President William Lai Ching-te says he met King Mswati III and signed trade agreements.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Published On 3 May 2026<\/span>3 May 2026<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Taiwan President William Lai Ching-te says his government will never give up on engaging with the world as he visited Eswatini despite China\u2019s efforts to block the trip.<\/p>\n Lai arrived in Eswatini, formerly known as Swaziland, on Saturday after \u201cmeticulous arrangements made by our diplomatic and national security teams\u201d, he said in a Facebook post, although it is unclear how he arrived in the kingdom.<\/p>\n list of 4 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n He said he was greeted with a \u201cmilitary-style welcoming ceremony\u201d. Taiwan\u2019s leader said he met with King Mswati III and signed trade agreements.<\/p>\n The trip was originally scheduled for late April, but Seychelles, Mauritius and Madagascar cancelled flight permits for his charter plane without notice.<\/p>\n Taiwan\u2019s presidential office said the cancellations came after heavy pressure from Beijing, including economic coercion, and it called the move \u201cwithout precedent in the international community\u201d.<\/p>\n Taiwan operates as a self-governing democracy, but China claims it is part of its territory and says it must come under its rule. Beijing has insisted that countries halt engagements with the island\u2019s government.<\/p>\n China\u2019s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson called the trip a \u201claughable stunt\u201d and said Lai used a \u201cforeign plane to \u201csmuggle\u201d himself out of the island\u201d, insisting that Taiwan is a part of China.<\/p>\n China has spent decades pressuring countries to sever formal ties with Taipei, leaving Taiwan with only 12 diplomatic allies, which include Belize, Guatemala, Haiti and the Vatican.<\/p>\n Although the United States doesn\u2019t recognise Taiwan, it has pledged to help Taipei defend itself under the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act.<\/p>\n Eswatini is the only country on the African continent that still recognises Taiwan.<\/p>\n Lai thanked its king for standing with Taiwan \u201cundeterred by various diplomatic and economic pressures\u201d and reiterated that no country has the right to prevent Taiwan from contributing to the world.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n President William Lai Ching-te says he met King Mswati III and signed trade agreements. Published On 3 May 20263 May 2026 Taiwan President William Lai Ching-te says his government will never give up on engaging with the world as he visited Eswatini despite China\u2019s efforts to block the trip. Lai arrived in Eswatini, formerly known […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21264,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-africa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21262"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21262\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/a11f7b32d0ba4a41ac4d70b6cd9d24ed_6.jpeg?resize=96%2C96&quality=80)
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nRecommended Stories <\/h2>\n
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\u2018Laughable stunt\u2019<\/h2>\n
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