Vì sao Đài Loan đang mất dần đồng minh?

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Taiwanese products power everything from iPhones and fridges to guided missiles (tên lửa đạn đạo). The island makes more than 60% of the world’s semiconductors (chip bán dẫn trên toàn thế giới). It also plays a crucial role in (đóng vai trò quan trọng) the great-power (siêu cường quốc) contest  (cạnh tranh, đối đầu) between China and America. Yet for such an important place few countries recognise its government. Just 13 have diplomatic ties (quan hệ ngoại giao) with Taiwan, most of them small states in the Caribbean, Latin America, and the Pacific. And the number is dwindling (giảm): since 1990 at least 15 countries have cut diplomatic ties with Taiwan—most recently Honduras, on March 25th—and around 50 since the 1970s. Why is the island losing its friends?

The answer lies in Taiwan’s long-running confrontation (đối đầu kéo dài) with China. Taiwan was a Japanese colony (thuộc địa) for 50 years until Japan’s defeat (bại trận) in the second world war, when it was handed back to the Nationalist government of mainland China. That government then lost a civil war (nội chiến) to the Communists and in 1949 fled to Taiwan, still claiming to be the legitimate (chính danh, hợp pháp) government of all of China. The Communist Party contested this. It has stuck to the view that Taiwan is part of Chinese territory (lãnh thổ), and that only the Communist Party has the right to rule China. It refuses to establish diplomatic relations with countries that recognise Taiwan’s claims. After the un expelled (trục xuất) Taiwan in 1971, and gave China’s permanent seat (vị trí thường trực) on the security council (hội đồng bảo an) to the Communist government in Beijing, more countries abandoned Taiwan. America cut diplomatic ties with the island in 1979, when it recognised the government in Beijing...