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Taiwan gets barred
from Jakarta defense summit
By Shih Hsiu-chuan / Staff reporter
A Taiwanese delegation was forced to withdraw from the third Jakarta
International Defense Dialogue (JIDD) without being given an explanation,
Ministry of Foreign Affairs deputy spokesman Calvin Ho (¦ó¾_¾È) said yesterday.
Ho said that the ministry has already instructed the Taipei Economic and Trade
Office in Jakarta to demand an explanation from the Indonesian government, which
was hosting the conference, soon after the four-member delegation was informed
that it could not attend the summit.
The ministry made the comments following a report yesterday in the British
newspapaer the Financial Times, which said that China was behind the abrupt
cancellation of Taiwan¡¦s invitation to attend the summit that began yesterday
and revolved around the theme: ¡§Defense and Diplomacy in the Asia-Pacific
Region.¡¨.
Ho declined to speculate on the reasons for the withdrawal, saying that the
representative office in had not yet reported on the matter.
The delegation was composed of two representative office staffers and two
academics.
Indonesian Major General Syaiful Anwar, who chaired the organizing committee for
the JIDD, was quoted by the Financial Times as saying that the Chinese embassy
in Jakarta had filed a verbal complaint with the Indonesian Ministry of Defense
and ¡§asked us to discourage them [the Taiwanese delegates]¡¨ from attending.
¡§As this is a government-organised event, we have to listen to any objections
from other governments. If there are no objections, we welcome everybody,¡¨ the
newspaper quoted Anwar as saying.
Representative to Indonesia Andrew Hsia (®L¥ß¨¥) said Taipei was ¡§not pleased¡¨ with
the incident.
¡§This [conference] is about security in the region [and] certainly we are one of
the major players in the region,¡¨ Hsia was quoted as saying by the newspaper.
According to the JIDD¡¦s Web site, attendees at the summit included US Deputy
Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, as well as defense ministers and chiefs of
the defense forces of more than 45 countries.
A source in Taipei familiar with the matter said Taiwan hoped to hold sideline
meetings with delegates from the US and the Philippines to discuss security
issues, the newspaper said.
The attendance of a Taiwanese delegation at last year¡¦s forum was hailed at the
time by the Ministry of National Defense as a breakthrough in the nation¡¦s
participation in one of the region¡¦s principal security coordination mechanism.
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