Photographer: Kevin Frayer / Getty Images
Photographer: Kevin Frayer / Getty Images
Like many nations, Paraguay is facing a tough battle to get coronavirus vaccines. But his research is being complicated by close relations between China on the one hand, and Taiwan and the US on the other.
The Paraguayan government has been approached with offers of vaccines made in China in exchange for breaking ties with Taiwan, the country’s foreign ministry said in a statement. statement earlier this week. The ministry said the offers were made by people “whose legitimacy and ties to the government of the People’s Republic of China are not proven.”
Foreign Minister Euclides Acevedo vowed on Monday in a radio interview not to bow to pressure, according to local news site Today. “We will not accept being told,‘ We sell vaccines, but they break off relations with Taiwan, ’” Acevedo said.
The Paraguayan Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to phone calls and an email seeking comment.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Wednesday that she was unaware of the origin of the allegations, but said the country was “always honorable and superior to the council” with its offers of support for the vaccine. “About the specific incident you mentioned, I think it’s a typical piece of malicious misinformation,” Hua told a regular briefing in Beijing.
The episode is the latest example of how geopolitics is infecting the global vaccine race, with great powers dominating production and hoarding supplies. It also caused street protests against the government’s handling of the health crisis and provoked opposition lawmakers. unsuccessfully pushing for dismissal last week.
President Mario Benítez during a visit to Brasília in June 2018.
Photographer: Andre Coelho / Bloomberg
Paraguay belongs to a declining club of 15 countries, including Guatemala and Honduras, which still recognize the government of Taiwan, officially known as the Republic of China, on Beijing. The 63-year-old relationship dates back to when anti-communist dictators Alfredo Stroessner and Chiang Kei-shek ruled in Asuncion and Taipei. Stroessner’s personal secretary and father of the current Paraguayan president, Mario Abdo Benítez, accompanied the strongman on his visit to Taiwan in 1975.
Taiwan has provided hundreds of millions of dollars in loans and aid over the years, but Paraguay’s persistent support for Taipei has sidelined it from funding public works in the so-called Chinese Belt and Road initiative. While Chinese factories flood Paraguay with manufactured goods, Paraguay cannot sell its beef and soybeans directly to China.
The Communist Party of China claims Taiwan as its territory, despite never having ruled it, and has intensified efforts to steal the island’s diplomatic allies since the 2016 election of Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen. Tsai, who claims that Taiwan is already a sovereign nation, and has tried to defend these relations while pursuing more economic and security ties with the US
“Political manipulation”
“Vaccines should not be used as a tool for political manipulation,” said Alexander Yui, director general of Taiwan’s Department of Latin American and Caribbean Affairs. said an information session on Tuesday. “We strongly oppose attempts by some parties to use the severance of Taiwan-Paraguay relations as a precondition for receiving the Covid-19 vaccine from China.”
Hua, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, tried to blame Taiwan for the dispute. “We urge certain people in Taiwan to stop making small moves or create rumors or engage in political manipulation,” he said.
Paraguay has struggled to get vaccines for its population of more than 7 million. The South American country has received only 63,000 doses since February, although it recently announced that India and Qatar had promised to supply a total of 600,000 shots. The government has reported more than 198,000 cases of Covid-19 and more than 3,800 deaths.
Paraguay’s desperate search for traits has attracted dozens of middlemen, including a real estate company that offers to negotiate vaccine deals. Many of the 35 intermediaries who have approached the health ministry have demanded initial payments of several million dollars, Health Minister Julio Borba said on a radio interview.
After Panama, El Salvador and the Dominican Republic changed ties with China, the United States has tried to prevent further diplomatic gains for Beijing in its own garden. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken discussed relations with Taipei during a The March 14 call with Abdo Benitez stressed “the importance of continuing to work with democratic regional and global partners, including Taiwan, to overcome this global pandemic, fight corruption and increase transparency and accountability.”
Ricardo Chiu, an official of the Taiwanese embassy in Asuncion, He told Paraguayan media earlier this month that Taiwan would not interfere in any discussion about vaccines produced in China. Chiu rejected the politicization of the pandemic fight, which he called “a human issue,” while noting that Taiwan hoped its own vaccine would be ready by June.
– With the assistance of James Mayger
(Updates on the links between Paraguay and Taiwan from the seventh paragraph and the Minister of Health in the thirteenth paragraph. An earlier version of the story corrected the title of Acevedo and details about the supply of vaccines.)