China’s stunning new campaign to turn the world against Taiwan
FOR THOSE anxious about Chinese aggression towards the self-ruled island of Taiwan, there was a welcome signal at the end of Donald Trump’s third week back in the White House. After talks with Ishiba Shigeru, the Japanese prime minister, on February 7th, the two leaders said America and Japan “opposed any attempts to unilaterally change the status quo by force or coercion” in relation to Taiwan, which China claims as its own.
This steely new language was a victory in America’s long quest to get its allies to show more solidarity with Taiwan. Yet in the battle for global backing over the island’s fate, China is rapidly gaining ground. By The Economist’s count, 70 countries have now officially endorsed both China’s sovereignty over Taiwan and, just as crucially, that China is entitled to pursue “all” efforts to achieve unification, without specifying that those efforts should be peaceful. Moreover, the vast majority of those countries have adopted that new wording in the past 18 months, after a Chinese diplomatic offensive across the global south.
Our findings are consistent with those in a recent study by the Lowy Institute, an Australian think-tank. It found that by the end of last year 119 countries—62% of the UN’s member-states—had endorsed China’s preferred wording for accepting its claim to sovereignty over Taiwan. Of them, 89 also backed China’s unification efforts, with many supporting “all” such measures. (The Lowy Institute study did not quantify the latter group or specify when they adopted this expansive language.)
China’s latest diplomatic push appears to be designed to secure global support for its broadening campaign of coercion against Taiwan. That campaign includes the threat of imposing a quarantine or inspection regime on Taiwan (huge Chinese military drills in October practised a blockade). A full-scale invasion does not appear imminent, but American officials say that China’s leader, Xi Jinping, has ordered his generals to have the capability to invade Taiwan by 2027.
China wants protection from the sanctions that Western officials have discussed imposing in the event of a Taiwan crisis. By ensuring much of the world recognises the legitimacy of its actions, it makes it unlikely that sanctions or even censure could be imposed via the UN. It also means that global compliance with Western-led sanctions might be even lower than has been the case after Russia’s attack on Ukraine.
“It is plausible to conclude that nearly half of UN member-states have, intentionally or not, formally endorsed a PRC (People’s Republic of China) takeover of the island,” noted Benjamin Herscovitch, a former Australian defence official, in the Lowy Institute study. How these countries would actually respond is unclear, he adds, but China would probably “portray these countries as having given the green light for its use of force”.
The 70 countries adopting the most pro-China language span Asia, Europe, Africa, Oceania and Latin America; 97%, including South Africa, Egypt and Pakistan, are in the global south. In many of these countries, China has secured access to critical natural resources and financed ports and other transport projects through its Belt and Road infrastructure scheme.
Among the most recent examples is Sri Lanka, where Chinese companies have invested in two strategically important ports. When its president, Anura Kumara Dissanayake, visited China in January a joint statement said, for the first time, that Sri Lanka “firmly supports all efforts by the Chinese government to achieve national reunification”. That replaced a more vague phrase in a joint statement in 2024, which backed China’s efforts to “safeguard its sovereignty and territorial integrity”. Similar new wording appeared in a joint statement with Nepal in December.
One of China’s biggest coups came in September, when 53 African governments signed a statement in Beijing. They agreed that Taiwan was Chinese territory and said that Africa “firmly supports all” China’s unification efforts. At the previous such summit, in 2021, they did not explicitly mention Taiwan but backed “resolving territorial and maritime disputes peacefully”.
Even Malaysia, which has its own territorial dispute with China and typically avoids taking sides on Taiwan, has leaned towards the Chinese position. In a joint statement in June 2024 Malaysia used new language recognising Taiwan as Chinese territory “in order for China to achieve national reunification”. It stopped short of endorsing “all” unification measures, but dropped an earlier call for “peaceful” efforts to that end.
The shift suggests that China’s influence in the global south continues to grow even as its overseas lending has declined and many developing countries have had problems servicing Chinese loans. America and its allies, meanwhile, have failed to incentivise poor countries to resist Chinese pressure over Taiwan, partly because of a reluctance (until Mr Trump came back) to link aid to foreign-policy goals.
Because there are so many developing countries, they could play a decisive role in judging the legitimacy of any Chinese act of aggression against Taiwan—and of any American-led attempt to intervene. China would rally support for its actions at the UN, while America and its allies would urge members to join them in condemning China and imposing sanctions. And the West, it seems, would face a far tougher battle than it did in March 2022, when 141 of 193 UN members backed a resolution in the General Assembly demanding Russia’s withdrawal from Ukraine.
China’s diplomatic offensive appears to be linked to the war in Ukraine, says Ja Ian Chong of the National University of Singapore. “Looking at the diplomatic isolation Russia faced, they’d prefer to avoid that,” and to ensure that China-friendly countries continue to supply oil and other resources (or allow trans-shipment through their ports) in a conflict over Taiwan, he says. Besides, he adds, China “likes to appear legitimate”.
Dr Chong did a study of national positions on Taiwan in February 2023. That did not include countries that supported all China’s unification efforts, because there were so few then. But it found that 51 accepted China’s preferred formula for defining its sovereignty claim over Taiwan. China appears to have won over at least 68 more countries since then, judging by the figures from the Lowy Institute study and one published on January 17th by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), a London-based think-tank.
Among those adopting firmer language is Russia, which has become increasingly reliant on Chinese imports to offset Western sanctions since its invasion of Ukraine. Still, even though others with close ties to China, such as North Korea and Serbia, have endorsed “all” China’s unification efforts, Russia has held back, endorsing only “initiatives” to that end.
China has won other linguistic concessions, too. Some countries have adopted its preferred wording on Tibet, referring to it only as Xizang, the anglicised version of its Mandarin name, which Chinese officials have been trying to promote.
China exaggerates the level of international support for its position on Taiwan, claiming there is a “universal” consensus in its favour. And some foreign officials may be unaware of the new wording’s nuances, cautions Meia Nouwens of the IISS. She links China’s efforts to its armed forces’ recent focus on what they call the “three warfares”—psychological, public opinion and legal—in preparing for a Taiwan conflict.
China may also fear that its sovereignty claim is increasingly being challenged by the West. Japan is among several American allies that have recently made firmer and more frequent statements criticising Chinese military pressure on Taiwan and backing “meaningful” participation in the UN for the island, which is not a member. Bonnie Glaser of the German Marshall Fund, a think-tank, notes that much of Europe has recently woken up to the potential economic cost of Taiwan conflict. “There have been conversations in many capitals about how countries can contribute to strengthening deterrence” and impose costs on China in a war, she says.
Words as weapons
A more recent concern for China is that Mr Trump could coerce some countries to change their positions on Taiwan. Panama, for example, switched diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China in 2017 and signed up to Mr Xi’s Belt and Road infrastructure scheme the same year. But on February 6th, under pressure from Mr Trump, Panama withdrew from Belt and Road. It is also conducting an audit of a China-linked company that controls ports adjacent to the Panama Canal.
Of course, America could simply bypass the UN if China attacked or blockaded Taiwan. American forces could unilaterally block shipping to and from China. But America will also need access to bases, ports and other facilities in the global south, especially the Indo-Pacific. And if a large majority of countries view its response as illegitimate, even some of its allies might waver. It has been hard enough for the West to sustain international solidarity with Ukraine, whose sovereignty was not in dispute before Russia invaded. The battle for global support on Taiwan will be even harder-fought. And China is already on the advance. ■
Editor’s note (February 2nd 2025): This piece has been changed to clarify that 119 countries have endorsed China’s preferred wording for accepting its claim to sovereignty over Taiwan.