Taiwan plans to save Pacific ally from rising sea

Reuters Alertnet 23 Mar 10;

TAIPEI, March 23 (Reuters) - Taiwan pledged on Tuesday to rescue tiny South Pacific diplomatic ally Kiribati from rising sea levels, a move that would boost Taipei's international profile and put political rival Beijing on edge.

Following Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou's pledge to help rescue Kiribati, one of its few diplomatic allies, the foreign ministry said it would look into offering the chain of atolls expertise accumulated from post-typhoon relief work.

Kiribati President Anote Tong told Ma, who is visiting allies in the South Pacific this week, that his people may eventually need to evacuate to Taiwan, local media reported.

Taiwan will also show Kiribati, population 96,500, how to plant mangrove forests along the coast to stop seawater intrusion and put farms inside giant water-resistant containers, said Tsai Shiang-wu, chief of technical cooperation under the Taiwan foreign ministry's international aid agency.

Help for Kiribati, 811 sq km (313 sq miles) of 33 largely flat coral reefs threatened by rising sea levels -- blamed on global warming -- gives Taiwan a better shot at a long-sought role in the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, analysts say.

Taiwan has said it would offer similar aid to Tuvalu, another South Pacific ally that faces rising sea levels.

"This is something that gives you the basic credentials," said Raymond Wu, managing director of e-telligence, a political risk consultancy in Taipei. "It certainly looks good on the resume when you apply for participation in the U.N."

China has used its roughly 170 diplomatic allies around the world to assert legitimacy over Taiwan, which has 23 partners, mostly small and impoverished nations.

Beijing also bars Taiwan from international organisations that require statehood as a prerequisite.

China has claimed sovereignty over self-ruled Taiwan since 1949, when Mao Zedong's Communists won the Chinese civil war and Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists fled to the island.

(Reporting by Ralph Jennings; Editing by Paul Tait)