China heaped praise on Wednesday on three \u200bAfrican countries that refused to let Taiwan President Lai Ching-te’s aircraft fly over their territories, forcing him to cancel a \u200ctrip to\u00a0Eswatini, while Lai vowed he would not be cowed by Beijing’s pressure.<\/p>\n
It is the first instance of a Taiwan president having to cancel an entire foreign trip due to denial of airspace access, representing a new Chinese strategy as its steps up efforts to stifle the island’s efforts to engage internationally.<\/p>\n
Lai had been due \u200bto leave for the small southern African kingdom, one of just 12 countries with diplomatic ties to Chinese-claimed Taiwan, but the \u200bprevious night Taiwan said his visit had to be delayed.<\/p>\n
Taiwan said Seychelles, Mauritius, and Madagascar had revoked permission \u2060for Lai’s aircraft to fly over their territories.<\/p>\n
Lai said China had used economic “coercion” to get their cooperation – a claim denied by a spokesperson \u200bfor China’s Taiwan Affairs Office.<\/p>\n
Zhang Han, the spokesperson, expressed appreciation for the position and “practice” of the three countries in adhering to the one-China principle.<\/p>\n
“A just \u200bcause enjoys abundant support, while an unjust cause finds little support,” she told a regular news conference in Beijing, quoting the ancient Chinese philosopher Mencius.<\/p>\n
China views democratically-governed Taiwan as its territory despite Taipei’s rejection of the claim, and frequently calls the issue a “red line” in its diplomatic relations with other countries.<\/p>\n
In a separate statement, China’s foreign ministry \u200bsaid it was clear there was “no longer a so-called Republic of China president in the world anymore”, referring to Taiwan by its formal \u200bname.<\/p>\n
“Anyone who wears that false title is acting against history and will only invite disgrace upon themselves,” it said.<\/p>\n
LAI DEFIANT<\/strong><\/p>\n Speaking to a meeting of his Democratic Progressive \u200cParty in \u2060Taipei on Wednesday, Lai said Taiwan’s people have a right to engage with the world.<\/p>\n “No country can stop this, and none will be able to. The harder China suppresses us, the more we must demonstrate a spirit of fearlessness,” he added.<\/p>\n Madagascar and the Seychelles said they took the decision because they do not recognise Taiwan.<\/p>\n The cancellation of the Taiwan president’s visit did not alter Eswatini’s longstanding two-way ties with the island, said \u200bacting government spokesperson Thabile Mdluli.<\/p>\n “As a \u200bsovereign nation, Eswatini continues to \u2060pursue an independent and principled foreign policy that prioritises peace, cooperation and mutually beneficial partnerships with all members of the international community,” Mdluli added.<\/p>\n TAIWAN CONDEMNS CHINA<\/strong><\/p>\n China has a special dislike of Lai, whom it calls a “separatist”. \u200bHe rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims.<\/p>\n Taiwan condemned China’s actions.<\/p>\n On Wednesday, its foreign ministry described the comments by Seychelles and \u200bMadagascar as being “in \u2060servitude of China”.<\/p>\n Though the U.S. State Department has yet to comment, several U.S. lawmakers expressed concern.<\/p>\n “This is not diplomacy; it is economic pressure aimed at isolating a democratic partner,” the U.S. House Select Committee on China wrote on X.<\/p>\n The move comes a little more than a week after China rolled out \u2060new\u00a0incentives\u00a0for \u200bTaiwan, including the easing of food imports, after opposition leader Cheng Li-wun, chairwoman of \u200bthe Kuomintang (KMT),\u00a0met\u00a0President Xi Jinping in Beijing.<\/p>\n The KMT, which is often at odds with Lai’s government, called on China to exercise restraint and give Taiwan sufficient diplomatic space.<\/p>\n “I think mainland \u200bChina’s pressure is not clever, especially after the Cheng-Xi meeting,” senior KMT lawmaker Lai Shyh-bao told reporters in Taipei.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" China heaped praise on Wednesday on three \u200bAfrican countries that refused to let Taiwan President Lai Ching-te’s aircraft fly over their territories, forcing him to cancel a \u200ctrip to\u00a0Eswatini, while Lai vowed he would not be cowed by Beijing’s pressure. It is the first instance of a Taiwan president having to cancel an entire foreign […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":11142,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":6,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Reuters","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,2362,33,30],"tags":[264,396,3078],"class_list":["post-20580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-east-africa","category-featured","category-politics","category-southern-africa","tag-africa","tag-china","tag-taiwan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20580"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20580\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20582,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20580\/revisions\/20582"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}