Hook in the gill, or Pragmatic Approach?
DURING THE HOTTEST DAYS of the 2025 general elections campaign, one of the platform issues often discussed was that of this country’s relations with Taiwan.
The question was whether a New Democratic Party administration would stick with the tried and tested relationship with the Republic of China on Taiwan, or make the switch to the People’s Republic of China on the mainland.
Some political commentators argued that abandoning the decades-long diplomatic arrangement with Taiwan would mean St Vincent and the Grenadines joining the majority of member nations of the United Nations family and recognizing that important body’s One China Policy. Such arguments pointed to the economic strength and technological progress and development of the People’s Republic of China and likely superior benefits for SVG.
Moreover within the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) St Vincent and the Grenadines remains one of the last members which still maintains diplomatic relations with the smaller member of the erstwhile Chinese family.
Some point to the smooth manner in which the former British Colony of Hong Kong relinquished its colonial status with Great Britain and returned to the waiting arms of Mother China.The argument was that it remains only a matter of time before Taiwan does similarly.
But even during the most heated moments of the election campaign the New Democratic Party appeared to scrupulously avoid the bait often thrown out by the wily Dr Ralph Gonsalves regarding its intentions to stay with Taiwan or fulfil their promise to switch if in government.
During its declining years, it was the St Vincent Labour Party under Robert Milton Cato that ushered in diplomatic relations with Taiwan on August 15, 1981.
When James Mitchell’s New Democratic Party was swept into office in 1984, and with ideology not being a visible factor in Vincentian politics, the new prime minister maintained that relationship.
Thus the seventeen years of New Democratic Party rule saw SVG strengthening a ubiquitous relationship with the Government of Taiwan, and the presence of Taiwanese envoys at Government official functions was a given. In fact even while the Republic of Cuba expanded its university scholarship programme with SVG it was the image of Taiwanese diplomats which stood out among the nations with which this country had diplomatic relations.
When the Dr. Ralph Gonsalves’ Unity Labour Party was elected to office in the 2001 general elections, and notwithstanding deepening relations with Cuba and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Taiwan’s high profile engagement with the new administration continued to deepen.
Referring to a promise once made by then New Democratic Party Leader, Arnhim Eustace to switch allegiance to mainland China, Dr. Gonsalves following the signing of another loan agreement with Taiwan in 2024, taunted the now Dr Goodwin Friday led NDP by saying there was now “a hook in the gill” of any new administration regarding the relationship between Taiwan and SVG. It was an oft repeated phrase. But to Dr Friday’s credit, he never took the bait by pronouncing one way or the other before the campaign or during his campaign appearances.
However, Dr Gonsalves during the campaign kept the issue on the front burner insisting that a vote for the NDP would mean a switch to mainland China that is not in the interest of SVG.
Since being elected to office in the November, 2025 general elections, the new administration has not formally pronounced on that question of diplomatic allegiances-Taiwan, or mainland China.
During the most recent ceremony for another donation from Taiwan to the government, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of National Security Minister, St Clair Leacock, expressed himself in superlatives about SVG’s continued relationship with Taiwan. If that is any indication of where this administration is leaning on the Taiwan-China issue, one can only ask has the hook now been firmly sunken into SVG’s gill?
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