The current phase of talks with South Africa regarding its demand to move the nation’s representative office from Pretoria is “more challenging” than the first round due to intensified Chinese pressure, a source with knowledge of the matter said yesterday.
On Oct. 7 last year, South Africa requested that the office move by the end of that month.
However, on Oct. 29, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Jeff Liu (劉永健) said that South Africa had expressed willingness to reach a deal through official communication channels.
Photo: Huang Chin-hsuan, Taipei Times
The relocation was delayed after the first round of talks.
However, late last month the South African government once again sent a letter to the Taipei Liason Office in South Africa requesting that it move from the administrative capital by the end of next month and stated plans to downgrade it to a “trade office.”
The ministry on Sunday said it would “continue to communicate with the South African government based on the principles of equality and dignity.”
The ministry would maintain its stance that it would not move as it enters a more challenging phase of talks, the source said yesterday.
The ministry has also thanked its international allies for their continued support in speaking out on the matter, they said.
US Senator Marsha Blackburn on Monday wrote on X that she supports Taiwan in the matter.
“The United States must stand with Taiwan and stand up to South Africa,” Blackburn wrote, adding that if South Africa works with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to “bully Taiwan,” Washington should consider removing the nation from the African Growth and Opportunity Act.
Bilateral discussions are ongoing, although the latest developments show China’s intensified pressure on South Africa, Department of West Asian and African Affairs Deputy Director Chen Yung-po (陳詠博) told a news conference in Taipei yesterday.
The CCP’s suppression of Taiwan has become commonplace, but this latest move shows an attempt to gauge the reactions of the new governments of the US and Japan, Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Wang Ting-yu (王定宇) said.
The Pretoria location was determined based on legally binding agreements between the two nations, leaving no justification for the relocation request, Wang said.
In contravening this agreement, China is bound to end up “losing more than it gains,” while US Secretary of State Marco Rubio might exclude South Africa from aid programs in response to its perceived allegiance to China, Wang added.
Additional reporting by Fang Wei-li
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger today issued a public apology and said it has suspended an employee amid allegations that the staff member discriminated against a Vietnamese customer at its Taipei 101 store. Posting on the social media platform Threads yesterday, a user said that an employee at the store said that “those shoes are very expensive” when her friend, who is a migrant worker from Vietnam, asked for assistance. The employee then ignored her until she asked again, to which she replied: "We don't have a size 37." The post had amassed nearly 26,000 likes and 916 comments as of this
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening 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) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan. Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said. Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software
RSS