April 6, 2024
Following the recent earthquake in Taiwan, the Bolivian Foreign Ministry was misled by the Chinese government into expressing concern to China on its official Facebook and X accounts on April 4. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) expresses great displeasure and solemnly protests the statements of the Bolivian government, which deferred to false narratives disseminated internationally by the authoritarian Chinese regime aimed at downgrading Taiwan’s sovereignty.
The incident further underscores China’s shameless use of the earthquake in Taiwan to engage in cognitive warfare in the global arena. It exposes China’s authoritarian stance toward Taiwan, which is based only on political calculations and shows not even a modicum of goodwill. MOFA condemns the Chinese government for its brazen actions.
MOFA reiterates that the Republic of China (Taiwan) is an independent and sovereign nation and that neither the R.O.C. (Taiwan) nor the People’s Republic of China is subordinate to the other. It also reaffirms that only the democratically elected government of Taiwan can represent the 23.5 million Taiwanese people in the international community, that the PRC has never governed Taiwan, and that Taiwan is absolutely not a part of the PRC. These are objective and internationally recognized facts and the status quo across the Taiwan Strait.
Since the earthquake, more than 100 countries and international organizations have taken the initiative to express concern and willingness to provide assistance to the government and people of Taiwan. MOFA deeply regrets that the Bolivian government was unable to identify to whom it should express concern and urges it to enhance its understanding of reality and not blindly follow China’s false narratives.