Brian Hioeby Brian Hioe
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Photo Credit: Lai Ching-te/Facebook
PRESIDENT LAI CHING-TE returned on Tuesday this week from a whirlwind trip to Eswatini. This occurred after Lai’s previous trip to Eswatini was cancelled due to Chinese pressure. Lai was scheduled to visit for King Mswati III’s 40th anniversary of accession to the throne, as well as his 58th birthday.
Specifically, countries that Lai would have passed over on his flight to Eswatini, Madagascar, Mauritius, and the Seychelles revoked overflight permissions shortly before Lai was to set out. This was largely interpreted as China flexing its muscles in terms of its influence in Africa, with the Lai administration suggesting that China threatened to revoke debt cancellation for Madagascar, Mauritius, and the Seychelles if they did not comply.
The same month, the world’s largest digital rights conference, RightsCon, was also cancelled. RightsCon had been set to take place in Zambia, but it is thought to have been cancelled because several Taiwanese participants were scheduled to attend, and were expected to speak critically of China.
Lai’s trip, then, took place with Lai abruptly traveling to Eswatini, then only announcing that he had arrived after the fact. Presumably, this was to minimize the space for China to react. Lai arrived in Eswatini by traveling on King Mswati III’s personal aircraft, a former China Airlines plane that was sold to the monarch in 2015. Lai later returned on the same aircraft, taking a winding route that tested the operational limits of the plane, but similar to the route taken by then-US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi during her August 2022 trip to Taiwan.
In the course of the trip, Lai emphasized that he was only exercising the rights that heads of state have in being able to freely travel, even as domestically the DPP framed the trip as a diplomatic breakthrough.
Indeed, the trip changed little about Taiwan-Eswatini relations, in that Eswatini continues to maintain ties with Taiwan as its sole African ally. This would run counter to the claim that the trip is a diplomatic breakthrough. If anything, the trip shows to what extent Eswatini maintains relations with Taiwan, that it would risk angering China, as well as neighboring African countries, by hosting Lai and making special arrangements for him. It may not be surprising, then, that Lai reaffirmed ties with Eswatini in the trip, signing an agreement on customs cooperation, and visiting Taiwan-funded projects, including oil storage facilities and a technology park.
Even so, it is important to note that Eswatini is an absolute monarchy. It proves ironic for Lai to tout Taiwan’s credentials on the international stage when Taiwan backs Eswatini and this economic support is, in fact, a bulwark of King Mswati III’s power.
The constitution was voided in 1973, and political parties were banned, as a result of which free and fair elections still do not take place in Eswatini today. Although Mswati agreed to constitutional changes in 2005, he retains his grip on power. Under Mswati III’s rule, life expectancy has halved in Eswatini since 2000.
Pro-democracy protests rocked Eswatini in the summer of 2021, with the public calling for the right to vote. In the violence that followed, 28 were shot, with demonstrators alleging that at least twenty were killed. Tear gas was used by police against demonstrators, and Internet services were suspended, with a curfew declared in major urban centers, in which buildings were burned during the turmoil, including Manzini and Mbabane, as well as the industrial center of Matsapha.
Much as occurred during Taiwan’s authoritarian period, Eswatini also sees the killing of dissidents. In 2023, opposition politician Thulani Maseko was killed by unknown gunmen in a shooting widely suspected of being ordered by the monarchy. Maseko was a human rights lawyer and public intellectual. At the time, Mswati III stated, “People should not shed tears and complain about mercenaries killing them,” implying that he had ordered the killing.
Nevertheless, after the demonstrations, Taiwan announced that it would be donating 637 million NT to the government for reconstruction–an act that makes it complicit in the government’s crackdown on the protests. Either way, Taiwan simply chose to act as though the protests had never occurred.
Lai’s whirlwind trip to Eswatini has been criticized by the KMT, who framed it as an embarrassment in that Lai had to sneak around internationally to visit. The KMT also suggested that it was the Lai administration’s fault that Taiwan continued to lose diplomatic allies, through refusing to accept the 1992 Consensus, with party chair Cheng Li-wun being especially strident in her criticisms. It is not surprising that the KMT would attack what the Lai administration has depicted as a moment of triumph for Taiwan, as a small democracy contending against a much larger authoritarian state.
Still, what one notes is that neither side would raise criticisms of Taiwan-Eswatini relations on human rights grounds. After all, Taiwan’s diplomatic allies have a large pride of place in KMT nationalism. It is unfortunate, then, that despite Eswatini can be an object of contention in Taiwan, there is little attention to its authoritarian domestic politics.