The Lai Ching-te administration is working to strengthen its small but vital group of official international relationships.

Ten months into the presidency of Lai Ching-te, Taiwan is noticeably engaged with its 12 remaining official diplomatic relationships. The increased level of cooperation signals a recognition that the 12 countries – all of which are developing nations except for the Vatican – punch above their economic and geopolitical weight with respect to Taiwan’s foreign policy priorities.

These partnerships are much more than token connections – they are lifelines. Countries that officially recognize Taiwan speak up on its behalf in the world’s largest international organizations like the United Nations, where Taiwan is unable to participate due to objections from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and validate its sovereignty in a way unofficial relationships cannot.

During the General Assembly in September 2024, nine of Taiwan’s allies sent a joint letter to UN Secretary-General António Guterres calling for Taipei’s inclusion in the organization. The letter urged the UN to address the “malicious distortions” to UN General Assembly Resolution 2758, which in 1971 transferred the seat of “China” from the Republic of China (ROC) to the PRC. While Beijing cites the resolution as evidence of Taiwan’s subordination to the PRC, this interpretation is misguided, as the resolution makes no mention of Taiwan’s status.

These efforts come as Taiwan’s remaining allies continue to face relentless pressure from China’s ruling Communist Party to derecognize Taipei and establish official ties with Beijing.

“Beijing makes it known that it doesn’t want countries to engage with countries that recognize Taiwan,” says Cleo Paskal, a non-resident senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a think tank focusing on the Indo-Pacific region.

During the presidency of Tsai Ing-wen (2016-2024), Taiwan lost 10 allies to China, among them five countries in Latin America and three in the Pacific Islands. Beijing poached Taipei’s allies both as a way to pressure Tsai’s government and to advance its long-standing goal of isolating Taiwan internationally.

The pressure has continued into Lai’s presidency. However, so far, Taiwan has been able to prevent any further losses.

While Taiwan in the past often competed with China by offering direct financial aid to these countries, analysts now urge Taipei to pursue more sustainable forms of engagement. “My sense is that this cannot simply be increasing the amount of aid or assistance,” says Timothy Rich, a professor of political science at Western Kentucky University. “China can outspend Taiwan. Rather, Taiwan needs to find ways to entrench people-to-people connections and to frame relations as built on mutual gains and mutual similarities, including perhaps the growing influence of China.”

There are signs the Lai administration is pursuing such an approach. In October 2024, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung told the Central News Agency (CNA) that Taiwan would no longer engage in “checkbook diplomacy” with Beijing. “We are trying to use Taiwan’s successful model or experience to help our allies develop in a way that benefits their country,” he noted.

Taiwan has proposed a seven-point flagship project to help allied countries with their development using the nation’s technological advancements, Lin added. The project leans into Taiwan’s high technology expertise, covering areas like semiconductors, science park development, digital governance, artificial intelligence, and smart healthcare. This approach contrasts Beijing’s emphasis on large-scale infrastructure projects, offering instead a development model centered on long-term resilience and local capacity.

Pacific Islands strategy

With their strategic location and close ties to the United States – Taiwan’s most important security partner – several Pacific Island countries have become a focal point of the Lai administration’s outreach. In late 2024, Lai visited the Marshall Islands, Palau, and Tuvalu, marking his first overseas trip since taking office earlier that year.

In addition to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Lai’s delegation included Ocean Affairs Council Minister Kuan Bi-ling, Council of Indigenous Peoples head Ljaucu Zingrur, and Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Lin Ching-yi. The Prospect Foundation, a Taiwan government-affiliated think tank, has suggested that the composition of the delegation reflected the Lai administration’s interest in pursuing cooperation with Pacific Island nations with a specific focus on cultural, maritime, medical, and diplomatic matters.

Taiwan and Tuvalu, for example, signed a joint communique during Lai’s visit to the small island country of 10,000 people. Still, the agreement was light on specifics, vowing elusively to “reassess the ongoing bilateral cooperation projects in order to establish more durable, lasting, and mutually beneficial diplomatic relations.”

