Taipei, Managua in ‘Odd Couple’ Situation : Taiwan’s Ties: Strange Bedfellows

Nationalist China and Nicaragua must qualify as one of the oddest couples in the community of nations.

The Taiwan-based Nationalists--exiles from the mainland as a result of the Chinese Communist victory 35 years ago--are fervently capitalistic and dependent on close if unofficial ties to the United States. The Sandinista rulers of Nicaragua are Marxist and hardly fond of Washington.

Yet despite such deep differences, Nicaragua’s leftist government continues to recognize Taiwan, rather than the Communist administration in Peking, as the legitimate government of China. And Taiwan is carefully keeping up its diplomatic ties, trade and loan agreements with Nicaragua.

Keeps Communists Out

“Our presence there (in Managua) prevents the Communist Chinese from getting in,” Chang Ching-yu, director of Taiwan’s government information office, said not long ago. “Otherwise, you would have a much greater Marxist influence inside Nicaragua.”

Its relations with the Sandinistas illustrate the complexities and anomalies in Taiwan’s foreign policy these days, as it seeks to preserve its continuing claim as the rightful government of all China.

At the moment, only 26 countries have diplomatic relations with Taiwan--the largest being South Korea, Saudi Arabia and South Africa. The United States severed official relations in 1979 in favor of Peking.

Chinese Nationalist officials and some foreign analysts note that Taipei also has substantive, though unofficial, relations with about 50 other nations and that these ties have, in fact, improved in recent years.

Through non-government agencies like the American Institute in Taiwan, many of the world’s major countries maintain missions here to handle trade and other matters with Taiwan, which now ranks 13th in international trade.

‘So Few Left’

Still, these ties are unofficial. Taiwan is going to great lengths to keep up all the formal diplomatic ties it has.

“It is our policy to maintain relations with all non-Communist countries,” Chang, the information official, said.

A foreigner living here explained: “If they’ve got a diplomatic relationship, it’s very important to them because they’ve got so few left. It’s all tied up with their claim to sovereignty. . . .”

Taiwan’s effort to preserve its international position produces some curious diplomatic friendships. For example, one of its strongest supporters overseas is South Africa, a country that separates the races under its apartheid laws. South Africa has classified Chinese, both from Taiwan and the mainland, as Colored (mixed-race) and has accorded them fewer rights and privileges than it does whites.

In 1976, Taiwan and South Africa upgraded their diplomatic relations to the ambassadorial level, and the two governments soon afterward signed a series of agreements on aviation, commerce, and science and technology.

Taiwan has bought uranium from South Africa for the nuclear power plants on which it relies for a significant part of its electric power. The two have repeatedly denied reports that they are working together in developing a nuclear weapons program.

‘Honorary Whites’

A young Chinese Nationalist official just back from an educational exchange program in Johannesburg said that as a result of quiet diplomacy by his government, South Africa’s apartheid laws have been modified to the point that Chinese are now classified as “honorary whites.”

There are 11,000 Chinese living in South Africa. Last year, as the result of lobbying by Taiwan and the Chinese Assn. of South Africa, the South African Parliament amended the Group Areas Act, one of the basic apartheid laws, to permit Chinese to live, work and own property in white areas without obtaining special permission. The change would also permit Chinese to use schools, hospitals and other facilities from which they have been excluded.

(However, Chinese Assn. and Taiwan sources in South Africa told Times reporter Michael Parks that the legal change has not been implemented, and that Chinese seeking to buy houses and shops in white areas have been turned down because of what were called technical difficulties.)

Furthermore, under South African law, marriage between Chinese and whites remains technically illegal, though the police do not, as a matter of policy, prosecute Chinese for violating the Mixed Marriages Act.

Chang was asked about Taiwan’s relations with South Africa, and he described them as “correct,” adding, “Trade is being carried on.”

Courting Islands

The Nationalists have also been courting small island-countries in the Caribbean and the South Pacific in their struggle for international recognition. In the last three years, Taipei has established ties with St. Lucia, St. Christopher and Nevis, and Dominica--all in the Caribbean.

“Even one little island going one way or another makes a difference,” a Western analyst here said.

Taiwan’s most intense efforts to preserve diplomatic recognition have been in Central America, the one region of the world where it has successfully maintained a solid core of diplomatic support. Not only Nicaragua but El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica and Panama recognize the government in Taipei as the government of all China.

Last year, officials of mainland China and Nicaragua reportedly talked about improving their relations, but no change resulted from the meeting.

According to a report last fall in the China Times, the largest newspaper here, Taiwan has provided a $6-million loan to Nicaragua and was talking about a further loan of $3 million. In addition, according to the report, the Nationalists give agricultural aid to Nicaragua.

Managua Ties Important

Francisco Hus, a China Times reporter who visited Nicaragua, wrote that he felt it was important for the Nationalists to maintain their diplomatic relations with Nicaragua.

“The Chinese Communists have been trying to replace us in the (Central American) region,” he said. “Should we lose Nicaragua, this would mean a breakthrough in our entire diplomatic defense in this region.”

A State Department official expressed the view that the relationship between the Chinese Nationalists and Nicaragua “is an anomaly, and it won’t last forever.”

“In the short run,” he said, “things will remain as they are. They (Nationalist officials) are very nervous about any change in Central America. It’s their last remaining bloc.”