Editorial: Quality counts in foreign affairs

Only day after President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) returned from his triumphant overseas visit, the icing on the cake in the area of foreign ties was the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' (MOFA) surprising yet encouraging announcement that official diplomatic ties have been established with the Republic of Kiribati.

The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) had been right in pointing out after it came to power that the actual number of official diplomatic allies is not the most important aspect of foreign affairs, but that constructive and substantive foreign ties are what matter most. Still, the newly established diplomatic ties with Kiribati is an encouraging breakthrough.

Anyone doubts the importance of these ties should first understand their background and context -- an ongoing zero-sum battle of diplomacy between China and Taiwan, with China absolutely prohibiting its diplomatic allies from formally recognizing Taiwan.

As a result, most countries have opted for the easy way out, that is, to forego formal recognition of Taiwan while maintaining substantive informal ties with the country. Under the circumstances the importance to Taiwan of each and every formal diplomatic ally goes without saying.

To Chen and the DPP, the establishment of ties with Kiribati is especially significant, since it marks the first formal diplomatic ties entered into during Chen's presidency, after having lost three allies in a series of vicious and deliberate diplomatic assaults by China. Anyone who had hoped that the change of leadership in China, that is, the succession to power by President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) and Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶), would bring China's Taiwan policy into a less hostile era, must have been disappointed.

That China is far from relaxing its foreign affairs assault is demonstrated by its high-handed obstruction of Taiwan's participation in the World Health Organization earlier this year at the height of the SARS outbreak, the plots to downgrade Taiwan's membership status in the World Trade Organization (WTO), and China's efforts to force other countries to reject Taiwan's new passports, just because the word "Taiwan" appears on the cover.

In recent years, China has also increasingly abused its growing power in the UN to accomplish its agenda. As pointed out by Minister of Foreign Affairs Eugene Chien (簡又新), this year China has mobilized an unprecedented number of countries -- as many as 80 -- to block Taiwan's efforts to place the issue of its membership on the agenda of the UN General Assembly. China, as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, also succeeded in forcing Liberia to sever ties with Taiwan at a time when Liberia desperately sought the assistance of UN peacekeeping troops to help maintain domestic order.

As for the three countries that have severed diplomatic ties with Taiwan during the past three years, China had even painstakingly timed the break-ups to add insult to injury -- Macedonia right after Chen returned from an earlier overseas visit, Nauru right after Chen took over as chairman of the DPP, and Liberia around the time Taiwan was celebrating Double-Ten Day last month.

Predictably, some opposition lawmakers will try to put a damper on the excitement over the formal ties with Kiribati by questioning whether it was accomplished as part of "monetary diplomacy." Leaving aside the issue that the opposition, as members of the former ruling party, should understand the dilemma and difficulties faced by Taiwan in the sticky area of foreign ties, isn't it also our duty as a member of the WTO, for which the preamble clearly states helping developing and third world countries as a goal, to offer assistance and aid to our developing allies?