Taiwan offers financial aid to Panama to cement ties

Jun 2, 2007, 10:23 GMT

Taipei - Taiwan has offered an unknown amount of funding to Panama to help finance the building of schools and repairing highways, state-funded media reported Saturday.

The donation, one of Taipei's efforts to cement ties with Panama City in the face of diplomatic squeeze from rival China, was made in a ceremony held on Thursday at Panama's foreign ministry, Central News Agency reported, quoting Taiwan's ambassador to Panama, Hou Ping-fu.

Panamanian first lady Vivian Fernandez de Torrijos, Minister of Public Works Benjamin Colamarco and Interior and Justice Minister Olga Golcher received the donation on behalf of the Panamanian government, the agency reported.

No amount of the donation was mentioned, but it is estimated to be a large sum as the report stated that part of the fund will be used to build 90 elementary schools in remote countryside in Panama, while some will be used to repair a 20 kilometre section of a highway leading to the indigenous community of Darien in eastern Panama.

A portion of the fund will also go to overcrowded Panamanian prisons to expand and renovate their facilities, the agency reported.

Taiwan and China, rivals after the two sides split at the end of a civil war in 1949, have accused each other of pursing checkbook diplomacy to buy foreign ties.

But Taipei has strongly rejected the charge, saying with its economic magnitude, it cannot afford to buy diplomatic ties, though there have been reports that the island has funded its allies generously for years.

'All of these aid projects are based on humanitarianism aimed at helping disadvantaged children receive education as well as assisting in renovating Panama's public facilities,' the agency quoted Ambassador Hou as saying.

Because of long-time diplomatic squeeze from Beijing, which has viewed Taiwan an integral part of China with no right to developing foreign ties, Taipei has been left with just 25 diplomatic allies, as opposed to more than 170 allies Beijing has.