Taiwan fears for future as world looks to mainland

Date: 09/10/1997

By Simon Coss

THIS summer's hand-over of Hong Kong can only have been viewed with trepidation in nearby Taiwan.

As the celebrations on the mainland got under way, Chinese Premier Li Peng made it very clear how he saw the future for the island which is now all that is left of a non-Communist China.

“If 'one country two systems' works in Hong Kong and Macau, it should work in Taiwan,” he told a reception in Beijing's Great Hall of the People.

Taiwan is somewhat of an oddity in that for the vast number of states in the world it simply does not exist.

The USA - the island's last major ally - finally signed up with the mainland in 1979 after nearly 30 years of recognising T'ai pei as the only true face of China.

South Africa is set to switch its diplomatic relations to Beijing at the end of the year.

No EU member states recognise Taiwan and the island has no political representation on Union soil.

All 15 governments long ago made the hard-nosed political decision that it was a great deal more useful to be friends with T'ai pei's extremely powerful big brother. This has sometimes caused visa problems for Taiwanese wishing to visit the EU.

But while diplomatic recognition eludes the island, it still manages to keep up healthy trade relations with most of the rest of the world.

“European Community trade policy allows for member states to recognise an area for customs reasons without it being a sovereign country,” explained one EU official.

Indeed Taiwan's Vice President Lien Chan is - much to Beijing's consternation - on a non-diplomatic whistle-stop tour of certain EU member states this week, ostensibly to discuss trade issues.

The island, like China, is also currently engaged in negotiations to join the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

In addition, for somewhere that does not officially exist, Taiwan still seems to be able to call on the support of some fairly hefty allies when it needs to. The US navy's swift deployment to the region last year in response to what were seen as unnecessarily antagonistic Chinese military exercises during the run-up to Taiwanese elections was evidence of that.