A-Musings – Perfidy

[dropcap]I[/dropcap]’m off to Holland, or as the country is officially titled ‘The Netherlands’ next month to see my dear old buddy Tom Chou. I’m sure you remember him, Dear Reader; he was the Ambassador from Taiwan for an extended period, about six years, and the best friend Saint Lucia ever had, although the present Ambassador, Douglas, is showing all the signs of being just as dedicated to good, mutually beneficial relations between Taiwan and our island nation. Tom will be giving an important speech in July in The Hague, the capital of The Netherlands on the policies, breadth and depth of Taiwanese Aid to nations all around the world. I shall attend and possibly lend my voice in expressing the benefits that Taiwan has bestowed upon its friends through the decades. Taiwan is a true friend to its diplomatic allies. Taiwan embodies Loyalty, Trust and Reliability.

Perfidy might be the word that best characterizes those nations that have enjoyed Taiwanese support for decades but have fallen to the bribery of the Chinese dollar, or Yuan as they call it. Perfidy is the quality of being faithless, disloyal or even treacherous—a description that might well be applied to the leaders of the Dominican Republic who this week opted to break relations with Taiwan and sell their souls to China.

I remember well the day Tom explained to me the more or less secret agreement between the two Chinas not to steal allies from each other through dollar diplomacy. The world has breathed more easily ever since the inception of this policy. However, in the past couple of years China has reneged on the deal and has vigorously renewed its illegal poaching through bribery and corruption.

I am well informed that China offered US$3.1 billion to the Dominican Republic for so called loans and investments. The population of this island nation is just over 10 million. As I am not sure whether we are talking American billions or British billions—in the USA a billion is 1,000,000,000 (one thousand millions) but in Britain a billion is 1,000,000,000,000 (one million millions)—I cannot say how much each citizen of the Dominican Republic can expect to receive from this windfall profit from the sale of their country, but I am absolutely certain that the ‘powers that be’ in that impoverished nation will not go hungry, thirsty or lacking in any other way. Aid, especially lots of it, has a way of disappearing; the more there is, the faster it disappears. Enough said on that topic.

Diplomatic life is really a bit of theatre. Ask yourself: When did you last count the embassies in Saint Lucia? The Brits don’t have an embassy. Neither do the Americans, the Canadians or the Germans for that matter. They have devised other channels of communication. Similarly, despite its lack of formal diplomatic relations, tiny Taiwan asserts itself in other ways: Take the question of visas for example.

Holders of a Mainland Chinese passport enjoy visa-free or visa-on-arrival access to 64 countries and territories, ranking the Chinese passport 74th in the world. The Taiwanese passport, on the other hand, has one of the most improved ratings globally since 2006 in terms of the number of countries that its holders may visit without a visa. As of January 2018, Taiwanese nationals with rights of abode in Taiwan had visa-free or visa-on-arrival access, according to the Foreign Ministry of Taiwan, to 167 countries—more than twice the number of Mainland China—ranking the Taiwanese passport as around 30th in terms of global travel freedom. Clearly diplomatic recognition is NOT a factor.

The diplomatic missions of Taiwan include embassies and representative offices. Taiwan only maintains a handful of full-fledged diplomatic missions abroad. In countries with which Taiwan does not have diplomatic relations, semi-official intermediary bodies, whose heads are nonetheless appointed by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, are maintained for routine matters that would otherwise be handled by embassies or consulates, such as passport and visa issuance, public affairs, economic, cultural, and educational co-operation, etc. These offices are usually titled ‘Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office’. Owing to the One-China policy practised by many states, very few countries allow Taiwanese missions to operate under the country’s official name. Similarly, many countries maintain missions in Taipei, such as the American Institute in Taiwan, which function as de facto embassies but under another name. These establishments use the term ‘Taipei’ instead of ‘Taiwan’ to avoid implying that Taiwan is a different country on a par with the ‘Peoples Republic of China’ or that there are ‘two Chinas’. Taiwan even competes in the Olympic Games under the banner of Taipei instead of Taiwan. Taipei, if you did not know it, it the capital city of Taiwan. It is all such a ridiculous game, but nevertheless a painful experience for Taiwan. I am forever amazed at the tolerance and forgiveness the Taiwanese display, no matter how badly they are treated. And, after all that, Taiwan’s GDP real growth rate was ranked 4th out of 210 countries. Enough said about that too!