewed the state of emergency several times.

Van Thio has played no apparent active role in the military government aside from helping to provide it with the veneer of constitutional rule.

He almost completely disappeared from public view until his first known attendance at the National Defense and Security Council meeting in July last year, when the state of emergency was extended for the fourth time. He was absent from the council’s earlier meetings to extend emergency rule, with bad health cited as the reason. He was reportedly treated in hospital in January last year because he suffered a serious head injury in a fall at his residence in the capital, Naypyitaw.

A few days after last July’s council meeting, the National League for Democracy announced it had expelled him from the party because of his attendance at the meeting. The party in March last year was dissolved by the military government, whose legitimacy it doesn’t recognize, for failing to meet a registration deadline.

Suu Kyi’s party boosted its majority in the November 2020 election, but in February 2021, the army blocked all elected lawmakers from taking their seats in Parliament and seized power, detaining top members of Suu Kyi’s government and party, except Van Thio and Myint Swe.

The army said it staged its 2021 takeover because of massive poll fraud, though independent election observers did not find any major irregularities.

The army takeover was met with widespread popular opposition. After peaceful demonstrations were put down with lethal force, many opponents of military rule took up arms, and large parts of the country are now embroiled in conflict.
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Taipei, Taiwan — Analysts say China’s recent opening of two new air routes, with flight paths near two outlying islands controlled by Taiwan, is but the latest move in a broad campaign Beijing has rolled out ahead of the inauguration of Taiwan’s president-elect, Lai Ching-te.

Lai, a member of Taiwan’s pro-sovereignty Democratic Progress Party, was elected in January and will be sworn into office on May 20.

Su Tzu-yun, a military analyst at the Taipei-based Institute for National Defense and Security Research, says Beijing has been using a combination of cognitive warfare, economic coercion, and gray zone operation measures against Taiwan. Gray zone operations involve using irregular tactics without resorting to open combat.

“China’s latest efforts to increase pressure on Taiwan is both part of its pressure campaign against Taipei and its response to recent international support for Taiwan, such as the reiteration of maintaining the peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait by the U.S., Japan, and other G7 (Group of Seven leading industrialized) countries,” Su told VOA in a phone interview.

In a statement on April 19, China’s civil aviation regulator announced it had started using two west-to-east flight paths from the coastal cities of Xiamen and Fuzhou. The new air routes, known as W122 and W123, will connect to what is called the M503 air route, and they will operate alongside existing flight paths to the Taiwanese islands Kinmen and Matsu, which operate regular flights to and from Taiwan’s main island. The M503 route runs alongside the median line of the Taiwan Strait, which once served as an unofficial border between China and Taiwan.

During a daily press conference on April 19, the Chinese Communist Party’s Taiwan Affairs Office said the move aims to relieve pressure caused by flight delays by activating the two new routes.

The Civil Aviation Administration of China added that Beijing also plans to “further optimize” the airspace around Fuzhou airport in the southern Fujian Province starting May 16, four days before Lai’s inauguration.

Shortly after Lai was elected in January, Beijing unilaterally canceled flight paths for the M503 route and opened new west-to-east air routes from three coastal cities.

Beijing views Lai as an advocate of Taiwan independence. China claims Taiwan is part of its territory and has not ruled out the use of force to unite the island with the mainland.

In response to the April 19 announcement, Taiwan’s Civil Aviation Administration said Beijing’s decision could create serious flight safety risks since the distance between China and Taiwan flight paths is only two kilometers (1.1. nautical miles) at its nearest point. Taipei says it will demand that any aircraft using the new air routes turn back.

China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, which oversees cross-strait relations, said Taipei’s criticism is “a malicious hype” aimed to “create an illusion” that Beijing is “squeezing its space.

Redefining the status quo

Since the new air routes initiated by Beijing run very close to the median line of the Taiwan Strait, some experts say China is trying to redefine the status quo across the Taiwan Strait based on its terms.

The median line has served as an unofficial demarcation between Taipei and Beijing for decades. China and Taiwan split amid a civil war in 1949.

The decision to unilaterally initiate new air routes “is part of Beijing’s attempt to demonstrate that it sets the rules in what it regards as its internal matters,” according to J. Michael Cole, a Taipei-based senior adviser with the International Republican Institute’s Countering Foreign Authoritarian Influence team.

Cole said that when the M503 air route was first announced in 2015, Beijing agreed to adjust flight paths following negotiations with the Taiwanese government under the China-friendly Kuomintang, or KMT party. “Beijing moved away from unilateralism after protests by Taipei and after negotiations with the KMT-led government,” he told VOA in a written response.

But as Taiwan prepares to inaugurate the third consecutive administration under the Democratic Progressive Party next month, Cole said Beijing “is no longer in the mood for negotiation and is unilaterally implementing flight paths.”

“It denies Taiwan’s agency by refusing to negotiate with Taipei,” he added.

No-fly zones

Military analysts say Beijing’s decision to start using the contested air routes could increase the likelihood of Chinese civilian aircraft flying to the east side of the Taiwan Strait median line, where there are four designated no-fly zones.

“Taiwan’s Air Force uses those no-fly zones to monitor activities in the airspace along the median line of the Taiwan Strait,” said Chieh Chung, a military researcher at Taiwan’s National Policy Foundation.

In his view, Beijing’s new flights paths would increase the difficulty for the Taiwanese Air Force to track activities by Chinese civilian or military aircraft in the no-fly zones.

“China is trying to use the frequent incursion of Chinese civilian aircraft into the no-fly zones designated by the Taiwanese government to challenge the rules set by Taipei,” he told VOA by phone.

In addition to opening new air routes and announcing new trade measures against Taiwanese imports, Beijing increased the number of military aircraft it deployed to areas near Taiwan over the weekend.

Taiwan’s defense ministry said it detected 21 Chinese military aircraft and seven Chinese naval vessels operating around Taiwan between April 20 and April 21. At least 17 Chinese military aircraft crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait.

With less than a month until the inauguration of Taiwan’s new government, some analysts believe Beijing’s pressure campaign will continue. Cole at the International Republican Institute says Taipei “must remain alert, retain the moral high ground, and avoid any form of activity that could be exploited by Beijing to justify retaliation.”

Some information for this report came from Reuters.
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