Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) yesterday said the government would conduct a review and discipline diplomatic personnel stationed in the Gambia after the West African state caught Taipei by surprise when it abruptly severed diplomatic ties.
Taiwan announced the termination of diplomatic relations with the Gambia on Monday, after Gambian President Yahya Jammeh issued a statement on Thursday last week saying that his country was ending diplomatic relations with Taipei.
Jiang said diplomats stationed in the country failed to send any warning of a pending change in ties.
“On that point alone, we will conduct a thorough review and mete out administrative disciplinary measures,” he said at a legislative hearing in response to lawmakers’ concerns over Jammeh’s abrupt announcement.
Jiang said diplomatic personnel on the front line were well aware of loan demands made by the Gambia, but had no inkling that Jammeh was about to cut ties.
“This isn’t simply a problem of bad judgement on the part of our diplomatic personnel or the ambassador,” he said.
Jiang said that for members of Taiwan’s mission in the country, including Ministry of Economic Affairs and National Security Bureau officials, and military, education and medical personnel, everything was business as usual, with nothing to indicate the pending break in relations.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) officials said Taipei would shut down its embassy in the Gambia in about a month, in line with standard operating procedures.
Department of West Asian and African Affairs Director-General David Wang (王建業) said Ambassador to the Gambia Samuel Chen (陳士良) would return home as soon as possible, adding that this is standard practice.
Members of an agricultural technical mission would also leave the country within a month, Wang added.
MOFA spokesperson Anna Kao (高安) said the ministry had also asked the Gambia to remove its embassy from Taiwan within a month based on the principle of equity.
Asked about loans made to the West African country, Wang said the Gambia still has US$10 million in outstanding loans, but he was confident the money would be repaid, as Banjul has a good credit rating and has always met its loan obligations in the past.
The series of measures was taken after the Presidential Office and the Executive Yuan asked MOFA to reflect on the Gambia’s abrupt severance of diplomatic ties and conduct a full review to prevent similar incidents in the future.
PRECISION STRIKES: The most significant reason to deploy HIMARS to outlying islands is to establish a ‘dead zone’ that the PLA would not dare enter, a source said A High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) would be deployed to Penghu County and Dongyin Island (東引) in Lienchiang County (Matsu) to force the Chinese military to retreat at least 100km from the coastline, a military source said yesterday. Taiwan has been procuring HIMARS and Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) from the US in batches. Once all batches have been delivered, Taiwan would possess 111 HIMARS units and 504 ATACMS, which have a range of 300km. Considering that “offense is the best defense,” the military plans to forward-deploy the systems to outlying islands such as Penghu and Dongyin so that
WHAT WAS ALL THAT FOR? Jaw Shaw-kong said that Cheng Li-wen had pushed for more drastic cuts and attacked him, just for the outcome to be nearly identical to his bill The legislature yesterday passed a supplementary budget bill to fund the purchase of separate packages of US military equipment, with the combined amount of spending capped at NT$780 billion (US$24.8 billion). The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) used their legislative majority to pass the bill, which runs until 2033 and has two main funding provisions. One was for NT$300 billion of arms sales already approved by the US for Taiwan on Dec. 17 last year, the other was for NT$480 billion for another arms package expected to be announced by Washington. The bill, which fell short of the NT$1.25
‘CLEAR MESSAGE’: The bill would set up an interagency ‘tiger team’ to review sanctions tools and other economic options to help deter any Chinese aggression toward Taiwan US Representative Young Kim has introduced a bill to deter Chinese aggression against Taiwan, calling for an interagency “tiger team” to preplan coordinated sanctions and economic measures in response to possible Chinese military or political action against Taiwan. “[Chinese President] Xi Jinping [習近平] has directed the People’s Liberation Army to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. China has a plan. America should have one too,” Kim said in a news release on Thursday last week. She introduced the “Deter PRC [People’s Republic of China] aggression against Taiwan act” to “ensure the US has a coordinated sanctions strategy ready should
A former television news host and six military personnel — active and retired — have been indicted on espionage charges, Kaohsiung prosecutors said yesterday. Lin Chen-you (林宸佑), a former CTi News host and YouTuber, last year allegedly made videos at the direction of a Chinese agent criticizing the Democratic Progressive Party’s recall campaign, the Ciaotou District Prosecutors’ Office told a news conference in Kaohsiung. He allegedly received 4,325 tether coins for the videos from an unidentified person surnamed Huang (黃), believed to be an agent of a hostile foreign power, they said. Lin, also known as Ma Te (馬德), has a show named
RSS