Taiwan is considering suspending all official cooperation projects and imposing stricter visa controls should the South African government follow through with its demand that Taiwan's representative office relocate, a diplomatic source said today.
According to a diplomatic source who spoke on condition of anonymity, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) has asked his ministry to come up with all possible reciprocal countermeasures amid a yearlong dispute that has seen Taiwan's representatives ordered to leave South Africa's administrative capital, Pretoria, and change its name to a trade office.
Photo: CNA
Potential countermeasures include stricter visa rules for South African travelers to Taiwan, suspending all bilateral exchanges, and even retaliatory economic and trade measures, the source said.
It is also considering halting a years-long project allowing South African nationals to come to Taiwan for training sessions, the source added.
However, they did not disclose exactly what kind of training programs South Africans have been undergoing in Taiwan.
The source also did not disclose what the retaliatory economic and trade measures might be.
These countermeasures are being prepared in response to the South African government's "malicious sabotaging" of a 1997 bilateral agreement that allowed the Taipei office to operate in Pretoria following the ending of official diplomatic ties in 1998, the source added.
The controversy arose last year, when the South African government sought to downgrade the representative office and recategorize it as a "trade office" based in the commercial capital Johannesburg.
South Africa originally set the end of October last year as the deadline for Taiwan to change the name of its representative office and relocate.
It later renewed the deadline to before the end of this month.
South Africa unilaterally changed the Taipei office's name early this month.
The update to the South African Department of International Relations and Cooperation Web site now lists the "Taipei Liaison Office" as the "Taipei Commercial Office."
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a protest, calling on the two sides to continue to engage in talks to come up with mutually acceptable solutions to the issue.
In an English-language statement on Sunday, the ministry said both sides were currently exchanging views "on the possibility of amending the content of the legal framework governing their bilateral relations," referring to the 1997 agreement.
Taiwan has urged South Africa to "accelerate talks on details regarding formal negotiations, such as the location, time, composition of the delegation and method of signing an agreement."
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