A2 · Elementary
11 min
diplomacycultureafrican historygeopolitics
The King and the Island: Eswatini, Taiwan, and the Art of Existing
El Rey y la Isla: Esuatini, Taiwán y el Arte de Existir
Taiwan's president Lai Ching-te arrived in Eswatini this week, the last African country to formally recognize Taiwan. Fletcher and Octavio explore what the visit means, who the king of Eswatini actually is, and why two small places need each other so much.
El presidente de Taiwán, Lai Ching-te, llegó esta semana a Esuatini, el último país africano que reconoce a Taiwán como estado. Fletcher y Octavio exploran qué significa esta visita, quién es el rey de Esuatini y por qué dos lugares tan pequeños se necesitan tanto.
5 essential A2-level terms from this episode, with translations and example sentences in Spanish.
| Spanish | English | Example |
|---|---|---|
| juntos | together (plural, masculine or mixed group) | Esuatini y Taiwán trabajan juntos desde hace muchos años. |
| pequeño | small | Esuatini es un país pequeño con una cultura muy grande. |
| rey | king | El rey de Esuatini se llama Mswati Tercero. |
| cultura | culture | La cultura swazi es muy antigua y muy importante. |
| amigo | friend | El rey dice que Taiwán es el amigo de Esuatini. |
I'll be honest with you, I had to look Eswatini up on a map this week.
Not because I didn't know it existed, I did, but because the story caught me completely off guard and I wanted to remind myself exactly where we were talking about.
Esuatini está en el sur de África.
Eswatini is in southern Africa.
Es un país muy pequeño.
It is a very small country.
Small is almost an understatement.
It's landlocked, surrounded by South Africa on three sides and Mozambique on the fourth, and it has a population of about a million and a half people.
And this week, Taiwan's president flew there, eventually, after a genuinely strange set of complications.
Varios países no dan permiso al avión.
Several countries do not give permission to the plane.
El avión no puede pasar.
The plane cannot pass.
Right, which is already a remarkable thing.
The president of Taiwan tries to fly to one of his country's twelve remaining diplomatic allies, and countries along the route start revoking overflight permissions.
Taiwan says that's China applying pressure, quietly, behind the scenes.
China dice: Taiwán no es un país.
China says: Taiwan is not a country.
Muchos países escuchan a China.
Many countries listen to China.
And most of the world goes along with it.
That's the reality Lai Ching-te is navigating every time he boards a plane.
But I want to get into Eswatini itself for a minute, because it's a fascinating place that almost never gets talked about.
Esuatini tiene un rey.
Eswatini has a king.
El rey se llama Mswati Tercero.
The king's name is Mswati the Third.
And not a king in the constitutional, wave-from-the-balcony, purely ceremonial sense.
An actual absolute monarch.
He's been ruling since 1986, he has around fifteen wives, and political parties are banned.
In Africa in 2026, there is one absolute monarchy left, and this is it.
El pueblo swazi tiene una cultura muy fuerte.
The Swazi people have a very strong culture.
La tradición es muy importante.
Tradition is very important.
Tell me about the culture, because that's what I find genuinely arresting here.
Because from the outside you hear 'absolute monarchy' and you imagine something oppressive and closed, but that's not the whole picture.
Hay una danza muy famosa.
There is a very famous dance.
Se llama la Danza del Junco.
It is called the Reed Dance.
The Reed Dance.
I've read about this.
Tens of thousands of young women gather every year, they carry reeds to the royal residence, and it's one of the largest cultural ceremonies in southern Africa.
It's also the moment the king traditionally selects a new wife, which is where things get complicated depending on who you ask.
Para muchas personas, es un honor.
For many people, it is an honor.
Es parte de la identidad swazi.
It is part of the Swazi identity.
And for others, organizations like Amnesty have raised serious concerns about the rights of the women involved.
But I take your point that dismissing it entirely as just something a king invented is also wrong.
The Reed Dance predates Mswati the Third by a long time.
