At the end of July, Rabat stopped issuing visa confirmation letters to Taiwanese citizens without prior notice. Taipei, in turn, responded by suspending visas for Moroccans. A consular skirmish that may seem minor, but which is in fact part of a much bigger game — the very same one that has had Ceuta and Spain in a stranglehold for weeks.

Ceuta, first and foremost

During the night between Thursday 30 and Friday 31 July, thousands of people swam across the border between Morocco and Ceuta, the Spanish autonomous city on the North African coast.
According to the Spanish Ministry of the Interior, the death toll stands at at least 67 — other sources put the figure at nearly 80 — out of over 60,000 arrivals, 48,000 of whom have already been repatriated.

This is by no means the first time: in May 2021, an identical situation occurred when Rabat deliberately relaxed border controls after Madrid had admitted the leader of the Polisario Front to hospital for treatment.

The mechanism is always the same, now recognised by many diplomats across Europe: the flow of migrants towards Ceuta and Melilla is a lever that Rabat can activate and deactivate at will, depending on what it wishes to achieve from Madrid at that particular moment.

Meanwhile, in Europe, the crisis has already caused political upheaval: the Meloni government has attempted to reintroduce temporary controls at Schengen internal borders; Sánchez has responded on X, referring to treaties and Frontex data; and Santiago Abascal has rushed to Ceuta to call, alongside Vox, for the permanent militarisation of the border. Chronicles of a crisis featured on every front page around the world.

What was happening between Rabat and Taipei during the same period, however, went completely unnoticed — yet it tells exactly the same story, simply set on a different front.
For, thousands of kilometres from Ceuta, Morocco suddenly stopped issuing visas to Taiwanese citizens. And Taiwan, in turn, suspended visas for Moroccan citizens.

It is Morocco itself, and it is the same pattern: a kingdom that has learnt to wield its diplomatic and consular levers as instruments of geopolitical pressure, shifting the stakes from one table to another with extreme – and, above all, worrying – ease.

A timeline of the Taiwan–Morocco case

On 23 July, the Moroccan Embassy in Tokyo — which handles consular matters for Taiwan in the absence of direct diplomatic relations — informed Taiwanese travel agencies to suspend, with immediate effect, the issuance of Visa Confirmation Letters (VCLs), the document that every Taiwanese citizen must obtain before travelling to Morocco for tourism or business. Lion Travel, one of Taiwan’s leading travel agencies, announced that it was halting its processing of applications and began refunding customers who had already made bookings.

On 24 July, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Taipei (MOFA) announced that it had contacted the Moroccan authorities to seek an explanation, but had not received any response on the matter.
In the days that followed, Taiwanese investigations confirmed that this was not an isolated incident involving the embassy in Tokyo: Rabat had instructed all its embassies and consulates worldwide to suspend services to Taiwanese citizens.

On 30 July, Taipei responded. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) announced the suspension, “on the basis of the principle of reciprocity”, of visa applications for Moroccan citizens wishing to enter Taiwan, except in cases approved on an individual basis.
In its official statement, the ministry urges Rabat to “maintain facilitated arrangements for business and tourist travel” and to “resume regular exchanges between the two peoples as soon as possible”, specifying that it will continue to monitor Morocco’s visa policy and to “adjust its own measures accordingly ”.
Those who had already obtained a VCL before 20 July may still enter Morocco until the document expires.

To date, Rabat has not provided any official explanation as to why the suspension took place.
It must be made clear, for the sake of accuracy: Morocco has never had formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan, has always strictly adhered to the ‘One China’ principle and maintains full diplomatic ties with Beijing.
It cannot be ruled out that this is merely a bureaucratic tightening of the rules linked to internal Moroccan considerations. However, the timing, the method — no prior notice, a communication issued to all missions worldwide — and, above all, the context in which it occurs, warrant being interpreted in the light of something broader.

Could there be more to it than that?

Morocco: China’s springboard for colonising Europe

We might find an answer here, which would shed the most light on Morocco’s actions.
For over the past three years, Rabat has quietly but unequivocally become China’s industrial bridgehead to the European market.
The figures – verifiable and publicly available – are impressive. The Chinese battery giant Gotion High-Tech has signed an agreement with the Moroccan government to build, in Kenitra, what will be, by the end of 2026, the largest battery gigafactory in the whole of Africa: an initial investment of $1.3 billion set to rise to $6.5 billion, with production capacity set to increase from an initial 20 GWh to 100–120 GWh — enough to power hundreds of thousands of electric vehicles a year.

This is not the only case. In Tangier, plants are either under construction or already operational for BTR New Material Group (cathode and anode materials, with a second $363.5 million plant announced this year), Zhejiang Hailiang (copper processing, 150,000 tonnes per year), and Shinzoom (anode materials, a $690 million investment).

In Jorf Lasfar, near Casablanca, the Sino-Moroccan joint venture COBCO has been producing lithium-ion battery precursors since June 2025 at a $2 billion plant with a capacity equivalent to 70 GWh — enough for one million electric vehicles a year. Overall, Chinese car manufacturers and suppliers have invested over 10 billion euros in Morocco since the start of the pandemic, making it China’s main manufacturing hub outside China.

Bilateral trade between the two countries exceeded 11 billion dollars in 2025, representing growth of over 20 per cent in a single year: China is now Morocco’s third-largest trading partner. And Rabat’s decision is by no means coincidental: Morocco possesses up to 80 per cent of the world’s phosphate reserves – a strategic raw material for the battery industry – has free trade agreements that guarantee it privileged access to the European and US markets, and is located just 14 kilometres from the Spanish coast.

In other words, through Morocco, China is establishing a platform on African soil from which to export to Europe, circumventing tariffs, controls and the growing political resistance in Brussels towards products made in China.
The Financial Times and the European Council on Foreign Relations have madethis abundantly clear in recent months: Rabat has, in effect, become China’s ‘bridgehead’ in the western Mediterranean.

The circle is complete

Let us return, then, to Ceuta. What the migration crisis at the end of July and the suspension of visas in Taipei have in common is the same underlying logic: a Morocco that has learnt to use every available lever – whether relating to migration, consular affairs or trade – as a means of exerting political pressure.
In the case of Spain, the lever is control over migration flows. In the case of Taiwan, the lever is consular access. In both cases, the victim is a player with less bargaining power than Rabat: on the one hand, a European Union that struggles to present a united front in the face of migration-related blackmail; on the other, a Taiwan that lacks the diplomatic clout to protest with the force it would like.

And in both cases, Beijing is in the background. Not necessarily as the direct architect of every single move — to date, there is no evidence of explicit Chinese instructions regarding the visa issue — but as the strategic cornerstone of a Morocco that has every interest in remaining aligned with Beijing, particularly as it hosts multi-billion-euro gigafactories intended for the European market.

A Morocco that is at odds with Taiwan is, quite simply, a Morocco acting in line with its broader economic interests. The question Europe should be asking itself at this point is not whether Morocco is playing on multiple squares of the chessboard. It is whether Europe – and Taiwan along with it – still has enough room for manoeuvre to avoid merely being at the mercy of others’ moves.

Acting in unison is the order of the day.