The Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday dismissed a US senator’s concern that Paraguay would be the next nation to break diplomatic ties with Taiwan, saying that ties remain strong and solid.
“Relations between the government and its Paraguayan counterpart remain stable. Our bilateral cooperation has been going smoothly, and both sides have seen close educational and cultural exchanges,” ministry spokesman Andrew Lee (李憲章) said.
The ministry appreciated its US friends’ support and concerns, but would continue to consolidate ties with diplomatic allies amid Beijing’s repeated attempts to poach them, which has destabilized the region, Lee said.
Photo courtesy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
US Senator Marco Rubio on Tuesday said at a US Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee hearing that he had heard that Paraguay could be the next Western Hemisphere ally to switch recognition to China, after Panama in June last year and the Dominican Republic last month.
“When they do these things, it is often as leverage to align those countries’ foreign policy to what China’s foreign policy may be,” Rubio said, adding that such efforts oftentimes involved bribery of government officials.
Though not directly responding to the allegations, US Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs Alex Wong (黃之瀚) at the Department of State, said that Beijing’s attempts to close off Taiwan’s international space and alter the cross-strait “status quo” are “disturbing” to the US.
Washington has made it clear to its partners and Beijing that “any moves to strip Taiwan of its diplomatic partners disturb that ‘status quo,’” Wong said.
Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Jose Maria Liu (劉德立), who spent 10 of his 30-year diplomatic career in Paraguay, yesterday dismissed Rubio’s comments.
At a dinner banquet he hosted during his latest visit to Paraguay earlier this month, he received a personal guarantee of the stability of ties from president-elect Mario Abdo Benitez, whom he has known since Benitez was a senator, Liu said.
“We had a candid conversation. I told Mario that there were a lot of rumors about which countries Beijing was targeting and that Paraguay was one of them. He told me directly that there was nothing to worry about with the ties,” Liu said.
Abdo Benitez also personally wrote a letter to invite President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) to his Aug. 15 inauguration, Liu said.
The firmness of the friendship was shown by Paraguayan President Horacio Cartes’ hosting a luncheon at his residence on May 7 to welcome Liu, which Liu said was an unusual treatment for a visiting deputy minister.
Most of the cooperation programs between Taiwan and Paraguay are in the areas of medicine and the construction of affordable housing, he said.
Such cooperation would be expanded with the industrial technology university established by the two nations, which is expected to begin admission process in March next year at the earliest, Liu said.
Taiwan is providing the faculty and equipment for the school.
AGGRESSION: China’s latest intrusions set a new benchmark for its ‘gray zone’ tactics and possibly a new pattern that it would attempt to normalize, a researcher said China’s latest military exercises represent a new challenge to Taiwan’s legal authority to demarcate its borders in the Taiwan Strait, a defense expert said, adding that the fleets in the latest exercises were likely the most powerful the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) ever assembled. The PLA conducted military exercises from Sunday last week to 6am on Friday, which encompassed large swathes of the western Pacific, including the Taiwan Strait and waters off the Philippines and Guam, National Policy Foundation associate research fellow Chieh Chung (揭仲) said on Friday. The Ministry of National Defense said that it detected 70 warship and 162 aircraft
DOMESTIC MARKET: To protect the livelihoods of local egg farmers, the government adopted a new method for releasing imported eggs, the agriculture minister said More than 54 million imported eggs will be disposed, as their expiration date has passed, Minister of Agriculture Chen Chi-chung (陳吉仲) said yesterday. Chen made the remarks at a news conference in Taipei, explaining the flow of imported eggs following recent controversies regarding the products. The ministry introduced a special egg import program to address a nationwide egg shortage earlier this year. However, controversies have risen in recent weeks. These included an accusation that the government helped some egg importing companies over others, eggs imported from Brazil that had an incorrect expiration date, and egg shipments from Brazil that were found
PACIFIC OCEAN: Defense experts have warned that the ‘Shandong,’ China’s second largest aircraft carrier, poses a serious threat to eastern Taiwan’s defenses The drills conducted by the Chinese aircraft carrier Shandong in the Western Pacific last week were more aimed at showcasing China’s military capabilities to the US rather than toward Taiwan, a Taiwanese defense expert said yesterday. Lin Yin-yu (林穎佑), an assistant professor at Tamkang University’s Graduate Institute of International Affairs and Strategic Studies, said the drills which involved dozens of warplanes sought to test China’s anti-access and area denial capabilities should the US and its allies attempt to interfere in a cross-strait conflict. Lin said that the latest Chinese drills coincided with a joint maritime exercise conducted by the US, South Korea
Thousands of bottles of Sriracha have been returned or destroyed after the discovery of excessive sulfur dioxide, a bleaching agent, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced on Tuesday. About 12,600 bottles totaling 9,991.8kg of the hot sauce imported from the US by Emporium Corp (河洛企業) were flagged at the border for containing illegal levels of sulfur dioxide, the FDA said in its regular border inspection announcement. Inspectors discovered 0.5g per kilogram of the common bleaching agent and preservative, higher than the 0.03g permitted, it said. As it is the first time within six months the product has been flagged, Sriracha products from
RSS