Photographer: Kevin Frayer / Getty Images
Photographer: Kevin Frayer / Getty Images
Like many nations, Paraguay faces an uphill battle to obtain vaccines against the coronavirus. But his search is being complicated by strained relations between China, on the one hand, and Taiwan and the United States, 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 individuals “whose legitimacy and ties to the government of the People’s Republic of China have not been proven”.
Interior Minister Euclides Acevedo promised in a radio interview on Monday that he would not bow under pressure, according to the local news site Hoy. “We are not going to accept that they tell us, ‘We sell the vaccines, but they break relations with Taiwan,'” said Acevedo.
China’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said on Wednesday that she did not know the source of the accusations, but said the country was “always honored and honest” with its offers of vaccine support. “Regarding the specific incident you mentioned, I think it is a typical malicious misinformation,” Hua said at a regular news conference in Beijing.
The episode is the latest example of how geopolitics is infecting the global vaccine race, with major powers dominating production and accumulating supplies. Paraguay is one of only 15 diplomatic partners that recognize the government of Taiwan, officially known as the Republic of China on Beijing.
The Communist Party of China claims Taiwan as its territory, despite never having ruled, and has stepped up efforts to rob the island’s diplomatic allies since the election of Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen in 2016. Tsai, who claims that Taiwan is already a sovereign nation, and has sought to defend these relations while seeking greater economic and security ties with the US
“Vaccines should not be used as a tool for political manipulation,” Alexander Yui, director general of Taiwan’s Department of Latin American and Caribbean Affairs, said a news conference on Tuesday. “We are strongly opposed to 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 spokeswoman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, sought to blame Taiwan for the dispute. “We ask certain people in Taiwan to stop taking petty measures, creating rumors or engaging in political manipulation,” she said.
Paraguay has struggled to secure doses of vaccine for its population of more than 7 million, although it recently announced that India and Qatar had promised to supply a total of 600,000 vaccines. His first shipment of vaccines, just 36,000 doses obtained via Covax, arrived on March 19. Paraguay recorded more than 194,000 cases of Covid-19 and more than 3,700 deaths, according to the World Health Organization Dice.
After Panama, El Salvador and the Dominican Republic exchanged ties with China, the United States sought to avoid further diplomatic gains for Beijing in its own backyard. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken discussed relations with Taipei during a Called on March 14 with Paraguayan President Mario Abdo Benítez, emphasizing “the importance of continuing to work with regional and global democratic partners, including Taiwan, to overcome this global pandemic, fight corruption and increase transparency and accountability”
Ricardo Chiu, an official at the Taiwanese embassy in Asunción, told Paraguayan media earlier this month that Taiwan would not interfere in any discussions about vaccines produced in China. Chiu rejected the politicization of the fight against the pandemic, which he called a “human issue”, while observing that Taiwan hoped its own vaccine would be ready in June.
– With the help of James Mayger