The government on Monday rejected accusations by Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare that it was involved in last month’s bloody riots in the Pacific nation.
Sogavare on Monday survived a no-confidence motion in parliament, after accusing the Pacific nation’s most populous province, Malaita, of being “Taiwan’s agent,” and anti-government protesters of attempting a coup.
Dozens of buildings were burned and shops looted in the capital, Honiara, with four deaths, after Sogavare refused to speak with protesters who had traveled from Malaita.
Photo: AFP
Opposition leader Matthew Wale, who initiated the no-
confidence motion, had told parliament before the vote that Sogavare was “in the service of a foreign power,” accusing him of using money from China in a national fund to prop up his political strength.
The motion failed, with 15 parliamentarians voting in support, 32 against and two abstaining.
Sogavare, now in his fourth term in office, rejected graft accusations, saying he would not submit to “calls to resign by Taiwan’s agents.”
“The call for me to resign and this motion was made against the backdrop of an illegal attempted coup,” he said, blaming the Malaita provincial government.
Malaita has a history of disputes with Guadalcanal Province, where the central government is located, and opposed Sogavare’s 2019 decision to sever diplomatic relations with Taiwan and switch to China.
Sogavare on Monday defended the diplomatic switch, saying that the decision was made because China was an economic powerhouse, adding that it was unlawful for provinces to engage in diplomatic relations with other countries.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Joanne Ou (歐江安) condemned the accusation raised by Sogavare as “irresponsible,” saying he has wrongfully blamed Taiwan and pro-Taiwan people in his country for the riots.
The riots in the Solomon Islands were due to public dissatisfaction with Sogavare’s poor governance, Ou said.
Ou reiterated Taiwan’s stance in calling for a peaceful and rational resolution of the disputes between the people of the Solomon Islands and their government.
Taiwan urges the Solomon Islands’ central government to listen to its people instead of trying to rule the Pacific nation by copying China’s authoritarian rule, she added.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
RSS