Former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) in 1994 agreed to donate US$10 million to South Africa's heavily indebted African National Congress (ANC) to sustain Taipei-Pretoria ties, a retired veteran diplomat admitted for the first time yesterday.
"Beijing had paid US$10 million then and we simply matched it," former ambassador to South Africa Loh I-cheng (
Loh's remark came in the wake of the disclosure of confidential National Security Bureau (NSB) documents in the local press yesterday.
Loh said that after learning the ANC under Nelson Mandela was loaded with debt of US$20 million after the first all-race elections in 1994 that brought Mandela to power, he reported the situation to Lee during his visit to Pretoria for Mandela's presidential inauguration ceremony.
"The president said he was very impressed by Mandela and asked me if there's anything we could do to help the ANC. So I suggested that if we could help with half of the debt, Mandela would be most grateful," Loh recalled.
Loh also stressed the amount offered to the ANC then was US$10 million, adding that he had no idea why the leaked NSB document said the figure was US$11 million.
According to a China Times report, Lee, after his return from Pretoria, requested that the foreign ministry offer the donation to the ANC, but the ministry said it would have difficulty coming up with such a large donation.
Lee then asked the NSB to retrieve US$ 11 million from an alleged secret fund to advance the donation, and the foreign ministry several years later agreed to reimburse US$10.7 million to the NSB, the report said.
Control Yuan President Fred-erick Chien (錢復), who served as the foreign minister in 1994, yesterday said he was unaware of the alleged donation.
When contacted by the Taipei Times, Yang Ching-chih (楊清吉), a former foreign ministry accountant who reportedly handled the reimbursement of the donation to the NSB, said "the matter had nothing to do with me."
In fact, Taiwan's US$10 million donation to the ANC was not news in South Africa as a South African journalist, Gaye Davis, reported the deal in a Dec. 8, 1995 article in the Weekly Mail & Guardian.
"President Nelson Mandela has cited a US$10 million donation from the Republic of China on Taiwan for the African National Congress' general election campaign as one reason South Africa would not break ties with the island republic in favor of diplomatic relations with mainland China," Davis wrote in her story.
Mandela then said the money was given as "a donation and not a bribe" and that the ANC would not repay a friend's favor by "stabbing them in the back," the report said.
The 1995 report also said that then-ambassador Loh had insisted no donation had been made.
Mandela announced at the end of 1997 that South Africa would sever ties with Taipei to establish links with Beijing, just months after saying such a step would be "immoral" as Taiwan had been a good friend to his ruling ANC.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is aware that Beijing’s treatment of Hong Kong has weakened any possible sentiment for a “one country, two systems” arrangement for Taiwan, and has instructed Chinese Communist Party (CCP) politburo member Wang Huning (王滬寧) to develop new ways of defining cross-strait relations, Japanese news magazine Nikkei Asia reported on Thursday. A former professor of international politics at Fu Dan University, Wang is expected to develop a dialogue that could serve as the foundation for cross-strait unification, and Xi plans to use the framework to support a fourth term as president, Nikkei Asia quoted an anonymous source
LUCKY DATE: The man picked the 10th ‘Super Red Envelope’ in a lottery store in Taoyuan’s Jhongli because he broke up with his girlfriend on Jan. 10 A man who recently broke up with his girlfriend won a NT$1 million (US$32,929) prize in the “NT$20 million Super Red Envelope” lottery after picking a card based on the date of their breakup, Taiwan Lottery Co said yesterday. The man, in his 20s, bought the 10th ticket at a lottery store in Taoyuan’s Jhongli District (中壢), because he broke up with his girlfriend on Jan. 10, the store owner told the lottery company. The “Super Red Envelope” lottery was a limited offering by the company during the Lunar New Year holiday, which ended yesterday. The cards, which cost NT$2,000 each, came with
TOURISM BOOST: The transportation system could help attract more visitors to the area, as the line is to connect multiple cultural sites, a city councilor said Residents in New Taipei City’s Ankeng District (安坑) said the local light rail system might have a positive influence, but raised questions about its practicality. The Ankeng light rail system, which is to commence operations after the Lunar New Year holiday, would cut travel time for commuters from Ankeng to downtown Taipei or New Taipei City by 15 to 20 minutes, the city government said. According to the initial plan, there would be one train every 15 minutes during peak time and additional interval trains would run between the densely populated Ankang Station (安康) and Shisizhang Station (十 四張). To encourage people to
CHAMPION TREES: The team used light detection and ranging imaging to locate the tree, and found that it measured a height of 84.1m and had a girth of 8.5m A team committed to finding the tallest trees in the nation yesterday said that an 84.1m tall Taiwania cryptomerioides tree had been named the tallest tree in Taiwan and East Asia. The Taiwan Champion Trees, a team consisting of researchers from the Council of Agriculture’s Taiwan Forestry Research Institute and National Cheng Kung University (NCKU), in June last year used light detection and ranging (LiDAR) imaging to find the giant tree, numbered 55214, upstream of the Daan River (大安溪). A 20-member expedition team led by Rebecca Hsu (徐嘉君), an assistant researcher at the Taiwan Forestry Research Institute, set out to find the
RSS