China is behind South Africa’s latest decision to unilaterally change the contact information of Taiwan’s representative office in Pretoria, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday.
The South African government has been resorting to “little tricks” under Chinese pressure to change the status of Taiwan’s office in South Africa since last year, Lin said.
Taiwan would not acknowledge the latest move by the South African Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO), he said, although what that means in practice remains unclear.
Photo: Reuters
Lin’s response came after DIRCO recently changed the address of Taiwan’s representative office on its Web site from “Pretoria” to “Johannesburg” and designated it as an “international organization” instead of a “foreign representation in South Africa.”
Its domain name was also unilaterally changed from @mofa.gov.tw to @telkomsa.net, a South African telecom company.
DIRCO’s latest move came after it changed the name of the Taipei office on its Web site from the “Taipei Liaison Office” to “Taipei Commercial Office” in early March.
The South African government since last year has tried to move Taiwan’s representative office there out of the administrative capital of Pretoria to the commercial capital of Johannesburg and categorize it as a “trade office.”
It initially set a deadline of October last year for the move, before extending it to the end of March, but Lin said yesterday that the Taipei Liaison Office continues to operate normally in Pretoria.
Taiwan would continue to interact with the South African government in the hope of holding bilateral consultations on the issue, he added.
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