Taipei

Wednesday

John Pietro

The Paraguay predicament over Taiwan

On April 30, Paraguayans will go to the polls to select a new president. Though elections in the landlocked South American nation do not typically make headlines around the world, this vote carries outsized geopolitical importance: it could mean Taiwan loses yet another country to China. Opposition candidate Efraín Alegre of the Authentic Radical Liberal Party, or PLRA, has said that, should he win, he will retract Paraguay’s recognition of Taiwan as a country. At present, Paraguay is the largest of just fourteen countries to have formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan and the only one in South America. Paraguay first recognized Taipei in 1957 while under the dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner.

paraguay

Saturday

John Pietro

The Baltic nations show the world how to defend freedom

It is not inevitable that the Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania would be among freedom’s most potent defenders. Nestled between the Russian mainland and Moscow’s exclave of Kaliningrad, their only direct connection to their NATO allies is through the vulnerable Suwalki Gap. For its part, NATO only has small rotational forces stationed in the three countries. At first glance, one would expect these tiny nations (Lithuania is the largest at 2.8 million people) to prefer flying under the radar. Instead they have become some of the most vocal and powerful defenders of the Western way of life. Tiny though they may be, the Baltic countries have managed to stand up to the two greatest enemies of freedom at work today, Russia and China.