SHANGHAI—Before they called a truce in 2008, a contest between China and Taiwan to capture each other’s diplomatic allies among the world’s most impoverished nations had gotten out of hand.
China, wielding a larger checkbook, was aggressively poaching Taiwan’s few remaining diplomatic friends to isolate the government of then-President Chen Shui-bian, a pro-independence hothead with the Democratic Progressive Party that Beijing despises.
Taiwan’s efforts to stay in the game had gone embarrassingly awry: A scandal over a missing $30 million paid to middlemen to try to get Papua New Guinea to switch recognition from Beijing forced the foreign minister and two other senior officials to resign. A few months later, after presidential elections, the Nationalist Party’s Ma Ying-jeou took over as leader and proposed a halt to the rivalry. Beijing agreed as a token of goodwill.
But now that the China-friendly Mr. Ma is getting ready to step down, the informal truce is falling apart.
Last week, Beijing established diplomatic ties with Gambia, a sub-Saharan African nation that used to be friends with Taiwan. It did so when Mr. Ma was in Latin America meeting some of Taipei’s diplomatic partners.
Political analysts in Taiwan widely read Beijing’s move as a warning to President-electTsai Ing-wen of the Democratic Progressive Party, who takes office in May after a landslide electoral victory.
Personally, Ms. Tsai has come out in favor of the status quo, rather than independence for Taiwan, but that’s not good enough for Chinese leaders who want her to at least nod to their cherished “One China” principle. China views Taiwan as a wayward province that must one day be united with the mainland, by force if necessary.
China’s about-face was no real surprise. Many analysts predicted that Beijing would turn up the heat on Ms. Tsai, although some thought it would first give her a chance to come around to the “One China” position once she took power.
Still, it’s an ominous sign for relations across the Taiwan Strait, one of the world’s most dangerous flashpoints.
The main effect of Beijing’s resumption of the diplomatic tug of war will be to inflame public opinion on Taiwan, where nervousness already runs high about China’s increasing economic sway over the island.
On Monday, Taiwan’s top security agency said China’s move was intended to put pressure on Mr. Tsai to “fall in line” before her May 20 inauguration, Reuters News Agency reported. The National Security Bureau, in a report to the legislature, warned that the island’s remaining diplomatic ties are now at risk.
The bigger puzzle is why Taiwan cares as much as it does about this diplomatic struggle with China, a legacy of their Cold War hostility. Except for the Vatican, the island’s 22 diplomatic friends have almost no global clout. The 10 smallest ones have a combined population of less than a million. The largest group is in Latin America and the Caribbean, three are in Africa and the rest are islands scattered across the Western Pacific.
Gambia, with a population of just 1.9 million, broke off diplomatic relations with Taiwan in 2013, expecting to find friendship with a more richly endowed benefactor, but in the spirit of the truce Beijing then showed no interest.
Some in Taiwan believe that the island needs these countries to speak up for its interests in the United Nations and other international bodies that exclude Taipei.
And decades of government propaganda have conditioned the Taiwan public to believe that formal diplomatic ties is a marker of nationhood and that the island’s place in the world is wrapped up in embassies and the pomp of state visits.
None of these arguments make much sense. For a start, the U.S. and other major powers maintain the equivalent of embassies in Taipei. Their officers issue visas, promote trade, produce political reports and join the diplomatic cocktail circuit. These influential friends are far more useful to Taiwan than its regular diplomatic buddies. America, as Taiwan’s main military backer, ultimately guarantees Taiwan’s survival as independent in all but name.
Nor do diplomatic ties make a country under international law. The Montevideo Convention discusses four qualifications for statehood: A permanent population, a defined territory, a government, and the capacity to enter into relations with other states. Taiwan easily meets all these definitions.
What’s more, the convention declares that “the political existence of the state is independent of recognition by the other states.”
Arguably, Taiwan’s status in the world is underpinned by its thriving democracy, its economic prowess and its attractive social values—not the flags that flutter from ambassadorial limousines in the capital.
Nevertheless, the Taiwanese bitterly resent Beijing’s efforts to diminish the island’s international status.
Ms. Tsai herself was cautious on China’s move. In an interview with the island’s China Times she called for “goodwill” on both sides.
The alternative is a flare-up of tensions in East Asia—and an unseemly scramble for diplomatic favor among the world’s minnows and paupers.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/chinas-gambia-gambit-feeds-suspicion-across-taiwan-strait-1458624741
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