Taiwan now has 18 diplomatic allies left. Seventeen are developing nations in the South Pacific, Latin America, Africa and the Caribbean: Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Belize, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Eswatini, Haiti, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, and Saint Vincent.
Only one of them is in Europe: The Holy See, whose territorial residence is the Vatican. The tiny city-state has an area of 44 hectares and a population of about 1,000. It is the smallest state in the world by area and population.
The Holy See is also the only country in Europe that does not have diplomatic relations with China.
To help Taiwan get off the slippery slope it is on when it comes to losing its diplomatic allies to China, the Holy See can and must play a crucial role.
The Republic of China (ROC) established official diplomatic relations with the Holy See in 1942, during World War II.
Their diplomatic relationship continued after the ROC fled to Taiwan in 1949 after the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lost the Chinese Civil War.
However, since 1987, Beijing and the Holy See have held 30 rounds of talks to establish relations. Over the past several years, Beijing and the Vatican have genuinely began to cozy up, discussing the establishment of formal diplomatic relations.
However, last month it became clear that due to multiple points of friction, such as the appointment of bishops and the Holy See’s doubts that China would keep the promises it has made, an agreement solving the nearly 70-year rift is not expected any time soon.
“There is no imminent signature of an agreement between the Holy See and the People’s Republic of China,” a Vatican spokesman said early last month.
This presents a window of opportunity for Taiwan.
In a September 2016 letter, the Formosan Association for Public Affairs (FAPA) called on Vice President Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁), who was about to embark on a trip to Rome and meet with Pope Francis, to urge the pope to move toward “dual recognition” (also known as “separate recognition”) of Taiwan and China.
Such dual diplomatic recognition by the Holy See of Taipei and Beijing would entail embracing Chinese Catholics and not abandoning the 23 million Taiwanese, and would be a way to foster and encourage peaceful coexistence and mutual respect between Taiwan and China.
In addition, it would set a precedent for other nations to emulate.
At the time, the pope had played a critical role in initiating US-Cuba diplomatic relations.
So it makes sense that the pope take the lead in officially recognizing that Taiwan and China are two nations on either side of the Taiwan Strait, which the international community wants to see develop into friendly neighbors.
For Taiwan to lose the Vatican as its diplomatic ally could set the nation further and faster on the road it is on.
Having the Vatican establish diplomatic relations with both Taiwan and China would stop Taiwan from continuing on this trajectory.
The US can also play a role in this process.
Over the past two decades, several members of the US House of Representatives have repeatedly introduced legislation calling for the resumption of diplomatic relations with Taiwan.
They were motivated by indignation over the fact that the US has diplomatic relations with every nation around the world except four: North Korea, Iran, Bhutan and Taiwan.
The US representatives felt, and still feel, that Taiwan does not belong in that little band of rogue nations — they are right, of course.
We at FAPA therefore urge Chen again to use his good offices and call upon the pope to move toward “dual recognition.” It is an idea that is long overdue — it is now or never.
Mike Kuo is president of the Formosan Association for Public Affairs.
“History does not repeat itself, but it rhymes” (attributed to Mark Twain). The USSR was the international bully during the Cold War as it sought to make the world safe for Soviet-style Communism. China is now the global bully as it applies economic power and invests in Mao’s (毛澤東) magic weapons (the People’s Liberation Army [PLA], the United Front Work Department, and the Chinese Communist Party [CCP]) to achieve world domination. Freedom-loving countries must respond to the People’s Republic of China (PRC), especially in the Indo-Pacific (IP), as resolutely as they did against the USSR. In 1954, the US and its allies
A response to my article (“Invite ‘will-bes,’ not has-beens,” Aug. 12, page 8) mischaracterizes my arguments, as well as a speech by former British prime minister Boris Johnson at the Ketagalan Forum in Taipei early last month. Tseng Yueh-ying (曾月英) in the response (“A misreading of Johnson’s speech,” Aug. 24, page 8) does not dispute that Johnson referred repeatedly to Taiwan as “a segment of the Chinese population,” but asserts that the phrase challenged Beijing by questioning whether parts of “the Chinese population” could be “differently Chinese.” This is essentially a confirmation of Beijing’s “one country, two systems” formulation, which says that
On Monday last week, American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Director Raymond Greene met with Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers to discuss Taiwan-US defense cooperation, on the heels of a separate meeting the previous week with Minister of National Defense Minister Wellington Koo (顧立雄). Departing from the usual convention of not advertising interactions with senior national security officials, the AIT posted photos of both meetings on Facebook, seemingly putting the ruling and opposition parties on public notice to obtain bipartisan support for Taiwan’s defense budget and other initiatives. Over the past year, increasing Taiwan’s defense budget has been a sore spot
Media said that several pan-blue figures — among them former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairwoman Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱), former KMT legislator Lee De-wei (李德維), former KMT Central Committee member Vincent Hsu (徐正文), New Party Chairman Wu Cheng-tien (吳成典), former New Party legislator Chou chuan (周荃) and New Party Deputy Secretary-General You Chih-pin (游智彬) — yesterday attended the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) military parade commemorating the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II. China’s Xinhua news agency reported that foreign leaders were present alongside Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), such as Russian President Vladimir Putin, North Korean leader Kim
RSS