The Paraguayan Foreign Ministry recently revealed that a self-proclaimed Chinese agent had offered to “break diplomatic relations with Taiwan” as a condition for the purchase of China’s new pneumonia vaccine. After that, Taiwan cooperated with other democratic countries and finally, with the help of India, succeeded in getting the vaccine to Taiwan’s diplomatic ally Paraguay.
Foreign Minister Wu Chiu-sup. Photo: Zhang Liang Yi/photo (file photo)
According to Reuters, Wu believes that the Chinese Communist Party’s distribution of its own new pneumonia vaccine around the world is a “show of muscle” through vaccine diplomacy, especially in Central and South America, where Taiwan has five allies, he said. I think all of them have an impact on our diplomatic allies,” he said. He also mentioned that the Chinese Communist authorities have been “very active” in Paraguay, advocating for the public to receive millions of doses of Chinese vaccines if Paraguay breaks off diplomatic relations with Taiwan. This has put pressure on Taiwan to help its friend as well.
But Wu pointed out that in the past few weeks, Taiwan has been in dialogue with like-minded countries, including Japan, the United States and India. Fortunately, India has been able to supply Paraguay with some of the Covaxin vaccine. “The Covaxin vaccine is supplied by Bharat Biotech and the National Research Institute. India has already shipped 100,000 doses of the vaccine to Paraguay, and will add another 100,000 doses. The most important trend is that India is willing to help, and the United States has also decided to join the effort, which I think will relieve the enormous pressure that many countries are facing,” Wu said.
The Paraguayan Ministry of Foreign Affairs has stated that some suppliers, whose official status, legitimacy and connection to China cannot be proven, have implied that “severing relations with the Republic of China on Taiwan” is a necessary condition for the purchase of Chinese vaccines, a condition that undermines the sovereignty of the Republic of Paraguay. This condition is inappropriate and unjustified, since Paraguay and China do not have diplomatic relations, but have normal and smooth trade exchanges, and should not take advantage of the suffering caused by the epidemic, the humanitarian situation, or the efforts of countries to protect the health of their people, to manipulate or force countries to take specific actions with the sole purpose of pursuing political or economic interests.
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