BEIJING: Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang assured his Russian and Indian counterparts of deepening bilateral ties, promising that “coordination and cooperation” will only grow stronger, in a show of solidarity with two of China’s biggest neighbours. Qin met in India on Thursday (May 4) with other foreign ministers of theContinue Reading
The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has deployed at least 57 warplanes, 19 naval vessels and a military drone to the Taiwan Strait in a fresh eruption of anger over reports the United States is seeking to produce weapons on Taiwan.
Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense said that, in the three-day period leading up to Thursday morning, 19 Chinese warplanes had flown across the Taiwan Strait median line. The ministry is closely monitoring the actions of the Chinese army, it said, and will announce at 6 am Friday Taiwan-time an updated count of the sorties involved.
The incidents happened as 25 US defense contractors attended the Taiwan-US Defense Industry Forum in Taipei on Wednesday morning.
Steven Rudder, a retired United States Marine lieutenant general, said during the forum that he and the group of American defense contractors “have been on a mission to have a shared vision of a free, open, resilient, and inclusive relationship not only between the US and Taiwan, but also for the region.”
“Some US defense contractors are considering including Taiwan in their supply chains,” said Julian Kuo, a Taiwanese political scientist and a former member of the Legislative Yuan. “Although it may not involve any transfer of high technology, it is possible that Taiwanese firms will produce ammunition for US firms.”
Kuo said that, with Japan planning to add more than a hundred fuel and munitions depots on the Ryukyu Islands, the US may also establish tens of arms factories in Taiwan. He said such a plan is necessary because it will be difficult to transport ammunition from the Philippines to Taiwan once a war breaks out in the Taiwan Strait.
He said Taiwanese firms lack the experience of designing weapons but they are capable of producing parts for US weapon makers.
On Wednesday, the China Daily, an English newspaper owned by the Central Propaganda Department of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), published an editorial titled, “US ups the ante in dirty game but should be forewarned.”
The Chinese version of the editorial was republished by other state media on Thursday with a headline “It is a dangerous step if the US produces weapons in Taiwan.”
“US officials have arranged for a delegation of 25 arms dealers to visit Taiwan from Tuesday apparently to explore the possibility of manufacturing weapons, mainly drones and ammunition, on the island, and ostensibly to support its secessionist-minded leader Tsai Ing-wen’s pro-independence agenda,” writes the author of the article.
“By constantly supplying weapons to Ukraine, the US has failed to deliver weapons to Taiwan on schedule,” he says. “By manufacturing weapons in Taiwan, the US arms dealers as well as the US administration can bypass a lot of problems to sell arms to the island.”
He says the US has crossed a line and that its moves pose a grave challenge to China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. By allowing the US arms dealer delegation to visit Taiwan, the Biden administration is “playing with fire” and will ultimately burn itself, he says further.
He adds that the nasty American behavior could change cross-Strait relations or Sino-US ties forever.
In March 2019, Taiwan ordered four MQ-9B SkyGuardian drones from General Atomics Aeronautical Systems (GA-ASI) for about US$600 million. The US State Department approved the deal in November 2020.
The deal may have grown smaller in the interim and the drones in question seem to have been changed from the SkyGuardian to a more specifically maritime-oriented plane. Defense Post reported on Tuesday that the US Air Force had ordered four MQ-9B SeaGuardians for Taiwan but the order’s size was capped at $217.6 million. The manufacturer describes the SeaGuardian model as a “maritime patrol and reconnaissance aircraft.” The GA-ASI will also supply Taipei with two ground control stations, spare parts and other support equipment.
Lee Shih-Chiang, head of the Taiwanese Defence Ministry’s Department of Strategic Planning, said Thursday that the four drones will be completed in 2025 but the following six months of training will be conducted in the US, instead of Taiwan, due to cost concerns.
Tsao Chin-ping, general officer of Taiwan Air Force, said all the four drones and related equipment will arrive in Taiwan by 2027 and be ready for use six months later.
Taiwan’s Defence Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng said Taiwan ordered 66 units of F-16V fighters from Lockheed Martin in the US but the delivery of the first batch of the jets has been delayed to the third quarter of 2024 from the last quarter of this year as production was affected by the pandemic.
On February 7 this year, Taiwan’s National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology (NCSIST) unveiled a series of domestically made attack drones, including one similar to the American AeroVironment Switchblade 300. The NCSIST said it has partnered with private companies to build prototypes of its drones but it did not name its partners.
Following an April 11 Japanese media report that 25 US defense contractors would send their representatives to Taiwan to discuss joint production of drones and ammunition. Taiwanese media reported on April 26 that Lockheed Martin, Raytheon Technologies and AeroVironment would be among the delegates.
“US arms dealers are accustomed to inciting confrontation and conflict and taking advantage of opportunities to make money from wars, and the US government is also accustomed to protecting them,” Zhu Fenglian, a spokesperson of the Taiwan Affairs Office of China’s State Council, said on April 26.
Zhu said that, over the past six years, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) had colluded with the US and recklessly purchased US weapons at high prices for a total of US$22 billion. She said Taiwan compatriots are now tied to the “Taiwan independence” chariot.
She said the DPP is not protecting Taiwan but harming and destroying it.
On the same day, the PLA sent a TB-001 military drone to fly around Taiwan. Taiwan said its Sky Bow anti-ballistic missiles at Chihhang Air Base were placed on full alert with some fighter jets taking off on April 27. On Wednesday of this week, China’s BZK-005 drone was seen flying around Taiwan.
