While Taiwan’s relations with its diplomatic allies in the first half of the year were stable, Minister of Foreign Affairs David Lin (林永樂) yesterday said that he could not predict how they would develop in the latter half of the year amid speculation of Chinese interference in the run-up to January’s presidential and legislative elections.
Responding to a question by Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Huang Wei-cher (黃偉哲) at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign and National Defense Committee, Lin said that diplomatic ties with Central and South American allies were stable and the ministry would continue to monitor developments amid rumors that Beijing might try to sabotage Taiwan’s efforts.
Lin rated the current state of diplomatic ties as a “green light,” but added that “predicting [the second half] is difficult, as it depends on the outcome of the coming elections.”
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
“Maintaining stable cross-strait relations is a major factor,” the minister added.
People First Party Legislator Thomas Lee (李桐豪) asked Lin about the failure of the nation’s allies to speak up for Taiwan during the UN general debate.
“In this year’s debate, five of our 22 allies failed to make comments in our favor, four of which — Panama, Honduras, El Salvador and the Dominican Republic — have failed to do so for three consecutive years,” Lee said.
Nicaragua and Guatemala had also been silent once or twice over the past three years, he said.
In a meeting between China and Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), eight of the CELAC states said they would like to normalize relations with China, Lee said.
“The eight includes all the countries I just mentioned,” the lawmaker said.
Lee asked how Lin would rate Taiwan’s diplomatic ties with the eight after next year. The minister replied that stable cross-strait relations are crucial to the nation’s foreign relations.
“I am talking about the present,” Lee said. “Even though we have been following a ‘viable diplomacy’ [policy] and maintaining the ‘status quo,’ [some of our allies] failed to speak up for us for three consecutive years.”
The minister said he regrets their failure to do so, “but we also understand the pressure they are subjected to [by Beijing] and other considerations that they might have.”
“Speaking for us in the UN debate is not a requisite of, and should not be equated to, the diplomatic ties we have with them,” he added.
Lee contended there still has to be a means of distinguishing those who strongly support the nation and those who do not.
“There could be some kind of redistribution of the financial aids to encourage the allies that have been more supportive of us than others,” he said.
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) and Chunghwa Telecom yesterday confirmed that an international undersea cable near Keelung Harbor had been cut by a Chinese ship, the Shunxin-39, a freighter registered in Cameroon. Chunghwa Telecom said the cable had its own backup equipment, and the incident would not affect telecommunications within Taiwan. The CGA said it dispatched a ship under its first fleet after receiving word of the incident and located the Shunxin-39 7 nautical miles (13km) north of Yehliu (野柳) at about 4:40pm on Friday. The CGA demanded that the Shunxin-39 return to seas closer to Keelung Harbor for investigation over the
National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology (NKUST) yesterday promised it would increase oversight of use of Chinese in course materials, following a social media outcry over instances of simplified Chinese characters being used, including in a final exam. People on Threads wrote that simplified Chinese characters were used on a final exam and in a textbook for a translation course at the university, while the business card of a professor bore the words: “Taiwan Province, China.” Photographs of the exam, the textbook and the business card were posted with the comments. NKUST said that other members of the faculty did not see
The Taipei City Government yesterday said contractors organizing its New Year’s Eve celebrations would be held responsible after a jumbo screen played a Beijing-ran television channel near the event’s end. An image showing China Central Television (CCTV) Channel 3 being displayed was posted on the social media platform Threads, sparking an outcry on the Internet over Beijing’s alleged political infiltration of the municipal government. A Taipei Department of Information and Tourism spokesman said event workers had made a “grave mistake” and that the Television Broadcasts Satellite (TVBS) group had the contract to operate the screens. The city would apply contractual penalties on TVBS
An apartment building in New Taipei City’s Sanchong District (三重) collapsed last night after a nearby construction project earlier in the day allegedly caused it to tilt. Shortly after work began at 9 am on an ongoing excavation of a construction site on Liuzhang Street (六張街), a neighboring apartment building tilted and cracked, leading to exterior tiles peeling off, city officials said. The fire department then dispatched personnel to help evacuate 22 residents from nine households. After the incident, the city government first filled the site with water to stabilize the groundwater level and then added dirt
RSS