Taiwan missing millions in chequebook diplomacy
Reuters | Saturday, 03 May 2008
http://www.stuff.co.nz/4507460a12.html
About $US30 million ($NZ39.08 million) vanished into private hands
when Taiwan tried to forge diplomatic ties with Papua New Guinea,
officials said, a scandal that could hurt the island's image and
embarrass the departing President.
Taiwan's foreign ministry has asked prosecutors to go after two
foreign nationals appointed in 2006 to offer Papua New Guinea T$1
billion in aid, Foreign Minister James Huang told a news conference.
The aid was meant to get Papua New Guinea to ditch ties with China in
favour of Taiwan.
China, recognised by 170 countries including the world's most powerful
nations, has claimed self-ruled Taiwan as its territory since the end
of the Chinese civil war in 1949 and has pledged to bring the island
under its rule, by force if necessary.
Taiwan resists China by keeping its own stable of diplomatic allies,
which now number 23 mostly small, impoverished nations in Africa,
Latin America and the South Pacific.
Taiwan and China use chequebook diplomacy to vie for diplomatic
friends abroad.
"I feel like I am to blame for this incident, and I take the highest
responsibility," Taiwan Vice-Premier Chiu I-jen told a news
conference.
"It was hard already to form diplomatic ties."
The embarrassment comes 18 days before President Chen Shui-bian steps
down, due to term limits.
It follows a series of scandals involving his family, aides and
unpopular policy decisions.
"Taiwan is a small country that has suffered diplomatic isolation in
the past few decades, so this has a tremendous adverse impact on our
international image," said Raymond Wu, a former government official
and a professor at Fu-Jen Catholic University in Taipei.
The two missing men, one a Singa****ean national and the other a US
pass****t holder, were appointed through personal connections with the
Taiwan government to offer Papua New Guinea money as economic co-
operation aid, Taiwan officials said.
Taiwan officials do not know where the money is, Chiu said. He said
private efforts to find the two missing people, including visits to
one man's relatives in Los Angeles, had failed. Local prosecutors took
the case in April.
In Singa****e, the High Court has issued an injunction at Taiwan's
request to prevent the two men from disposing of assets worth about
$US30 million, the Straits Times re****ted.
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