TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Taipei is courting the African nation of Ghana to establish diplomatic relations, according to an anonymous whistleblower with alleged connections to Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA).

UDN reported on Thursday (March 30) that MOFA dispatched Chang Chun-yu (張均宇) to serve as director of the Taipei Trade Office in Lagos, Nigeria, in 2022, with the additional directive of establishing contact with government officials in Ghana. According to the UDN source, Taipei hoped to establish ties with Ghana prior to severing ties with Honduras, which had been anticipated.



Chang was ostensibly sent to Lagos to take over for envoy Liu Yi-ping (劉翼平) in early 2022. However, Chang and Liu continued to serve in the same ministerial position in Lagos for over a year.

The whistleblower asked why MOFA would station two high-level ministers at a trade office for so long. They suggested that there was other diplomatic work being done in the region, outside of Nigeria.

The most extraordinary claim of the whistleblower is that MOFA allegedly paid a Taiwanese business executive, surnamed Huang (黃), to act as a broker with the Ghanaian government. The anonymous source claims that Taiwan paid a fee of US$20 million (NT$610 million) to start talks about establishing diplomatic relations with Accra, but that nothing has yet come from the expenditure.

In response to the UDN report, MOFA called the claims completely fictitious. It accused the whistleblower of starting malicious rumors that would be echoed by pro-China media to defame Taiwan. MOFA said the details of the report do not match the facts, and condemned the allegations.

Ghana has experienced some diplomatic friction with China over the years and is reportedly seeking international aid in settling or restructuring Accra’s debts to Beijing. Some recent reports suggest that there is public dissatisfaction among the Ghanaian public with regard to China’s economic activity in the region, and its exploitation of Ghana’s natural resources.

This week, U.S. Vice-President Kamala Harris visited Ghana, where she met with political leaders and pledged security and economic assistance to Ghana and Central Africa. Harris’ trip is reportedly intended to balance U.S. power vis-a-vis China, as the two countries compete for economic and diplomatic influence across the mineral-rich continent.