Green light for Taiwan!

For the past few months, and mainly due to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) actions, Taiwan has been in the spotlight. The small island of 23 millions inhabitants, which has been trying to exist as the independent country it is since 1949, had almost totally disappeared from the international stage since 1979, when the US switched the official recognition from Taipei to Beijing. Then, almost every country in the world did the same, and the current situation is that Taiwan is now, in December 2021, only recognized by 14 countries. In  a matter of fact, Nicaragua announced last night that it's switching the recognition to Beijing. However, and a careful watch to the map bellow show it to, the small unrecognized state of Somaliland, in/near Somalia, also has a very good relation with Taiwan (Taiwan in Somaliland Twitter account). But, despite this almost total absence of recognition, it does not mean that Taiwan does not have any kind of cooperation with other nations.

Countries maintaining relations with the ROC

As we can see here, all western and other big economies keep economical and political relations with Taipei. The blue countries, including France, does not have any embassy in Taiwan, but a representation office. the French one being called « Bureau Français de Taipei » (French Office of Taipei). Due to the pressure from China, all countries wanting to do business with Beijing have to abide by the one-China policy, meaning « no diplomatic recognition of Taiwan ». As we can see everyday, countries and companies want to do business with Beijing, no matter how much it can cost. Isn't it Tim?

During 40 years, nevertheless, Taipei and the rest of the world continued to work together, actually leading to Taiwan being the 7th biggest Asian economy, per GDP as much as per GDP per capita (three times more than mainland China). Globally, Taiwan is the 15th biggest economy per capita. Furthermore, it is one of the lead nation in terms of innovation, machine tools industry, integrated circuits production and exportation,  including chips production with the giant TSMC. Taiwan is even about to have it's own Covid vaccine.

Asian countries by GDP, population and GDP per capita.

During 40 years, China, considering Taiwan as one of its own province, tolerated no foreign political representation, PM, MP, Ministers visit to Taiwan ; none of the Taiwan Representation offices abroad could include « Taiwan » in it's name ; no military cooperation were allowed ; no foreign military could visit or be stationed in the former Formosa, and military sales to Taiwan were prohibited (France still remembers it). Taipei is actually the last place on Earth using subs from the second world war. .

Since Xi Jinping came to power in 2012, and especially since 2017, we can see that the Chinese growth model is slowing. Decades of debts, bad investments, monetary injections, over productions, frenetic constructions, can boost the GDP for a while, in particular if the starting point is zero (where Mao left the country when he died), but that's definitely not a perennial growth model. Even today, the consumption level isn't quite enough to break the bad investment spiral. However, as usual in China, and to avoid any form of domestic revolution, people's eyes have to be turned out of the country, and that's not easy when in normal time, everything is done to avoid that (the great firewall, censorship of foreign medias, foreign movies and dramas and the list goes on). In conclusion, to show its strength to its devoted citizens, and avoid them focusing on a slump economy, what would be better for the CCP than to reunify the country, even if Taiwan is not really asking for it?

2020 and 2021 year have been a total catastrophe for China. Despite the gigantic amount of money spent in propaganda by the CCP to improve its global image, the two past years were the opportunity for the world to find out about the reeducation camps from Xinjiang/East Turkestan, to watch the CCP machine violate the Hong-Kong Basis Law signed in 1997, muzzling the media, the democracy, free speech and basically everything making Hong-Kong a place of freedom. Meanwhile, the world discovered that China was making biological weapon research with « made in China security processes », leading to a global pandemic that we are still enjoying today (5.29 millions deaths). All of that happened due to the CCP's lies, sometimes being parroting by others.

So, since there was no real forced isolationism of Taiwan, despite the one-China policy committed by many countries, what is actually changing now? 

Well, we are now far, very far from when diplomatic exchanges were totally non-existent. Everything started with the visit of the US health secretary Alex Azar to Taiwan in August 2020, the first US official visit in four decades. The USA here crossed the Chinese red line, and, after years of threats and false promises of retaliation... nothing happened. China barks, but doesn't bite.

This visit then opened the road to many, many more. Two months later, the Under Secretary of State Keith Krach payed Taipei a visit. In April 2021, an official US delegation led by the US Ambassador John Hennesey-Niland to Palau traveled there for a official meeting. In June, three US Senator arrived in Taiwan... in a C-17 transport aircraft from the US Air Force. So much for « no military planes in Taiwan ». In November this year, a new US lawmakers delegation had a trip there, and they came in a military Boeing C-40A.

In the same time, some countries, which have been promised huge investments from Beijing for years, started to open their eyes and to understand the true nature of the Chinese partner. Finally, they understood that Taipei may be a less intrusive and a more respectful partner that Beijing. Yes, euphemism. In Europe, it started with a very small country, but an amazing one, called Lithuania. They first announced a few months ago the coming opening of a new Taiwan office in Vilnius. Since November 18th, it's done, and it's called « The Taiwanese Representative Office in Lithuania ». The message sent here is quite clear. Moreover, his happened less than a month after the Taiwanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Joseph Wu traveled all around Europe in a diplomatic visit: Slovakia, Czech Republic... Brussels! A few days later, in October, the European lawmakers voted in favor to upgrade ties with Taiwan (580-26). In November, the French Raphael Glucksmann led a delegation of UE Parliament members to the little island, the first visit there for the EU! Then a few days ago, lawmakers from the Baltic countries were in Taiwan and met the President Cai Ying Wen. Slovakia now wants to deepen its relation with Taipei, and proved it again yesterday ; Ireland apparently wants that too ; Germany also ; Poland and New Zealand are sending new representatives there. Every time, the Chinese reaction is only more threats and insults, reveling it's true nature, if that was still necessary... A few examples can be seen here. Last but not least, Japan is also standing for Taiwan. Tokyo is currently heavily modernizing its army, and will intervene if Beijing try anything against Taipei. All in all, since the first US visit occurred, the Chinese dome over the world has been cracking everywhere. 

Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, centre, poses for photos with a delegation from the Baltic States at the Presidential Office in Taipei

So where are we now?

After 40 years living in the shadow, Taiwan is once again in the spotlight, mainly due to Beijing actions. Now, many western and democratic countries are openly siding with Taipei, and are willing to improve their relation this the small island. Military aircraft lands on the island, foreign soldiers are stationed there, Cai and Wu are quite busy traveling around the world, and receiving lawmakers from everywhere ; Taipei buys missiles, builds submarines with the support of foreign nations (we will probably come back to that in a next article).  Many Chinese red lines have been crossed. So, will western countries recognize Taiwan? That should be the next logical step. Actually, the new German government and parliament are already considering it, according to this article.  But, is that really necessary? For decades, we have been playing with Chinese rules, receiving in exchange insults, threats, spies, diplomatic and economical pressure, on our governments, universities, citizens. A Taiwan recognition would be the way to show Beijing that this time is over. But if small countries, like Lithuania, may be pride enough to that, I don't believe that all European countries are. We will come back on the French case in a next article. If western countries eventually recognize Taiwan, Beijing so long promised retaliations could finally happen, even if the biggest loser would probably be China itself. We saw it in the case of Australian coal, Beijing is apparently not afraid to hurt it's own economy (and its own people). China doesn't want an independent Taiwan mainly to show its domestic population that they are in control. But, are freedom and existence depending of a hypothetical international recognition? I believe Taiwan clearly proved these last few months that they don't actually need that. Taiwan exists, as an independent country, it's a fact, and they don't need an international recognition for that, even if they deserve it. The statu quo may be the best option for everybody. The cooperation with the west will improve, on every aspects, with or without Beijing benediction.

Spoiler alert: it will be without it.