(Corrects attribution to government official in paragraph)
By Daniela Desantis
ASUNCION (Reuters) -Paraguay is preparing to receive Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te next month, President Santiago Pena said on Monday, meaning Lai will also most likely make sensitive transit stops in the United States bound to infuriate Beijing.
Paraguay is one of only 12 countries to maintain formal diplomatic ties with Chinese-claimed Taiwan, and the only one in South America.
Visits by Taiwanese presidents to Central and South America always involve what are officially only stopovers in the United States given the distance from Taiwan, but are often the most important parts of the trip given Washington is the island’s top international backer and arms supplier.
Pena, speaking at a bilateral investment conference in the South American nation’s capital, said Lai would be coming next month.
“We are preparing anxiously and with much affection to receive President Lai in 30 days,” Pena told the conference, which Lai’s Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung also attended.
Belize will also host Lai during a planned visit to the region, a government official told Reuters, without giving a date.
Taiwan has a handful of other allies in Latin America and the Caribbean, but several have cut ties in recent years in favor of relations with economic powerhouse China, which considers Taiwan to be a Chinese province.
“This is to show the world that small countries have the capacity to become major global players,” Pena added.
Taiwan’s presidential office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. It normally only confirms such trips only shortly before they take place.
Lai has yet to go to the United States since U.S. President Donald Trump took office for the second time earlier this year, though late last year Lai transited Hawaii and the U.S. territory of Guam while visiting the Pacific.
The U.S. State Department also did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the possibility of a Lai transit next month.
China strongly objects to any interactions between Taiwan and the United States and routinely denounces U.S. stopovers of Taiwanese presidents.
Taiwan’s government rejects China’s territorial claims and says it has a right to forge ties with other countries and engage with the world.
(Reporting by Daniela Desantis and Sarah Morland; Additional reporting by Jose Sanchez in Belmopan, and Ben Blanchard and Yimou Lee in Taipei; Editing by Brendan O’Boyle and Lincoln Feast.)
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