The vice president of Taiwan, William Lai, arrived in Paraguay on Monday after a controversial stopover in New York, United States, to attend the swearing-in ceremony of Santiago Peña as the new president of the South American country. Lai arrives in Paraguayan territory after several threats from China due to the scale he made on US soil.
The Chinese government condemned this Sunday the stopover made in the United States by the Vice President of Taiwan. According to a statement from the Foreign Ministry, the Chinese authorities will take “strong measures to safeguard their sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
“China strongly opposes any form of official contact between the US and Taiwan, and opposes “Taiwanese separatists” traveling to the US under any pretext. China expresses its condemnation and strong discontent at Washington’s insistence that Lai carry out that stop”, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Sunday.
Your arrival in Paraguay
Lai arrived at the Silvio Pettirossi International Airport, located in the city of Luque and serving Asunción, where he was received by the Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, Raúl Silvero Silvagni, and the mayor of the Paraguayan capital, Óscar Rodríguez.
Lai made a stopover in New York. His return is expected to land in San Francisco before returning to Taiwan. After knowing the itinerary of the Taiwanese vice presidentChina said in a statement released by its Foreign Ministry that it “firmly opposes any form of official contact between the United States and Taiwan.”
For Beijing, Lai’s stopover in the United States, and a provocation intended to cause trouble, qualifies as an excuse to engage in political activity. “The facts prove once again that the cause of the tensions in the Taiwan Strait is the insistence of the Taiwanese authorities to count on the United States to seek independence, as well as Washington’s insistence on using Taiwan to contain China.‘” the note adds.
A month ago, US President Joe Biden signed part of a trade agreement with Taiwan to deepen economic cooperation with the island. During the month of July, the United States delivered a package of $345 million dollars in military aid that it will send to Taiwan, which only brought new complaints from Beijing that these recent diplomatic and economic maneuvers are a threat to peace and stability in the Strait of Formosa.
In addition, Biden announced his signing of the first agreement within the so-called 21st Century United States-Taiwan Initiative, which despite not being a free trade agreement.
The agreement signed by Biden, which is limited in that it covers issues such as customs forms, regulatory practices and anti-corruption measures, but does not address tariffs on certain goods or Taiwanese complaints about double taxation in the United States. “The objective of this agreement is to strengthen and develop economic relations between the United States and Taiwan,” the White House said in a statement.
With information from EFE
