Panamanian President Juan Carlos Varela on Sunday called on Washington to respect his country’s sovereignty after the US recalled its envoys from three Latin American countries in response to them switching diplomatic ties from Taiwan to China, AFP reported.
“We respect the sovereign decisions of other countries and we will always ask the same respect for ours,” Varela said in a statement.
The US on Friday recalled its envoys from El Salvador and the Dominican Republic, as well as its charge d’affaires from Panama, to express its disapproval with the diplomatic move.
Those countries have said their decision stemmed from basic economic realities – China has invested billions to build ports, rail lines and other infrastructure across Latin America.
Taiwan and China have been in a diplomatic tug-of-war in developing countries for years, often using aid and economic support as leverage to gain diplomatic recognition.
Beijing considers self-ruling, democratic Taiwan part of its territory.
Robert Nguyen: you sound like the the typical Western person echoing your Western media fake information. This type of stuff I keep hearing it from the Western media incessantly every day. A propaganda that has become fierce, relentless as the days go by. I wonder if Is it fear? . The problem with all that information is fake or exaggerated to the extreme. Robert Nguyen try to do some real search on the information you acquire. But don’t do it on your regular Western media sources, like the NYT or WP or worse CNN. Get deeper and you will uncover the real thing and I can assure you 100% that will stop echoing those fake news.
Maria Turner
As expected, respect is not in the American dictionary.
Beto Perez
Quote only one word?
Read Japan recent floods as a human being .
Ridiculously arrogant diplomatic interference from the US. LATAM countries should just give Trump administration the middle finger and tell them to mind their own business.
The difference is that the US uses wars(hot, trade, psychological, etc.) as leverage but China uses win-win co-operation as leverage.
The irony of your comment that the United States is using her leverage to try and get what the US wants is absolutely no different then what China is also doing. China just happen to have more leverage right now because we got a crazy idiot in charge.
Just wondering why the writer put the word ‘respect’ under quotes? He didn’t think these deserve all the respects a country should?
As usual, the US thinks these three countries are its colonies.