The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday condemned Chinese efforts to suppress Taiwan’s international space, after a report by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists detailed pressure from the Chinese embassy in Belgium to remove the Taiwanese flag flying in front of the nation’s representative office in 2022.
The flag was removed in January 2023 and the intent to have Taiwan as the guest of honor at last year’s Brussels International Book Fair was also canceled out of concern about China’s reaction, according to a report in Belgium’s French-language newspaper Le Soir.
The report was part of the “China Targets” series by the consortium, which investigates how Beijing “abuses international institutions to terrorize its critics and extend its repressive tactics worldwide.”
Photo: CNA
Brussels International Book Fair director Tanguy Roosen told the newspaper that the fair had wanted to focus on Asian nations last year, but the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs warned against the idea.
It is evident that the Belgian government is cautious when it comes to dealing with China, he said.
The Central News Agency (CNA) said that its reporters had witnessed the flag being taken down, but decided not to report on the incident to prevent affecting Taiwan-Belgium relations.
China’s attempts to define the Taiwan issue as one of “domestic politics” seek to isolate Taiwan from international support, MOFA said in a statement.
“We call on the international community to take tangible action against China’s attempts to disrupt the status quo,” it said.
The international community must clearly state that it stands against Beijing’s use of legal, psychological and media warfare against Taiwan to jointly uphold stability and prosperity in the Taiwan Strait and the Indo-Pacific region, it added.
Representative to Belgium Roy Lee (李淳) told CNA that China’s oppression of Taiwan has been pervasive and relentless, and Taiwan’s diplomatic corps would continue to advocate for the nation’s rights to be recognized and heard by the international community.
Sara van Hoeymissen, a world politics lecturer at the Royal Military Academy of Belgium, said that the representative office is walking a tightrope in terms of what can or cannot be done diplomatically.
The Chinese embassy is constantly contacting the Belgian government regarding the formal appellation used for Taiwan on official documents and demands that any form of address given to Taiwan should refrain from being associated with independence, Van Hoeymissen said.
If the Chinese embassy chooses to, it can devote a great deal of resources to inundating the Taiwan representative office with letters and complaints, she said.
A signaling system malfunction disrupted high-speed rail (HSR) services beginning at 8am today, with trains temporarily reduced to three northbound and three southbound trains per hour as authorities conduct inspections. The malfunction occurred on a section of track in Miaoli County during pre-operation checks early this morning, forcing northbound and southbound trains to use a single track, the HSR operator said. The regular schedule has been replaced with three hourly trains offering only nonreserved seating in each direction, stopping at every station, it said, adding that business class cars would still have reserved seating. Departures from terminal stations are scheduled at the top
Taiwan is still in the process of assessing the possibility of recruiting workers from Eswatini, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday, adding that its goal is to help Eswatini upgrade its vocational training centers. If there are plans to recruit workers from Eswatini, safeguarding national security, protecting public health and ensuring the employment rights of Taiwanese would be prerequisites, Department of West Asian and African Affairs Director-General Yen Chia-liang (顏嘉良) told a news conference. Key considerations would also include filling labor shortages in specific industries, and fostering bilateral professional and technical exchanges, he said. Yen was asked about the progress of labor
A US uncrewed surface vessel (USV) encountered multiple Chinese warships during an autonomous transit of the Taiwan Strait, US defense company Seasats said in a statement on Wednesday. Seasats announced that a Lightfish USV had completed the first autonomous transit of the Taiwan Strait. Over five days, the USV traversed the entire length of the Strait while constantly monitoring surface vessel traffic, the company said. The Lightfish encountered multiple Chinese warships, one of which was a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) Type 056 corvette, it said. The Chinese vessels were operating “well within Taiwan’s exclusive economic zone without transmitting their identity via the
VERBOSE VESSELS: A CGA cutter and a China Coast Guard exchanged verbal barbs for more than a day in Taiwanese-controlled waters before the Chinese vessel left The Taiwanese and Chinese coast guards had a standoff near the strategically located Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the north of the South China Sea, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The two sides engaged in intense radio exchanges over sovereignty claims during the 33-hour standoff. China Coast Guard vessel 3501 eventually left the restricted waters, 26.6 nautical miles (49.2km) west of the Pratas Islands, at 5pm yesterday, the CGA said. Lying approximately between southern Taiwan and Hong Kong, the Taiwan-controlled Pratas are seen by some security experts as vulnerable to Chinese attack due to their distance — more than
RSS