TAIPEI, TAIWAN - TAIWAN President Ma Ying Jeou will make his first official overseas visit to Latin America in mid-August to shore up ties, the President's office said on Wednesday, amid an uneasy diplomatic truce with rival China.

Mr Ma will visit Paraguay, where a new president takes office on Aug. 15 after saying he wants closer relations with China, and then travel to the Dominican Republic, where the incumbent president is about to start a new term.

Taiwanese media reported that Mr Ma would travel through the United States on his way to Paraguay and the Dominican Republic.

China and Taiwan have long engaged in chequebook diplomacy.

Beijing has not ruled out wooing back more of the dwindling pool of 23 countries, mostly small, impoverished nations in Africa, Latin America and the South Pacific, who recognise Taipei over Beijing.

China has claimed sovereignty over Taiwan since 1949, when Mao Zedong's Communists won the Chinese civil war and Chiang Kai Shek's Nationalists (KMT) fled to the island. Beijing has vowed to bring Taiwan under its rule, by force if necessary.

'Ma can bring some cheques with him, and that will have a positive effect,' said Prof Kweibo Huang, an international relations lecturer at Taiwan's National Cheng Chi University.

'The risks are there,' he said. 'If Paraguay turns its face to Beijing, then Ma's prestige will suffer.' Paraguay has stuck with Taiwan for 51 years but its ruling party is changing for the first time in six decades and wants more links with economic powerhouse China, Taiwan officials and analysts say.

Taiwan officials fear Paraguay's president-elect Fernando Lugo will change diplomatic recognition and have urged him not to switch sides.

In the Dominican Republic, incumbent President Leonel Fernandez officially takes office again on Aug. 16 and has no intention of dropping relations with Taiwan, the country's Taiwan-based ambassador Victor Sanchez said. -- REUTERS