The Fijian government appears to be having second thoughts about its decision to allow the Taiwan representative office there to revert to its former name, which includes the words “Republic of China (ROC),” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday.
“MOFA and its office in Fiji are in negotiations with the Fiji government over the matter, and will make more details public at an appropriate time,” MOFA spokesperson Jeff Liu (劉永健) told reporters, without elaborating.
The talks were initiated after Fiji said that it was facing “extreme pressure” from China on the issue, Liu said, hinting that the Fijian government might be forced to overturn its renaming of the office due to coercion from China.
Photo: Chen Chih-chu, Taipei Times
Amid such pressure, the Fijian government could ask Taiwan to change the name of the Trade Mission of the Republic of China (Taiwan) back to the Taipei Trade Office in Fiji, Liu said, declining to give any concrete information on the matter.
In March, the Fijian government, which was elected at the end of last year, told Taiwan that its representative office there could revert to its former name, which included “ROC,” Liu said.
At the time, the Fijian government said that diplomatic privileges for Taiwanese diplomats at the representative office, which had been revoked in 2018 by the then-Fijian government, would be restored according to Fiji’s Diplomatic Privileges and Immunities Act 1971.
At the time, Taipei thanked Fiji’s administration and expressed hopes that the two sides would continue to deepen friendly relations, MOFA said.
The decisions announced in March were made despite the lack of official diplomatic relations between the two countries, under the new administration’s Taiwan-friendly three-party coalition.
The name of the representative office has since been changed on its Web site to the Trade Mission of the Republic of China (Taiwan) to the Republic of Fiji, but MOFA has not released an official photograph of the office bearing the new name.
The previous Fijian administration had in 2018 forced the representative office to change its name to the Taipei Trade Office in Fiji, MOFA said.
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
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
Taiwan will now have four additional national holidays after the Legislative Yuan passed an amendment today, which also made Labor Day a national holiday for all sectors. The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) used their majority in the Legislative Yuan to pass the amendment to the Act on Implementing Memorial Days and State Holidays (紀念日及節日實施辦法), which the parties jointly proposed, in its third and final reading today. The legislature passed the bill to amend the act, which is currently enforced administratively, raising it to the legal level. The new legislation recognizes Confucius’ birthday on Sept. 28, the
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