China-Africa Summit Shines a Spotlight on Eswatini, Taiwan’s Lone Partner in Africa

From September 4 to 6, Beijing hosted the triennial Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) Summit, which set a new record for attendance: 51 African heads of state and government, according to China’s Foreign Ministry. Another two countries sent “presidential representatives,” bringing the total number of African countries represented to 53.

The lone absence? Eswatini, an absolute monarchy home to 1.2 million people and almost entirely enclosed by South Africa. It’s the only country in Africa to maintain diplomatic relations with Taiwan instead of China.

Four months before the 2018 FOCAC Summit, China successfully persuaded Burkina Faso to make the switch, leaving Eswatini as Taiwan’s only diplomatic ally in Africa. (Somaliland also has relations with Taiwan, but is itself not recognized as a country.) Taiwan currently has formal relations with just 12 countries, mostly in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Asked about Eswatini’s status as the “only African country not participating in FOCAC,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said on September 4 that “African countries widely support the One China principle and view their cooperation with China as helpful for Africa’s economic prosperity and sustainable development.”

“Developing official relations with the Taiwan region is not in Eswatini’s interest,” she added. “We believe Eswatini will eventually see the prevailing trend in the world and make the right decision accordingly.”

Since 2016, 10 countries have severed ties with Taiwan and established relations with China. All of these governments cited the expected economic benefits as their rationale. Although the actual results of establishing relations with China are mixed, the perception that a trade and investment windfall is just a pen-stroke away remains strong.

Like all Taiwan’s diplomatic allies, Eswatini still pursues trade and economic relations with China, despite not having a formal relationship. In 2022, the most recent year for which data was available, Eswatini exported $756,000 worth of goods to China and imported $81.8 million.

Beyond trade, Eswatini has been actively courting Chinese investment. Semafor Africa reported this week that “Chinese enterprises, business people, and even state players are digging deep roots in the kingdom’s economy.” In particular, Semafor Africa noted that Prince Guduza Dlamini, the head of Eswatini’s mining authority, “travelled to China with a high-profile local businessman in late 2023, reportedly to engage Chinese investors and to chart a way for the establishment of diplomatic relations.”

Eswatini’s Swaziland News first broke the news of the trip in January 2024. Its investigation of immigration records found that Guduza Dlamini and members of the Minerals Management Board left for China on November 9 and returned on November 22, 2023.

Swaziland News reported that the trip was made “per an alleged instruction from King Mswati [III],” saying “royal insiders disclosed that there are moves within the royal circles to engage China in this regard.”

While the Eswatini government denied it was exploring setting up ties with China, the interest in Chinese funding is clear. In May 2023, PowerChina was awarded a contract to build the the Mpakeni Embankment Dam Project in Eswatini. The state-owned Chinese company described the deal as “the first engineering contracting project signed by a Chinese-funded enterprise in the country.” The dam had its groundbreaking on February 1.

Reports that Eswatini might drop Taiwan for China are not new. Back in 2018, when Burkina Faso established ties with China, Beijing also pressured Eswatini to follow suit. At the time, a Chinese language news website reported that the African country was in clandestine negotiations with Beijing over establishing diplomatic ties. Eswatini, however, denied the reports. Its minister of foreign affairs accused China of playing “mind games” and declared that Beijing “must forget about having us in their stable.”

As a sign of the importance of the relationship, Tsai Ing-wen chose Eswatini as the destination for her final trip abroad as Taiwan’s president. During her visit, King Mswati insisted that “ties between Taiwan and Eswatini were not based on calculated interest, but on enduring friendship,” as The Diplomat’s Brian Hioe wrote at the time.

Critics in Eswatini believe the relationship with Taiwan is based on something far simpler: money. Swaziland News reported that Taiwan was paying Mswati $2 million to speak up in Taipei’s favor at the 2024 United Nations General Assembly, in what the news site described as a “alleged bribe.”

This dynamic points to an uncomfortable truth: Ties between Eswatini and Taiwan are highly dependent on the personal rule of Mswati, Eswtani’s absolute monarch. Simply put, debates over the wisdom of maintaining diplomatic relations with Taiwan don’t impact policy in Eswatini, because the public has no voice in the matter.

As The Nation editor Bheki Makhubu told The Diplomat in 2021, “If [the king] says we go with Taiwan, we go with Taiwan, regardless of what we say.”

That is a double-edged sword for Taiwan. For now, it lends stability to Taipei’s final diplomatic relationship in Africa. But in the long term, it could jeopardize Taiwan’s status. Mswati has faced public pushback before. In 2021, when pro-democracy protests erupted in Eswatini, the king instituted a crackdown.

Taiwan, usually a stalwart defender of democracy, was silent on the protests and the heavy-handed response.

Should pro-democracy protests eventually force change in Eswatini, Taiwan would suddenly find itself in the crosshairs. Not only might a future democratic government in Eswatini decide to pursue the economic benefits of ties with China, but Taiwan would also come in for criticism for cultivating a close relationship with an absolute monarch.

Already, Eswatini’s largest opposition party, the People’s United Democratic Movement, has been open about its preference to set up ties with China. A spokesperson told Swaziland News back in January that “we believe as a country we can benefit from China more that what we are getting from Taiwan.”