Taiwan’s friendly geopolitical code

Carilyn Pointer - China keeps making moves toward reunification with Taiwan. Taiwan, however, claims to be a self-ruled democracy and is currently internationally recognized by 25 countries. China’s threat has Taiwan looking at their geopolitical codes to gain additional strength and prevent an invasion, which emphasizes the applicability of geopolitical codes.

Geopolitical codes are how a country positions itself in the world. They are calculations that determine how each country will interact with the rest of the world. One aspect of geopolitical codes reference who are current and potential enemies. In the case of Taiwan, China has been an enemy and is a growing threat to their sovereignty. The next point considers who their allies are. Presently, Taiwan has official diplomatic relationships with Nauru, Palau, Tuvalu, Marshall Islands, Eswatini, and Vatican City. While good allies none of them are known as powerful or world leaders. This explains why Taiwan is turning to other powerful countries that could become their ally and is trying to make other potential allies like them more. In the article, this is evident in their actions of paying Guatemala’s lobbyists, promising to help preserve the Pacific island allies indigenous cultures, and creating a new economic deal with Lithuania. The focus on maintaining and building relationships with powerful countries is Taiwan’s attempt to defend against China’s threats. By being perceived as amicable Taiwan endeavors to gain support on a global level. Developing allies is very important to Taiwan because their safety as an independent country is dependent on the power of their stronger allies. If they can lobby enough support, they might be able to ward off the threats of an invasion. If they fail Taiwan could become a part of China.

While geopolitical codes can have a large impact on the global environment, there are limits to their effectiveness. Taiwan gaining support is a good strategy, but just because they have more allies doesn’t mean these new allies want to go to war against a powerful country on their behalf. This might be the case with Taiwan, because very few countries are willingly going to poke the bear.