Taiwan’s president was grounded before he left — blocked from the sky over three African nations that revoked overflight permission for his aircraft, forcing the cancellation of a trip to Eswatini and delivering Beijing a diplomatic victory it wasted no time celebrating.
Lai Ching-te had been scheduled to travel to the small southern African kingdom, one of only 12 countries that maintain formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan.
The night before departure, Taipei announced the visit had to be delayed after Seychelles, Mauritius and Madagascar all withdrew permission for his presidential aircraft to cross their airspace. It is the first time in Taiwan’s history that a sitting president has been forced to cancel a foreign trip due to airspace denial — a precedent Beijing will note carefully and attempt to replicate.
China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokesperson Zhang Han was effusive in his appreciation for the three countries, describing their decision as consistent with the one-China principle and quoting the ancient philosopher Mencius to underline the moral weight Beijing attaches to their cooperation. “A just cause enjoys abundant support, while an unjust cause finds little support,” he said at a regular Beijing news conference. China’s foreign ministry went further, declaring that there was “no longer a so-called Republic of China president in the world anymore” and warning that anyone claiming the title was “acting against history” and would “only invite disgrace upon themselves.”
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Lai said China had used economic coercion to secure the airspace denials from the three countries — a characterisation the Taiwan Affairs Office rejected. Madagascar and Seychelles stated publicly that they acted because they do not recognise Taiwan. The distinction between principled non-recognition and pressure-induced compliance is one Beijing will always insist upon and Taipei will always dispute.
Taiwan’s foreign ministry did not use measured language in response. It described the statements from Seychelles and Madagascar as expressions of “servitude to China” and issued a declaration that the Republic of China was a sovereign state with the right to engage with the world — “a right that cannot be denied, and that no country has the standing to obstruct.” Several US lawmakers echoed the concern, with the House Select Committee on China writing on X that the episode was “not diplomacy” but “economic pressure aimed at isolating a democratic partner.” The State Department had not commented publicly by Wednesday.
Eswatini, the intended destination, held its ground. Acting government spokesperson Thabile Mdluli confirmed that the cancellation did not affect the kingdom’s longstanding ties with Taiwan and described Eswatini’s foreign policy as independent, principled and oriented toward mutually beneficial partnerships.
The statement was quiet but pointed — a small country declining to be moved by the pressure that had apparently moved its neighbours.
China has a particular hostility toward Lai, whom it labels a separatist and refuses to engage with. He has consistently rejected Beijing’s sovereignty claims and argued that Taiwan has an inherent right to international participation. The airspace manoeuvre fits a pattern of graduated pressure designed to shrink the space available to him — not through military action but through the accumulation of diplomatic foreclosures that make travel, recognition and engagement progressively harder.
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The timing adds its own dimension. The airspace denial comes less than two weeks after KMT opposition leader Cheng Li-wun met Xi Jinping in Beijing, a visit that China used to demonstrate it has interlocutors in Taiwan willing to engage on its terms.
Beijing simultaneously rolled out new incentives for Taiwan following that meeting, including an easing of food import restrictions — the carrot displayed alongside the stick of Lai’s grounded aircraft.
Even the KMT, which frequently clashes with Lai’s government on cross-strait policy, found the airspace move excessive. Senior KMT lawmaker Lai Shyh-bao told reporters in Taipei that Beijing’s pressure was “not clever, especially after the Cheng-Xi meeting” — a rebuke that suggested even those sympathetic to engagement with China view the airspace denial as counterproductive to the diplomatic opening the Xi-Cheng summit was supposed to represent.
Taiwan retains diplomatic relations with just 12 countries. Each one is a target. The airspace over the Indian Ocean, it turns out, is part of the battlefield too.