Kompetisi Diplomasi: Taiwan (ROC) versus Tiongkok (PRC) di Kepulauan Solomon tahun 2016-2019

The relationship between China and Taiwan is on enduring rivalry for the last
five decades regarding their identity, territory, and national sovereignty. From
China's perspective, Taiwan is an inseparable part of Mainland China, therefore
every forms of self independence are not accepted. Meanwhile from Taiwan's
perspective, it is a sovereign state that doesn't abide to "One China, Two System”
principle. The competition of those two often involves diplomacy to obtain formal
recognition from other countries to maintain its legitimacy and rights as a
state. On September 2019, Solomon Island, which had been in relationship for
36 years with Taiwan, decided to change its formal recognition and supported
China. The author uses Joseph Nye Jr's Soft Power Theory with library research
data collection methods and congruent data analysis methods. This paper aims
to analyze the form of Taiwan and China policies through the concept of soft
power and understanding the influence of those two countries' policies to the
decision of the Solomon Island. The results proves that China's soft power is superior
to Taiwan's soft power from the perspective of Solomon Islands.