Taipei Times
Date: Nov 06, 2017
By: Chung Li-hua and William Hetherington  /  Staff reporter, with staff writer

While relations with the nation’s diplomatic allies remain stable, China has been increasingly active in its attempts to poach Caribbean and Central American allies, including Haiti and the Dominican Republic, a government source said on Saturday.

“If China takes a heavy-handed approach, there is little we can do,” the source said.

Even when former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) was in office, Beijing was incessantly active, despite the so-called “diplomatic armistice,” the source said, citing political maneuvering by the former China Commercial Office in Panama.

Head representative of China’s Office of Commercial Development in the Dominican Republic, Fu Xinrong (傅新蓉), was previously deputy director of China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, which on Friday announced plans to invest US$820 million to build an incinerator, natural gas plant and hydro power plant in the Dominican Republic.
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