06.05.2023
The newly elected President of Paraguay Pania thanked Tsai Ing-wen for his congratulatory call on Twitter, and promised to continue to promote the development of mutually beneficial bilateral relations. During the election, opposition candidates threatened to sever diplomatic relations with Taiwan and establish diplomatic relations with China if elected.
(Deutsche Welle Chinese website) Paraguay’s incoming President Santiago Pena announced that he will continue to strengthen the relationship between the country and Taiwan in the future. “We will continue to strengthen the historic relationship between Paraguay and the Republic of China (Taiwan) and look forward to embarking on a number of mutually beneficial cooperation projects,” he tweeted on Friday, addressing a call from Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen congratulating him on his election victory. Call to say thanks.
Pania won 43% of the vote in last Sunday’s presidential election and became the new president of Paraguay. As early as during the campaign at the beginning of this year, he announced that he would continue the policy of his predecessor. This is despite calls from the local agrarian economic sector for the government to strengthen ties with Beijing in a bid to open up the lucrative Chinese market for Paraguayan agricultural products such as soybeans and beef.
The diplomatic issue between Paraguay and Taiwan, which has more than 60 years of diplomatic ties, has also been at the center of this election campaign. Opposition candidate Efrain Alegre wants to be closer to China to open up markets for the country’s agricultural products.
Opposition candidate Allie Gray (left) supports breaking diplomatic relations with Taiwan
Aire Gray criticized diplomatic relations with Taiwan for making it difficult for Paraguay to sell soybeans and beef to China, a major global buyer, and believed that Paraguay, whose economic activity is dominated by agriculture, did not receive enough returns from Taiwan.
“Paraguay has made great efforts and sacrifices to establish relations with Taiwan, but we have not seen the same efforts from Taiwan.” During the election campaign, Allegret also threatened that if he was elected, he would sever diplomatic relations with Taiwan and change to Taiwan. China established diplomatic relations. Aire Gray came in second in the general election with 27.6 percent of the vote.
After the election results came out, Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement saying that Taiwan deeply admires the mature democratic qualities of the Paraguayan people, and will continue to deepen cooperation with the new Paraguayan government based on the shared values of democracy and freedom and traditional friendship.
As countries continue to announce the severance of diplomatic relations with the Republic of China and the establishment of diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China, Taiwan’s diplomatic relations with the country have been reduced from 22 when Tsai Ing-wen became president in 2016 to 13. The countries maintaining diplomatic relations with Taiwan are mainly concentrated in Central America and the South Pacific. Among these countries, Paraguay is the largest in terms of land area.
Before the election, Taiwan Foreign Ministry spokesperson Liu Yongjian called on Paraguay to “cherish the relationship with Taiwan,” and cited Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Dominican and other countries as examples, pointing out that establishing diplomatic relations with China may not bring market benefits, but instead It may cause a huge trade deficit with China, warning Paraguay to misbelieve China’s “flashy promises”.
(Reuters, etc.)
© 2023 Deutsche Welle Copyright Statement: All content in this article is protected by copyright law and may not be used without special authorization from Deutsche Welle. Any wrongdoing will result in recovery and be subject to criminal prosecution.
Online Report |
25.04.2023