Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

DATE=5/27/03

TYPE=DATELINE

TITLE=HAITI AND TAIWAN

BYLINE=ROBERT DAGUILLARD

TELEPHONE=202-619-1101

DATELINE=WASHINGTON

EDITOR=CAROL CASTIEL

CONTENT=

DISK: DATELINE THEME [PLAYED IN STUDIO, FADED UNDER DATELINE HOST VOICE OR PROGRAMMING MATERIAL]

HOST: The People's Republic of China and Taiwan have been competing for diplomatic recognition from the international community since the two governments split in 1949, at the end of the Chinese civil war. Each entity claims sovereignty over all of China. Nowadays, most countries recognize the Beijing government. But some nations have chosen instead to maintain full diplomatic ties with the island republic, located on the other side of the Taiwan Straits. In today's Dateline, Robert Daguillard looks at how Taiwan is using economic incentives to maintain a presence on the world's diplomatic scene.

TAPE: CUT 1, Roadside NATSOT

RD: A 10-kilometer, paved road separates the international airport near Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti, from the city center. Multi-colored "tap-tap" buses, most of them modest pickup trucks, ferry passengers to and from downtown under the Caribbean sun.

TAPE: CUT 2, Music

RD: The bustling airport road, snaking through the capital's overcrowded neighborhoods, is an example of Taiwanese foreign policy at work. It was built earlier this year, thanks to a 27-million dollar loan from Taiwan, officially known as the Republic of China.

The airport road also illustrates a close relationship between Taiwan and Haiti, one that rests on a rare and very specific foundation. In return for diplomatic recognition, the Republic of China, in effect a pariah state, gives badly needed aid to Haiti, one of the world's poorest countries. Each country faces a special challenge and needs the other to confront it with some measure of success.

Haiti has a barren soil, no minerals, no tourism industry to speak of and almost nothing to export. The official unemployment rate is 60 percent and thousands of Haitians take to the sea every year, on rafts, to make the perilous journey to a better life in the United States.

Meanwhile, only 28 countries have full diplomatic ties with Taiwan, an island republic that split from the mainland in 1949, at the end of the Chinese civil war.

By contrast, more than 150 countries, including the United States, Britain, Germany, Russia and Japan, have chosen to have full diplomatic ties with the People's Republic of China, the communist Beijing government, which considers Taiwan a rebel province.

In 1971, Taiwan was forced out of the United Nations when the General Assembly voted to award its seat on the U-N Security Council to China. The bulk of the international community thus acted in the logic of Beijing's "One China" policy, which states no country can have relations with both Chinese governments. Haiti bucked the trend.

Leslie Voltaire, a Haitian cabinet minister, has traveled to Taiwan with his country's last two presidents:

TAPE: CUT 3, Voltaire

"It's a tradition. The Taiwanese have been very nice with us in a sense that they have 28 countries that recognize them and they are fighting to be a state in the United Nations. They keep their cooperation with Haiti and they don't give us any reason to look after continental China. We have a cooperation that gives us more or less 50 million dollars every two or three years and it can be according to our needs or our desires."

RD: Fifty million dollars every two or three years may not sound like a lot, but consider this: The total budget of the Haitian government stands at a little less than 250 million dollars a year. Therefore, in any given year, Taiwan supplies a vital portion of Haiti's public funds.

All industrialized nations have economic aid and cooperation programs with developing countries. But apparently, Taiwan is alone in doing so at least partly so it can fly a flag over its very own embassy in a foreign capital.

In Haiti, that diplomatic mission lies in a residential neighborhood in the town of Petion-Ville, which lies in the hills above Port-au-Prince. There, Ambassador Hsieh Hsin Ping explains that his country, a prosperous and industrialized democracy, can do a lot for Haiti.

TAPE: CUT 4, Hsieh

"Cooperation between our two countries is very intensive and very close. It's very important for us because, you know, Taiwan, before, was also very poor and we got a lot of help from other countries. And with our government's politics (policies?) and with our people working hard, today, we are capable of doing something for other countries."

