South Africa Orders Relocation of Taiwan’s Representative Office

[Deeq A.]

WITH STRENGTHENING RELATIONS between South Africa and China, reports indicate that South Africa has demanded that Taiwan move its representative office out of the capital of Pretoria. This may not be surprising, seeing as South Africa is often positioned alongside China as a member of the BRICS economic framework.

Taiwan has criticized the move as infringing upon its sovereignty. Consequently, the Taiwanese government is weighing its options, including ordering that South Africa also move its representative office outside of Taipei. This would be framed as a reciprocal move.

Taiwan does not have official ties with South Africa, though it does have substantial business ties, and there are Taiwanese communities in South Africa. Taiwan maintained ties with South Africa even during the course of international condemnation because of South Africa’s apartheid policies.

This proves similar to how Taiwan maintained substantive ties with other countries that have been widely condemned internationally as abusing human rights, such as Israel. This is the case even if at present Taiwan only has formal diplomatic relations with a handful of countries, which are all smaller than it in terms of the size of population or economy.

Taiwan’s only formal diplomatic ally in Africa is Eswatini. Eswatini’s government is an authoritarian one, as a country in which freedom of political association is forbidden and ruled over by one of the world’s last absolute monarchs.

The constitution was voided in 1973 and political parties were banned, as a result of which free and fair elections still do not take place in Eswatini today. Although Mswati agreed to constitutional changes in 2005, he retains his grip on power.

Pro-democracy protests rocked Eswatini in the summer of 2021, with the public calling for the right to vote. In the violence that followed, 28 were shot, with demonstrators alleging that at least twenty were killed. Tear gas was used by police against demonstrators and Internet services suspended, with a curfew declared in major urban centers in which buildings were burned during the turmoil, including Manzini and Mbabane, as well as the industrial center of Matsapha. The Eswatini government denied reports that Mswati III had fled the country during the demonstrations.

Photo credit: Jérôme Bon/WikiCommons/CC BY 2.0

Otherwise, Taiwan has strengthened ties with Somaliland in past years. Somaliland, like Taiwan, is not acknowledged by the majority of the world’s countries. Somaliland declared independence from Somalia in May 1991, following the Somali Civil War, and is otherwise considered one of several autonomous regions of Somalia. In particular, Somaliland has its own government, issues its own currency, possesses a military, and holds regular democratic elections, as well as maintains informal diplomatic relations with some of its surrounding countries.

Taiwan opened a representative office in Somaliland in 2020, though the two have yet to set up formal diplomatic ties. By contrast to the absolute monarchy in Eswatini, Somaliland does seem to be an example of a polity that Taiwan shares common values with.

Though China refrained from doing so when the Ma administration was in power, to signal its favoritism toward KMT governments. China resumed poaching diplomatic allies of Taiwan once the Tsai administration took office.

Given Taiwan’s limited foothold in Africa, the move by South Africa is likely to be framed by the KMT as showing how the Lai administration is unable to conduct diplomacy in a manner that would keep China happy. The KMT has traditionally campaigned on the political claim that it is the only political party in Taiwan able to maintain stable cross-strait relations with China.

It would be new in China’s playbook to push countries that already do not have formal diplomatic relationships with Taiwan to relocate representative offices outside of capitals, as a means of inconveniencing those with ties to Taiwan, and as a means of further international bullying Taiwan. It is to be seen if other countries apart from South Africa carry this out in the future.

Source  newbloommag

 

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