At a time when China has upped its ante against accelerated secessionist moves by the new leader on Taiwan island when the United States continues violating its diplomatic recognition of the ‘One China’ policy to keep arming the island’s hostile Democratic People’s Party (DPP) administration; and when the non-independent island’s new foreign affairs minister is making his inaugural visit to the English-speaking nations that still have diplomatic ties with Taipei, it’s opportune to comment on Saint Lucia’s ties with both China and Taiwan – in this case referring to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the latest elected administration in Taiwan under President Lai Ching-te (also called William Lai).
According to Taiwan’s Foreign Affairs Ministry (MOFA), the new Foreign Affairs Minister, Lin Chia-lung visited Saint Vincent & The Grenadines on October 27 to celebrate its 45th independence anniversary and thereafter moved up the island chain to Saint Lucia and Saint Kitts and Nevis and then to Belize (in Central America).
As per usual, never mind Taiwan not being a sovereign nation and China’s opposition to Lai’s propensity to make public statements that ignore the One China policy and the 1992 Consensus agreed to by the previous Taiwan administrations, Taipei continues pretending the island is an independent nation, yet anxious to secede from the mainland.
The Biden administration has dedicated US $2 Billion in latest arms sales to Taiwan, including categories previously not provided, this latest package coming alongside much-larger disbursements for Ukraine and Israel.
The outcome of the November 5 US elections has implications for both Taiwan and Saint Lucia, but irrespective of who wins, Washington will continue to use Taiwan as the base for inviting deeper and larger US involvement in the Cross-Strait conflict and the South China Sea, with support from Japan, the Philippines and South Korea – and hopefully NATO.
Taiwan’s Caribbean policy today will have to undergo seas of change to alter the status quo of implications of uncertainty and suspense associated with its rapid decline of diplomatic allies in the past decade.
But any change will be difficult at this late stage since Taiwan’s ties have only been traditionally sustained in a failed diplomatic numbers game with mainly small sovereign islands and developing nations willing to pretend it is a nation when it’s still as far as can be from gaining UN recognition.
Over 180 UN member-states recognize the PRC, but Washington, through an unspoken and unwritten policy to Taiwan it describes as ‘Strategic Ambiguity’, keeps trying to explain the inexplicable and/or justify the unjustifiable.
Interestingly, earlier this week, ahead of the Taiwan official’s visit, an unattributed online ‘poll’ crudely asked invisible people whether Saint Lucia should stay with Taiwan or return to China.
But the mysterious online poll can serve as yet another basis for the Saint Lucia-China Friendship Association (SLCFA) – which turns 20 years old on November 5 – to undertake a public campaign to encourage Saint Lucians to weigh the balances of probability according to facts and not falsities.
The fact is, nations don’t decide on diplomatic ties through polls, such decisions taken exclusively by the political directorate of the day, based on what it considers best for nation and people, a decision that lies (essentially) with the Prime Minister and Political Leader of the ruling party of the day, through and with whom any such consideration must first be made.
It has never been the policy of the SLCFA to question any elected Government of Saint Lucia’s right to decide which nation to establish ties with.
As such, during its 20th-anniversary celebrations, the SLCFA can be expected to more loudly explain why it holds that ties with Taiwan are unstainable, especially now that the Lai administration in Taipei is leading Taiwan into a direction that can only result in the PRC, earlier than later, exercising its constitutional right and duty to aggressively defend and preserve national unity and crush secessionist moves, whether or not with external backing.
Taiwan’s leader today is leading the Chinese in Taiwan along the same type of dangerous path that expired President Volodymyr Zelensky is leading Ukraine – fighting a lost battle.
Lai also seems to be following Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who’s leading Israel in an endless war of extermination against Palestinians that’s about to register 50,000 deaths officially and 100,000 injured and displaced, including babies, women and elderly citizens.
China employing military means to preserve national unity will be at untold costs that neither Saint Lucia nor any other of Taiwan’s Caribbean allies, will be able to justifiably support.
Lucky for Taiwan, the PRC continues to warn the Taipei administration to mend its wayward ways and stop trying to erase history and fanning the flames of a modern war that will cost all sides too much.
No one can accuse Prime Minister Pierre of not staying true to his promise to stay out of Taiwan’s internal affairs and no one can accuse him of failing to deliver on his party’s election promises.
Nor can anyone – after three years – ever claim Prime Minister Pierre sleeps on his watch at the wheel of the ship of state when it comes to understanding how the world turns and where Saint Lucia goes with it, especially at a time when developing nations and small island states have been having to stand taller and fight above their height, to merely survive.
The Taiwan administration is understandably worried about keeping its five CARICOM member-states support at a time when what it once thought was a great wall of global support is rapidly crumbling.
But this being a peace-loving region where governments champion keeping it as a Zone of Peace, it will be near-impossible for any Caribbean Community (CARICOM) member-state to justify condoning or supporting open invitations to war – whether from Taiwan, Ukraine or Israel.
Why?
Because war is not what we want – and it’s not in our DNA!