I know how: bribes plus the moral turpitude or lassitude of the prospective recipients of the bribes.
We’ll get more detail from a live virtual discussion to be hosted by Atlantic Council at 2:00 p.m. ET on Monday, March 24, 2025. At the same time, the Council’s Global China Hub will release a report on the subject by William Piekos.
The event will begin with “keynote remarks from Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL), Ranking Member of the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party. The Council will then host a discussion among distinguished experts,” including Gervasio Hsu, Peter Mattis, and Margaret Myers. The discussion will be moderated by Melanie Hart, senior director of the Council’s China Hub.
“The panel will explore how China uses economic inducements to pressure countries into supporting Beijing’s policies, particularly on Taiwan and its formal diplomatic partnerships. The panel will provide recommendations to counter China’s economic statecraft in ways that protect the interests of the United States and its allies.”
Prior conclusions
In August 2024, the Global Taiwan Institute tackled this question, reporting that after the election of Tsai Ing-wen as Republic of China president in 2016, “the PRC ended an informal diplomatic truce with Taiwan and began an aggressive campaign to poach Taiwan’s diplomatic partners. Since then, 10 nations have ended their diplomatic relations with Taiwan. In the Pacific, the Solomon Islands and Kiribati recognized China in 2019, followed by Nauru in 2024.”
The Institute identified “four primary indicators that may help predict a shift in diplomatic recognition from the Republic of China (ROC, Taiwan) to the PRC. These indicators include: (1) dollar diplomacy and promises of development assistance from the PRC; (2) requests from the diplomatic partner country for massive financial aid from Taiwan; (3) PRC investment in regional neighbors; and (4) changes in trade patterns between the PRC and Taiwan’s allies.”
These boil down to bribery or what the Atlantic Council calls economic inducements. But bribes don’t work unless the people getting the bribes are susceptible to them. Which in this case requires evading the difference between the PRC and the ROC and evading the consequences of becoming entangled with the former.
Also see:
Atlantic Council: “How Beijing lures Taiwan’s diplomatic partners into switching recognition” (2:00 p.m. ET, March 24, 2025)
Global Taiwan Institute: “Why Countries Abandon Taiwan: Indicators for a Diplomatic Switch”
Los Angeles Times: “How Nixon’s fabled trip to China…led to today’s Taiwan crisis”
Taipei Times: “How Watergate saved Taiwan”
“Archival documents strongly suggest that Nixon was ready to abandon Taiwan in his second term.”
