PM condemns China’s military actions against Taiwan

Fresh from his visit to Taiwan, Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves has condemned the recent military exercises carried out by the People’s Republic of China as being “wrong”, “disproportionate” and “unnecessary”.

“It bears restating over and over again because sometimes people don’t hear you,” Gonsalves said,.

“St Vincent and the Grenadines subscribes to a One Chinese Civilization policy or framework, not a One China Policy, a one Chinese civilization, which civilization has different, more than one, legitimate political expressions.”

The Prime Minister was speaking at a press conference held on August 16, two days after his return to SVG following a five-day state visit to Taiwan.

Taiwanese press have reported that during his 12th visit to the country, the Prime Minister assured that St Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) will not cut diplomatic relations with Taiwan. This is despite the People’s Republic of China(PRC) (which sees Taiwan as a breakaway province) setting a precondition to diplomatic relations with SVG that it first break relations with Taiwan.

“All I want, all I’m urging, is that whatever differences you have, you settle them peacefully, you don’t have war across the Taiwan straits. Because if you have a war there, potentially it’s World War 3,” the Prime Minister reiterated during the press conference.
He said that the impact of such a war on us would be “tremendous”, “bad” and “adverse”.

“Now, you don’t hear this Government berating the Government of the People’s Republic of China. We’re not interfering with what you’re doing internally. We see the Taiwan question as being different than a mere internal question,” Gonsalves indicated.

He added, “…but these two different segments of the civilization will in time settle this problem which they have. How they settle it that’s their business, but it should be done peacefully.”

Gonsalves also reiterated, “St Vincent and the Grenadines and mainland China, we do not have diplomatic relations because the PRC set preconditions. To have with them – they say break with Taiwan. So, well we’re not doing that, given our starting point.”

However, he added that there are areas where the states “work together”.

The Prime Minister also stated that he made the point in Taiwan that, “The same way in our hemisphere that an overbearing, aggressive, disproportionate and illegal-in-international-law conduct, by the United States of America in relation to Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua, I say what China did recently with these military exercises is wrong, is disproportionate, it ought not to have happened, it was unnecessary, and it opened the door to greater dangers…”

Gonsalves’s visit came on the heels of United States of America(USA) Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan and the PRC conducting live-fire military drills in the air and at sea around Taiwan.