The Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday said that Taiwan has lodged a stern protest with China, the Belgian government and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) after a Taiwanese delegation was requested to leave a conference in Belgium due to Chinese pressure.
Department of International Organizations Director-General Michael Hsu (徐佩勇) told a press conference in Taipei yesterday that a five-person Taiwanese delegation led by Shen Wei-cheng (沈維正), director-general of the Industrial Development Bureau’s Metal and Mechanical Industries Division, was kept out of a high-level meeting on excess capacity and structural adjustment in the steel sector jointly held by the Belgian government and the OECD in Brussels on Monday.
“The symposium had two parts: a morning meeting open to industrial representatives and an afternoon conference only for government officials. Our delegation had no problem attending the morning meeting, but was asked not to join the afternoon session because of China’s objection,” Hsu said.
Photo: CNA
Ministry spokeswoman Eleanor Wang (王珮玲) said the grounds for Beijing’s protest was that the “ranking of the leader of the Taiwanese delegation was not high enough.”
“However, Shen’s ranking is similar to that of the leaders of other national delegations,” Wang said.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs also said China’s opposition was groundless, as the Taiwanese delegation have similar ranking to representatives from other OECD member nations.
Hsu said the government has requested that the Mainland Affairs Council file a strong protest with Beijing against its “unfriendly act,” while asking the Taipei Representative Office in Belgium to do the same with the Belgian government.
As the OECD’s headquarters is in Paris, the government has also instructed the Taipei Representative Office in France to lodge a protest with the international economic organization, Hsu said.
“Our nation has actively participated in meetings and made concrete contributions since it joined the OECD steel committee as an observer in 2005. Our professional participation has been recognized by the OECD and its member states,” Hsu said.
Hsu said the Taiwanese delegation was able to attend similar symposiums in 2003 and 2004, adding that it was the first time such an incident had occurred.
The Bureau of Foreign Trade said that while Taiwan is not a member of the OECD, it has been granted observer status on its competition committee, steel committee and fisheries committee in 2002, 2005 and 2006 respectively. The status was changed by the organization to “participant” in 2013.
Representative to the EU Tung Kuo-yu (董國猷) said the Taiwanese delegation was allowed to attend an OECD meeting yesterday, despite being asked to leave on Monday due to pressure from China.
Before yesterday’s meeting began, two officials from the Belgian Ministry of Economic Affairs apologized to the delegation for Monday’s incident, saying that they were under great pressure, Tung said.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus whip Lin Te-fu (林德福) said that the government has had “good and peaceful interactions with [China] in the past seven years, but the Democratic Progressive Party [DPP], after it secured a [legislative] majority with the New Power Party, has been resorting to the tactics that it employed when it was an opposition party.”
“There will be problems, and [cross-strait] ties could be heading toward a stalemate, if they continue to do what they have been doing,” Lin said.
However, DPP Legislator Chen Ting-fei (陳亭妃) said that Taiwan has repeatedly encountered obstruction from the Chinese side in its participation in international meetings, “such as being subjected to the debasement of being described as part of China.”
“It has happened all the time; what President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) calls ‘the best cross-strait relationship in 60 years’ is simply non-existent,” she said. “There is no need to see the incident as a warning by Beijing to the incoming government.”
Legislative Speaker Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全) said that when he was the minister of the Council of Agriculture from 2006 to 2008, Taiwan’s representatives were also blocked from meetings on the Pacific Fisheries Agreement and had to sit in an area reserved for the media.
Beijing has been “fierce” in barring Taiwanese representatives from international conferences and it has repeatedly happened before, Su said.
“Facing this kind of phenomenon, the incoming government has to continue communicating with other nations. After all, some nations would remain firm on their stance, but some cave in to the Chinese government’s intimidation,” he said.
Additional reporting by Lisa Wang and CNA
GAINING STEAM: The scheme initially failed to gather much attention, with only 188 cards issued in its first year, but gained popularity amid the COVID-19 pandemic Applications for the Employment Gold Card have increased in the past few years, with the card having been issued to a total of 13,191 people from 101 countries since its introduction in 2018, the National Development Council (NDC) said yesterday. Those who have received the card have included celebrities, such as former NBA star Dwight Howard and Australian-South Korean cheerleader Dahye Lee, the NDC said. The four-in-one Employment Gold Card combines a work permit, resident visa, Alien Resident Certificate (ARC) and re-entry permit. It was first introduced in February 2018 through the Act Governing Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals (外國專業人才延攬及雇用法),
CAUTION URGED: Xiaohongshu and Douyin — the Chinese version of TikTok — are tools the Chinese government uses for its ‘united front’ propaganda, the MAC said Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) yesterday urged people who use Chinese social media platforms to be cautious of being influenced by Beijing’s “united front” propaganda and undermining Taiwan’s sovereignty. Chiu made the remarks in response to queries about Chinese academic Zhang Weiwei (張維為) saying that as young Taiwanese are fond of interacting on Chinese app Xiaohongshu (小紅書, known as RedNote in English), “after unification with China, it would be easier to govern Taiwan than Hong Kong.” Zhang is professor of international relations at Shanghai’s Fudan University and director of its China Institute. When giving a speech at China’s Wuhan
ENHANCE DETERRENCE: Taiwan has to display ‘fierce resolve’ to defend itself for China to understand that the costs of war outweigh potential gains, Koo said Taiwan’s armed forces must reach a high level of combat readiness by 2027 to effectively deter a potential Chinese invasion, Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo (顧立雄) said in an interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (sister newspaper of the Taipei Times) published yesterday. His comments came three days after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told the US Senate that deterring a Chinese attack on Taiwan requires making a conflict “cost more than what it’s worth.” Rubio made the remarks in response to a question about US policy on Taiwan’s defense from Republican Senator John Cornyn, who said that Chinese
The zero emissions ship Porrima P111 was launched yesterday in Kaohsiung, showcasing the nation’s advancement in green technology, city Mayor Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) said. The nation last year acquired the Swiss-owned vessel, formerly known as Turanor PlanetSolar, in a bid to boost Taiwan’s technology sector, as well as ecotourism in Palau, Chen said at the ship’s launch ceremony at Singda Harbor. Palauan President Surangel Whipps Jr and Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) also attended the event. The original vessel was the first solar-powered ship to circumnavigate the globe in a voyage from 2010 to 2012. Taiwan-based Porrima Inc (保利馬) installed upgrades with
RSS