{"id":81433,"date":"2014-12-11T06:53:21","date_gmt":"2014-12-11T11:53:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/selasite.azurewebsites.net\/taiwan-losing-ground-to-beijing-in-the-caribbean\/"},"modified":"2014-12-11T06:53:21","modified_gmt":"2014-12-11T11:53:21","slug":"taiwan-losing-ground-to-beijing-in-the-caribbean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rmtsolutions.net\/sela\/taiwan-losing-ground-to-beijing-in-the-caribbean\/","title":{"rendered":"Taiwan losing ground to Beijing in the Caribbean"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>San Juan, December 11, 2014 (EFE).- Taiwan is losing ground in the Caribbean, one of its traditional strongholds, as global economic powerhouse China expands its presence in the region, experts told Efe yesterday.<\/p>\n<p\/>    \u00abGlobalization has changed the rules because the financial capabilities of each country are like night and day,\u00bb University of Puerto Rico economist Paul Latortue said in an interview.<\/p>\n<p\/>    The interest of China and Taiwan in the Caribbean region goes back to the decolonization of the islands in the 1970s, as Beijing and Taipei vied for diplomatic recognition from the newly independent countries.<\/p>\n<p\/>    The Chinese government will not maintain diplomatic ties with countries that recognize Taiwan, which Beijing officially regards as a rebel province of China.<\/p>\n<p\/>    Peruvian researcher Alejandro Sanchez told Efe that Taiwan identifies with the Caribbean islands, whereas China sees the region almost exclusively in economic terms.<\/p>\n<p\/>    Latortue said China&#8217;s construction of large ports in the Bahamas and Jamaica is a sign that Beijing wants to expand trade in the region and with the U.S. East Coast.<\/p>\n<p\/>    \u00abChina thinks more about economic development rather than to dominate politically and territorially,\u00bb he said, noting that Taiwan is primarily moved by a concern to maintain diplomatic recognition.<\/p>\n<p\/>    Sanchez, a specialist in international relations for the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, said China aims to expand its economy and invests large sums of money to achieve that goal.<\/p>\n<p\/>    As explained by Sanchez, Caribbean nations&#8217; stance on the China vs. Taiwan diplomatic dispute typically fluctuates with how much money they get from Beijing and Taipei to finance projects.<\/p>\n<p\/>    A clear example is a loan Taiwan gave to Grenada to finance infrastructure, according to a report published in 2012 by Sanchez. In 2005, the Caribbean island, saying that it could not repay Taiwan, chose to recognize China in exchange for financial assistance to prevent the closure of an airport.<\/p>\n<p\/>    \u00abThe Caribbean is easily susceptible to China&#8217;s cash,\u00bb Council on Hemispheric Affairs director Larry Birns said in a phone interview.<\/p>\n<p\/>    Birns, an expert on Latin America, spoke of \u00aba huge amount of corruption happening in the Caribbean\u00bb and said the tendency to play off one country against another is part of a \u00abgame of extortion\u201d.<\/p>\n<p\/>    Another case in point is St. Lucia, which established ties with Taiwan in 1984, but recognized China in 1997, only to switch back to Taipei a decade later.<\/p>\n<p\/>    According to a May 2014 report of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, China&#8217;s aid to the Caribbean is \u00abmodest\u00bb because \u00abthe region does not have the potential to directly affect China&#8217;s primary security interests in Asia\u201d.<\/p>\n<p\/>    \u00abNevertheless,\u00bb the report added, \u00abBeijing likely views the Caribbean as strategically important by virtue of its proximity to the US\u201d.<\/p>\n<p\/>    Birns predicts that \u00abTaiwan is going to be eliminated as a key player\u00bb in the region mainly because \u00abit is not able to keep up with China in terms of high-cost subsidies as well as financial grants\u201d.<\/p>\n<p\/>    Sanchez and Latortue agreed that Caribbean countries will prefer to recognize China diplomatically, turning away from Taiwan.<\/p>\n<p\/>    \u00abThese leaders know how to be pragmatic and they know they can win more with China than with Taiwan,\u00bb Sanchez said.<\/p>\n<p\/>    Latin America and the Caribbean accounted for 12 of the 22 nations that maintained diplomatic relations with Taipei in 2013, according to Taiwan&#8217;s foreign ministry.<\/p>\n<p\/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Taiwan losing ground to Beijing in the Caribbean<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":74019,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-boletines-regionales"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rmtsolutions.net\/sela\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rmtsolutions.net\/sela\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rmtsolutions.net\/sela\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rmtsolutions.net\/sela\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rmtsolutions.net\/sela\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rmtsolutions.net\/sela\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81433\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rmtsolutions.net\/sela\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rmtsolutions.net\/sela\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rmtsolutions.net\/sela\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rmtsolutions.net\/sela\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}