In a diplomatic first, Taiwan severed ties with El Salvador earlier this week. Foreign Minister Joseph Wu cited the Central American nation’s request for an “astronomical sum” of financial aid as the reason.
Typically, Taiwan is portrayed as the victim of China’s vise-like squeeze on its diplomatic allies, which are now reduced to just 17. But since the election of President Tsai Ing-wen of the broadly pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party, Taiwan has taken a simultaneously more emboldened and thriftier approach to its increasing isolation.
It is refusing to engage in bidding wars for diplomatic recognition.
As Tsai put it in an official statement in June 2017 after Panama ended diplomatic relations with Taiwan: “Although we have lost a diplomatic ally, our refusal to engage in a diplomatic bidding war will not change.”
In the case of El Salvador, it acted preemptively. Foreign Minister Wu tweeted: “Taiwan will not engage in dollar nor debt-trap diplomacy. This is why El Salvador’s repeated requests for assistance with an unfeasible port development were declined.”
El Salvador is Taiwan’s fifth diplomatic loss since Tsai came to power, following Burkina Faso, the Dominican Republic, Sao Tome and Principe and Panama.
But this new tack is a significant change of direction for Taiwan. As a Lowy Institute report put it, China has been “plucking off Taiwan’s allies one by one, and using the remaining ones as bargaining chips – a slow ‘death by 20 cuts’ and international asphyxiation, unless Tsai chooses her predecessor’s path and accepts the [1992] Consensus.”
1992 consensus
The so-called 1992 consensus is subject to competing interpretations, and is widely perceived in Taiwan as an ex-post facto fabrication on the outcome of discussions between representative bodies from China and Taiwan in Hong Kong in 1992.
China takes the consensus as an affirmation of its ‘One China Policy,’ and its position that Taiwan is an indivisible part of it. Tsai, with the backing of the DPP, refuses to acknowledge the consensus.
Historically, since the United States established formal diplomatic relations with Beijing in 1979, Taiwan’s loss of allies evoked much angst. Hand-wringing reached a frenetic nadir in August 1992, when South Korea terminated formal relations with the island.
In response, Lee Teng-hui, president of the Republic of China and chairman of the Kuomintang (KMT) from 1988 to 2000, ushered in an era of what he called “pragmatic diplomacy.” In short, Taiwan was to pursue close relations without diplomatic recognition, while remaining flexible on name and membership status issues.
To a large extent, that is how Taiwan has conducted its international relationships since. Tsai’s presidential predecessor, Ma Ying-jeou of the KMT, negotiated a “diplomatic truce,” with China. During his two terms in office, Taiwan lost just one ally, Gambia.
But Ma’s coziness with China, cost him and his party politically. The DPP won the presidency and, for the first time, a majority in the legislative body, in the 2016 Taiwan elections.
Diplomatic assault
It might be argued, given China’s stated animosity to the Tsai administration, that Taiwan is spent, and has resigned itself to China’s scorched-earth diplomatic assault. But some in Taiwan maintain that the island can afford to lose all its diplomatic allies, if necessary. Moreover, it might even be better off for it.
As former Premier Yu Shyi-kun, leader of a Taiwanese delegation to the inauguration of President Donald Trump, reflected, the loss of small diplomatic allies to China amounts to more domestic budget for Taiwan.
Former DPP Chairman Hsu Hsin-liang, head of Foundation on Asia-Pacific Peace Studies, which is a private think tank, has echoed such views, arguing that small diplomatic allies impose an unnecessary economic burden on Taiwan. Losing them “is not really important,” he said.
Viewed in this light, as China’s global push to buy influence comes under increased skeptical scrutiny and critics warn of “debt-trap” diplomacy, Taiwan is opting out of an outright bidding-war confrontation. The risk is diplomatic isolation. The result would be business as usual.
Taiwan is a member of the World Trade Organization, the Asian Development Bank and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation. It also continues to engage in what Lee Teng-hui called “pragmatic diplomacy” with major powers such as the European Union, the US and Japan.
“Forcing Japan to turn against Taiwan is something that would hurt Taipei,” Taiwan analyst Michael Thim has noted. “However, for all the power that Beijing has accumulated and the energy it commits to the task of Taiwan’s international marginalization, Japan is firmly out of its reach.”
Some analysts in Taiwan agree. Taiwan’s informal ties with major powers gives it more “support” than the tiny formal ones, said Alex Chiang, international relations professor at National Chengchi University in Taipei.
The writer is a joke. Who wants to befriend a poor man?
Time is ripe for Taiwan Independence. Long live Taiwan.
