Panama does not expect any change in its relations with Taiwan or China, a senior official from the isthmus nation said on Friday, despite increased pressure from Beijing on Taiwan’s allies to sever ties.
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) is to visit Central America next month, against a tense backdrop after news of her telephone call with US president-elect Donald Trump angered China earlier this month.
Panama is one of Taiwan’s oldest friends, but some diplomats in Beijing have said the Central American country could become the next nation to break ties.
“Relations with Taiwan are good, in excellent condition as always,” Panamanian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Luis Miguel Hincapie said in an interview. “They’ve been a cooperative partner of Panama for many years, and will continue to be so.”
Tsai is not scheduled to visit Panama on her trip, which is to encompass Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala.
Hincapie also said that the country’s relationship with China was “excellent” and did not comment on whether there had been any pressure from China to break with Taiwan.
“China is an investor in Panama, a user of the [Panama] Canal, a very important user of the canal,” the minister said.
Asked about what impact US president-elect Donald Trump’s support for Taiwan could have on Panama, Hincapie said: “We have relations with Taiwan, the United States does not ... so it’s an issue for the United States.”
Since the mid-1990s, almost a third of Taiwan’s allies have broken ties. It now has formal relations with just 21, mostly smaller and poorer nations in Latin America and the Asia-Pacific region.
The domestically designed Teng Yun 2 drone passed development milestones over the weekend, flying for more than 10 hours straight and circling Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ), in the longest flight of an indigenous uncrewed combat aerial vehicle. Developed by the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology, the Teng Yun 2, or “Cloud Rider” (騰雲二型), recorded its longest flight yet over the weekend, after a three-hour test flight last month, followed by five and seven-hour stretches in the air. The Teng Yun 2 No. 1812 departed from Chiashan Air Base in Hualien County at 6:46pm on Saturday and flew on a
A slew of new measures are to take effect on Friday, including nationwide bring-your-own-cup discounts. The new rule requires chain beverage shops to offer discounts of at least NT$5 (US$0.17) to customers who bring their own cups, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has said. The policy would apply to more than 50,000 chain retail locations, including beverage shops, convenience stores, fast-food restaurants and supermarkets. It aims to cut down on waste from single-use plastic cups, more than 2.2 billion of which were used in Taiwan in 2020, the agency said. For convenience, the EPA said it has asked retailers to display signs stating how
TIMING: 'The CHIPS Act funding is crucial for us. In other words, if the act’s passage is delayed for too long, we will certainly need to adjust,’ chairwoman Doris Hsu said GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓) plans to start construction on a US$5 billion wafer fabrication facility in Texas in November, after passage of the US$52 billion Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (CHIPS) for America Act. The fab would be the largest of its kind in the US and one of the largest in the world, with a monthly capacity of 1.2 million wafers, GlobalWafers said, adding that the investment would be the first new fab in the US in more than 20 years and critical to closing a semiconductor supply chain gap. The world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier said the project, which
COUNTERING CHINA: ‘When democracies demonstrate what we can do ... I have no doubt that we’ll win that competition every time,’ US President Joe Biden said US President Joe Biden rebooted his effort to counter China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) after an earlier campaign faltered, enlisting the support of G7 leaders at their summit in Germany. The Build Back Better World initiative, named after Biden’s domestic spending and climate agenda, struggled to get off the ground because not enough G7 partners contributed financially when it was unveiled a year ago, people familiar with its lack of progress said. “When democracies demonstrate what we can do — all that we have to offer — I have no doubt that we’ll win that competition every time,” Biden said during