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MOFA ‘not happy’ about treatment at international forum

“We were not happy about being asked to hold our meeting away from the main venue.”

— Henry Chen,MOFA spokesman

Taiwan was “not happy” with the unfair treatment it received at the Pacific Island Forum (PIF) held in the Polynesian island-state of Niue last week, where its delegation was forced to meet with representatives of six Pacific allies at a hotel rather than at the main venue, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday.

Radio Fiji reported that the Taiwanese delegation was “angry” because it was not afforded the same privileges as representatives from other countries at the Niue Forum Leaders Meeting.

The six allies — the Solomon Islands, Nauru, Tuvalu, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands and Palau — issued a statement criticizing the forum’s organizers for forcing them to meet off site with the representatives of a country they recognize as sovereign, the report said.

MOFA Spokesman Henry Chen (陳銘政) yesterday said that Niue, being a small island, did not have a venue large enough to accommodate all the groups at the forum and therefore asked the Taiwanese delegation to hold its “16th Taiwan/Republic of China Forum-Countries Dialogue” at another hotel.

“We were not happy about being asked to hold our meeting away from the main venue, but we recognize that the treatment we received this year from the organizers and the PIF Secretariat Office was a significant improvement over previous years,” he said, adding that “angry” was too strong a word to describe Taiwan’s reaction to the arrangement.

At the meeting, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrew Hsia (夏立言), who headed the Taiwanese delegation, announced that Taiwan would donate US$406,000 to the forum next year for regional development projects.

A statement said the package included US$46,000 for the forum to replace “the official administration vehicle and purchase a luggage trailer which will be used for mail runs, banking, cargo collection [and] airport shuttle.”

Some of the money will help the forum fund a vocational training program for youth designed to increase employability through a community-based approach.

The heads of the six allies also reaffirmed their diplomatic ties in a joint statement with Taiwan and thanked Taiwan for its long-term support and generosity.
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