Taiwan is closely monitoring the political situation in former ally El Salvador following a general election, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said on Friday, after an aide to Salvadorean president-elect Nayib Bukele on Thursday said that the new leader would assess whether to maintain ties with Beijing instead of Taipei.
Bukele, a former mayor of the country’s capital, San Salvador, won the presidential election on Sunday last week by a landslide, garnering more than 50 percent of the vote and ending 25 years of two-party dominance in the Central American nation.
During the campaign, Bukele was critical of the benefits El Salvador received after establishing diplomatic relations with China.
Photo: AFP
The outgoing leftist Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front in August last year cut ties with Taipei in favor of Beijing, ending 85 years of diplomatic ties.
Federico Anliker, secretary-general of Bukele’s New Ideas party, said that the incoming administration would investigate why the outgoing government forged ties with China, Reuters reported on Thursday.
“With the issue of China, China-Taiwan relations, we have to study them and put them in the balance — what is best for the nation, not what is best for a political party, as the [outgoing administration] did,” the report quoted Anliker as saying.
“We were not consulted, nor did they give us the reasons [for establishing] relations with China. Now we have to investigate in detail,” he said.
Ministry spokesman Andrew Lee (李憲章) said that the ministry is aware of the comments made by the Bukele camp.
“We will continue to closely monitor the post-election political situation in El Salvador,” he said, without elaborating.
Taiwan decided to cut ties with El Salvador after the Central American nation’s request for an “astronomical sum” of financial aid was rejected, Minister of Foreign Affairs Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) said on Aug. 21 last year.
He did not disclose the amount.
El Salvador is the fifth diplomatic ally to switch recognition from Taipei to Beijing since President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) took office in May 2016, often following promises of financial assistance or loans from Beijing.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats