Letter From the Editors

Welcome to the December 2023 issue of The Diplomat Magazine.

As 2023 nears its close, we can look back and say it’s been a year marked by conflict. Literal conflicts have dominated headlines, but battlefields can also be digital, political, and even psychological. In this issue, we explore three very different types of conflict: China’s disinformation campaigns in Taiwan, Bangladesh’s political tumult, and the conventional war raging across Myanmar. All of these battles have been broadly overlooked by the international community, but the impacts will shape these countries’ futures.

China’s attempts to manipulate public opinion in Taiwan are never-ceasing, but they gain special relevance each time Taiwan gears up for a presidential election – like the one set for this upcoming January. In our cover story, Tim Niven of Doublethink Lab outlines how Beijing’s foreign information manipulation and interference efforts targeting Taiwan are evolving as Taiwanese prepare to choose their next president. Rather than relying on spambots and crude propaganda, China’s state actors are taking a backseat, choosing to elevate selected Taiwanese influencers to give their narratives a more organic feel. The end result, Nivens writes, is no longer so much about winning hearts and minds in Taiwan, but about sowing the seeds of political polarization.

Bangladesh is also headed for an election in January, and also beset by deep political polarization between the ruling Awami League and the embittered opposition, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has been busy highlighting the economic successes of her three terms in power, writes Smruti S. Pattanaik, a research fellow at the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies & Analyses (MP-IDSA). Hasina is also disdainful of those that critique the country’s declining democratic credentials, while the BNP refuses to even contest elections unless the previous system of a caretaker government is restored. Meanwhile, both of Bangladesh’s major parties view street violence as a political tool, and are working to exploit it to their favor, and the space for compromise and dialogue has long since closed. The situation could deteriorate rapidly. 

In Myanmar, the resistance to the military’s February 2021 coup has devolved into a civil war involving a massive number of ethnic armed organizations as well as local militias. Veteran journalist Rajeev Bhattacharyya, who has a long history of embedding with militant and insurgent groups in the region, visited a range of territories that are controlled, at least in part, by the resistance forces. By detailing his experiences in different parts of northern Myanmar – from cities controlled and governed by the resistance to ghost towns that are active battlefields – Bhattacharyya paints a picture of the immensely complex war underway in the country.

We hope you enjoy these stories and the many more in the following pages.