Beijing is entrenching its business and economic interests in Eswatini in an increasingly successful courtship of Taiwan’s only diplomatic ally in Africa, Semafor Africa said in a report on Tuesday.
The kingdom of Eswatini has long supported Taiwan and was the only one of Africa’s 54 nations to decline to attend last week’s triennial China-Africa summit in Beijing, the media outlet said.
Yet, the southern African nation is “quietly warming to China” as an influx of Chinese “enterprises, businesspeople and even state actors” dig “deep roots in Eswatini’s economy,” it said, citing sources in the local business community.
Photo: AP
Ambassador to Eswatini Jeremy Liang (梁洪昇) was cited as saying that a “significant number of Chinese nationals” flowing into Eswatini, a nation of 1.2 million people, would eventually “undermine” Taiwan’s diplomatic mission.
In another indication of strengthening ties, Eswatini mines authority head Guduza Dlamini and a high-profile local entrepreneur led a delegation late year, allegedly to talk with Chinese investors and pave the way for establishing diplomatic relations, it said.
Eswatini government spokesman Alpheous Nxumalo had denied that the delegation’s mission was to initiate dialogue about the kingdom switching diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China, the report said.
That statement is belied by Eswatini’s awarding of a US$165 million project to build the Mpakeni Embankment Dam to Beijing-owned ChinaPower, the outlet said.
The Eswatini government said at the time that even though the kingdom has “yet to establish formal diplomatic relations” with China, it recognizes ChinaPower’s “brand influence in the southern African region.”
Taiwan established an embassy at Mbabane, the capital of Eswatini, in 1968, the year it declared its independence from the UK.
So far, Eswatini has resisted Beijing’s calls for it to cut ties with Taiwan, including threats to sever all economic ties. The kingdom is one of the Taiwan’s 12 diplomatic allies.
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