By Kenton Chance

TAIPEI, Taiwan: Establishing an embassy here will be a “natural progression” for the government in Kingstown, within the limits of St Vincent and the Grenadines’s (SVG) financial and human resources.
So said SVG’s Ambassador to the United Nations (UN) Camillo Gonsalves during an interview while meeting with Vincentian students here recently.

SVG’s UN Ambassador Camillo Gonsalves (back row left) tells Vincentians in Taiwan and SVG there will be a “natural progression.” Photo by Jamali Jack

Gonsalves, who is based at the UN headquarters in New York, said he was not speaking on behalf of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Kingstown but noted that Taiwan is one of SVG’s “most important international partners”.

He said SVG interacts on a daily basis more with Taiwan than with most other countries, even as he mentioned the Asian country’s involvement in the development of SVG’s agriculture and infrastructure, among other things, and its contribution to the education of Vincentians.

“Taiwan is deeply involved in day-to-day Vincentian development. It may be a natural progression that St Vincent and the Grenadines establishes an embassy,” he said.

Gonsalves noted that there was cooperation between Taiwan and SVG and that there were an increasing number of Vincentian students and other citizens in Taiwan.

He said when there is a high level of cooperation between SVG and another nation, and especially when there are large numbers of Vincentians living in that nation, his government likes to send representation there.

He noted that that was one of the factors underlying the decision to establish a SVG embassy in Cuba.
The diplomat however said that it was not up to him to decide when an embassy is established here, noting that there are several factors to be considered.

“It is not for me to put a timetable on it because that is not my call; but it seems to me that that may become a natural progression within, of course, the limits of our resources. I also mean human resources. Who is our ambassador to Cuba? It’s a former student who went to Cuba, learnt the Cuban language, learnt the Cuban culture, married a Cuban woman actually and went back there understanding not only St Vincent but understanding Cuba as well,” he explained.

He said the reality of the situation was that SVG might not at this time have a person who qualifies to be an ambassador to Taiwan.

“If we were to start an embassy tomorrow, where will we find a Mandarin-speaking Vincentian who is familiar with the Taiwanese culture and also is familiar with the government’s policy and philosophy. Where will we find that person? Do we have that person? And the fact of the matter is that we probably don’t.”

He said that in the interim Taiwan’s ambassador in Kingstown is SVG’s “window to Taiwan”.

Gonsalves said that while he was not offering any of the students in Taipei up for the job, their return to SVG on completion of their studies will put the nation in a better position to establish an embassy in Taipei.

“When we get some of your collective talent back in St. Vincent and the Grenadines it would be easier for us to say we are going to put a man or a woman on the scene in Taiwan but we are not there yet,” he said.

Gonsalves’s comment came as St Kitts and Nevis Foreign Minister Timothy Harris and the country's resident minister to the United States, Jasmine Huggins, arrived in Taipei “mainly to organise the opening of his country's new embassy in Taiwan,” according to the Central News Agency.

SVG, St Kitts and Nevis and St.Lucia are the only English-speaking Caribbean nations that still recognise the government in Taiwan, which China considers a rogue province to be reunited with the mainland.

Gonsalves, son of Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves, and six other UN ambassadors from among Taiwan’s 24 allies, were in Taipei this week at the invitation of the Taiwanese government to discuss strategies for Taiwan’s bid next year to join the UN.