Eight of the 12 nations that belong to the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) and have diplomatic ties with Taiwan went to a ministerial meeting that China and CELAC held last week in Beijing, Minister of Foreign Affairs David Lin (林永樂) said yesterday.
“We had their advance promises that political issues would not be discussed during the forum,” Lin said.
Lin reported on the effect the forum might have on the diplomatic relationship between Taiwan and CELAC members yesterday at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign and National Defense Committee.
The two-day China-CELAC forum concluded on Friday last week, with three documents that reportedly state that the two entities would seek to improve economic and trade relations.
According to the minister, Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had called for a “China-CELAC cooperation framework” and promised US$35 billion of cooperation funds and concessional loans.
The three documents passed — the “Beijing Declaration,” a five-year cooperation plan and regulations for the China-CELAC forum — set the goals of reaching a bilateral trade volume of US$500 billion and an investment volume of US$250 billion within 10 years.
“We have been following this closely and talked before and after the forum to the eight countries that have diplomatic relations with us and went to the forum. All of them stressed that they participated in the forum as members of CELAC and promised that no [country-to-country] bilateral issues would be discussed,” Lin said.
The minister also said that — China’s generous financial loans notwithstanding — “The cooperative model of providing gratuitous financial support promoted by us should still be attractive to our allies [in Latin America].”
When Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) asked whether some nations have been using China as a factor to bargain for more financial aid, Lin said no, but added that many are indeed calling for improvements to cooperative relationships on various fronts.
Lin said in his report that the nation’s budget for foreign aid tightened to US$9.194 billion last year, and with the limited budget and a plan to increase the transparency of the aid projects, it is not necessary and also not possible for Taiwan to increase financial packages to counteract China’s move.
“We will deepen our diplomatic relations with our allies through our foreign aid and loans that would assist them to construct basic infrastructures and improve people’s welfare,” Lin said, adding that interactions at every level and through the regional cooperative mechanisms will also be reinforced.
KMT Legislator Lin Yu-fang (林郁方) said while the forum will remain ministerial in the near future, “one of our allies, Panama, on Saturday proposed raising the level of the meeting to a summit among heads of states.”
“This is a warning. Twelve of our total 22 allies are in Latin America, and China has been putting effort into establishing cooperative ties in this region,” Lin Yu-fang said.
He added that the proposal to turn the meeting into a summit did not pass and the forum’s triennial structure is still “lax and without a permanent secretariat.”
“Whether China is indeed fulfilling its promises gradually also needs to be closely watched,” he added.
While Lin Yu-fang underlined the financial and economic nature of the forum, Xinhua news agency reported that alongside expanding cooperation and promoting development, “China and CELAC have also reached a consensus on deepening mutual political trust.”
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