The Gambia’s sudden announcement that it was severing diplomatic ties with Taiwan stunned the government. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs had no prior inkling, and Gambian President Yahya Jammeh’s announcement of his decision via a posting on Facebook violated diplomatic protocol. The Republic of China (ROC) embassy, the ministry, the Cabinet and the Presidential Office all learned about the break through the media, which shows that the foreign affairs establishment was completely oblivious to what was going on.
In a bid to save the relationship, the ministry quickly dispatched a special delegation to Banjul, but its envoys were unable to meet with Jammeh. The government announced on Monday that it was cutting ties with the Gambia.
This was a heavy blow, not only to the nation, but to the ministry and the entire foreign affairs establishment. That the ministry and others could be taken completely off-guard shows that they had completely misread the situation and were at a total loss as to what to do after hearing of Jammeh’s announcement.
Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) has said that the diplomatic personnel who dealt with relations with the Gambia will be disciplined. To focus on the staff of the embassy in Banjul smacks of scapegoatism. The ministry’s supervision of the situation was clearly lacking, which implies that the whole diplomatic system is dysfunctional. It is hard to see how Minister of Foreign Affairs David Lin (林永樂) can avoid taking responsibility.
Still, the most important issue is where to assign responsibility for the loss of an ally. Prior to Jammeh’s announcement, the Gambia was best known among Taiwanese for the picture of Jammeh and President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) doing push-ups together during Ma’s visit to Banjul in April last year. The two seemed to be the best of friends, and now Ma is probably the one who is suffering most from this sudden severance of ties.
The government keeps stressing that cross-strait relations are fine, that there is a diplomatic truce and that Taiwan has given up on checkbook diplomacy, but this is hogwash. In recent years, Taiwan has spent hundreds of millions of New Taiwan dollars in assistance to the Gambia — and other allies — in the form of trade, training and technological transfers, thus continuing to use money to maintain relations.
The government’s diplomatic truce with China is dependent on Beijing’s goodwill. This is too risky. The “diplomatic truce” — in which neither China nor Taiwan seeks to undermine the other’s diplomatic relations — is an illusion, and the result of the government’s self-deception is that time is running out for Taiwan’s diplomatic status as a sovereign nation. Ma must take responsibility for this policy mistake.
In the past, Taiwan was hoping for dual recognition across the Taiwan Strait in order to put an end to the diplomatic zero-sum game, but this was rejected by Beijing. The result is that other countries will either sever diplomatic relations with Taipei to set up ties with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) or the other way round.
The Gambia has set a precedent. When Jammeh announced his nation was cutting ties with Taiwan, he expressed a willingness to establish ties with China, but said nothing had been finalized. So far China appears unwilling to rush into the breach, which means that Jammeh is now waiting in line for Beijing’s recognition.
This situation poses a new challenge to Taiwan’s foreign policy. If Beijing were to establish relations with the Gambia at a later date, it could create a domino effect among Taiwan’s diplomatic allies. The government must conduct a full review of its foreign policy and come up with a new strategy for stabilizing Taiwan’s diplomatic relations.
It is employment pass renewal season in Singapore, and the new regime is dominating the conversation at after-work cocktails on Fridays. From September, overseas employees on a work visa would need to fulfill the city-state’s new points-based system, and earn a minimum salary threshold to stay in their jobs. While this mirrors what happens in other countries, it risks turning foreign companies away, and could tarnish the nation’s image as a global business hub. The program was announced in 2022 in a bid to promote fair hiring practices. Points are awarded for how a candidate’s salary compares with local peers, along
China last month enacted legislation to punish —including with the death penalty — “die-hard Taiwanese independence separatists.” The country’s leaders, including Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), need to be reminded about what the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has said and done in the past. They should think about whether those historical figures were also die-hard advocates of Taiwanese independence. The Taiwanese Communist Party was established in the Shanghai French Concession in April 1928, with a political charter that included the slogans “Long live the independence of the Taiwanese people” and “Establish a republic of Taiwan.” The CCP sent a representative, Peng
Japan and the Philippines on Monday signed a defense agreement that would facilitate joint drills between them. The pact was made “as both face an increasingly assertive China,” and is in line with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr’s “effort to forge security alliances to bolster the Philippine military’s limited ability to defend its territorial interests in the South China Sea,” The Associated Press (AP) said. The pact also comes on the heels of comments by former US deputy national security adviser Matt Pottinger, who said at a forum on Tuesday last week that China’s recent aggression toward the Philippines in
The Ministry of National Defense on Tuesday announced that the military would hold its annual Han Kuang exercises from July 22 to 26. Military officers said the exercises would feature unscripted war games, and a decentralized command and control structure. This year’s exercises underline the recent reforms in Taiwan’s military as it transitions from a top-down command structure to one where autonomy is pushed down to the front lines to improve decisionmaking and adaptability. Militaries around the world have been observing and studying Russia’s war in Ukraine. They have seen that the Ukrainian military has been much quicker to adapt to