Prior to this, China’s Ministry of Commerce said in February that it had added Lockheed Martin Corp and Raytheon Missiles & Defense to its “unreliable entities list” as they sold arms to Taiwan. It ordered the two firms to pay a combined fine of 99 billion yuan (US$14.4 billion) but it was ignored.
The ministry said last month that it had strengthened its curbs by banning the duo from having any trade with Chinese companies. It claimed that the two firms would suffer from failing to obtain Chinese parts and rare earth.
Read: Raytheon, Lockheed take a balloon war hit in China
Follow Jeff Pao on Twitter at @jeffpao3
WASHINGTON: Nicholas Burns, the US ambassador to China, stated on Tuesday, May 2, that China’s recent” punitive” actions against some US companies have caused Washington great concern, as well as the fact that international agencies are delaying projects in the nation because of concerns about its economic openness. Businesses haveContinue Reading
Three-month-old Tayabullah is quiet and motionless. His mother Nigar moves the oxygen pipe away from his nose and puts a finger below his nostrils to check if she can feel him breathing.
She begins to cry as she realises her son is fading.
At this hospital in Afghanistan, there is not a single working ventilator.
Mothers hold oxygen tubes near their babies’ noses because masks designed to fit their small faces are not available, and the women are trying to fill in for what trained staff or medical equipment should do.
Every day, 167 children die in Afghanistan from preventable diseases, according to the UN children’s fund Unicef – illnesses that could and should be cured with the right medication.
It is a staggering number. But it’s an estimate.
And when you step inside the paediatric ward of the main hospital in the western province of Ghor, you will be left wondering if that estimate is too low.
Multiple rooms are full of sick children, at least two in each bed, their little bodies ravaged by pneumonia. Just two nurses look after 60 children.
In one room, we saw at least two dozen babies who appeared to be in a serious condition. The children should have been continuously monitored in critical care – impossible at this hospital.
Yet, for the million people who live in Ghor, this basic facility is still the best equipped public hospital they can access.
Public healthcare in Afghanistan has never been adequate, and foreign money which almost entirely funded it was frozen in August 2021 when the Taliban seized power. Over the past 20 months, we have visited hospitals and clinics across this country, and witnessed them collapsing.
Now the Taliban’s recent ban on women working for NGOs means it’s becoming harder for humanitarian agencies to operate, putting even more children and babies at risk.
I’m also a mother, and when I saw the baby die, I felt like I’ve lost my own child
Already defeated by a lack of resources, medics at the Ghor hospital used whatever little they had to try to revive Tayabullah.
Dr Ahmad Samadi was called in to check his condition, fatigue and stress visible on his face. He put a stethoscope to Tayabullah’s chest – there was a faint heartbeat.
Nurse Edima Sultani rushed in with an oxygen pump. She put it over Tayabullah’s mouth, blowing air into it. Then Dr Samadi used his thumbs to perform compressions on the boy’s tiny chest.
Watching on looking stricken was Tayabullah’s grandfather Ghawsaddin. He told us his grandson was suffering from pneumonia and malnutrition.
“It took eight hours on rubble roads to bring him here from our district Charsadda,” Ghawsaddin said. The family, who can only afford to eat dry bread for meals, scraped together money to pay for the ride.
For half an hour, the efforts to revive his grandson continued. Nurse Sultani then turned towards Nigar and told her Tayabullah had died.
The sudden silence which had enveloped the room was broken by Nigar’s sobs. Her baby boy was wrapped in a blanket and handed over to Ghawsaddin. The family carried him home.
Tayabullah should be alive – every disease he had was curable.
“I’m also a mother and when I saw the baby die, I felt like I’ve lost my own child. When I saw his mother weeping, it broke my heart. It hurt my conscience,” said Nurse Sultani, who frequently does 24-hour shifts.
“We don’t have equipment and there is a lack of trained staff, especially female staff. When we are looking after so many in serious conditions, which child should we check on first? There’s nothing we can do but watch babies die.”
Minutes later, in the room next door, we saw another child in severe distress, with an oxygen mask on her face, struggling to breathe.
Two-year-old Gulbadan was born with a heart defect, a condition called patent ductus arteriosus. It was diagnosed six months ago at this hospital.
Doctors have told us the condition is not uncommon or hard to treat. But Ghor’s main hospital is not equipped to perform routine surgery that could fix it. It also doesn’t have the medicines she needs.
Gulbadan’s grandmother Afwa Gul held down her small arms, to try to prevent the little girl from pulling down her mask.
“We borrowed money to take her to Kabul, but we couldn’t afford surgery, so we had to bring her back,” she said. They approached an NGO to get financial help. Their details were registered but there’s been no response since then.
Gulbadan’s father Nawroze stroked her forehead, trying to soothe his daughter who winced with every breath she took. Stress etched on his face, he pursed his lips and let out a sigh of resignation. He told us Gulbadan had recently begun to talk, forming her first words, calling out to him and other members of their family.
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“I’m a labourer. I don’t have a stable income. If I had money, she would never have suffered this way. At this moment, I can’t even afford to buy one cup of tea,” he said.
I asked Dr Samadi how much oxygen Gulbadan needs.
“Two litres every minute,” he said. “When this cylinder gets empty, if we don’t find another one, she will die.”
When we went back later to check on Gulbadan, we were told that’s exactly what had happened. The oxygen cylinder had run out, and she died.
The oxygen production unit at the hospital isn’t able to produce sufficient oxygen because it only has power at night, and there isn’t a steady supply of raw material.
When this [oxygen] cylinder gets empty, if we don’t find another one, she will die
In a matter of a few hours, two children died of diseases that could have been prevented or cured. It’s a crushing but all too familiar blow for Dr Samadi and his colleagues.
