China has tried to win over eSwatini repeatedly, but the tiny kingdom, previously known as Swaziland, is staying with Taiwan for “diplomatic and political morality” even though it is left standing alone. It is the only African country that maintains diplomatic relations with the Asian island nation after Burkina Faso switched to China in May 2018.
China does not allow countries to have official ties with both itself and Taiwan as it regards the island as a breakaway province that it has vowed to retake, by force if necessary. But the government of eSwatini says it will stick with Taiwan.
A new economic agreement signed last June has just taken effect and will see the southern Africa nation exporting certain goods – including honey and avocados – to Taiwan duty free. “It’s national interest more than anything else,” long-serving eSwatini Government Spokesman Percy Simelane told the BBC in the capital, Mbabane.
“They have been with us since independence and they have contributed immensely to the socio-economic development of this country,” he explained. Taiwan quickly recognised Swaziland when it gained independence from Britain in 1968, leading to an unlikely alliance that has lasted half a century.
In essence, the current dispute between China and Taiwan stems from the technically unfinished Chinese Civil War.
The dispute is further complicated by factors such as different interpretations of post-World War Two and post-Cold War international treaties and settlements.
In 1945, Japan surrendered control of occupied Taiwan and surrounding islands to the Republic of China (ROC). Four years later, the government of Republic of China lost the Chinese mainland in a civil war and fled to Taiwan. The Communists soon founded a rival government – the People’s Republic of China (PRC) – or the China we know today. Nowadays, PRC insists that both Mainland and Taiwan belongs to “one China” and reserves the right to reunite the country.
Taiwan, still formally known as the Republic of China, is arguing that as a democratic society, the ultimate choice lie with the people of Taiwan. ESwatini may be standing its ground in a decades-old dispute between China and Taiwan, but not everyone is all in.
The Communist Party of Swaziland, which refuses to adopt the country’s new name, says both sides are illegitimate and merely propping each other up on the international stage. “The people of Swaziland are kept in a state of poverty [because the government] are using donations that are coming straight from Taiwan,” the party’s international secretary Njabulo Dlamini said.
