Beijing to maintain attacks on Taiwan's relations: analysts

By Jenny W. Hsu
STAFF REPORTER
Saturday, Jan 19, 2008, Page 3

China will continue to sabotage the nation's international relations regardless of who wins the March presidential election, analysts said yesterday, warning that Beijing will intensify its efforts to lure away the nation's allies in the lead up to the Olympics Games later this year.

At a forum sponsored by Taiwan Thinktank on the nation's foreign affairs issues, Yan Ching-fa (顏進發), chairman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' (MOFA) Research and Planning Committee, said China is using its rapidly growing economic muscle to cut Taiwan's international space and that even a more pro-Beijing administration would not deter China from the process.

"The new government must be amply prepared for the next time Beijing steals one of Taiwan's allies. Taipei must do all it can to strengthen its existing ties because Beijing will never soften its grip on Taiwan," Yan said.

However, he failed to say what Taiwan could offer in exchange for more loyalty from its remaining 23 allies, mostly impoverished countries in Latin America and Africa.

Lai I-chung (賴怡忠), deputy-director of the Democratic Progressive Party's Department of International Affairs, said in order to prevent a potentially embarrassing Olympic Games in August, Beijing would take every measure possible to make sure that all the participating countries at its "coming-out party" were China-friendly.

"It would be an embarrassment for Beijing to have Taiwan's diplomatic allies show up at the Games because it would infer that Taiwan is an independent, sovereign country with its own diplomatic policies," he said. "It would be a slap in the face for Beijing to have to host countries that recognize Taiwan."

Soochow University political science professor Luo Chih-cheng (羅致政) said many of Taiwan's diplomatic allies may travel to Beijing to get closer to China prior to August under the guise of talking about the Beijing Olympics.

Luo decried China's continual oppression of Taiwan, but agreed that MOFA had "much room for improvement" in cementing the nation's foreign relations.

Referring to the recent severance of relations with Malawi, when the African nation delayed telling Taipei about its plan to recognize Beijing until Monday when President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) was out of the country on a diplomatic trip, Luo asked why the ministry had not broken relations with Malawi when it knew about its intentions two weeks previously.

Luo said that if the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) wins the presidential election in March the party should launch a dialogue with Beijing about Taiwan's "diplomatic space," not its "international space."

"Even NGO's have international space. But what Taiwan really needs is breathing room to establish formal diplomatic relations with other countries in the world," he said.