Ahead of Paraguayan President Santiago Pena’s visit to Taiwan next week, Taipei’s last remaining diplomatic ally in South America is facing internal divisions as “a growing chorus of Paraguayans want to switch allegiances” to China, the New York Times reported yesterday.
Emerging as “one of the most anti-China nations in Latin America,” Paraguay is one of Taiwan’s 12 remaining diplomatic allies worldwide, the article said, describing the partnership as “an unlikely long-distance relationship that has endured for decades.”
Former regional allies Panama, Honduras, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua switched diplomatic recognition to China in the past decade, it said.
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Paraguay, a landlocked nation with a population of 6.1 million, saw economic growth of 6.6 percent last year, among the highest rates in the region, it added.
Taiwan and Paraguay established diplomatic relations in 1957, united by two military rulers — former president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) and former Paraguayan president Alfredo Stroessner — and “driven by anti-Communist fervor,” the New York Times said.
Pena is scheduled to lead a delegation to Taiwan from Thursday to Sunday next week for a state visit, and President William Lai (賴清德) is to welcome him with military honors on Friday next week, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday.
Lai is to confer on Pena the Order of Brilliant Jade with Grand Cordon in recognition of his contributions to Taiwan-Paraguay ties, and he is also to receive an honorary doctorate from the National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, the ministry said.
Pena last visited Taiwan in May 2024 to attend Lai’s inauguration.
Today, bilateral relations between the two countries are sustained in part through “freebies,” such as a “presidential jet, hand-me-down helicopters, electric buses and sightseeing trips for Paraguayan politicians to Taipei,” the New York Times said.
Moreover, Taiwan has lent Paraguay US$200 million to help build homes for the poor, contributed US$20 million toward a new hospital and provided more than 800 Paraguayans with scholarships to study science, technology, engineering and mathematics in Taipei, while funding a US$18 million technical college in Asuncion, it said.
The two find common ground in “standing up to neighboring giants,” as Paraguay’s conflicts with Brazil and Argentina in the 19th century mirror Taiwan’s struggle to remain separate from China today, the article quoted Pena as saying.
“Fighting against odds is something that we felt in our own skin,” he said.
However, “a growing chorus of Paraguayans want to switch allegiances” to China, the article said, citing agricultural trade barriers linked to the country’s ties with Taiwan.
Taipei has also accused Beijing of spying on diplomats in Asuncion, while the US has blamed China for cyberattacks on Paraguayan government agencies, it said.
Many also criticize Pena’s argument that “Paraguay should shun China as an authoritarian one-party regime,” as they question Paraguay’s own democracy, where the ruling party has been in power for all but five of the past 79 years, it added.
Many Latin American countries that switched allegiance from Taiwan to China have come to regret it, Pena said earlier this year, as China “siphoned away their raw materials and undercut their industries with cheap manufactured goods,” the article said.
Taiwan is a “reliable partner” and that it is vastly preferable to getting into bed with a “giant,” the article quoted former ambassador to Paraguay Jose Han (韓志正) as saying.
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