A Former Diplomat's Perspective：How Terrible is Severing Diplomatic Ties？
By Kung Wen-lung
The Storm Media, March 23, 2023
Since the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) came to power in 2016, the number of countries with which Taiwan has diplomatic relations has dropped from 21 to 13–a record low in history. But what is even more frightening is that many Taiwanese have grown indifferent, and even think that there’s no need to worry about diplomatic relations, they think simply managing good relations with the United States and Japan is enough. This is a very precarious idea.
The majority of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies are underdeveloped countries, which rely on Taiwan’s resources to strengthen bilateral friendship. This led most people to think Taiwan’s aid is an act of buying friendships with money and that these allies are of no help to Taiwan. However, in the international arena, such as the World Health Assembly (WHA), we can be an observer at best, but in most cases, we can only lodge protests outside of the venue. During the debate at such events, it is still necessary to rely on the oral support from allies, therefore, diplomatic allies are important media for Taiwan's International participation. Compared with relying solely on buying foreign media advertisements to burnish our existence, speaking through institutional channels has a more practical impact on diplomatic practice.
What many people don’t know is that the existence of these allies can provide legitimacy for the president’s visit to the United States. Since most of its allies are far away from Taiwan, the president's plane needs to stop and refuel halfway towards its destination. This can be used as a pretext to transit through the United States when visiting Central and South American countries, which provides the coincidental legitimacy for the president to go to the United States.
If you don’t have diplomatic allies, you don’t even enjoy the qualifications to be a country. The severance of diplomatic relations not only undermines international participation but also diminishes sovereignty. Aiding countries with money, some people may think, is spending money to buy friends; but to put it another way, isn’t it also a display of justice and morality for advanced countries to help underdeveloped countries? It’s not that the DPP administration is not providing foreign assistance, but the energy and focus it puts into this aspect has obviously not met expectations.
If you don’t pay attention to allies, they will naturally leave you. There are many examples of the administration of President Tsai Ing-wen disrespecting allies. Just like at the inauguration ceremony of President Tsai's re-election in 2020, she publicly thanked Secretary of State Mike Pompeo of the United States for his congratulatory message on Twitter, and recited it word for word on the spot. How did all the diplomatic allies feel about the situation? In terms of legal status, they have a higher status than the United States. If you want to read Mr. Pompeo’s congratulatory message, you should read it together with those from the diplomatic allies, and not favor the U.S. just to create a hype for news manipulation.
Although Beijing has tried to suppress our diplomacy, we cannot thus lay blame on others. The author observes that our diplomatic practices have been reduced under Beijing’s suppression. In the meantime, resources have been poured into media publicity, and facilitating interaction with countries that have no official relations with Taiwan. This resulted in severing diplomatic relations with nine countries in less than seven years.
President Tsai has one year left in her term of office. As a former diplomat, my biggest hope is that President Tsai will not break off diplomatic relations anymore, leaving more trouble for the Republic of China. The public may not be interested in severing ties, but all the evidence in this article shows cutting diplomatic relations will do all kinds of harm and not bring any benefit at all. Don’t underestimate its impact!
Note: The Republic of China (Taiwan) and Honduras severed diplomatic relations on March 26.