What Somaliland’s 2024 Elections mean for the China-Taiwan Rivalry in the Horn

In the wake of the crucial elections in the self-declared ‘Republic of Somaliland’ on 13 November 2024, the balance of power in the Taiwan-China rivalry for diplomatic recognition in the Horn of Africa has certainly tilted in China’s favour. In the run-up to the election, President Muse Bihi Abdi and the ruling Kulmiye Party forged a strong partnership with Taiwan and hedged against China in the Red Sea region to get Western countries to recognise Somaliland’s statehood as part of his re-election strategy.

In January 2024, as the election approached without a single recognition of Somaliland’s independence, President Abdi signed a port-for-recognition Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abby Ahmed Ali. This was a last-ditch strategy to get Ethiopia, which also hosts the African Union, to recognise Hargeisa and open the floodgates for recognition of Somaliland as a sovereign nation.  Both deepening ties with Taiwan and signing a port deal with Ethiopia to win recognition for Somaliland as re-election strategies went awry.

Internally, these strategies have left Somaliland badly divided (amid debilitating inter-clan violence in Las Anod), stoked Somali nationalism and fuelled tensions across the region and beyond, shattering Somaliland’s image as an “oasis of stability” in the Horn of Africa. As Somaliland’s democracy lost its shine, its drive for international recognition has also become a steep climb. The convergence of these scenarios contributed to the electoral defeat of President Abdi and the Kulmiye Party.

In a word, the opposition candidate, Abdirahman (“Irro”) Mohamed Abdullahi and his Waddani party, rode to power on the crest wave of popular discontent over the ties with Taiwan, deadly conflict in the Eastern part of the region, the port-for-recognition deal with Ethiopia and a growing appeal of reunification with Somalia, especially among minority clans in Somaliland. The post-election agenda is to heal Somaliland, end clan-based conflict and restore its democracy.

But the return of Donald Trump as the 47^th President of the United States is a black swan in the geopolitics of the Horn. The region should brace for heightened geopolitical competition as the United States and its allies—including Taiwan—move to counter China’s growing influence in African after the 2024 FOCAC summit in Beijing. This article examines the impact of major strategies and counter-strategies on Somaliland’s election and the future of power in the region.

Somaliland’s Taiwan strategy

The first of these pre-election strategies is President Muse Bihi Abdi’s ‘Taiwan Strategy’. After three decades of unilaterally declared independence from Somalia in 1991, without a single international recognition of Somaliland’s statehood, recognition was a major election issue in 2024. Upon coming to power in 2017, President Muse Bihi Abdi became attracted to Taiwan’s strategy of establishing unofficial ties across the world, which enabled countries to regularly cooperate and support the island.  He set out to secure for Somaliland the same “unofficial legitimacy” that Taiwan had enjoyed worldwide for decades.

On July 1, 2020, he signed a partnership deal with Taiwan, which stepped up its partnership with Somaliland. This enabled Somaliland to open a “Representative Office” in Taipei, and, in turn, Taiwan established one in Hargeisa as one of its 110 embassies and representative offices worldwide by 2021. The primary aim of the Taiwan-Somaliland partnership, according to Taiwan’s Representative to Somaliland Allen C Lou, was to “prevent the Red Sea from becoming China’s” and secure the Red Sea route. In the 2023-2024 period, partnership with Taiwan injected momentum into Somaliland’s efforts to gain US recognition.

By hedging against Chinese influence in the region and maintaining close relations with Taiwan, President Abdi hoped to deepen Somaliland’s informal ties with the US, where it set up a representative office in Washington. Riding on Taiwan’s diplomatic access, Bihi was able to visit Washington in March 2022. Ahead of the November election, Taipei gave US$2 million in support Somaliland’s election.

In February 2024, Taiwan declared that it would establish more representative offices in Africa in the coming years. This will be an uphill climb after the exit of President Abdi in Hargeisa and the rise of China’s influence in the aftermath of the 2024 Beijing FOCAC Summit, which was attended by 54 out of 55 African Union member States that recognise the ‘One-China Principle’, with the exception of Eswatini (formerly Swaziland), Taiwan’s lone ally in Africa. Arguably, President Abdi lost to his partnership with Taiwan. After the election, Taipei’s African diplomacy is on the backfoot.

Port-for-recognition deal

The second strategy is the ‘port-for-recognition’ deal between Somaliland and Ethiopia. As the November election approached, President Abdi’s Taiwan partnership strategy had failed to secure international recognition for Somaliland, putting his re-election in jeopardy.

With the help of the former British Attorney General, Michael Ellis, Somaliland hurriedly drafted a port-for-recognition Memorandum of Understanding(MoU) with Ethiopia, signed on January 1, 2024. The deal proposed to give Ethiopia, which already has 19% stake in the port of Berbera, access to the Red Sea via a 20km strip in Somalia’s 850km Gulf of Aden coastline. As a re-election strategy, the aim of the port deal was to get Ethiopia, a host of the African Union, to recognize Somaliland, with many more countries in Africa and the Global South expected to follow suit.

Although Ethiopia provided Somaliland wit land to build its “Embassy” in Addis Ababa, the port-for-recognition pact is yet another of President Abdi’s election strategies that went awry and cost him the election. Instead, the port deal triggered a perfect storm that has rippled across the Horn region and beyond. Specifically, it has fueled tensions between two of China’s strategic partners in Africa—Egypt and Ethiopia—whose entry into the BRICS bloc as the newest members in January coincided with the port deal.

