Taiwan Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung makes a speech at a press conference for foreign media in Taipei, Taiwan, July 19, 2024. Image@ REUTERS/Ann Wang
Two Taiwanese scientists had their passports and mobile phones seized and were held for over 20 hours before being deported, that was the stark reality behind what Taipei is calling Beijing’s diplomatic strong-arming at a global oceans conference in Kenya.
Taiwan’s foreign minister, Lin Chia-lung, said Wednesday that Chinese pressure on other countries to curtail Taiwan’s access to international events had become “the new normal,” as a fresh diplomatic row erupted over the 11th Our Ocean Conference in the port city of Mombasa.
Taiwan’s government announced it was withdrawing entirely from the conference after two delegation members were denied entry to a fringe event and detained by Kenyan immigration authorities. Taiwanese academics had travelled to Mombasa at the invitation of the Kenyan government to attend a pre-conference academic exchange and present research, but organisers refused to issue them entry badges, citing non-recognition of Taiwanese passports.
The island’s Ocean Affairs Council (OAC) condemned what it described as “barbaric obstruction” that had prevented its scientists from participating in the gathering. Taiwan’s foreign ministry went further, denouncing “the barbaric acts of confiscating passports, mobile phones, and restricting personal and communication freedoms, actions that violate human rights and international norms.”
“They (Kenyan authorities) insisted on unilaterally distorting their so-called interpretation of ‘One China,’ expanding it without limit to the point of blocking our people from attending the meeting,” Foreign Minister Lin told reporters in Taipei. “This is absolutely wrong, and we strongly protest it.”
Beijing, for its part, made no apologies. China’s foreign ministry said the “One China principle” was a basic norm of international relations and praised Nairobi’s conduct. “China highly appraises Kenya for resolutely upholding the One China principle,” it said in a statement.
Kenya defended its position, with a government official stating that “any person purporting to hold a Taiwanese passport would ordinarily not be allowed through our borders for lacking proper documentation and would not in any event be part of a formal state meeting convened by the Kenya government.”
China regards democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory and has long opposed any treatment of the island as a sovereign state, a claim Taipei firmly rejects. The Mombasa incident is not the first time Beijing has moved to shut Taiwan out of ocean-related multilateral forums. In 2022, China similarly blocked three Taiwanese experts from joining Tuvalu’s delegation at the UN Ocean Conference in Lisbon, threatening to revoke the entire delegation’s accreditation unless the Taiwanese were removed.
The Our Ocean Conference, being hosted by an African nation for the first time, brings together governments, scientists and civil society groups from Africa, the United States, the European Union and climate-vulnerable Caribbean and Pacific island states to address marine protection, biodiversity and sustainable ocean use. Kenya’s foreign ministry and conference organisers did not respond to requests for comment.
By: Andrews Kwesi Yeboah