Taiwan's attempt to visit its sole African ally, Eswatini, collapsed after Seychelles, Mauritius, and Madagascar revoked overflight and landing permits for President Lai Ching-te's (賴清德) official aircraft. Taipei blamed Chinese pressure. Beijing denied any economic coercion. But a separate explanation has gained traction among analysts: that the African Union may have moved to block the trip after concluding that Lai intended to make an unannounced stop in Somaliland following his visit to Eswatini — a move that would have crossed one of the continent's most sensitive diplomatic lines.
The Somaliland Connection
Somaliland's position bears a striking structural resemblance to Taiwan's own. The territory declared independence from Somalia following that country's civil war in 1991, but the African Union has consistently refused to recognize its sovereignty, citing its longstanding opposition to any redrawing of colonial-era borders. Taiwan and Israel are the only governments worldwide that have extended recognition to Somaliland. Taiwan established mutual representative offices with Somaliland in 2020; Israel followed with formal diplomatic recognition in 2025, partly in exchange for port access to counter Houthi forces in Yemen.
Before Lai's planned trip, Somaliland publicly welcomed the prospect of a presidential visit to Africa — a gesture that, in the view of some analysts, may itself have alarmed African Union members.
One Move That Closed Every Door
Yen Chen-shen (嚴震生), an adjunct research fellow at National Chengchi University's Institute of International Relations and a specialist in African affairs, told Storm Media that the most plausible explanation for the permit revocations may lie in what African Union members feared Lai was planning next. According to Yen, reports circulated that after concluding his visit to Eswatini, Lai might make a surprise stop in Somaliland. If the African Union had reason to believe that was the intention, Yen said, it may simply have decided to shut the door to the African continent altogether rather than risk the diplomatic fallout.
Yen explained that Somaliland represents one of the most anomalous cases in African political geography: a territory that achieved de facto independence without armed conquest, and that has governed itself for roughly 36 years with functioning elections and relative political stability — while the rest of Somalia descended into warlordism and piracy. Originally a British protectorate, Somaliland was merged with the former Italian Somaliland colony to form Somalia at independence, and broke away after the Somali state collapsed in the early 1990s.
The African Union's refusal to recognize Somaliland, Yen noted, is rooted in a foundational continental norm: inherited colonial borders are inviolable. There are exceptions. Eritrea gained independence from Ethiopia in 1993, but Yen pointed out that Eritrea had historically been a separate entity that Italian colonialism artificially merged with Ethiopia. South Sudan achieved independence in 2011 following a prolonged civil war and a referendum. But Somaliland has never cleared that bar. "This is the international reality," Yen said.
Taiwan established a representative office in Somaliland in 2020, earlier than Israel's formal recognition. Yen said that given Taiwan's limited number of formal allies, recognizing Somaliland carries little diplomatic cost, and Taiwan's only African ally, Eswatini, would likely not object. The problem, in Yen's assessment, was the possibility of something far more dramatic. If Lai had intended to visit Somaliland directly after Eswatini, the African Union — whose member states uniformly refuse to recognize Somaliland's independence — would have faced a direct challenge to the continental consensus on border integrity.
He acknowledged, however, that this remains one interpretation among several. "National Security Council Secretary-General Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) has not yet given a clear account of what actually happened," he said.
Stop Punching Down at Africa's Model States
Yen was direct in his criticism of Taipei's response. Taiwan's official framing — which suggested the three countries had acted under Chinese pressure and implied they were ensnared in a debt trap — was, in his view, both analytically inaccurate and diplomatically counterproductive, particularly when applied to Seychelles and Mauritius.
"Seychelles and Mauritius are among Africa's best-governed countries," Yen said. Both hold competitive elections, maintain press freedom, have limited corruption, and present no significant security concerns. Their dependence on Chinese financing is also structurally limited: debt-trap dynamics tend to afflict larger states that require extensive infrastructure investment. Seychelles and Mauritius are small island nations with no such need. "There is no reason for them to let the wolf in the door," he said.
Yen argued that stigmatizing these two democracies as Beijing's proxies serves no purpose. "Calling it a debt trap is really unnecessary," he said. Whether the African Union itself had access to intelligence that informed the permit revocations, he added, remains unclear.
Beijing's Fingerprints — or Africa's Own Call?
On the question of direct Chinese intervention, Yen's assessment was measured but not dismissive. If Beijing did orchestrate the permit revocations, he said, "that would be a genuinely bad move" — and a strategically limited one. The tactic would only apply to countries along Taiwan's transit routes, not to Taiwan's formal allies, most of which fall within the American sphere of influence. "Beijing can't stop those," he said. "That play doesn't work on them."
More significantly, Yen said, confirmed Chinese intervention would mean Beijing had violated an implicit understanding: that it would not interfere with Taiwan's visits to its remaining formal allies. He said he did not believe Beijing necessarily acted in this case, but could not exclude the possibility. "They genuinely dislike Lai Ching-te," he said, "and may feel he has been performing for the cameras." China's Taiwan Affairs Office spokesperson Zhang Han denied any economic coercion of the three countries at an April 22 press conference.
China Wins by Doing Nothing
Yen offered a broader structural observation about the geopolitical context. If Beijing exerted relatively little pressure and still achieved this result, that in itself would signal that China's diplomatic weight in Africa has grown considerably. But he suggested an equally important factor may be American self-inflicted damage.
Washington's military engagement with Iran and its unconditional support for Israel have alienated much of the Global South. African governments broadly distrust the United States, and the Trump administration's rhetoric toward Africa has deepened that resentment. "China doesn't have to do very much," Yen said. "It just has to stand there while the United States makes itself look bad."
Within that context, Yen distinguished among the three countries that revoked Taiwan's permits. Madagascar — larger, more infrastructure-dependent, and more exposed to Chinese financing — may have acted with less autonomy. Seychelles and Mauritius, he argued, are a different case entirely. Their actions may have been self-initiated or coordinated with the African Union, but they should not be lumped together with states whose policy choices are structurally constrained by debt.
The May 20 Deadline Is Slipping Away
Against this backdrop, reports have emerged that Lai is pressing hard for a transit stop on the U.S. mainland ahead of his second inauguration anniversary on May 20 — seeking a diplomatic achievement to offset the Africa setback.
Yen described the prospects as "genuinely very difficult." The United States could permit Lai's aircraft to refuel on American soil while barring him from disembarking — but that, Yen said, is a form of treatment Lai would almost certainly refuse to accept.
The more fundamental constraint, Yen argued, is the state of U.S.-China relations. Whether Washington would grant Lai a substantive transit depends significantly on the trajectory of any Trump-Xi summit. With the Trump administration's confrontation with Iran still unresolved, a Trump-Xi meeting could be further delayed — and without clarity on that relationship, the political space for a Lai transit on the U.S. mainland before May 20, Yen concluded, "is really very limited."
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