Following the port deal, Egypt’s defence pact with Somalia, supply of arms and soldiers to Mogadishu and decision to contribute troops to the African Union Support and Stabilisation Mission in Somalia (AUSSOM) have rattled Ethiopia and Somaliland. Ahead of the Somaliland election, Egypt, Eritrea and Somalia formed a tripartite coalition to prevent Ethiopia’s military ambitions in the Red Sea coastline.

Oasis of stability no more

In part, resistance to President Abdi’s ties with Taiwan ignited tensions within the dominant Isaaq clan and with other minority clans (Darood and Dir) in the region. His use of the military to respond to calls for reunification with Somalia sparked violent conflict in Somaliland’s eastern city of Las Anod. By August 2023 the conflict had killed over 300 people, displaced 153,000–203,000 others as refugees and robbed Somaliland’s shine as a small stable democracy in war-torn Somalia.

The conflict pushed mainly the Dhulbahante clan and other small clans out of the electoral system, making the 2024 election almost an Isaaq clan affair. After President Abdi’s humiliating military defeat in the battle of Goojacade, his electoral defeat was almost inevitable. Taiwan and President Abdi’s representative in Taipei, Dr. Mohamed Hagi, shifted blame for the conflict in Las Anod to China for “interfering in Somaliland’s internal politics and provoking conflict,” a claim amplified by writers in the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute (AEI).

In the eyes of Biden’s America, however, the Las Anod conflict ended the myth of Somaliland as an “oasis of stability” in the Horn of Africa. The delay of elections twice since 2022 for conflict and lack of funding fueled concerns of “democratic backsliding” and lowered optimism about Somaliland globally.

China’s “One Somalia” policy

China responded to the Somaliland-Taiwan partnership by invoking the ‘one-Somalia’ policy, also upheld by the African Union. Similarly, although Ethiopia is one of China’s leading strategic partner in the Horn and home to many Chinese companies and industrial packs, Beijing responded to the port-for-recognition deal by sticking to “One-Somalia” policy, and calling for the respect of Somalia’s territorial integrity.

By the same token, China has accused Taiwan of undermining “Somalia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.” It has made the ‘one Somalia policy the basis of its development cooperation with Somaliland. In 2020, Beijing offered President Abdi’s government an infrastructure development package—including aid to build roads and an airport—on condition that it severed ties with Taiwan. The President rejected the offer, and China withdrew its businesses from Somaliland.

After the election, China, within the ‘One-Somalia’ policy, is refocusing attention on development cooperation with the Red Sea region.  Although China has maintained a military presence in Djibouti since 2017, it has always considered Somaliland’s Port of Berbera, one of Africa’s busiest, as a strategic asset. China’s key partners and members of the BRICS grouping such United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Ethiopia have invested in the Port, and India has eyed it as an alternative to overcrowded Djibouti. Hargeisa also hosts consulates and liaison offices of China’s strategic partners.

China has in place the necessary framework to help secure peace and reconciliation in Las Anod. This include the “Outlook on Peace and Development in the Horn”, launched by  China’s Foreign Minister, Wang Yi, in January 2022 to help promote peace and good governance, and to support development. Beijing has appointed a Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa Affairs, Xue Bing, to spearhead its peace support, development and stabilisation initiatives in the Horn of Africa, including Somaliland.  These tools can also be used to address tensions involving China’s regional allies, including Ethiopia, Eritrea, Egypt and Somalia in the wake of the port-for-recognition debacle.

The Trump black swan

The return of President Donald Trump as the 47^th President of the United States is, undoubtedly, the black swan in the Horn geopolitics; it is poised to shape the future of post-election Somaliland. In his first term, rattled by China’s move to establish a military base in Djibouti, Trump forged stronger informal ties with Somaliland to counter China’s influence in the region.

With the election in Somaliland having tilted the balance of power in the Horn in favour of China, the Trump administration will predictably deepen its engagement with Somaliland. Trump may also follow through on the Biden-era plan to establish a permanent military base in Somaliland’s port of Berbera. Taiwan will most likely try to get Washington to revive the stalled Somaliland Partnership Act, which was introduced in March 2022 to monitor US assistance to Somaliland and assess the feasibility of establishing a US-Somaliland partnership, including cooperation on regional security issues.

Already, Trump is under immense pressure, particularly from British lobbies, to ‘stand with Somaliland’s democratic values and stability in the region’ and recognise its statehood. But America’s recognition of Somaliland will remain a bridge too far.

Professor Peter Kagwanja is the President and CEO of the Africa Policy Institute (API). He also serves as an adjunct scholar at the University of Nairobi and the National Defense University in Kenya. From 2007 to 2013, he advised the Kenyan government on reforms and strategy, playing a key role in the development of Kenya’s 2010 Constitution and its 2014 Foreign Policy.

Additionally, Kagwanja is a special adviser to the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and frequently advises various African governments, United Nations agencies, the European Union, and major nations like the UK, USA, Japan, and China. He is also on the International Advisory Board of the China-Africa Institute and co-chairs the Academic Committee of the China-Africa Cooperation Network, among other roles in various organizations.