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The Public Diplomacy Blog is intended to stimulate dialog among scholars, researchers, practitioners and professionals from around the world in the public diplomacy sphere. The opinions represented here are the authors' own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the USC Center on Public Diplomacy at the Annenberg School.

THE “BATTLE” OF THE TAIWAN STRAITS
JUN 28, 2006 - 9:36PM PDT
Posted by Peter Herford

Without firing a shot, China is winning its "war" to gain de facto incorporation of Taiwan into the mainland orbit. That's a tortuous way of saying that it may not be long until Taiwan is no longer a de facto state. Beijing's strategy is instructive. There are only 26 countries left in the world that accord Taiwan full diplomatic recognition as a "nation." How many can you name? How many do you recognize? In the Asia-Pacific region the nations recognizing Taiwan are: The Solomon Islands, The Marshall Islands, Tuvalu, Palau and Kiribati. Kiribati is an interesting case in point, and one of the rare instances where mainland China lost a diplomatic pull and tug over recognition of Taiwan. Graham Norris, writing in Pacific Magazine tells the story of the Chinese Ambassador to Kiribati calling the tiny island nation's President Anote Tong so often during his lobbying campaign, the president got himself an unlisted number. The calls didn't work. The prize of recognition went to Taiwan for $15 million in fishing license fees and an extra $5 million the island received in negotiating the licenses. Follow the money. Money, and the promise of sharing in China's economic growth is what is driving the mainland strategy. Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiao Bao has had a good deal more success recently winning converts to the one-China policy*. The Premier's carrot to lure away those countries that still recognize Taiwan is tourism and trade. He has targeted, in particular, the resource rich countries of Latin America and Africa as well as the smallest of countries. The quid pro quo is simple enough: if you want the newest free-spending tourists, the growing upper- and middle-class Chinese mainlanders, then recognize, accept, or agree to the one-China principle. If you want to deal with China economically, if you want China to buy what you have to sell, recognize the one-China principle. What is at stake? Approximately 32 million Chinese traveled abroad last year. That compares to about 600,000 in 1985. And looking ahead projections are that 100 million Chinese will be traveling by 2020. The world's hoteliers, airlines, to say nothing of boutiques and restaurants are salivating. Mark Manier, in a Los Angeles Times article points out that China recently surpassed Japan as the Asian nation with the most tourists. And still less than 10 percent of China's 1.3 billion people have ever traveled outside their country. Beijing has been careful to manage and keep control of the tourism carrot. It's easy for a Chinese to get a passport, but citizens may only travel to "approved" countries. And how do you get on the approved list if you want the benefit of Chinese tourism? Make sure you agree to the one-China principle. In April the siren song worked on the Pacific Island of Fiji. Move one from the Taiwan column to the China column. More recently the Caribbean islands of Grenada and Dominica fell into line. Over the last couple of years 115 countries around the world…... FULL TEXT
 
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Read Comments:

Elizabeth Stahl on July 25, 2006 @ 9:31 pm:
The Harvard International Review has numerous articles written by students concerning current issues involving China. I encourage you to read more at: http://www.harvardir.org/blog/

John Chiu on October 23, 2006 @ 3:19 pm:
If the situation was reversed, if China was on the island instead of Taiwan, who would the world recognize then? Knowing that the ROC is democratic and PRC is communistic. If that was the case, I doubt the world would even listen to the inane ramblings of the PRC. It is a sad day to see a people cry out for independence, which they rightfully deserve, only to have world leaders quite them down because these "leaders" enjoy the hush money that the PRC is offering them. Who will China want back next? Korea and Japan were also a part of China from way back when. The global village will not let that stand, so why are they turning a blind eye to Taiwan's plight?

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