Taiwan has no problem accepting dual recognition of Taiwan and China by Taiwan's diplomatic allies, President Chen Shui-bian (
"Honduras can be friends of Taiwan and China, but I don't think Beijing will like the idea," Chen said. "Taiwan and China have close relations in trade activities but such relations do not change the diplomatic ties between the two countries."
Chen made the remarks while talking to La Prensa and El Heraldo on Wednesday. The two Honduran dailies published their stories in Thursday's editions.
The newspapers asked Chen whether Honduras could be friends of both Taiwan and China as Honduras has diplomatic relations with Taiwan but enjoys close business ties with China.
Cabinet Spokesman Shieh Jhy-wey (
Shieh said Chen told the newspapers that he was not worried that Costa Rica's switch of recognition to China would cause a domino effect because Taiwan's diplomatic friendships were built on shared values of freedom and democracy.
After the switch by Costa Rica, Taiwan's other diplomatic allies in the region have given assurances that their ties remain strong, Shieh said.
Central and South America are vital diplomatic battlegrounds for Taiwan. Among the nation's 24 diplomatic allies, 12 are located in the regions -- Belize, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, St. Christopher and Nevis, St. Vincent and Grenadines and St. Lucia.
The military has spotted two Chinese warships operating in waters near Penghu County in the Taiwan Strait and sent its own naval and air forces to monitor the vessels, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. Beijing sends warships and warplanes into the waters and skies around Taiwan on an almost daily basis, drawing condemnation from Taipei. While the ministry offers daily updates on the locations of Chinese military aircraft, it only rarely gives details of where Chinese warships are operating, generally only when it detects aircraft carriers, as happened last week. A Chinese destroyer and a frigate entered waters to the southwest
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Yilan County at 8:39pm tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The epicenter was 38.7km east-northeast of Yilan County Hall at a focal depth of 98.3km, the CWA’s Seismological Center said. The quake’s maximum intensity, which gauges the actual physical effect of a seismic event, was a level 4 on Taiwan’s 7-tier intensity scale, the center said. That intensity level was recorded in Yilan County’s Nanao Township (南澳), Hsinchu County’s Guansi Township (關西), Nantou County’s Hehuanshan (合歡山) and Hualien County’s Yanliao (鹽寮). An intensity of 3 was
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s comment last year on Tokyo’s potential reaction to a Taiwan-China conflict has forced Beijing to rewrite its invasion plans, a retired Japanese general said. Takaichi told the Diet on Nov. 7 last year that a Chinese naval blockade or military attack on Taiwan could constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan, potentially allowing Tokyo to exercise its right to collective self-defense. Former Japan Ground Self-Defense Force general Kiyofumi Ogawa said in a recent speech that the remark has been interpreted as meaning Japan could intervene in the early stages of a Taiwan Strait conflict, undermining China’s previous assumptions
Instead of focusing solely on the threat of a full-scale military invasion, the US and its allies must prepare for a potential Chinese “quarantine” of Taiwan enforced through customs inspections, Stanford University Hoover fellow Eyck Freymann said in a Foreign Affairs article published on Wednesday. China could use various “gray zone” tactics in “reconfiguring the regional and ultimately the global economic order without a war,” said Freymann, who is also a nonresident research fellow at the US Naval War College. China might seize control of Taiwan’s links to the outside world by requiring all flights and ships entering or leaving Taiwan
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