The friendship between St. Kitts and Nevis and Taiwan remains strong and unwavering, the Caribbean nation's foreign minister Timothy Harris said yesterday in an interview with the Taipei Times.
Harris is in Taipei to attend the grand opening of his nation's embassy today, 25 years after diplomatic ties with Taipei were forged in 1984.
The embassy, which he described as a "historic milestone," will be the first St. Kitts and Nevis has opened in Asia. It is also the first embassy to be set up in Taipei by one of Taiwan's six Caribbean allies.
PHOTO: GEORGE TSORNG, TAIPEI TIMES
Harris noted that over the past two-and-a-half decades, Basseterre, the capital of St. Kitts and Nevis, has been an outspoken advocate for Taiwan's bids to enter various international organizations, such as the WHO and the UN.
At the UN last September, Harris told the General Assembly that "it is a grave concern that 23 million people of Taiwan have been denied the right of participation in the UN and its related bodies."
The minister, who publicly supported Taiwan's UN bid using the name "Taiwan" last year, said regardless of the result of Taiwan's upcoming UN referendums, his government would fully back the will of the Taiwanese people.
Harris confirmed that Beijing has never relented in its effort to lure Taiwan's diplomatic allies, but assured Taiwanese that their nation has many good friends who are promoting Taiwan in the Caribbean.
Taiwan's other Caribbean allies are Belize, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, St. Lucia and St.Vincent and the Grenadines.
When asked about his views on the alleged shaky ties between Taiwan and St. Lucia, the minister said that, although he was not authorized to speak on behalf of another nation, he believed relations were "very strong" and that the St. Lucian government was deeply committed to its alliance with Taipei.
Harris also encouraged more Taiwanese businessmen to invest in St. Kitts and Nevis, especially in the tourism industry. He said foreign investors can enjoy a certain level of tax breaks depending on the size of their investment.
Taiwanese tourists were also welcome to visit the tropical nation for leisure, he said. Taiwanese passport holders do not need a visa to travel to St. Kitts and Nevis.
He also called for more Kittitian students to study in Taiwan and take advantage of the quality education available here.
These students, he said, would then become Taiwan's best ambassadors upon graduation, when they go home or venture off to other parts of the world.
The embassy's opening will take place this afternoon in Tienmu. Kittitian Prime Minister Denzil Douglas and Foreign Minister James Huang (黃志芳) are expected to speak at the engagement.
Douglas will be accompanied by several other St. Kitts and Nevis officials, including Charge d'Affaires Jasmine Huggins and Minister of Agriculture Cedric Roy Liburd, who will sign a technical cooperation memorandum of understanding with Huang.
Johanne Liou (劉喬安), a Taiwanese woman who shot to unwanted fame during the Sunflower movement protests in 2014, was arrested in Boston last month amid US President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigrants, the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) said yesterday. The arrest of Liou was first made public on the official Web site of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Tuesday. ICE said Liou was apprehended for overstaying her visa. The Boston Field Office’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) had arrested Liou, a “fugitive, criminal alien wanted for embezzlement, fraud and drug crimes in Taiwan,” ICE said. Liou was taken into custody
ON PAROLE: The 73-year-old suspect has a criminal record of rape committed when he was serving in the military, as well as robbery and theft, police said The Kaohsiung District Court yesterday approved the detention of a 73-year-old man for allegedly murdering three women. The suspect, surnamed Chang (張), was arrested on Wednesday evening in connection with the death of a 71-year-old woman surnamed Chao (趙). The Kaohsiung City Police Department yesterday also unveiled the identities of two other possible victims in the serial killing case, a 75-year-old woman surnamed Huang (黃), the suspect’s sister-in-law, and a 75-year-old woman surnamed Chang (張), who is not related to the suspect. The case came to light when Chao disappeared after taking the suspect back to his residence on Sunday. Police, upon reviewing CCTV
TAIWAN ADVOCATES: The resolution, which called for the recognition of Taiwan as a country and normalized relations, was supported by 22 Republican representatives Two US representatives on Thursday reintroduced a resolution calling for the US to end its “one China” policy, resume formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan and negotiate a bilateral Taiwan-US free trade agreement. Republican US representatives Tom Tiffany of Wisconsin’s 7th Congressional District and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania’s 10th District were backed by 22 Republican members of the US House of Representatives. The two congressmen first introduced the resolution together in 2021. The resolution called on US President Donald Trump to “abandon the antiquated ‘one China’ policy in favor of a policy that recognizes the objective reality that Taiwan is an independent country, not
The US-Japan joint statement released on Friday not mentioning the “one China” policy might be a sign that US President Donald Trump intends to decouple US-China relations from Taiwan, a Taiwanese academic said. Following Trump’s meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba on Friday, the US and Japan issued a joint statement where they reaffirmed the importance of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait and support for Taiwan’s meaningful participation in international organizations. Trump has not personally brought up the “one China” policy in more than a year, National Taiwan University Department of Political Science Associate Professor Chen Shih-min (陳世民)