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of the General Staff visited South Korea. The Foreign Minister visited Swaziland and South Africa where he signed a $60 million loan agreement. The Minister of Communications went to Singapore and one of his officials signed a memorandum of understanding on strengthening telecommunications links. the Head of the Board of foreign Trade travelled to London for trade consultations with the EC, and a temporary customs clearance agreement was reported to have been signed.
6.
A direct flight agreement between Taiwan and Australia was initialled on 26 January. During the negotiations the two sides were also reported to have reached agreement on the upgrading of Taiwan's representative offices in Melbourne and Sydney. Negotiations with New Zealand were reported to have broken done following similar political demands by the Taiwan side. On 6 January Taiwan and Saudi Arabia reached formal agreement on their representative offices following the break in diplomatic relations. Personnel and property of the former Embassy in Riyadh will continue to enjoy diplomatic rights and privileges. office will be known as the "Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office". The North Korean Consulate in Macao authorised a Taiwan businessman to accept in Taipei visa applications by people from Taiwan. The Taiwan authorities were reported to have intimated that they might take retaliatory action against other countries' representatives in Taipei if they felt that that country was discriminating against them.
The new
7.. The Taiwan Central bank denied a story that Taiwan had pulled the majority of its currency holdings (said to be about $35 billion) out of US commercial banks because of worries about their solvency. The Governor said that he still had confidence in their long term stability. The Bank of Tokyo finally opened its office in Taipei, becoming the second Japanese bank with an office there. It had originally intended to open in May 1990, but had had to postpone because of Chinese protests.
Relations with China
8.
Taiwan is becoming increasingly concerned at the number of attempted illegal immigrants from the mainland and feels that the Chinese Red Cross is not being cooperative enough in arranging for their repatriation. On 19 January is was reported that 394 had been repatriated since last year's agreement, but a further 724 were waiting to be returned. A sixth group of 70 were repatriated on 24 January. Commercial relations continue to
prosper.
Trade totalled US $3.65 billion in the first eleven months of 1990 and was expected to top $4 billion. The Taiwan authorities approved on 28 January the first direct investment by a Taiwan company on the mainland. The enterprising Chunghsing Textile Company wants to open a $900,000 textile plant via one of its Hong Kong subsidiaries. There was little movement on the political front. One of the opposition Democratic Progressive Party's most senior figures, Hsu Hsin-liang, paid a secret visit to China during the month. He was not received at a particularly high level and the Chinese remain wary of the DPP. The Taiwan authorities issued public statements denouncing the sentencing in Peking of dissidents.
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