Paraguayan president-elect Mario Abdo Benitez has extended a formal invitation to President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) to attend his inauguration on Aug. 15, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday.
Department of Latin American and Caribbean Affairs Deputy Director-General Vivia Chang (張俊菲) said Paraguayan Ambassador to Taiwan Marcial Bobadilla Guillen was due to deliver the invitation personally to the ministry yesterday afternoon.
“We will then forward the invitation to the Presidential Office through our channel, but we will leave it to the office to announce whether Tsai will attend the ceremony,” Chang told a routine news conference.
Asked whether Tsai has made a decision on the matter, Presidential Office spokesman Alex Huang (黃重諺) yesterday said the office would make an announcement if and when there is such a plan.
Paraguay — one of Taiwan’s 18 diplomatic allies — has benefited from more than US$30 million in housing project grants and a debt payment deferral of US$400 million in 2009 from Taipei in its 61-year friendship.
Taiwan has lost four diplomatic allies to China since Tsai assumed the presidency in May 2016, including the Dominican Republic, whose switch came after Beijing pledged US$820 million in public investments.
Minister of Foreign Affairs Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) has dismissed concerns that Taiwan is engaging in a diplomatic bidding war with China, assuring the public that any assistance to allies is based on humanitarian aid programs rather than hard cash.
In other developments, Chang said all 260 Taiwanese have been reported safe after the latest round of protests in Nicaragua, one of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies.
A nationwide protest was held from Thursday to Saturday after Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega rejected calls for early elections to solve the country’s months-long political crisis, which has resulted in the death of more than 250 people amid a heavy-handed crackdown on protests.
Many of the factories operated by Taiwanese in Nicaragua shut down during the protests out of safety concerns, Chang added.
Additional reporting by CNA
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