“PI want to leave the testimony that Taiwan, when it needs friends, we are here and Taiwan has friends and it’s not just us. In this difficult time, when Taiwan needs friends, we are here, we are present, we stand together, that’s what I want to leave”, assumed Paulo Rios de Oliveira.

The delegation is made up of seven deputies – Paulo Rios de Oliveira (leader), João Moura, Carlos Eduardo Reis and Helga Correia (from the PSD), João Castro, Norberto Patinho and Vera Braz (PS) – who belong to the informal group deputies who are friends of Taiwan, who “is over 20 years old” and whom the Social Democrat has chaired “for more than eight”.

Paulo Rios de Oliveira told Lusa that there are more delegations in the city as is “one delegation from the Czech Republic, one from Lithuania, it looks like one from Canada will be here to join the one of the United States” of America.

“I want to bring more concrete knowledge of what is happening here and how we can continue to help and, perhaps, one of the ways of helping is precisely to tell the world that it is true and that a democracy lives here,” he said.

The MP said that in Taiwan “if you experience a full-fledged democracy like any democracy in Western Europe, it’s exactly the same” and added that he is a “witness” to it.

“On the other hand, to what extent can I increase and intensify our contacts, especially cultural and academic and I hope to take more ideas from here to be able to increase this in Portugal,” he said.

The Social Democrat MP said he wanted Taiwan to know that “in addition to the official Portuguese position, regarding the position of China and Taiwan, there is in Portugal, in the Portuguese and, in this case, in a sovereign body, a very large group of deputies who consider themselves and show solidarity with Taiwanese democracy”.

“It is not a cause against anyone, it is a cause in favor of many things, in favor of principles. The principles of democracy, freedom, peace, human rights, gender equality , these are our principles and these are their principles”, reinforced .

On the first day, the group visited “the oldest center of the city and one of the oldest temples in Taiwan, with an extraordinary history, where several religions mix” and ended up having dinner with Portuguese students who “praised the people and their hospitality”. and the enormous security of the city”.

Working days are reserved for “institutional visits” and on Monday the group will have “an audience with the Vice-President of the Republic then a lunch at the Ministry of Agriculture, which promotes” the meeting.

“The institutional relationship is at the highest level, having the awareness and the sense of responsibility not to say, because it is not true, that it is a delegation of the Assembly of the Republic or of the Portuguese State”, he assumed.

And he added: “I leave my institutional support of a large group of deputies, of a Portuguese sovereign body who are in the free exercise of their mandate, but I have a sense of responsibility that Portugal has a position in this conflict”.

“But that does not prevent a very large group of deputies from the Assembly of the Republic of Portugal, who examine and support the cause of Taiwan, not against anyone, but in favor of many things that we share and that is in this capacity that I will always speak”, he assumed.

Paulo Rios de Oliveira challenged even “more politicians” to travel to Taiwan to “know the reality and from there be able to talk about what is happening and why it is such a relevant issue”.

Last week, during a visit to the island of Terceira, in the Azores, the Chinese ambassador to Portugal, Zhao Bentang, spoke about the Taiwanese conflict, criticizing foreign interference, in particular American.

China considers Taiwan as a province that is part of its territory and that it intends to recover at any time, without excluding the use of force to seize the island, which has Washington as its main ally.

On the heels of a visit by Nancy Pelosi, then leader of the US House of Representatives, to Taiwan in August last year, China held a series of military exercises, after Beijing’s diplomacy said that Washington was “playing with fire”.

Earlier this month, China again responded with new military drills after new Republican House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy received Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen in Washington. .

The Portuguese parliamentary visit comes a week after French President Emmanuel Macron suggested, during a trip to Beijing, that the European Union should have its own position on the conflict between Taiwan and the Beijing authorities, demarcated from the position States. United.

“We Europeans should not be followers or have to adapt to the American pace or a Chinese overreaction,” said Macron, who advocated greater “strategic autonomy” in diplomatic terms from Brussels.

Read also: A group of Portuguese deputies travels to Taiwan on a “personal” basis