Tag Archives: TAIWAN

Presidency clarifies Nigeria’s relationship with Taiwan

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A day after Nigeria’s foreign affairs minister said “Taiwan will stop enjoying any privileges (from Nigeria),” the presidency clarified Nigeria’s stance on the matter.

Geoffrey Onyeama had at a news conference on Wednesday said “Taiwan will stop enjoying any privileges because it is not a country that is recognised under international law and under the position we have taken internationally we recognise the people of China.”

“Taiwan will not have any diplomatic representation in Nigeria and also they will be moving to Lagos to the extent that they function as a trade mission with a skeletal staff,” the minister said.

In its reaction to media reports of the minister’s statement, the presidency on Thursday said Nigeria had not cut ties with Taiwan.

Garba Shehu, the Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity to the President, in a statement in Abuja on Thursday said the correct position is that the official relationship between Nigeria and Taiwan has been at the level of trade representation and this has not changed from what it used to be.

“Taiwan Trade Office is Taiwan’s only representation in Nigeria and Nigeria’s Trade Office in Taipei is our only representation in Taiwan.

“Nigeria recognises and will sustain the “One China” policy and nothing has happened so far to change that level of relationship”, Mr. Shehu said.

Taiwan protests Nigeria’s closure of its Abuja trade office

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Taiwan protested Thursday after Nigeria asked it to shut down its trade office in the capital, in what it said was an attempt by Beijing to push it out of Africa’s largest economy.

The island’s foreign ministry said Nigeria had asked Taiwan to move its trade office out of the capital Abuja in a show of support for Beijing.

Chinese leaders see the self-ruling island as a renegade province which is still part of “one China”.

Ties have deteriorated since Beijing-sceptic president Tsai Ing-wen took the leadership in May and have worsened further in recent weeks since Tsai made a congratulatory call to United States President-elect Donald Trump and later transited through the US despite protests from Beijing.

The US is Taiwan’s most powerful ally and main arms supplier.

Taiwan says Beijing is leaning on other countries as a pressure tactic on Tsai.

“The foreign ministry protests and condemns Nigeria for collaborating with China’s political goal to engage in unreasonable, barbaric, rough and violent political manipulation,” Taiwan’s foreign ministry said in a statement.

The island’s Mainland Affairs Council (MAC), which handles relations with Beijing, expressed “strong dissatisfaction” over what it called an “unreasonable and provocative action”.

Beijing said Nigeria had taken the decision to ask the trade office to move out of Abuja, and to make sure its government had no official contact with Taiwan, in order to show its backing for the “one China” principle.

“The Nigerian government has made a political decision and taken tough measures on the Taiwan office’s violation of the ‘one China’ principle,” China’s foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang told reporters.

Lu said the move had “cleared the political blocks in the way of bilateral relations” with Nigeria.

Nigeria has no formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan.

Only 21 countries officially recognise the island as a sovereign state, with most nations instead recognising Beijing.

Nigeria pledged to “keep faith” with all its agreements with China in a government statement Thursday, without mentioning Taiwan.

For years, China and Taiwan were locked in a bitter diplomatic tug-of-war, luring away each other’s allies with generous financial packages in so-called “chequebook diplomacy”.

Diplomatic tussles between the two had eased under Taiwan’s previous Beijing-friendly government.

But since Tsai won elections in January last year, China has established relations with Taiwan’s former ally Gambia and the small African nation of Sao Tome and Principe.

“The things China has done are not helpful for improving cross-strait relations but rather harmful for improving ties,” Taiwan premier Lin Chuan told reporters Thursday when discussing the Nigeria row.

Beijing has also upped its military drills near the island since the Tsai-Trump call, with China’s only aircraft carrier moving through the Taiwan Strait earlier this week.

Lin said Taiwan had shown “good will” towards Beijing.

“We will not provoke and will not do things that are not expected,” he said.

Nigeria cuts diplomatic relations with Taiwan, closes Abuja office.

