YouTuber visits diplomatic allies to see Taiwan's lesser-known friends

By Joseph Yeh, CNA staff reporter

Unlike most countries around the world, Taiwan is not a member of the United Nations and is recognized by only a dozen states worldwide, amid the international marginalization it faces due to pressure from China.

Many of these allies of the Republic of China (ROC), the official name of Taiwan, are located far away from Taiwan and relatively unknown to Taiwanese.

The unfamiliarity among Taiwanese with these international friends sparked the curiosity of travel Youtuber Ben Wu (吳宇堯), who decided to embark on an ambitious mission to visit all of the country's allies worldwide, back in 2018.

Wu told CNA in a recent interview that the idea of traveling to these less-visited countries came only months after he launched his channel in March 2018, way before the channel gained its current popularity with 668,000 followers.

"I was on a Trans-Siberian Railway train and reading a news article about how we [Taiwan] just lost Panama as an ally. The article also listed the remaining 18 allies we had."

As an avid traveler who has since visited 85 countries, he was shocked to learn that he only knew three of them -- Haiti, Eswatini, and the Vatican.

He felt somewhat sad that most people in Taiwan only hear about the country's allies when news of bilateral ties are severed.

"I hope that by visiting these allies and video recording their beautiful scenery and delicious food, people in Taiwan can learn about them."

Other than visiting these allies to help Taiwanese better understand them, Wu also told CNA that he wanted to see firsthand how Taiwan's government is spending taxpayers' money to support them. "I wanted to see in person if the money is being well-spent."

Before he began his trip, Wu sent an email to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) to inform the government agency of his upcoming visit, though he didn't expect a reply.

Surprisingly, he received an email in return, asking him to visit MOFA for a meeting on the planned mission.

Ironically, early the same day on Aug. 21, 2018 when he was visiting MOFA for the meeting, then-Foreign Minister Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) had just held a press event to inform the public about the end of Taiwan and El Salvador's decades-long diplomatic ties.

"So one less destination to visit before the trip started."

In September 2018, Wu embarked on his grand tour, which, due to logistics and transportation arrangements, was divided into different stages.

From September to October 2018, he began his first stops to Taiwan's allies in the South Pacific, namely, Tuvalu, Nauru (ended ties in 2024), Kiribati (ended ties in 2019), the Marshall Islands, and the Solomon Islands (ended ties in 2019).

In the second phase, he visited Taiwan's only diplomatic ally in Africa, Eswatini, from November to December 2018.

For the final stage, he visited Taiwan's allies in Latin America and the Caribbean, including Paraguay, Haiti, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and Grenadines, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras (ended ties in 2023), and Nicaragua (ended ties in 2021) between March and May 2019.

In conclusion, he turned northbound to Taiwan's only diplomatic ally in Europe, the Holy See, before ending the tour with a visit to tourist hotspot Palau in October 2019, as a treat to celebrate the historic feat.

In total, he spent 387 days completing the 17-country trip.

Asked which countries made the deepest impression, Wu told CNA he loves the people of Eswatini, in particular the genuine friendship and affection between the Taiwanese and Eswatini people there.

He also loves the South Pacific, and most remembers the Marshall Islands because there are many Taiwanese and Japanese people there, and even a Formosa supermarket owned by a Taiwan national.

Wu recalled one interesting anecdote about his trip to Haiti, before the country was embroiled in widespread political, economic, and security crises following the assassination of former Haitian President Jovenel Moïse at his home in July 2021.

The first sentence the Taiwanese ambassador Hu Cheng-hao (胡正浩) said to him was not words of greeting, but "Do you need to charge your phone and laptop?"

This was because Haiti lacks a stable power grid, and the Taiwan embassy is one of the few places that provides secure electricity, he said.

Years after his 2018-19 grand tour, Wu revisited some of these allies in October 2024 together with Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍), namely, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Guatemala, St. Lucia, Belize, and St. Kitts and Nevis.

Several months later, he joined the TaiwanICDF, the MOFA-funded foreign aid agency, to Paraguay, in September 2025.

Money Well-Spent

As for how Taiwanese taxpayers' money is spent in these allies, Wu said what he found was quite assuring.

For instance, visiting Paraguay six years apart, he saw for himself how its capital, Asunción, had become much more modern, partly thanks to help from Taiwan.

He also witnessed the Health Information System (HIS) Taiwan built, which modernized Paraguay's public health care system by introducing a digitized health information management system.

Wu told CNA that due to its isolation on the world stage, Taiwan needs its allies to voice their support for its international participation.

Likewise, Taiwan is helping these allies with better development on all fronts for the benefit of their people. In fact, not just Taiwan, every country around the world engages in diplomatic efforts and is doing its best to help the needy, less developed partners."

"I think such cooperation with allied countries is mutually beneficial and complementary to each other," he added.

Enditem/AW