“I feel exhaustion and agony. Every day we lose one or two beloved children of Ghor. We have almost got accustomed to it now,” he said.
Walking around the rooms, we saw an overwhelming number of children in distress. One-year-old Sajad’s breathing was raspy. He’s suffering from pneumonia and meningitis.
In another bed is Irfan. When his breathing became more laboured, his mother Zia-rah was given another oxygen pipe to hold near his nose.
Wiping tears that rolled down her cheeks with her upper arm, she carefully held both pipes as steady as she could. She told us she would have brought Irfan to the hospital at least four or five days earlier if the roads had not been blocked by snow.
So many simply can’t make it to hospital, and others choose not to stay once they get there.
“Ten days ago a child was brought here in a very critical condition,” Nurse Sultani said. “We gave him an injection, but we didn’t have the medicines to cure him.
“So his father decided to take him home. ‘If he has to die, let him die at home’,” he told me.
What we saw in Ghor raises serious questions about why public healthcare in Afghanistan is crumbling so quickly, when billions of dollars were poured into it by the international community for 20 years until 2021.
Where was that money spent, if a provincial hospital doesn’t have a single ventilator for its patients?
Currently there is a stop-gap arrangement in place. Because money can’t be given directly to the internationally unrecognised Taliban government, humanitarian agencies have stepped in to fund salaries of medical staff and the cost of medicines and food, that are just about keeping hospitals like the one in Ghor running.
Now, that funding, already sorely inefficient, could also be at risk. Aid agencies warn that their donors might cut back because the Taliban’s restrictions on women, including its ban on Afghan women working for the UN and NGOs, violates international laws.
Only 5% of the UN’s appeal for Afghanistan has been funded so far.
We drove up one of the hills near the Ghor hospital to a burial ground. There are no records or registers here, not even a caretaker. So it’s not possible to find out who the graves belong to, but it’s easy to distinguish big graves from small ones.
From what we saw, a disproportionate number – at least half – of the new graves belong to children. A man who lives in a house close by also told us most of those they are burying these days are children.
There may be no way to count how many children are dying, but there is evidence everywhere of the scale of the crisis.
Additional reporting by Imogen Anderson and Sanjay Ganguly
In terms of sustainable development goals (SDG), business and investment have long and difficult journeys ahead. Sobering figures from a draft report published by the United Nations (UN) last month reveal that at the end of 2022, just 12% of the SDGs were on track to meet their 2030 targets.
“It’s time to sound the alarm,” the report warned.
“At the mid-way point on our way to 2030, the SDGs are in deep trouble. A preliminary assessment of the roughly 140 targets with data show only about 12% are on track.”
“Close to half, though showing progress, are moderately or severely off track and some 30% have either seen no movement or have regressed below the 2015 baseline.”
The audience at FinanceAsia’s recent Sustainable Finance Asia Forum on April 18 heard that although there is plenty of road to make up on the journey to net zero, so too is there substantial opportunity.
ESG imperatives are changing the way institutional investors approach decision-making, develop sustainable products and operate within new regulatory frameworks.
While the over-arching message of the forum underlined that sustainable goals and driving yield are not inimical, how exactly institutions approach sustainable finance will shape the future.
The following are FA’s top five takeaways from a forum focussed on these frameworks.
***
1. Creativity is key
While sufficient capital may be out there to bootstrap transitional finance in Asia – a region that is bearing the physical brunt of climate change – getting it where it needs to go in emerging markets (EMs) is not working at the scale and speed necessary to effect change.
Emily Woodland, head of sustainable and transition solutions for APAC at BlackRock, told a forum panel exploring the state of play of Asia’s SDG commitments that, as well as climate and transition risks, investors also face the common-or-garden risks that come from operating in EMs.
“There are the general risks of operating in these markets as well – that’s everything from legal, to political, to regulatory to currency considerations,” she said.
“Where finance can help develop new approaches, is around alleviating risks to attract more private capital into these innovation markets, and this is where elements like blended finance come into play.”
To make emerging market projects bankable, de-risking tools are urgently needed.
“That means guarantees, insurance, first loss arrangements, technical assistance which can help bring these projects from being marginally bankable into the bankable space, offering the opportunity to set up a whole ecosystem in a particular market.”
2. Regulation drives change
As investment in sustainable development goals moves from the fringe to the mainstream, institutions are bringing with them experience and learnings that are accompanied by policy, regulation and clear frameworks from regional governments.
Institutions are being asked to lead mainstream investment in the space as increasingly, investment in ESG becomes a viable funding choice.
“The next phase, which is the forever phase, will be when sustainability becomes mandatory rather than just a choice,” Andrew Pidden, Global head of sustainable investments at DWS Group told the forum.
“In the future, you will not be able to make an investment that has not been subject to due diligence with a view to doing no harm – or at least to doing a lot less harm than it is going to supply.”
“People may think this is never going to happen, but people thought this phase (of ESG investment becoming mainstream) was never going to happen 10 or 15 years ago.”
3. China is an ESG bond behemoth
Make no mistake, China is an ESG debt giant. Assets in China’s ESG funds have doubled since 2021, lifted by Beijing’s growing emphasis on poverty alleviation, renewable power and energy security.
According to Zixiao (Alex) Cui, managing director CCX Green Finance International, in 2022, green bond issuance volume alone totalled about RMB 800 billion ($115.72 billion), marking a 44% increase year-on-year (YoY). In the first quarter of 2023, there were 113 green bond issuances worth almost RMB 20 billion.
“Actually, this number decreased compared to last year because right now in the mainland, the interest rate for lending loans from banks is very low so there’s really not much incentive to issue bonds,” he told the audience during a panel on the latest developments in Chinese ESG bonds and cross-border opportunities.
