Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Javier Hou (侯清山) yesterday denied that there are any diplomatic issues with Saint Lucia, after Minister of Foreign Affairs David Lee (李大維) on Monday told lawmakers that relations with one or more of the nation’s diplomatic allies in the Caribbean are “kind of unstable.”
Diplomatic relations with Caribbean nations are somewhat unstable, Lee said, but added “they are still under control.”
It has been speculated that Saint Lucia — one of Taiwan’s 12 diplomatic allies in Central and South America and the Caribbean Community — might be the nation in question, as Taiwan’s ambassador to Saint Lucia has recently been replaced, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Jason Hsu (許毓仁) told the media on Monday.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
Hou denied that the situation was unstable.
The new ambassador to Saint Lucia, Shen Cheng-tsung (沈正宗), former director of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Sydney, yesterday arrived in Saint Lucia, Hou said, adding that replacement was part of the ministry’s routine rotation.
“[Shen] will be meeting with the country’s governor-general on Thursday,” the deputy minister said, adding that Taiwan has been attending meetings concerning cooperation on development projects in Saint Lucia.
“[The situation] is unstable because China has been ‘setting fires’ in the region,” he added.
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Wang Ding-yu (王定宇) said China has always been “setting fires” to Taiwan’s foreign ties and asked why Saint Lucia has been targeted.
Beijing is “making movesm, particularly in the Caribbean region,” Hou said.
Ministry spokesperson Eleanor Wang (王珮玲) said that Taiwan and Saint Lucia have had good relations since the two nations resumed diplomatic ties in 2007.
Former ambassador to Saint Lucia Ray Mou (牟華瑋) was not “replaced,” but “reassigned” to head the Taiwan Commercial Representative Office in the State of Kuwait after a year-and-a-half in Saint Lucia.
Separately yesterday, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Katharine Chang (張小月) criticized China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) Minister Zhang Zhijun (張志軍), who said that “the end of Taiwanese independence will be unification,” which would be “costly.”
“Verbal and military threats are of no help to a stable cross-strait relationship and only alienate and antagonize Taiwanese,” she said, calling on Beijing to assume a pragmatic and rational attitude when dealing with cross-strait issues.
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) has been “giving a lot explanations about how [she would maintain a stable cross-strait relationship], so we are hoping to continue accumulating mutual goodwill based on this foundation,” Premier Lin Chuan (林全) said.
“There is no need to make unnecessary guesses or remarks,” Lin added.
During a legislative question-and-answer session, Chang called Zhang’s remarks “inappropriate” for a TAO minister.
However, she added that since assuming office, she has not had the chance to speak with Zhang directly.
Additional Reporting by Lu Yi-hsuan
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
A bipartisan group of US senators has introduced a bill to enhance cooperation with Taiwan on drone development and to reduce reliance on supply chains linked to China. The proposed Blue Skies for Taiwan Act of 2026 was introduced by Republican US senators Ted Cruz and John Curtis, and Democratic US senators Jeff Merkley and Andy Kim. The legislation seeks to ease constraints on Taiwan-US cooperation in uncrewed aerial systems (UAS), including dependence on China-sourced components, limited access to capital and regulatory barriers under US export controls, a news release issued by Cruz on Wednesday said. The bill would establish a "Blue UAS
RSS