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MOFA monitors El Salvador poll

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday said it will keep close tabs on the presidential election campaign in El Salvador after one of the candidates declared he will open diplomatic relations with Beijing if picked as the new leader next year.

Reuters reported that Mauricio Funes, the candidate of El Salvador’s leftist Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, or FMLN, on a recent visit to Panama said he would open diplomatic relations with China in a bid to tap its growing demand for commodities.

“We are among the only countries that maintains relations with Taiwan. We are proposing to reopen relations with China,” he said.

The former journalist, who leads early polls ahead of El Salvador’s presidential election in March next year, said he would also open diplomatic ties with Cuba and oversee a wide-ranging review of existing trade agreements.

Nowhere in the report did it say that Funes plans to maintain ties with Taiwan once he establishes relations with China. Taiwan also repeatedly stated it does not mind if its allies shore up relations with Beijing, as long as they keep ties with Taipei.

However, Beijing demands all of its allies sever formal ties with Taipei and adhere to its “one China policy.”

MOFA spokeswoman Phoebe Yeh (葉非比) told the Taipei Times that the ministry will monitor the election closely, but said the FMLN has a pro-China stance and that Funes’ remark did not come as a surprise.

El Salvador is one of the 23 countries that formally recognize Taiwan instead of Beijing. Taipei and San Salvador have enjoyed diplomatic relations since 1961 and a bilateral free trade agreement (FTA) between the two countries took effect last month.

El Salvadoran President Elias Antonio Saca Gonzalez was quoted as calling the deal historic and said it would give the small Central American nation new access to the highly competitive Asian market.

Saca Gonzalez is among the eight presidents expected to attend the inauguration ceremony for president-elect Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) next month.

MOFA, however, admitted that since Ma’s victory last month, Beijing has intensified its efforts to take away Taiwan’s remaining allies. Sources say some of the nation’s Central American and South American allies were among the primary targets.
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