Correspondent's Notebook

Taiwan’s high diplomatic stakes in the Pacific

12 September 2008

Taiwan usually finds itself on the margins of international diplomacy. At last month’s Pacific Islands Forum officials were forced to hold meetings at a motel several kilometres from the main forum.

Now, as Pacific Correspondent Bill Bainbridge reports, Taiwan hopes to become a member of the organisation and has promised a more transparent approach to delivering its aid in the region to bolster its claims of being a good international citizen.

It’s not easy being Taiwan. Only 23 countries around the world recognise the Republic of China’s diplomatic status. Six of those are in the Pacific.

That’s why Taiwan has traditionally gone to extraordinary lengths to win friends away from China.

But Taipei received an acute reminder of what can go wrong while trying to win friends in the Pacific. Taiwanese authorities indicted Wu Shih-tsai on charges of fraud and defamation. Singaporean Wu and another man were paid $30 million by Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs after they had promised to convince Papua New Guinea to switch diplomatic allegiances away from China.

The deal never went ahead and officials still don’t know what happened to the money – but what hurt much more than the loss of a cool $30 million was the deep embarrasment of having the way Taipei chooses to do its diplomatic business exposed to the world.

It’s one reason Taiwan is preparing to chart a course away from so called “dollar diplomacy”.

In a few weeks Taiwan’s foreign ministry will release a new White Paper that promises to completely revamp its aid policy. In place of geneous no strings attached aid to friends and allies, Taiwan will adopt a more transparent and mainstream approach to aid in line with the 2005 Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness.

It’s a development that is likely to disappoint a few in the Pacific who are alleged to be on the receiving end of some sizeable kickbacks.

But it’s probably a good thing for Pacific stability. Where the Taiwan-China rivalry often causes political ructions.

Here’s Research Fellow, at the Australian National University, Paul D’Arcy.

D’ARCY: In 2006, we had the big troubles in particularly the Solomon Islands and Taiwan. Taiwanese money was associated with that, with the support for the outgoing regime and I think although you won’t get official government statements. In private, my Taiwanese colleagues will say that they were very aware of that. I think that was a real wake up call 2006.

He says  both  China and Taiwan were shocked by the Solomons descent into chaos at the end of 2006 and Taiwan was stung by criticism from Australia and Pacific countries over their aid program and has been rethinking its approach ever since..

China too is moving closer to an approach that’s more in harmony with international donors.

Australia’s Parliamentary Secretary for Pacific Island Affairs, Duncan Kerr, visited China as part of a 10-member Pacific Forum delegation to discuss Chinese investment and development assistance to the region last week he came back saying he was confident China would also change how it carries out development assistance in the Pacific.

But while publishing new strategies has buoyed many Pacific observors – there is still an element of wait and see.

Just this week Taiwan was back in the Pacific handing out cheques – more than $600,000 to seven regional organisations at a ceremony inside the headquarters of the Pacific Islands Forum in Suva. An organisation that Taiwan hopes to become a member of.

The stakes are high for Taiwan which needs as many friends as it can get. Handing out large sums of money has worked in the past and it’s going to take quite some adjustment to learn a new way of doing business.