Diplomats need 20-20 foresight

The very day that the government announced that it was no longer a diplomatic ally of Macedonia, legislators from various parties began to sound off on the issue. Most of them seemed to be saying the same things: that Taiwan should have known better and that diplomacy should be about exchanges between nations, not about how much aid money Taiwan can promise or about a head-count of nations who recognize the ROC.

These legislators are right, but the lesson to be learned from the Macedonia drama is one that Taiwan has already been taught time and time again. Unfortunately, the diplomatic corps appears to be a somewhat forgetful body of students. Many political observers had doubts about ties with Macedonia from the very beginning. DPP Legislator Trong Chai (蔡同榮) was reported to have said after the rupture in relations that he had never been optimistic because of the internal political strife in Macedonia and the civil conflict between government forces and the ethnic Albanian rebels.

Insightful comments, but voiced far too late to have

a substantial effect.

But this was not the first time that Taiwan had sought relations with a political partner of questionable staying power. Taiwan established relations with Papua New Guinea in July 1999, but the political situation there was fragile. The decision by then prime minister Bill Skate to recognize the ROC was overturned less than a month later when Mekere Morauta replaced Skate following a parliamentary election. Taiwan's diplomats scrambled to make sense of the situation. Some, privately, conceded defeat to China. Others, such as then minister of foreign affairs Jason Hu (胡志強), laid the blame on Papua New Guinea. "The ball is in their court now -- it's Papua New Guinea's current government which claims the communique [for diplomatic ties] is invalid, but it is still binding," Hu was reported to have said.

Later that same year, Taiwan flirted with Albania for diplomatic recognition, even going so far -- according to a Reuters report -- at the time, as to imply that it was prepared to offer US$1 billion in a cash-for-recognition deal. This was done in spite of the fact that most observers and analysts felt that Albania was playing both sides of the China card to its best advantage.

Taiwan's diplomatic corps surely knows what most observers say about buying allies or trying to form relations with countries undergoing volatile political transformation. But there is an unwritten rule of silence among government agencies that does not allow public discussion of the way Taiwan searches for and tries to secure allies.

A case in point was the dumbfounded reaction by members of the Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) administration after the ROC ambassador to Nicaragua flatly told the president and the media that Taiwan should stop giving aid to that country because it was too corrupt. Chen reportedly shook off the criticism by asking: "Who will speak out in support of us if we want to join the UN or the WHO? It's not ourselves but leaders like [Nicaragua's president]."

The ambassador's remarks constitute exactly the kind of candor of which Taiwan needs more of. For having spoken the truth as he saw it, the ambassador may have risked being posted on an extended fact-finding mission to Siberia. But Taiwan needs informed opinion to be voiced before situations get out of hand, not after it's too late.