“But over the long term, I think we are on target to achieve a number no less than last year.”
At the heart of this momentum is China’s increasingly ESG positive regulation.
“Policy making is very critical because in the mainland, we have a top-down governance model mechanism which has proven effective in terms of scaling up the market – especially on the supply side.”
4. Greenwashing depends on your definition
When is greenwashing – the overstating of a company’s or product’s green credentials – technically measurable, and when is it a matter of opinion?
Gabriel Wilson-Otto, head of sustainable investing strategy at Fidelity International, told a panel addressing greenwashing and ESG hypocrisy issues, that these transparency and greenwashing concerns are often problems of definition.
“There is a bit of a disconnect between how these terms are used by different stakeholders in different scenarios,” he says.
On one side, is the argument around whether an organisation is doing what it says it is, which involves questions of transparency and taxonomy.
“In the other camp there’s the question of whether the organisation is doing what’s expected of it. And this is where it can get incredibly vague,” he explained.
Problems arise when interests and values begin to overlap.
“Should you, for instance, be investing in a tobacco company that’s aligned to a good decarbonisation objective? Should you pursue high ESG scores across the entire portfolio?” he queried.
“Depending on where you are in the world, you can get very different expectations from different stakeholders around what the answer to these sub-questions should be.”
5. Climate is overtaking compliance as a risk
While increased ESG regulation means that companies must take compliance more seriously, this is not the only driver. According to Penelope Shen, partner at Stephenson Harwood, there is a growing understanding that climate risks are real.
“The rural economic forum global risk survey shows that the top three risks are all related to financial failure directly attributable to climate risk and bio-diversity loss,” she highlighted during a panel called ‘ESG as a component of investment DNA and beyond?’
“In fact, if you look at the top 10 risks, eight of them are climate related.”
The prominence of climate as a risk factor has consistently ranked top of the survey over the past 10 years, she explained.
“Other more socially related factors such as cost of living and erosion of social cohesion and societal polarisation are also risks that have consistently ranked highly,” she noted.
What’s your view on the outlook for green, social and sustainable debt in 2023? We invite investors and issuers across APAC to have your say in the 6th annual Sustainable Finance Poll by FinanceAsia and ANZ.
¬ Haymarket Media Limited. All rights reserved.
A Rita Ora performance of a man performing the” worm” has gone viral.
Australian lawyer Ian Smith made the decision to demonstrate his dance moves while Ms. Ora was singing” Praising You” at a Prince’s Trust ceremony in New York.
Natasha Stott Despoja, the 57-year-old’s and and former senator from Australia, watched as her many quarter was filmed by famous actors like Kate Beckinsale.
EPAAfter defeating Russia’s Ian Nepomniachtchi, Ding Liren has won the title of the first world games wizard for China.
After 14 first-stage matches at the World Chess Championship in Kazakhstan, Ding, 30, won a rapid-play playoff.
Magnus Carlsen, a five-time champion from Norway who claimed he was” not motivated” to defend his title, is succeeded by him.
In a dispute that rocked the game world last year, Carlsen accused he had cheated on his US opposite. He continues to be at the top of the list.
Ding’s triumph makes him the 17th world games champion, while Nepomniachtchi, who had hitherto advanced to the great last, failed there a single time.
According to remarks made by FIDE, the International Chess Federation, Ding stated that he was” as thrilled” after his victory.
” It was a very emotional moment when Ian left the game.” I was unable to control my emotions. I am aware that I may cry and start crying. For me, it was a difficult championship.
Game enthusiasts and republicans in China, a burgeoning chess power, celebrated his victory.
Following Ding’s victory, other grandmaster Anish Giri remarked,” One ding to act em all.”
A warm note of congratulations was already posted by China’s General Administration of Sport, praising Ding for” winning splendor for the country and its men.”
Ding, a native of Wenzhou, China’s” game place,” triumphed in serious cases in Astana, the capital of Kazakh.
Over the course of three days, the first 14 games were played. With eight gets, Ding and Nepomniachtchi each received three victories.
Each player had 25 minutes to make their swings, plus an additional 10 seconds for each transfer they made, for the playoff. Ding won the fifth quick-fire game, clinching the victory.
The prize money for the 2 million euro($ 1.8 million,$ 2.2 million ) will be divided between the two players 55 to 45.
Due to Carlsen’s abstinence, Ding was able to contend against Nepomniachtchi. At the Candidates Tournament, which competitors must earn to compete against the world champion, Ding had placed further.
He won the national game championship for China’s youngest player in 2009.
Within 12 year, he had moved up to second place in the world ranking as the highest-ranked Chinese person.
From August 2017 to November 2018, Ding played 100 adventures of traditional game without losing. Before Carlsen broke it in 2019, this was the longest unbroken streak in top-tier game account.
His victory is a reflection of China’s development in the international games world.
Since the 1990s, when Xie Jun became the first Chinese player to win a world championship in the children’s tournament, China has dominated chess games.
The World Chess Championship, which is open to both men and women, had never before been won by a Taiwanese person.
The Pheu Thai Party has adjusted its strategy, calling on voters to vote Pheu Thai to keep the other lot out, much to the displeasure of the Move Forward Party (MFP) whose campaign appears to be gaining traction.
In asking voters to “vote strategically”, it is telling supporters to cast ballots for the party which has the best chance of defeating the 250-member Senate in its vote for prime minister in parliament. At the moment, that’s Pheu Thai, the frontrunner in many polls.
It hopes to prevent the return of Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha, the top prime ministerial candidate of the United Thai Nation (UTN) Party, to power.
