Taiwan has been included on a list of countries unwanted at Canada Day events, the Canadian Press news agency reported on Sunday.
The Canadian Trade Office in Taipei was not able to verify the information, which the Canadian Press obtained under the Canadian Access to Information Act, which provides access to information under the Ottawa’s control.
According to the report, the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development circulates a persona non grata list in June each year, warning its embassies, consulates and other overseas missions to bar them from local events marking Canada Day, which is on July 1.
North Korea, Fiji, Belarus, Iran, Syria, Guinea-Bissau and Madagascar were the prominent countries on last year’s list, largely because of Canada’s disapproval of unelected or “badly behaved” governments, Canadian Press said.
Taiwan is also on the list this year, though only because Canada does not recognize the nation as a state rather than from any disapproval of its government, the news agency said.
The Canadian Press said that the department has refused to release its list this year, but it added that there were unlikely to be any changes from last year, with the possible inclusion of Russia for the first time.
An accompanying memorandum from Canadian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Morris Rosenberg says the invitation restrictions apply for events being held in Canada as well, the report said.
The Canadian Press said that it asked the department to comment on the list and a spokesperson replied: “It is not our practice to provide lists of country representatives invited or not invited to functions held at our missions abroad.”
“I’m afraid that’s all I have at this point,” Ian Trites, a department spokesperson said in an e-mail, according to the Canadian Press.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded to a Taipei Times request for a response by issuing a three-point statement at 10:20pm.
The ministry said that one, it was the Canadian Press that had stated in its report that Canada’s foreign affairs department did not provide a list for this year; two, it was the Canadian Press that termed the list a persona non grata list; and three — as the Canadian Press had said — Taiwan was on the list last year not because the Canadian government was critical of Taiwan or was displeased with it, but because Ottawa does not recognize Taiwan as a state.
“The ministry found the comments about Taiwan in the report deeply regrettable,” ministry spokesperson Anna Kao (高安) told the Taipei Times.
Kao said the relationship between Taiwan and Canada has been growing steadily closer, evidenced by the signing of the working holiday agreement in April 2010, the inclusion of Taiwan in Canada’s visa waiver program in November that year and the signing of an agreement expanding the number of bilateral direct flights in November last year.
Earlier in the evening, former minister of foreign affairs Cheng Chien-jen (程建人) told the Taipei Times that he has never heard of the list and “it is hard for me to believe that it exists unless I see it with my own eyes.”
“If Canada has such a list, it should revise it. I do not see any reason to put Taiwan on the list because it is a democratic country and the relationship between Taiwan and Canada has [always] been cordial,” Cheng said.
This story has been updated since it was first published.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) on Wednesday said that a new chip manufacturing technology called “A16” is to enter production in the second half of 2026, setting up a showdown with longtime rival Intel over who can make the fastest chips. TSMC, the world’s biggest contract manufacturer of advanced computing chips and a key supplier to Nvidia and Apple, announced the news at a conference in Santa Clara, California, where TSMC executives said that makers of artificial intelligence (AI) chips will likely be the first adopters of the technology rather than a smartphone maker. Analysts said that the technologies announced on
NO RECIPROCITY: Taipei has called for cross-strait group travel to resume fully, but Beijing is only allowing people from its Fujian Province to travel to Matsu, the MAC said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday criticized an announcement by the Chinese Ministry of Culture and Tourism that it would lift a travel ban to Taiwan only for residents of China’s Fujian Province, saying that the policy does not meet the principles of reciprocity and openness. Chinese Deputy Minister of Culture and Tourism Rao Quan (饒權) yesterday morning told a delegation of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers in a meeting in Beijing that the ministry would first allow Fujian residents to visit Lienchiang County (Matsu), adding that they would be able to travel to Taiwan proper directly once express ferry
CALL FOR DIALOGUE: The president-elect urged Beijing to engage with Taiwan’s ‘democratically elected and legitimate government’ to promote peace President-elect William Lai (賴清德) yesterday named the new heads of security and cross-strait affairs to take office after his inauguration on May 20, including National Security Council (NSC) Secretary-General Wellington Koo (顧立雄) to be the new defense minister and former Taichung mayor Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) as minister of foreign affairs. While Koo is to head the Ministry of National Defense and presidential aide Lin is to take over as minister of foreign affairs, Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) would be retained as the nation’s intelligence chief, continuing to serve as director-general of the National Security Bureau, Lai told a news conference in Taipei. Koo,
MANAGING DIFFERENCES: In a meeting days after the US president signed a massive foreign aid bill, Antony Blinken raised concerns with the Chinese president about Taiwan US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday met with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and senior Chinese officials, stressing the importance of “responsibly managing” the differences between the US and China as the two sides butt heads over a number of contentious bilateral, regional and global issues, including Taiwan and the South China Sea. Talks between the two sides have increased over the past few months, even as differences have grown. Blinken said he raised concerns with Xi about Taiwan and the South China Sea, along with China’s support for Russia and its invasion of Ukraine, as well as other issues