Taiwan wants inclusive ties with Argentina that would allow the Latin American country to engage with both Beijing and Taiwan, but the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has refused to allow this, a Taiwanese official said.
“We do not intend to drive the People’s Republic of China [PRC] out of Argentina. If we can live together in Argentina, that would be fine. But China’s stance is not like that, unfortunately. They are exclusive,” he said.
Yui said that Taiwan is keen to cooperate with Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and Mexico in terms of economy, culture, science, and technology, but such cooperation conflicts with relations with Beijing, which aims to isolate Taiwan.
Honduras is the latest country to sever ties with Taiwan in favor of establishing diplomatic relations with Beijing, leaving Taiwan with only 13 formal allies, with Paraguay and Guatemala as its only remaining Latin America partners.
Yui said the CCP has made “false promises” to lure Taiwan’s former allies into switching allegiances to Beijing, citing Beijing’s stalled projects in Nicaragua and El Salvador, including the $50 billion Nicaragua Grand Canal project.
“For China, its interest in these countries that maintain diplomatic relations with Taiwan is to get Taiwan out of their countries. It’s like a chessboard, and these countries are the pieces that they are playing. Once they remove that tile from the board, they are no longer interested,” he said.
Taiwan established the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Buenos Aires despite the absence of formal diplomatic ties with Argentina.
Miguel Tsao Li-jey, Taiwan’s former representative to Argentina, said last year that bilateral trade between Taiwan and Argentina increased during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021.
CCP’s Influence in Latin America
In February 2022, Argentina signed a memorandum of understanding with the CCP to join the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Beijing’s flagship infrastructure development scheme that U.S. officials have denounced as a “debt trap” for smaller nations.“The goal of Latin American countries, ultimately, is to industrialize. China came along and helped make that happen,” he said.
Beijing invested a total of $83 billion in Latin America from 2005 to 2020, according to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. The CCP also increased lending to Latin American nations.
As of 2020, the China Development Bank and the China Export-Import Bank granted 94 loans amounting to $137 billion, the majority of which went to Venezuela, Brazil, Ecuador, and Argentina.
Argentina Supports ‘One China’ Principle
Taiwan has been a self-governing democracy since the Chinese civil war ended in 1949, but the CCP views Taiwan as a renegade province that must be united with mainland China by any means necessary.When then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan last July, Argentina’s Ambassador to China, Sabiuo Vaca Narvaja, voiced his support for Beijing, which staged large-scale military drills surrounding Taiwan to retaliate against Pelosi’s visit.
Vaca Narvaja said that “Argentina supports the principle of ‘One China’ and the concept of territorial integrity” in the same way that Beijing backs Argentina’s sovereignty claim in the Falkland Islands, a disputed archipelago in the South Atlantic.
He compared Beijing’s claim over Taiwan to Argentina’s long-standing dispute with the United Kingdom over the Falkland Islands, saying that “UK’s negotiations refusal [was] offensive not only to our government but to the entire people of Argentina.”
“We are sure that this visit has been a provocation for China and a problem for the entire international community. That is why we want to condemn this visit and join the voices of Latin America, but also of the United Nations,” he told reporters.
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