Pawns In The Game

When China got wind of Kiribati's intention to recognize Taiwan in November last year, its diplomatic machinery shifted into high gear.

China's ambassador to Kiribati, Ma Shuxue, began intensive lobbying, calling Kiribati President Anote Tong, sometimes late into the night. The pressure became so great that Tong changed his telephone number.

After Tong announced that Kiribati was recognizing the Republic of China, as Taiwan is formally known, China became even more threatening. Ma publicly distributed a letter in Kiribati denouncing the decision to recognize Taiwan as a "gross violation" of the "one China" principle.

The Chinese embassy was also thought to be behind a protest of several hundred I-Kiribati outside Parliament, and Chinese media outlets belittled Kiribati as one of the least developed countries in the world. This sometimes clumsy diplomatic maneuvering was a result of China's desperation, not only to avoid losing a diplomatic ally to its arch-rival Taiwan, but also a key strategic installation in the region: its satellite tracking station on Kiribati's South Tarawa Island.

Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian with Palau President Tommy Remengesau, Jr. in Taiwan in March 2002. Photo: Central News Agency

In securing diplomatic recognition from Kiribati, Taiwan has not only gained another voice in the international community, but also bolstered its commercial interests. Taiwanese fishing boats spent about $15 million on licenses to fish in the exclusive economic zones of Pacific Island nations last year, including $5 million in Kiribati. Mutual diplomatic recognition can make negotiating these licenses, and dealing with problems afterwards, much easier.

"In this region, Taiwan might not be a strong country in terms of political power, but in terms of the fishing industry we are a very strong nation," says James Tsai, chairman of the Fong Kuoi Fishery Group and a leading member of the Taiwan Tuna Association. "We probably have a better position than Japan, South Korea or even the U.S. Up to 80 percent of Kiribati's GDP is based on the fisheries industry."

However it is national, more than commercial interests that drive Taiwan's and China's foreign policies. In the diplomatic war between the two countries, the Pacific Islands region is one of the most hotly contested battlegrounds because of its relative proximity to the rivals and lack of development across the region.

Just five countries in the region recognize Taiwan: Solomon Islands, Marshall Islands, Tuvalu, Palau and Kiribati. However, some have changed allegiance and some threaten to, meaning both Taiwan and China need to keep relations with all countries as healthy as possible.

At various points over recent years, Tonga, Papua New Guinea and Nauru have recognized Taiwan, while Palau, Marshall Islands and Kiribati are relatively recent converts.

Taiwan's diplomatic allies contribute to its strategy of maintaining autonomy from China. The rivalry first peaked around 1950 when nationalist leader Chiang Kai-Shek, defeated by the communists in the Chinese civil war, took his troops to Taiwan, which had recently been liberated by the U.S. from 50 years of Japanese colonial rule. The Republic of China, of which Chiang was president, still claimed the whole of China, but in fact only ruled over Taiwan province and some islands of Fujian province, as it does today. In 1971, Taiwan lost its seat in the United Nations to China, and eight years later the United States formally recognized the communist government in Beijing.

Today the Taiwanese government is caught in an awkward limbo; it no longer claims sovereignty over China, but can't secure its own place in the world. As the turmoil following March's presidential election shows, the country itself is divided over its identity. President Chen Shui-bian, who won the election by just 0.2 percent of the vote after an apparent assassination attempt, is at the forefront of attempts to create a "Taiwanese consciousness." His defeated rival, Lien Chan of the Kuomintang, or Chinese Nationalist Party, represents the old guard of immigrants who arrived 50 years ago with Chiang Kai-shek and who still cling to the ideals of the Republic of China and eventual unification with China.

Nevertheless, both sides agree that immediate unification is now out of the question and China's attempts to force the issue must be resisted.

Diplomatic recognition therefore, provides the government with some legitimacy in pressing its claims in the international community, and some proof that it is a sovereign entity, according to Tung Chen-yuan, an assistant research fellow in the Institute of International Relations at Taiwan's National Chengchi University.

"Because Taiwan has been isolated by the international community, we want to establish relations with other countries as much as we can," he says. "But usually we can only establish relations with small countries.

"From the Chinese government's point of view, they want to continue to isolate Taiwan's position in this region. They consider this activity as a march toward Taiwan independence," Tung notes.