RD: At first sight, there may be no compelling reason for Taiwan to seek full diplomatic relation from any country: Taiwan has extensive trade relations with the outside world, even with the People's Republic of China. Its citizens can travel anywhere, including to the Chinese mainland. Taiwan belongs to the World Trade Organization and it sends teams to international sporting events all the time.

Most importantly, the United States says it is committed to helping Taiwan defend itself in case China tries to claim control by force, even though Washington has no formal diplomatic ties with Taipei.

However, even with U-S protection, China continues to claim Taiwan is nothing more than a renegade province. Richard Bush is a China expert at the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based research institute.

TAPE CUT 5, Bush

"The government in Taiwan, the Republic of China, believes that in order to maintain a strong vis-a-vis the P-R-C, in a negotiation with each other, it is important to have some kind of international identity. If Taiwan completely lost its international identity, if it had diplomatic relations with no one, then, they fear, it would be easier for Beijing to make the claim "oh, you're just a part of us, you're just subordinate to us, because we are the only Chinese government that represents something called China in the international community."

RD: Taiwan, a small island republic, is facing a formidable foe in the Beijing regime, which controls a large country of one-point-three billion inhabitants. But the Republic of China's "underdog" status is appealing to some Haitians, whose country became independent in 1804, after the only successful slave revolt in history. Lionel Desgranges was Chief of Staff to Haiti's then-President Leslie Manigat in 1988:

TAPE: CUT 6, Desgranges, In French, Fades

"He says the way in which Haiti achieved its independence helped create a collective Haitian psychology, a sort of "David complex" under which the country and its citizens feel close to the weak and threatened. Therefore, he says, Haitians naturally identify with Taiwan, just as they have in the past with Israel, surrounded by hostile neighbors or with Ethiopia, which once faced Italian occupation."

RD: Haiti's stance does not mean it is completely neglecting relations with Beijing. Leslie Voltaire says the People's Republic of China has made an effort to enhance its presence in the Caribbean and Central America, where Taiwan still has the most allies:

TAPE: CUT 7, Voltaire

"They have made efforts in the Caribbean and in Haiti. We have a trade mission. We have trade with continental China. We have not an Ambassador, but a representative, a commercial attache in Beijing, and we are doing business with them, but not on a diplomatic level."

RD: Experts say there is almost a consensus in Haiti for maintaining full relations with Taiwan. Lionel Desgranges says changing sides and opening an embassy in Beijing would not even make sense for the Port-au-Prince government:

TAPE: CUT 8, Desgranges, in French, fades.

"Mr. Desgranges says he lived for several years in Ivory Coast, a relatively prosperous West African state that is the world's top cocoa producer. He says it was perfectly logical for that country to break relations with Taiwan and grant full diplomatic recognition to Beijing. Ivory Coast, he says was looking for bigger markets for its products. Haiti does not have that option because it has almost nothing to export.

RD: The relationship has endured, regardless of the political regime in either Taiwan or Haiti. For many years, there were rumors, never verified, that Taiwanese economic aid grants found their way into the pockets of high-ranking Haitian officials while the Republic of China look the other way.

But Ambassador Hsieh insists that now, with Taiwan having completed a successful transition to democracy, things have changed:

TAPE: CUT 9, Hsieh

"For example, for us to donate this money, first, we would like to check this project, because every year, we have a cooperation project. And this project should be studied, approved by the committee we call 'Comite de Pilotage.'"

RD: In fact, Taiwan continues to donate to its longtime Caribbean ally even though industrialized countries have now frozen most aid to Haiti because of alleged anti-democratic practices by the Port-au-Prince government. Ambassador Hsieh says the Republic has no business interfering in Haiti's internal affairs. To do so, he says, would only help worsen the lot of the Haitian people. For Dateline, I'm Robert Daguillard.

MUSIC: HAITIAN MUSIC