After Taipei loses diplomatic ally Nicaragua to China, who are Taiwan’s remaining allies?

Nicaragua’s decision to sever diplomatic relations with Taiwan and favour China leaves Taipei with just 14 diplomatic allies. Nicaragua’s decision to back Beijing followed a trend among Central American nations such as Panama and Costa Rica which have also switched to China in recent years. Now, there are mostly small countries in the Pacific, Caribbean, Latin America and Southern Africa that support Taiwan, the self-governing island democracy.

Taiwan’s last allies include Belize, eSwatini (formerly known as Swaziland), Guatemala, Haiti, the Holy See (the central administration of the Roman Catholic Church), Honduras, the Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau, Paraguay, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Tuvalu. But it is to mention that officials from a newly-elected government in Honduras had also pledged to sever the decades-long alliance with Taiwan and establish diplomatic ties with Beijing. However, for now, it continues to maintain ties with the self-governing island nation. 

History behind China-Taiwan diplomatic rivalry 

Taiwan is formally known as the Republic of China (ROC), whose government retreated to the island at the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949. The ROC government and the Chinese Communist Party worked briefly together during World War II against the Japanese invasion. However, later the two sides turned on each other. 

While countries including North Korea and the Soviet Union moved to recognise Beijing, the US and its allies blacked Taiwan. But as support for China held steady, the self-governing island lost the backing of major states such as France and the UK. Taiwan previously also represented China at the UN but in 1971 it was expelled - in favour of the People’s Republic of China based in Beijing. During that time, as the ROC government maintained that it represented China, it did not rejoin the international agency under a new name. 

The biggest blow for Taiwan came in 1979 when the US moved its embassy to Beijing and ended a defence treaty with Taipei. Over the course of rivalry between China and Taiwan, some countries have changed sides multiple times. However, overall China got the upper hand. In 2008, Taiwan’s election of the China-friendly Ma Ying-jeou as president also brought about a “diplomatic truce” as Ma recognised the “one-China principle”. But this came to a crashing end with the election of popular independence-leaning Tsai Ing-wen, who refused to endorse the principle. 

Since Tsai’s win in 2016, the tensions between China and Taiwan have only soared. China has been aggressively picking off Taiwan’s last remaining diplomatic allies as its global power and influence grew. Beijing has also worked to shut Taipei out of most international bodies. Even amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Taiwan has been deprived of its observer status at the World Health Assembly. 

China, on the other hand, has used its influence and veiled threats to shut the island out of even small groupings. Notably, since Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen took office in 2016, Taipei’s allies have dwindled from 21 to now only 14. While China demands Taiwan recognise the one-China principle, Taipei continues to see itself as a democratically-governed independent country, although it never formally declared independence from China. 

(Image: AP)