Buying Loyalty: China-São Tomé Ties, One Year Later

On December 20, 2016, local time, the tiny island nation of São Tomé and Principe, located to the west of Gabon, in the Gulf of Guinea, formally switched its diplomatic recognition from the Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) on the mainland. It was not the first flip-flop for São Tomé; the former Portuguese colony recognized Beijing from 1975 (when São Tomé gained independence) until 1997, when it switched allegiance to Taiwan. Nearly 20 years later, it switched back, apparently convinced that ties with Beijing would be more beneficial.

A year later, has that hope come to fruition? Taiwan’s remaining “diplomatic allies” – 20 countries, many of them tiny, overlooked island states like São Tomé – will be watching closely as they weigh for themselves the pros and cons of remaining tied to Taipei.

An ROC government statement on São Tomé’s decision to recognize Beijing highlighted Taiwan’s contributions throughout 20 years of diplomatic relations:

Since diplomatic relations were established in May 1997, the ROC has actively assisted São Tomé and Príncipe in advancing its national development, with bilateral cooperation covering such areas as public health, agriculture, infrastructure, energy, and education. In particular, a team of ROC malaria prevention advisors stationed in São Tomé and Príncipe helped reduce the incidence of malaria in São Tomé and Príncipe from 50 percent in 2003 to 1.01 percent in 2015.

The statement was not coy about recognizing the cause of São Tomé’s decision to embrace Beijing: “excessive financial difficulties” for the African country resulting in “demands beyond those the ROC could meet.”

Taiwan’s government long ago decided not to attempt to outbid the PRC in buying diplomatic recognition – that’s a game Taipei can no longer hope to win. China, meanwhile, recognizing its area of strength, plays up the economic benefits of fostering relations with Taiwan’s partner. Prior to São Tomé’s official switch, Beijing established a trade office in the country and even dangled the possibility of investing $400 million into a planned deep-water port.

Those plans might have been overly ambitious, but São Tomé did announce a hefty payday for reestablishing ties with Beijing. In April 2017, São Tomé’s Prime Minister Patrice Trovoada visited Beijing, where he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Xi declared that China “highly appreciated” São Tomé’s decision, and as a result, Beijing was “ready to give prior support to the improvement of São Tomé and Principe's national comprehensive development plan.” Xi in particular singled out tourism, fishery, and agriculture as areas for cooperation, while also promising to help São Tomé with “infrastructure construction, human resources development and security capacity building.”

Upon Trovoada’s return to São Tomé, he announced that China would donate $146 million to construct infrastructure in the country, and mentioned (without going into detail) Beijing’s interest in the deep-water port as well as an expansion of São Tomé’s airport. Trovoada also said China was making credit available to São Tomé on preferential terms, and cancelling an old debt of $28 million. The prime minister was optimistic about more benefits, saying, “We also aim to promote and encourage the Chinese private sector to invest in tourism, renewable energy, trade and infrastructure.”

Notably, however, no official Chinese statement has mentioned monetary amounts when discussing cooperation with São Tomé. Given that even well-publicized aid often does not materialize, it’s fair to wonder whether São Tomé will actually receive the $146 million Trovoada spoke of.

By contrast, Panama, which also switched diplomatic recognition from the ROC to the PRC in June 2017, has benefitted from specific deals. In October 2017, a Chinese company broke ground on a $165 million port in Panama, designed to accommodate cruise ships; in November 2017, when Panama’s president visited China, the two sides agreed to start early work on a free trade agreement. Chinese media also put a dollar-figure on the advances in ties, saying that Chinese and Panamanian companies had “inked 14 trade agreements with a combined contract amount reaching 38.7 million U.S. dollars in September [2017].”

China has been noticeably reluctant to make any similarly specific promises to São Tomé. On January 16, a year after São Tomé and the PRC inked their diplomatic partnership, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi made a rare visit to the island nation. In a meeting with his counterpart, Wang noted that “technical experts groups [from China] of electric power, malaria fighting, medical treatment and others made significant progress in their work. Cooperation in such key areas as infrastructure, tourism, agriculture and fishery showed sound prospects.”

That’s a fairly vague basis on which to proclaim, as Wang did, that “restoring diplomatic ties with China was the absolutely right decision … as it has brought tangible benefits to the two peoples, especially to the people of São Tomé and Principe.”

Instead of mentioning specific deals that had benefited São Tomé, Wang discussed general avenues of cooperation there are now open to both sides. Those include cooperation at the Forum for China-Africa Cooperation (with a summit to be held this year in Beijing) and on the Belt and Road Initiative.

São Tomé is apparently eager to embrace the BRI and some analysts believe its location in the Gulf of Guinea could provide an ideal foothold for the maritime leg. In the early 2000s, there were rumors (never confirmed) of U.S. interest in a naval base on the island; geographically, it might also be of interest to China as a complement to its first-ever overseas base, in Djibouti in eastern Africa.

Whether Chinese interest would actually be good for São Tomé is debatable, though. The recent example of Sri Lanka comes to mind as a cautionary tale. Colombo accepted massive Chinese loans to develop Hambantota Port; unable to repay the debt, Sri Lanka was essentially forced to hand over control of the port to China on a 99-year concession.

This is not to say that São Tomé has not benefited from forging ties with Beijing, much less that it was the wrong decision. For a small island country like São Tomé, connectivity means economic life, and even limited assistance with construction work will have outsized results. China certainly has the capacity and experience to boost São Tomé’s airport and port construction into overdrive. And to be fair, Taiwan was just as vague in describing what it had actually done for São Tomé as China has been in making promises.

But in retrospect, the government’s ambitious vision for the windfall it would receive from Beijing was overly optimistic. Dreams of São Tomé as a Chinese tourist mecca or shipping hub remain just that: dreams.