South Africa's proposals for representative offices still under review: Minister

Taipei, Oct. 16 (CNA) Taiwan's foreign ministry is still reviewing a new agreement proposed by the South African government last month to regulate the status of reciprocal representative offices, Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said Thursday.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is in consultation with legal experts on the proposed new agreement, Lin said during a legislative session, when asked about the latest developments in a year-long controversy over Taiwan's de facto representative office in South Africa.

While the new proposal offers Taiwan greater flexibility, MOFA does not find it acceptable, Lin said, without elaborating.

MOFA is still keeping its options open on whether to resume Taiwan's plans for retaliatory measures against South Africa, including controls on chip exports, pending bilateral talks on the proposed agreement, he said.

He was referring to a decision made in September by the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) to mandate government approval for the export of 47 tech products, including integrated circuits, to South Africa, with effect from late November.

The planned restrictions were meant as a countermeasure to South Africa's repeated downgrading and renaming of Taiwan's two de facto representative offices there, which the Taiwan government saw as yielding to China's efforts to belittle Taiwan's sovereignty status.

Two days after the retaliatory measures were announced, however, MOFA said it had asked the MOEA to suspend implementation of the export controls, pending discussions with South Africa on the controversy.

The problem arose in October 2024, when the South African government began a unilateral push to categorize the Taiwan representative office as a "trade office" only and move it from the political and executive capital of Pretoria to the commercial capital, Johannesburg.

South Africa initially wanted the move to be made almost immediately but later extended the deadline to the end of March this year.

MOFA protested the proposed relocation, citing a 1997 bilateral agreement that allowed the Taipei office to operate in Pretoria after diplomatic ties between the two countries were severed in 1998. MOFA also called for talks between the two sides to come up with a new agreement regarding the operations of the Taipei Liaison Office in the Republic of South Africa, as it is officially named.

To date, no such discussions have been held, and the name of the office was changed in early March to the Taipei Commercial Office, on the website of South Africa's Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO).

On July 21, DIRCO publicly announced the renaming and downgrading of Taiwan's main representative office in Pretoria and its branch office in Cape Town.

Taiwan's representative office in Pretoria continues to provide services to Taiwanese in South Africa and maintains normal operations, according to MOFA.

The South Africa representative office in Taiwan, called the Liaison Office of South Africa in Taipei, also continues to operate normally, according to officials.