Although Grenada's Prime Minister Keith Mitchell has not yet announced a plan to switch his country's allegiance from Taiwan to China, the ministry of foreign affairs said yesterday it is braced for that outcome -- and stressed again that Taipei will not compete with Beijing on aid dollars.
"We are preparing for the worst to happen," said Minister of Foreign Affairs Mark Chen (陳唐山). "For the dignity of our nation, we will never play `dollar diplomacy' with China."
Describing Mitchell's demand for more aid from Taiwan as "extortion," Chen added that Taiwan needed to set a "moral boundary" when helping its allies.
Mitchell, who took a trip to Beijing from Dec. 12 to Dec. 16, said in a televised speech on Monday that Grenada would move toward establishing "substantial relations" with China in order to obtain more aid for his impoverished country -- a move that would require it to sever formal ties with Taiwan.
Taiwan officials stressed that Grenada's new coziness with Beijing was no surprise.
"Actually, Mitchell started discussion with Chinese officials about establishing diplomatic relations long before he traveled to Beijing. We have been closely watching his moves," Allen Jiang (
"The Republic of China has given a lot of aid to Grenada," Jiang said. "For example, we offered to help rebuild its national stadium after Hurricane Ivan hit and donated US$47 million for disaster relief."
However, Grenada remained discontent and thought China might give it more than what Taiwan offered, Jiang said.
Chen said that Taiwan has lodged a protest against Mitchell's trip with Grenada. The trip to Beijing also drew criticism from Grenada's media and opposition officials, according to the CNA report.
Chen told reporters yesterday that Mitchell did not mention Grenada's ties with Taiwan in his speech.
"We are keeping a close eye on what's going to happen next," he said. "Let's see where this drama will go."
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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