Pheu Thai is aiming for 310 seats in a landslide victory. Without it, there is no guarantee that Pheu Thai can muster enough support to secure the premiership for one of its three candidates and put together a coalition government, even if it finishes first in the May 14 polls.
Following the 2019 general election, the coup-appointed Senate overwhelmingly voted for Gen Prayut, nominated by the Palang Pracharath Party (PPRP) to be prime minister, clearing the way for the PPRP-led bloc to form a coalition.
If Pheu Thai’s candidate is to be voted in as prime minister without the need for the Senate’s support, a bare minimum of 376 seats, more than half of the combined 750 members of both chambers, is needed.
But Pheu Thai’s calls for tactical voting is upsetting MFP, its ally in the self-proclaimed democracy camp.
According to recent Nida poll findings, the gap between the two parties which are competing for support from the same voter base is narrowing, and Pheu Thai’s “vote strategically” campaign will be at the MFP’s expense.
According to Suan Dusit Poll findings on Saturday, Pheu Thai Party leads all other parties, followed by the Move Forward Party.
The poll was conducted on April 10-20 among 162,454 people aged 18 and over. Asked which party is gaining popularity among Thais before the election, 41.37% said the Pheu Thai Party and 19.32% the Move Forward Party.
‘The only solution’
Strategic voting has been put on the table because it is the only way to keep Gen Prayut from returning to power, said Pheu Thai deputy leader Phumtham Wechayachai.
There is no guarantee the winner will lead the next government unless the party secures at least 250 seats, and even better 300 seats, to control the 500-member House of Representatives, he said.
The UTN is widely believed to have the senators in its pocket, so the party needs only 25 seats — the minimum number required for a party to be able to nominate a prime minister — to get the ball rolling, he said.
Mr Phumtham admitted the MFP’s campaign is gaining momentum, but it is not enough for the party to emerge victorious. He is also doubtful the MFP’s popularity on social media is genuine and equals votes.
Even without the party’s calls for strategic voting, MFP will not capture enough seats to be a core party in forming the government, said the Pheu Thai heavyweight.
“It is an election strategy. We’re not being selfish but we have the best chance. If voters don’t vote this way, we’ll see a repeat of what happened in previous polls. That’s why tactical voting is important,” he said.
Mr Phumtham said it was unlikely the MFP would win 100 seats and help the Pheu Thai-MFP alliance secure a majority, saying both parties share the same support base and the numbers do not add up.
“How can the MFP get 100 seats and we get more than 200 seats when we are competing for the same base?” he said.
Phumtham: Plot to stop Prayut’s return
Tactical voting will also prevent formation of a minority government being floated by some political analysts, said the Pheu Thai deputy leader, who believes the other bloc will proceed to set up a minority government and consolidate its coalition by luring political “cobras” (those who change parties at a whim).
The “vote strategically” campaign also comes at a time when the MFP’s approval rating is on the rise especially among urban communities.
Based on the second Nida Poll [April 3-7], the contest between Pheu Thai and the MFP, even though Pheu Thai is leading the survey, is tightening.
Pheu Thai remains the frontrunner with 47.2% support in the constituency system and 47% in the party-list system, but that is down from 49.75% and 49.85% respectively compared with the first survey in March. The popularity of the MFP has increased to 21.2% in the constituency system and 21.85% in the party-list system from 17.4% and 17.15% in the March survey.
Paetongtarn Shinawatra, one of Pheu Thai’s prime ministerial candidates, has seen her popularity drop to 35.7%, from 38.2% in the first poll. MFP leader Pita Limjaroenrat is more popular than he was previously with 20.25%, up from 15.75%.
‘Don’t give in to fears’
Rangsiman Rome, spokesman of the MFP, is sceptical about strategic voting, saying voters should not be scared into switching party allegiances because the election outcome is far from certain.
The findings of polls are often inaccurate and if this line of thinking is pursued, Bangkok voters should cast ballots for the MFP because it is the most popular, he argued.
Pheu Thai is not the only party that has adopted a stance against the Senate’s power to co-elect the prime minister and the Gen Prayut-led camp appears to be weakening because they also share the same support base, he said.
“People should vote for their desired party and candidate. They shouldn’t be seduced or scared into abandoning their support.
“In the end the candidates they pick out of strategic voting may not represent their values,” he said.
Mr Rangsiman is confident the party can win as many as 100 seats from both the constituency and party-list system and insisted the party’s popularity on social media platforms can be turned into votes.
The MFP politician shrugged off fears about the UTN-led camp forming a minority government, saying while there is a likelihood of that happening, he would still bet against it.
“Forming a minority government is the wrong move to make. The Senate’s five-year term is coming to an end and it is quite a risk for the senators to challenge the people’s voice. How could they face the public?” he said.
Mr Rangsiman said he is not certain that being part of a minority government is a risk worth taking by other parties because it is close to cheating the people and they will face a public backlash, which could ultimately mean a loss of support.
The opposition camp can still topple the government on the first day by forcing a censure debate, not to mention a budget bill debate that is expected to take place in July, he said, adding he can’t see how a minority government can lure away political cobras in such a short period and push for the bill’s passage.
“If a minority government is formed, political unrest is likely. People won’t stand it and they may hit the streets,” he said.
If that scenario materialises, the party will put up a fight in parliament to stop any attempts to rob people of their power.
Rangsiman: Don’t believe fearmongers
A painful dilemma
Stithorn Thananithichot, an analyst at King Prajadhipok’s Institute, said Pheu Thai is caught between a rock and a hard place when it comes to forming a political alliance with the MFP.
On one hand, it is reluctant to form a pact with the MFP out of fear of losing support and failing to score a landslide victory. On the other, if it does not form partnership and does not win big enough, its chances of putting together a coalition will slip away.
