China Tells Its Citizens to Leave Eswatini — and the Taiwan Diplomatic Fight Is the Subtext
China's foreign ministry has advised its citizens to leave Eswatini "as soon as possible," citing "extremely high security risks" from cyber fraud and criminal activities tied to gambling. The advisory, reported on August 26, 2026, directed Chinese nationals to relocate to "relatively safer" countries, naming neighbouring South Africa specifically. Citizens who insist on travelling to or staying in Eswatini were warned that "the timeliness of assistance may be affected" (BBC News; Malay Mail).
The backdrop matters here. Eswatini is one of only 12 countries worldwide, and the sole African state, that maintains diplomatic relations with Taiwan rather than the People's Republic of China. (In diplomatic terms, countries must choose: they formally recognise either Beijing's government or Taipei's as the legitimate representative of China. Beijing claims Taiwan as part of its territory and insists other states sever official ties with Taipei.) That status has long made Eswatini an outlier on the continent, where Beijing has spent decades expanding its diplomatic and economic footprint through infrastructure financing, trade preferences, and bilateral partnerships.
Earlier this year, China scrapped tariffs — essentially import taxes — for all African countries except Eswatini, a move widely interpreted as leveraging market access to pressure Mbabane (Eswatini's capital, often used as shorthand for the government) into switching recognition. The tariff exclusion was followed by a sharper diplomatic clash in April, when Taiwan accused Beijing of pressuring nearby countries to revoke overflight permits (clearances that allow a plane to pass through another country's airspace) in an attempt to derail Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te's planned travel to Eswatini. Taipei said Beijing had tried to cancel the trip outright, a claim Lai conveyed directly to Eswatini's king upon his arrival in May (BBC News; Reuters).
Lai's visit proceeded without a publicly announced route, and no government disclosed the trip beforehand. After the visit, China's foreign ministry described Lai as having become "an international laughing stock." Chinese officials went further, characterizing Lai as a "rat" (BBC News; Reuters).
The security advisory also intersects with a detentions dispute that has been building inside Eswatini for months. According to the Times of Eswatini, dozens of foreign nationals were first arrested in March during raids on alleged illegal online gambling centres in Mbabane and surrounding areas. The newspaper reported that 40 Chinese nationals had been in detention since the previous month after being arrested while trying to leave the country. Lawyers for the detainees wrote to Eswatini's attorney general and home affairs ministry, stating that the individuals had pleaded guilty to immigration-related offences and paid court-imposed fines. The 40 were subsequently released on the orders of the High Court, and their lawyers argue that their re-arrest was unlawful (BBC News; Times of Eswatini).
The foreign ministry's advisory cites "rampant cyber fraud and criminal activities associated with gambling" as its stated security concern. The phrasing aligns with a pattern China has deployed elsewhere in Southeast Asia and Africa, where consular warnings about transnational cybercrime operations have preceded broader diplomatic pressure campaigns.
The broader context here is what sets the Eswatini case apart. The kingdom is the last African holdout in the Taiwan-Beijing diplomatic contest, and the advisory follows months of escalating measures tailored specifically to a state that resists Beijing's sovereignty claims.
Think of it as a pressure campaign applied across several fronts at once. The tariff exclusion in early 2026 targeted Eswatini's economic interests. The overflight dispute in April tested its airspace and diplomatic autonomy. The detentions of Chinese nationals inside the country created a bilateral legal friction point. And now the citizen advisory, whatever its genuine consular merits, functions simultaneously as a signal to Mbabane about the costs of continued Taiwan recognition.
For Chinese nationals actually in Eswatini, the advisory is concrete and operational: leave, or accept that consular help may not arrive promptly. For Eswatini's government, it is the latest in a sequence of measures that have tightened around the kingdom from multiple directions. And for Taiwan, it is a reminder of the vulnerability of a diplomatic ally that sits far from Taipei's immediate reach, surrounded by states that have all switched recognition to Beijing.
No single one of these actions, taken alone, would amount to a rupture. Taken together, they form a coordinated spectrum of pressure: economic, diplomatic, consular. Whether Eswatini recalibrates its Taiwan relationship in response is a decision that rests with King Mswati III's government. What is clear is that Beijing has multiple instruments trained on a single, small target, and it is deploying them in sequence.
