Asia Times: Macedonia: Taiwan's lost gambit


	July 11, 2001	atimes.com

China

Macedonia: Taiwan's lost gambit
By Alexander Casella

GENEVA - The mini-war for diplomatic recognition that has been a staple of the China-Taiwan confrontation during the past half century - and which Beijing has for all practical purpose won hands down - took a turn into the absurd when Macedonia became its latest focus.

Over the past 30 months the beleaguered Balkan republic, which China had been one of the first to recognize when it achieved independence from Yugoslavia in 1991, switched its allegiance to Taiwan, only to backtrack, leaving Taiwan with egg on its face and some US$150 million poorer.

Taiwan's improbable Alice-in-Wonderland saga in the murky waters of Macedonian politics started in 1998 during parliamentary elections. Its focus was Vasil Tupurkovski, a member for Macedonia of the previous Yugoslav collective presidency who was running for election under the banner of his newly created Democratic Alternative (DA) party. During the campaign, Tupukovski promised that, if elected, he would bring to Macedonia $1 billion in foreign investment. According to informed sources, Tupurkovski had negotiated a deal with Taiwan to this effect and also received an undisclosed sum of money - an allegation that has never been proven.

The DA won the election and on January 1, 1999, the new prime minister, Ljubco Georgievski, recognized Taiwan. Beijing immediately retaliated both by closing its embassy in the capital Skopje and by vetoing, at the United Nations Security Council on February 25, an extension of the United Nations Preventive Deployment (UNPREDEP) force in Macedonia. This not only brought to an end all UN peacekeeping efforts in Macedonia but also ensured that such a mission could not be resumed unless China lifted its veto.

From day one, Macedonia's recognition of Taiwan ran into internal snags. While Taiwan immediately opened an embassy in Skopje, the then president of Macedonia, Kiro Gligorov, who had been opposed to the recognition but did not have the constitutional power to block it, refused to receive the Taiwanese ambassador, who thus was unable to present his Letters of Credentials. Consequently, Taiwan ended up with an embassy in Skopje but with no accredited ambassador.

In December 1999, new presidential elections were held. Tuporkovski, Taiwan's sponsor, ran but lost the vote the Boris Trajkovski, who was no friend of Taiwan.

By mid-2000, the DA started to split into opposing factions, which led to a new coalition government in the spring of 2001 in which the post of foreign minister went to a member of Gligorov's party who had opposed the recognition of Taiwan. And while Georgievski retained his post as prime minister, he was no longer affiliated with the original DA that had recognized Taiwan and thus felt no obligation in this regard.

What no doubt precipitated the course of events was the current crisis in Macedonia in which a large Albanian minority and the de facto independence of neighboring Kosovo continue to be sources of ethnic tension. At the time when there was talk of North Atlantic Treaty Organization intervention, it was clear that such a presence would only be one of short duration and would then have to be succeeded by a UN peacekeeping operation. Such an intervention would, however, inevitably be vetoed by China at the UN Security Council as long as Skopje maintained its relations with Taiwan.

Thus, China ultimately proved too big for Macedonia to ignore. This political reality signaled the end of Macedonia's brief nuptials to Taiwan, which broke diplomatic relations with Skopje when the Macedonians took the first steps in resuming relations with Beijing.

What possessed Taiwan to embark on the slippery path of Balkan politics relates to the realm of the irrational. Clearly, diplomatic relations with the beleaguered Macedonia would have had no impact whatsoever on the international standing of Taiwan. Conversely, it did have an impact on the purse of the island province. According to informed sources, adding loans, humanitarian assistance and project grants, Taiwan's Macedonia venture cost its taxpayers $150 million. The return on this investment is a resounding zero.

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