China announced to the world through several channels that it would hold military preparedness drills in the Taiwan Strait as President William Lai (賴清德) was returning from visiting official diplomatic allies in the South Pacific — Palau, the Marshall Islands and Tuvalu — forcibly delaying the landing of his plane at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport.
Paraguay — Taiwan’s sole ally in South America — expelled a senior Chinese envoy, Xu Wei (徐偉), after he followed a Chinese delegation to Paraguay, where they were attending a UNESCO conference. Paraguayan officials said that Xu violated the terms of his visa by interfering in Paraguay’s affairs when he attempted to make a political speech to Paraguay’s Congress attacking Asuncion’s official recognition of Taiwan. Consequently, they designated him a persona non grata, canceled his visa and told him to leave the country within 24 hours.
According to a recording of his remarks that was shared with Reuters, Xu told Paraguay’s legislature: “Having diplomatic relations with China you can earn more, save more, lower your costs ... My purpose of this visit is to promote, accelerate the process of filling the gap in the map of Paraguay, that gap is gigantic, which is called the People’s Republic of China,” adding that such a choice would be beneficial for Paraguay’s soybean exports.
Apart from the US potentially using some of its sway behind the scenes to halt China’s latest unscrupulous and underhanded tactics in Central and South America — just a few doors down from the US — a much more important factor could be that, in the wake of China’s slowing economy, the financial promises China made to undermine Taiwan’s official relations with several of its diplomatic allies have turned out to be worth less than the paper that the agreements were signed on.
After Honduras last year severed diplomatic ties with Taiwan and established official relations with Beijing, the former ally’s whiteleg shrimp exports fell by 24 percent, resulting in severe losses for its fishers.
Adding insult to injury, China announced last month that it would start importing shrimp from Brazil. Honduras’ shrimp-farming and fishing industries have received the short end of the stick since the country tied its hopes to the Chinese economy. This same story has been repeated with Ecuador and India, which have also seen steep drops in their shrimp harvesting operations since opening exports to China.
China’s domestic consumption continues to wither in the wake of its economic slump. Beijing is not even willing to lend a helping hand to Honduras’ shrimping industry, which only brings in about US$200 million annually. China’s demand for foreign agricultural products is certain to decline. For countries in the Americas such as Taiwan’s ally Paraguay, these cautionary tales should serve as a warning of the perils of making deals with Beijing. Despite the pretty speeches made by Xu and other Chinese officials, it would not be ideal for Asuncion to go down the same path as Tegucigalpa.
We could anticipate that with US president-elect Donald Trump’s upcoming inauguration to his second term, new waves of trade tariffs on China are sure to come crashing down. There is not much gas in the tank for China’s economic prospects — it has no further capability, just continued deterioration. Beijing’s ability to keep up its diplomatic warfare is vanishing. Countries everywhere are catching on to just how few trade benefits they have received from China, sometimes to the point that entire industries are gutted. An increasing number of countries are splitting off onto different paths and looking back on China with enmity, leading to the collapse of China’s diplomatic guile.
John Yu is a civil servant.
Translated by Tim Smith
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