On October 12, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs suddenly announced sanctions against Paraguay’s Minister of Information, Communications and Technology Biade, and Belize’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade Fonseca. The reason actually related to the two countries’ continued formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan. Sanctions include freezing assets in China, prohibiting transactions and cooperation, and denying entry. The most noteworthy aspect of this diplomatic turmoil is not whether the two ministers actually own assets in China, but Beijing's attempt to include the normal interactions of third-country officials with Taiwan within the scope of punishment unilaterally formulated by China. Does a sovereign country still need Beijing’s prior approval when choosing a diplomatic partner?
China invoked its Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law to claim that relevant officials harmed China's core interests. However, both Paraguay and Belize are sovereign countries with independent foreign policy-making powers, and maintaining diplomatic relations with Taiwan is not a recent incident. Although Beijing can enact entry or transaction restrictions in accordance with its own laws, China's domestic laws cannot therefore become a universal legal basis for requiring other countries to change diplomatic recognition. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has condemned the relevant measures as interfering with the sovereignty of other countries, and the U.S. State Department has also expressed its opposition to China's coercive behavior. What this dispute really involves is the line between national diplomatic independence and political pressure from major powers.
What is even more worthy of asking is, if Beijing believes that other countries should not maintain diplomatic relations with Taiwan, should China itself be subject to third-party review when establishing diplomatic relations with countries around the world? International relations are based on sovereign equality and independent exchanges, and different standards cannot be applied based on national strength. The actual economic effect of the sanctions may be limited, as the two officials do not necessarily own significant assets in China, but the political message is clear: Beijing is seeking to impose a personal cost on foreign officials who support Taiwan. This practice of translating diplomatic differences between countries into individual sanctions could also have a chilling effect on other countries.
In the face of diplomatic suppression, Taiwan should not just resort to verbal condemnation, but should continue to deepen substantive cooperation with friendly countries, from medical care, agriculture, education to digital technology, to establish mutually beneficial results that can be concretely felt by the people. At the same time, the government should cooperate with countries with similar ideals to make diplomatic coercion an institutional issue of common concern to the international community. Beijing has the right to decide its own foreign policy, but it has no right to decide friends for other countries. Diplomatic relations should not be a license issued by powerful powers, nor should a sovereign country be denied the right to freely choose its diplomatic partners just because of a sanctions order.
After China announced sanctions on specific technology ministers, a pro-China media person in Paraguay immediately launched a poll on social media on "whether Paraguay should follow the example of El Salvador in establishing diplomatic relations with China to promote national transformation." The result was that 56% of the people supported maintaining relations with Taiwan.