In Palau, Lai announced a new aid project for the Pacific ally, saying that Taiwan would support the Palauan legislature in improving its audiovisual and cybersecurity equipment and installing an electronic voting system. Lai said that he hoped the project would serve as a “model” for the South Pacific in its pursuit of digital transformation.

In February, Taiwan signed an agreement with the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) to support the Office of the Pacific Ocean Commissioner’s efforts to enhance ocean governance through 2027. Under the agreement, Taiwan pledged to contribute about US$1 million to youth participation in ocean affairs, innovations for sustainable ocean management, and ocean education. The PIF includes three of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies in the Pacific – Palau, Tuvalu, and the Marshall Islands – along with 15 other member countries that do not recognize Taipei, including Australia and New Zealand.

“Taiwan is most effective, I believe, when it focuses on its strengths in its partnerships with the Pacific,” says John Hennessey-Niland, a professor at Texas A&M University’s Bush School of Government and Public Service and former U.S. ambassador to Palau. “Helping Palau and other island nations with healthcare, infrastructure, access to finance and markets, and education – this is needed across the Pacific, and Taiwan is a world leader in many of these areas.”

Holding the line

During Tsai Ing-wen’s presidency, Latin America was the region of the world where Taiwan saw the largest exodus of allies. Currently, two of Taiwan’s oldest and most important remaining allies are in the region: Guatemala and Paraguay. Guatemala is Taiwan’s oldest diplomatic partner, with relations dating back to 1933. Relations with Paraguay were established in 1957.

Having diplomatic allies in Latin America allows Taiwan’s leadership to visit the United States on “transit stops” that give them face-to-face time with senior U.S. officials. While these transits often meet resistance from China, they allow Taipei and Washington to explain their necessity based on the principle of “comfort and safety.” Without these allies, it would be virtually impossible for Taiwan’s president and vice president to visit the United States, given the restrictions of Washington’s One China policy.

There are signs that Taiwan is drawing on its information technology expertise to deepen ties with Guatemala. In December, Taipei Times reported that Taiwan plans to help Guatemala bolster its cybersecurity by establishing operations centers in the Central American nation and providing information security training. The opportunity arose from concerns about the role of China’s Huawei Technologies in the information technology infrastructure of some Guatemalan banks. Though nominally a private company, Huawei has close ties with the Chinese Communist Party and has been banned from the 5G telecommunications infrastructure of Taiwan and the United States.

Relations with Paraguay are also stable. In November 2024, Paraguay’s foreign minister Ruben Dario Ramirez Lezcano said at a press conference in Taipei that the South American country would maintain its diplomatic relationship with Taiwan. “Paraguay is open to establishing diplomatic, consular, or commercial relations with China without conditions,” he said, adding that “we don’t accept any condition to break our relations with Taiwan.”

Meanwhile, ties also appear to be stable between Taiwan and the Vatican, which has outsized importance for Taipei as its only diplomatic partner in Europe and the Seat of the Roman Catholic Church. “The Vatican carries a special type of moral authority,” says Michael Cunningham, an Asia researcher at the Heritage Foundation, a think tank in Washington, D.C.

Cunningham notes that the Vatican has expressed interest in forming diplomatic relations with Beijing for a couple of decades. Doing so would mean cutting ties with Taiwan. “Fortunately, for Taipei, Beijing is making that very difficult, simply because of the way it treats Catholics and Christians in general,” he says. Though the Vatican reached a deal with Beijing in 2018 regarding the appointment of bishops in China – which it keeps extending – Beijing frequently violates that agreement. “So I don’t see a diplomatic switch as a serious threat to Taiwan in the near term, but it certainly is a medium- to long-term risk.”

Cunningham adds that before any move toward formal diplomatic ties, he expects “to see a papal visit to China, which would be the first in history, and also the establishment of liaison offices in the Vatican and Beijing. If that happens, then the risk suddenly gets higher.”