Nicaragua on Monday reaffirmed its commitment to maintaining formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan at a time when other countries in the region have shifted their allegiance to China under strong pressure from Beijing.
Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega has publicly stated that his country would maintain relations with Taiwan, and that there was no need for speculation on ties between Nicaragua and Taiwan, Nicaraguan Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Valdrack Jaentschke told Taiwanese reporters after a seminar held in Washington by US-based think tank Inter-American Dialogue.
Asked about the status of Nicaragua’s ties with Taiwan, Jaentschke said that they were strong.
Asked if Nicaragua has come under pressure from Beijing to break ties with Taiwan or from Washington to keep relations, Jaentschke said Nicaragua is committed to establishing peace, security and tranquility.
“President Ortega has said and a number of [legislators] have said that we will continue our relationship with Taiwan. That was said publicly this week,” Jaentschke said.
“So I don’t see why we need to put that in doubt,” he added. “That is our formal and official position.”
Following his election as president in 1984, Ortega broke relations with Taiwan to recognize China in 1985, but after he lost his bid for re-election in 1990, the new government resumed diplomatic ties with Taiwan.
Although he returned to power in 2007, Ortega has maintained diplomatic relations with Taiwan.
Amid increased pressure from China, Taiwan has lost five diplomatic allies to China since President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) took office in May 2016: Panama in June last year, Sao Tome and Principe in December last year, the Dominican Republic and Burkina Faso in May, and El Salvador last month, leaving Taiwan with 17 allies.
The combined effect of the monsoon, the outer rim of Typhoon Fengshen and a low-pressure system is expected to bring significant rainfall this week to various parts of the nation, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The heaviest rain is expected to occur today and tomorrow, with torrential rain expected in Keelung’s north coast, Yilan and the mountainous regions of Taipei and New Taipei City, the CWA said. Rivers could rise rapidly, and residents should stay away from riverbanks and avoid going to the mountains or engaging in water activities, it said. Scattered showers are expected today in central and
COOPERATION: Taiwan is aligning closely with US strategic objectives on various matters, including China’s rare earths restrictions, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Taiwan could deal with China’s tightened export controls on rare earth metals by turning to “urban mining,” a researcher said yesterday. Rare earth metals, which are used in semiconductors and other electronic components, could be recovered from industrial or electronic waste to reduce reliance on imports, National Cheng Kung University Department of Resources Engineering professor Lee Cheng-han (李政翰) said. Despite their name, rare earth elements are not actually rare — their abundance in the Earth’s crust is relatively high, but they are dispersed, making extraction and refining energy-intensive and environmentally damaging, he said, adding that many countries have opted to
FORCED LABOR: A US court listed three Taiwanese and nine firms based in Taiwan in its indictment, with eight of the companies registered at the same address Nine companies registered in Taiwan, as well as three Taiwanese, on Tuesday were named by the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) as Specially Designated Nationals (SDNs) as a result of a US federal court indictment. The indictment unsealed at the federal court in Brooklyn, New York, said that Chen Zhi (陳志), a dual Cambodian-British national, is being indicted for fraud conspiracy, money laundering and overseeing Prince Holding Group’s forced-labor scam camps in Cambodia. At its peak, the company allegedly made US$30 million per day, court documents showed. The US government has seized Chen’s noncustodial wallet, which contains
SUPPLY CHAIN: Taiwan’s advantages in the drone industry include rapid production capacity that is independent of Chinese-made parts, the economic ministry said The Executive Yuan yesterday approved plans to invest NT$44.2 billion (US$1.44 billion) into domestic production of uncrewed aerial vehicles over the next six years, bringing Taiwan’s output value to more than NT$40 billion by 2030 and making the nation Asia’s democratic hub for the drone supply chain. The proposed budget has NT$33.8 billion in new allocations and NT$10.43 billion in existing funds, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said. Under the new development program, the public sector would purchase nearly 100,000 drones, of which 50,898 would be for civil and government use, while 48,750 would be for national defense, it said. The Ministry of
RSS