Taiwan’s top security agency yesterday said that China’s move to set up diplomatic ties with one of Taiwan’s former African allies was meant to put pressure on president-elect Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) to “fall in line” before her inauguration on May 20.
China resumed ties with the small west African state of the Gambia last week, ending an unofficial diplomatic truce between China and Taiwan following landslide wins in presidential and parliamentary elections by Tsai and the Democratic Progressive Party.
China and Taiwan have for years tried to poach each other’s allies, often dangling generous aid packages in front of leaders of developing nations.
The National Security Bureau (NSB) said in a report yesterday presented to the legislature that Taiwan’s ties with its few remaining diplomatic allies were at risk of being undermined by financial aid packages from China.
“The warning to our new government was thick with meaning,” the bureau’s report said. “It had the intention of pressuring president-elect Tsai Ing-wen to respond in her May 20 inaugural speech in a way that falls in line with China’s expectations.”
Tsai said in an interview yesterday carried by the Chinese-language China Times that both sides should show good will in the period before she is sworn in.
“Through the expression of goodwill, the hope is to build a foundation of trust,” Tsai said.
She said through a spokesman last week she hoped the forging ties with the Gambia was not a “targeted move” by China.
China has repeatedly warned her against any moves toward independence, while Tsai has stuck to her stance of maintaining the “status quo” without offering a clear policy.
China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Gambia issued a joint statement on Thursday last week, saying that they had re-established official relations after a 21-year suspension of diplomatic ties.
The Gambia maintained diplomatic ties with Taiwan until 1974, when it severed ties and established diplomatic ties with Beijing. The Gambia then severed diplomatic ties with China in 1995 and resumed official ties with Taiwan that same year.
In November 2013, the Gambia unilaterally decided to break diplomatic relations with Taiwan. It then asked for formal ties with China, but was given a “no” response until recently.
Taiwan has 22 allies, including the Vatican City.
Meanwhile, Minister of Foreign Affairs David Lin (林永樂) yesterday said that leaders of at least six of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies have so far confirmed they would attend the May 20 inauguration ceremony for Tsai.
The invitations were extended to the leaders of all 22 of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies through its embassies, Lin told lawmakers during a legislative hearing.
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
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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