Brian Hioeby Brian Hioe
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Photo Credit: Lai Ching-te/Facebook
PARAGUAYAN PRESIDENT Santiago Peña visited Taiwan in early May, reaffirming ties between the two countries. Paraguay is, at present, Taiwan’s only remaining South American ally.
Peña stated that ties between the countries were based on shared values, these being “self-determination, freedom, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Peña touted Paraguay as a pathway to investment in South America for Taiwanese and emphasized that Paraguay did not only maintain ties with Taiwan as a means of shoring up relations with the US. Specifically, areas in which Paraguay looked to cooperate with Taiwan included high-tech industries and AI.
Likewise, Peña mentioned that he had been in conversation with his Honduran counterpart, President Nasry Asfura. Peña suggested that it would be advisable for Honduras to restore ties with Taiwan, the Honduran government having broken ties with Taiwan under the presidency of Xiomara Castro. The Taiwanese government has stated that it is open to the idea of restoring ties, but that there have not been any official discussions on the matter.
Still, one notes that Taiwan’s ties with its remaining diplomatic allies are often to right-wing regimes that resemble the authoritarian KMT more than anything else. Indeed, such ties usually date back to the era of the party-state.
One notes Paraguay’s questionable human rights record. The Colorado Party has held power for most of the past 77 years, only losing power for five years between 2008 and 2013. It was previously an authoritarian government. This makes the party reminiscent of the KMT when it ruled over Taiwan during the White Terror, as Taiwan’s sole permitted party. Paraguayan police are well-known for corruption and have been accused of violence against Indigenous, LGBTQ groups, and others.
Likewise, as with Taiwan’s other diplomatic allies, Taiwan dwarfs Paraguay in terms of the size of its population and GDP. Paraguay has a population of 6.704 million compared to Taiwan’s 23 million, and its nominal GDP is around 15% of Taiwan’s. Aid funding to Paraguay from Taiwan is around 1% of Paraguay’s GDP. In this sense, aid from Taiwan to Paraguay is not insubstantial.
In September 2022, the Financial Times reported that Peña’s predecessor as president, Mario Abdo Benitez had requested 1 billion USD in investment for the country to continue to maintain ties with Taiwan. Abdo later denied this report. It is unclear if any similar requests occurred during this trip.
To this extent, when it came to ties with Honduras, Taiwan was quick to recognize an election that international observers criticized as stolen, this being the election victory of Juan Orlando Hernandez. During Hernandez’s administration, killings of journalists and activists took place.
Hernandez was later found to have ties to drug trafficking by organized crime, resulting in his extradition to the US. Though sentenced to a 45-year jail sentence, he was later pardoned by Donald Trump of the charges that he faced.
Still, in general, there is little scrutiny of the questionable human rights record of many of Taiwan’s allies in domestic politics. This was also the case regarding the recent visit to Eswatini by President Lai Ching-te. While Taiwan’s only diplomatic ally in Africa, one notes that Eswatini is an absolute monarchy in which the constitution has been suspended for over half a century, and in which protests calling for the right to vote were repressed by force. Even as the KMT attacked Lai over the trip, such criticisms did not in any way touch on Eswatini’s repressive political environment, as well as the fact that Taiwan backs the absolute monarchy of King Mswati III, such that he can maintain power.