Taiwan would never treat allied nations the way China does, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday after photographs showing Chinese Ambassador to Kiribati Tang Songgen (唐松根) walking over the backs of local children welcoming him to Marakei Island sparked worldwide criticism.
The pictures showed about 30 people lying on the ground as part of a ceremony this month to welcome the Chinese ambassador.
Kiribati switched recognition from Beijing to Taipei in 2003, but it switched back to Beijing in September last year.
Photo taken from the Twitter account of journalist Michael Field
The unusual diplomatic welcome has sparked criticism from Western politicians, with observers saying that the image is a manifestation of the rising influence of China’s colonialism in the Pacific region and an irony when juxtaposed with Kirabati’s national anthem, Teirake Kaini Kiribati, which means “Stand up Kiribati.”
“I simply cannot imagine any scenario in which walking on the backs of children is acceptable behavior by an ambassador of any country (or any adult for that matter!)” Constantine Panayiotou, the US defense attache to five Pacific island nations, including Kiribati, wrote on Twitter on Sunday.
“I’d be very surprised if an Australian representative participated in such a ceremony of this nature,” said Australian parliamentarian Dave Sharma, a former diplomat to Australia’s mission in Papua New Guinea.
Kiribati netizens and experts said that the practice is part of a traditional welcome ceremony and urged outsiders not to make subjective interpretations.
Speaking at a regular news briefing in Taipei yesterday, ministry spokeswoman Joanne Ou (歐江安) said that the image is not the Kiribati that Taiwan knew and that Taiwanese diplomats have never seen a ceremony of that kind.
The ministry believes that “the world will make fair assessments” as to how China treats its new ally Kiribati, she said.
Meanwhile, Ou criticized the so-called “one Somalia” principle that was presented in a statement by the Somalian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Tuesday, after Taiwan’s representative office in Somaliland, a self-declared state in east Africa, officially opened in Hargeisa on Monday.
“The Federal Government of Somalia condemns Taiwan’s reckless attempts to infringe on the sovereignty of the Federal Republic of Somalia and violate its territorial integrity,” the statement said. “The Federal Government of Somalia repudiates such misguided endeavors that seek to sow discord and division among our people.”
It called on Taiwan to “cease its misinformed ventures into any part of the territory of the Federal Republic of Somalia.”
“These principles are non-negotiable,” it said.
Ou said it appeared that China coerced the government of Somalia to issue the statement.
The so-called “one Somalia” principle is as ridiculous as the so-called “one China” principle, she said.
Somalia and Somaliland are two separate nations and the latter has held three presidential elections since it became independent in 1991, she said.
The ties between Taiwan and Somaliland are based on the shared values of freedom and democracy, Ou said, adding that the Chinese and Somalian governments have no right to interfere with Taiwan’s interactions with other nations.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
A bipartisan group of US senators has introduced a bill to enhance cooperation with Taiwan on drone development and to reduce reliance on supply chains linked to China. The proposed Blue Skies for Taiwan Act of 2026 was introduced by Republican US senators Ted Cruz and John Curtis, and Democratic US senators Jeff Merkley and Andy Kim. The legislation seeks to ease constraints on Taiwan-US cooperation in uncrewed aerial systems (UAS), including dependence on China-sourced components, limited access to capital and regulatory barriers under US export controls, a news release issued by Cruz on Wednesday said. The bill would establish a "Blue UAS
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
RSS