He said the MFP is going from strength to strength but it is difficult to determine if the MFP’s popularity is genuine because of its clear and straightforward election strategy, or fabricated to stop Pheu Thai from clinching a landslide victory. According to Mr Stithorn, Pheu Thai should not alienate the MFP but keep the door open for both parties forming a coalition government after the May 14 polls. However, the analyst said the opinion polls put the MFP behind Pheu Thai, Bhumjaithai and the PPRP.
Stithorn: Pheu Thai Party in a quandry
Nida Poll director Suvicha Pou-aree said the MFP is pulling votes away from every party in the party-list system and the most affected is Pheu Thai.
However, in the constituency contest, the party is lagging behind others because its candidates do not have organised support. The MFP is projected to capture no more than 40 House seats under both systems combined, he said.
Suvicha: MFP will scoop list votes
The Pheu Thai Party has adjusted its strategy, calling on voters to vote Pheu Thai to keep the other lot out, much to the displeasure of the Move Forward Party (MFP) whose campaign appears to be gaining traction.
In asking voters to “vote strategically”, it is telling supporters to cast ballots for the party which has the best chance of defeating the 250-member Senate in its vote for prime minister in parliament. At the moment, that’s Pheu Thai, the frontrunner in many polls.
It hopes to prevent the return of Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha, the top prime ministerial candidate of the United Thai Nation (UTN) Party, to power.
Pheu Thai is aiming for 310 seats in a landslide victory. Without it, there is no guarantee that Pheu Thai can muster enough support to secure the premiership for one of its three candidates and put together a coalition government, even if it finishes first in the May 14 polls.
Following the 2019 general election, the coup-appointed Senate overwhelmingly voted for Gen Prayut, nominated by the Palang Pracharath Party (PPRP) to be prime minister, clearing the way for the PPRP-led bloc to form a coalition.
If Pheu Thai’s candidate is to be voted in as prime minister without the need for the Senate’s support, a bare minimum of 376 seats, more than half of the combined 750 members of both chambers, is needed.
But Pheu Thai’s calls for tactical voting is upsetting MFP, its ally in the self-proclaimed democracy camp.
According to recent Nida poll findings, the gap between the two parties which are competing for support from the same voter base is narrowing, and Pheu Thai’s “vote strategically” campaign will be at the MFP’s expense.
According to Suan Dusit Poll findings on Saturday, Pheu Thai Party leads all other parties, followed by the Move Forward Party.
The poll was conducted on April 10-20 among 162,454 people aged 18 and over. Asked which party is gaining popularity among Thais before the election, 41.37% said the Pheu Thai Party and 19.32% the Move Forward Party.
Strategic voting has been put on the table because it is the only way to keep Gen Prayut from returning to power, said Pheu Thai deputy leader Phumtham Wechayachai.
There is no guarantee the winner will lead the next government unless the party secures at least 250 seats, and even better 300 seats, to control the 500-member House of Representatives, he said.
The UTN is widely believed to have the senators in its pocket, so the party needs only 25 seats — the minimum number required for a party to be able to nominate a prime minister — to get the ball rolling, he said.
Mr Phumtham admitted the MFP’s campaign is gaining momentum, but it is not enough for the party to emerge victorious. He is also doubtful the MFP’s popularity on social media is genuine and equals votes.
Even without the party’s calls for strategic voting, MFP will not capture enough seats to be a core party in forming the government, said the Pheu Thai heavyweight.
“It is an election strategy. We’re not being selfish but we have the best chance. If voters don’t vote this way, we’ll see a repeat of what happened in previous polls. That’s why tactical voting is important,” he said.
Mr Phumtham said it was unlikely the MFP would win 100 seats and help the Pheu Thai-MFP alliance secure a majority, saying both parties share the same support base and the numbers do not add up.
“How can the MFP get 100 seats and we get more than 200 seats when we are competing for the same base?” he said.
Phumtham: Plot to stop Prayut’s return
Tactical voting will also prevent formation of a minority government being floated by some political analysts, said the Pheu Thai deputy leader, who believes the other bloc will proceed to set up a minority government and consolidate its coalition by luring political “cobras” (those who change parties at a whim).
The “vote strategically” campaign also comes at a time when the MFP’s approval rating is on the rise especially among urban communities.
Based on the second Nida Poll [April 3-7], the contest between Pheu Thai and the MFP, even though Pheu Thai is leading the survey, is tightening.
Pheu Thai remains the frontrunner with 47.2% support in the constituency system and 47% in the party-list system, but that is down from 49.75% and 49.85% respectively compared with the first survey in March. The popularity of the MFP has increased to 21.2% in the constituency system and 21.85% in the party-list system from 17.4% and 17.15% in the March survey.
Paetongtarn Shinawatra, one of Pheu Thai’s prime ministerial candidates, has seen her popularity drop to 35.7%, from 38.2% in the first poll. MFP leader Pita Limjaroenrat is more popular than he was previously with 20.25%, up from 15.75%.
Rangsiman Rome, spokesman of the MFP, is sceptical about strategic voting, saying voters should not be scared into switching party allegiances because the election outcome is far from certain.
The findings of polls are often inaccurate and if this line of thinking is pursued, Bangkok voters should cast ballots for the MFP because it is the most popular, he argued.
Pheu Thai is not the only party that has adopted a stance against the Senate’s power to co-elect the prime minister and the Gen Prayut-led camp appears to be weakening because they also share the same support base, he said.
“People should vote for their desired party and candidate. They shouldn’t be seduced or scared into abandoning their support.