Sí, la danza es muy antigua.
Yes, the dance is very old.
Es de los swazis, no del rey.
It belongs to the Swazis, not to the king.
That's a distinction worth sitting with.
The culture is older than the ruler.
That's true almost everywhere, of course, but in Eswatini it has a particular weight because the monarch uses culture as a source of legitimacy.
The two things are intertwined in a very specific way.
El idioma swazi se llama siSwati.
The Swazi language is called siSwati.
Es una lengua bantú.
It is a Bantu language.
And it's the language of only about two million people in the world, most of them in Eswatini and parts of South Africa.
Which brings me to something I genuinely hadn't thought about before researching this week: what does it mean to be a tiny nation trying to preserve a language and a culture while also being completely surrounded by a much larger, more economically dominant neighbor?
Taiwán tiene el mismo problema.
Taiwan has the same problem.
Es pequeño pero tiene una cultura fuerte.
It is small but has a strong culture.
That's the connection, isn't it.
That's actually the thread that ties this whole story together.
Two places, completely different in almost every way, geography, history, language, economy, but both defined by the experience of trying to exist alongside a far more powerful neighbor that would prefer they didn't.
Exacto.
Exactly.
Los dos países dicen: nosotros existimos.
Both countries say: we exist.
Nosotros somos reales.
We are real.
Now, the cynical reading of the Taiwan-Eswatini relationship is straightforward: Taiwan gives money and development aid, Eswatini gives diplomatic recognition.
That transaction is real and I don't want to pretend it isn't.
But the cynical reading misses something.
Taiwán también ayuda con hospitales y escuelas.
Taiwan also helps with hospitals and schools.
No solo con dinero.
Not only with money.
Right, there's a Taiwanese hospital in Mbabane, the capital, that's been operating for decades.
There are agricultural programs.
Taiwanese technical teams who've been helping Swazi farmers with rice cultivation since the 1960s.
These are relationships built over sixty years, and that has its own texture.
Es una amistad larga.
It is a long friendship.
Sesenta años es mucho tiempo.
Sixty years is a lot of time.
Longer than most countries on earth have maintained unbroken formal relations with anyone.
And here's what I keep coming back to: when Lai Ching-te's plane was finally rerouted, when the original flight path became impossible because country after country said no, the visit still happened.
They found a way.
Para Taiwán, esto es muy importante.
For Taiwan, this is very important.
El mundo los mira.
The world is watching them.
Absolutely.
Every trip the Taiwanese president makes abroad is a political act.
Not just a diplomatic courtesy visit.
It's a statement that Taiwan is a functioning state with a legitimate government that gets to do normal things, like have a president who travels.
China dice que Taiwan es parte de China.
China says that Taiwan is part of China.
Taiwan no está de acuerdo.
Taiwan does not agree.
And hasn't agreed for seventy-five years, since the Nationalist government fled to the island after losing the civil war in 1949.
For most of that time, Taiwan actually held China's United Nations seat.
It was only in 1971 that the UN switched recognition to the People's Republic.
That's a history that shapes everything about this.
Esuatini nunca cambia.
Eswatini never changes.
Siempre apoya a Taiwán.
It always supports Taiwan.
Never, which is extraordinary given the pressure.
South Africa, which is Eswatini's economic lifeline in many respects, has formal relations with Beijing.
The African Union recognizes the People's Republic.
Eswatini is genuinely isolated in its own continent on this question, and it has held its position anyway.
El rey decide.
The king decides.
Y el rey dice: Taiwán es nuestro amigo.
And the king says: Taiwan is our friend.
Which is one of the strange side effects of an absolute monarchy, isn't it.
There's no parliament to lobby, no opposition party to flip.
One man decides, and that's the policy.
You can argue about whether that's a good system, but it does produce a certain consistency.
Sí, pero muchas personas en Esuatini son muy pobres.
Yes, but many people in Eswatini are very poor.
El rey tiene mucho dinero.
