Double Handshake

Taiwan’s president Ma Ying-jeou heads to Central American this week for visits to three of the island’s remaining diplomatic allies in the region. Ma is expected to land in Panama on Wednesday for the presidential inauguration of Ricardo Martinelli and then spend the rest of the week splitting time in Nicaragua and Honduras. All three countries, along with twenty other nations worldwide, still recognize Taiwan instead of the PRC as their diplomatic partner.

Not especially good timing for a visit to Honduras, to say the least. A military coup on Sunday exiled president Manuel Zeyala, still in his pajamas, to Costa Rica. Electricity has been barely functional in Tegucigalpa over the past few days, and Zeyala ally Hugo Chavez has put his country’s armed forces on alert. Surprisingly, as of yesterday afternoon, Taiwan’s leadership has said Ma’s itinerary hasn’t changed despite “tensions” in Honduras. He is still planning on signing a joint communique on bilateral cooperation with Zeyala. Don’t hold your breath on this one. — In fact, as I am set to publish this post, here comes news that Ma has indeed canceled the Honduras portion of his trip.

But beyond the Honduras quagmire, there seems to be a new dynamic at play between Taiwan and the PRC in their “chequebook war” for influence in Central America. The Economist has more:

SINCE he took office in May last year, Ma Ying-jeou, Taiwan’s president, has presented himself as a peacemaker, seeking to ease tensions with China. This conciliatory approach has led to the first regular cross-strait flights, the opening of Taiwan to Chinese tourists and investors, and the attendance by a delegation from Taiwan as observers at the United Nations’ World Health Assembly in May, for the first time since China took Taiwan’s UN seat in 1971. Now, Mr Ma told The Economist this week, he believes China has even adopted the surprising policy of refusing requests from countries that recognise Taiwan to switch their diplomatic ties to China instead.

This is scoop is both astonishing and head-scratching. Given the above context, the article seems to suggest that the PRC is offering a “truce” (meaning it will stop poaching Taiwan’s diplomatic allies) as a something of a goodwill gesture toward the island. Officially, China strongly opposes any country having diplomatic relations with Taiwan and has spent billions in investment projects and aid to ensure those countries recognize Beijing over Taipei. Over the last twenty years, there’s been no question which side has overwhelmingly been winning this chequebook war.

So, why would China, the unequivocal “winner,” now refuse requests from countries hoping to switch ties from Taipei to Beijing, as Ma claims it is? Is it goodwill toward Taiwan, or something else? It indeed might be that the warming Beijing-Taipei ties mentioned in the above article incline China to goodwill gestures such as these. Certainly having good relations with Taiwan is a much higher priority for Beijing’s leadership than its relationship with any Central American country. Comments from US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about China’s “disturbing” new presence in Latin America may have also factored into Beijing laying low in the region for awhile.

Whatever the reason, China’s goodwill “truce” in Central America may explain the case of El Salvador. When Mauricio Funes won El Salvador’s presidential election in March, he vowed to switch ties from Taiwan to the PRC upon taking office on June 1. Then, a strange thing happened. At his inauguration, Funes changed his mind. “On the basis of the long friendship and cooperation between the two countries, I promise to maintain diplomatic relations with Taiwan,” reported the Taiwan News. It may have been that Funes had a sudden change of heart, but most likely, China’s leadership put him off for awhile. Panama, whose whose president-elect is also rumored to favor switching ties to Beijing, may find itself in the same position as El Salvador, playing the waiting game until it gets the green light from Beijing.

El Salvador has a new president-elect, as of last Sunday. Mauricio Funes, of the left-wing Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN), won a narrow victory over Rodrigo Ávila of the right-wing ARENA party. The Washington Post tells us what to expect:

Among other things, he has said that he will respect private property, preserve El Salvador’s free-trade agreements and its use of the dollar as its currency, and seek to preserve close relations with the United States. As his political model, he has cited not Mr. Chávez, but Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who has led his country leftward while honoring democracy and the rule of law.

Making fewer headlines outside the US, however: Funes has promised to switch his country’s diplomatic ties from Taiwan to the PRC when he takes office June 1. Currently, El Salvador is one of the island’s 23 remaining diplomatic allies. Despite Taiwanese president Ma Ying-jeou’s calls for a “diplmatic truce” with the PRC over stealing each other’s diplomatic partners, many countries have switched over to the PRC for economic reasons.

Though these reasons are usually enough to convince most countries to switch to the PRC, in the case of El Salvador, there are other reasons as well. From the Taipei Times article linked above:

The FMLN has never forgotten that ARENA founder Roberto D’Aubuisson, who organized and led the death squads which tortured and killed thousands of civilians and who directly ordered the assassination of Archbishop of San Salvador Monsignor Oscar Romero on March 24, 1980 that sparked the civil war, was trained in “police techniques” in Taiwan.

Moreover, unlike Nicaragua, Guatemala or Paraguay, Taiwan has been unable to develop solid political dialogue with the FMLN even under DPP President Chen Shui-bian.

So, while Taiwan has been able to maintain ties with Nicaragua, Guatemala and Paraguay as their governments have taken a left-ward turn, El Salvador will be a much mightier task.

Is there, then, any course of action for Taiwan to stop this from happening? Could the island salvage “dual recognition”, meaning that El Salvador would recognize both the PRC and Taiwan? Not likely. When Francisco Ou, Taiwan’s foreign minister in El Salvador, told reporters the island would indeed be willing to accept this scenario, he was was quickly overrulled by President Ma himself, saying dual recognition “unrealistic.” Beijing has routinely demanded that its diplomatic partners recognize the “One China” principle.

It seems that Ma is wary of ruffling too many feathers in Beijing over El Salvador, even if it means losing one more country from its column.

Image: Tim’s El Salvador Blog