Chinese pressure shreds Taiwan's relationship with South Africa

Just months after Oliver Liao arrived in Pretoria as Taiwan’s de facto ambassador, South Africa began a campaign to downgrade its relationship with the island — thrusting him into the epicenter of a geopolitical drama.

While South Africa decades ago broke formal ties with Taipei in favor of relations with Beijing, now the country wanted to dilute things further, a sign of how the chip hub is increasingly being squeezed on the global stage. In April last year, a formal notice arrived to move Liao’s office from the seat of government to the financial hub of Johannesburg, ending five decades of representation in South Africa’s capital.

Taiwan refused. South Africa, which counts China as its largest trading partner, responded with bureaucratic firepower on an official government website, where it changed the office’s address, wiped all mention of Liao and listed the names of other Taiwanese staff — at least one of whom was dead.

“They put on some names of our staff who have already passed away,” he said in an interview late last month. “Wow.”

The dispute is a stark example of the precarious moment facing Taiwan in a world order upended by the U.S. under Donald Trump. While a global spending boom around artificial intelligence has turbocharged the self-ruled democracy’s position in critical supply chains, even countries that don’t recognize Taipei are becoming more inhospitable as they draw closer to China, the world’s second-largest economy.

Over the past decade, nations ranging from Burkina Faso to Kiribati and Honduras have cut diplomatic ties with Taipei. But, Liao says, with the exception of Nigeria in 2017, Taiwan has been allowed to keep representation in their capitals. That makes his battle in South Africa all the more significant.

Liao’s 7,000 square-meter (75,000 square-foot) residence, roughly equivalent to the size of one soccer field, boasts tennis courts and a dining area for more than 40 people. At the entrance is a tropical fish tank while the garden has a barbecue area installed and a jacaranda tree beginning to burst into purple bloom in the South African spring.

Speaking at his residence in Pretoria’s Waterkloof Ridge, a sleepy diplomatic quarter that houses many ambassadors’ homes — including that of the U.S. nearby and India’s just a block away — the heavy hand of China’s government looms large for Liao.

“Why bother to make such a move? I think it’s very clear,” Liao said of South Africa’s decision. “Common sense tells us who’s behind the scenes.”

South Africa’s Department of International Relations and Cooperation, known as Dirco, didn’t respond to requests for comment. Its minister, Ronald Lamola, said the decision was in line with international practice.

China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun didn’t answer directly when asked at a briefing on Sept. 24 if Beijing had applied pressure on South Africa to close or move the liaison office.

Guo said that “we commend the South African government’s abiding commitment to the One China principle,” the recognition that mainland China and Taiwan make up a single nation governed by Beijing.

The spat began in early 2023, when Dirco tore up a 1997 agreement forged with Taipei by former President Nelson Mandela — a deal which, according to Taiwan, among other things allows it to keep the liaison office name and location in Pretoria. Instead, the government agency began to demand Liao’s office be downgraded and moved about 35 miles (56 kilometers) to Johannesburg, where Taiwan already has a small trade mission.

Taiwan has been refusing to comply, with the deadline for the relocation extended from October 2024 to March this year. Then, on July 21, Dirco issued an official notice unilaterally changing the name to the Taipei Commercial Office and backdating the decision to March 31.

“Abandoning the existing agreement is literally a denial of Madiba’s wisdom given that the existing agreement was so delicately and wisely crafted,” Liao said, using Mandela’s clan name. “They made so much effort to come up with that agreement with Taiwan in order to preserve the friendship and collaboration.”

Now, that relationship is in tatters. In an unprecedented move, Taiwan on Sept. 23 slapped a ban on its semiconductor chip exports to South Africa, saying Pretoria’s actions “undermined its national and public security,” before suspending it two days later to allow further talks.

For Africa’s most industrialized economy and many others, staying in China’s good graces invariably comes at Taiwan’s expense.

With the Trump administration imposing a 30% tariff on exports from South Africa — the most on any sub-Saharan nation — it needs to tap demand from China for its goods. In August, South African Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen said increased exports to China are a priority, with his country’s having secured duty-free access for five varieties of fruit. That would add to current shipments of nuts and avocados as well as platinum, chrome, coal and iron ore.

The ties go well beyond trade and economics, especially after South Africa in 2010 joined the BRICS political bloc that was co-founded by China. In November, President Xi Jinping is expected to attend a Group of 20 leaders meeting in Johannesburg, his fifth visit to the country, and China’s navy has conducted exercises with its South African counterpart.

Ahead of that visit, pressure is mounting on Liao to move his mission.

“The current situation has already created a sense of not only instability, but also frustration,” said Liao, who previously served in the Solomon Islands when the small Pacific nation cut ties with Taipei.

“It’s not healthy and it’s not encouraging at all because the purpose of our presence here is to promote friendship and collaboration, but everything has come to a total halt,” he said.

At threat are ties originally forged during South Africa’s apartheid era, when the two countries, both isolated, developed a closer bond.

A wave of Taiwanese migration to South Africa began in the late 1970s with the South African government offering incentives to attract investment, mainly in the textile sector. Taiwanese immigrants were given “honorary White” status, exempting them from South African laws that enforced racial segregation.

Today, according to the Taipei Liaison Office, 450 Taiwanese companies operate in South Africa and have invested about $2 billion. Over 100 South Africans go to Taiwan on scholarships every year.

Still, the Taiwanese community has shrunk to an estimated 8,000 from 50,000 in 1998. Commerce is also shriveling, with South Africa selling Taiwan goods including coal and corn while smartphones and chemicals heading the other way. From $2.3 billion in 2022, trade fell by more than a third last year.

“We are not welcome here,” Liao said. If the Taiwanese “don’t feel that they’re welcome and cherished here,” they leave, he said.

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(With assistance from Julius Domoney, Yian Lee and Yanping Li.)