Snap Blockade - South Africa (General)
It made the request on Oct. 7, Taiwan’s National Day reception, threatening to close the office if its demand was not met. South Africa said there is no room for negotiation on this issue.
The South African government has been pushing Taiwan to move its office since last year, citing UN Resolution 2758 and the "one China” principle.[/i]
That's interesting. South Africa hung on to recognizing Taiwan well after most countries had stopped. I think it was the late 90's when they caved to China. This must be China using it to make a point.
It's likely just another one of those incremental things - start pressuring indebted Govs to ban Taiwan's de-facto embassies, world-wide
Yes, and this has got me thinking again about these recent, unannounced games. As I pointed out in a previous post, imagine if China had pulled this on Okinawa or Guam. It would have been seen as little short of an act of war and would have had extremely serious consequences.
So why no consequences when they do it to Taiwan?
So, the world allows China to treat Taiwan in an exceptional way. Why? Because it's a tacit recognition by the world community that Taiwan is part of China.
That's hard to say, but that's exactly what it is. That's the message the world is sending to China. You can do this only because it's Taiwan.
So the world can say all it wants about maintaining the status quo, but clearly the status quo is not being maintained and the world is doing nothing. It's like that scene out of All the President's Men where the reporter asks the source to hang up before the count of ten if the story isn't true. (Start at 1:40).
China is the reporter asking if Taiwan is part of China.