country even if they re small, one thing they ve come up with is essentially decided to market their diplomatic relations to whoever wants to pay for them. what are the things an actual country can do that nobody else can do is have international relations. sounds dirty and it sometimes is. if you would like to have international relations of some kind with vanatu, open your checkbook and swivel your wrist. they re open to almost anything for a price. for example, the ongoing and very tense standoff between china and taiwan. taiwan in some ways wanting to be an independent nation. china insisting taiwan will never be independent, it will always be part of china. in 2004, vanatu decided they were going to recognize the independent nation of taiwan. opened up diplomatic relations with the capital, it taipei. china, of course, was furious. taiwan reportedly paid vanuatu $30 million for that recognition. and it s no small thing to make