Taipei comes from a big family, apparently.

April 5, 2008 9:04 PM

Browsing through the ever-informative Wikipedia, I stumbled across something bizarre: Taipei, Republic of China has a ton of sister cities, including every Central American capital and a surprising number of very major American cities. Why does Taipei have such an aggressive city-twinning program? Is it related to the Republic of China's status being in international limbo, or to the former close relationship between Chiang Kai-Shek and the United States?
posted by Electrius to law & government (5 comments total)

It's really not that big of a deal. I doubt Taipei is doing it out of spite for the central Chinese government as the "sister city" title has little or no economic or political stipulations. Just a way of saying: "hey people over there! We're people in a city just like you! You're ok!". Most large cities in China proper have so-called "sister cities" in other countries, especially American cities. It's largely a boondoggle. Every medium sized city in the USA has many sister cities. More info.
posted by Burhanistan at 9:18 PM on April 5, 2008

I'm pretty sure it's political. I went to Nicaragua in 2005 and saw their horrid new presidential palace. Apparently it was funded by... the Taiwanese? Why in the world would Taiwan care about Nicaragua? And isn't it weird to build somebody else's presidential palace? Guess what, Nicaragua is one of only twentysomething countries that still recognize Taiwan (Republic of China) instead of China (Peoples Republic of China). The two Chinas woo nations with favors and bribes to court their support and recognition, and they reward their supporters. I would imagine Taiwan's sister city program is designed to create or maintain close ties with as many nations as possible as part of a larger effort to win their recognition or at least keep themselves top of mind. It's amazing that other people's recognition is ultimately what determines whether you are a country but there it is. Taiwan wants to be everybody's buddy.
posted by kookoobirdz at 9:53 PM on April 5, 2008

I would say that it does have some things to do with maintaining as many sorts of ties with other countries as possible - for the very reason that you raise, how Taiwan is being marginalized globally. There are only 23 countries in the world that recognize Taiwan, and this is a good way to reach out beyond that circle.

I compared the list of countries with official diplomatic relations (23), with the countries where there are sister cities (34). There is only overlap on 10 of them (i.e. Taipei has a sister city in 10 of the countries with which Taiwan maintains official relations). So the sister cities are a way to reach out in a fashion, without the problematic issues of sovereignty.

Still, Burhanistan is right. There are lots of Chinese cities, and many other cities in Asia, that have U.S. or South American "sister cities", something that's more good for PR than anything else. And a lot of the Taipei US sister cities either have large populations of Chinese descent (San Francisco) and/or substantial trade ties with Taiwan (LA, Houston/Dallas, Boston).
posted by gemmy at 10:11 PM on April 5, 2008

My understanding of it (Australia has them too) was that rather than being political it was more to do with trade and shipping (which I guess is political...) but in the sense that the sailors 'belong' there when they come to Port. Like a home away from home.
posted by mu~ha~ha~ha~har at 10:48 PM on April 5, 2008

This was on NPR this morning, weirdly (well, not the sister cities thing, but Taipei's relationships with Central American countries). It's a way for Taiwan to retain as much international legitimacy as possible after most of the world has gone over to recognizing the PRC as the official government of China. Also, and interestingly, it seems that Panama has quite a large population of Chinese descent, with ~%5 claiming some Chinese ancestry.
posted by lackutrol at 5:19 AM on April 6, 2008