There are odd couples. Then there’s Taiwan and Paraguay.
The high-tech island nation and its rural, landlocked South American ally sit on opposite sides of the earth.
United in 1957 by two military rulers — Chiang Kai-shek and Alfredo Stroessner — driven by anti-Communist fervor, this improbable duo have been inseparable ever since.
Today, however, Paraguay finds itself a member of a shrinking global club.
China has flexed its economic muscle to force countries, including Paraguay, to break ties with Taiwan, which China considers part of its territory.
Paraguay today is the only South American country to maintain relations with Taiwan and has emerged as one of the most anti-China nations in Latin America.
That stance has bought the good will of the United States and made the country something of a darling of the Trump administration as it challenges China in the region.
Marco Rubio, the U.S. secretary of state, has praised President Santiago Peña of Paraguay, a conservative, as a “strong American ally,” and President Trump has said he was “doing a great job.”
For his part, Mr. Peña described Mr. Trump’s re-election as a “dream come true.”
Mr. Peña, in an interview with The New York Times, said Paraguay and Taiwan had something in common: They are both underdogs.
Paraguay’s experience of standing up to neighboring “giants” Brazil and Argentina — including a 19th-century conflict that wiped out half its population — make it instinctively identify with Taiwan’s struggle to remain separate from China, he explained.
“Fighting against odds is something that we felt in our own skin,” Mr. Peña said.
Yet those odds are growing longer.
Ten countries — including Panama, Honduras, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua — have all switched diplomatic recognition to China in the past decade. Just 12 nations still recognize Taiwan.
Taiwan, with a population of 23 million, has sustained its relationship with Paraguay, a country of 6.1 million, essentially through freebies: a presidential jet, hand-me-down helicopters, electric buses and sightseeing trips for Paraguayan politicians to Taipei, the capital.
It has also dubbed Taiwanese soap operas into Spanish and paid to build Paraguay’s congressional building.
But China is increasing pressure on Paraguay to sever ties with Taiwan.
In the past 18 months, it has been accused of launching cyberattacks against government agencies, bribing top Paraguayan politicians and enticing lawmakers with lavish trips to Beijing. Chinese diplomats have warned Paraguay to “make a correct decision as soon as possible” between China and Taiwan.
Taiwan, however, is also raising the ante, lending Paraguay $200 million to help build homes for the poor and contributing $20 million toward a new hospital.
It has provided more than 800 Paraguayans scholarships to study STEM in Taipei and is financing an $18 million technical college in Asunción, the Paraguayan capital.
Taiwanese experts are also kick-starting a local fish-farming industry, an initiative designed to diversify Paraguay’s economy, which revolves around beef and soybeans.
In Eusebio Ayala — a farming town about 40 miles east of Asunción — Taiwan’s overseas development agency is crossbreeding different kinds of catfish to create hybrid specimens that grow faster in tanks and taste better when grilled.
“I love my job,” said Tsan-Ping Wang, 40, the project’s manager, explaining how his team of Taiwanese technicians was on the front lines of a global battle for hearts and minds.
“What we do bothers China,” he added. “But we’re not afraid.”
The delicate position Paraguay finds itself in between China and Taiwan comes at a moment when Mr. Trump has made reducing China’s economic influence in Latin America a cornerstone of his policy toward the region.
China, in recent decades, has invested hundreds of billions of dollars in aid, loans, and projects like ports and highways in Latin America.
Despite Paraguay’s very small footprint, it is a “symbolic” and “strategic” prize for China, said Evan Ellis, a professor at the U.S. Army War College who studies China’s presence in Latin America.
The United States and Paraguay recently signed deals on critical minerals and military cooperation.
Paraguay last week also received 16 migrants from other countries deported by the United States, the first group to arrive as part of agreements signed with the Trump administration.
Countries with diplomatic ties with Taiwan often face obstacles to exporting to China, including barriers on agricultural goods, beef and other commodities.
