Taiwan Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung arrived in eSwatini saying Taipei would not be held back by “authoritarian forces”, \u200bafter the government accused China of pressuring three African states to \u200cblock overflight permission for President Lai Ching-te.<\/p>\n
Taiwan last week said the Seychelles, Mauritius and Madagascar unilaterally revoked flight permits for its presidential aircraft to cross airspace they manage on a \u200bplanned trip to eSwatini, one of Taiwan’s 12 diplomatic allies.<\/p>\n
It marked \u200bthe first time a Taiwan president cancelled an entire foreign trip \u2060due to denial of airspace access, representing what appeared to be a \u200bnew Chinese strategy to curb the island\u2019s international engagement.<\/p>\n
Late on Saturday Lin posted a picture \u200bon Facebook of himself getting off a private jet upon arrival in the small southern African kingdom, formerly known as Swaziland.<\/p>\n
“In that moment, I felt the deep friendship between Taiwan \u200band eSwatini that transcends distance, and I became even more convinced that Taiwan \u200bwill not be held back by authoritarian forces,” he wrote.<\/p>\n
Lai, in a video message on \u200cSunday \u2060to King Mswati III for the 40th anniversary of his accession, said the Republic of China, Taiwan’s formal name, is a “sovereign country” and belongs to the world.<\/p>\n
“Our 23 million people have the right to engage with the international community. \u200bThe greater the \u200bexternal pressure we \u2060face, the more courage and resolve we have,” he said in English.<\/p>\n
China denied pressuring the three countries but praised them for \u200bblocking flight permission.<\/p>\n
Lin did not offer details on his \u200btrip, saying \u2060only that his delegation “overcame all obstacles” to get to eSwatini in his capacity as Lai’s special envoy.<\/p>\n
China says democratically governed Taiwan is one of its provinces, with no right \u2060to \u200bthe trappings of a state. Taiwan’s government rejects \u200bBeijing’s sovereignty claims.<\/p>\n
The United States last week criticised China’s actions, while the European Union, Britain, France and Germany \u200balso expressed concern.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
–Reuters–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":33011,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[26],"class_list":["post-33010","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"China denied pressuring the three countries but praised them for \u200bblocking flight permission.","published_date":"","news_description":"China denied pressuring the three countries but praised them for \u200bblocking flight permission.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/33010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/33010\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33012,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/33010\/revisions\/33012"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=33010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}