When Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) was wooing leaders from across Africa with a banquet on Wednesday night, King Mswati III of Eswatini was notably absent.
That is because the kingdom — about the size of New Jersey and with just 1.2 million people — is one of Taiwan’s remaining dozen diplomatic allies. That means Eswatini does not participate in Xi’s Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, the centerpiece of China’s diplomatic outreach to Africa, which was held in Beijing this week.
The landlocked nation, which sits between Mozambique and South Africa, is the last holdout in Beijing’s seven-plus decade mission to make Africa a “Taiwan-free” zone. Burkina Faso severed its relations with Taiwan in favor of China in 2018, leaving the nation with only one diplomatic partner in Africa — Eswatini.
Photo courtesy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs via CNA
Taiwan is confident of retaining Eswatini as a diplomatic partner in the near future, said a Taiwanese official who asked for anonymity when discussing sensitive issues, adding that the king is a staunch ally of Taiwan.
Just this week, the monarch opened a Taiwanese pavilion at a trade fair in the kingdom — far from the the pomp and ceremony taking place in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.
Mswati in May visited Taiwan to attend the inauguration of President William Lai (賴清德), an overture that Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Lin Jian (林劍) described as a “grave provocation” to the “one China principle.”
Africa’s last absolute monarchy, Eswatini has faced criticism from civil rights groups for its ban on political parties, repression of pro-democracy activists and broader quashing of dissent. Previously called Swaziland, the kingdom is known for safari parks where visitors can view big game on horseback. Its biggest exports include sugar and concentrates used in soft drinks.
Mswati’s administration has not given any indication it intends turning its back on Taiwan and appears relieved not to have become entangled in Chinese Africa outreach efforts that until now have centered on large infrastructure projects and the loans that often come in tandem.
Eswatini’s debt-to-GDP ratio stands at about 40 percent, compared with the sub-Saharan African median of about 60 percent, IMF data showed.
Taiwan’s support to Eswatini has mainly been in the form of grant funding and adopting a more “bottom-up” approach toward relations, Eswatini Minister of Finance Neal Rijkenberg said in an interview in May. “I do believe that our relationship with Taiwan has really paid off in the last 10 years.”
China has maintained its commercial ties with Eswatini despite their differences — it is the kingdom’s biggest source of imports after neighboring South Africa.
“It’s definitely not hostility from a trade point of view, just because you recognize the sovereignty of Taiwan,” Rijkenberg said.
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