Need help with these sentences

Hello guys,
I'm reading some Japanese articles to improve my Japanese, and came across these strange sentences. Well, strange to me, because I can't interpret what the message is. :P

First one:
しかし、私には微妙なニュアンスを伝える豊かな表現方法が劣化しているようにしか思えないのです。
I think this means: However, I think the way we are communicating sensitive nuance messages are deteriorating. But what does the part にしか思えないの mean in this sentence? ように means to seem/look like, right? しか思えない is like I don't think? But しか means only, and used with negative verb.

台湾人は私の住んでいる横浜中華街の近くにたくさんいるかも？日本人と台湾人は仲が良いから、逆に、あまり台湾人って話題になりませんよね。

"There is a lot of Taiwanese in the place I live". Why is this written like a question?
"Japanese and Taiwanese get a long well, so contrary, we don't have many topics about Taiwanese". This doesn't make much sense at all...

Hopefully someone can explain these two for me.
Thanks in advance! :D

私には … としか思えない
It only seems to me that …
しか〜ない　is sometimes used to emphasize something.

台湾人は私の住んでいる横浜中華街の近くにたくさんいるかも？日本人と台湾人は仲が良いから、逆に、あまり台湾人って話題になりませんよね。

“There is a lot of Taiwanese in the place I live". Why is this written like a question?
It would be a sort of rhetorical question to soften one’s personal judgement.
"I suppose there are lots of Taiwanese near the Chinatown of Yokohama where I live."


“Japanese and Taiwanese get along well, so contrary, we don't have many topics about Taiwanese". This doesn't make much sense at all…

I think the background of this conversation is political and historical. The ethnic group(s) who cause(s) many topics among Japanese have(has) been always the same, unfortunately.
On the contrary, Taiwanese, in general, are regarded as friendly people to Japanese because of / in spite of the Japanese rule in the past…

"私には.....思えないのです" is same to "私は......思う".

話題 is topic. but, in this case, a word,トラブルの, is omitted.

there are words, 便りのないのは良い便り.
if you don't have any communication long time to your close persons(children, relatives, or close friends, etc.), who living separately from you , it often means they are living happily with no trouble.
(people often contact you when they are in trouble.)
no news (or mail) is good news (or mail).

generally speaking, frequent contacts often means the relationship is not firm (steady) enough in Japan.

I guess the writer is saying that topics on Taiwanese people are not "debatable" as topics on other certain ethnicities.