"Taiwanese investors will face a more unfriendly investment environment in the democraticallyregressed regions of Southeast Asia, and their investment and rights will not be guaranteed by aneffective and fair judicial and dispute settlement mechanism," said Ian Tsung-yen Chen, an associateprofessor at National Sun Yat-sen University.
Democracy retreating in Southeast Asian countries works against Taiwan's interests, he said. Thesecountries are desperate for foreign support, since their international reputation has taken a hit."China provides great solidarity with the nondemocratic countries in the world in this regard, so it iseven more detrimental to Taiwan's relations with these countries."
But Chen told Nikkei Asia that democracy in retreat won't affect Taiwan's New Southbound Policy.Due to the limited international space that Taiwan has to operate in, its government will work withcountries that are willing to deepen relations, regardless of whether they are democracies, he said."In fact, most of Taiwan's diplomatic relations are not democratic countries."