Beijing is ready to deepen its comprehensive cooperative partnership with Caribbean nations, Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) said yesterday during a meeting in Beijing with Grenadan Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell, whose nation was a one-time diplomatic ally of Taiwan.
China is willing to keep up assistance to regional nations to aid their economic and social development, Xinhua news agency cited Xi as saying.
Grenada has benefited greatly from ties with China and looks forward to strengthening cooperation with the Asian giant, it quoted Mitchell as saying at the meeting.
Photo: Reuters
“Both sides should ... draw a new blueprint for the long-term and high-level development of bilateral relations,” Xi said, adding that two-way ties had developed successfully over the past two decades.
Mitchell said Grenada firmly adheres to the “one China principle,” and called for its sovereignty and territorial integrity to be respected, Xinhua added.
Mitchell, the first foreign leader Xi has met this year in Beijing, was on an official week-long visit to China from Saturday.
The Caribbean and Latin America have the largest concentration of diplomatic allies of Taiwan, with seven of the remaining 12 UN member states who are allies in the region.
Taiwan broke off ties with Grenada 20 years ago after the Caribbean nation switched dilomatic ties to China.
In the Caribbean, Haiti, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines are still diplomatic allies of Taiwan.
China and Taiwan have for years traded accusations of using “dollar diplomacy” as they compete for diplomatic recognition.
Taiwanese security officials have said that they believed China is likely to continue to whittle away at the number of its diplomatic allies.
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