Visiting Taiwan for the first time as president is like “homecoming,” due to his family’s close ties with the nation, Paraguayan President Mario Abdo Benitez said yesterday.
At a ceremony at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei hosted by President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), Abdo said this is not his first time to visit, but his first as president.
He praised Taiwan’s insistence on democracy, peace and human rights.
Photo: CNA
These shared values have bonded Taiwan and Paraguay for decades since the two countries established ties 61 years ago, he said.
Paraguay would continue to support Taiwan on the international stage, especially on its rights to participate in UN events and other international organizations, he said.
The Paraguayan government hopes to elevate bilateral relations to “the next level,” developing a mutually beneficial relationship that would improve the lives of Taiwanese and Paraguayans, he added.
Photo: Richie B. Tongo, EPA-EFE
Abdo Benitez said that Paraguay’s economy has grown at a rate of at least 4.5 percent each year for the past 20 years, while it has an excellent economic and investment environment.
He called on Taiwan to use Paraguay as a base of operations to access the Latin American market.
“We hope that Taiwan can understand that at the heart of South America, Paraguay will also be Taiwan’s brother and closest ally. Our hearts beat together,” he said.
Tsai welcomed the leader of Taiwan’s only diplomatic ally in South America, with a 21-gun salute marking the occasion.
Tsai and Abdo Benitez signed a statement to deepen ties between the two countries.
The statement says that the two sides reaffirm the values and principles they have embraced in their democratic systems, while they are committed to deepening cordial relations, the Presidential Office said in a news release.
The statement signifies a “new era” of relations, focusing on further cooperation to facilitate bilateral investment, trade and infrastructure until 2023, the Presidential Office said.
In other news, St Kitts and Nevis Governor-General Tapley Seaton arrived in Taiwan yesterday to attend Double Ten National Day celebrations tomorrow.
During Seaton’s five-day visit, he is to attend banquets hosted by Tsai and Minister of Foreign Affairs Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) respectively, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.
Seaton is also to engage in cultural activities, including tours of the National Palace Museum, Taipei 101 and the National Taichung Theater, among other places, the ministry said.
Taiwan and the Caribbean nation established diplomatic relations in October 1983, less than a month after it gained independence from Britain, the ministry said.
The military has spotted two Chinese warships operating in waters near Penghu County in the Taiwan Strait and sent its own naval and air forces to monitor the vessels, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. Beijing sends warships and warplanes into the waters and skies around Taiwan on an almost daily basis, drawing condemnation from Taipei. While the ministry offers daily updates on the locations of Chinese military aircraft, it only rarely gives details of where Chinese warships are operating, generally only when it detects aircraft carriers, as happened last week. A Chinese destroyer and a frigate entered waters to the southwest
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Yilan County at 8:39pm tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The epicenter was 38.7km east-northeast of Yilan County Hall at a focal depth of 98.3km, the CWA’s Seismological Center said. The quake’s maximum intensity, which gauges the actual physical effect of a seismic event, was a level 4 on Taiwan’s 7-tier intensity scale, the center said. That intensity level was recorded in Yilan County’s Nanao Township (南澳), Hsinchu County’s Guansi Township (關西), Nantou County’s Hehuanshan (合歡山) and Hualien County’s Yanliao (鹽寮). An intensity of 3 was
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s comment last year on Tokyo’s potential reaction to a Taiwan-China conflict has forced Beijing to rewrite its invasion plans, a retired Japanese general said. Takaichi told the Diet on Nov. 7 last year that a Chinese naval blockade or military attack on Taiwan could constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan, potentially allowing Tokyo to exercise its right to collective self-defense. Former Japan Ground Self-Defense Force general Kiyofumi Ogawa said in a recent speech that the remark has been interpreted as meaning Japan could intervene in the early stages of a Taiwan Strait conflict, undermining China’s previous assumptions
Instead of focusing solely on the threat of a full-scale military invasion, the US and its allies must prepare for a potential Chinese “quarantine” of Taiwan enforced through customs inspections, Stanford University Hoover fellow Eyck Freymann said in a Foreign Affairs article published on Wednesday. China could use various “gray zone” tactics in “reconfiguring the regional and ultimately the global economic order without a war,” said Freymann, who is also a nonresident research fellow at the US Naval War College. China might seize control of Taiwan’s links to the outside world by requiring all flights and ships entering or leaving Taiwan
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