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The Federal Government on Wednesday said it would no longer recognise Taiwan as a country but rather pledged support for One China.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, stated this while answering questions after a joint news conference with the Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs in Abuja.

Mr. Onyeama said Nigeria had withdrawn all diplomatic relations with Taiwan as a country, adding that Taiwanese office in Abuja would be shut down and be relocated to Lagos.

According to him, Nigeria has communicated Taiwan and they are moving to Lagos as soon as possible.

“Taiwan will stop enjoying any privileges because it is not a country that is recognised under international law and under the position we have taken internationally we recognise the people of China.

“Taiwan will not have any diplomatic representation in Nigeria and also they will be moving to Lagos to the extent that they function as a trade mission with a skeletal staff.

“Chinese Government does not oppose trading with Taiwan as long as there is no formal contact with the Government that will suggest recognition of Taiwan as sovereign country,” he said.

According to him, China does not oppose relationship with Taiwan in the level of trade but not on government to government level.

The minister, however, said that Nigeria was not pressurised to take the decision, noting that the development was a bit of anormally on the side of Nigeria

He said Nigeria recognised the People’s Republic of China as country because Nigeria was one the leading African nations that fought for China to reclaim its seat at the UN Security Council from Taiwan.

He said the step being taken was to right the wrong that one could not specifically say how it came.

“It was not very clear how it got into Nigeria system – an arrangement for the Taiwan for a trade mission.

“And in grating the right of the trade mission it did not accurately reflect the nature of relationship between Nigeria and Taiwan,” he said.

Mr. Onyeama said the country took the decision to remove any iota of doubt in the mind of the Chinese people.

He said on the issue of building trust, the international community had embraced one China and China is a member of the United Nations and we don’t want to leave any doubt on the issue.

The minister stressed that Nigeria would adhere to it completely and there is no ambiguity at all.

He said Nigeria as a nation would do everything to realise the One China Policy as well as any effort that would promote the peace and well being of the People’s Republic of China.

According to Onyeama, China is one of the countries that have been in full support of reforms in the UN that would see Africa having two seats at the UN Security Council, as such deserved to be supported in her unification drive of One China.

Baby Rescued After 30 Hours In Rubble Of Collapsed Building Following Taiwan Earthquake

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Rescuers in Taiwan raced on Sunday to save more than 120 people still trapped under the rubble of a building after it collapsed during a powerful earthquake.
Emergency workers worked around the clock to comb the ruins of the 17-storey building in southern Tainan city following a 6.4 magnitude earthquake in the early hours of Saturday.
As rescue operations continued, the death toll from the earthquake rose to 28, with most victims – including a ten-day-old baby girl – killed in the ill-fated Wei-guan Golden Dragon Building.
Among those rescued from the collapsed building, which was home to 256 residents, was a six-month-old baby girl who was reportedly rushed to hospital after more than 30 hours under rubble.
Anxious relatives gathering near the rescue operations included a woman who called herself Chang, 42, who described how she was waiting to hear from her 24-year-old daughter who lived on the fifth floor.

“She’s not answering my phone calls,” she said. “I am trying to hold my emotions and stay strong. I’ll do that until I find her.”

“I’ve contacted judicial units and prosecutors have formally launched an investigation,” said William Lai, the mayor of Tainan, Taiwan’s oldest city.

“We’ve also commissioned three independent bodies to preserve evidence during the rescue so we can assist the residents if they want to file lawsuits in the future. We will hold the builder responsible if they have broken the law.”

Yueh Chin-sen, whose mother-in-law’s family of eight was still trapped, described how residents had long complained of defects in the building.

“They complained that the building wasn’t well constructed as there were cracks in the walls and tiles fell off after several quakes in recent years,” he told AFP.

“I hope the government will prosecute the builder on criminal charges as people lost their lives.”

Taiwan, which is located in a seismically active Pacific Ring of Fire zone, was hit by a major 7.7 magnitude earthquake in 1999 which claimed more than 2,400 lives.