October 22, South Africa had asked Taiwan to move their representative office from Pretoria, all the way to the center of Johannesburg. South Africa wanted this in hopes of establishing more of their diplomatic stance, because South Africa is under the “One China” Policy. So South Africa doesn’t recognize Taiwan as independent and considers them apart of China. So if you couldn’t guess, Taiwan refused to move their office somewhere else. Taiwan has now started to really stand on their stance of being independent from China. There was a point in time where South Africa did have relations with Taiwan but China came and caused South Africa to cut ties with Taiwan. This situation has even brought attention to the U.S. Congress. Tennessee Senator, Marsha Blackburn, has stated that, “The Untied States should not tolerate this behavior from South Africa.” She also brings attention to the idea of South Africa working with the Chinese Communist party, and that there will be consequences if South Africa works with the CCP to bully Taiwan. “The United States must not provide trade benefits to countries that prioritize China’s influence over democratic partnerships.”
I find it quite particularly interesting that South Africa wanted to move their office in order to state more that they believe that Taiwan is apart of China. It is almost like they are mocking Taiwan saying, “Oh hey, since you are apart of China and all we wanted to see if you could move our office closer to the main land. Thanks!” I do find it quite mean and almost bully like. I do wonder what that means for the U.S. relations with South Africa is gonna be. Like Marsha Blackburn said, we don’t want to be friends with a country that likes to work with the Chinese Communist party.
This has definitely left Taiwan outraged and maybe even the U.S. seeing as we have relations with them. It is no secret that China has been working more with South Africa due to the use of resources, and obviously it is working well if they want to move their representative office to stand more with their diplomatic relations with china. Marsha Blackburn speaking about Taiwan though might have angered China as well. I know that China and the U.S. have an agreement to both not to recognize Taiwan as independent, but Blackburn’s statement saying that the U.S. should not be friends with countries that work with the CCP to bully Taiwan, for me it almost feels like she is stating Taiwan as independent. But I could be wrong.
This relates so much to what we talked about in our second unit. Especially with how we had we had kept talking about Taiwan and China as examples of a non-recognized state. This means that Taiwan has their own form of government, they had fend for themselves, they don’t need money from china or anything. The only thing that Taiwan lacks to be a state is the recognition. It doesn’t help that countries that are close or even have agreements with China probably follow under the “One China” Policy, so taiwan getting this recognition is quite little