Taiwan Relationship & Its Potential Impact on Somaliland

Thinking Taiwan is a tiny unrecognized island country not far from mainland China, a lot of Somaliland people and still some in the Horn of Africa region wonder why did Somaliland choose at this time, when striving to be endorsed and acknowledged as a recognized state, to establish a relationship with Taiwan, which could undermine that goal?

Those who think so do not dive deep enough  into the issue and miss to look at the whole picture, as Taiwan is an economic powerhouse with an influential weight in the political sphere as well. Taiwan is a heavyweight force to be reckoned with when it comes to the global trade and Somaliland is fortunate to have forged a relationship with Taiwan. The theme of this piece is to shed light on that reality.

Taiwan is a small country like Somaliland that does not have international recognition, but maintains close economic and political ties with many countries in the world. Taiwanese passport is recognized as a legal travel document  by many countries, and it is ranked as the nineteenth country with a strong economy or GDP-PPP (Gross Domestic Products- Purchasing Power Parity) worth $1.34 Trillion.

Taiwan is one of the four fastest growing economies between the 1960s and 1990s, known as Asian Tigers, or Asian Miracle. They are Taiwan, South Korea, Hong-Kong and Singapore. Taiwan has chosen to specialize in and has made great strides in the knowledge of modern electronic technology. For instance, Taiwan’s electronics giant companies are the best in the world, like TSCM (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing) – a company that makes semiconductor chips, smart phones and electronic devices, and most inner parts of smartphones, computers,  and electronics are products made by this company.

Similarly, Foxconn is another Taiwanese giant manufacturer of smartphones, computers and electronics, that has factories and offices in many countries around the world. In China alone, for example, it is the largest employer with one million and 300,000 Chinese workforce on its payroll. It makes the iPhone, Xiaomi, BlackBerry, Notebooks, and Tablets like Kindle and many more inside China as well as electronic core components for computers like CPUs and motherboards. In 2012, the company earned a revenue of between $130 – $ 140 billion.

Of the top ten largest information technology companies in the world, six are based and owned in Taiwan: FoxConn, Pegatron, Winstron, New Kinpo Group, ASE (USI) and Plexus.

At the same time, both Evergreen and Yang Ming Marine of Taiwan are among the world’s largest shipping companies carrying thousands of containers each year. Likewise, the international shipping container vessels include CSBC and Jong Shyn, both based in Taiwan, and so Taiwan’s Lungteh company that makes warships and  patrol boats.

Other areas where Taiwan has made significant progress include healthcare, agriculture, fisheries and education. Taiwan is ahead of many developed countries, including some of the world’s best economies, in terms of the management and provision of healthcare to its citizens. Everyone in Taiwan has a healthcare insurance card providing access to high quality basic as well as specialized healthcare systems and free prescription medicine programs.

In terms of agriculture, that small island country of Taiwan grows most of its food and exports the surplus to the outside world. Her annual exports to the US amounts to  $5.4 billion in agricultural and fisheries. At the same time, Taiwan has made great strides in fisheries, especially in the production of fish farms.

Most governments, in the world,  run in deficit and accumulate public debt rather than having savings.  Few countries are exceptional and have been able to save money. Hence, that savings they invest in projects that they consider to be profitable. The Taiwan government is the sixth largest country in the world with a Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF). The top five are oil producing nations with the exception of China. They are: Norway (Government Pension Fund) with $ 1 Trillion, Abu Dhabi (Abu Dhabi Investment Authority) with $ 828 billion; China Investment Corporation has $ 813.5 billion; Kuwait (Kuwait Investment Authority) with $ 524 billion, and Saudi Arabia (SAMA Foreign Holdings) with $ 514 billion.

In contrast, Somaliland is an internationally unrecognized country with limited resources., but she is an independent, sovereign, and democratic nation like Taiwan. At the same time, Somaliland is a country in the Red Sea Corridor which is important for global economic integration and movement, and strategically enjoys close proximity to the home of the only Chinese overseas military base, as the obvious resurgence of the Cold War enhances the importance of this region.

At the same time, Somaliland and China can never be allies, because China has sided with Somalia against Somaliland’s independence, and it has presence in Djibouti. Therefore, first it is in our interest to support Taiwan, which is a close friend of the United States and the West.

Moreover Somaliland is the gateway to Africa and can easily serve as the bridge linking Taiwan and the West to the rest in the continent of Africa. Thus, the people of Somaliland should understand the value of the geopolitical location that we live in. We should never see ourselves as an unrecognized and impoverished country that is pegging Taiwan. But we must have to come up with and devise plans that work for both nations.

Further, Taiwan is a democratic country whose government is accountable to their people and cannot spend its fiscal revenue on their own as they wish. However, the Taiwanese government and their private companies have a lot of resources to invest in Somaliland provided right investment plans benefiting us are presented.

Now the world is split into two blocks: democracies that value freedom of speech as well as free economy markets and dictatorships such as China, which controls the economy and politics. . Somaliland is just aligning herself with world order.

So, this alliance between Somaliland and Taiwan will be a pilot test. If it  goes well, then many African and third countries will break away from China, taking this route otherwise the Chinese side would win

Interesting, some people in Somaliland think that if we establish a relationship with Taiwan, China would stand in the way of our recognition, but that may not necessarily be the case. Often people confuse recognition with the  membership of sovereign states organizations such as the United Nations. Existing sovereign countries extend recognition to the newly born countries, and the United Nations does not has the authority to recognize any new states. Kosovo and Palestine membership to the United Nations have been denied on different grounds and by different member states. Kosovo is blocked by Russia and Palestine by the United States. Kosovo is a breakaway region from Serbia where Serbs and Russians descend from  the same people, who share the same religion Eastern Orthodox and same ancestral route to Slavs. The Palestine struggle is well known and unique in many ways, but the Somaliland quest is not like that of Kosovo or Palestine. Somaliland has been in the past recognized as a state before it decided to unite with Somalia forming the Somali Republic, and now since May 18, 1991 has been a separate and distinct authority from Somalia for the past thirty years.

Finally, if African countries recognize Somaliland and take its case to the United Nations and African Union, I am sure neither China nor Russia will oppose that move because China wants to improve relations with African countries, and at the same time, African countries and China are not in a collision course in the same way China and the United States or Russia and the United States are.

Be on the lookout for the next piece examining the potential economic cooperation between Somaliland and Taiwan

By Omer A Yussuf with some contribution from Ahmed J Yassin

“This piece published originally in Somali on Booddaalenews”