Government officials said yesterday they hoped Paraguay would not sacrifice its 51 years of friendship with Taiwan after the country’s president-elect vowed to establish formal ties with Beijing as soon as he assumes office in August.“We will closely monitor ties, but hope that Paraguay would not sacrifice a 51-year friendship for the sake of befriending other countries,” said Simon Ko (柯森耀), director-general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of Central and South American Affairs.
The Paraguayan president-elect, Fernando Lugo, often called the “bishop of the poor,” won by a landslide in Sunday’s election.
As part of his campaign gambit, the former Roman Catholic clergyman, of the Patriotic Alliance for Change Party, hinted he would forge official relations with Beijing if elected by saying Asuncion was open to friendship with all countries in the world without interference from other countries.
CLEAR STATEMENT
Yesterday Lugo made a clear statement for the first time that Paraguay will establish diplomatic relations with China to boost foreign investment and trade.
“If other nations have trade and diplomatic relations with continental China, why should we stay behind?” he was quoted as saying.
Paraguay is Taiwan’s only South American ally. Taiwan is one of Asuncion’s biggest donors and the two countries signed a free-trade agreement last year that went into effect last month.
MOFA Spokeswoman Phoebe Yeh (葉非比) said that ties with Paraguay remained strong, but added that the ministry would be on high alert for signs of a break. She said Lugo had not commented on the future of Paraguay’s ties with Taiwan.
AMBASSADOR
Yeh said during the campaign that Ambassador David Hu (胡正堯) had paid Lugo a visit to exchange views on bilateral relations.
In an interview with the Central News Agency, Hu said that he had told Lugo that Taiwan has nothing against Paraguay establishing diplomatic ties with Beijing, as long as Taiwan is not sidelined in the process.
Ko went a step further by saying that Taiwan recognizes the right of all of its allies to establish relations with whomever they wish to do so. Establishing ties with another country should not, however, disparage Taiwan’s sovereignty, he said.
“Taiwan has no right to prohibit its allies from making friends because we are willing to accept dual recognition. It is Beijing that forces nations to adopt the ‘one-China policy’ and choose between Taiwan and China,” he said.
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
GEOPOLITICAL CONCERNS: Foreign companies such as Nissan, Volkswagen and Konica Minolta have pulled back their operations in China this year Foreign companies pulled more money from China last quarter, a sign that some investors are still pessimistic even as Beijing rolls out stimulus measures aimed at stabilizing growth. China’s direct investment liabilities in its balance of payments dropped US$8.1 billion in the third quarter, data released by the Chinese State Administration of Foreign Exchange showed on Friday. The gauge, which measures foreign direct investment (FDI) in China, was down almost US$13 billion for the first nine months of the year. Foreign investment into China has slumped in the past three years after hitting a record in 2021, a casualty of geopolitical tensions,
A registered sex offender from the US who went missing after entering Taiwan has been found and would be deported in light of the risk he poses to the public, the National Immigration Agency (NIA) said yesterday. The agency launched a search for Levi Forrest Wallace, 43, after it was informed by the American Institute of Taiwan (AIT) that he had entered Taiwan on Oct. 2 on a tourist visa. He was not on the US government’s wanted list. Wallace was sentenced to 90 days in jail with a two-year probation in 2001 after he was convicted of sexual delinquency of
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