The central African country, whose decision was announced Sunday, is the seventh nation to switch recognition to China from rival Taiwan since 2000, following Senegal, Liberia, Macedonia, Dominica, Vanuatu and Grenada.

Taiwan, which China regards as a renegade province, is now recognized by just 24 countries, including five African nations and other mostly small states in Central America and the Pacific.

Chad's decision is part of an unstoppable trend as countries are lured by the need to befriend China despite Taiwan's generous financial aid, analysts said.

African countries, plagued by civil wars and cross-border conflicts, are especially anxious, as they look to Beijing for political backing or protection from rival neighbors as well as for economic reasons, analysts said.

"It's because China's power and influence is rising on the world stage," said He Wenping, director of the African Studies Section at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

"So establishing diplomatic relations with China is more beneficial to them than having ties with Taiwan."

Liu Bi-rung, political science professor from Soochow University in Taiwan, said Chad's switching of recognition may spark a "domino effect" in Africa.

Analysts said that for China, winning over African countries had an important economic element and was not simply an effort to squeeze Taiwan's diplomatic space.

"There's certainly a big desire of China to increase ties with Africa, not only to obtain resources from Africa, but also to market Chinese goods, and the profiles of those goods have changed a lot," said Barry Sautman, a professor specializing in China at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

"Those goods used to be small household goods. Now at least half of China's trade with Africa involves machinery and high-tech goods."

Trade volume between China and Africa reached around 40 billion dollars in 2005, a rise of 35 percent from a year earlier and almost four times higher than in 2001, according to official Chinese figures.

Sino-African trade is now twice that of China's trade with South Asia despite its closer proximity and larger population, Sautman said.

China has also looked increasingly to Africa in recent years for oil.

Ties with Chad, a desperately poor country that nevertheless does have oil, are expected to give it access to the country's natural resources.

Chad could see its oil pipeline, which was blown up by rebels, rebuilt and linked to a pipeline China built in Sudan which could transport its oil to Port Sudan, Sautman said.

Beijing has aggressively stepped up its political presence in Africa recently, with its president, premier and foreign minister all making visits in the first half of the year.

It has also set up regular China-African summits.

"Since the early 1990s, China has launched a diplomatic offensive targeting Africa," Liu from Taiwan's Soochow University said.

"The efforts are part of China's global strategy to seek oil resources to meet strong domestic demand."

Sautman said China's growing interests in the region could end up being about more than just trade and natural resources.

Beijing could act as an intermediary and appear as a stabilizing element between nations such as Chad and Sudan, he said.

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