Paraguay says offers of Chinese vaccine tied to dumping Taiwan

Bloomberg

Like many nations, Paraguay faces an uphill battle to procure coronavirus vaccines. But its quest is being complicated by fraught relations between China on one side, and Taiwan and the US 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 statement earlier this week. The ministry said that the offers were made by individuals “whose legitimacy and ties to the government of the People’s Republic of China are not proven.”
Interior Minister Euclides Acevedo vowed in a radio interview to not bow to pressure, according to local news site Hoy. “We are not going to accept them telling us, ‘We sell the vaccines, but they break relations with Taiwan,’” Acevedo said.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said on Wednesday that she wasn’t aware of the source of the allegations, but said the country was “always honourable and above board” with its offers for vaccine support. “On the specific incident you mentioned, I think it is a typical malicious piece of disinformation,” Hua told a regular news briefing in Beijing.
The episode is the latest example of how geopolitics is infecting the global race for vaccines, with major powers dominating production and hoarding supplies. Paraguay is one of only 15 diplomatic partners that recognise Taiwan’s government, officially known as the Republic of China, over Beijing.
China’s Communist Party claims Taiwan as its territory, despite having never ruled it, and has stepped up efforts to poach the island’s diplomatic allies since Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen’s election in 2016. Tsai, who maintains that Taiwan is already a sovereign nation, and has sought to defend such relationships while pursing 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, told a news briefing Tuesday. “We strongly oppose attempts by some parties to use the cutting of Taiwan-Paraguay relations as a precondition for receiving the Covid-19 vaccine from China.”
Hua, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, sought to blame Taiwan for the dispute. “We urge certain people in Taiwan to stop making petty moves or create rumors or engage in political manipulation,” she said.
Paraguay has been struggling to secure vaccine doses 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 shots. Its first shipment of vaccines, only 36,000 doses obtained via Covax, arrived on March 19. Paraguay has recorded more than 194,000 cases of Covid-19 and more than 3,700 deaths, according to World Health
Organisation data.
After Panama, El Salvador and the Dominican Republic switched ties to China, the US has sought to prevent further diplomatic gains for Beijing in its own backyard.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken discussed relations with Taipei during a March 14 call with Paraguayan President Mario Abdo Benítez, stressing “the importance of continuing to work with democratic regional and global partners, including Taiwan, to overcome this global pandemic, combat corruption, and increase transparency and accountability.”
Ricardo Chiu, and official at Taiwan’s embassy in Asuncion, told Paraguayan media earlier this month that Taiwan would not interfere in any discussions regarding vaccines produced in China. Chiu rejected politicization of the fight against the pandemic, which he called “a human matter,” while also noting that Taiwan expected its own vaccine to be ready by June.