Paraguayan Ambassador to Taiwan Marcial Bobadilla Guillen yesterday said that his country resolutely opposes the establishment of ties with Beijing, despite increasing pressure from China.
Companies in Paraguay have been calling for the government to cut ties with Taipei in favor of Beijing, but “Taiwan, not China, is Paraguay’s friend,” Guillen cited Paraguayan President Mario Abdo Benitez as saying.
Benitez hopes Taiwan and Paraguay will continue to deepen that friendship, Guillen said during an inauguration ceremony for the 23-member Republic of China (Taiwan) — Republic of Paraguay Inter-parliamentarian Friendship Association.
Photo: Peter Lo, Taipei Times
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Wen Yu-hsia (溫玉霞), who launched the association, said she hopes it will be a “bridge between the two countries through which its members can make contributions” to the friendship between the two nations.
Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Miguel Tsao (曹立傑), Overseas Community Affairs Council Vice Chairwoman Hsu Chia-ching (徐佳青), Legislative Yuan Secretary-General Lin Chih-chia (林志嘉) and KMT Legislator Sandy Yeh (葉毓蘭) also attended the ceremony at the legislature in Taipei.
Despite the two nations’ geographical distance, Paraguay has been an important ally, demonstrated by Taiwan’s donation of 1 million masks and other medical supplies to help Paraguayan medical workers deal with the COVID-19 pandemic, Wen said.
Although Beijing has been trying to coerce Asuncion into switching recognition by pressuring Paraguayan companies, Paraguayans have the right to choose their friends, Guillen said.
Paraguay is Taiwan’s most important ally in South America, and a strong trading partner, Tsao said.
By the end of this year, Taiwan would have imported an estimated 20,000 tonnes of Paraguayan beef worth US$100 million, 10 times the amount it imported five years ago, he said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching