Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has thanked Belize and Paraguay for reaffirming their diplomatic relations with Taipei after China imposed sanctions on a minister from each country, Hiru News reported on Tuesday evening, citing foreign media.
The two officials named are Francis Fonseca, Belize’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, and Gustavo Emigdio Villate Samaniego, Paraguay’s Minister of Information and Communication Technology.
Under the measures, both are barred from entering China, Hong Kong and Macau. Any property they hold in China is frozen, and Chinese organisations and individuals are prohibited from conducting any transaction or cooperation with them.
The sanctions are nine days old; the thanks are new
Hiru’s filing gives no date for the sanctions themselves, describing them only as something China “has taken steps” to do, attributed to foreign media. That matters, because the two halves of this story are more than a week apart.
International outlets reporting the measures carry a date of 12 October for Beijing’s announcement. This desk could not reach a verified newsroom’s own filing on the sanctions to confirm that date directly, and records it as the date those outlets give rather than as a figure verified here.
What is new is the response. Both governments condemned the measures and confirmed they would continue their bilateral relations with Taiwan, and it is Taipei’s statement of thanks — not the sanctions — that Hiru filed on Tuesday.
What Taiwan said
The foreign ministry’s statement framed the question as one of sovereignty rather than of China and Taiwan.
“The foreign ministries of both countries have once again emphasised that Belize and Paraguay are sovereign, independent states, and that independently conducting a foreign policy is a principle and a common consensus endorsed by the international community.”
Taipei went on to describe Beijing’s action as open interference in the sovereignty and foreign policy of other states, saying it violated principles of international law and demonstrated what it called the coercive and threatening character of authoritarian rule.
Belize and Paraguay are among the small group of states that maintain formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan rather than with the People’s Republic of China — the status that makes their ministers targets for measures of this kind.
Not reported: Hiru gives no date for the sanctions, no date for the Taiwanese statement, and no legal instrument or Chinese government body as their source. It does not say what property, if any, either minister holds in China, nor whether either had any prospect of travelling there — a point that bears on how much practical effect the measures have. No response from the Chinese government to Taipei’s statement is reported. At the time of writing no other verified newsroom reachable by this desk had filed on the Taiwanese statement, so this account rests on a single verified source.