“In the end the candidates they pick out of strategic voting may not represent their values,” he said.
Mr Rangsiman is confident the party can win as many as 100 seats from both the constituency and party-list system and insisted the party’s popularity on social media platforms can be turned into votes.
The MFP politician shrugged off fears about the UTN-led camp forming a minority government, saying while there is a likelihood of that happening, he would still bet against it.
“Forming a minority government is the wrong move to make. The Senate’s five-year term is coming to an end and it is quite a risk for the senators to challenge the people’s voice. How could they face the public?” he said.
Mr Rangsiman said he is not certain that being part of a minority government is a risk worth taking by other parties because it is close to cheating the people and they will face a public backlash, which could ultimately mean a loss of support.
The opposition camp can still topple the government on the first day by forcing a censure debate, not to mention a budget bill debate that is expected to take place in July, he said, adding he can’t see how a minority government can lure away political cobras in such a short period and push for the bill’s passage.
“If a minority government is formed, political unrest is likely. People won’t stand it and they may hit the streets,” he said.
If that scenario materialises, the party will put up a fight in parliament to stop any attempts to rob people of their power.
Rangsiman: Don’t believe fearmongers
Stithorn Thananithichot, an analyst at King Prajadhipok’s Institute, said Pheu Thai is caught between a rock and a hard place when it comes to forming a political alliance with the MFP.
On one hand, it is reluctant to form a pact with the MFP out of fear of losing support and failing to score a landslide victory. On the other, if it does not form partnership and does not win big enough, its chances of putting together a coalition will slip away.
He said the MFP is going from strength to strength but it is difficult to determine if the MFP’s popularity is genuine because of its clear and straightforward election strategy, or fabricated to stop Pheu Thai from clinching a landslide victory. According to Mr Stithorn, Pheu Thai should not alienate the MFP but keep the door open for both parties forming a coalition government after the May 14 polls. However, the analyst said the opinion polls put the MFP behind Pheu Thai, Bhumjaithai and the PPRP.
Stithorn: Pheu Thai Party in a quandry
Nida Poll director Suvicha Pou-aree said the MFP is pulling votes away from every party in the party-list system and the most affected is Pheu Thai.
However, in the constituency contest, the party is lagging behind others because its candidates do not have organised support. The MFP is projected to capture no more than 40 House seats under both systems combined, he said.
Suvicha: MFP will scoop list votes
Getty ImagesA new symbol has appeared in the kaleidoscopic jumble of neon signs that light up Sukhumvit Road, Bangkok’s most international street. The sudden ubiquity of the five-pointed marijuana leaf, in lurid green, announces the spectacular boom there has been in weed-related businesses in Thailand since cannabis was decriminalised last June.
Walk two kilometres east of the BBC office in Bangkok, and you pass more than 40 dispensaries, selling potent marijuana flower buds and all the paraphernalia needed to smoke them.
Travel in the opposite direction, to the famous backpacker hangout of Khao San Road, and there is an entire marijuana-themed shopping mall, Plantopia, its shops half-hidden behind the haze of smoke created by customers trying out the product. The website Weed in Thailand lists more than 4,000 businesses across the country selling cannabis and its derivatives.
And this is Thailand, where until last June you could be jailed for five years just for possessing marijuana, up to 15 years for producing it; where other drug offences get the death penalty. The pace of change has been breathtaking.
“It is messy, but then this is Thailand, and without this sudden liberalisation I don’t think it would have happened at all,” says Kitty Chopaka, founder of Elevated Estate, a company that offers advice on the marijuana industry, and has been a part of the parliamentary committee trying to get the new regulations passed.
But this is not the kind of liberalisation long-term campaigners like her dreamed of.
“We need regulation. Spelling out what you can and cannot do,” Ms Chopaka says. “It is causing a lot of confusion, a lot of people not knowing what they can do, what they can put money behind.”
There are some rules in this apparent free-for-all, but they are being enforced haphazardly, if at all. Not all dispensaries have a licence, which they are required to have, and they are supposed to record the provenance of all their cannabis flowers and the personal details of every customer.
No products aside from the unprocessed flower are supposed to have more than 0.2 percent THC, the psychotropic chemical in cannabis, nor can they be sold online. Yet you can find suppliers offering potent weed brownies and gummies with high THC content online, with delivery to your door within an hour. Cannabis cannot be sold to anyone under 20 years old, but who is to know if the product is simply delivered by a motorbike courier?
There are restaurants serving marijuana-laced dishes, you can get marijuana tea, and marijuana ice-cream. Convenience stores are even selling weed-tinged drinking water. The police have admitted that they are so unsure of what is and is not legal they are enforcing very few rules around marijuana.
The new cannabis regime is a bit of a political accident. Anutin Charnvirakul, head of one of Thailand’s larger political parties, made decriminalisation part of his manifesto for the 2019 election. It proved a vote-winner, mostly on the as-yet untested notion that cannabis could be a profitable alternative cash crop for poor farmers. As health minister in the new government, Mr Anutin prioritised getting it taken off the banned narcotics list as soon as possible to fulfil his election pledge.
But Thailand’s parliament, a cauldron of competing interest groups, moves slowly. Cannabis was decriminalised before anyone had been able to write regulations to control the new business. And the planned new laws got bogged down by inter-party bickering. With another general election taking place in May, there is little chance of the law getting through the parliament before the end of the year. Already rival parties are warning of the dangers of unregulated weed, and threatening to re-criminalise it if they take power.
The future of this free-wheeling new industry is uncertain.
