Status for Sale: Taiwan and the Competition for Diplomatic Recognition

Abstract

Diplomatic recognition is generally seen as fundamental to the modern state system. The traditional views of recognition however focus almost exclusively on political or ideological rationales, ignoring other foundations on which other countries base establishing diplomatic recog-nition. Focusing on the Republic of China (Taiwan) suggests a more com-plicated view where economic self-interest on one side and national pride on the other may undermine traditional conceptions of recognition. Using the ROC-PRC diplomatic battle as a case study, this paper hopes to shed light on two questions: why, despite the PRC's rise as a global power, a country would continue to formally recognize the ROC and secondly what does the ROC receive in exchange for such high-cost en-deavors to maintain recognition. In this case mutual ideological rationales have greatly diminished while I contend that economic factors have pre-dominantly maintained this diplomatic battle. In addition, previous re-search often focuses on major world powers granting or withholding for-mal recognition to smaller states. In this situation, poor countries with typically little political influence are the major players, suggesting dif-ferent rationales behind recognition. Methodologically, this paper blends qualitative and quantitative analysis to uncover factors affecting recogni-TIMOTHY S. RICH is a doctoral student in political science at the Indiana University. His pre-vious research analyzed Taiwan's democratization and cross-Strait relations. His disserta-

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