The two leading candidates in Guatemala’s presidential election vowed to maintain diplomatic ties with Taiwan, Japan’s Nikkei newspaper reported on Thursday.
The presidential election in the Central American is to be held tomorrow.
After Santiago Pena won the Paraguayan presidential election in April, the domino effect of China poaching Taiwan’s allies in Central and South America might be coming to a stop, especially if Guatemala also elects a candidate who values ties with Taiwan, the Nikkei reported.
Photo: AFP
Beijing has lured away Nicaragua and Honduras with economic incentives in 2021 and this year respectively, it said.
Former Guatemalan first lady Sandra Torres, the National Unity of Hope’s candidate, was leading in the polls with 23 percent support, followed by Cabal leader Edmond Mulet (21 percent) and Valor leader Zury Rios (19 percent), a CID-Gallup Poll released last month showed.
Torres told the Nikkei that, if elected, she would bolster diplomatic and commercial ties with Taiwan, and consider establishing a special economic zone with preferential tax to attract Taiwanese companies to invest in Guatemala.
Mulet said that Guatemala would maintain diplomatic ties with Taiwan if he is elected, adding that he would not undermine his country’s friendly ties with the US, which has been wary of China’s expanding influence in Central and South America.
“Relations with Taiwan are important to our diplomacy with the United States,” he said in a separate Nikkei report published yesterday. “We will continue diplomatic and commercial ties with Taiwan. There is no reason to sever ties.”
Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei in 2021 said that China had demanded his country sever ties with Taiwan, which he refused to do.
Mulet told the Nikkei that he was not approached by China.
Rios did not say whether she would maintain diplomatic relations with Taiwan if elected, only that she valued Taiwan, the newspaper reported on Thursday.
If no candidate obtains more than half of the votes tomorrow, the two candidates with the most votes would enter a second round of voting on Aug. 20.
In other news, former Japanese minister of foreign affairs Seiji Maehara is to lead a delegation of 12 Japanese lawmakers to Taiwan from July 2 to 4, Japan’s Sankei Shimbun reported.
Maehara, who is a deputy leader of the Democratic Party for the People, former Japanese deputy minister of defense Shu Watanabe of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan and Japan Innovation Party Secretary-General Fumitake Fujita announced the trip on Thursday, the newspaper reported.
This is the first time a delegation comprising lawmakers from three opposition political parties has planned a visit to Taiwan, it said.
“Taiwan is an important friend of Japan that shares values such as freedom, democracy, basic human rights and the rule of law,” Maehara said.
The trip is to demonstrate how much Japan’s opposition parties support Taiwan, he said.
The delegation plans to meet with President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), Vice President William Lai (賴清德) and former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), the Sankei Shimbun reported.
It is also to attend a banquet held by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), it said.
ANOTHER EMERGES: The CWA yesterday said this year’s fourth storm of the typhoon season had formed in the South China Sea, but was not expected to affect Taiwan Tropical Storm Gaemi has intensified slightly as it heads toward Taiwan, where it is expected to affect the country in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 8am yesterday, the 120km-radius storm was 800km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost tip, moving at 9kph northwest, the agency said. A sea warning for Gaemi could be issued tonight at the earliest, it said, adding that the storm is projected to be closest to Taiwan on Wednesday or Thursday. Gaemi’s potential effect on Taiwan remains unclear, as that would depend on its direction, radius and intensity, forecasters said. Former Weather Forecast
As COVID-19 cases in Japan have been increasing for 10 consecutive weeks, people should get vaccinated before visiting the nation, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said. The centers reported 773 hospitalizations and 124 deaths related to COVID-19 in Taiwan last week. CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Director Guo Hung-wei (郭宏偉) on Tuesday said the number of weekly COVID-19 cases reported in Japan has been increasing since mid-May and surpassed 55,000 cases from July 8 to July 14. The average number of COVID-19 patients at Japan’s healthcare facilities that week was also 1.39 times that of the week before and KP.3 is the dominant
The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) working group for Taiwan-related policies is likely to be upgraded to a committee-level body, a report commissioned by the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said. As Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is increasingly likely to upgrade the CCP’s Central Leading Group for Taiwan Affairs, Taiwanese authorities should prepare by researching Xi and the CCP, the report said. At the third plenary session of the 20th Central Committee of the CCP, which ended on Thursday last week, the party set a target of 2029 for the completion of some tasks, meaning that Xi is likely preparing to
US-CHINA TRADE DISPUTE: Despite Beijing’s offer of preferential treatment, the lure of China has dimmed as Taiwanese and international investors move out Japan and the US have become the favored destinations for Taiwanese graduates as China’s attraction has waned over the years, the Ministry of Labor said. According to the ministry’s latest income and employment advisory published this month, 3,215 Taiwanese university graduates from the class of 2020 went to Japan, surpassing for the first time the 2,881 graduates who went to China. A total of 2,300 graduates from the class of 2021 went to the US, compared with the 2,262 who went to China, the document showed. The trend continued for the class of 2023, of whom 1,460 went to Japan, 1,334 went to