As Taiwan’s government continues to promote its New Southbound Policy (NSP), it needs to develop different approaches for the 18 nations targeted by the policy, Indian scholar Sana Hashmi said Wednesday at a speech in Taipei.

The 18 countries targeted by the NSP, first launched by President Tsai Ing-wen’s (???) administration in 2016, have different geographical sizes, interests and policies, Hashmi said at the event hosted by the government-funded Taiwan-Asia Exchange Foundation (TAEF).

“Not one policy is going to fit all 18 countries,” said Hashmi, who is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the TAEF and an affiliated scholar with the Research Institute for Indo-Pacific Affairs (RIIPA) in Japan.

“I believe there needs to be some policies for different countries, specifically for countries such as India, Australia, Malaysia, and Singapore … It is a people centric policy,” Hashmi added in her talk which focused on the NSP’s achievements and weaknesses.

In addition, Hashmi went on, the government ought to make more effort to strengthen people-to-people ties between Taiwan and NSP partner countries, through either the promotion of tourism or educational cooperation such as the provisions of scholarships and fellowships.

Hashmi mentioned that many Indian students had chosen to come to Taiwan for studies after China stopped issuing visas to international students due to its COVID-19 policy.

Educational cooperation, Hashmi said, is therefore important as those Indian students who come to Taiwan will “look at Taiwan on its own merits from Taiwan’s perspective, and not from the Chinese perspective.”

Hashmi added that a robust migrant worker policy was missing from the NSP, which reflected calls by human rights groups for the inclusion of greater migrant worker protections in the NSP.

Speaking about the relationship between Taiwan and India, Hashmi observed that India’s policy towards Taiwan has “definitely changed” so that it now views the island more positively.

The Indian government came to a realization that it should no longer ignore Taiwan or overlook cooperation with Taiwan because of China, according to Hashmi.

She mentioned in particular that Arindam Bagchi, spokesperson for the Indian foreign ministry, in August openly called for restraint from all parties to avoid unilateral changes to the status quo in the Taiwan Strait.

This came shortly after China launched days of military exercises in waters around Taiwan in the wake of the visit to Taipei by United States House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in early August.

“That was a huge policy change,” Hashmi said of Bagchi’s comments, adding that India had for some years not made any public statements regarding Taiwan.

“There are shared concerns, especially India and Taiwan, the only two countries that share the same concerns regarding China,” Hashmi said, adding India continues to have border disputes with China as Taipei comes under increasing pressure from Beijing.

Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel