TAIPEI (TVBS News) — Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA, 外交部) announced on Tuesday (April 1) that its representative office in South Africa's administrative capital, Pretoria, continues to function despite mounting pressure from the South African government. In a firm diplomatic stance, Taiwanese officials urged South Africa to honor the terms of the 1997 bilateral agreement that has governed relations between the two nations for nearly three decades, following what Taiwan characterizes as a unilateral demand from South African authorities for Taiwan's representative office to vacate its current location.
In late January, South Africa's government escalated the diplomatic dispute by sending another formal letter to Taiwan's representative office, explicitly demanding its relocation from Pretoria by the end of March 2025, a deadline that has now passed. The situation further deteriorated when South Africa's Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO), the country's foreign ministry equivalent, unilaterally altered the Taiwanese office's designation on its official government website from "Taipei Liaison Office" (台北聯絡代表處) to the more limited "Taipei Commercial Office" (台北商務辦事處) on March 5, a move that effectively downgraded Taiwan's diplomatic status in the country.
During a routine press conference addressing the situation, Chen Yung-po (陳詠博), deputy head of MOFA's Department of West Asian and African Affairs (亞西及非洲司), the division responsible for Taiwan's diplomatic relations with African nations, emphasized that Taiwan's representative office in Pretoria continues to conduct normal operations despite the relocation deadline having passed. He revealed that Taiwanese diplomats remain engaged in ongoing discussions with DIRCO officials regarding potential revisions to the legal framework that has governed Taiwan-South Africa relations for decades, though he refrained from disclosing specific details about the negotiations currently underway between the two sides.
Chen emphasized that South Africa, as this year's host of the prestigious G20 Summit representing the world's major economies, bears a special responsibility to adhere to established international norms and diplomatic protocols in its foreign relations. He pointed out that South Africa's recent actions toward Taiwan's representative office have attracted significant international attention and concern, prompting formal responses from both the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), the de facto U.S. embassy in Taiwan in the absence of formal diplomatic relations, and the U.S. State Department in Washington, signaling growing international awareness of the diplomatic dispute.
