MISLEADING: Five of Taiwan’s allies signed a communique last month, but not at the summit mentioned by Deutsche Welle’s Chinese Web site, a ministry spokesman said
Taipei Times
Date: Mar 21, 2019
By: Lu Yi-hsuan and Sherry Hsiao / Staff reporter, with staff writer
Relations between Taiwan and its Pacific allies are “steady,” Ministry of Foreign Affairs
From right, embassy official Liao Wen-che, Ambassador to the Solomon Islands Roger Luo, Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Hsu Szu-chien and US National Security Council Senior Director Matt Pottinger are pictured in the Solomon Islands earlier this month.Photo from the US embassy in Papua New Guinea Facebook
(MOFA) spokesman Andrew Lee (李憲章) said yesterday in response to a Deutsche Welle report suggesting that relations might be faltering.
The Deutsche Welle’s Chinese-language Web site in a report on Tuesday cited Radio New Zealand as saying that at last month’s Pacific Islands Forum, the presidents of five nations — including Palau, the Marshall Islands, Nauru and Kiribati — signed a joint communique to ask the forum to treat Taiwan and China equally, but also agreed to show more goodwill toward China.
The Web site quoted RAND Corp senior defense analyst Derek Grossman as saying that the joint communique was signed by “all six of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies in the South Pacific.”
Lee confirmed that the five nations — Palau, the Marshall Islands, Nauru, Kiribati and the Federated States of Micronesia — signed a joint communique last month.
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