On Wednesday, Paraguayan President Santiago Pena expressed his “total openness” to China trade deals through Mercosur South American trading block despite the country’s diplomatic allegiance with Taiwan.
Paraguay’s historical political support for Taiwan has somewhat acted as a barrier to its farmers’ grain exports to Beijing, which claims sovereignty over Taipei. Paraguay is the sole South American nation that has formal links with Taiwan, which strongly objects to Chinese sovereignty claims.
Mercosur, a customs union comprising of Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay is in final stages of negotiating a long-awaited deal with the European Union but also wants to discuss a potential agreement with China.
For instance, Pena described how there was total openness between Paraguay and China since it was based on the fact that such recognition did not exist within this country. In an interview by Reuters he added that “we are in favor of progressing trade agreements”.
China hopes Paraguayan government will “stand on the right side of history”, its foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told reporters at a regular news briefing on Thursday.
Mao said China considers important trade and economic cooperation with Mercosur nations and other Latin America countries.
In Uruguay’s capital city Montevideo, representatives from Mercosur had talks with their Chinese counterparts on August 12.
“I think biding time is being employed by Brazil,” said Pena about possible China agreement which he supported. “I think that Uruguay is most interested in this and we support this effort as one bloc.”
After making requests for comments were made no immediate response came from either Chinese embassy in Uruguay or the foreign ministry.
