BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, CMC - A former regional diplomat has called on the five Caribbean countries with diplomatic links with Taiwan to rethink those close ties.

 

Former Antigua and Barbuda High Commissioner to London Sir Ronald Sanders said it’s in their best interest to favour ties with Beijing over Taipei.

 

“China is the country of the future. Taiwan itself will come to an accommodation with China. That accommodation has already started and anybody who does not see that writing on the wall is suffering from glaucoma. It is plain as day that it’s going to happen and it’s only a question of time,” he told the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC).

 

Sir Ronald therefore urged the Caribbean, including St. Lucia, Belize, Haiti, St. Kitts and Nevis and St. Vincent and the Grenadines which have established strong alliances Taiwan, to strengthen economic and trade cooperation with China.

 

“We should enter into a long-term, economic, trade, investment and aid arrangement with China that is predictable, something along the lines of what we did with the Europeans under Lomé  and Cotonou,” he said.

 

“So that we have an arrangement to which the Chinese are committed, to which we are committed and which will give us an assurance of aid and investment and so on over time.”

 

Sir Ronald also suggested that the regional countries which have relations with Taiwan be given assurances they would receive as much or even more financial assistance they now receive from Taipei.

 

“Therefore this dollar diplomacy wouldn’t have to be played anymore and the Caribbean Community and Common Market as a single unit can deal with China,” the former diplomat asserted.

 

China’s Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, Li Jinzhang, recently said that the country had no room for compromise on the Taiwan issue.

 

He said Beijing still does not recognise Taiwan as an independent state and will do all in its power to uphold national sovereignty and promote its territorial integrity.

 

 

CMC/dmb/08