Many countries, including Estonia, hew to a weirdly self-contradictory diplomatic stance with respect to Taiwan, also a country, one that never did anything to hurt them.
The official governmental view is often that Taiwan is great, we love Taiwan, we want to trade with Taiwan, people from Taiwan can come visit us and we can go visit you, no problem. But we just don’t think you’re a country. Although you may meet all relevant criteria for what counts as a country, we cannot fit the square peg of Taiwan into the round hole of standard geographic terminology. And we cannot have formal diplomatic relations with a noncountry such as yourself. Maybe, though, we can mutedly assent to some kind of quasi-diplomatic relations with your noncountry entity and let you have an office here. As long as your not-quite-diplomatic office is on a small side street not too near all the real diplomatic activity.
Jari Tanner of Associated Press reports:
Estonia will allow Taiwan to open a nondiplomatic representative office of Taipei in the Baltic country to boost economic and cultural ties with the self-governing island but pledged to stick with the “One China” policy in political relations….
“Estonia does not recognize Taiwan as a country. As part of the One China policy, we will not develop political relations with Taiwan,” [Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna said]. “At the same time, we consider it important to revive relations with Taiwan in economy, education, culture, communication between civil society organizations and other such fields.”…
In 2021, Estonia’s Baltic neighbor Lithuania allowed Taiwan to open an unofficial diplomatic representative office—a de facto embassy—in its capital, Vilnius, despite Beijing’s strong opposition. The move triggered Beijing to launch an unprecedented economic coercion campaign against EU and NATO member Lithuania.
An often shameful history beginning in the 1970s helps explain this squirrelly state of affairs, but the bottom line is fear of China.
China would not invade your country just for admitting that Taiwan is also a country and failing to pretend strenuously enough that diplomatic relations are not diplomatic relations. But perhaps China would end trade relations and other relations with you. Then your country would be able to trade only with the rest of the world. And you’d have to live, somehow, with the knowledge that you are no longer doing anything to sanction and abet the Chinazi state.