As a result, a growing chorus of Paraguayans want to switch allegiances.
Ranchers have complained of not being able to sell to China because of the decades-old alliance with Taiwan.
More firms are joining the Paraguay-China Chamber of Commerce in Asunción, said its commercial director, Jessica Chenu.
Paraguayan agribusiness producers, she said, are seeking ways around bureaucratic hurdles to do business with Beijing, which they see as a larger and more lucrative market.
Splits are also emerging in Paraguay’s government. Seven congressmen from the ruling Colorado Party were scheduled to join a visit to Beijing in October, but dropped out, with one lawmaker suggesting that U.S. officials had threatened to cancel his U.S. visa.
A State Department spokesman would not discuss the lawmaker’s claim, but said the United States can deny visas if the individual’s “proposed activities would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.”
Some critics of Paraguay’s pro-Taiwan diplomacy also take issue with one of Mr. Peña’s core arguments: that Paraguay should shun China as an authoritarian one-party regime.
Esperanza Martínez, an opposition senator, noted that the ruling party has held power for all but five of the past 79 years.
“If we’re going to talk about democracy,” Ms. Martínez said, “how are we doing at home?”
As health minister in a previous administration, Ms. Martínez recalled Taiwanese diplomats sending her orchids every year on her birthday.
“They’re using us,” she added. “And we’re selling ourselves very cheaply.”
Both Taiwan and China have routinely been accused of playing dirty.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, Taiwanese officials say, China offered Paraguay millions of vaccines in exchange for switching recognition — a claim Beijing denies.
Taiwan accuses Huawei, the giant Chinese telecom firm, of spying on its diplomats in Asunción. U.S. authorities blamed Chinese hackers for recent cyberattacks on Paraguayan government agencies.
China’s foreign ministry and its embassy in Washington did not respond to requests for comment for this article.
In September, a Colorado Party lawmaker was expelled from the Senate for alleged influence peddling after being recorded describing how an $8 million donation from Taiwan would be divided among officials. She said her words had been taken out of context.
In an interview with the The Times before he concluded his six-year posting in February, Taiwan’s ambassador in Asunción, José Chih-Cheng Han, said critics sometimes misinterpreted the purpose of Taiwan’s donations to Paraguay’s government.
“They’re not bribes,” Mr. Han said. “We don’t put money in the pockets of any politicians.”
Taiwan is a “reliable partner,” the ambassador argued: one vastly preferable to getting into bed with a “giant.”
“Just because you go with China, it doesn’t bring development,” he added.
Mr. Peña, who spoke to The Times in March at a summit in South Florida of conservative Latin American leaders hosted by Mr. Trump, said many Latin American countries had pursued “short-term benefit” by flipping to Beijing.
But as China siphoned away their raw materials and undercut their industries with cheap manufactured goods, Mr. Peña said, they had come to regret it.
Last year, Paraguay’s economy expanded by 6.6 percent, among the highest rates in the region.
“Paraguay, even without having relations with China, is outperforming the rest of the countries in South America,” Mr. Peña said. “So, what is the additional factor that they will give to us?”
The China-Taiwan tug of war is also dividing their diasporas in Ciudad del Este, a multicultural commercial hub in eastern Paraguay.
Celia Chou, 40, runs a family business importing seaweed and canned bubble tea from Asia. Her mother, who emigrated to Paraguay from Taiwan in 1980, would lament a rupture in relations between the two nations, she said.
“But for my generation,” Ms. Chou said, “there’s no God-given loyalty.”
Sonia Karnani, 38, the secretary at a Buddhist temple, said some of her Chinese and Taiwanese friends had fallen out after arguments on social media.
But Ms. Karnani, who has Indian-Taiwanese heritage, was philosophical about the future of the Paraguay-Taiwan relationship.
“Suffering is caused by attachment,” she said. “The only constant in this world is change.”
Jack Nicas contributed reporting from Doral, Fl.
