Taiwan's representative office in the tiny Southeast Asian country of Brunei has been closed, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced yesterday, citing sluggish bilateral ties as the main concern which has made maintaining the diplomatic office in Brunei counter-effective.
"Brunei has been abiding by the `one China' principle, and ever since Brunei and Taiwan began setting up representative offices, Brunei has been shirking the promotion of bilateral ties," the ministry said in a media release.
"Two-way exchanges on trade, agriculture, fishing, tourism and foreign affairs have been limited. The bilateral visits between officials of the two governments have long been stalled. Brunei's relationship with Taiwan is far less close than Taipei's ties with other Southeast Asian nations," the statement said.
The Brunei office is the second overseas representative office to be shut down, following the closure of the Belarus office in January.
The foreign affairs ministry said that the closure of the representative office in Brunei was part of a series of downsizing plans for overseas representative offices aimed at making the best possible use of diplomatic resources. This is in line with a new policy by Minister of Foreign Affairs James Huang (黃志芳) to streamline the country's overseas representative offices.
Testifying in the legislature last week, Huang also proposed closing the representative office in Johannesburg, South Africa.
A ministry official, speaking on conditions of anonymity, yesterday said that Brunei's relevance in international affairs has not been significant, and it has not been able to take up any important role in commanding regional politics, particularly in relation to enhancing Taiwan's participation in the international community.
"Brunei's regional policy is embedded within ASEAN, and it seldom expresses its own ideas on regional and international affairs," the official said.
According to the CIA World Fact Book Web site, Brunei's government is a constitutional sultanate. The country has an area of 5,770km2, one-sixth the size of Taiwan, with a population of about 300,000. Brunei benefits from extensive petroleum and natural gas fields, the source of one of the highest per capita GDPs in the developing world.
The foreign affairs official said that Brunei had a heavy-handed government policy, although it has been very conservative in its foreign policy.
Taiwan established a trade mission in Brunei under the name of a private consortium in 1978, although the trade mission was only formally endorsed as the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Brunei Darussalam in 1996.
In a statement on its Web site, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that the mission in Kuala Lumpur, would now represent Taiwanese interests in Brunei.
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
NAMING SPAT: The foreign ministry called on Denmark to propose an acceptable solution to the erroneous nationality used for Taiwanese on residence permits Taiwan has revoked some privileges for Danish diplomatic staff over a Danish permit that lists “Taiwan” as “China,” Eric Huang (黃鈞耀), head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of European Affairs, told a news conference in Taipei yesterday. Reporters asked Huang whether the Danish government had responded to the ministry’s request that it correct the nationality on Danish residence permits of Taiwanese, which has been listed as “China” since 2024. Taiwan’s representative office in Denmark continues to communicate with the Danish government, and the ministry has revoked some privileges previously granted to Danish representatives in Taiwan and would continue to review
The first bluefin tuna of the season, brought to shore in Pingtung County and weighing 190kg, was yesterday auctioned for NT$10,600 (US$333.5) per kilogram, setting a record high for the local market. The auction was held at the fish market in Donggang Fishing Harbor, where the Siaoliouciou Island-registered fishing vessel Fu Yu Ching No. 2 delivered the “Pingtung First Tuna” it had caught for bidding. Bidding was intense, and the tuna was ultimately jointly purchased by a local restaurant and a local company for NT$10,600 per kilogram — NT$300 ,more than last year — for a total of NT$2.014 million. The 67-year-old skipper
RSS