The Gambia’s sudden announcement that it was severing diplomatic ties with Taiwan stunned the government. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs had no prior inkling, and Gambian President Yahya Jammeh’s announcement of his decision via a posting on Facebook violated diplomatic protocol. The Republic of China (ROC) embassy, the ministry, the Cabinet and the Presidential Office all learned about the break through the media, which shows that the foreign affairs establishment was completely oblivious to what was going on.
In a bid to save the relationship, the ministry quickly dispatched a special delegation to Banjul, but its envoys were unable to meet with Jammeh. The government announced on Monday that it was cutting ties with the Gambia.
This was a heavy blow, not only to the nation, but to the ministry and the entire foreign affairs establishment. That the ministry and others could be taken completely off-guard shows that they had completely misread the situation and were at a total loss as to what to do after hearing of Jammeh’s announcement.
Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) has said that the diplomatic personnel who dealt with relations with the Gambia will be disciplined. To focus on the staff of the embassy in Banjul smacks of scapegoatism. The ministry’s supervision of the situation was clearly lacking, which implies that the whole diplomatic system is dysfunctional. It is hard to see how Minister of Foreign Affairs David Lin (林永樂) can avoid taking responsibility.
Still, the most important issue is where to assign responsibility for the loss of an ally. Prior to Jammeh’s announcement, the Gambia was best known among Taiwanese for the picture of Jammeh and President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) doing push-ups together during Ma’s visit to Banjul in April last year. The two seemed to be the best of friends, and now Ma is probably the one who is suffering most from this sudden severance of ties.
The government keeps stressing that cross-strait relations are fine, that there is a diplomatic truce and that Taiwan has given up on checkbook diplomacy, but this is hogwash. In recent years, Taiwan has spent hundreds of millions of New Taiwan dollars in assistance to the Gambia — and other allies — in the form of trade, training and technological transfers, thus continuing to use money to maintain relations.
The government’s diplomatic truce with China is dependent on Beijing’s goodwill. This is too risky. The “diplomatic truce” — in which neither China nor Taiwan seeks to undermine the other’s diplomatic relations — is an illusion, and the result of the government’s self-deception is that time is running out for Taiwan’s diplomatic status as a sovereign nation. Ma must take responsibility for this policy mistake.
In the past, Taiwan was hoping for dual recognition across the Taiwan Strait in order to put an end to the diplomatic zero-sum game, but this was rejected by Beijing. The result is that other countries will either sever diplomatic relations with Taipei to set up ties with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) or the other way round.
The Gambia has set a precedent. When Jammeh announced his nation was cutting ties with Taiwan, he expressed a willingness to establish ties with China, but said nothing had been finalized. So far China appears unwilling to rush into the breach, which means that Jammeh is now waiting in line for Beijing’s recognition.
This situation poses a new challenge to Taiwan’s foreign policy. If Beijing were to establish relations with the Gambia at a later date, it could create a domino effect among Taiwan’s diplomatic allies. The government must conduct a full review of its foreign policy and come up with a new strategy for stabilizing Taiwan’s diplomatic relations.
The Executive Yuan recently revised a page of its Web site on ethnic groups in Taiwan, replacing the term “Han” (漢族) with “the rest of the population.” The page, which was updated on March 24, describes the composition of Taiwan’s registered households as indigenous (2.5 percent), foreign origin (1.2 percent) and the rest of the population (96.2 percent). The change was picked up by a social media user and amplified by local media, sparking heated discussion over the weekend. The pan-blue and pro-China camp called it a politically motivated desinicization attempt to obscure the Han Chinese ethnicity of most Taiwanese.
On Wednesday last week, the Rossiyskaya Gazeta published an article by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) asserting the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) territorial claim over Taiwan effective 1945, predicated upon instruments such as the 1943 Cairo Declaration and the 1945 Potsdam Proclamation. The article further contended that this de jure and de facto status was subsequently reaffirmed by UN General Assembly Resolution 2758 of 1971. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs promptly issued a statement categorically repudiating these assertions. In addition to the reasons put forward by the ministry, I believe that China’s assertions are open to questions in international
The Legislative Yuan passed an amendment on Friday last week to add four national holidays and make Workers’ Day a national holiday for all sectors — a move referred to as “four plus one.” The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), who used their combined legislative majority to push the bill through its third reading, claim the holidays were chosen based on their inherent significance and social relevance. However, in passing the amendment, they have stuck to the traditional mindset of taking a holiday just for the sake of it, failing to make good use of
As strategic tensions escalate across the vast Indo-Pacific region, Taiwan has emerged as more than a potential flashpoint. It is the fulcrum upon which the credibility of the evolving American-led strategy of integrated deterrence now rests. How the US and regional powers like Japan respond to Taiwan’s defense, and how credible the deterrent against Chinese aggression proves to be, will profoundly shape the Indo-Pacific security architecture for years to come. A successful defense of Taiwan through strengthened deterrence in the Indo-Pacific would enhance the credibility of the US-led alliance system and underpin America’s global preeminence, while a failure of integrated deterrence would
RSS