China attempted to lure Palau away as an ally of Taiwan by offering financial benefits, Palauan President Surangel Whipps Jr said in letter to an unnamed US senator last week.
Cleo Paskal, a non-resident senior fellow at the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies focused on the Indo-Pacific region, on Thursday posted the letter on X.
Whipps shared the post on X.
Photo from Cleo Paskal’s X account
In the letter, which was dated Friday last week, the president sought the senator’s support for an amended bill that would cement “a strengthened free association between Palau and the US,” as it is “critical for both of our democracies and a free and open Indo-Pacific.”
Palau and several other Pacific island countries give the US strategic control of the sea and air between Hawaii and Asia, “including shipping lanes that the PRC [People’s Republic of China] covets,” the letter says.
“Every day it is not approved plays into the hands of the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] and the leaders here (some of whom have done ‘business’ with the PRC) who want to accept its seemingly attractive economic offers at the cost of shifting alliances, beginning with sacrificing Taiwan,” it says.
China offered to “fill every hotel room ... and more if more are built,” as well as “US$20 million a year for two acres [0.81 hectares] for a ‘call center’” in Palau, which has a tourism-driven economy, the letter says.
The offer was Beijing’s attempt to “break its [Palau’s] relationship with US and Taiwan,” Paskal said.
Palau is one of Taiwan’s 12 UN-recognized diplomatic allies.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Rosalia Wu (吳思瑤), secretary-general of the party’s caucus, yesterday told a news conference that it is nothing new that Beijing shells out to “buy diplomacy.”
However, the practice is unbearable for Chinese suffering from an ailing economy, Wu said.
Taiwan’s cooperation with Palau in the past few years, especially in tourism, has been deepening and widening, and there is also a diversity of cooperative projects in economic resilience and sustainable development, she said.
Wu said she believes the ally would make the right diplomatic decision.
Taiwan and Palau would continue to fight for freedom, democracy and human rights, she added.
DPP Legislator Hung Sun-han (洪申翰) said that a Taiwanese delegation at the COP28 summit in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, last year had in-depth discussions with Whipps on bilateral cooperation on climate change and other issues, which demonstrated the strength of diplomatic ties between the two sides in the past few years.
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