Taipei comes from a big family, apparently.
April 5, 2008 9:04 PM Subscribe
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?
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
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
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
posted by lackutrol at 5:19 AM on April 6, 2008
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posted by kookoobirdz at 9:53 PM on April 5, 2008