The fact that most Taiwanese are unlikely to know even one of the 26 mostly impoverished countries that recognize Taiwan is not important according to Tung.

"If Taiwan has no countries recognizing it, then people here will panic and lose confidence," he adds.

The most highly publicized way Taiwan helps its diplomatic allies is via agricultural technical missions. Through the International Cooperation and Development Fund, ostensibly a non-government organization that works solely for Taiwan's foreign ministry, teams of between three and nine members work to develop the agriculture and fisheries sectors of the receiving country and so reduce their reliance on imports of such things as rice and vegetables.

Pacific Island countries who recognize China: Cook Islands Federated States of Micronesia Fiji Nauru Niue Papua New Guinea Samoa Tonga Vanuatu

Pacific Island countries who recognize Taiwan: Kiribati Marshall Islands Palau Solomon Islands Tuvalu

The fund also operates investment and lending projects, such as helping the Development Bank of Tuvalu provide better financial services, and various training and scholarship programs. Despite the lack of diplomatic relations, the fund also operates technical missions in Fiji and Papua New Guinea.

Other Taiwanese investment, such as that for the Tuvalu government building that opened in February, comes from secret foreign ministry funds that even Taiwanese lawmakers are prevented from scrutinizing in detail.

The main way Taiwan's allies can repay their benefactor for the economic aid they receive is by speaking up in international bodies such as the United Nations and World Health Organization, which Taiwan has been trying to join in recent years.

Last year Palau, Solomon Islands and Tuvalu were among the countries that presented a motion to the UN General Assembly to reconsider Taiwan's ejection from the body more than 20 years ago. The motions always fail, but create the kind of publicity that Taiwan hopes will give it more leverage in dealing with China.

China, of course, is keen to muzzle these mouthpieces for Taiwan, and as it gets richer, becomes increasingly able to compete with Taiwan for influence in the region. China helped fund government buildings in Vanuatu and Samoa, and was working on a sports stadium in Kiribati when the government recognized Taiwan. The showpiece venue of last year's South Pacific Games in Suva was also funded and built by China.

However, the relative poverty of Pacific Island nations, and the concentration of power in the hands of a few, has led Taiwan and China to use more underhand tactics to achieve their goals.

It is also evident that Taiwan and China interfere in some of the region's democracies. In 1998, a Marshall Islands minister claimed Taiwan's ambassador tried to give him $100,000 to vote for the re-election then-President Imata Kabua. The same ambassador, now working in Fiji, was accused late last year of giving $140,000 to Dr. Harry Tong, who narrowly lost to his brother in the Kiribati presidential election. During Kiribati's election last July the Chinese ambassador admitted to giving money to politicians linked to then-president Teburoro Tito.

John Henderson, an associate professor of politics at the University of Canterbury, says that Pacific Island nations are more willing to accept Taiwanese and Chinese money rather than Western money because there fewer perceived strings attached, such as demands for good governance.

"Dollar diplomacy can certainly work to the Island states' advantage," he says. "Bidding wars ensure the maximum price is paid for supporting China or Taiwan. It also reminds traditional Western aid donors that the Pacific Island states have other options."

The tit-for-tat battles between Taiwan and China will likely continue in the Pacific, but Henderson sees China's strategic interests playing an increasingly important role.

"China sees itself as the emerging power in the Pacific," Henderson says. "It can expand its interests across the central Pacific at little cost. It is taking a long view which extends beyond the Taiwan issue."

Some observers fear that as the United States moves its focus from the region, China is becoming more able to fill the gap. It already has a military foothold in the region, through defense cooperation with countries such as Papua New Guinea, Fiji and Tonga.

Without a blue-water navy, China in the future may be able to develop these cooperative agreements into control over large parts of the South Pacific, according to Benjamin Reilly, a senior lecturer in the Asia Pacific School of Economics and Government at the Australian National University in Canberra.

In a speech he gave to the Council on Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific in February, Reilly said, "Combined with the strategic withdrawal of the U.S. and its Australian and New Zealand allies from their formally dominant position in the region, the increasing influence of China in the Pacific Islands has the potential to shift the long-term strategic balance of power in the Pacific away from the West."