Following a slogan competition among Vincentians, FRIENDSHIP FREEDOM PROSPERITY, emerged as the winning entry which is being used to celebrate the 40 years of diplomatic relations between Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and the Republic of China (Taiwan).
On Sunday 15th August, 2021, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and the Republic of China (Taiwan) will celebrate 40 years of unbroken bi-lateral relations. The communique which established this relationship was signed in Taipei on 15th August, 1981, by the then Prime Minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, the Right Honourable Robert Milton Cato and Former Premier H.E. Sun, Yun-suan of the Republic of China (Taiwan). Since then, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines’s population of 110,000 has been positively and consistently impacted in the areas of agricultural, health, educational and technical co-operation with the R.O.C. In 1991, the ICDF Taiwan Technical Mission was established in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and along with the Embassy of the Republic of China (Taiwan) in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, these agencies have effected the tangible, infrastructural and social indicators of bi-lateralism.
Within the last two years, particularly since the opening of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines’s Embassy to the Republic of China (Taiwan) on the 8th August, 2019, in Tianmu, Shilin District, the bonds between these two countries have been concretized. Taiwan has worked very generously with Saint Vincent and the Grenadines towards combating the pandemic caused by COVID-19, even while addressing its own challenges in this regard. Added to this, the government of Taiwan has pledged to donate US$300,000 towards Saint Vincent and the Grenadines’s Volcano Relief efforts following explosive eruptions of the country’s La Soufriere volcano in April, 2021. Indeed, residents of Taiwan, Vincentians and Taiwanese, have together contributed more than NTD 561,000 to Volcano Relief efforts. For its part, within this two year period, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines has used its seat on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to advocate for Taiwan’s inclusion in United Nations decision-making bodies like the World Health Assembly and the WHO by extension.
These two island-nations are bound by mutual respect for each other’s sovereignty and democracy. The integrity of this alliance has stood the tests and vicissitudes of time. We look forward to more than 40 more years of FRIENDSHIP FREEDOM PROSPERITY.
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