Paraguay said unofficial brokers have spoken to their government which is considering allowing Covid-19-made vaccines as a result of cut diplomatic ties with Taiwan, although Beijing has denied it. The claim as “malicious disfigurement”.
So – called vaccine diplomacy has been successful as many countries plagued by the pandemic struggle to find products to protect their populations. Russian-made doses are already part of a prisoner-to-prison exchange agreement between Israel and Syria.
The contracts offered in Paraguay appear to represent one of the heaviest efforts to defend arms against Covid-19 since the first bags of vaccines began to shed production lines.
The “mediators and other private figures” who were trying to negotiate the treaty “did not have official status, and their legitimacy or their ties with the government of the People’s Republic of China were not confirmed,” a foreign ministry said. Paraguayan in a statement.
However, he denied brokers’ offers of ‘inappropriate conditions’ and warned that the worrying humanitarian situation caused by the pandemic should not be used for political or economic purposes. follow up”.
Foreign minister Euclides Acevedo said he would not allow any legal or political conditions to impose any immunization contracts made by his government. “We’re not going to accept them saying ‘we’ll sell you the vaccines, but we’ll break your ties with Taiwan’,” Hoy told the local website.
Paraguay – death of coronavirus
There have been more than 200,000 cases of Covid-19 in Paraguay. Shortages of medicines and intensive care beds, and the slow arrival of vaccines, have sparked street protests and an attempt to impeach the country’s president, Mario Abdo Benítez.
Taiwan came in last week with an offer to help Paraguay buy vaccines, and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged the two governments to work together to tackle the pandemic. The U.S. has previously expressed concern about Beijing’s efforts to win over Taiwan’s few remaining diplomatic alliances.
Taiwan has official ties with only 15 countries, mostly poor states in Central America, the Caribbean and the Pacific. Although the island is a self-governing democracy, Beijing says it should be under its control and its “one China policy” calls on alliances to choose between formal ties with its government or Taipei.
Following the breaking news from Paraguay, Taiwan’s foreign minister, Joseph Wu, said that money offered for Covid-19 vaccines could not be purchased to pay for medicines developed or manufactured in China.
“It is one of the conditions that Chinese vaccines cannot be bought. Or, if you buy Chinese vaccines, you can’t use our Taiwanese currency, ”he told parliament. He said he was confident in the strength of Taiwanese ties with Paraguay, Reuters reported.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Hua Chunying said the reports of a vaccine-for-diplomatic recognition offer were part of a disinfection campaign that began in Taiwan. “We urge those in Taiwan to suspend political manipulation or retaliation in any form, as all such efforts are failing,” she told a conference. regular news in Beijing.