Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei boarded a commercial flight to Taiwan on Saturday on an official visit aimed at confirming the country’s support for the island amid heightened tensions between Beijing and Taipei.
“We are also going to Taiwan to send a very clear message to the world that countries have the right to self-govern” and “have their own territories” without being threatened, Giammattei said in a video posted on his Twitter account before leaving.
The official is scheduled to meet with his Taiwanese counterpart, Tsai Ing-wen, who visited Guatemala and Belize just three weeks ago.
“The friendship between Guatemala and China Taiwan is unbreakable”, declared Giammattei days before, during Tsai’s visit, stating that the island is “an independent nation and the only true China”.
During his visit, from Monday to Thursday, Giammattei will address the Taiwanese Parliament and visit a technology company in Taichung, south of Taipei. He will also participate in an event to promote Guatemalan coffee, according to the Taiwanese Presidency.
Guatemala and Belize are the only Central American countries that maintain diplomatic ties with Taiwan, after the breakup of Honduras, which linked up with China on March 26. In the world, only 13 countries recognize the island.
Under the “one China” principle, Beijing does not allow any country to have diplomatic ties with them and Taiwan at the same time.
China considers the island of democratic and autonomous government as a rebel province that is part of its territory and that it hopes to recover one day, even by force.
After her Central American tour, Tsai met on April 5 in Los Angeles with the Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, which sparked the wrath of Beijing.
In response, China deployed planes and warships in waters adjacent to Taiwan for three days, which considerably raised tensions.
Beijing urged Giammattei on Wednesday “not to go against the general global trend and the aspirations of the Guatemalan people, for their own benefit.”
– “Holding hands” –
On Tuesday, Giammattei said that Taiwan will provide resources to the country to face natural disasters and that it will visit “the biggest Chinese-Taiwanese companies interested in coming [se instalar] in Guatemala”.
His trip takes place two months before the presidential elections in Guatemala. His successor is expected to maintain ties with the island.
“We are hand in hand with Taiwan,” said the social democratic candidate Sandra Torres, one of the two hopefuls leading the polls for the June 25 elections.
The other favorite candidate in the polls, right-wing Zury Ríos, daughter of former military dictator Efraín Ríos Montt (1982-1983), also does not plan to break with Taiwan, so this issue is of little relevance to the campaign.
– “On the same axis” –
Giammattei’s journey is a “significant move” for Taiwan, because “the Central American region is in a way leaning towards mainland China,” Virginia Pinto, an analyst at the Association for Research and Social Studies, told AFP.
“We could see an increase in donations, non-remunerated or technical aid that Taiwan could be offering to Guatemala, precisely to conserve one of the last supports it is enjoying at the international level,” he added.
Latin America has been hotly contested terrain since Taiwan and China split in 1949 at the end of the Chinese civil war. Communists took power in mainland China, while nationalists withdrew to Taiwan.
Giammattei’s trip “is a message for our most important trading partner, which is the United States”, as it demonstrates “being on the same axis as this power” allied with Taipei, Pinto pointed out.
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