Taipei: Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) announced on Thursday that it has requested the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) to halt the issuance of a public notice regarding upcoming export controls on chips to South Africa. This decision follows South Africa's agreement to engage in dialogue over a protracted dispute concerning Taiwan's representative office in the country.
According to Focus Taiwan, the MOEA had initially declared on Tuesday its intention to implement new export controls requiring prior approval for 47 specific products, including integrated circuits, chips, and memory devices, destined for South Africa. These measures were set to take effect in late November and were to be submitted to the Cabinet's online gazette system for a two-month public notice period before becoming operational.
The proposed export restrictions were a response to South Africa's repeated downgrading and renaming of Taiwan's representative offices, actions perceived by Taipei as efforts to undermine Taiwan's sovereignty in response to Chinese pressure. However, on Thursday morning, the MOEA indicated that the notice was only posted on its internal bulletin and had not yet been submitted to the Cabinet's online system.
After consultations with MOFA, the MOEA decided to withhold the public notice from the Cabinet's online gazette for the time being. MOFA issued a separate press release stating that South Africa had expressed willingness to engage in talks over the office dispute, prompting the decision to suspend the notice.
The dispute originated in October 2024, when South Africa moved to categorize Taiwan's representative office, officially known as the Taipei Liaison Office in the Republic of South Africa, as a "trade office" and proposed relocating it from Pretoria to Johannesburg. The deadline for this move was initially set for October 2024, later extended to the end of March.
Despite MOFA's protests and calls for dialogue, South Africa unilaterally renamed the office on its Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) website to "Taipei Commercial Office" in March. Further changes were announced in July, renaming and downgrading the main office in Pretoria and a branch in Cape Town, referring to them as "international organizations" instead of "foreign representations."
Despite these changes, Taiwan's representative office continues to operate normally in Pretoria, providing services to its nationals. Taiwan has accused China of influencing South Africa's decisions, citing the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2758 and the "one-China principle." Resolution 2758, adopted in 1971, addressed China's representation in the U.N., resulting in Taiwan losing its seat to the People's Republic of China.