Ever since President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) took office in 2016, China has intensified efforts to poach Taiwan’s remaining allies. Honduras’ decision on Sunday to sever a bilateral relationship of more than 80 years came as a major setback.
Beijing’s political and economic clout makes it an irresistible attraction to Taiwan’s few allies. When China offered huge amounts of financial assistance that Taiwan was unable to match, Honduras switched allegiance to pursue Chinese investment in costly infrastructure projects.
As a result, Taiwan has 13 diplomatic allies remaining, including the Central American nations of Belize and Guatemala.
Beijing’s hardball diplomacy displays an obsession to force the world’s acceptance of China’s dominance over Taiwan as the new geopolitical norm.
A key winner of this diplomatic warfare is the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Each diplomatic gain against Taiwan is a major departmental success. For each nation that changed diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China, the ministry would secure additional resources to build a new embassy and launch new outreach programs abroad.
However, China’s diplomatic gains have outraged Taiwanese, who consider China more an aggressive bully than a peaceful neighbor. As next year’s presidential election nears, the hardball diplomacy is bound to jeopardize Beijing’s attempt to gain support for the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and other pro-unification parties.
Despite the odds, all is not lost for Taiwan. Tsai’s transit through the US to Guatemala and Belize this week is immensely important as China squeezes Taiwan’s presence in international affairs.
The trip is an integral part of Tsai’s diplomatic activism, solidifying ties with allies in the western hemisphere and countering China’s mounting pressure.
In light of China’s missile launches and military drills following then-US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taipei in August last year, US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has agreed to meet Tsai in Los Angeles. The high-profile meeting not only shows strong bipartisan support for Taiwan in Washington, but also enables Tsai to engage with top national policymakers on US soil.
At a time when the US is consolidating its Indo-Pacific agenda, it finds a natural partner in Taiwan.
This new thinking represents a bold US decision to include Taiwan into a rules-based system of sovereign nation-states, while maintaining a delicate balance of power in cross-strait relations.
Once the dust of the current diplomatic crisis settles, Taiwan and the US must formalize their growing ties in a manner that they deserve.
Only by doing so will Taiwan reaffirm its international status and participate in global alliances.
Joseph Tse-Hei Lee is a professor of history at Pace University in New York.
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