Thursday, 12 August 2004 |
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China warns Pacific nations against siding with Taiwan BEIJING, Wednesday (AFP) China has warned Pacific nations against caving in to Taiwan's "dollar diplomacy", cautioning it would be against their interests to establish ties with Taipei over Beijing, state media reported Wednesday. Vice Foreign Minister Zhou Wenzhong said it was important that Pacific nations that wanted to develop relations with Beijing recognise the "one-China" principle which states that Taiwan is part of China. Zhou, who met Pacific leaders after their annual summit in Samoa last week, said Pacific island nations should be "highly vigilant to the political manoeuvres of the Taiwan authorities to split up China and undermine China's relations" with them and other countries with diplomatic ties with Beijing. Only 27 countries maintain ties with Taiwan instead of China and several of them are in the Pacific, including the Marshall Islands, Palau, Tuvalu and the Solomon Islands. Late last year Kiribati switched allegiances from China to Taiwan. Zhou accused Taiwan of "vigorously carrying out a 'dollar diplomacy'" by trying to buy their way into official relations with Pacific countries which have economic difficulties. Taipei has previously accused Beijing of doing the same. "What the Taiwan authorities have done has provoked internal turbulence in certain countries and jeopardised regional stability to the detriment of the fundamental and long-term interests of countries and peoples in the South Pacific region," said Zhou. |
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