Taipei proposes talks with S. Africa in January over rep office: MOFA

Taipei, Dec. 23 (CNA) Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) has proposed talks with the South African government in January to resolve a year-long controversy over Taiwan's de facto embassy in South Africa, a diplomat said Tuesday.

Yen Chia-liang (顏嘉良), head of MOFA's Department of West Asian and African Affairs, said Taiwan first received official notice from South Africa in September when the latter proposed in-person talks with Taiwan over the status of reciprocal representative offices in Pretoria sometime in November.

At that time, the ministry believed it was not an appropriate time to hold such talks, given the 2025 G20 Leaders' Summit was set to be held in Johannesburg in late November, Yen said.

In response, Yen said MOFA proposed talks in January, though South Africa has so far made no official reply to the proposed date, he added.

Other conditions of the proposed in-person meeting, including the level of attending officials and locations, require further negotiations, he said, during a MOFA weekly briefing when asked to comment on the latest development in the case.

Yen did not elaborate why the G20 Leaders' Summit would be a bad time for both to talk.

A source familiar with the matter told CNA that a senior Chinese official or officials would be visiting South Africa for the event, and MOFA was concerned that the African country could be susceptible to Chinese pressure during any talks with Taipei.

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

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 designated.

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).

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

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