Despite the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ insistence that a Beijing-hosted forum with Central American and Carribbean states that included some of Taiwan’s allies last week was not political in nature, the summit concluded with participants declaring that they would tackle “political and diplomatic” issues.
The China-Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) summit was held on Thursday and Friday. CELAC has 33 members, including 12 of Taiwan’s 22 diplomatic allies, with at least nine of them attending the forum.
According to a report by China’s Xinhuanet, the forum reached three conclusions: the “Beijing Declaration,” a five-year cooperation plan and regulations governing the China-CELAC summit.
The Beijing Declaration states that China and the participating Latin American countries would, under the framework of the forum and the principle of respecting one another’s sovereignty, hold meetings that touch on areas such as foreign affairs, politics and economics.
The ministry had said in a statement on Thursday that the forum would only focus on economics and not deal with politics.
The presence of Taiwan’s allies at the forum will not affect their diplomatic relations with Taiwan, and those allies had all informed the ministry beforehand, the ministry said at the time.
Panama, one of Taiwan’s Central American allies, also issued a statement on Saturday stating that the Beijing Declaration would reinforce cultural exchanges between China and Latin American counties.
The statement also quoted Panamanian Deputy Foreign Minister Luis Miguel Hincapie as proposing, on behalf of Panamanian President Juan Carlos Varela, that the next China-CELAC summit be held between the “heads of governments” to engage in the “highest-level” cooperation.
In response, MOFA spokeswoman Anna Kao (高安) said that Taiwan maintains robust diplomatic relations with Panama, which had informed the ministry that it would participate in the forum only as a member of a regional organization and that it promised to stay away from politics.
The ministry will continue to monitor developments, she added.
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Chiu Chih-wei (邱志偉) said the ministry was turning a blind eye to the fact that China is courting Taiwan’s Latin American allies.
Chiu questioned whether the ministry and the nation’s overseas missions have a full picture of the situation, and demanded a thorough account from the ministry.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lin Yu-fang (林郁方) said that China has been building an ever-stronger presence in Latin America, and the local anti-US sentiment has reinforced China’s influence in the region.
Taiwan’s ruling and opposition parties should unite on this front, instead of engaging in a futile blame game, he added.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater