Minister of Foreign Affairs Francisco Ou (歐鴻鍊) yesterday reaffirmed that the nation’s ties with El Salvador remained firm after left-wing Salvadoran president-elect Mauricio Funes ended two decades of conservative rule in a historic election on Sunday.
Ou reassured Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Justin Chou (周守訓) during a legislative question-and-answer session that Taiwan’s consulate officials in El Salvador had been working to build relations with Funes’ aides since the charismatic former TV journalist launched his presidential bid.
The minister said Taiwanese officials had provided Funes’ office with information that would help the president-elect gain a better understanding of the collaboration between the two nations.
Ou said he believed Funes had come to understand the importance of Taiwan’s collaborative projects with El Salvador.
He was responding to Chou’s concerns that El Salvador might consider switching recognition to China, as Funes had previously expressed interest in building ties with Beijing.
Funes, leader of the former rebel movement Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN), overturned almost 20 years of rightwing rule in El Salvador with 51.3 percent of the vote after more than 99.4 percent of ballots were counted late on Sunday. He defeated Rodrigo Avila of the ruling conservative Arena party.
Asked if Taiwan and the Latin American country had reached any consensus regarding their diplomatic ties, Ou said that, in a speech after the election, Funes only mentioned wanting to strengthen ties with the US.
Funes has not publicly expressed any new stance on Taiwan, the minister said.
Ou added that the ministry was planning for President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to attend Funes’ inauguration.
Ma could visit El Salvador on June 1 and attend the inauguration of the next Panamanian president on July 1, Ou said.
Panama is also one of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies.
Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) said at the question-and-answer session that the government would “closely monitor” the situation in El Salvador and prepare for all possible scenarios.
The ministry presented Ma’s congratulations to Funes soon after his election, the Presidential Office said yesterday.
Speaking at a separate event, Ministry of Foreign Affairs Spokesman Henry Chen (陳銘政) said Paraguayan President Fernandez Lugo had accepted an invitation to visit Taiwan later this year.
Ou had personally extended the invitation to Lugo during the foreign minister’s trip to Latin American last week.
Lugo, a former Catholic priest who was elected in April, said during the Paraguayan presidential campaign that he would consider establishing ties with Beijing if elected.
The ministry has on several occasions sought to dispel suspicions of shaky ties with Paraguay by saying that Lugo was not able to visit Taiwan because he was too busy dealing with domestic matters.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY JENNY W. HSU AND MO YAN-CHIH, WITH AGENCIES
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods