Palau President Surangel Whipps Jr. (center) held an international press conference with Taiwan Foreign Minister Wu Chiu-sup (left) on the evening of March 29, with U.S. Ambassador John Hennessey-Niland (right) also in attendance.
Palau (Palau) President Surangel Whipps, who just recently visited Taiwan with the U.S. ambassador, said Palau would not choose allies under anyone’s bullying, especially not under the coercion of the Chinese Communist Party. He revealed that the Chinese Communist Party had called his cell phone furiously to prevent him from communicating with Taiwan, and that he never answered it again.
In a video interview with AFP on April 6, Huizhuren said he would not change his stance on friendship with Taiwan, despite pressure from Beijing. The Pacific country, with a population of about 21,000, is one of the 15 countries in the world that currently recognize Taiwan.
Huizhuren told the media that during last year’s election, Chinese Communist Party officials called him directly on his cell phone several times, “about 16 times.” “After the election, I didn’t answer their calls.” He said Chinese officials told him directly that they wanted to break off “illegal” relations with Taiwan, and that “even if we were the only ones left standing with Taiwan, we wouldn’t change our position because that’s how Taiwan supported Palau in the beginning.”
Huizhuren said his distrust of the Chinese Communist Party comes from the aggressive foreign policy of its upper echelons and from personal experience. He said Chinese communist diplomats were arrogant when they called with him, “I had a meeting with them and the first thing they said to me on the phone was, what you are doing is illegal, realize that Taiwan is illegal and you have to stop.”
“That’s their accent.” Huizhong said, “No one else can tell us who we can be friends with.”
Palau, located about nine hundred kilometers (600 miles) east of the Philippines, has previously seen an explosion in the number of Chinese tourists coming here. But in 2017, the Chinese Communist Party suddenly put economic pressure on Palau and banned Chinese travel to Palau.
According to Huizhuren, the CCP’s approach backfired, which made Palau more aware of the CCP’s coercion, “which is an example of [them] spreading bait.” Huizhuren summed up the CCP’s position as gaining ground, “You do this one thing for me [the CCP], then I expect you to do the second and third thing.”
Huizhuren also said that Taiwan, which has had diplomatic relations with Palau since 1999, is not just an ally, but that the indigenous people on Palau are South Islanders, whose ancestors spread throughout the Pacific Ocean tens of thousands of years ago, and that “we have a common culture and history.” Huizhuren said the sympathy of other countries for Taiwan increased during the epidemic, “Taiwan is a free country, a democracy, and should be respected as a diplomatic ally and not abandoned.”
On March 28, Huizhong arrived in Taiwan with a visiting delegation, accompanied by U.S. Ambassador to Palau John Hennessey-Niland; this was Huizhong’s first trip since taking office and the first foreign head of state to visit Taiwan since the international epidemic. Palau and Taiwan also jointly announced the launch of Asia’s first tourism bubble.
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