Taiwan will concentrate more on cementing ties with existing allies rather than seek to make new friends, Minister of Foreign Affairs Francisco Ou (歐鴻鍊) said yesterday during his first meeting with the media since his appointment two weeks ago.
Ou, a career diplomat with 44 years of service, said that as a developed country and a global citizen, “Taiwan has the obligation to help developing countries, but not by engaging in checkbook diplomacy.”
“This does not mean that in the diplomatic tug-of-war with China we will give up easily, as we refuse to be extorted,” he said, addressing the idea of a “diplomatic truce” with Beijing proposed by President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九).
PHOTO: LIAO CHEN-HUEI, TAIPEI TIMES
A truce, Ou said, requires goodwill on both sides and so “if China relaxes its grip on the issue of Taiwanese participation in international organizations, but continues to steal our allies, then it would mean that there is no goodwill on China’s part.”
MORE ROOM
During a meeting last week with Chinese Nationalist Party Chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄), Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) said that China was willing to discuss widening Taiwan’s international space, starting with the WHO.
Hu, however, made no mention of Taiwan’s admission to the World Bank or the IMF, organizations that Ma has said would be important for Taiwan to join.
PRINCIPLES
Ou said that all diplomatic work must be based on the principles of “dignity, pragmatism, agility and flexibility” and that the government would therefore not rule out using “Chinese Taipei” rather than the country’s official designation, the “Republic of China,” or “Taiwan” in bidding for membership in international organizations.
In addition to fortifying ties with Taiwan’s 23 allies, Ou said the country would also seek to repair and strengthen ties with important states such as the US, Japan and Singapore, with which Taiwan does not have formal diplomatic relations.
The minister said Taiwan’s exclusion from ASEAN puts the country at a disadvantage and that improved relations with Singapore — perhaps a free-trade agreement — could help Taiwan gain entry into the regional organization.
In related news, Ou said Taiwan had received Paraguay’s formal invitation to attend the country’s presidential inauguration in August. The Presidential Office has yet to decide whether Ma will attend.
During his campaign, Paraguayan president-elect Fernando Lugo said that the South American country should follow the global trend by fostering official relations with Beijing.
“If any of our allies want to sever relations with us, we cannot stop them,” Ou said.
“But Beijing would have a chance to demonstrate its goodwill by declining the overtures from such countries,” he said.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the