Tukta, a 21-year-old university student, jumped on the marijuana bandwagon last year, sinking more than one million baht ($30,000; £23,500) into a dispensary and coffee shop called The Herb Club in Bangkok’s Klong Toei district. She sells 16 different grades of the cured flower, ranging from $10 to $80 a gram, but she worries about possible changes in the law. With so much competition from the many other dispensaries nearby, she says business is neither bad nor good.
“The price is falling because there’s a glut of marijuana,” Ms Chopaka says.
“There are a lot of illegal imports. We are growing strains from overseas, which need air-conditioning and lighting. We should look into developing strains that work for our climate to lower costs.
“We really need to go back to our old heritage, our old cultures. Because cannabis and Thais, Thailand, are very interwoven with each other.”
For many Thais, who have grown up in a country which viewed all narcotics as a dangerous social evil, the dramatic flowering of the weed business since last year is bewildering. Yet the unforgiving official view of drugs is a relatively recent development.
Up until the late 1970s marijuana was widely cultivated by the hill tribes in northern Thailand, in the border area known as the Golden Triangle, which also used to be the source of much of the world’s opium. Marijuana had also been used extensively as a herb and cooking ingredient in north-eastern Thailand.
When US soldiers arrived in the 1960s on “rest and recreation” breaks from fighting in the Vietnam War they discovered Thai stick, locally made from cured marijuana buds wrapped in leaves around a bamboo stick, like a fat cigar. The soldiers began shipping Thai marijuana back home in large quantities; along with Golden Triangle heroin it made up much of the narcotics flow going into the United States.
As the Vietnam War wound down, the US put pressure on Thailand to curb drug production. In 1979 Thailand passed a sweeping Narcotics Act, mandating harsh penalties for using and selling drugs, including the death sentence.
This coincided with a conservative backlash across South East Asia against permissive 1960s attitudes to drugs and sex, a reaction to the ganja-smoking backpackers travelling east along the “hippie trail”. Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia all instructed their immigration officers to look out for hippies and bar them entry. At Singapore airport those with long hair were given a choice of a trip to the barber or being turned around. In Malaysia anyone with sufficiently suspect attributes would have the letters SHIT – suspected hippie in transit – stamped in their passports before being deported.
The Thai government was especially wary of alternative youth culture after it crushed a leftist student movement, killing dozens at Bangkok’s Thammasat University in October 1976. Conservatives feared they might support a communist takeover in Thailand, as had just happened in neighbouring Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.
Meanwhile a series of royally-sponsored crop substitution projects persuaded most hill tribes to stop cultivating opium and marijuana, and try coffee or macadamia nuts instead.
Since the 1990s cheap methamphetamines have poured into Thailand from war-torn areas of Myanmar. The ruinous social impact of meth addiction turned the Thai public even more firmly against drugs, and led to a brutal anti-drug campaign in 2003, in which at least 1,400 suspected users and dealers were gunned down.
It was the dire overcrowding in Thailand’s prisons – three-quarters of them in for drug offences, many quite minor – that finally persuaded Thai officials to rethink their hardline approach, along with the realisation that marijuana’s medicinal and therapeutic applications might be a valuable complement to the country’s successful medical tourism industry. It was not much of a leap from that to see the potential in recreational marijuana too.
“Welcome to Amsterdam on steroids,” booms Tom Kruesopon, the Thai entrepreneur known here as “Mr Weed” for his role in getting the drug laws liberalised, to a group of German tourists just off the plane, who cannot quite believe what they are seeing. Mr Kruesopon has opened a branch of the US cannabis store Cookies in Bangkok, and runs through the different strains of locally-grown marijuana, each in its own illuminated jar. Weed-themed underwear, slippers and t-shirts are on the shelves.
Perhaps it’s the familiar tales of hapless Westerners locked up for decades in the Bangkok Hilton that make the visitors seem a bit hesitant. But Mr Kruesopon assures them they can no longer be arrested for buying and consuming any part of the marijuana plant in Thailand, though he does not allow smoking in his shop. He believes the business will continue to grow. “You’re going to have a few billion-dollar companies here – I guarantee it.” But he also accepts that better regulation is essential “otherwise you’re going to kill the golden goose”.
Outside of parliament public debate about cannabis is surprisingly muted.
“It’s not ok. It’s still like narcotics to me… Only the youngsters are using it more and those who have used it before are using it again,” says a 32-year-old street vendor. But an older motorcycle taxi driver says legalising marijuana has neither helped nor harmed him: “We’re not paying attention because we haven’t been smoking pot. It doesn’t matter to us anyway.”
Some doctors have warned of the dangers of cannabis addiction, but for most Thais it pales beside the long-standing methamphetamine crisis. Dispensaries in central Bangkok say most of their customers are foreign tourists, not Thais. The most enthusiastic supporters of the new regime are the not insignificant numbers of people in Thailand who were already using marijuana regularly.
Self-styled “stoner” Amanda is one of them. She is happy to be able to cultivate the kinds of strains she likes at home, without fearing a knock on the door from the police. She has turned her small apartment into something like a shrine to the wonder-weed, filling her little bedroom balcony with reflective tents and powerful lights where she carefully tends seven plants. Her cat is no longer allowed in the bedroom.
“It was difficult at first. I had a lot to learn. I didn’t get the temperature right at first, and using air-conditioning 24 hours a day, I need a humidifier. But it is so awesome this happened in Thailand. There are thousands of farms and dispensaries now, so many interesting people in the business.”
For all the talk in Thai political parties of re-criminalising marijuana, or trying to restrict it to medical, rather than recreational use – a distinction those in the business say is almost impossible to make – it seems unlikely that after the last, crazy nine months the cork can be put back in the bottle. But where Thailand’s free-wheeling marijuana industry goes from here is anybody’s guess.
