TAIPEI (Reuters) -&nbsp;Taiwan&nbsp;said on Thursday it was perplexed by&nbsp;Paraguay's main opposition presidential&nbsp;candidate&nbsp;questioning&nbsp;the benefits of keeping relations with Taipei, just a month after Beijing prised away its&nbsp;ties&nbsp;with another Latin American country.
Efrain Alegre, who leads the centre-left Concertacion Nacional coalition, is seen neck-and-neck in opinion polls with ruling party&nbsp;candidate&nbsp;Santiago Pena in the election at the end of the month.
Alegre has criticised&nbsp;Paraguay's current diplomatic relations with&nbsp;Taiwan&nbsp;going back over 60 years, which have made it hard to sell soy and beef to China, a major global buyer, and has said&nbsp;Paraguay&nbsp;does not benefit enough from its&nbsp;Taiwan&nbsp;ties.
Speaking to reporters in Taipei,&nbsp;Taiwan&nbsp;Foreign Minister Joseph Wu said Alegre's public comments "certainly have caused some perplexity".
"But our colleagues in&nbsp;Paraguay&nbsp;have very close&nbsp;ties&nbsp;with the political parties, the camps and the&nbsp;candidates," he added.
"Paraguay&nbsp;has had a long-standing relationship with us, and this relationship is also very stable. We will do our best to maintain diplomatic relations with&nbsp;Paraguay."
Paraguay&nbsp;is one of only 13 countries to maintain formal diplomatic&nbsp;ties&nbsp;with Chinese-claimed&nbsp;Taiwan, and China has been stepping up efforts to win over the island's remaining allies.
Honduras severed&nbsp;ties&nbsp;with Taipei in favour of Beijing last month.
China has long argued that democratically ruled&nbsp;Taiwan&nbsp;is part of its own territory with no right to state-to-state&nbsp;ties, a position Taipei strongly rejects.
China demands that countries it has&nbsp;ties&nbsp;with must adopt its position that&nbsp;Taiwan&nbsp;is Chinese territory.
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(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)

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Taiwan 'perplexed' by Paraguay candidate questioning of ties