St Vincent and the Grenadines will have the ability to advocate more strongly for Taiwan to be recognized when it takes its seat on the UN Security Council early next year, St Vincent and the Grenadines Ambassador to Taiwan Andrea Bowman said last week in an interview with the Central News Agency.
The Caribbean nation was elected in June to be a seat on the 15-member council for a two-year term and is to take its seat in January.
The council seat will put St Vincent and the Grenadines “in a position where our voice will be better heard,” and allow the country to advocate for “Taiwan’s right to be legitimately recognized,” she said.
Photo: CNA
“The voice of this little country in such a big seat … would be heard and would count for something,” Bowman said.
Her nation has been using its voice to speak up internationally for Taiwan and will continue to do so, she said.
“Only now it’s going to be a louder voice, a voice that carries even more weight,” said Bowman, who became St Vincent and the Grenadines’ first ambassador to Taipei in August.
On the issue of China’s efforts to take Taiwan’s diplomatic allies, Bowman said she recognized that “all allies of Taiwan would be targeted by China.”
However, her nation’s 38-year relationship with Taiwan was built on “trust and friendship,” she said.
Diplomatic ties with Taiwan are strongly supported by the public and by Vincentian Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves and his Unity Labour Party, now in their fourth consecutive term, she said.
The decision to open an embassy was a strong indication of its commitment to bilateral diplomatic ties, Bowman said.
The embassy was formally opened in an Aug. 8 ceremony, but did not began service until Monday last week.
Bowman, a former high school principal, said her first priority as ambassador is to take care of Vincentian students in Taiwan and to decide how best the embassy can serve them.
“I want them to regard the St Vincent embassy as a home away from home,” Bowman said.
Her second priority is to establish a viable presence in Taiwan, promoting her nation through the media, exhibitions and cultural events, she said.
The embassy’s first major undertaking will be a series of activities in the week leading up to Oct. 27, the 40th anniversary of St Vincent and Grenadines independence, Bowman said.
The celebrations will include a reception at the embassy and public events in Taipei, all of which will help establish the nation’s presence in Taiwan, she said.
“We are in our early days, but bit by bit we will do more and more,” she said.
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) today condemned the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after the Czech officials confirmed that Chinese agents had surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March last year. Czech Military Intelligence director Petr Bartovsky yesterday said that Chinese operatives had attempted to create the conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, going as far as to plan a collision with her car. Hsiao was vice president-elect at the time. The MAC said that it has requested an explanation and demanded a public apology from Beijing. The CCP has repeatedly ignored the desires