Why Beijing cares about tiny Nauru

Published 20 September 2007

Economically, China has changed beyond re cognition, but Mao Zedong's heirs remain in power, and for them Taiwan is still an essential cause

Rarely is St Kitts and Nevis (pop: 39,382), not to mention St Vincent and the Grenadines (pop: 125,882), at the centre of a titanic diplomatic struggle. But no nation is too tiny for China and Taiwan to squabble over.

As world leaders gather in New York for the United Nations General Assembly, a delegation from the foreign ministry in Taipei is in the Caribbean trying to convince these tiny statelets to maintain diplomatic recognition.

Last year, after he switched allegiance for a second time, President Ludwig Scotty of the Pacific island state of Nauru (pop: 11,424) was allegedly accosted by a horde of screaming Chinese officials who tried to drag him on to a plane to Beijing just as he was boarding one bound for Taipei.

You could be forgiven for wondering what the fuss is about. Taipei has an active lobby in Washington, not least from defence companies that sell billions of dollars' worth of weapons to the Tai wanese. The US is bound by treaty to defend it should China attack but, in Europe, Taiwan is scarcely mentioned. It is a diplomatic anomaly, an unhemmed ragged edge of history.

When Mao Zedong's Communists won the civil war in 1949, Chiang Kai-shek's defeated Nationalist forces, known as the Kuomintang, fled to the island of Taiwan, where they set up a separate administration. Both sides claimed they were China's legitimate government, and until the 1970s anti-communist countries, including the United States, resisted the inevitable. When China became a power to be reckoned with, however, Taiwan gave an embarrassed cough and sent diplomatic missions to Beijing.

Taiwan has ended up in what one senior US state department official has called "a unique pol itical position". The US arms Taiwan but does not give it diplomatic recognition; it praises Taiwan's democracy, but condemns as "needlessly provocative behaviour" the idea of the Taiwan ese voting on declaring independence.

China still regards Taiwan as a "renegade pro vince" that it will one day reclaim. Every year, Taiwan applies for UN membership and is rejected by an ever larger majority; small countries are important because each has a vote. This year, the issue is even more fraught because the government of President Chen Shui-bian is applying to join not as the Republic of China, but as "Taiwan" - a new, independent state.

This past weekend President Chen's governing party held a 300,000-strong rally in support of a referendum on the issue. The Chinese respon ded with an air-raid drill in Shanghai, a strong hint that any such declaration would be met by force. In a lengthy essay reproduced by the Chinese state news agency, Xinhua, a supposedly objective scholar described Chen as a corrupt and "infamous power fanatic".

What the Chinese really hate is democracy. It may well be true that Chen's referendum is an attempt to drum up popular support and distract voters from corruption allegations - that's the kind of thing politicians do in democracies, and it's the voters' job to see through it. The government in Beijing has floated the idea of "one country, two systems", like for Hong Kong, but Taiwan's democracy is too advanced for that.

Like Kashmir, the Taiwan Strait used to be talked of as a "flashpoint" that could accidentally spark World War III. If China attacked, America would respond and the conflict could rapidly go nuclear. In recent years, Taiwanese firms have invested massively in China, reproducing on the mainland their early success back home. Diplomats relaxed, hoping that everyone would be too busy making money together to fight. But China is building up its military capacity, especially in "informatised" warfare, which will give it the ability to interfere with US communications systems that could detect an attack on Taiwan.

Economically, China has changed beyond re cognition, but Mao Zedong's heirs remain in power, and for them Taiwan is still an essential cause. They may be biding their time, until not a single little country recognises the upstart alternative to the People's Republic, and the American and Chinese economies are so integrated that there is no question of Washington risking everything to defend a leftover bit of history.

Lindsey Hilsum is China correspondent for Channel 4 News

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5 comments from readers

coolfunkyboy
20 September 2007 at 20:33

The Taiwanese were never happy being invaded and their country taken over by the Chinese nationalists exposing them to a suppressive military dictatorship. Taiwan is in no way an upstart alternative to China. The situation in Taiwan today is that the Taiwanese finally can freely express themselves in a modern democracy and at last get the chance after so many years to fully reclaim their own country. What China is presenting is a delusional fantasy that most of the world’s countries unfortunately are buying into, due to fear. People's Republic of China has never had a legitimate claim on Taiwan. In Taiwan’s entire history, it has only been claimed, and run, as a Chinese province for a total of 8 years; and that is now 112 years ago that was given up.

linkagewell
27 September 2007 at 05:10

Taiwan is the Chinese territory for maybe 2000 years. Owing to some political reason, Taiwan is not governed by the central government. The Chinese people never allow anyone to seperate Taiwan from China and never allow Taiwan to be independent from China. If necessary, our people will support our government to take back Taiwan by force.

The people who want to seperate Taiwan from will be finally punished by history.

gnuneo
30 September 2007 at 14:59

the taiwanese people are not he slightest bit interested in being a the battleground between the US and China, and have consistenly voted NO for independence.

they are happy with the status quo, and undoubtably this recent move is to try to cover incompetence in office by the current admin.

china is also content with the status quo, and most certainly would not start a war of conquest - but they will also most certainly respond if taiwan moves for independence, as that would be a tremendous loss of 'face' for them.

cerebrate
30 September 2007 at 22:11

to coolfunkyboy:

why isn't Taiwan a part of Japan then, since it's been "claimed and run" by the Japanese for more than 50 years out of the 112 years

doxia
10 October 2007 at 13:56

Taiwan is indeed not ready to become a 'country' per se, and remaining the status quo may be the best solution now. However, being a Taiwanese (not Chinese), we are different from our cousin across the Strait and it is obvious for those who have been to both sides. We are different, disregarding the political row.

In the same time, we aren't quite mature in our democracy nor our economy at the moment, for our politicians and president don't quite fully understand the meaning of what it takes to be truly democratic. And nor do most people, Taiwan is still known to have 'mafia democracy' espeically in the southern region.

Therefore, for our government to have spent so much money (down the drain) to promote that Taiwan's intention in joining the UN, I'd propose to use that money and promote our own home-grown brands.

All has been said, the Taiwanese have the potential to become a real country by itself, but it is too early to state its stance.

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About the writer

Lindsey Hilsum is China Correspondent for Channel 4 News. She has previously reported extensively from Africa, the Middle East, the Balkans and Latin America.