Taiwan never promised to give a US$71 million financial package to Paraguay, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday after the Paraguayan Senate reportedly approved the offer on Wednesday.
“The figure of US$71 million is the amount that Asuncion originally requested from Beijing [in exchange for it switching relations]. Paraguay made the same request to Taiwan after China rejected the deal,” ministry spokesman Henry Chen (陳銘政) said.
Chen said the Republic of China is a democratic country and the government would not earmark any foreign aid to any country without a clear proposal or a plan of action from that nation.
“The country must submit a plan of action, detailing how they plan to use the money and on what projects. The legislature would then review the proposal to ascertain if the projects would truly benefit the public. So far Paraguay has not submitted such a plan,” Chen said, stressing that Taiwan had never agreed on any conditions by which it would give Paraguay the multimillion dollar aid package.
Nobody at the Paraguayan embassy in Taiwan was available for comment yesterday.
Weber Shih (施文斌), head of the ministry’s Department of Economic and Trade Affairs and Chen Lien-gene (陳連軍), the secretary-general of the International Cooperation Development Fund, the two organizations that deal with Taiwan’s foreign aid projects, both said yesterday they had not heard of such an offer.
The Central News Agency (CNA), quoting the La Nacion daily in Asuncion, reported on Wednesday that the Paraguayan Senate had originally rejected Taiwan’s financial offer in its last session.
The resolution was then resubmitted to the Senate this month at the behest of the finance ministry, the report said.
The resolution would then be sent to parliament for a final review, CNA quoted the paper as saying, adding that the report pointed out that some opposition lawmakers were concerned about accepting the sum because such a gesture would contradict Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo’s non-supportive position on Taiwan’s UN bid this year.
On several occasions in the past, Lugo has threatened to end relations with Taiwan and forge official ties with Beijing during his presidency.
Miguel Carrizosa, a senator from the Party of the Best Fatherland, was quoted as saying that the money could be part of the national budget to be allocated under the strictest supervision.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday that it was conducting a comprehensive review and compiling a white paper on its foreign aid projects in an attempt to shake off its reputation of employing “dollar diplomacy” to curry favor with other nations.
Taiwan would benefit from more integrated military strategies and deployments if the US and its allies treat the East China Sea, the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea as a “single theater of operations,” a Taiwanese military expert said yesterday. Shen Ming-shih (沈明室), a researcher at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, said he made the assessment after two Japanese military experts warned of emerging threats from China based on a drill conducted this month by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) Eastern Theater Command. Japan Institute for National Fundamentals researcher Maki Nakagawa said the drill differed from the
‘WORSE THAN COMMUNISTS’: President William Lai has cracked down on his political enemies and has attempted to exterminate all opposition forces, the chairman said The legislature would motion for a presidential recall after May 20, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) said yesterday at a protest themed “against green communists and dictatorship” in Taipei. Taiwan is supposed to be a peaceful homeland where people are united, but President William Lai (賴清德) has been polarizing and tearing apart society since his inauguration, Chu said. Lai must show his commitment to his job, otherwise a referendum could be initiated to recall him, he said. Democracy means the rule of the people, not the rule of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), but Lai has failed to fulfill his
A rally held by opposition parties yesterday demonstrates that Taiwan is a democratic country, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday, adding that if opposition parties really want to fight dictatorship, they should fight it on Tiananmen Square in Beijing. The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) held a protest with the theme “against green communists and dictatorship,” and was joined by the Taiwan People’s Party. Lai said the opposition parties are against what they called the “green communists,” but do not fight against the “Chinese communists,” adding that if they really want to fight dictatorship, they should go to the right place and face
A 79-year-old woman died today after being struck by a train at a level crossing in Taoyuan, police said. The woman, identified by her surname Wang (王), crossed the tracks even though the barriers were down in Jhongli District’s (中壢) Neili (內壢) area, the Taoyuan Branch of the Railway Police Bureau said. Surveillance footage showed that the railway barriers were lowered when Wang entered the crossing, but why she ventured onto the track remains under investigation, the police said. Police said they received a report of an incident at 6:41am involving local train No. 2133 that was heading from Keelung to Chiayi City. Investigators