One more step towards isolation? After the turnaround of Nauru, a small Pacific nation, deciding to break diplomatic relations with Taiwan to establish ties with China, only 12 countries now officially recognize this island.
So many countries with which Beijing does not maintain diplomatic relations, since the Chinese authorities are opposed to official communications between Taipei and foreign powers. As a reminder, China considers the democratic island of Taiwan as one of its provinces.
Most of the island’s official allies are small, often island states that receive significant development aid from Taiwan.
Thus, of the 12 remaining states, seven are located in Latin America and the Caribbean: Guatemala, Belize, Paraguay, Haiti, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines . The Vatican remains the only one in Europe and Eswatini, the last in Africa. Palau, the Marshall Islands and Tuvalu are three countries in Oceania that recognize Taiwan.
21 official allies in 2016
However, like Nauru, the reversals of former countries recognizing Taipei have been numerous in recent years. In 2016, Taiwan still had 21 official allies. Seven have since withdrawn, under pressure from an ever more aggressive diplomatic policy on the part of the Chinese Communist Party.
For example, in 2019, the Solomon Islands also announced that it was abandoning all relations with Taiwan in exchange for investment in infrastructure from Beijing.
Threats from Beijing
After the election, on Saturday January 13, of the separatist Lai Ching-te as president of the island, threats from Beijing were further accentuated. While the Philippines does not officially recognize the Taipei government, President Ferdinand Marcos said he looked forward to beginning “close collaboration” with Taiwan’s new leader.
A statement that did not escape China, which immediately announced that it had summoned the Philippine ambassador. According to the spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, these remarks “constitute a serious violation of the principle of one China […]a serious violation of the political commitments made by the Philippines to the Chinese side and a blatant interference in China’s internal affairs.”
Between the Philippines and China, ties were already strained. The two countries have competing claims in the South China Sea which have resulted in frequent incidents at sea in recent months.
Taipei’s unofficial allies
If the list of official allies tends to be reduced, that of unofficial allies seems to be stabilizing. According to the newspaper The crossTaiwan has a total of “111 representations abroad, which places it ahead of states such as Malaysia, Israel or Norway, although they are not all embassies”.
The island can, moreover, count on the support of Western countries opposed to Beijing. First, the United States, which sent an informal delegation on January 14, the day after the election of the new president.
On the French side, and although relations have been broken with Taipei since 1964, a new representative office was opened in 2020 in Aix-en-Provence, after that in Paris.