PARAGUAY’s new government will maintain ties with Taiwan, even at the cost of its relationship with China, Foreign Minister Ruben Ramirez told AFP.

Paraguay is the only South American country that recognises Taiwan diplomatically, and one of just 13 globally.

China considers self-ruled democratic Taiwan as a part of its territory, to be retaken one day.

Under its “One China” policy, it does not allow countries to recognise both Beijing and Taipei.

“We have no problem relating to mainland China as long as it is without conditions,” Ramirez said Friday, three days after President Santiago Pena was inaugurated.

“And China establishes conditions, such as breaking diplomatic relations with Taiwan, and Paraguay does not accept that,” said Ramirez, an economist who was also foreign minister from 2006 to 2008.

“The relationship with Taiwan is not just based on tradition, but on institutional democratic values,” he said.

Taiwan Vice-President William Lai, frontrunner in the island’s presidential election next year and a vocal opponent of Beijing’s claims to the island, was present at Pena’s inauguration ceremony on August 16.

Lai made two stopovers in the United States – in New York en route to Paraguay and in San Francisco when returning to Taipei – that enraged Beijing.

Latin America has been a key diplomatic battleground for China and Taiwan since the two split in 1949 after a civil war.

In March, Honduras became the latest country to cut diplomatic ties with Taiwan in favour of Beijing.

Israel and Venezuela embassies

Ramirez said he will normalise Paraguay’s relations with Israel and Venezuela.

Asuncion is preparing to reopen embassies in Jerusalem and Caracas, he said.

Paraguay moved its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in May 2018.

But after then president Mario Abdo took office a few months later, the embassy was moved back to Tel Aviv, angering Israel, which reacted by closing its embassy in Asuncion.

Paraguay broke off relations with Venezuela in January 2019, in rejection of the swearing-in of President Nicolas Maduro.

At the time, most Latin American countries, as well as the United States and the European Union, did not recognise the validity of the elections in which Maduro had been reelected. – AFP, August 20, 2023.