The Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday said it has lodged a protest with Pretoria after the name of the Taipei Liaison Office in South Africa was changed to the “Taipei Commercial Office” on the South African Department of International Relations and Cooperation’s (DIRCO) Web site.
In October last year, the South African government asked Taiwan to relocate the Taipei Liaison Office, the nation’s de facto embassy, out of Pretoria. It later agreed to continue negotiating through official channels, but in January asked that the office be relocated by the end of this month.
As of the middle of last month, DIRCO’s Web site listed the office as the Taipei Liaison Office in South Africa, under the category “other representative offices.” However, this month, the name was changed to the Taipei Commercial Office and listed under “international organizations represented in South Africa.”
Photo: Reuters
DIRCO’s site also shows out of date information for the office, identifying Anthony Ho (賀忠義) as representative. Oliver Liao (廖文哲) is the current representative to South Africa.
The Taipei Liaison Office in South Africa’s name remains unchanged on its official Web site.
After DIRCO’s request in January to move the office before the end of this month, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) called an emergency response meeting, and instructed the office to continue communicating with DIRCO based on the principles of reciprocity and respect, the ministry said.
The two sides have been exchanging ideas on a possible revision of the legal framework for bilateral relations, and the office urged DIRCO to discuss the official negotiation location, time, delegation and agreement signing, it said.
However, DIRCO again breached the agreement made between Taiwan and South Africa in 1997, the ministry said.
Lin has instructed the Department of West Asian and African Affairs and the Taipei Liaison Office in South Africa to lodge a formal protest to the Liaison Office of South Africa in Taiwan and DIRCO, it said.
DIRCO citing UN Resolution 2758 and the “one China” policy as justification for forcing the Taipei Liaison Office in South Africa to relocate is unreasonable, unjustifiable and unacceptable, it said.
The South African government’s compliance with Beijing’s efforts to suppress Taiwan contravenes the spirit of democracy and freedom that it advocates, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, adding that it demands that the South African government respect the 1997 agreement.
The ministry also urged the South African government to discuss the details of the issue with Taiwan, and refrain from doing anything that breaches the agreement before the two sides reach a consensus.
BUILDUP: US General Dan Caine said Chinese military maneuvers are not routine exercises, but instead are ‘rehearsals for a forced unification’ with Taiwan China poses an increasingly aggressive threat to the US and deterring Beijing is the Pentagon’s top regional priority amid its rapid military buildup and invasion drills near Taiwan, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said on Tuesday. “Our pacing threat is communist China,” Hegseth told the US House of Representatives Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense during an oversight hearing with US General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “Beijing is preparing for war in the Indo-Pacific as part of its broader strategy to dominate that region and then the world,” Hegseth said, adding that if it succeeds, it could derail
CHIP WAR: The new restrictions are expected to cut off China’s access to Taiwan’s technologies, materials and equipment essential to building AI semiconductors Taiwan has blacklisted Huawei Technologies Co (華為) and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯), dealing another major blow to the two companies spearheading China’s efforts to develop cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) chip technologies. The Ministry of Economic Affairs’ International Trade Administration has included Huawei, SMIC and several of their subsidiaries in an update of its so-called strategic high-tech commodities entity list, the latest version on its Web site showed on Saturday. It did not publicly announce the change. Other entities on the list include organizations such as the Taliban and al-Qaeda, as well as companies in China, Iran and elsewhere. Local companies need
CRITICISM: It is generally accepted that the Straits Forum is a CCP ‘united front’ platform, and anyone attending should maintain Taiwan’s dignity, the council said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said it deeply regrets that former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) echoed the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) “one China” principle and “united front” tactics by telling the Straits Forum that Taiwanese yearn for both sides of the Taiwan Strait to move toward “peace” and “integration.” The 17th annual Straits Forum yesterday opened in Xiamen, China, and while the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) local government heads were absent for the first time in 17 years, Ma attended the forum as “former KMT chairperson” and met with Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference Chairman Wang Huning (王滬寧). Wang
CROSS-STRAIT: The MAC said it barred the Chinese officials from attending an event, because they failed to provide guarantees that Taiwan would be treated with respect The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Friday night defended its decision to bar Chinese officials and tourism representatives from attending a tourism event in Taipei next month, citing the unsafe conditions for Taiwanese in China. The Taipei International Summer Travel Expo, organized by the Taiwan Tourism Exchange Association, is to run from July 18 to 21. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokeswoman Zhu Fenglian (朱鳳蓮) on Friday said that representatives from China’s travel industry were excluded from the expo. The Democratic Progressive Party government is obstructing cross-strait tourism exchange in a vain attempt to ignore the mainstream support for peaceful development
RSS