The king has a lot of money.
That tension is real.
Eswatini has one of the highest HIV rates in the world, significant poverty, and a king who has bought private jets and built palaces.
There have been protest movements, they've been suppressed.
So the culture we're celebrating as rich and ancient exists inside a political structure that a lot of people inside that culture are actively questioning.
La cultura y el gobierno no son lo mismo.
Culture and government are not the same thing.
Eso es importante.
That is important.
That's well put.
And I'd argue the same thing is true of Taiwan on the other end of this equation.
Taiwan's culture, its democracy, its films, its food scene, its literature, those things exist independently of the geopolitical fight over its status.
The culture doesn't need a UN seat to be real.
Taiwán tiene una cultura muy buena.
Taiwan has a very good culture.
La comida de Taiwán es famosa.
The food of Taiwan is famous.
Don't start on food, Octavio, we'll be here until next week.
La comida es cultura, Fletcher.
Food is culture, Fletcher.
Siempre.
Always.
You know what, you're right about that and I won't argue.
The night markets in Taipei are one of the great sensory experiences I've had anywhere in the world, and I've been to a lot of markets.
But coming back to this: the question the Eswatini story raises for me is about which countries get to be visible, and why.
Los países pequeños son invisibles a veces.
Small countries are sometimes invisible.
El mundo no los escucha.
The world does not listen to them.
And yet here's a country, Eswatini, with a million and a half people, a language spoken by two million people total, a culture that very few people in Europe or the Americas could describe in any detail, that is making a decision that has genuine consequences for the geopolitics of the entire Pacific region.
Eswatini matters in the Taiwan question.
That's not nothing.
Sí.
Yes.
Los países pequeños tienen poder también.
Small countries also have power.
Es diferente, pero es poder.
It is different, but it is power.
Symbolic power, in this case.
And I spent enough years covering international politics to have enormous respect for symbolic power.
It shapes reality over time.
The fact that Eswatini exists, that it holds this position, that the Taiwanese president made this trip even when the route was blocked, those things matter to people in ways that outlast any individual negotiation.
Fletcher, tú dices: 'simbólico'.
Fletcher, you say: 'symbolic'.
Esa palabra es interesante.
That word is interesting.
Go on, I can see you're about to make a point.
En español, 'símbolo' viene del griego.
In Spanish, 'símbolo' comes from Greek.
Significa dos partes juntas.
It means two parts together.
Two parts together.
That's literally what's happening here, isn't it.
Two small places, each half of a thing the other needs.
That's almost too neat, but I'll take it.
Y la palabra 'juntas' es interesante también.
And the word 'juntas' is interesting too.
¿Tú sabes 'junto' y 'juntos'?
Do you know 'junto' and 'juntos'?
I know 'junto' means together, or close, or alongside.
But you're making a face that tells me I'm missing something.
'Junto' es singular.
'Junto' is singular.
'Juntos' es plural.
'Juntos' is plural.
Ellas van juntas.
They go together (feminine).
Ellos van juntos.
They go together (masculine or mixed).
So the ending changes depending on who you're talking about.
Which means if I said 'Eswatini and Taiwan are together in this,' I'd say 'Esuatini y Taiwán van juntos.' Two countries, treated as a kind of masculine plural.
Exacto.
Exactly.
Y si son dos mujeres, 'juntas'.
And if they are two women, 'juntas'.
Si son mixtos, siempre 'juntos'.
If they are mixed, always 'juntos'.
Which is the kind of rule that takes fifteen seconds to learn and then just lives in your ear after that.
In English we just say 'together' and call it a day.
No gender negotiation required.
I imagine you find that lazy.
'Lazy' no.
Not 'lazy'.
Simplemente...
Simply...
diferente.
different.
El inglés es así.
English is like that.
High praise from you, Octavio, I'll take it.
Juntos.
Eswatini and Taiwan, juntos.
Small places that decided to exist, together, despite everything arranged against them.
That's not a bad place to leave it.