Defiant Taiwan says it won’t bow to SA’s demand to vacate Pretoria office

Taiwan is defying the South African government and says it will not vacate its offices in Pretoria by the end of October as SA has demanded.

Taiwan’s foreign minister, Lin Chia-lung, told his country’s parliament on Monday that his ministry has informed the South African government about this decision, according to a report by Taiwan’s Central News Agency (CNA).

“Our office is still in operation and will stay in the capital,” he was reported as saying.

The report said the minister accused the South African government of violating an agreement it had signed with Taipei in 1997, after Pretoria announced in December 1996 its intention to switch diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in Beijing.

According to CNA, Lin told parliament that the 1997 agreement stipulated that Taiwan could continue to operate a liaison office in Pretoria after official diplomatic relations between the two countries ended.

Lin noted that South Africa had likewise been allowed to maintain a presence in Taipei, the capital of Taiwan.

Taiwan has maintained its office in Pretoria for 26 years after its diplomatic relations with South Africa ended on 31 December 1997. The office is called the “Taipei Liaison Office in South Africa”, with no mention of Taiwan. The South African government office in Taipei is called the “Liaison Office of South Africa in Taiwan”.

However, now the SA government has demanded that Taiwan relocates the office from Pretoria to Johannesburg and rebrands it as a trade office.

Read more: Diplomatic row looms after SA government demands that Taiwan move its office out of Pretoria

Lin told Parliament that the South African government first asked the Taipei office in Pretoria to relocate last year after a visit to SA by Chinese President Xi Jinping for the 2023 BRICS Summit in August.

He said China had exerted pressure on SA to eject Taiwan from Pretoria, both then and at a meeting in September this year in Beijing of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, which President Cyril Ramaphosa attended.

CNA reported that Lin had said that in April the SA government officially asked Taiwan to vacate its Pretoria office before the end of October. SA repeated its demand on 7 October, sending an ultimatum to Taiwan to move the office out of Pretoria before the end of October, or it would be forced to close.

“The issue was ‘non-negotiable’,” the CNA report quoted Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs sources as saying.

However, Lin told parliament on Monday that South Africa was legally bound to follow the 1997 agreement.

Joburg ‘more appropriate’

On Friday, South Africa’s Department of International Relations and Cooperation (Dirco) complained that press reports had “mischaracterised” its engagements with the Taipei Liaison Office (TLO).

“Relocating what will be rebranded as trade offices both in Taipei and in Johannesburg, which is standard diplomatic practice, will be a true reflection of the non-political and non-diplomatic nature of the relationship between the Republic of South Africa and Taiwan,” said Dirco spokesperson Chrispin Phiri.

“The trade office will be appropriately placed in Johannesburg, South Africa’s economic hub. This also aligns with standard diplomatic practice that capital cities are the seats of foreign embassies and high commissions.

“The TLO were given a reasonable six months to make the move. The same was communicated via the South African Liaison Office in Taipei by South Africa’s representative to the territory.”

Daily Maverick asked Phiri on Monday for a response to Foreign Minister Lin’s reported statement to Taiwan’s parliament that Taiwan would not vacate the Pretoria office by the end of October.

Phiri said, “We will engage the Taipei Liaison Office accordingly.”

Lin also told Taiwan’s parliament that over the past months, many like-minded countries, including the US, Japan and the Czech Republic, had tried to convince the South African government to reverse its decision.

According to CNA, Lin said he still hoped the South African government, as a democratic country with the rule of law, would follow the agreement signed with Taipei.

But the report said Lin also told parliament that if Taiwan was forced to leave Pretoria by the end of October, it had prepared contingency plans, including asking the South African office in Taiwan to relocate out of Taipei. DM