I have just published an op-ed in Le Temps, Switzerland’s leading daily, on a silent but consequential precedent: the airspace coercion Beijing has exercised against Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te.

A precedent that must concern us

In April 2026, the Seychelles, Mauritius and Madagascar withdrew, in quick succession, their overflight clearances for Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te, forcing the cancellation of an official visit to Eswatini. No missile, no warship, no aircraft: just a phone call from Beijing, and three third-party states folding. This op-ed seeks to surface this new grammar of coercion — silent, remote, delegated.

Diplomatic decline, economic rise

Taiwan now has only 12 formal diplomatic allies, yet its economic weight — semiconductors in particular — has only grown. This contrast illustrates a paradox democracies can no longer ignore: the Republic of China is being progressively erased from official maps while remaining indispensable to global value chains. Letting Beijing impose this aerial offside on third countries means accepting that the cartography of international law is being redrawn at the rhythm of Chinese pressure.

Why this matters to us

What is playing out in the skies of the Indian Ocean is not an isolated incident: it is a real-world test of the ability of democracies to defend the freedom of movement of elected heads of state. Switzerland, France, the European Union — every country attached to a rules-based international order — has a direct interest in ensuring this precedent does not become jurisprudence.

Read the full op-ed in Le Temps

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Photo: Office of the President of Taiwan (總統府), via Flickr, CC BY 2.0.