The South African government has given Taiwan a deadline of the end of March to relocate the island's de facto embassy outside of the capital city Pretoria, the Taiwanese Foreign Ministry said, blaming Chinese pressure for the move.

Taiwan has expressed “grave concerns” about growing pressure from South Africa to downgrade and relocate its de facto embassy from Pretoria, the country’s administrative capital. The island’s foreign ministry confirmed on Monday that the South African government renewed a demand in late January asking the island to move its representative office out of Pretoria by the end of March.

Democratically governed Taiwan has long been wary of Chinese technology given Beijing's sovereignty claims over the island and its military and political threats against the government in Taipei. During a cabinet meeting,

Taiwan strengthens AI restrictions, fully banning DeepSeek over data security fears; global regulators also scrutinizing the company