A potential switch may become part of discourse leading up to the Pacific archipelago’s March 2019 elections.
The News Lens
Date: 2018/09/08
By: By James Batley, The Interpreter
Photo: Taiwan Presidential Office
Over the last couple of years Taiwan has been steadily hemorrhaging diplomatic allies. Countries from Africa, Central America and the Caribbean have switched allegiance to Beijing, leaving just 17 countries maintaining formal relations with Taipei. The largest bloc of such countries is in the Pacific, comprising Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau, Solomon Islands and Tuvalu.
Following an address at the Australian National University this year, Solomon Islands Prime Minister Rick Hou ruled out any diplomatic switch ahead of his country’s national elections, which are due to be held by about March 2019.
Photo: Taiwan Presidential OfficePresident Tsai Ing-wen (R) welcomes Manasseh Sogavare, the former Prime Minister of the Solomon Islands, in Taipei. Sogavare was succeeded in 2017 by Rick Hou.
Even so, the approach of the elections seems to have stimulated thinking in Solomon Islands about the merits of a future switch. There is increasing chatter about the prospect that Solomon Islands may be the first of Taiwan’s Pacific dominoes to fall.
Taiwan faces a number of challenges in shoring up its links with Solomon Islands. For the past couple of decades, Taiwan has invested heavily in Solomon Islands’ political elite through its support for the notorious “constituency development funds,” that is, discretionary funds provided for Members of Parliament to spend in their own constituencies. [FULL STORY]
