Taiwan protests to South Korea for cancelling digital minister’s speech at the eleventh hour

Name: Taiwan deploys its most advanced F-16V fighter jets amid rising military tensions with Beijing
Uploaded: 2021-12-21T11:00:13.000Z
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Description: Taiwan deploys its most advanced F-16V fighter jets amid rising military tensions with Beijing

Seoul said ‘various aspects of cross-strait issues were taken into consideration’ before Audrey Tang’s conference speech was cancelled, according to Taipei

It comes a week after the video feed of Tang’s presentation to Joe Biden’s democracy summit was cut off because of a map that concerned White House officials

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Taiwanese Digital Minister Audrey Tang had been expected to speak at a South Korean conference on December 16 but her appearance was cancelled at the last minute. Taiwan has protested to South Korea over the incident. Photo: AFP

Lawrence Chung

Published: 7:00pm, 21 Dec 2021

Taiwan has protested to South Korea for cancelling a scheduled virtual speech by the island’s digital minister at the eleventh hour – a move apparently made because of pressure from Beijing.

Audrey Tang, who represented Taiwan at US President Joe Biden’s democracy summit this month, was told by the South Korean government’s Fourth Industrial Revolution Committee that her virtual speech scheduled for last Thursday had been cancelled, just hours before she was expected to speak.

The committee had invited Tang as Taiwan’s digital minister to give the online speech at its Fourth Global Policy Conference on December 16. It abruptly removed Tang’s event from the meeting’s agenda for that day, according to Taiwan’s foreign ministry.

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Taiwan deploys its most advanced F-16V fighter jets amid rising military tensions with Beijing

“The Korean side notified Tang’s office in the morning of December 16 by email that the scheduled speech that afternoon was cancelled,” ministry spokeswoman Joanne Ou told reporters on Tuesday.

“The Korean side cited ‘various aspects of cross-strait issues were taken into consideration’ for the cancellation,” Ou said, referring to pressure from Beijing. She said such last-minute notice was not only “rude” but also “inappropriate”.

She said the foreign ministry had summoned South Korea’s envoy stationed in Taiwan on Monday for an explanation and had officially lodged a protest.

The envoy, Hong Soon-chang, who is deputy representative and acting chief of the Korean mission in Taipei, said he did not fully understand the matter but would relay Taiwan’s stance to the Korean side, Ou said. She added that Hong stressed there would be no change to Taiwan-South Korean substantive ties and cooperation.