Taiwan protests to South Korea for cancelling digital minister’s speech at the eleventh hour
- 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
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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“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.
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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.
Taiwan does not have formal ties with South Korea, which recognises Beijing diplomatically. Beijing views Taiwan as a wayward province that must be brought back to the mainland fold, by force if necessary. It has warned South Korea and other countries against having official contact with the island.
According to Ou, Tang was one of four speakers expected to address a session on social innovation in the afternoon of December 16. She was to deliver a speech entitled “Taiwan’s Digital Social Innovation” during the session on how technology could be used to manage the climate crisis and infectious diseases.
Tang appeared next to a colour-coded map from a human rights organisation, but the video feed disappeared one minute after it began, leaving just audio, because of White House sensitivity over the one-China policy, according to Reuters.
The map from South African non-governmental organisation Civicus ranked the world by openness on civil rights. Most of Asia was shown, with Taiwan coloured green, making it the only regional entity portrayed as “open”, while all the others, including several US allies and partners, were deemed to be closed, repressed, obstructed or narrowed.
The White House was concerned that differentiating Taiwan and China on a map in a US-hosted conference – to which Taiwan had been invited in a show of support at a time when it is under intense pressure from Beijing – could be seen as being at odds with Washington’s policy which avoids taking a position on whether Taiwan is part of China, Reuters quoted unnamed sources as saying on December 13.
The US Department of State said “confusion” over screen-sharing resulted in Tang’s video feed being dropped, calling it “an honest mistake”.
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Taiwan’s foreign ministry also said it was assured by the US side that it was a technical problem.
Tsai Cheng-yuan, a former legislator from the island’s main opposition party, the Kuomintang, said on Tuesday it was ironic for the foreign ministry to protest to South Korea for silencing Tang, but “not having the guts” to protest against the White House for the video feed cut.
