Paraguay, the only country in South America that maintains diplomatic relations with Taiwan, is experiencing growing pressure from the Chinese lobby. The situation worsens amid the geopolitical dispute between China, Taiwan, and the United States, with Beijing seeking to incorporate the island as part of its territory.
Taiwan's ambassador to Paraguay, Iván Yueh-Jung Lee, who began his third non-consecutive term in Asunción, stated that the first Chinese strategy is to generate interest among businesspeople. “They consider profitability; making money is the most important thing; therefore, the Chinese use the strategy of offering trade benefits,” he declared.
Lee warned that changing the historic bond, maintained since 1957, could be dangerous because China, in his view, does not act transparently. “Not only in Paraguay, in Taiwan they are the same: they offer benefits to Taiwanese businesspeople, saying they can invest in China for cheap labor and special rates. But the reality is that one must be careful when negotiating, because the laws are not transparent and policy can change overnight,” he added.
The diplomat acknowledged that the greatest expression of Chinese influence in Paraguay is in Congress, among deputies and senators. Although the Colorado Party plans to sustain the alliance with Taiwan until 2028, sectors of the opposition and even some Colorados in dissent and within the ruling party have begun talks with Beijing.
Former Taiwanese ambassador José Chih-Cheng Han, who served in Paraguay for nearly six years, stated that the Chinese lobby in the country is very strong, albeit with a “poor” discourse. He highlighted that Beijing offers a market of 1.4 billion people and promises investments of US$10 billion, but the figures are “exaggerated” and nothing concrete is negotiated. “China has no real interest in Paraguay; it only wants to absorb Taiwan,” Han said.
Since the start of Santiago Peña's government in 2023, the pressure from the Chinese lobby intensified between 2024 and 2025, coinciding with the international context, especially after Donald Trump's inauguration in January 2025. Peña has never questioned the relationship with Taiwan, but promised in 2022 to open the Chinese market to Paraguayan beef, which has not yet happened. His opponent in the 2023 elections, liberal Efraín Alegre, was more radical, classifying the relationship with Taiwan as “insufficient” and promising to change it if elected.
In December 2024, a Chinese diplomat, Xu Wei, was expelled from Paraguay for alleged interference in internal affairs. He had met with political figures in the National Congress and stated that his mission was to convince the government to recognize the one-China principle, which he considered “non-negotiable.”