Taiwan had a fairly torrid summer in terms of Chinese gray zone pressure, with continued military activity around the island, and new and increased efforts to exert some form of judicial control over Taiwanese waters.
But amid this, a separate battle of wills has also been playing out. Taiwan has also faced significant diplomatic pressure — efforts to constrict its international space and presence. Curiously, though, these haven’t worked.
Office in Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea announced on July 16 that it was going to close Taiwan’s representative office in the country immediately.
A letter dated to July 15 but published on Foreign Minister Justin Tkatchenko’s Facebook the next day stated:
“The Marape-Rosso Government has officially announced the immediate cessation of operations and the formal closure of the physical presence of the Chinese Taipei Economic Office (Taiwan) in the country.”
Tkatchenko noted in the post that 2026 is the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties with China. The letter said the foreign minister had already informed the Chinese ambassador to Papua New Guinea of the decision. China said that it highly appreciated the move.
Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it had not been told in advance and would talk to the Papua New Guinea government, but that the office would remain open, per Nikkei Asia.
In the days that followed, Taiwan announced it would reassess its purchases of natural gas from Papua New Guinea. It then halted spot purchases, gas bought on the open market at short notice. Long-term contracts were not impacted.
Despite all this, there is no evidence that the Taiwan office has actually closed. A call to the office made on September 16 was answered, but Domino Theory was told there was no comment when asked if the office remained open, and if the person speaking was physically in Papua New Guinea. The Foreign Ministry in Taipei didn’t reply when asked about the matter.
Passports in Africa
Three different African countries have said they will not recognize Taiwanese passports this summer.
Taiwanese scholars who arrived in Kenya on June 14 for a conference were detained and effectively deported after the organizers of the Our Ocean Conference said they did not recognize their passports. Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry accused China of pressuring Kenya to block the scholars’ participation.
“Any person purporting to hold a Taiwanese passport would ordinarily not be allowed through our borders for lacking proper documentation,” Kenya’s principal secretary for Foreign Affairs, Korir Sing’oei, said on June 17, reiterating that Kenya recognizes only one China.
However, Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry said on July 2 it had received no reports of Taiwanese being denied entry.
On July 23, the Moroccan Embassy in Japan announced it had suspended visa applications for Taiwanese travelers (there is no Morocco office in Taipei). On July 30, Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry announced it was ceasing visa applications by Moroccans in retaliation.
On August 11, Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry said it was negotiating with Morocco, adding that it was not clear the suspension directly targeted Taiwan, as other countries were also affected. Morocco does not appear to have publicly commented.
The passports of three Taiwanese nationals were confiscated on entry to Uganda on August 12. According to Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry, Ugandan officials demanded that they “produce Chinese passports to receive entry stamps before having their Taiwan passports returned, stating that the measure was part of Uganda’s ‘one China policy.’” The Taiwanese travelers were still allowed to enter the country. In a separate undated incident, two Taiwanese passports were confiscated, with one holder being immediately deported.
There is no record of Uganda publicly addressing the issue. A Chinese government spokesperson reportedly said that Taiwanese were Chinese citizens and could contact the Chinese Embassy for assistance.
Taiwan advised its citizens to postpone travel to Uganda. The passports were returned on August 19. On August 27, Taiwan announced it would reopen visa applications for residents of Uganda. But visa applications had not been suspended as a result of the passport issue. Visa control measures were introduced on June 2 due to an Ebola outbreak, for an initial period of 90 days.
Pavilion in Korea
On August 17, Taiwan’s Ministry of Culture announced it was protesting a name change of the Taiwan pavilion at the Gwangju Biennale, a contemporary art festival that features national pavilions. The name was changed to the NTMoFA Pavilion, after the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, which was organizing the display. The ministry put specific emphasis on Gwangju’s place in Korea’s democratization process, saying the “organizer’s political censorship” ran counter to its values.
Although the Culture Ministry did not explicitly threaten to withdraw, it insisted on participating under the name Taiwan pavilion. Installation work paused, although it’s not clear whose responsibility this was.
By August 26, the issue was resolved in Taiwan’s favor, with the biennale restoring the name to Taiwan Pavilion. Somewhat predictably, the Chinese pavilion then stopped installation work.
On August 31, the city of Gwangju reaffirmed its position that it firmly respects the “One China” principle, according to No Cut News, and said that the name did not mean the city of the biennale recognized Taiwan as a state.
China withdrew from the biennale on September 3, saying the organizers of the Gwangju Biennale had “stubbornly persisted,” and that the Taiwan name violates the one-China principle and “directly damages the political foundation of China-South Korea relations.”
The Korea Times then reported that an unnamed Chinese official expressed concern the situation could develop into a diplomatic row like the deployment of the U.S. THAAD ballistic missile defense system in 2017. That “concern” might be better understood as a barely veiled threat to escalate to the same level of tension.
Forum in Palau
The Pacific Islands Forum took place from August 31 to September 3 in Palau. Supposed to be a gathering of the 18 leaders of member countries, it was marred by the absence of five of them, and the departure of a sixth only hours after he arrived due to a domestic political crisis.
The reason why may have been the presence of Taiwan’s foreign minister, Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍). Taiwan has traditionally attended the forum as an external partner, but last year when the event was in the Solomon Islands, a country close to China under its then-leader Jeremiah Manele, all external partners including Taiwan were uninvited.
Palau is one of Taiwan’s only remaining diplomatic allies, so its insistence on Taiwanese participation is not a surprise. But the willingness of other leaders to stay away from an important regional forum perhaps is.
Asked how large a problem he thought foreign interference was in regards to the leaders’ absence, New Zealand’s foreign minister, Winston Peters, said “You’d be defying gravity and logic if you said it wasn’t a big problem.”
China’s envoy to the Pacific, Qian Bo (錢波), warned there would be consequences over Taiwan’s inclusion. This “likely means tourism bans, frozen loans, and delayed projects for anyone who sat in the same room as Taiwan’s foreign minister,” Gregory Brown, Director of the Alliance Futures Initiative, a Washington-based think tank, told RFA.
“The PIF should not be turned into a stage for geopolitical rivalry,” Chen Hong (陳弘), director of the Australian Studies Center of East China Normal University, told Chinese state media Global Times, referring to Pacific Islands Forum by an acronym.
“Whenever China goes to a party, it makes itself as if it’s the host and China ruins the whole atmosphere of the party,” Taiwanese Foreign Minister Lin said while in Palau.
Taiwan in the World
Taiwan has had other wins and losses this year. Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) made a surprise trip to Italy last week to attend a democracy forum, a rare case of the vice president being able to visit a country which is neither a diplomatic ally nor the U.S.
On the other side of the ledger, President Lai Ching-te (賴清德) was initially prevented from visiting ally Eswatini in Africa after three Indian Ocean countries denied him permission to fly through their flight identification regions (Domino Theory has written about why this explanation for what happened is a bit problematic). Lai later traveled to and from Eswatini in a Swati plane.
These repeated efforts to restrict Taiwan and Taiwanese internationally have mostly come from third countries rather than China directly and have often not been openly attributed to Beijing. Possibly this acting at a distance is why the efforts haven’t succeeded. Taiwan’s office in Papua New Guinea appears to still be open. Taiwanese can travel to Uganda on a Taiwanese passport. You can visit the Taiwan Pavilion at the Gwangju Biennale right now.
Perhaps it wasn’t such a bad summer after all.
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