Dirco has denied that the instruction to close the de facto embassy came from China. (Photo by I-HWA CHENG/AFP via Getty Images)
The ANC’s two biggest coalition partners in the national government plan to ask that it reconsider the department of international relations’ instruction to Taiwan to close its liaison office in Pretoria by the end of the month.
Both the Inkatha Freedom Party and the Democratic Alliance said they hoped to prompt a rethink on a step that has triggered a diplomatic row.
Taiwan on Tuesday rejected the demand by the department of international relations that it move its representative office to Johannesburg as unreasonable.
The Associated Press quoted the spokesman for Taiwan’s foreign ministry, Jeff Liu, as telling a media briefing that the South African demand violated an agreement between the two countries in 1997 on the location of their mutual liaison offices.
“Facing this kind of unreasonable demand, our side cannot grant our acceptance,” he said.
South Africa responded by saying it refused to engage other than via the appropriate diplomatic channels.
“We prefer not to engage via the media platforms,” international relations minister Ronald Lamola’s spokesperson Chrispin Phiri said.
“There are official channels, and it is the preferred platform of engagement for us.”
South Africa severed political and diplomatic ties with Taiwan in 1997.
Confirming the instruction to the Taipei Liaison Office to relocate on Friday, Phiri said it would be “a true reflection of the non-political and non-diplomatic nature of the relationship between the Republic of South Africa and Taiwan”.
He denied that the demand followed pressure on Pretoria from China.
However, well-placed diplomatic sources said this was indeed the case and South Africa found itself at a loss to explain to Beijing why Taiwan had been allowed to maintain a liaison office in Pretoria for nearly two decades.
The department initially conveyed a verbal request to the Taipei Liaison Office in December, asking that it be closed and moved to Johannesburg.
After some to and fro, it followed up with written correspondence In April, at which Taiwan asked for a formal review of its bilateral relationship with South Africa.
“On 4 October, the department sent another note verbale saying the office must relocate or it would be closed down,” a source said
Emma Powell, the Democratic Alliance’s spokesperson on international relations, said the only precedent for such a step in Africa was the Nigerian government in 2017 compelling Taiwan to move its office in Abuja to Lagos.
Powell told the Mail & Guardian she would ask party leader John Steenhuisen to table the matter in cabinet as she believed the ultimatum was misguided.
IFP leader Velinkosini Hlabisa, who serves as minister for co-operative governance, said partners in the so-called government of national unity will have to “engage” on policy differences regarding Taiwan.
It is expected that the issue will be raised at the second meeting on Thursday of the clearing house set up recently to allow representatives of the 10 parties in the unity government to resolve policy differences.
Powell said the ANC no longer held an outright majority and therefore had to decide foreign policy in consultation with its coalition partners.
She warned that back-tracking on a long-standing agreement with Taipei on its presence in the country could damage trade relations between the two countries.
“It is critical that Taiwan continues to enjoy consular and trade representation on the same basis that they have done since 1998,” she said.