The quality of articles posted on ATimes has nisedived in recent years; to coin a vernacular American phrase, this is "a big nothingburger", and is little more than a vapid attempt to continue the Big Bad China / Poor Innocent Taiwan meme
For those of you reading this in black & white back home in Minnesota, try reading up on Taiwanese 20th Century history e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Terror_(Taiwan), ponder for a moment who were (are) "The Good Guys" , and ask yourself whether the USA was backing the right team. Who knows – maybe this is the way being "Exceptional" plays out for Americans, but there are notable similarities with the liberal/democratic regimes in Saudi Arabia and Ukraine, which stand as paragons of virtue compared to such outrageous dictatorships as Russia, Iran and China. Or not, as the case may be.
well, if Taiwan seeks to exploits its supposed "ripeness", it may find itself royally "plucked" in fairly short order
The current version of the M1 Abrams is the M1A3 introduced in 2017 https://archive.is/20120910022204/http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2009/09/marine_abrams_092709w/ after the M1A2 was shown to be vulnerable to 1970’s era RPG’s during use by the Saudi’s in Yemen https://www.quora.com/Why-is-Saudi-Arabia-M1-Abrams-tank-being-knocked-out-so-easily-in-the-Yemeni-War-how-many-have-they-lost-and-is-there-any-tactical-methods-they-are-using-now-to-reduce-the-losses#
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1yTb3vF35M
This article is no more than idle tub-thumping for the anti-China narrative
do you honestly think they need it? Faced with equipment like the Chinese J20 and the Russian SU-35 and S-400, American kit such as the F-35 and F-22 are going to have a very, very uncomfortable and brief life.
Andrew S Carter We have been doubled dared CCP and their wannabe gangsters since a very long time. Bring it on boys. Apart some blackmailed dries drills they are sissy braindead brigades lol
Well, a wumao will always say that. But the moot question is do you even have the mental caliber to differentiate good and real news and opinion like this than those make believe world of CCP gulag AKA China. I doubt it. Anyway, wumao, whatever.
Ouch! I live in the UK and have a Law MA from Cambridge.
Your turn.
Mark Niio – do you find that calling people you disagree with childish names normally works out well for you, or is there something less superficial supporting your opinions?
Andrew S Carter with those credentials you must be a qimao.
Smart move. Taiwan can pre-empt every time cutting formal ties with its allies before they switch sides to China. The result is the same, but it feels good 🙂
‘The loss of small diplomatic allies to the world’s second-largest economy amounts to more domestic budget for Taiwan’
LOL. Talk about moral victory.
This also indicates that Taiwan is the one that engages in "money diplomacy," not mainland China. In fact, China hardly needs to convince these nations to switch regcognition with backchannel money. It’s a no brainer which one to choose: the world’s second largest economy and one of the permanent members of United Nations or an island yet to be united.
Andrew S Carter Well, calling a wumao brigade from CCP’s gulag aka China is calling a spade a spade. Go back to your great firewalled intent. Nobody needs your pointless whining here, WUMAO.
The USA "befriended" China in 1973 by opening trade when China was poor and using honeydew buckets!! Now that the CCP has toilets and some austerity they look down their noses at other Countries. What a joke!! ????
Andrew S Carter, Whose going to do the plucking?
Andrew S Carter But what have you done for Taiwan or Hong Kong lately?
As vicious as it was in Taiwan, that’s just one small example among many many more atrocious mass murdering the KMT/Chiang Ke Shek had ordered before in Mainland including inviting all parties, include CCP, for peace talk and then lock up and gun down all representatives, most of the intellectuals.
Just read the first three short paragraphs https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiang_Kai-shek
What if Taiwan initiates "ZOPFAN dialogues" in some form with ASEAN, with central issue is the so-called "South China Sea" which China claims as its own "sovereignty area" as a result of WWII ? Most people remember it was KMT who participated in WWII and would have got whatever legacy of the Japanese occupation of the area, not the CCP.
It’s no joke when thousands of KMT soldiers joined forces with the Allied to beat up the Japanese occupation and freed southeast Asians to become independent nations from Western occupation. It was no joke when the KMT was left alone to fight their internal wars with the CCP; blame it on malpractices if you like. They didn’t time for the yellow river dewllers who helped fight to win their wars. But what if there was no Marshall Plan for Europe, no cold war, no de-colonialisation, no IMF. Where is the joke now; in the Security Council of the UN ? Or in the White House ? Gosh, we have one morality for some, and another for others; and yet they sell the idea of human rights for all !
Mohd Yusof Hitam , You are ignorant of history!
Andrew S Carter, Did you not know Hell is full of degrees?
Mark Niio, The World should fear China…they have Dongfeng missles! LMAO!!
Got dumped
Laurence Peery Left. We have no business in Asia and should never have been there in the first place
Sooner or later, Taiwan will be a part of PRC. I do’nt thind China has any keen desire to compete with Taiwan for getting recognition from small nations who are still behind Taiwan. In my opinion, it is useless for Taiwan to cry for independence, instead, if Taiwanese leaders are wise enough, they should follow the policy adopted by Hongkong and Macao.