The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Monday advised Taiwanese to postpone trips to Cuba after a Taiwanese national and members of his family were denied entry upon arrival in Havana.
Danny Yen, a Taiwanese living in Canada, was told by Cuban authorities that Havana adheres to Beijing’s “one China” policy, and that the family would not be allowed entry due to poor Taiwan-China relations. The ministry said that Taiwan has a visa-free travel agreement with Cuba, which allows Taiwanese to visit the country for up to 180 days as long as they have a Cuba Tourist Card, and that it was not aware of any changes to the agreement.
The situation is not that surprising. Cuba, which is still under US sanctions and relies heavily on tourism, was hit particularly hard during the COVID-19 pandemic as worldwide travel came to a screeching halt. Still reeling from the impact of the pandemic, the country was hit with a fuel crisis in March that left many Cubans unemployed.
The US has alleged that China is spying on the US and neighboring countries from Cuba, and it is not unlikely that Beijing has agreed to supply Havana with economic assistance in exchange for some concessions — including curbs on Taiwanese tourists.
China’s state-run Xinhua news agency on Oct. 6 published an interview with Yoelkis Salazar, director of Cuba’s state-run travel agency, in which Salazar is cited as saying that the two countries might resume direct flights to boost tourism.
Cuba is not an important trade partner for Taiwan, but it is a tourism destination for Taiwanese who travel to the Caribbean, and the national baseball team plays against Cuba in international competitions. What is more concerning about Yen’s case is the precedent it sets for other countries.
Several countries have cut ties with Taiwan in the past few years, including Nicaragua in 2021 and Honduras in March. After Nicaragua switched ties to Beijing, it repealed a free-trade agreement (FTA) that the two countries had enjoyed for 15 years. Taiwan-Honduras bilateral trade reached US$166.4 million in 2020, the year before the FTA was repealed. In August, Nicaragua signed a new FTA with Beijing.
As China ramps up diplomatic and economic pressure against Taiwan, it might coerce an increasing number of countries into limiting economic, cultural and other exchanges with Taipei, and more Taiwanese might find their movements abroad restricted. Other countries could put unannounced entry bans on Taiwanese citizens.
It is imperative that the government take action against foreign governments that unilaterally terminate their travel agreements with Taiwan. Entry bans on Taiwanese should be reciprocated, and met with restrictions on other exchanges with those countries. The government should make it clear that exchanges with Taiwan are greatly beneficial, and that any restrictions would be met with a resolute and relentless response.
Taipei should also discuss the issue with Washington, which might be willing to coordinate such responses. Obviously, Washington does not have any influence over Cuban policy. However, Taiwan and the US have a vested interest in the containment of Chinese influence elsewhere in Central and South America.
Taipei must act swiftly and resolutely to prevent a potential trend of countries denying entry to Taiwanese under Beijing’s instructions.
A series of strong earthquakes in Hualien County not only caused severe damage in Taiwan, but also revealed that China’s power has permeated everywhere. A Taiwanese woman posted on the Internet that she found clips of the earthquake — which were recorded by the security camera in her home — on the Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu. It is spine-chilling that the problem might be because the security camera was manufactured in China. China has widely collected information, infringed upon public privacy and raised information security threats through various social media platforms, as well as telecommunication and security equipment. Several former TikTok employees revealed
Two sets of economic data released last week by the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) have drawn mixed reactions from the public: One on the nation’s economic performance in the first quarter of the year and the other on Taiwan’s household wealth distribution in 2021. GDP growth for the first quarter was faster than expected, at 6.51 percent year-on-year, an acceleration from the previous quarter’s 4.93 percent and higher than the agency’s February estimate of 5.92 percent. It was also the highest growth since the second quarter of 2021, when the economy expanded 8.07 percent, DGBAS data showed. The growth
At the same time as more than 30 military aircraft were detected near Taiwan — one of the highest daily incursions this year — with some flying as close as 37 nautical miles (69kms) from the northern city of Keelung, China announced a limited and selected relaxation of restrictions on Taiwanese agricultural exports and tourism, upon receiving a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) delegation led by KMT legislative caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅崑萁). This demonstrates the two-faced gimmick of China’s “united front” strategy. Despite the strongest earthquake to hit the nation in 25 years striking Hualien on April 3, which caused
In the 2022 book Danger Zone: The Coming Conflict with China, academics Hal Brands and Michael Beckley warned, against conventional wisdom, that it was not a rising China that the US and its allies had to fear, but a declining China. This is because “peaking powers” — nations at the peak of their relative power and staring over the precipice of decline — are particularly dangerous, as they might believe they only have a narrow window of opportunity to grab what they can before decline sets in, they said. The tailwinds that propelled China’s spectacular economic rise over the past