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Paraguay says Chinese vaccine offers linked to evict Taiwan
(Bloomberg) – Like many nations, Paraguay faces an uphill battle to obtain vaccines against the coronavirus. But his search is being complicated by tense 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 Chinese-made vaccines in exchange for breaking ties with Taiwan, the country’s foreign ministry said. in a 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”. Foreign Minister Euclides Acevedo promised in a radio interview on Monday that he would not give in to pressure, according to 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. Paraguay’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not immediately respond to calls and an e-mail asking for comment. China Foreign Ministry spokesman Hua Chunying said on Wednesday that he 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 piece of disinformation,” 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 big powers dominating production and supply accumulation. It also sparked street protests against the government’s handling of the health crisis and caused opposition lawmakers to push unsuccessfully for an impeachment last week. Paraguay belongs to a smaller and smaller club from 15 countries, including Guatemala and Honduras, which still recognize the government of Taiwan, officially known as the Republic. from China, about Beijing. The 63-year-old relationship dates from the time when anti-communist dictators Alfredo Stroessner and Chiang Kei-shek ruled in Asunción and Taipei. Stroessner’s personal secretary and father of the current Paraguayan president, Mario Abdo Benitez, 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 stubborn support Taipei moved him away from financing public works under China’s so-called Belt and Road initiative. While Chinese factories flood Paraguay with manufactured products, Paraguay cannot directly sell its meat and soy to China. 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 Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen was elected in 2016. Tsai, who says Taiwan is already a sovereign nation, has sought to defend these relations while seeking greater economic and security ties with the United States ‘Political Manipulation’ “Vaccines should not be used as a tool for political manipulation,” said Alexander Yui, director general of the Department of Affairs Latin American and Caribbean Taiwan, at 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 spokesman 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 been struggling to secure 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 doses. The government reported more than 198,000 cases of Covid-19 and more than 3,800 deaths. The desperate search for vaccines in Paraguay has attracted dozens of intermediaries, including a real estate company that has offered to negotiate vaccines. Many of the 35 intermediaries who approached the health ministry demanded payments of several million dollars, Health Minister Julio Borba said in a radio interview. After Panama, El Salvador and the Dominican Republic exchanged ties with China, the United States tried to avoid further diplomatic gains for Beijing in its own backyard. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken discussed relations with Taipei during a March 14 call with Abdo Benitez, emphasizing “the importance of continuing to work with regional and global democratic partners, including Taiwan, to overcome this global pandemic, combat 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. (Updates with Paraguay-Taiwan ties from the seventh paragraph and Minister of Health in the 13th paragraph. An earlier version of the story corrected Acevedo’s title and details on the vaccine supply.) 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