Paraguay on Thursday last week expelled Chinese diplomat Xu Wei (徐偉), accusing him of “interference in domestic affairs,” and declared him persona non grata.
Xu, a senior Chinese envoy to Latin America who was in Paraguay’s capital, Asuncion, for an annual UNESCO meeting, skipped the meeting and instead met with Paraguayan lawmakers to encourage them to ditch Taiwan and switch recognition to China.
“It is either China or Taiwan. The government of Paraguay should make a correct decision as soon as possible,” Xu said in comments recorded at the Paraguayan Congress, adding that relations with China would come with increased opportunities for trade and “thousands of other advantages ... you can earn more.”
Xu even openly spoke to the media afterward and bragged that forging diplomatic ties with China, instead of Taiwan, would pay economic dividends.
The Paraguayan Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that it revoked Xu’s visa and gave him 24 hours to leave the country.
China has long targeted Taiwan’s diplomatic allies to lure and coerce them into shifting to China, using the promise of lucrative trade agreements or the threat of diplomatic suppression to strongarm them into supporting “one China” and isolating Taiwan. China has deployed such tactics to expand its power in Latin America, Asia-Pacific and the rest of the world, with the aim of challenging US-aligned democracies and the rules-based international order.
Taiwan’s Pacific ally Palau has increasingly accused China of bullying, such as weaponizing Chinese tourism to threaten the nation’s travel industry, launching cyberattacks, illegal incursions and even firing a ballistic missile into the Pacific Ocean without warning, which all have undermined regional peace.
Guatemala, a diplomatic ally of Taiwan in Central America, is also a target of Chinese coercion. Guatemalan journalist Jorge Jacob has decried that Beijing has imposed its conditions in the style of a gangster, offering “silver or lead,” and that his country has begun to suffer from the neighborhood bully. China has imposed trade barriers, hindering Guatemalan businesspeople’s access to Chinese products, while blocking its own people from buying coffee and macadamia nuts from Guatemala. He warned that “one can accept Chinese money, supposedly free, but it always brings conditions that you must abide by or suffer the consequences.”
Jacob added that one of China’s biggest inducements to persuade nations to bow to it is free entry to the gigantic Chinese market. However, this “is nothing more than a mirage,” as exports have grown somewhat, but not at all proportional to the size of the Chinese market.
The Chinese diplomat’s infiltration in Paraguay has again demonstrated the predicament faced by small nations subjected to bullying by China. As the world’s second-largest economy, China can afford to bully almost anyone. The international community should also see how China is abusing its participation in international organizations such as UNESCO for its own interests.
Paraguay’s move to expel the Chinese diplomat has not only upheld the nation’s sovereignty, but also reaffirmed its 67-year friendship with Taiwan.
As Paraguayan Ambassador to Taiwan Carlos Jose Fleitas Rodriguez wrote in the Taipei Times in October: “Paraguay is on the right side of history ... to be on the right side of history means sharing the same civic values and democratic principles... That is why cooperation between Paraguay and Taiwan has as one of its cornerstones the sharing of values such as the unrestricted validity of democracy, which guarantee justice and the well-being of our states.”
Taiwan and Paraguay, as well as other allies, should stand together to fight against the bullying authoritarian.
The first Donald Trump term was a boon for Taiwan. The administration regularized the arms sales process and enhanced bilateral ties. Taipei will not be so fortunate the second time around. Given recent events, Taiwan must proceed with the assumption that it cannot count on the United States to defend it — diplomatically or militarily — during the next four years. Early indications suggested otherwise. The nomination of Marco Rubio as US Secretary of State and the appointment of Mike Waltz as the national security advisor, both of whom have expressed full-throated support for Taiwan in the past, raised hopes that
Whether in terms of market commonality or resource similarity, South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co is the biggest competitor of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC). The two companies have agreed to set up factories in the US and are also recipients of subsidies from the US CHIPS and Science Act, which was signed into law by former US president Joe Biden. However, changes in the market competitiveness of the two companies clearly reveal the context behind TSMC’s investments in the US. As US semiconductor giant Intel Corp has faced continuous delays developing its advanced processes, the world’s two major wafer foundries, TSMC and
Authorities last week revoked the residency permit of a Chinese social media influencer surnamed Liu (劉), better known by her online channel name Yaya in Taiwan (亞亞在台灣), who has more than 440,000 followers online and is living in Taiwan with a marriage-based residency permit, for her “reunification by force” comments. She was asked to leave the country in 10 days. The National Immigration Agency (NIA) on Tuesday last week announced the decision, citing the influencer’s several controversial public comments, including saying that “China does not need any other reason to reunify Taiwan with force” and “why is it [China] hesitant
We are witnessing a sea change in the government’s approach to China, from one of reasonable, low-key reluctance at rocking the boat to a collapse of pretense over and patience in Beijing’s willful intransigence. Finally, we are seeing a more common sense approach in the face of active shows of hostility from a foreign power. According to Article 2 of the 2020 Anti-Infiltration Act (反滲透法), a “foreign hostile force” is defined as “countries, political entities or groups that are at war with or are engaged in a military standoff with the Republic of China [ROC]. The same stipulation applies to
RSS