Fiji has closed its representative office in Taipei to make better use of its resources and not because of pressure from China as one lawmaker has claimed, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday.
The Fiji Trade and Tourism Representative Office was shut down on Wednesday last week after Fijian Representative to Taiwan Karaisitiani Vuibau notified the ministry of his nation’s decision to end its operations in Taiwan, ministry spokeswoman Eleanor Wang (王珮玲) said.
Despite the closure of Fiji’s office in Taipei, Taiwan’s representative office in Fiji would continue to operate, Wang said.
Photo: CNA
Fiji’s move was made to reallocate resources to better meet the nation’s needs, Wang said, adding that unofficial bilateral ties between the two nations would not be affected by the move.
The closure of the office was brought to light by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lu Hsiu-yen (盧秀燕) during a legislative committee meeting yesterday.
Lu said she learned that one of the reasons behind the closure of the office was an attempt by China — which maintains diplomatic relations with Fiji — to suppress Taiwan amid strained cross-strait relations.
However, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Wu Chih-chung (吳志中) told the committee that it was believed that Fiji closed its office mainly due to its limited financial resources, forcing it to adjust the number of foreign missions it supports.
The ministry saw the closure as an isolated case that would not have a “domino effect,” Wu said.
The ministry provided administrative assistance to help Fijian officials close the office and they in turn expressed their gratitude to the ministry for its efforts to help advance bilateral ties over the years, Wang said.
Fiji set up its representative office in Taiwan in 1997, in an effort to advance trade, investment and tourism relations, after the nations signed a joint “mutual recognition” communique in 1996, the ministry said.
Taiwan set up a trade mission in Fiji in 1971, which was closed and replaced by the East Asia Trade Center in 1976, a year after China and Fiji established diplomatic ties.
The East Asia Trade Center was renamed the Trade Mission of the Republic of China (Taiwan) to the Republic of Fiji in 1988.
Taipei on Thursday held urban resilience air raid drills, with residents in one of the exercises’ three “key verification zones” reporting little to no difference compared with previous years, despite government pledges of stricter enforcement. Formerly known as the Wanan exercise, the air raid drills, which concluded yesterday, are now part of the “Urban Resilience Exercise,” which also incorporates the Minan disaster prevention and rescue exercise. In Taipei, the designated key verification zones — where the government said more stringent measures would be enforced — were Songshan (松山), Zhongshan (中山) and Zhongzheng (中正) districts. Air raid sirens sounded at 1:30pm, signaling the
The number of people who reported a same-sex spouse on their income tax increased 1.5-fold from 2020 to 2023, while the overall proportion of taxpayers reporting a spouse decreased by 4.4 percent from 2014 to 2023, Ministry of Finance data showed yesterday. The number of people reporting a spouse on their income tax trended upward from 2014 to 2019, the Department of Statistics said. However, the number decreased in 2020 and 2021, likely due to a drop in marriages during the COVID-19 pandemic and the income of some households falling below the taxable threshold, it said. The number of spousal tax filings rebounded
A saleswoman, surnamed Chen (陳), earlier this month was handed an 18-month prison term for embezzling more than 2,000 pairs of shoes while working at a department store in Tainan. The Tainan District Court convicted Chen of embezzlement in a ruling on July 7, sentencing her to prison for illegally profiting NT$7.32 million (US$248,929) at the expense of her employer. Chen was also given the opportunity to reach a financial settlement, but she declined. Chen was responsible for the sales counter of Nike shoes at Tainan’s Shinkong Mitsukoshi Zhongshan branch, where she had been employed since October 2019. She had previously worked
Labor rights groups yesterday called on the Ministry of Labor to protect migrant workers in Taiwan’s fishing industry, days after CNN reported alleged far-ranging abuses in the sector, including deaths and forced work. The ministry must enforce domestic labor protection laws on Taiwan-owned deep-sea fishing vessels, the Coalition for Human Rights for Migrant Fishers told a news conference outside the ministry in Taipei after presenting a petition to officials. CNN on Sunday reported that Taiwanese seafood giant FCF Co, the owners of the US-based Bumble Bee Foods, committed human rights abuses against migrant fishers, citing Indonesian migrant fishers. The alleged abuses included denying
RSS