{"id":65908,"date":"2022-01-04T21:47:00","date_gmt":"2022-01-04T21:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/arabsiyonews.com\/?p=65908"},"modified":"2022-01-04T21:47:00","modified_gmt":"2022-01-04T21:47:00","slug":"club-of-democracies-starts-with-taiwan-and-somaliland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arabsiyonews.com\/index.php\/2022\/01\/04\/club-of-democracies-starts-with-taiwan-and-somaliland\/","title":{"rendered":"Club of Democracies Starts with Taiwan and Somaliland"},"content":{"rendered":"

I<\/span>t has now been almost 18 months since President Muse Bixi of Somaliland met Taiwanese Foreign Minister Joseph Wu to sign protocols establishing formal ties between the two countries.<\/p>\n

It was a natural match. Both countries suffer international isolation. Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger\u00a0sacrificed<\/a>\u00a0Taiwan\u2019s international status as a concession to build relations with Communist China. Today, no country formally recognizes Somaliland, even though it has existed as an independent country for longer than it was in union with Somalia. Both nations are also democratic. Taiwan disproves Beijing\u2019s argument that democracy is alien to Chinese culture. Somaliland, meanwhile, is among Africa\u2019s most democratic countries. It secures elections with biometric iris scans, and power often shifts among its three political parties.<\/p>\n

Today, the honeymoon continues. The Taiwanese flag flutters atop a villa in central Hargeisa, the capital of Somaliland, next to Horn TV\u2019s compound and across the street from restaurants and other shops. The office is Taiwan\u2019s\u00a0de facto\u00a0<\/i>embassy in Somaliland. A few kilometers further north, just opposite the Maan-Soor Hotel, is the Taiwanese agricultural mission. In Taipei, meanwhile, the Somaliland mission actively arranges academic fellowships and facilitates commercial opportunities.<\/p>\n

As democracy falters worldwide, democracies recognize they cannot take each other and freedom for granted. Unfortunately, when it comes to democracy, the Biden administration too often promotes symbolism over substance. That was the case with Biden\u2019s flagship\u00a0democracy<\/a>\u00a0summit<\/a>\u00a0. In a shameful episode, the summit\u00a0cut the feed<\/a>\u00a0on Taiwan\u2019s speech in an apparent effort to assuage China; the State Department\u2019s assurance that it was unintentional error beggars belief.<\/p>\n

Other nations have set a better example.<\/p>\n

Lithuania is a country that knows tyranny\u2019s trauma. Lithuania may have ties with China but, in November 2021, it also established a representative office with Taiwan to foster trade with East Asia\u2019s third-largest democracy. Chinese Communist authorities responded the only way they know how: with intimidation and pressure.<\/p>\n

Lithuania, however, is not Germany; it values democracy and has principle. Taipei meanwhile promised to support Lithuania in the face of Beijing\u2019s intimidation. Not only should the U.S. do so as well, but also both countries should go further. A network of countries with proven willingness to stand up to China would be stronger and less susceptible to China\u2019s intimidation than simply a series of bilateral relations that Beijing might seek to pry loose one by one.<\/p>\n

Both Taiwan and the United States should, for example, encourage Lithuania to establish ties with Somaliland in order to win investment opportunities in East Africa. Ditto Honduras, Guatemala, St. Lucia, Belize, Palau, Tuvalu, and other countries who have defied China to host embassies in Taiwan. Still, other countries \u2014 Israel, Australia, Japan, South Korea, and France, for example \u2014 have diplomatic offices in Taipei and might be included.<\/p>\n

Not every country with ties to Taiwan is democratic, but a willingness to turn a diplomatic shoulder to Beijing is as good a sign as any for hope. Big countries \u2014 India and Indonesia, for example \u2014 are more immune by virtue of their size from China\u2019s blackmail, but smaller countries operating in tandem can lessen their vulnerability.<\/p>\n

Joe Biden famously swore, \u201cDiplomacy is back.\u201d Until he stops treating this as a throwaway line and instead integrates it into a real strategy, democracies will continue to be vulnerable to Chinese pressure. It is time for a club of democracies with Taiwan at its center.<\/p>\n

By\u00a0<\/em>Michael Rubin<\/p>\n

The Washington Examiner<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It has now been almost 18 months since President Muse Bixi of Somaliland met Taiwanese Foreign Minister Joseph Wu to sign protocols establishing formal ties between the two countries. It was a natural match. Both countries suffer international isolation. Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger\u00a0sacrificed\u00a0Taiwan\u2019s international status as a concession to build relations with Communist […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":65909,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-english-news","category-featured"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/arabsiyonews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Somaliland-Taiwan-Rubin-1.png?fit=442%2C233&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5kp1p-h92","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arabsiyonews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arabsiyonews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arabsiyonews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arabsiyonews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arabsiyonews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65908"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/arabsiyonews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65908\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65910,"href":"https:\/\/arabsiyonews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65908\/revisions\/65910"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arabsiyonews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arabsiyonews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arabsiyonews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arabsiyonews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}